Touch of Hellfire (Original Version)

☕️131☕️

Summer 2008

"Mr and Mrs Mariano, welcome to Athens," our tour guide greeted us. "I'll show you to your hotel."

"Fancy," Jess noted. "Your grandparents arranged all this?"

"Wedding present," I told him. He wrapped his arm around me as we got the best room in the hotel. "Well, I could get used to this," Jess jumped onto the bed. "So, days at the beach, historical sites, nightlife and Greek food."

"Yep," I leapt on top of him and he started laughing. "You forgot something."

"Oh yeah, this," he rolled me over and started kissing me. My fingers got tangled in his hair and he was unbuttoning my plaid shirt. "You know," I murmured. "I heard the shower here has great water pressure, I'm gonna test it."

I got off the bed and Jess came after me as I was walking backwards. Suddenly, I tripped over my bag but Jess caught me before I could fall.

"Very graceful."

"Oh shut up."

***

Jess had a suit on, without a tie and I had a strapless blue dress with my black denim jacket. "So, should we go to an authentic Greek or to an 'Italian restaurant' that makes some pretty good pizza?" Jess asked me. "We'll give the Greek food a try," I suggested.

We sat down in the restaurant and started looking at the menu. "Choriatiki," I read off the menu. "Typical Greek salad."

"I know for a fact you're not gonna order that in a million years," Jess chuckled.

We both had beers and I ordered the fava for the my starter. "How's that?" Jess asked me as he ate his starter. "Salty," I told him. "How's yours?"

He took another look at it. "Rabbit food," he admitted, taking a sip of his beer.

"Maybe the main will be better," I prayed. "I just hope I didn't order octopus or squid by accident," he shuddered.

Our mains were brought out, mine was keftedakia which was fried meatballs while Jess got paidákia, grilled lamb chops. "This is good," Jess said. "Mine's good too but I'm sure what meat this is."

"Let me try," he used his knife and fork to break off a bit. "I think it's beef or lamb."

And the best bit of tonight, apart from the sex, was dessert. Roxákia, we both got it.

"So good," Jess nodded. These were kind of like vanilla and chocolate cookies, in one word, delicious.

After our meal, Jess and I walked back to our hotel.

The second we got back to our room and the second that Jess locked the door, we couldn't keep our hands off each other, tossing our clothes to the floor, whispering sweet nothings to one another and engaged in the fiery throws of passion.

"I love you," Jess whispered to me as he led me in his arms. "More than anything. You're perfect. I'm the luckiest guy in the world."

"I'm the lucky one, I love you too," I murmured.

Summer 2017

I lay on the recliner with my sunglasses pushed far up the bridge of my nose. "Iced coke," Mom brought over a drink.

"Thank you," I muttered.

I shut Mom and Rory out as they were complaining about the chemicals of the swimming pool.

Rory was living at home for a while and April came to visit from MIT.

"When did you punch a hole in your nose?" Luke asked April. "Read the Constitution," April snarked. "I am twenty two years old."