vii (conclusion)
Daniel showed Ofelia around his modest apartment, explaining to her that he was saving his money to buy a house. He could tell she was not paying much attention to him. He had never seen a girl behaving quite this way. She kicked her shoes off as soon as they were in the door and hovered about him, smiling and giggling. She circled him, hugged him from behind, tugged his arm, then walked backwards in front of him.
He was showing her his stereo and explaining to her that men attached their ego to machines; therefore, if she paid no attention to his machines she was paying no attention to him. Ofelia bit her pinky finger and blinked her eyes slowly as he put in a CD and played around with the volume and EQ. It was the first time Daniel realized he had never seen her with nail polish.
Ofelia made a face at the music that was coming out of the speakers, like she had bitten into a lemon.
"Yeah, well," Daniel said to her, "Zeppelin's kind of an acquired taste." He turned it down and laughed. "You aren't the least bit interested in my stuff, are you?"
"Nope." Ofelia answered. She walked up to him, took his hands, and pulled him forward as she back-pedaled, until she judged she was fairly near his couch, at which point she turned him about and pushed him down, then promptly straddled him. She had to hoist her skirt up in order to get her legs around his waist, giving him a glimpse of her tiny red lace panties before making herself comfortable. "There." she said, "Now I got you."
"Jesus." Daniel said.
"No, O - fel - ia."
"Are you drunk?" he asked, and playfully sniffed the air. He put his hands on her slender waist, felt her ribs with his thumbs. A leather skirt didn't conduce well to grabbing a girl's ass, so he slid his hands down the sides of her skirt until he found her legs.
"I told you, Mister, I don't drink." she said, and now she was working at the top button of his silk shirt. She had it undone and shortly unfastened the next one down, until she could get at those hairs on his chest which had been fascinating her for months. None of the young men she had ever been with had hair on their chests. A few of the older ones did, but they were not attractive to her. Daniel wasn't very hairy. He had just enough for it to be sexy to Ofelia and not too much for it to turn her off.
"God, you're so beautiful." he told her. Her fingers were pulling the hairs on his upper chest, under his collarbone, gently and playfully. She was biting her lower lip, her eyes darting from this hair to that.
"So are you." she answered, not looking into his eyes, but working on the next button now, because she wanted to see more. She wanted to touch and explore him all over.
"No, I'm not."
"You are to me." Ofelia said, and this time she looked at him. "You have pretty eyes, and I like your lips." Daniel smiled when she said *leeps*. "When you first started talking to me, I used to imagine kissing you."
"Wow." Daniel said. It was all he could manage.
"If you want to know, I think about that a lot when a man is talking to me. I think, would it be nice to kiss him or not? But, I don't think about it a lot when I talk to a man who is very proud of himself because of the way he looks, you know, because it's like, I don't know how to explain it...it's like, it wouldn't be special because he probably kissed too many girls..."
"It's not hard to explain, Ofelia. And you explained it very well. It's about something being rare or common; valuable or cheap."
Ofelia rolled her eyes back and put her finger to her chin, "Si. That's it."
Daniel didn't think Ofelia would want to pursue this thread of conversation, seeing as it would inevitably lead back to herself and necessitate a self-judgment she was probably unwilling to make. He did see a flicker of this knowledge pass through her eyes, but it was gone before it had time to settle in. By this time she had undone enough buttons that she could open his shirt all the way, down to his belt. His slightly rounded belly didn't bother her, nor the whiteness of his skin. She smiled and put her fingertips on his pink nipples, which were bigger than Manuel's. She liked them, and played with them. Then she slid her hands along his chest, around the sides, enjoying the feel of his muscles underneath their thin layer of fat. He wasn't as well built as Manuel, or even Leonard, but he wasn't corpulent, or even what one would call overweight: He was just slightly padded. But she didn't care. She liked it.
"Sweetie." Daniel said, "Your skirt is bothering me. Will you take it off?"
"Yes." Ofelia replied. She got up and did as he asked. She looked striking in her red tiara, her red lace panties, and her red halter which covered her to just above her tiny navel. She stood there for a moment, knowing full well that men were visual creatures whose eyes were their primary sex organ. It was her knowledge of this that fed her own inexhaustible appetite for being looked at. Not only fed it, but created it. She linked her fingers behind her back and stood perfectly straight, letting Daniel drink in the sight of every curve, line, peak, and hollow her scantly-dressed figure offered. Daniel asked her to back up a few feet, that she was too close for him to be able to take in the full view. Ofelia shimmied back a ways, like a model following directions, and faced him again.
Daniel sat forward on the couch, and took his time looking at her. He knew that she enjoyed seeing his eyes wander up and down. "I like your belly. It's so flat." he told her. "You should get one of those belly-rings, you know, those jewel-things the girls are wearing nowadays?"
"If you want me to I will." Ofelia said. She swallowed the need to tell him that she thought piercings and tattoos were nasty. She imagined herself dressed like a harum girl, wiggling around with bells on her feet and rings coming out of her nose and eyebrows.
Once again, it was as if Daniel was reading her mind. "You pierce your ears, right?"
"Mm-hm."
"So what's wrong with piercing your bellybutton, or anywhere else for that matter?"
"Nothing, I guess. I didn't say anything!" she said, cheerfully defending herself, her fingers still linked behind her back. But she twisted her hips a little, and she was obviously getting anxious.
Daniel said, "No, but I could see it in your face." He sat there looking at her for a while longer, watching her sexy little pelvis twist and twist, ever so slightly, making her wait. Then he said, "Anyway. Would you mind taking your blouse off?"
"Okee-doke!"
Ofelia was happy to remove her halter. In doing so she craftily moved a few inches forward. Now she stood before him with only her bra and panties, her stockings, and her tiara. Daniel saw the way her belly rose and fell that she was breathing faster. Her skin was slightly flushed. Her nostrils had more of a flare to them. She was getting more and more excited. A part of her wanted to leap on top of him, but a stronger side of her wanted to stay right where she was, to let him stare at her.
Daniel said, "Does your fiance like to see you in those?" He indicated her panties.
Ofelia answered, looking down "He's never seen me in them. I mean, when we do stuff, it's dark. Not like, totally dark, but."