After spending Christmas in Los Angeles, I was back in Havana in early January. The weather was perfect, averaging 80° in the day and 70° at night with very low humidity. According to a taxi driver, tourism is picking up and they’re seeing a lot more Americans now. Now even Hollywood celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Keaton adorn the walls of the Golfo Bar at the Hotel Nacional along with famous historical figures.
When I arrived at Manolo’s house my new friend “Kurt the pilot” was sitting on the balcony smoking a cigar. As promised, he had returned to the pussy capital of the Caribbean. He was happy to see me and called me “the producer” referring to my days as a filmmaker. He confessed that since his return, he was spending most of his time and money on Jineteras.
Once he got back to LA and crunched the numbers on cigar profits, he decided to dip his beak into the lucrative cigar smuggling business. His new suppliers were two guys from Old Havana named Juan Carlos and Hassan. He had just placed an order with these guys and since I had more experience in the cigar trade, he wanted me to tag along and check out the product.
Juan Carlos claimed he had a line on the best cigars in Havana. Everything original! I heard the same line from everyone I met on the street but still, I was curious and wanted to have a look. After a chicken sandwich and a beer at the Hotel Inglaterra, we made our way around the corner to Juan Carlos’ house.
At first impression, Juan Carlos seemed like an honest guy. He was flexible on the prices depending on how many boxes we ordered. He said with enough lead time, he could provide us with anything we wanted for $35 – 45 dollars a box. For another $20 he’ll supply us with an official government receipt or factura. I liked him so I thought I’d give him a try and gave him an order of (3) Romeo y Julieta Churchill Tubos and (2) Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 2.
Kurt ordered five boxes of Montecristo #4’s. They were a small corona-sized cigar, five inches long with a 42-ring gage. He said he could easily transport them in his flight bag without drawing attention from customs. As a test, I asked Juan Carlos to find me a box of Montecristo A’s. 9.5 inches long, 47 ring gage. I offered to pay $100 for them since their resale price in the States is $900.
After our business with Juan Carlos, we made our way back to Vedado. George said he’d be around the Nacional at 2 o’clock, so we planned to meet in the park on the Malecon. I arrived early and no sooner did I sit down when a tall back kid comes up and introduces himself in English as Santiago.
He was obviously a Jinetero. He asked me if I was looking for anything special. I told him to sit down and have a beer and we could talk about it. Santiago was a tall, handsome, nineteen years old who lived on 23rd street with his mother and sister. Luckily, he learned English from his grandfather. Now he hangs around the hotels looking for English-speaking tourists to sell in the Bolsa Negra.
I asked Santiago if he knew any girls who weren’t working the streets yet but were willing to hook up with a foreigner. He said there was a pretty girl living next door to his grandmother’s house that might be available. I gave him the 6-digit phone number of Manny’s house and headed home.
As I’m walking up Calle 21, I see two girls sitting on the wall in front of the house. I say hello as I’m passing them and they smile and both say “hola.” Looking closer, I notice that one of the girls appears sort of masculine. Immediately, I think, “Oh, this could be fun.”
I asked the girls if they were Amiga’s. They say “si” and I follow with “amiga, amgias?” Both girls laugh and nod their heads in unison. I raise my arms, Vamos! Fiesta! Instantly the girls jump up laughing and the next thing I know, they’re flagging down a taxi.
As I’m climbing in the back seat, I notice Melanis is watching the whole incident unfold from Manny’s balcony. She must have come over to surprise me and now she’s the one that got a surprise. I like her a lot, but once the party starts, all bets are off as far as my loyalty to a Cuban girl.
I had no idea where the fuck the girls were taking me. We rolled down La Rampa to the Malecon. After a short, five-minute drive we pulled up in front of an apartment building in Centro Habana. We get out and the girls knock on the tall door on the ground floor.
A middle-aged, dark-skinned guy opens the door and invites us inside. We’re standing in a large, circular living room area where several people sitting around watching a black & white TV. The man whispers to the girls and they turn to me and ask for $10; which I gladly hand over. The man stuffs the bill into his guayabera and points upstairs. I follow the girls up a spiral staircase to a room at the top.
We turn on the air conditioner and fall into bed. The room is sparsely furnished with just a bed, chair, and a table. We start kissing each other while slowly losing one article of clothing at a time. Like three snakes shedding their skins, we’re intertwined in sin, fused in naked lust
I watched with hungry eyes as the girls embraced and kissed each other as passionately as summer lovers. The man-girl held the petite fem-girl to the bed by her hair and started sucking on the fem-girls big, hard nipples, causing waves of pleasure to course through the soul of her submissive body.
Fully ignited with passion now, the man-girl rolled over on her back and the fem-girl buried her face deep between her legs. With slow rhythmic movements, she licked her lover’s pussy until man-girl grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her closer to her sex. She humped her pussy into fem-girls face until her orgasmic pleasure grew until she exploded in trembling ecstasy.
The whole scene made me as horny as fuck. As the man-girl thrashed with joy, I pulled the girls apart and fell in between them. The man-girl and I began to kiss deeply, while our subservient fem-girl started licking the shaft of my cock up and down until it was nice and wet. She wrapped her hand around my rod and began stroking my moist shaft as she sucked the head in and out of her pretty little mouth with each tug.
It was hard to catch my breath with man-girls tongue halfway down my throat. In what seemed like an eternal dream, I suddenly shot a hot load into Miss petite’s soft, wet mouth. She didn’t even flinch as her lips continued going up and down over my swollen head, draining my balls, causing every drop of love to pulsate out of my throbbing cock.
When she finally paused her mouth was full of milk. The kinky little cunt pressed her lips against man-girls mouth and as they kissed deeply, they shared my white, creamy cum between them. What they couldn’t swallow poured down their cheeks, dripping off their chins onto their tits and bellies. It was a gloriously sinful experience. Whether mortal or venial, I’ll never know.
The room was silent now, save for the hum of the air conditioner and the ceiling fans overhead making a rhythmic creaking sound with each wobbly rotation of its blades. After several minutes, we climbed out of bed and went into the one-man shower with a plastic drape hanging from a bar across the front.
We were happy as we washed each other, packed together in this tiny shower. We intuitively knew that we had shared something special. Although we only spoke with our eyes, we all understood the language of love. Three separate souls, becoming one, leaving behind cultures, language, religion, and politics. Maybe I had found the truth? Or maybe it was just a lie to help me realize the truth.
We toweled off, got dressed, and made our way out of the house and onto a dirty calle in Centro Habana. The spell was instantly broken by the sounds and smells of the busy street. The girls stood there, as straight-faced as poker players. I handed each girl a $20 bill. They kissed me on the cheek and walked in the direction of Old Havana. I paused for a moment, wondering if I would ever see their nameless faces again.
That evening I made my usual rounds through the neighborhood and then decided to make one last stop at the Monseigneur. As I approached the front steps, a man was walking up the stairs toward the street. He grew taller with each step until he towered over me. We both paused and looked at each other. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I immediately recognized his handsome features and upright posture. Momentarily, at a loss for words, I finally said, “Stevenson?” The big man smiled back at me and replied “Si.”
As fate would have it, I was standing in front of arguably, the greatest amateur boxer in history. The three-time Olympic heavyweight champion and Cuban national hero, Teofilo Stevenson. In 1972, Stevenson became Cuba’s first Olympic gold medalist when he won the heavyweight championship at the Munich Games.
I offered to buy him a drink so we went back into the restaurant and sat at the bar. To my surprise; Stevenson spoke very good English. He said his parents were Jamaican and English was his first language. He was very friendly and considering I knew a lot about his boxing career, he seemed to enjoy our conversation.
“I remember the ’72 Munich Games,” I said to Stevenson. “Duane Bobick of the United States was favored to win Gold but you knocked him out in the semi-finals”
“Yes, it was a big day for my country when I beat the American,” Stevenson said. “And a bigger day when I won a Gold Medal for Cuba.”
Bobick had defeated Stevenson at the 1971 Pan American Games the year before. But Stevenson had greatly improved between the Pan American Games and the Munich Olympics and was by then, virtually unbeatable. Teofilo Stevenson went on to win the 1976 and ‘80 Olympic gold as well. He never turned professional so no one really knows how great he could have been.
Our barman Efrain kept the drinks flowing. I was having Cubata’s (7-year rum and coke) and Stevenson drank short glasses of 3-year white rum. We sat there long past closing time chatting about everything from the current situation in Cuba to “the greatest” Muhammad Ali.
In 1979, boxing promoter Bob Arum arranged a series of exhibition bouts between Stevenson and Muhammad Ali. They were scheduled to spar in five cities beginning in Los Angeles and ending at Madison Square Garden. Muhammad Ali canceled the tour at the last minute. He was at the end of his long career and had nothing left to prove in the ring.
I asked Stevenson if he thought he could have beaten Ali. “At the time, I believed I could have won,” Stevenson said. “But now I know I could have only beaten him in my dreams.”
“Did you ever consider defecting to the States and turning professional? I asked.
“What happens to professional boxers in your country when they retire?” Stevenson asked. “Here in Cuba, champions are taken care of by the government for the rest of our lives.”
I couldn’t argue with him. Most ex-champions in the states end up broke or brain damaged or both. Many times, they end up destitute, living on the street. In Cuba, champions are treated as heroes forever.
Stevenson has been a faithful supporter of Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution all of his life. When you ask Cubans about the success of the revolution, they always highlight the same three virtues. Free education, free healthcare, and free housing. But if you examine them closer, they are not what they appear to be. The system never adapted to changing times and today they’re caught in a time warp that they can’t get out of.
It was almost 2 a.m. before we said our goodbyes. He gave me his home number and told me that I was invited to his house anytime I was in Havana. He would be a nice contact to have and maybe we could help each other in the future.
When I was leaving my house the next morning, a white Russian Moshvich was sitting in front of my building. A kid yelled out the window “Need a ride?” in very good English. He said his name is Enrique but they call him Harry. I told Harry I had ordered some cigars the day before in Old Havana and would like to go back and see how my order was coming along.
I offered him three dollars, there and back, so off we went. We drove up the Prado to the train station and then right past the Partagas Factory to the first street on the right. I knocked on Juan Carlos’ door and his mother answered. She said Juan Carlos was out on the street getting my cigars ready and he’d be back later in the evening.
On my way back to the car, I noticed a young girl standing next door at the entrance of an apartment building. She’s dressed all in black. New jeans and a nice black tank top. I walked over and introduced myself and she said her name was Yuneisy. She is a very petite young girl with big brown, almond-shaped eyes. I asked her if she wanted to go for ice cream but she said no, she was waiting for her sister
I told her that Juan Carlos was my amigo and I would be back tomorrow to see him. When I arrived at Manny’s he told me that Melanis had come by to see me and was waiting at the cafeteria. She was sitting at the counter when I walked in and looked very pretty in nice new jeans, white top and red lipstick. I figured she probably doesn’t get out to restaurants very often so I invited her to have lunch with me at Dos Gardenias.
No sooner do we hit La Rampa and a guy yells “Taxi?” He tells us to wait for him on the corner while he’s getting his car. So we stood there until his car came around the corner and we jumped in the back seat. It’s not an official government taxi so it’s illegal for him to drive tourists. So naturally, on the way to the restaurant, there is a police checkpoint set up on 5th Avenue.
When the police wave for him to stop, he slows up for a few feet then punches the car around a police barricade makes a sharp right turn speeding toward Third Avenue. I look out the back window and see the police radioing for help. He traveling at a high speed when suddenly a cop car pulls alongside us and waved for us to pull over.
The cop runs up to our car and pulls the driver out of the car and stuffs him into a police car. Malenis and I try to get out of the back but the cop jumps in the driver’s side and tells us to stay in the back seat. He starts the car and we all drive away.
We’re brought back to the police station in Vedado for questioning. I just sat on a bench in the front waiting for somebody to call me. They brought Melanis into a room alone and questioned her. After sitting for about 30 minutes, I tried with my limited Spanish to explain to the officer at the front desk that I had to leave. “I’m having dinner in one hour at the Hotel Nacional with my good friend Teofilo Stevenson,” I said.
He nodded when I mentioned Hotel Nacional and his eyes lit up when I mentioned Teofilo Stevenson. He understood enough to let me go but Melanis had to stay until they finished questioning her. As far as the taxi driver, I’m not sure what happened to him. He had mentioned to us that he was an attorney just trying to earn a few extra dollars driving a taxi. “Life is hard for the Cuban people,” he said.
I’d had enough drama and adventure for one week. I needed to finish my business and get the hell out of there as soon as possible. I’m depending on Juan Carlos to come through with the stogies and the receipts. If I don’t get back safely, my Cuban dream will end abruptly. Little did I know, the drama and the adventure were only beginning.
