Wheels-Down in Cuba

Wheels-down in Cuba: Vacation in the sun reawakens dormant desires

Pressure on my eardrums wakes me. I dig in my purse for minty gum. Chewing and swallowing eases the pain, and I smile at my seatmate.

Everyone stares out the portholes as the packed jet descends, but light haze veils the ground. Loud bumps from beneath the floor and a sudden roar: landing gear locked.

Still nothing to see. Then dry hills materialize. Red earth veined with blue afternoon shadows.

The plane banks steeply. Lush green along a winding river. Patched asphalt roads. Shiny metal roofs, winking mirrors of sunlight amid tiny farm plots.

Palm trees off the wingtip. A double thump in the pit of our stomachs and the lap belts grab hold as the engines scream. The jet slows, them rumbles along the creased taxiway to the pale turquoise terminal. Cheers and applause up and down the aisle as seatbelts click off and passengers, some already in beach wear, jump to the overhead bins. Moist salty air whistles through the vents.

I'm back in Cuba!

At customs the unsmiling young man in a crisp uniform stares at my passport, at me, back to my passport. Flicks every page, examines every stamp. Eyes me appraisingly.

"Bienvenidos, señora."

I smile as he waves me through. Bet he's thinking I'm another of those middle-aged sex tourists, another frustrated North American broad down for a week frying on the beach by day and gorging on dark meat by night.

Well, let him enjoy his fantasies. My husband is coming on the same flight next week, by which time I'll be tanned and trim and ready to be turned on.

After the bumpy bus to the resort — free drinks to pass the time and get us all in the mood — there's the staff welcoming us with a song-and-dance more like summer camp than a four-star resort, then check-in and keys. I'm alone in my room just long enough to dive into my one-piece, throw on a beach wrap and head to the pool.

Swim-up bar: gotta love that. The bartender's a pretty girl till they realize the pool's mostly populated by women of a certain age, and send in the hunks. Warm air, a view of the dry hills tumbling to the Caribbean, better view when I ask for a mojito and Hunk One bends over to pick fresh mint in the little patch behind the bar, his Speedo stretched over a muscular gluteus maximus and the outline of obviously well-filled balls. Hunk Two runs the blender, flexing his forearms as he pours my drink. I sigh.

At dinner I chat with a few other new arrivals. The staff knows we're tired from the flight; there'll be time in the next few days for parties and bingo and lessons in salsa dancing, Spanish, riding, tennis, scuba diving. Tonight, though, everyone retires early.

There's a lot of privacy in an all-inclusive Cuban resort during the shoulder season, if you want it. Half the rooms are empty, and the throbbing beat of the late-night disco party at the beach bar fades early 'cuz most of the folks who hit their teens in the Eighties are still up north working for a living. The disco mamas'll descend in a few weeks.

I close the screens to the balcony to keep out the night critters, and inhale the palm-scented sea air. A gibbous moon rises out of the inky Caribbean to the east, like a big ole silver dollar someone's nibbled one side off. It'll be full when Bruce arrives next week, I think as I stretch languidly on the hard bed, enjoying the cool fragrance bathing my nude body. The thought of his taught form warms my belly and I run my fingernails lazily through the carefully waxed and pruned patch of brown hair at the top of my legs.

But it's been a long flight from home to Toronto, where I caught the three-hour charter down to the island's south coast, and after a few sighs, I doze. Sometime during the night a noise in the next room wakes me. A door slamming? Too tired to identify it, I'm asleep again in seconds.

The second day I wake early, hustle down to the dining room for my first sip of black Cuban

café como se toma en la cocina

. (Unless you prefer weak, watery, diner-style coffee — which someone has told the staff is how

turistas

like theirs — you ask for coffee "like they drink it in the kitchen" and savor the black, almost-espresso the Cubans drink.) I take it to a small table just outside, where the morning sun warms me and I can watch the staff and earlybirds get ready for the day.

A tall, thin man strides purposefully through the tile-floored breezeway leading to the beach. Cafe-au-lait skin, dark hair grizzled with gray at the temples, open-necked shirt under a pale tropical suit, shiny boots. He gives me a frank once-over and an open smile, raises an eyebrow in an unspoken question until I smile back. Then he's on about his business. I watch his even gait as he heads toward a distant building.

After a second coffee to accompany the omelette I pick up at the breakfast bar, I return to the table. There's more bustle now, some tourists a bit worse for wear after drinking too late after their flight. Bet they'll be imbibing hair of the dog before noon — and down for the count after lunch.

Planning a beach day, I head back to my breezy hilltop room. A woman exits cautiously from next door, shuffling past me on her way to a late breakfast, I guess. I get only a glimpse, but she's unlikely to be my new best friend. I don't want to sound overly critical, but she ... let's just say, to be discreet, she looks as if she's let herself go a bit. The unkempt, gray-streaked hair and shapeless blue housedress don't flatter her figure, much of which, from what I can see, had long since stopped fighting gravity.

I'm proud of my body. I'm careful what I eat — I don't subscribe to every fad diet that comes along, but I'm meticulous about healthy fats and what foods I eat and when: French women look sexy into their seventies and not because many of them smoke. They say it's all about combining foods, so I'll ride that bandwagon if I can look like them for the next few decades. I do several miles a week on the stationary bike, which helps the haunches, and try to fit Pilates classes into my busy schedule back home.

In the room I shower quickly, throw on a relatively conservative two-piece and an opaque white cover-up in case the shady loungers are all taken, and grab my beach towel, paperback and sun hat.

The ocean's calm, with a soporific swell sizzling up the sand and then retreating from the seawrack-strewn tide line. The novel intrigues me for the first hour, then I get sleepy and find a shady lounger and surrender to sleep. It's an incredible luxury to have a morning nap ... but I wake up with a start, momentarily disoriented until I realize that I was only dreaming that I was in the arms of a tall, handsome stranger. Nude. About to surrender myself willingly to his love machine. Phew ... I'm aroused and actually panting, and look around with relief that no one's nearby. I arrange my cover-up over my hard nipples and clench my legs to hide my moist, swollen pussy.

Once I've calmed down, I head to one of the beach bars for a seafood salad and a mojito. Hunk Two is on duty. I can't help it — my glance wanders down his tight red resort-logo T-shirt to his navy-blue Speedo. The thin nylon traces the outline of a weighty penis and a well-stuffed scrotum. He smiles knowingly. I blush. He refills my glass.

Back to the beach, lying on my stomach for another hour toasting in the sun. I managed to stay awake, but those Speedos were never far from my consciousness. Just because Bruce and I've been insanely busy with our burgeoning careers for the past couple of years ... okay, we hadn't had a lot of time or, frankly, inclination toward sex. But still, surely that drought isn't causing my current obsession with fantasizing. Is it?

For dinner I chose the

restaurante tipica

, where I knew they'd have fresh seafood as well as beef grilled over live coals. Night fell just as I arrived and was escorted to a table close to the grill. I chose the seafood, but was entranced by the showmanship of the grill men, all bulging muscles and dark, shining skin as they cajoled the best from their cuts of meat and occasional lobster over the red-hot grills of their

parilla

.

The noise from the next room wakes me again the second night. This time my curiosity keeps me awake. It takes a long time to puzzle it out: Sound of a sliding door; quiet scratching or ticking; soft door slam; sliding door again. Then regular bumping, increasing in frequency (that's easy: headboard banging on the wall) grunts, and stifled shrieks high up on the pain-pleasure spectrum.

Doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure she's smuggled a man into her room. It's against the rules to host locals overnight, but it happens all the time.

The other sounds? Takes me two of her climaxes to figure it out: She's sliding open the closet door, opening the room safe, slamming it to lock again after she takes cash out, closing the closet. Back to bed, cash in hand.

Ha ... She's feeding the meter!

I guess she wasn't getting much at home, wherever home was. But she's sure making up for it. Every half-hour, clockwork. And the guy: My god, his stamina!

A vivid image of his tireless erection bouncing up takes me by surprise and next thing my heels are on the mattress, knees wide and my fingers are working my pussy furiously. Unbidden, my hips thrust rhythmically ... Oh! Now! Now! Yesssss! ... The orgasm overwhelms me in startling synchronicity with next door's three-in-the-morning shrieks, drenching my thighs and buttocks with boiling syrup. I lie back gasping for breath on the soaked sheets like a minnow at high tide.

Exhausted, I fall asleep, only vaguely conscious of the next time she feeds the meter. And the next. And the one when the sun cracks the eastern horizon. Then I hear her door click shut and muffled male footsteps fading down the hall.

I hope his pockets are overflowing with convertible pesos.

Female sex tourists are for the most part harmless, tipping for their dreams in sweaty bedrooms all over the island with men well past the age of majority. Male sex tourists are another matter. They make my blood boil. Creeps, to a man: Buying girls, apparently the younger the better. Boasting they can get another the minute one complains about mistreatment or worse. Statutory rape is endemic, and violent rape far too common. Poverty is an awful thing when it means a disgusting brute of any age can pay off mama for raping her daughters bloody. 'Nuff said.

By eight in the morning, my room is hot. Not stifling as it'll be at midday, but my flesh tingles with tiny beads of perspiration. And my loins thrum in tune with the locusts outside. Reluctantly I slide my palm down my belly, over my carefully landscaped bush. An electric shock races up my spine as my finger grazes a surprisingly engorged clit. My pussy lips are swollen. My whole vaginal area is lubricated ... I dash for the shower, not daring to admit I'm in heat.

The dumpy woman next door and her ever-ready honey have woken something in me I thought I'd quelled by the time I was thirty. I'll have to be careful; I don't want to revisit the wanton promiscuity that cost me years in therapy.

The tepid shower — it's too early for the solar heaters to have kicked in effectively — doesn't quench my wanting. I towel off and stroll to the balcony. It's private, no one can see me. Early morning sunshine warms my skin, dries the sheen of perspiration still lingering after the shower.

Back in the room, I glance critically in the mirror and take stock: Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Shoulder-length light brown hair with expensive blonde streaks. My skin's getting a tad leathery, but it's not sagging and my two-day tan's chasing away the winter pale. Strong shoulders, toned arms. Flattish belly with a slight paunch that men — real men, not hard-bodied but unworldly boys — tell me they find sexy. Breasts — okay, my 36Cs have grown heavier over the years — but the puckered rose areolas are front and center, the nipples, thankfully, not pointing downward. I brush them with my fingertips — ouch! they're sensitive — and they jut out like pencil erasers: I'll have to be careful at the pool and beach. I admire the manicured strip of pubic hair (that wax torture back home was worth every penny), that barely hides my prominent clitoris.

But omigod! My lower lips are swollen and a fire-engine red flush spreads to my inner thighs. Remembering yesterday's dream, I resolve to focus on keeping my legs together lest I broadcast

woman in heat

to every person who glances my way.

And my legs do attract glances, from both sexes. They're long and nicely proportioned. Tight ass, too: the miles on the bike pay off, and I can get away with skirts much shorter than most women my age.

I remember an older woman telling me, when I was in my thirties, that the only people on the planet who think more about sex than fourteen-year-old boys are women in their forties and fifties. It was a big "ewww" at the time, but guess what? She was right.

Raging hormones are giving me hyper-acute vision: In spite of myself I check out (from behind expensive dark-rimmed sunglasses) every swimsuit bulge on the brown-sugar beach, every gluteus maximus, every set of tanned and toned abs, every pair of biceps, every Adam's apple, lantern jaw, broad smile, moustache and pair of sparkling male eyes. I am obsessed.

Nothing among my fellow guests is likely to make me jump off the monogamy wagon. Uniformly out of shape, with skin in three shades: pasty SPF-60 white, lobster vermillion, and tanning-bed brown. Nope, no danger there.

The staff's another matter. But the beautiful ones with their Greek-god muscles and glistening shaved bodies are all too young for my taste. Good looking, yes, but zero chance of conversational foreplay in Spanish, much less English.

I have to retire to my room for a mid-afternoon "nap" — drenched digits swimming in my well-lubricated cunt, engorged clit snapping audibly as I dig hopelessly for my G-spot and finally wrench another unsatisfying climax from my oversexed vagina, then sag onto my sweaty sheets in the humid sea air.

Something's gotta give.

An excursion sounds like a good idea to take my mind off sex for a day. I'm in the breezeway staring at framed, slightly faded posters of four-wheel-drive trips, tourists smiling on horseback, scuba diving on the ragged reef, bus tours of pre-colonial towns and even a visit to the

Granma

, the leaky, 21-meter wooden powerboat that carried Fidel Castro and his original revolutionaries from Mexico to the far eastern coast of Cuba in 1956. I flip idly through plastic binders with more photos, timetables and rate sheets.

A trail ride ... I suddenly realize I haven't been on a horse since that summer in the Grand Tetons years ago, where I showed off the bareback skills I'd learned as a highschooler summering in Vermont. Some of the memories make me blush, and my nipples and clit swell in response. I take a deep breath and book a ride for tomorrow morning.

The wholesome smell of horses greets me as I approach the long, low building. Gentle whinnies come from the stalls.

I watch the tall, thin man I saw the other day tightening the girth on a big chestnut gelding with a white blaze. He's wearing a cream

guayabera

and tan slacks over shiny riding boots. He welcomes, touching two fingers to the flat, gaucho-style cowboy hat that shades his handsome, dancing eyes and sensuous lips. I can feel the flush spreading through my belly. A palomino mare stands quietly beside him, already saddled up.

My guide and companion is Guillermo, the stable manager. He whispers softly to the horses, calming them as their liquid eyes warily asses the approaching stranger. I gently pat the long necks, reassuring them, and caress the intricately wrought tack that glows with the patina of saddle soap and age. English saddles with fleece pads for both of us, with a blanket roll on the palomino and small saddlebags on the chestnut.

"Vamanos, señora?"

I nod, and Guillermo clasps his hands together to make a step, and lifts me to the stirrups. Thin, yes, but strong: it's as if I weigh no more than a feather. He slings a small leather satchel and a well-loved

tres

, the six-string guitar indigenous to Cuba's Sierra Maestra mountains, across his back and mounts up.

We walk the horses slowly at first. It's still cool and the low morning sun's turning lingering patches of mist golden against the green of the paddock. Once past the gate, we let our mounts trot. Guillermo watches me carefully, assessing my skill.

It's coming back to me, and I urge the mare to a gentle canter. He arches an eyebrow and smiles. The trail leads toward the

sierra

, and the vegetation gets drier and sparser as we leave the shore and start into the foothills. Our mounts nicker to each other, apparently chatting happily about getting to stretch their legs outside the paddock.

A level plateau beside a small lake stretches before us and I could be a twenty-year-old back in the Tetons, free as the wind with a young man beside me as we gallop our mounts toward our secret mountain rendezvous. The palomino stretches out and Guillermo races along beside, a happy smile creasing his face.

The plateau narrows and we rein in, breathless and exhilarated. Behind us a vista of crumpled hills, beach and glittering cerulean sea. My whole body tingles with memories and anticipation: Life in all its glory.

The horses pick their way carefully as we enter a dry canyon. A clear rivulet splashes beside the twisting trail. The canyon walls close in and the seascape disappears at the first curve. Strange plants tumble down the cliffs to either side, their roots clinging there they can to the ancient buff-colored rock.

Guillermo, up ahead, swings out of the saddle. Drops the reins of the chestnut, who nickers softly to my palomino and nibbles at a patch of green. Rough-hewn wooden steps lead upwards. Beckoning, Guillermo starts up the steps. I dismount and follow.

In the heat, the climb's strenuous, but we're soon at the top. A small farm: time-worn board walls, dry palm-leaf thatching, handmade furniture, smiles on the rugged, weatherbeaten face of the head of the household, his pretty dark-eyed wife, and four charming children. Solar panels on the roof and a television come as a surprise. "Lunch is served, señora," says Guillermo in perfect English: cold chicken, homemade bread, crisp salad, icy spring water. I decline the proffered choice of soft drinks or beer, and tuck into the delicious food, surprised at how hungry a couple of hours in the saddle has left me.

Okay, the place and the family are so comfortable that the cynical side of my brain says "Potemkin village" — but I don't feel any evidence that this refreshing family are government stooges. They're open, friendly and candid, even when we dance around social and political topics. If this is propaganda, its flawlessly disguised as reality.

Guillermo strums a few lively tunes on his

tres

, much to the delight of the children. Then, after an hour or so, with handshakes and hugs all around, we descend the staircase into the canyon, greeted at the bottom by friendly neighs. Back in the saddle, we ride deeper into the mountains. Several more miles, I guess. Finally, the canyon widens. There's a deep pool surrounded by sundrenched flat rocks. A small waterfall maybe forty feet high arcs gracefully into the pool, shattering into shining beads where it hits the water in a beam of sunlight.

Guillermo eases himself into a shady spot under an overhang beside the water, reclining against a gnarled root with the

tres

in his lap and his gaucho hat tipped forward over his face. I can still see his smile.

The heat is oppressive.