At the Dunes
One night in Miami Beach — two gorgeous Russian women and a drive in a red Jaguar.
Winter 1999-2000
When I lived in Miami Beach at the Dunes Beach Club, I would leave my door open the better to see who was walking by. I set up my desk next to the door, one pace away from an outdoor balcony corridor. Beyond the balcony were a few palm trees, then a pool, then the ocean.
The Dunes was a motel-styled hotel built in 1950 in the day when Miami was presumed to become the next Las Vegas, complete with gambling and swanky entertainment. The Mafia had plans for the place. The Dunes was one of the last Cuban-style, Art Deco hotels on the northern part of Miami Beach; they were being steadily torn down for condo towers, and the Dunes was on the way out.
I knew this from my friend Juan Carlos, who ran the place — it would soon be torn down based on some future contract for sale and development. My friend said that the new condo towers were places where millions in South American cocaine money was being laundered.
The Dunes was a real artifact, and I regret not having my own photos. I moved there right after I lost my camera set in a flood. (That kept me out of photography for six years — I finally got a digital camera in 2005 when I was living in Paris). The Dunes had a dinner theater with room for a live orchestra (a kind of night club) that was never used, and a vast circular lobby featuring a glass chandelier that was supposedly smuggled out of Cuba in the days before Castro took over.
With the exception of several secret apartments scattered around the first floor and the sprawling penthouse of the complex, every guest room was identical: white-tiled, with a little kitchen island and air conditioning that reproduced Arctic conditions. I had dismantled my AC vent’s grill and covered the opening with thick plastic, and screwed the grill back in an attempt to seal out the cold. Just the leakage was enough to keep my room comfortably cool.
The 200 or so rooms at the Dunes were occupied by a wild mix of people, and anyone might show up. There were long-term residents such as myself; there were snowbirds who owned their rooms; and about a third left over as motel rooms for tourists.
The population included all manner of travelers from Russia, Europe or South America, plus assorted riffraff, locals having a posh night out, Long Island Jews up for winter, and me hanging out there writing horoscopes looking at the ocean. (I first wrote to Jonathan Cainer from that room, unknowingly opening a phase of my career that would begin in 2003.)
And then there was Xanax Man, selling tranquilizers outside in the parking lot below my balcony, starting at about 7 every night and getting more stoned by the hour. Early in the evening, he would say, “Anyone want some Xanax?”
By 11 pm he would joyfully announce to passers-by, “Annyvun mant zom Vamax?!”
One afternoon a few weeks before Y2K, I noticed a woman who kept striding past my door. All I could really see were her long legs, her rather high heels and her blonde hair cascading behind her like a trail of smoke.
She stood out, and she kept walking by, coming and going from countless errands. She would not make eye contact with me when she passed. I could feel the tension.
Again the next day she kept coming and going, still not making contact, never breaking the faintest smile. Finally I just said hello and she looked at me and smiled and kept going. The next six or eight times she went past, she got gradually friendlier, till I was finally able to engage her in a conversation standing in my doorway.
She was Russian. She seemed to tower over me, but then I was sitting; maybe she was 6 feet or taller. I got her attention for a moment and learned that she was applying for a Green Card. She had studied literature in Moscow, specializing in a writer named Gogol.
She wanted to live in the United States. She said her name was Natasha. I asked if that was really her name and she said yes. She also mentioned that a friend of hers was coming later that night for the weekend, another Russian woman named Sonia.
Somehow the conversation drifted down to Natasha’s room; I think she had to get something and I followed her as we talked. She lived on my floor, at the end of the balcony in a corner room, about 20 paces down. She had some huge suitcases big enough live out of or even to live in. I asked where she was coming from, and she said California.
When I get in these kinds of conversations, such as about the details of a person’s life or travels, I usually stop asking background questions and keep the focus on the present, which is much more interesting. And I am more interested in the future than the back story.
Which she mentioned happened to involve her friend Sonia arriving a few hours later.
“Do you know somewhere good we can go for dinner?”
I suggested Grillfish, a swanky new seafood place in the heart of South Beach. She liked the idea and thanked me — and to my surprise, she invited me to join them.
A few hours later, I knocked on Natasha’s door, and Sonia was standing there looking at me. She was breathtaking, wearing a white summer dress with sweet, sweet eyes and a mouth made to kiss. I literally gasped, just a little, and she noticed.
Confident and clear, she shook my hand and looked right at me and we had instant rapport. Her black hair and unworldly blue eyes and lovely fair skin were merely decorative compared to her animated spirit. I might have considered a woman of her charm and beauty out of my league, however, she was not leaving any room for doubt.
Sonia led us to her car. It was a deep red Jaguar. I promptly slipped into the back seat, which was pretty small, knowing that Natasha would never fit without dangling her feet out the window. The drive down to South Beach was about 15 minutes, through a canyon of condos and apartment buildings built over the past 60 years.
Grillfish was one of those serious places obsessed with getting it right. Every meal was delicious and presented beautifully. The women had gone through two bottles of wine. After eating, we had coffee and hung out for a while, watching the Friday night crowd walk by.
After a while we decided to head back, though the women were cleaerly too tipsy to drive, particularly with an anti-DUI campaign all over the news. I’d only had one beer, which meant I was the designated driver of a red Jaguar. It was about 9 o’clock, still early. I sat down in the driver’s seat, cushioned in leather and wood. It was a stick shift. I drive stick and I love it.
I adjusted the seat and the mirrors a bit, started the car, snaked through some crowded side streets of South Beach and headed north up A1A, or Collins Ave, the main drag of Miami Beach. Someone sparked up a joint and passed it to me. I am not the smoking and driving type, but that night I made an exception.
Suddenly everything was cinematic with the smooth-motion feeling of a Steadicam. We cruised past the astonishing condo complexes along the Atlantic coastline, mile after mile of them. I was with two stunning women I had just met, who were chatting away in Russian, and I was shifting through the gears of one of the most beautiful cars on Earth, windows open, cool breeze blowing in and the scent of cannabis in the air. I drove slowly, to make it last.
Finally, we pulled up at the Dunes.
I parked and, without hesitation, Natasha led us back to her room. From what I was reading in Sonia, she planned to get both our clothes off. Out of the little fridge she produced a bottle of champagne, opened it, and poured it into those clear plastic motel cups.
Sonia sat cross-legged on the bed. I had picked up on her plan and watched her work her friend. I could not tell for sure, but I suspected they were part-time lovers. However, Natasha was resisting. Sonia was steamy and ready for fun, but her friend was going in the other direction. Suddenly she was talking about getting an early start and going to bed.
When Natasha went to the loo, Sonia shrugged and gave me the I don’t have a clue face.
I said, “You can come back to my place.”
Natasha, back from the loo, objected, using various excuses such as how tired she was and what a long day it had been. My eyes bugged out and I almost laughed.
Sonia got up from the bed up and said, “I’ll be back later,” and opened the door and we walked out, she pulled the door shut and clasped my hand, kind of dragging me out.
Half a moment later, I turned the key to my room and we walked in. Sonia flipped on the light. In front of the floor-length extra-wide mirror on the double closet doors was a towel and an assortment of sex toys, mirrors and my underwear. I had forgotten all about the remnants of my party from the previous night.
She walked over, studied the collection of objects, picked up a smeared hand mirror, and smiled at me. She put it down delicately.
I turned on the ambient lighting, a soft lamp and candles, as she poked around my space. Then she sat down on the couch and lit a joint, taking a couple of long drags and passing it to me. It was skunky and deep, full-bodied cannabis indica. Whatever type it was, it was the horny kind. I stood there looking at this gorgeous little woman in her white dress with her knees pulled up and a hint of her vulva peeking out of the folds. I leaned in and smelled behind her ear, delighting in her sweaty perfumed scent.
Then she guided me over to the bed and started undressing me, her wild blue eyes piercing into me with need and want.
She kissed me assertively, sucking my lips and tongue into her mouth. I sighed and relaxed deeply and tasted her, and smelled her mouth eagerly, lavishing in her human fruit as I caressed her hips. I wanted one experience, which was to open her thighs and taste the nectar that was welling up inside her.
I had every intention of doing so.
I kissed her neck and her shoulder and the place between her breasts, but she pushed me back and guided me to lay back and relax. She had the same intention, only for me. A few more garments on the floor and I was naked. She was still wearing her slinky dress. I wanted to let go and had no reason not to. There was no need to rush. She was going for the full experience, which currently involved taking my cock deep into her mouth and then down her throat.
I am not the blowjob type. I’m not usually interested, but if my partner is, then I’m right there. But this was not a blowjob: it was full on mouth fucking, and I moaned in deep harmony with her offering, and this she seemed to be loving, wanting, wanting to give. Then she stopped, and knelt up on the bed. She wanted to be naked.
She pulled her red dress over her head and tossed it aside. I’d been noticing those full breasts swaying braless under the fabric of her outfit and was soaking in the visual beauty of seeing her naked nipples and their large, creamy areolae surrounding her adorable nipples.
She resumed sucking me, subduing me with the unusually delightful feeling as I watched her face swallow me, her thumbs clasped around the base of my cock.
Secretly, I was being patient.
I needed to smell her cunt. I was beyond the point of desire. This was bare, urgent necessity.
The entirety of my instinctual nature was attuned to this one biological focus. Her luscious, curvy little ass was in the air pointed away from me. I wanted to see her vulva protrude from behind her, and lean in and take a deep breath through my nose and feel her, and let her wash my brain.
I tried to shift our positions so I could get a little closer to doing so. She avoided me.
Then I tried to slip around her, but she stopped me.
You can’t, she whispered loudly.
Why? I whispered back. I had never been turned down for cunnilingus. I had no idea what the answer would be.
— I’m married.
I laughed out loud — by which mean loudly.
— What do you mean married?
— Immigration married.
Suddenly I understood: some lucky someone got to marry her, give her citizenship, and fuck her. It occurred to me that he drove a red sick-shift Jaguar.
I said:
— I want to lick you. I have to smell you. I must fuck you!
— Well you can’t. Just relax.
— Arrrrrrrgh!!!!
She laughed.
— Just a little taste.
I have hardly ever had this request refused.
— No.
— Just a little sniff.
She paused, and I thought she might say yes.
Who pleads to smell a woman’s pussy? She was right there naked. I was not asking for much.
— No!
I was familiar with her logic: you can’t touch me, you can’t taste me, but I can suck you and that’s not cheating.
I’ve noticed that married women often have this thing, this policy or exception. It at least got me this close to her. I could look at her hips and crave and dream, and I did. Then she sucked me into her mouth and throat in the singular gesture of I’m going to drink your cum. We were not that different.
She pushed my legs up and started to tease around my asshole with her hot tongue. Stunned into orbit by the physical pleasure and the emotional contact, I opened my eyes to make sure it was really happening. Her dark hair cascaded around my ass. She circled around and plunged into me. I gasped, and then moaned. I clasped her hand and she wove her fingers into mine.
Then she slipped a finger up my slick ass and resumed sucking me as she pressed on my prostate. She knew what she was doing. She knew what she wanted, or rather, in that moment, what I needed.
Suddenly I relaxed and gave into what she was making inevitable. Then all at once she stopped. She sat up, and I looked at her. She spread her legs wide for a moment to give me a peek of what I wanted so desperately, exposing her vulva, stretching it wide with her fingers, and looking deep into my eyes.
And then went back to sucking me.
I was about to go insane with desire and I think this was her plan; I was going to cum and cum hard, and she wanted to drink up my desire for her as I let it out — so the more the better.
I didn’t choose to orgasm. Rather, the ejaculation started to fill me up. First it seemed like I had a warm bubble of liquid inside me, which then expanded and grew and stretched and I knew it was about to burst and fill me up. Then I was convulsing. My entire body and all my emotions had become my ejaculation.
I moaned to her, and loudly.
I looked at her and her eyes were wide and she gazed at me and we held eye contact as the first waves of my orgasm crashed over us.
My body gave way to one purpose, which was producing semen in climactic waves of surrender to existence. I moaned right into her eyes as she gulped me and then I went blotto, blank to black and crashed my head into the soft pillows behind me and thrust my cock deeper into her mouth, which she accepted joyfully, grunting as she swallowed.
After a few moments she slipped me out of her mouth and kissed me. Her lips and tongue were sticky with my seed though she had swallowed most of it. I could taste myself in her mouth and I sucked in whatever liquid I could get from her. Even her spit would do. We kissed languidly for a while. She was generous and I held her and smelled her as our tongues danced.
Then she drew back, collected her belongings and walked out of my room naked, onto the open balcony corridor, past my window and to Natasha’s room.
The next day I was out on the beach. About 30 feet behind me, I saw a group of people waking past. Sonia was one of them, holding the hand of an older guy. She glanced at me but did not hold my gaze.
