The Natalie Incident

I moved around the bed and unbuckled and kicked off my jeans, stood in only my undershorts once again. 'You all right if I stay like this?' I said.

'Of course.'

'I can put on my shirt if you're going to be embar-'

She cut me off with a roll off her eyes. 'Look, you've got on more than I have. Just please get in this bed before I get mad.' She propped herself up on one elbow and smiled at me, the skin of one shoulder peeking out from beneath the covers.

I got in. The unused side of the bed was cold and the crisp sheet enveloped me like a shroud of ice. I pulled the cover up to my neck and wrapped my arms around me, clamped my teeth together so they didn't chatter. But the cold was good. It kept my mind off the fact that Natalie was warm and naked just a couple of feet away from me

We both lay quietly for a few minutes, listening to the sound of the rain and adjusting to being in the same intimate space together. I reached out and turned the dimmer switch on the lamp until the room was filled with nothing more than a candle light glow. The desert night still lashed the frail motel, and the wind spoke harshly against the window, rattling the frame like the sound of a jailer shaking his keys. Just as I had thought that the thunder had ceased, a long rumble sounded, but it was distant and without the menace of earlier. I turned my head to Natalie; she was blinking up at the cracked plaster ceiling, her green eyes dark hollows in the low light. There was another bark of thunder, and I felt her shiver, then look at me.

'Okay?' I said.

She nodded. 'Better now I'm here. You don't know how scared I was next door, on my own.'

'I'm really sorry I wasn't awake before.'

I felt movement, and a second later her hand found mine, small fingers wrapped themselves around my own. 'You don't have to apologise for anything. If it wasn't for you, I'd probably be a bumbling wreck wandering around the desert like something from a spaghetti western.'

I smiled. 'You'd have been alright.'

Right on cue, another burst of thunder. Nat jumped again and squeezed my hand hard. 'Oh sure,' she said in a slightly shaky voice. 'I'm a real heroine.'

We both fell silent again, although she continued to hold my hand. I responded to her touch by running my fingers lightly over her palm, and after a couple of minutes she yawned softly. The yawn was infectious, and I did the same. My watch on the bedside table was approaching Three.

'C'mon,' I said. 'We'd better get some sleep. There's a lot to do in the morning.'

'Will Keith be annoyed you've got his truck?'

I sighed. 'Probably, but that's tough. We couldn't help it. Anyway, I'm not going to think about that until the morning. Do you want me to turn off the light?'

Natalie turned to me, and although there was still a distance between us, I could feel the heat from her body. Her face was pressed gently into the pillow and her eyes were soft with sleep and shadows. A wave of dark hair spread around her, ink black against the contrasting pale of her skin. When she spoke I see the faintest glimpse of teeth, and her breath was sweet like a summer rain.

'Can you leave it on, if it doesn't disturb you?' I nodded my agreement, and then she said, 'Where did you get that scar? I've never noticed it before.' She uncurled her hand from mine and ran a finger carefully along the inch-long scar that runs along my jawline. My skin crackled as she touched my stubble.

'It was a few years ago,' I replied. 'A barracuda had a shot at me when I was scuba-diving in India.'

'Jesus. Really?'

'No. I fell onto a barbed-wire fence when I was a kid.'

She grinned. 'Fool,' she said, and flicked her finger onto my ear, striking the lobe.

'Ouch.' I muttered, not meaning it.

Natalie never spoke, just moved her hand onto my neck and pulled herself closer towards me. Raising her head, she lowered her lips to my earlobe and kissed it gently, her hair falling onto my face as she did so. Her skin smelt of fresh water.

'Better?' She whispered, looking into my eyes, no more than a couple of inches away.

I nodded, at that point incapable of speech.

She lowered her face and pressed her lips to mine, a soft pressure that lasted for only a moment but to which I responded, pressing against her and feeling the faint trace of moistness as we parted.

We both said goodnight and Natalie turned her back to me, and although she moved away from me it was only a few inches. I could have moved my hand to the right and touched her, and you had better believe that every part of me was imagining her naked body curled up next to me. When she had kissed me I thought I'd felt her breast touch my shoulder. I kept thinking of that as I lay on my back replaying that sweet kiss again and again in my mind, and my erection was a hard ache in my shorts. I knew that I had to get rid of it, and as there was no way that I would be able to risk relieving myself then I knew that I had to concentrate on something entirely unerotic. I started to listen to the rain again and tried to formulate a plan for the morning. Breakfast, if I could rustle something up, then get on the phone if it was back in service and arrange for a tow-truck. Two trucks. I'd forgotten about Nat's vehicle. Jesus, what a mess we'd managed to get ourselves into.

I heard Natalie's breathing slow slightly, and I guessed that she had fallen into the first stages of sleep. Warmer now, I wrapped an arm around my head and continued to blink up at the ceiling and listen to the beating rain, a rhythmical pattern that was hypnotic and soothing. I strained my ears and couldn't hear any more thunder, and there were no more flashes of lighting transforming the room into a negative image for the merest moment. The storm was far away, and so were we. Away from our friends and families, away from everyone who knew us. I felt and brief and strange twinge of sadness, and as I let the blackness of sleep take me again for the second time that night, I realised that I would probably never be in this same situation again...

I never sleep well in a strange bed, and I found myself awake once more. I was aware of heat along the front of my body, and a smooth sensation under the palm of my hand. When I opened my eyes my vision was partially blocked with a dark mass, and when I moved my head slightly something soft tickled the end of my nose. Hair. Natalie's hair. The sleep left me quickly as I realised that I was wrapped around her, my face buried into the back of her neck and my body curled up behind her.

The softness under my palm was the skin of her belly. Sometime during sleep I'd moved around and embraced her, ran my hand along her flat stomach. Natalie's own hand had covered mind as she held me close. My chest was tight against her back, and my legs touched her own in parallel all the way to our feet. I could feel her small toes against my ankle, and I thought briefly of her pink painted nails that I had seen earlier.

Natalie stirred slightly, wriggled herself back into me, and I felt her buttocks push into my short-covered crotch. I closed my eyes again and bit my lip, and I knew that if I didn't move away from her she was going to feel a hell of lot more than my unshaven face against her when she awoke. Slowly, I started to pull my hand away from her own.

'Don't go,' she murmured in a barely audible voice.

I stopped moving. 'I thought you were asleep?' I whispered

'I was. I think I still am.'

'I didn't mean to be all over you, Nat.'

Her hand moved onto my forearm. 'It's okay, it's nice to have you close.'

I paused for a second, and then settled back down against her. Natalie ran her fingers gently over my arm, and I responded by very softly stroking her stomach, my fingers occasionally touching her belly-button.

I'd forgotten just how good it was to be with someone, and I'm not talking about sex when I say that. I mean closeness, togetherness, the feeling of another person's hand on your skin. It had been over a year since I'd come out of a relationship, and since then I'd spent a lot of lonesome nights with nothing but cable TV and my imagination for company. Now, as I breathed in the scent of Natalie's hair and felt tingles under my fingertips from where I stroked her, I realised just what it meant to be a lonely and struggling actor in Los Angeles.

Almost absent-mindedly I ran my hand in circles up her stomach and over her ribs. I stopped moving my hand and pushed only my thumb back and forth, until eventually it touched the underside of her breast. I rubbed the swell of skin there for a moment, then realised what I was doing, and stopped quickly. I didn't want to invade any boundaries.

As if she had read my mind, Natalie turned her head slightly toward me. 'You alright,' she said, still in that same sleepy voice.

'I'm fine,' I replied. 'Just forgot myself for a minute is all.'

'You can touch me, if you want to.'

As soon as she spoke those words I felt myself start to grow hard again, and I moved my crotch away from her so she wouldn't feel me. I started moving my hand again, slowly, until my fingers were moving around her breast, before I ran my thumb over the swell and cupped her in my palm. I lowered my index finger and lightly brushed her nipple, which was small and hard to my touch. I continued to stroke with my thumb and lightly kissed the base of her neck, my lips barely brushing the sensitive skin. As I did this Natalie raised her arm and ran her fingers through my hair, and I heard her breathing quicken as I rolled her nipple under my palm.

She moved her body back against me and her bottom came into contact once again with my crotch. This time, though, my arousal was evident.

'I didn't know I'd had such an effect on you,' she whispered.

I laughed gently. 'Of course, I'm only human. What do you expect when you let me feel you like that,' I said.

Natalie moved her hand from my hair, and I let go of her breast as she rolled over in bed to face me. She moved against me and wrapped her arms around my neck, pulled herself against my body and pressed her lips against mine for the third time that night. This kiss was different than the ones we had shared before though. Our mouths were open and her soft tongue searched out my own, our eyes were closed as we kissed with passion, not friendship. I carressed her back and pulled her as close to me as I could, her hard nipples squashing against the hair on my chest as I did so. One of her thighs moved between my legs and pushed gently against me, and when I moved my lips from hers and began nibbling against her neck she groaned and her fingers dropped to my waist and pushed under the top of my shorts, touching my hot skin no more than an inch away from my pubic hair.

She stopped me as I moved back to kiss her lips once more. 'Take your underwear off,' she said.

'Are you sure you want to do this?' She smiled, pushed her hand through my hair once more. 'Definitely. I want to make love with you. I've been thinking about nothing else ever since you were lying next to me, holding me.'

I returned her smile. 'I thought you were asleep?'

'I was, for some of the time. But when you had your hand on my hip I felt so warm and safe.' She kissed me once more. 'Felt so horny, too,' she continued.

'I was touching your hip? I don't remember.'

'I know you don't. You were fast asleep. If you hadn't woken up I may have had to, you know, do it myself.'

This made me grin, as I remember how I had layed next to her with a hard-on and nothing to do with it. Natalie asked me why I was smiling, and I told her.

'Well, you can definitely do something with it now,' she breathed in my ear, as I felt her hand start to pull my shorts down.

Being with Natalie was everything I could have dreamed of, and more. She clamped her legs around me as I slid easily into her hot wetness, and my pelvis bumped against her own as we moved slowly with each other. I propped myself on my elbows and looked down into her gentle eyes as we made love, my own excitement increasing as I watched the pleasure on her face. When I lowered my mouth to her breasts she cried out as my tongue scraped over her nipples, which were dark in the low light of the room, and as hard as rubber. Her skin was hot wherever I kissed it, and tasted as good as fresh watermelon on a summer day. Her heels pulled against my thighs as she pulled me deeply into her petite body, and her nails dragged gloriously against my back.

I stopped, pulled her over and onto me, never once coming out of her as she straddled herself over me. Natalie lowered herself down onto me, and this time it was my turn to groan out load as she ground her clitoris down onto the coarseness of my pubic bone. I held her hips and looked up at this beautiful girl, hair around her face and her eyes closed, throat exposed as she threw her head back and rode me. Lines of sweat dripped down her body, over her pert breasts, down the flat skin of her stomach, before finishing between her legs, mingling with our own bodily fluids. She threw herself forward, and a droplet of sweat landed on the corner of my mouth, and I licked it away with my tongue before pulling her down to me once more. Our mouths locked onto each other as she slammed her sticky vagina down onto my thrusting penis, and for a moment I raised both of us off the bed with the force of my lovemaking. I wanted this girl so badly. I wanted to be close to her, in her as much as I could, to almost become her. My heart was pounding like a cannon.

I grasped the tight skin of her bum and pulled her down onto me harder, pulling at her buttocks and spreading her wider, which caused her to yelp in my ear.

'Oh God,' she gasped, 'I'm going to come.'

Natalie pushed her face into my neck and I felt her scalding breath as she ground herself onto me one final time. I pushed into her as deeply as I could, and a moment later felt her whole body shake with the arrival of her orgasm. She gasped as it hit her, and her vaginal walls clamped around my hardness, and the wonderful rush of her juices washed over me, ran down my shaft and coated my balls. This in turn was the final sensation I needed to send me over the edge, and I screwed my eyes tightly shut as my own climax came. I ejaculated into her again and again, and we kissed deeply as our bodies shook with that rare thing; the simultaneous orgasm. I collapsed back onto the sweat soaked sheet and Natalie collapsed on top of me. The combined heat from our skin could have started a fire. We were both gasping as we struggled to get our breath back.

I ran my hand over her bum and felt her wriggle on me. Although my erection was decreasing I was still inside her, and I wanted it to stay that way. I didn't want to break the connection between the us, wanted us to stay joined together in a mixture of sweat and come-juices for as long as possible. I turned my head and kissed her ear, then pulled a sheet over the two of us and reached out my arm and extinguished the lamp. The room fell into an eerie grey light, and I knew that dawn was moving swiftly upon us. The searching rays of sunlight would soon bring a new day to the desert motel, but I wanted this moment to last as long as possible.

'You sleeping, baby?' I said quietly.

Her lack of answer and deep breathing were the confirmation, and I wrapped my arms tightly around her and closed my eyes before drifting away to a land filled with sky-blue dreams.

I awoke with a shaft of hot sunshine falling across my chest. The room was filled with the morning, and a gap in the curtains let the desert air in through the open window. The bed clothes were strewn about and the sheet was bunched up around my waist. I was alone. I looked around the room and saw everything as I had left it, and I stretched my hands out and felt the rest of the empty bed, as if doing this would confirm that I was indeed on my own. Had I imagined everything? I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked over at my watch. Eight-forty.

Just then, I heard the lavatory flush, and a moment later the door opened. Natalie padded softly out of the bathroom and across the room towards the window, where she peeked through the gap in the curtains. She hadn't seen that I was awake, and I watched her silently. She was naked, and I realised that this was the first time I had seen her fully nude in the light. Her skin was perfect, glowing where the sunlight hit it, and my gaze travelled down her back to her round buttocks, further still to her slender thighs and bare feet. Her hair was tied back, and when she turned I saw her small breasts and dark, neat pubic area. She looked happy, a small smile on her face, and I felt an ache in my heart that hadn't been present for a long time.

'Morning,' I said.

She turned to look at me, and her smile broke into a grin. 'Hey, you,' she replied, moving to sit on the edge of the bed next to me. She ran a hand over my chest. 'Didn't mean to wake you.'

'You didn't.'

'The storm has gone. It's a glorious day out there.'

'Don't let our proprietor friend see you like that, or he'll have a stroke.'

She laughed, and lay down next to me, her hand moving down to my thigh. I kissed her forehead and stroked her hair as I held her, and after a moment said out-loud the overriding thought in my mind.

'Natalie, I don't want this adventure to end.'

She raised her head. 'Adventure?'

I nodded. 'Yeah. All this. You and me, stranded in the desert. The Bates motel. Us being together. It's been one of the best nights of my life, and I really mean that.'

'For me too. It's not over yet either,' she said, and we started to kiss again.

We took a shower together and made love once more; slowly and sensuously, washing each other with soaped hands before my excitement got the better of me and I span Nat around and penetrated her from behind while the steaming water fell upon us. We stayed under the spray until the water ran cold, then jumped out shivering and laughing before we dried each other with large and slightly rough white towels. Back in the bedroom Natalie sat on a stool while I stood behind her and ran the comb through her damp hair and watched her body in the mirror that was infront of us. I almost dropped the comb as she spread her legs wide and began rubbing he fingers over herself, and when she span around on the stool, grabbed my hips and took my throbbing shaft into her mouth I forgot about combs and just about everything else. The fellatio was mindblowing, but I knew that I had to feel myself inside her again at least once, and I almost threw her onto the bed before sliding between her soft thighs once more. This time there was no tenderness between us, just pure, animalistic sex. Total fucking, if you will. By the time I had finished both her and myself off I felt as if my penis had been rubbed raw. But it was a good kind of feeling, as I'm sure you can appreciate.

Lying there, limbs entwined, naked as the day we were born and no sound filling the room save for our breathing, was a perfect moment in time for me. However, as is the way in life, all perfect moments have to come to an end. This one was over for me when Natalie spoke.

'Honey, it's almost Ten O'clock. We have to get moving.'

'I know,' I said, trying to hide the sadness in my voice. 'I'm just too comfortable to move.'

She stroked my neck and kissed my chest, before looking up into my eyes. 'We'll have times like these again you know.'

I looked into those green eyes, eyes that almost seemed to dance with life, and nearly said what I was thinking. But I didn't. I held the thought in my mind.

'I know,' I said gently. 'I know we will.'

The rest of the morning moved by quickly. We dressed, Natalie sliding back into her denim shorts and white shirt that was so simple and yet so sexy on her, and we straightened both of the rooms before making our way to the reception. The Hustler King was there, watching wrestling on a beaten-up TV with a foil-wrapped aerial and eating noisily from a bag of doughnuts.