I.
Ricky shivered in the chill of autumn as he pulled a sweater tighter around his collar. It was his first autumn in New York and he'd never felt anything like it. "Wait until winter," the man at the newsstand had said that morning. Ricky didn't even want to think about it. He'd spent the first twenty years of his life in a climate that had never been colder than 75 degrees. 50 degrees was more foreign to him than English was.
He trotted up the stairs of the brownstone, up to the apartment he shared with Lucy, a newly purchased carton of cigarettes under one arm. The inside of the house wasn't much warmer than the outside, he thought, scowling to himself and hoping that Fred Mertz wasn't the type to keep them freezing all winter.
When Ricky walked through the door to the apartment, he heard Lucy moving about in the kitchen.
"Lucy, I'm home!"
Lucy walked quickly out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. "Where did you go?"
"To the corner, to buy some cigarettes," he responded, placing the carton on the mantle. He raised his eyebrows when he turned to look at his wife in a light blouse with short sleeves. "Aren't you cold?!"
She smiled. "It isn't that cold, Ricky, and the sun is out. I was just going to ask you if you felt a little too warm in that sweater!"
Ricky shook his head, crossing his arms. "I'm freezin'!"
Lucy sat on the couch, giggling. "Wait until winter!"
Ricky's eyes widened. "That's the second time I hear that today! I'm startin' to think I should go back to Cuba!"
Lucy propped herself up on her knees and pouted playfully. "What about me?"
Ricky smiled. "I'll take you with me, I'll work on the sugar plantation."
"Oh, sure, your favorite thing."
"Well…it least it would be warm."
Lucy smirked and headed back for the kitchen. "Dinner's almost ready."
II.
That night, the temperature dipped down to under 40 degrees. The cold shocked Ricky's system as he walked out of the club, clutching an overcoat tightly around himself. Even the inside of the taxi was cold and he anticipated the warmth of his and Lucy's bed even more than usual.
The taxi driver glanced at Ricky through the rear view mirror, noticing that he seemed very cold.
"You want I should turn the heater up, mister?"
"No, thank you, it's alright. We're almost there."
"Alright, suit yerself." The driver shrugged before glancing back again while stopped at a traffic light. "Where you from, mister? You ain't sound like you from around here."
Ricky chuckled. "That's true, yeah. I'm from Cuba."
"Cuba! That's one o' them Spanish islands, ain't it?"
Ricky gazed out the window as they began moving again. "Yes. Yes, it's an island and we speak Spanish." He smiled quietly to himself. "I moved here in the spring, so this is my first time in cold weather."
The driver laughed heartily as he pulled up in front of the brownstone. "Mister, wait 'til the winter!"
Ricky sighed, handing the driver his fare and a tip. "I can hardly wait, yeah."
"Good night, mac," the driver called out before Ricky shut the door closed and started up the stairs.
III.
As usual for this time of night, the apartment house was quiet, although Ricky did catch the soft occasional clang of the old heating pipes when a bit of warm air would pass through them. At least there was some heat, Ricky thought as he stuck his key quietly in the door of the apartment.
The apartment was dark, and as he always did, he peered down the hall to the bedroom door. The presence or absence of the streak of lamp light usually alerted him to whether his wife was waiting up for him or not. Noting the seemingly dark bedroom, Ricky draped his coat over a chair and tugged at his bow tie as he walked quietly up to the door.
He opened the door quietly and his eyes scanned the room, becoming accustomed to the dim light coming from the street lamps outside the window. He saw Lucy's sleeping figure in the bed, a soft blanket covering her up to the shoulders.
As Ricky softly hung his shirt and pants on a nearby chair, Lucy stirred.
"Ricky?"
"Yes, darlin', I'm here."
Lucy smiled as Ricky slipped under the blanket with her. "Still cold?"
"It got colder!" Ricky exclaimed in apparent disbelief.
Lucy giggled. "Well…"
"I know, I know. Wait 'til winter. I heard."
She nuzzled up against Ricky's bare chest and closed her eyes. "Is the weather in Cuba really that warm ALL the time?"
Ricky began to relax, his arms reaching around her waist as he enjoyed, for the first time that day, the feeling of warmth against his skin. "Yes. The summer is very hot. All you wanna do is get outta the sun. Then the winter comes and it's like the spring is here."
Lucy placed a hand on Ricky's side and peeked up at the outline of his face in the dark. The sound of his voice as he described Cuba was almost all she needed to imagine his tropical birthplace.
"Tell me again what your days were like before you came here."
Ricky smiled, the cold chills he had been feeling were melting away, warmed by a combination of his memories of Cuba and the sweetness of his wife's bare skin and soft breath against his body. "I always took a walk in the mornin'. I'd grab the plantains from the trees in the yard an' my mother would be in the house grinding the corn for tortillas. She'd fry the plantains-"
"Those are bananas?"
"They're like bananas. Not exactly the same." Ricky paused to kiss Lucy's forehead, thinking that she was sweet and wonderful to be interested in his former way of life. "Mama would fry them and I used to like to wrap a tortilla around it and eat it on the way to work." He chuckled softly, remembering. "She used to think that was strange. It wasn't the way she wanted me to eat, but I din't have time to sit."
Lucy smiled against Ricky's chest. "And then what?"
"And then…me an' about twenty other guys from the farm areas went out to the city, to Havana. We went to the market and we cleaned the poultry cages. For that, I made just enough money to help Mama. And at night, I sang. And that money is how I came here."
Lucy's fingers crept up to touch Ricky's black waves and he closed his eyes, her touch giving him shivers of a different kind.
"I'll bet you wish it was warmer here, then. I'm sorry."
Ricky smiled, his hand brushing the side of her breast. "The cold is new. But I'll get used to it."
"Where did you learn English?"
Ricky opened his eyes slowly and laughed. "Why? You makin' fun of me again?"
Lucy giggled. "No, I'm just curious, you never told me."
"In high school. I din't have to learn it. In fact, not too many kids did. Only the very rich families were learnin' English. But Mama knew I would leave the island. She said that she wouldn't lemme go unless I was prepared. So she made me learn. I'm glad she did."
Ricky looked down at his wife, unable to see much of her face in the dark, except for the sparkle of her blue eyes, caught by the lamplight from outside. He remembered how his mother had paid a good deal of what little money they had so he could learn English from that tutor. It was an act that set him apart from his brothers and sisters. His mother had known that her children, for the most part, would grow into the normal occupations of their town; her sons working on plantations, her daughters marrying the other men who worked the same fields. But Enrique would not be satisfied with that. And in him, she saw the talent that she had put aside to marry his father and raise their family. But she was a smart woman. Dreams alone wouldn't get him where he wanted to be. So she educated him the best she could.
As he lay next to the woman he married, in a city and a country he was still learning about, and on the cusp of the success that he had dreamed of during those morning walks, he silently thanked his mother for her sacrifices, hoping that in some cosmic way, his thanks would make their way to her that night.
"Lucy…" Ricky lowered himself to his wife, his breath caressing her lips. "I love you."
Lucy's hand gently stroked his cheek. "I love you, too." Their lips met gently as Ricky moved on top of her. He sighed softly as her thighs rested on the sides of his hips, her warm creamy skin aiding in the rise of his temperature.
She drew in a sharp breath as he lowered his head, his lips wrapping around one of her taught nipples, his mouth hot against her flesh.
Ricky's teeth left a playful bite on her skin as he felt her fingers running along his sides and his back. He cupped his hands around her breasts, eliciting a soft cry from her lips. The moist heat from between her parted thighs spurred his rising passion as he lowered a hand to stoke her fire. Lucy tossed her head to the side as he gently stroked her, his lips falling to the curve of her neck.
The chill of that day now only a distant memory, Ricky shook free of the blanket that had been draped over them, seeking relief for the beads of sweat that were starting to form for both of them. "Toda la ciudad se puede congelar en un caso de hielo, pero tu me puede calendar mas que el sol cubano mas caliente."
His words as powerful as his hands, Lucy bit her lip and groaned, straining her hips, searching for him to enter her. Ricky's hands gripped her hips as he slipped into her. He moved with slow, rhythmic thrusts as she held his shoulders, moving upward to meet him with each one.
Their skin dampened with sweat as they continued to move together, Ricky's hands moving over her stomach and again grasping her breasts. Lucy cried out as she approached her peak and Ricky slowed his pace again, opting for harder movements which filled her completely.
His body stiffened as she raised her knees to allow him to enter her as fully as physically possible. The flood of his hot eruption filled her and she arched her back in the final gasps of her orgasm.
Ricky fell against her, his fingers twisting immediately through her red curls as he kissed her, his tongue swirling around the inside of her cheeks. Lucy was dizzy in the afterglow of their passion.
"It's HOT in here," she said breathlessly when his lips finally released her.
"Wait 'til the winter," Ricky laughed.