A Surprise Visit

Below is the fourth segment of my new short story—’A Surprise Visit’—never before published.

filmsufi.com

Beni put down his cup of coffee and raised his eyes to her. “Good coffee,” he said nonchalantly. “You didn’t forget how…”
“You bastard,” she cut him off, her eyes flashed with anger. And impulsively—true to her nature, though—she threw the book at him.

It grazed his head first, before continuing its trajectory towards a pile of old records leaning on the wall by her bed, crashing into them.
“Why didn’t you call first?” she demanded.
“You don’t have a phone,” he answered, his hand massaging lightly the spot where the book had hit him.
“I do, at the office.”

She stepped closer and kneeled on the floor beside him, her hands on her knees, looking at him puzzled. “Where did you come from so suddenly, anyway?”
“Here. The city.”
“Don’t tell me…” her voice trailed off as she took both his hands in hers. “You left, too?”

He nodded, a mischievous smile passing across his face, as if a page from a book were turning over. And she: she took that smile away from him and transformed it into a burst of all-out laughter. Crazy laughter, at that; so much so that she lay down on the floor, on her back, her whole body shaking with pleasure.

Unsure how to react, Beni tossed his half-smoked cigarette into his empty cup of coffee. He watched closely the thin, bluish line of smoke that began to spiral up to the low ceiling, as if containing—but not revealing, not yet—many secrets. He took a sizeable bite at the cake, consuming it hungrily.
Seeing that, Noa stopped laughing as suddenly as she’d started and moved closer to him, sitting on his stretched legs. She took hold of his hands again, asking, “When?”

“Three months ago, almost.”
“And you couldn’t find a moment to visit me yet, eh?”
“Here I am.”
“At the wrong time, as usual. How come you remembered?”
He shrugged off both her disparaging remark and the question that followed it.
“It’s so unlike you, you know,” she said.
“You’re twenty-one, aren’t you?”
“Twenty-three, sweetheart. Give me a kiss.”

Without waiting for him to respond, she collected his head in her hands and planted a tender kiss on his lips. He absorbed it, but didn’t take full advantage of it. She looked at him straight, as his eyes turned shyly down.
“Thanks, Beni… let’s celebrate!”

Quick as an alley cat, she jumped to her feet and threw open the door to her cupboard. She took off her long dress in one easy move and tossed it inside. She looked at the jumble of clothes there, not shy at all about being practically naked, but for her tiny red panties. She grabbed a thin black sweater and put it on, long enough to cover—just about, though—her buttocks and reach her upper thighs. Next, she removed the rubber band that had held her hair together and shook it loose, allowing the smooth, soft hair to fall naturally on her shoulders.