Passion desire Lust

When I walked up to the luggage carousel, the bags were already coming out and I was lucky, my bag was the fifth to appear. The customs and passport officers hardly gave me a look when I walked up to them and they waved me by.

When I walked out into the arrival hall an avalanche of sounds met me: children screaming or crying, adults crying and hugging family members who had just arrived, drivers calling out names of the people they were picking up, and a PA system making an announcement. My ears were shocked by all these sounds.

Gretchen had told me I would be met at the airport and I looked around for someone with my name written on a sign. When I saw it, I walked up to the short black man holding it and said, “I am Horst Shubert.”

“Ah, Mr. Shubert, welcome to Panama. Let me take your bag.”

I followed him outside and that’s when the next shock came; the heat. It was like walking into a sauna and I immediately began to sweat profusely and my shirt stuck to my body under my suit jacket. It felt like I was melting.

I followed the driver across a road and a bus almost hit us while a taxi stopped so hard the tires squealed. When we reached a large Mercedes-Benz, the driver opened the back door and then the trunk where he deposited my suitcase.

The air conditioner was like velvet on my face and I sighed with pleasure. That short walk had almost made me faint.

“My name is Carlos, and I will be your driver during your stay. Is this your first time in Panama?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Then you have to see the canal, the zoo, the Casco Viejo, and try our Corvina…”

I zoned out and didn’t hear all the other things he rattled off worth seeing or trying. We had driven up onto a highway and I looked out of the windows. Both sides were covered in green trees, bushes, and palm trees. I had never seen so many shades of green in my life.

The traffic was horrendous but Carlos was a good driver. When we reached a long bridge I could see the city skyline at the end of it. It reminded me of Miami, not that I had ever been there but I had seen it on a TV series. To the left was the Pacific Ocean and, from the bridge, I could see the ships waiting to go through the canal.

The drive took another twenty minutes and when Carlos stopped outside a skyscraper, he said, “This is your hotel. Check in, have a shower, and I will see you in an hour to take you to our offices.”

I checked my watch, it was just after three in the afternoon, and all I wanted to do was to take a nap. The jet lag was killing me.

“Sure, I’ll see you in an hour.”

The hotel lobby was a beauty in marble and chrome. I walked to the reception desk where two girls and a man stood with big smiles on their faces. The girls were so different I had to stop and look at them. Could they be from the same country? The one to the left was blonde with blue eyes and her light cinnamon colored skin looked like gold. The other had skin like Mocha and had black long hair and large brown eyes. The man looked Indian with high cheekbones and sloped eyes. Three different cultures at one reception desk. Amazing, I thought and walked up to the blonde girl.

“Hi, the name is Horst Shuman,” I said and looked down at her.

“Welcome to Panama. Can I have your passport please?”

The check in procedure was a short affair that ended with her telling me what time breakfast was served and where the casino was located.

I took one of six elevators up to my room on the fifteenth floor. When I stepped into my room, I dropped my bag – and my jaw: I could see the entire city before me. I walked further in and realized it was a suite. It was bigger than my apartment with a bedroom that held a king-size bed, a walk-in closet, and a bathroom. The living room had two sitting areas, a large LED TV, a minibar, and a coffee maker on a table.

After hanging up my clothes, I took a quick shower and shaved. I felt better and dressed in a lighter suit than the one I’d traveled in. I grabbed my laptop and headed to the elevators.

Carlos was waiting outside and opened the car door with a smile. The drive to the offices was short and, within ten minutes, he dropped me off outside another skyscraper with a guard outside. He told me to take the elevator to the twentieth floor and he would be up after he had parked the car.

I had to sign in at a desk where a pretty woman, probably in her thirties, smiled at me, showing perfect white teeth. Her uniform blouse could hardly contain her large boobs and the buttons threatened to burst any minute. She pointed to a bank of elevators and, when I stepped in, I was joined by two women and a man. All of them were dressed in what I presumed was a uniform. The women had white blouses under dark gray jackets and wore skirts in the same color. The man had a white shirt, a blue tie, and a jacket in dark red. Back home, businesses never made you wear a uniform, you dressed as you liked, but professional.

I found the offices I was looking for and stepped through double glass doors into a small lobby. To my left were a couch and a low table that held a few magazines. In front of me was a reception desk where a black girl sat. I stepped forward and was about to open my mouth to state my name when she said, “Welcome, Mr. Shubert. Mr. Jimenez is waiting for you.”Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

I didn’t speak but stared at her. I had never seen anyone so beautiful. She had long, slightly wavy black hair, and her eyes were green. Even though her skin was black as the night her facial features could have been European, a thin nose, beautifully curved full lips, and a long neck reminded me of sculptures I had seen of Nefertiti in a museum. When she stood, I noticed she was quite short. She had to tilt her neck when she spoke to me.

“This way, please.”

She turned around and when I saw her ass, I had to swallow. Even though she wore a similar uniform to the women in the elevator, her jacket was black instead of gray and so was her knee-length skirt. I could see a perfectly firm round ass.

We walked through a large office space where several people were working on computers and they all looked up, following me with their eyes. I guess they had never seen such a tall, white man before. I figured the receptionist, who hadn’t given me her name, was no more than five-feet-one. I noticed that all the other workers wore the same uniform as she. The men had white shirts and green ties under their jackets, and black pants.

She stopped at a door and knocked.

“Yes?”

“It’s Leila; I am here with Mr. Shubert.”

Now I knew her name.

“Come in,” said the voice from behind the door.

When she opened it and stepped aside, I walked into the largest office I had ever seen. The view was over the ocean and the ships. Behind a large glass desk sat a man with thick black hair, an expensive-looking dark blue suit, and he had a big watch on his right wrist. When he stood, I saw that he was heavy and had a beer belly that hung down over his belt. He came around the desk and, when I stuck out my hand to shake his, he ignored it and gave me a bear hug instead.

I am not fond of people inside my personal space so I tried to take a step back but it was impossible. He smelt of heavy aftershave and something else that took me a few seconds to recognize. It was whiskey.

“Welcome to Panama, I am so glad to meet the man behind the numbers. Please, sit, sit.”

He nodded to Leila that she could leave and then pulled out one of the two heavy leather chairs that stood in front of his desk. When he was seated on his side he said, “Can I offer you a drink or a cigar?”

“No thank you, I don’t smoke.”

“Oh, I see. Anyway, I am so glad you are here. My name as you know is Jorge Jimenez and I and my brother own this company. Apart from your products we also import from Asia and North America, those are cheaper brands, but they sell well in the poorer parts of the country.”

While he spoke, he picked up a box of cigars and took one out. With a gold cutter, he cut the tip and then lit it. The heavy smoke from the cigar made my nose itch and I almost sneezed.

After a few puffs, he continued, “I have made an agenda for us. Tonight we will have dinner. Sadly, my brother can’t join us, he is in Miami. Then we go for a few drinks, and tomorrow I will go with you to look at our stores in the city. In the afternoon you can work from here. I have arranged for an office down the hall which you can use.”

After giving me some documents, he said he had another meeting and called Leila to arrange for Carlos to take me back to my hotel. While I waited for Carlos in the reception area, I couldn’t help staring at Leila.

She must have felt my gaze on her because she looked up and smiled. “Can I help you with something?”

“No, no, I am fine. It’s just that your eyes… well, they are so green. May I ask, do you wear contact lenses?”

She laughed. It was a bubbly sound that made me smile. “No, they are from my grandfather. He was Spanish and had green eyes. Then he married my grandmother who was of Afro-Antillean descent. I guess the green stayed in the DNA and I got these eyes.”

“Well, they are very beautiful,” I said to my surprise. I usually didn’t comment on a woman’s looks the first time I met them.

“Well, thank you, Mr. Shubert.”

“Call me Horst.”

At that moment, Carlos showed up and we walked to the elevators. I kept looking at Leila through the glass doors while we waited and Carlos saw it.

“Very pretty, isn’t she?”

“What? Yes, she is.” I felt myself blush.

“Maybe you should ask her out?”

“No, I can’t, she works here, and it wouldn’t be politically correct.”

Carlos laughed. “You are not in Germany anymore, and things are different in Panama. Are you going to dinner and drinks with Mr. Jimenez tonight?”

The elevator arrived and I said, “Yes, I am.”