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After I graduated high school, I did not see Joan for more than ten years. College was a bit of a mess but in the end, I found my calling being an archaeologist. I went on trips to the Badlands in South Dakota, L’Anse aux Meadows in New Foundland, and my proudest moment was being part of the team that uncovered new graves around Stonehenge. My passion for travel and discovery meant that it was difficult to keep a long-term relationship with someone.

Living with a fetish like mine doesn’t make things easy either. You’d think a woman would love a guy who gets off on hearing them belch and fart. They could be comfortable and be themselves around you. But things always got awkward when it came to sex. I much preferred to jack off watching my significant other fart and burp than to actually engage in penetrative sex. Maybe I masturbated way too much in my youth way too early. I don’t know. You can see how that can become a problem when trying to have a relationship with someone.

Needless to say, I was still a “virgin” by the time I became 32.

Now, let me preface this wild coincidence with a brief history of my family. We had a connection to Miami because my paternal grandmother was Colombian. The other half of my family hails from a mix of white cultures like Irish and German and whatknot. But there was a little Latino in me. I didn’t get to learn Spanish at home, so that’s why I took Spanish in the first place in high school. My grandmother Martha came over with very little on her back when Colombia was a very dangerous place to live in. Miami was always the hotspot for Latinos to emigrate to. You have Cubans, Colombians, Puerto Ricans, Costa Ricans, Argentinians, virtually everyone who spoke Spanish was there. If you have never been to Miami, it’s like going to LA but everyone is Spanish. And it’s a lot less smelly. If you haven’t been to LA, then Miami virtually feels like a different country. There are entire neighborhoods you can drive by built in adobe architecture.

Back before I graduated high school, me, my parents, and my aunt and uncle would visit my grandparents down in Miami once a year. Friends kept thinking I would party hard whenever I went to Miami. In reality, we just stuck with family and helped around the house as my grandparents got older. I always wished I could go out and do “grown-up things” in downtown Miami. Alas, my mother kept saying it wasn’t a “proper” place for me.

Family history isn’t without drama though. My uncle said one thing and my dad took his side and next thing you know my grandparents were alienated and I hadn’t seen them since I was a senior in high school. My grandfather Marco passed away since then. Martha eventually moved into an assisted living facility in West Palm Beach, and last I heard she was still there.

Fast-forward to 2022. A couple years after the brunt of the pandemic, I was on spring break from my PhD in archaeology. I was a full-grown adult now at 32. I lived alone and could do whatever I wanted. Go wherever I wanted! It’s strange how a simple pleasure like that can lead you in a totally different direction in life. So, I decided to go to Florida. Fuck my parents. It was high time I visited my grandmother before she passed. She was pushing 90, so it was a very real possibility. I split my vacation between West Palm Beach and Miami. Because my flight was to Miami Airport, I planned to end my vacation in Miami. Upon arrival, I would rent a car and drive up to West Palm Beach to see my grandmother and stay in a nearby AirBnB. Then I would drive back down to another AirBnB in Miami. I’d finally get to see the sights and enjoy the nightlife that I wasn’t able to experience back when I was underage and tied to my family like a leash.

Because New Jersey has shit weather, I found myself stuck in Newark Airport waiting for a rainstorm to pass. My flight was delayed by thirty minutes…then an hour…then two…I started to realize that I was in trouble because the I would be driving way past midnight up to my AirBnB in West Palm Beach. The host gladly said I could arrive as late as I wanted to, and I figured I could catch up on sleep on the plane so I wouldn’t fall asleep while driving up.

I killed time at a Ruby Tuesday’s in the terminal, sitting alone in a corner booth looking at my phone.

A dog barked, and then I heard her voice.

“OH. MY. GAAAAWWWD!”

I looked up from my phone and nearly got whiplash from the flashback. Joan Braulio stood right in front of me with her arms wide and her face beaming. She was 50 years old by then, but you wouldn’t guess it aside from some obvious wrinkles in her face. She had aged gracefully. She still wore the same stylish clothes as back in the day. This time she had on a flowery maxi dress that really brought out her cleavage unlike any other time I had seen her. This was the first time I saw her outside of school, so she must have dressed more provocatively. That cleavage was everything I had anticipated and more back when I was a dumb horny teenager in her class. She looked so out of place there in Newark Airport, but in a good way. She had the most tropical look out of everyone in a sea of drab colors.

She owned a dog now, a cute little brown Cocker Spaniel named Stella, and she barked and yelped at me.

“LUCAS? LITTLE LUCAS? DO YOU REMEMBER ME?”

Of course I do. You were the hottest fucking teacher I ever knew, I wanted to say.

I got up and she embraced me. She smelled like roses. It occurred to me that this was the first time I hugged her. I held her maybe a little too tight but just for a split second.

“What are you doing here?” she half-screamed, ignoring all the people staring at us. She went ahead and sat down in front of me. My heart was racing because I still couldn’t believe this was happening.

“I’m going to Miami,” I said.

“No way! So am I! Yours was delayed too? American Airlines? We’re on the same flight!”

Since we were going to be there for a while, we ordered food and caught up on everything in the past decade and a half. Who knew I would run into her through our mutual Latino connections? I hadn’t known that Joan lived in Miami after she left Puerto Rico. She met her husband there, who then took her up to New York/New Jersey for his job. Then that was how she became a teacher for my school. Because it was spring break for most schools, Joan wanted to go back to her second home in Miami to get away from the dreary northern weather. Funny how that worked out.

I wondered why Morgan wasn’t with her. She did still reference him and how they had two kids together, Erica and Jason. But she didn’t mention why he wasn’t there with her going to Miami. Then again, rich people did things separately all the time. They were much more independent because they could afford to be.

Joan was very impressed with what I had been doing. I got to show off some pictures of me on digs, and she congratulated on my success.

“I can’t imagine doing that,” she said. “I would break everything. I’m so clumsy!”

“Ah, no you’re not.”

It had been an hour and a half since we ran into each other, and she was on her third rum and coke. She then realized that I was staring, and she giggled, saying, “Ay, rough week. I need to take the edge off.”

Stella yelped and she shushed her and brought her up on the seat. She then put her hand to her mouth as she stifled a belch that was still audible.

“Oof! Perdoname.”

I fidgeted in my seat. The boner was creeping up. You couldn’t imagine how horny I was getting just sitting there. I wanted to bring up that time she belched out loud at the school dance. That would have been weird though. But it was nagging at me.

At around 9:00 PM, they finally said we could board the plane. The storm had passed, and the skies were clear. I had a long trip ahead of me, well past midnight.

While we were waiting, Joan casually mentioned that a friend was originally going to pick her up when she arrived at Miami, but because of how late we were going to be there she would instead order an Uber. I mentioned how I had a long drive ahead of me after I checked out my rental car.

“Wait, you’re DRIVING up to West Palm Beach when we get there?” she exclaimed.

“Yeah,” I said, shrugging.

“Oh, no, no, no, Lucas. That’s too late. Are you sure about that? The Florida turnpike is DESOLATE in the middle of the night. You could fall asleep.”

“I mean, I’ve driven late before.”

We walked up the line and continued waiting. Joan bit her lip, and then said, “You could come stay with me!”

I stared at her for a good ten seconds before replying. I wanted to see if she was joking, but she was dead serious.

“Lucas?”

“I-I mean. If. If that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah!” She was very enthusiastic about it, like two bros hanging out. “It’ll be fun! Oh, you’ll love Sunny Isles. Have you been?”

“No, actually.” Sunny Isles was still in Miami-Dade County, but a few minutes away from the real Miami, but it was still “practically Miami” under another name.

We were getting closer to the gate, and my heart was thumping and thumping, my blood racing and my dick wanting to literally skyrocket through my pants. I was both nervous and excited at the same time, making me just want to lie down and throw up.

“Oh, and you’re renting a car, right? That means I can just ride with you anyway!”

“Heh. Yeah.”

She looked at her ticket before we approached the clerk. She asked where I was sitting, and I was a few rows away from her. She grimaced and said, “Oh well. Sucks that we have to sit separately. Bueno. See you on the ground!”

I couldn’t even imagine sitting next to her on the plane. I would lose myself. But after we parted ways getting on the plane, I still had a view of her from the opposite row. She looked at me a couple times and smiled as she put away her carry-on and placed Stella on her lap. She had the aisle seat in her row while I had the window seat in mine.

We glanced at each other a couple more times, before an older woman blocked my view. She was the person who was going to sit next to me. I looked away and grimaced. The third person in the aisle seat was some nondescript guy. I was about to read when the woman next to me started speaking on the phone to her daughter in Spanish. She was saying how she got on the plane and was about to leave and was going to call her when she got back home, yada, yada, yada. We smiled at each other briefly, and an idea popped into my mind, though I was very nervous to try. I couldn’t focus on reading anymore because the idea kept nagging inside of me to just do it.

So I went for it.

I turned to her and asked, “Perdoname, senora. ¿Puedes cambiar de asientos con mi amiga?”

I hadn’t spoken Spanish since Joan’s classes, so uttering those words felt rusty as hell. She looked at me for a split second and I thought I said something really wrong, or maybe she was thinking, “Some gringo kid just started talking to me”. But then she smiled and said, “Ah, si. ¿Quien es tu amiga?”

I pointed out Joan. I got her attention and motioned that she could switch seats with the woman next to me. She beamed, and they switched.

Once Joan settled down next to me, with Stella on her lap, she said, “Oh, gracias Lucas. I’m so glad I could sit with someone I know.”

With a wry smile, I said, “You’d be proud of me. I used my Spanish to get her to switch seats.”

Joan laughed. “That’s what I like to hear! My years there were useful after all.”

I inched my legs away from hers. She adjusted her maxi dress, her hands dangerously close to mine. Airplane seats were always on the borderline of being too close for comfort. Her rosy scent surrounded her like a cloud, and it eased me like a magic spell.

“Well now,” she said, “this has been such a pleasant surprise. You know what we should do?”

I gulped. “W-what?”

“We should have you speak only in Spanish on the flight.”

“Oh.” I grimaced, not because I hated speaking Spanish but because I didn’t want to disappoint her with my lack of finesse. “Okay.”

She rested her hand on her chin and batted her eyes at me. “So, Lucas. ¿Tienes una novia?”

I completely blanked that she asked that question. She then thought I was gay given my slow response and added, “¿O un novio?”

I shook my head. “No, no. No tengo novia.”

“¿Porque?”

I shrugged innocently. “No tengo tiempo.”

She went “Ah!” distastefully and smacked my shoulder. “¿Si no ahora, cuando?”

I didn’t know what to say and just mumbled incoherently. People older than you always grill you about your love life. When Joan grilled me about it, I couldn’t help but think that she was flirting with me, but it had to have been my imagination. She gave me the spiel about me needing to find someone if I wanted intimacy. I wasn’t getting any older. She was right though. I was 32, and I still had a lot of inner desires that hadn’t been fully realized yet. Alas, I hadn’t found anyone who was truly okay with my fetishes.

“Miami tiene mucha gente para ti,” she said. “Tu puedes buscar alguna novia alli.”

I might. Miami was a big party place. I couldn’t wait to dive into its nightlife for the first time. Instead, all my youth there was spent stuck with family. I never got to see for myself the fun I could have.

After we took off, the stewardess stopped by with the food and drink cart. Joan openly waved at her and loudly requested two beers for us. She just went ahead an ordered me a drink without asking if I wanted one. She giggled and said, “La vida es corta. Hay que disfrutarla.”

The flight to Miami sitting with Joan was nothing short of sublime. The two of us talked the entire trip there. It had been a long time since I talked to someone so much in a short amount of time. Joan was basically a Gen Xer, but she was so cool with everything I talked about as a millennial. Well, mostly. She revealed that she hated her job. She was working in an all-girls Catholic high school, and the administration was the worst. Rumor got out that the most paid teacher was a guy who was just hired, despite not having a Master’s. He let the girls do whatever they wanted and was let off the hook while the other teachers who had been there for ages wrestled with trying to get their students to behave. The teachers who followed the rules and did their actual jobs were instead reprimanded, since the administration feared upsetting parents.

I asked her what her pay was, and she felt weird about it. I suggested that she should speak with her co-workers about it, because in reality people should talk about their pay to be transparent and confront their bosses. She kept saying it was “inappropriate”, and therein lied signs of the age gap between us. There were still some things she clung onto as being socially acceptable that we as millennials did away with. When we talked about her cousin getting married, she didn’t seem to get that women nowadays don’t always take on their husband’s last name entirely, and instead hyphenate.

I eventually coaxed her to say how much she made. A mere $48k. And she had been teaching for over twenty years.

“Tienes que hacer algo sobre esta,” I said.

She sighed and took a long swig of her gin and tonic. “Si. Yo se.”

Strange how she made so fucking little despite having years of teaching under her belt. She was one of the best I ever had, and I’m really not saying that because I was biased about her looks.

Joan then put a fist to her mouth as she let out a deep, rumbly belch. It seemed to overtake her, as her eyes widened when the gas escaped louder than she expected. She was so full of booze that I caught a whiff of the alcohol. She gasped and looked to the man next to her and said, “I’m so sorry!”

The man had been listening to music and just shrugged, though I could tell he looked annoyed at the fact that she had bothered him in the first place.

Joan turned to me and laughed quietly. She hissed, “I think I pissed him off. Oh well!”

She acted so young for her age. That always drew me towards her. She had the same exact attitude some fifteen years ago, not having changed one bit.

Towards the end of our flight, I realized the give-and-take from befriending an older person. They may not understand your ways but they can find something new in something old they didn’t know how to deal with. On the flip side, her traditional views of love and marriage had me really thinking about how I should just go for what I want in life. Always saying “I don’t have time” can be a cop-out. Sometimes older people are there to remind you what you really want in life and that you should go for it before it’s too late.

You never really land “on time” at an airport. There’s like a twenty-minute buffer for them to get their shit together on the runway and for everyone to really leave. When you rent a car, it can be a full hour before you’re really out of the airport. Or worse. Of course, the Hertz Rent-A-Car had to be held up by one jerk at the cashier, despite it being around 10:30 PM. By the time I finally got my car key it was pushing 11 PM.

Joan had waited for me patiently. She was on the phone for most of the time sitting across from the line. I thought it was my imagination, but she seemed as though all the fun had been drained out of her. She looked serious and deep in thought, speaking in a low voice. When I approached her, she hung up almost immediately and smiled at me.

Hertz let me pick from a group of fancy SUVs. She was pretty buzzed when we were looking for a good one. She hiccuped a coupled times and stagged a bit while pulling her luggage.

“Oooo. Get the BMW! You only live once and might as well, right?”

We hopped into the comfy interior. It was unlike any other SUV I drove. The price on this thing must have been insane, with all its knobs and gizmos and gadgets.

We weren’t yet out of the parking lot when Joan patted her chest and let out the most insane belch I ever heard in my entire life. I thought the one she ripped at that school dance so many years ago was the biggest, but this was twice as big. I actually jumped when she let it out. She let it run on and on without holding back, an obscenely grotesque belch that reeked of her lunch (a chicken caprese sandwich) and sounded like a frog trying to recite an opera.

“Jesus!” I said, a second after it ended.

Joan laughed uncontrollably for a good minute. She pulled herself together and said, “I’m sorry, Lucas. It just happens. Ay, Dios. When you reach a certain age it just…happens a lot.”

“No, no, it’s fine!”

I drove us through the winding traffic. She had put on the GPS to reach her condo. I drummed my fingers on the wheel waiting for a light to turn green. This was the perfect time to bring up the school dance. I was on the verge of uttering a syllable but kept holding back.

And then I just said it.

“Do you remember that time when you burped out loud in front of me at one of the school dances?”

Joan seemed lost. The alcohol was probably buzzing in her brain, slowing down her thinking, since she looked a little dazed. “What?”

“You don’t remember that? You were hiding behind the vending machine.”

Joan zoned out for a moment, staring at the road. I thought the worst – that it was a very weird thing to bring up and that she was somehow onto me about my fetish.

But then she lit up and cackled. She slapped her thigh and Stella barked. “OH MY GAAAAWD. YES. I REMEMBER THAT! HAHAHAHA!”

She calmed down again, and said, “Welllll, I was never ‘one of the girls’, like they said. Sabes?”

“Si,” I said, smiling.

Comments

eric ortiz

I'm liking this story so far. I'm curious to see where it goes.