The pouring rain carries on until midnight, and we are both soaked from head to toe. We were sitting back on the veranda's front step, with the dark cottage's front door behind us. We curled up, chilled, while chatting happily and casually about friendly topics, just like we usually do before all the troubles in each of our love lives happened.
Amid our confab, I can't help but gawk at his scintillating eyes, radiantly sparkling, reflecting the colorful lights under the pool's water. "You know, Zig; I don't know why I didn't notice it, not until now. Your eyes, they look gorgeous". My voice is trembling in the cold.
Ziggy grinned looks amused, looking at me while I wrapped my arms around myself. My skin is chilling from the unforgiving cold. The teeth in my mouth chattered together relentlessly and uncontrollably, and I couldn't stop myself from shaking. He moved closer to me and wrapped me in his firmly protective arms, saying, "And you know why?" He still sounds teasing even when his teeth chatter while he talks. I can also feel the quick, short, sharp sound of his voice, shivering. "Because you can see your reflection within my eyes, and you're just so beautiful. See? It's because I look at you that makes my eyes gorgeous".
With his forthright, sweet, and persuasive words, I can feel the impulse of agitation within my emotions, showing my wet, flustered cheeks deliberately. Look away from him, embarrassed, intending to hide from him the actual feeling that I'm drowning in the thrills and the fluttering butterflies in my stomach.
Just as I'm trying to regain my emotional stability, the more intense Ziggy tried to do next. I gaped after gazing at Ziggy, taking off his clothes. Starting with his black tuxedo jacket, then his white tux shirt, exposing his chiseled six-pack abs, I smirk at the thought that he does not even mind my stare, as if he means to entice me. He also starts to unfasten his blacks slacks and take them off, and he's not wearing boxers as I expected. Instead, a tanga-cut brief defining well his schlong.
In my involuntary reaction, I flinched and hastily took my gaze off him, just like a scared little girl who spotted a ghost. My breathing suddenly became irregular, gasping for air. I'm not used to seeing him that way. I had only seen him topless with short pants or boxers or at worst, with the length of our friendship. And his figure used to be not that solid and muscular.
"Hey! Why did you undress?" Having said that without glancing at him, only to perceive his genuine and humorous laugh.
"What happened to you? Why do you look so scared? Oh, come on, don't you dare think nasty of me". Now again, with his joyful and teasing laughter.
I just shut my mouth and ignored him. I focused my glare on the floor, the penetrating cold in my sopping wet dress.
"Haven't you said that you want to stay for a while, that you don't want to go home yet? But it's not good for you to stay in your soaked dress for long. I'm serious, and I don't want you to suffer hypothermia. So, you better slip off that gown, and we're going to hang it on the railings to at least drain a little. Don't you feel heavy with it?" He looks serious, delivering his point.
He's probably right, but that's not my most comfortable thing to do for now. Being disrobed in front of Ziggy while ogling over Zig's unclothed body a while ago feels so awkward for me.
After noticing my hesitation, Ziggy jumped into the pool. "Okay, I'm here, far enough from you. I'm sure this time you're going to take your dress off, unless you enjoy having a colic or bloated stomach. And don't you dare say that you're feeling shy. I've seen you wearing a two-piece swimsuit several times."
That's it, and he's actually on point with that, so I followed Ziggy's advice and started to undress. Start reaching the zip head, slid it down to unzip, but it got stuck in between. However, I tried to unstick it a couple of times; still, it didn't work. "Ahm, Zig, I think my zipper got stuck. Can you give me a hand, please?"
It only takes a few seconds for Ziggy to ascend out of the water and approach me. Slowly, he slipped the zipper behind me. It's chilling to feel the touch of his finger as it slightly brushes against my skin. I'm sure that it's unintentional, if not only for the fact that I heard his long and lusty gulp after almost all of my hind torso was exposed. Which also makes me chuckle, and he noticed it. Immediately, he takes his hand off my dress and looks away, abashed. I am amused, and it feels weird, with how frightened I am to awaken Nixon's feelings towards me. Yet, now with Ziggy, I am even delighted to see that I turn him on.
After taking off and hanging my gown on the railing, what's left to cover me up is my white lacy bikini and skin-tone satin brassiere with transparent silicon strap. With Ziggy's eyes still glued on me, he stiffens like a statue on the plaza, not moving an inch.
"Hey!"
He got startled after I cried out to get his attention and was shaken back to his senses.
"I thought you said that you've grown accustomed to seeing me in a two-piece, then why it seem that you looked so surprised?" I said jokingly.
I can discern his flustered face from a scant light reflected from the pool. " You know what? That pool water is warmer than the air. Do you want to try some -Cannon Ball!" He gleefully shouted as he ran towards the pool and jumps enfolding his legs, curling to imitate a ball, in the air before splashing himself into the water.
With my hearty and loud laugh, I followed him in what he did and shouted, "Cannonball!!"
After a few strokes, we were swimming to and fro and around the pool. I stopped, gasping for air, resting in the shallow part, at the side of the pool.
Not long after, Ziggy also ceased swimming and went towards me. "You seem too busy to practice and enhance your stamina. Look at you. You're running out of air that easily. Where's that best friend Cloe of mine who always left me behind in swimming?"
"Isn't it obvious that I'm not in my tip-top condition recently? Good for you, since you're active in sport, surely your stamina and endurance are high."
Without a response from Zig, we spent some time in awkward silence.
With a long, exasperated sigh, Ziggy breaks the ice. " You know, Cloe, I can't describe the pain of seeing you in that situation. I'm just glad that it did not put into certain circumstances where I need to kill that pervert to protect you, because if I need to, without pangs of conscience, I will. I just don't understand why you still forgive him." Holding on to his tears.
I looked at him with my puzzled look, and with my inquisitive look, I said. "Zig, what did you mean? Is it about Nixon and Amabel? Is it because they deceived me?"
He shook his head. "No ... It's about the rave party."
"Rave party? But Zig, I-I haven't seen you there?"
"I am there, and you didn't see me; it's because I'm just watching over you from a distance. There are times that I wanted to get in touch with you, but I think that you would prefer me not getting close to you and disturbing your relationship."
I just replied to him with my despairing, speechless sigh. But behind my head is telling him. If you only knew how it hurts me not seeing you.
"When I saw Nixon tugging you, going outside the gym. I discreetly followed you. Sorry, I took too long. When I found you, you were unconscious, and Nixon stood up, advancing towards you. He even attempted to undress you. So, I grabbed and punched him 'til he was out. I sent you home. Sorry if I told your mom that you were drunk and stumbled down. Looking so cute in his little snicker after that furious look as he narrated the event.
So that explains the black eye.
With some not-so-unexplainable reasons and an involuntary reaction, a mixed emotion of happiness, guilt, sadness, and being truly touched knowing that it was Ziggy who actually saved me. That he is indeed the hero under the mask, my tears flowed unceasingly.
And for the second time, to show him my gratefulness and knowing how blessed I am that I have him in my life. I give him my most sincere but hasty kiss.
And with enthusiasm, he acts in response in his warm and possessive way of smooching. His one hands touching softly my back and the other's supporting behind my neck, his fingers running up and down my spine and to my neck and nape, hovering my jaw. As our kiss deepens, I can feel his tongue reaching out to mine from inside my mouth, then suck it slowly, igniting a throbbing sensation from my lower abdomen. My drenched skin and hair stand up as I feel like being electrocuted with tiny volts, tempting me to let out an involuntary moan.