The Schoolgirl and the Itchy Flea novel · Chapter 1 of 12
Chapter 1: The Flea
"Padrino, help me quick, a flea got under my skirt. It itches so bad!"
I walked into his kitchen without knocking, the dog leash wrapped around my wrist and my hand already inside my skirt.
Rolando Medina looked up from his newspaper.
He was sitting at the table in his shirtsleeves, wearing reading glasses and holding a cup of coffee.
He took off his glasses slowly.
"What happened, Ariadna?"
"I took the dog for a walk in the plaza. There were a lot of fleas in the grass. And one got in and bit me."
"Where?"
I stayed quiet a second too long.
"Here," I said, and pointed very high up on my thigh.
My padrino closed the newspaper.
I'm twenty-two years old and in my last year of nursing school at San Agustín.
Rolando Medina is my dad's oldest friend—my dad died seven years ago—and he held me at the baptismal font when I didn't even know how to cry yet.
I'd seen him exactly four times in my life.
Once at a wedding, once at a funeral, and twice at Christmas since he came back from the mines in Chile and Canada a year ago.
He's forty-seven, with short gray hair, the biggest hands I've ever seen on a man, and a voice that sinks right into my spine.
He lives in the sillar stone house across the street, the one with the rooftop terrace.
I've liked him since that Christmas, when he handed me a piece of panettone without looking at me and I felt my hand burn.
I hadn't told anyone.
"Sit on the table," he said.
"On the table?"
"Where I can see you."
I set the dog on the floor.
I climbed onto the kitchen counter, a long slab of dark wood, and sat with my legs dangling.
Rolando set down his cup and stood up.
He went to the drawer, took out a pair of tweezers and a small flashlight, and stood in front of me.
He smelled like shaving soap and wood.
"Lift your skirt."
"Here?"
"If you want me to get the flea out, yes."
I lifted my skirt to mid-thigh.
"Higher."
Higher.
He crouched down level with my knees and turned on the flashlight.
His forehead was very close to my skin.
I felt his warm breath on the inside of my thigh.
"There's a red mark here," he said, his voice a little lower. "It's a bite."
"It hurts."
"Does it hurt or itch?"
"It itches."
"That's worse."
He ran the pad of his thumb over the bite, barely grazing it.
A shiver ran through me from my feet to my scalp.
Rolando stayed still.
Then, with a calm that seemed to cost him, he searched with the tweezers among the fine hairs of my leg and pulled out something tiny and dark.
The flea.
It was alive, and it squirmed.
He crushed it with his fingernails against the marble countertop.
"Done."
"Thanks, padrino."
"You're welcome."
He didn't move.
He stayed there, on his knees, inches from me, the flashlight off in one hand.
"Does it still itch?"
I could have said no.
I could have pulled my skirt down, thanked him, and walked out the door.
But I'd had an itch for two months that had nothing to do with fleas.
"Yeah, it still itches."
"Where?"
"Higher up."
His eyes traveled up to mine.
They were dark, with fine wrinkles at the corners, and they looked at me as if seeing me for the first time.
"Ariadna."
"Yes?"
"There's no more flea."
"I know."
The silence that followed was the longest of my life.
The dog sighed under the table.
The wall clock ticked once.
"I'm not going to ask if you're sure," Rolando said, very low. "I'm going to ask if you know."
I breathed.
"I know I'm twenty-two. I know you're my padrino and my dad was your friend. I know there's no flea." I swallowed. "And I know I've liked you since Christmas, and that I came to this house on purpose."
Rolando closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them, I saw that calm wasn't enough for him anymore.
"Me too," he said.
"What?"
"Since Christmas."
He set down the tweezers.
He set down the flashlight.
He placed both hands open on my knees.
"Tell me where it itches, good girl."
My whole face burned.
I took one of his hands and guided it up my thigh, slowly, to the edge of my thong.
"Here."
His thumb brushed the lace, and I let out a moan I couldn't hold back.
"My God," he whispered.
"Padrino..."
"If you tell me to stop, I'll stop."
"Don't stop."
His fingers pushed my thong aside.
He touched me.
It was a long, flat stroke with the pads of two fingers, from bottom to top.
I grabbed the edge of the counter with both hands.
I was so wet it embarrassed me, and it drew a low, hoarse sound from him, from deep in his chest.
"Look what you had hidden," he murmured.
"It's your fault."
"Mine."
"Yours."
He found my clit with the tip of his thumb and circled it, slow, with firm pressure.
I threw my head back.
With his other hand he held the back of my neck.
"Look at me."
I looked at him.
He was looking at my face, inches away, while he touched me, and he didn't look away for a single second.
He slid one finger in.
Then two.
He curved them upward, right where I couldn't think anymore.
"More," I begged.
"That's it. Tell me."
"Harder, padrino."
He pushed them in to the knuckles, with a steady rhythm, while his thumb kept circling my clit.
The counter was shaking.
I was moaning without a care, my voice hoarse, not giving a damn about the neighbors.
"I'm gonna... I can't..."
"You can. Do it."
"Padrino..."
"Good girl. Do it for me."
I came with a cry, squeezing his fingers, my knees open and my feet dangling.
He didn't stop until I stopped trembling.
When he pulled his hand out, it was wet up to the wrist, and he looked at it for a moment as if he couldn't believe what had just happened.
My cell phone vibrated on the counter.
I picked it up with a shaky hand.
It was a message from Jairo, my ex.
"I saw you go into your padrino's house. What are you doing there so long?"
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