Read Online When We Danced on Water by Evan Fallenberg - Free Book Online

strong and the mud was warm; the feeling was so sensual that Vivi could feel her whole body responding. She wondered if he noticed her erect nipples, then realized he could not possibly miss them. Martin covered her in the black mud, rubbed her back, her legs, high up on the inside of her thighs. Another second and she would have to make him stop but how wonderful it felt, as he applied more just above the top of her bathing suit, to her neck—which he massaged—and then, with gentle motions of his fingers, to her cheeks and forehead and finally a daub on her nose. He stood back to observe his work.
    â€œA black goddess you are, the Queen of Sheba,” he said, clearly pleased with himself. “Now my turn. Make me the King of Sheba.”
    She was timid at first and coated him with huge handfuls of mud to create a barrier between his body and her hands. The mud slid downward, dripped to his scanty bathing trunks. She stood close behind him at first, reaching to his shoulders and the nape of his neck, then moved a step away to coat his back and the backs of his legs. He stood silent and still. She gathered more mud from the trough and came around to his front side. His erection nearly reached her stomach, she had to stand away from him and lean into his body to continue smearing his face, his chest, his stomach. When it was time to squat down to finish the fronts of his legs she considered stopping, having him smear himself. But she was embarrassed to acknowledge the problem, and more than a little curious. She squatted low, daubed the tops of his feet, his shins, his knees, did everything to avoid his shiny black bathing suit, though she felt a terrible urge to pass her hand over it, lightly, lightly, no more than a breeze. Instead she stood too quickly, swooning. He caught her.
    â€œAre you all right?” he asked. There was a catch in his voice.
    â€œFine,” she said without conviction. “It’s the sun, or maybe the smell of all these minerals.” He pulled her closer and she could feel the mingling heat from his mud-covered body and her own, perhaps even the cloth of his bulging trunks just below her navel, she was not sure. She breathed deeply, hoping for composure, waiting for logic and sanity to kick in. He breathed with her.
    After a moment she leaned away from him and he let go, cautiously, testing to make sure she would not fall. She took in a deep breath, let it out, and said, “Let’s go wash off in the water.”
    Vivi tried to stay away from Martin after that, skipped the next desert trek and the one following, but all she could think about was his soft voice, his tender attention, his warm and lovely body. By the time he phoned, after the second missed outing, she was ready for him.
    It was a chore to keep their relationship a secret from her fellow soldiers, less so from her mother. She was no longer in Leah’s orbit. When she came home for Shabbat every other weekend her parents knew she could not answer their questions, was forbidden from giving even the slightest details of her work in the army, and so, by extension, they refrained from asking her about her life at all. Vivi volunteered little, kept them informed about her high school friends and mentioned her two best army girlfriends and even a boy or two; Leah was most attentive then, though Vivi assured her they were only friends. In the meantime she and Martin hiked Thursday afternoons or Friday mornings whether there was an organized group going or not, and Vivi hitchhiked to Kibbutz Ein Gedi to see Martin every evening she could. Often she stayed over, sleeping with Martin on a small mattress in a gardener’s shed to which he had the keys, slipping back to her base before dawn. She loved to drift off to sleep in his arms in their tiny self-contained world, loved to wake up with her head on his chest, rising and falling with his measured breaths. She had never felt so much at peace, and the guilt she