To Spend the Night

"Hey, it's me. I wanted to see if I could come over."

There is silence on the other end of the line. I can hear him breathing.

"I'm not going to jump you or anything. I'm just lonely."

I am sitting on the folded-out futon couch in the drafting studio of my friend Nora's apartment, where I have been living for the past eight days. I am wearing a pair of black men's boxers and nothing else. The August heat permeates the room, causing little rivers of sweat to run down my body, but I don't turn on the a/c. My forehead is covered in salty droplets. The trickles run down between my boobs and irritate me; the waistband of my underwear is damp. I realize that my hands are shaking.

On the big flatscreen monitor, a couple is fucking, permanently locked in a frozen instant of copulation. They look real, like they could be my own coworkers or neighbors, definitely not porno types. She is a little chunky, and her breasts are on the small side. Her mouth hangs open, her brow is wrinkled in concentration, her eyes half closed. Her nipples are pink and erect, and she has a hand between her thighs, busy with her clitoris. He is skinny, and has a little bit of a beer gut. He should have shaved. There is a Drinky Crow tattooed on his bicep. The head of his cock is buried in her asshole. His balls are drawn up tight, and lubricant glistens on his shaft. His eyes appear to be focused on the back of her neck.

The initial shock of breaking up left me numb, torn apart, unable to feel anything except a dull ache, a sadness where my soul should have been. I went through the motions like a robot, pulling the stuff I couldn't live without out of our place and into Nora's studio; working long hours and eating crap; drinking each night with Nora. After the first few days, I had adapted. Nora let me alone, for the most part. I found myself in the weird position of being desperately horny, and yet physically unable to masturbate.

"Sure, come on over." he says "Bring beer."

The subway ride to Brooklyn takes forever. It is stifling hot in the station; frigid in the train. A group of high-school kids laughs and screws around at one end of the car. Working class people, all different shades of brown, sit stony-faced and exhausted, coming home after a long day in the land of opportunity. I am the only white girl in the car. I can feel their eyes on me, even when I know they aren't looking.

I pick up a six pack of Negra Modelo at the corner bodega. The shopkeeper speaks no English, but it doesn't matter. I walk the remaining six blocks to his apartment as night falls over the city.

He buzzes me in. Three flights of stairs. Graffiti, trash, and flickering fluorescents. He lets me in, and my heart turns summersaults. We look at each other for just a moment, standing there in his doorway. I feel alive again.

He takes the beer from me. Opens one bottle for each of us, puts the rest in the fridge. He hasn't said a word to me, and suddenly I am afraid that he is angry, that I shouldn't have come over. I feel like an asshole.

He takes my hand in his, and I know that it is ok. "I've got to work in the studio for a while still" he says "I'm in the middle of something. You can't be in there with me. Way too distracting" he favors me with a smile "Watch tv. Read a book. I won't be too long."

He goes into the studio and closes the door. I try to watch tv, but I don't want to watch anything that's on. I try to read a book, but I can't concentrate. There is a porn videotape sitting on top of the vcr- one that I loaned to him- and I play it with the sound turned way down as I drink my beer. Girls fuck guys with strap-on dildos. I feel strangely guilty about getting turned on. I don't want him to walk in on me watching the tape, so when the bottle is empty, I take the tape out and try to read a book. I turn the pages, but none of the words stay in my head.

He finally comes out of the studio. He has dinner already made for us; cold gazpacho soup and buttered bread. We sit on the couch and drink another beer. Our legs are pressed against each other, and our fingers keep interlocking. It feels so good, just to be with him. We talk, and it is comfortable, but what we talk about isn't important. I am hugely aware of my cunt, hot and slippery, hidden beneath jeans and boxer shorts. His t-shirt spills down over his crotch, but I can still see his hard on, and it makes me ravenous.

We shower -separately- and brush our teeth, just like this was all fucking normal or something. We go into his bedroom and kiss for a while. It feels really good. If I got any more horny, I think I'd melt. It is hot in here, and the sounds of the city at night filter in through the open window. A box fan hums, moving the humid air around the room, and generating a soothing white noise. He turns out the lights, and we undress. I know that he will sleep in the nude. I retain my boxers and bra.

"We can't do anything tonight" he says.

"Yeah, I know" my clit is like a marble, a big shooter nestled in between my labia. I can feel it throbbing in time with my pulse.

"It's not like I don't want to..."

"Yeah, I know" I know his cock, if only by touch (and that through frustratingly thick layers of denim and cotton underwear): it is big and hard and uncircumcised and delicious, and it is just across the bed from me. It takes a physical effort not to drop my head onto his lap and suck it into my mouth this instant.

We lay together on the bed in the darkness, I don't know how long, fingertips and toes brushing against each other, generating little storms of electricity. I want to lay my head on his chest and hear his heart beating, but I can't. There is a threshold of touching that we can't cross tonight, not if we aren't ready to fuck.

It is hot. It must be late, and I have to get up early to make it into Manhattan to go to work. Fuck it, I peel off the boxers and bra.

"I can't sleep either" he says in the darkness next to me.

"Do you want to masturbate?"

"Yeah."

My hand is between my legs like a guided fucking missile. I tug on my nipples, run my fingers up and down my slit. I am shockingly wet. I suspect that I am leaving a puddle on his sheets; I suspect that he won't mind. I let my fingers slip inside, feeling how hot and slippery I am, wishing that it was his fingers, his tongue, his cock. My clit can't stand it anymore, she is crying out for attention. Slowly, but faster and faster, I rub in little circles. My other hand slips between my ass cheeks, tickling, pressing into my anus. I wish he could see me. I can just make out his silhouette, lying on his side across the bed from me, his own hand busy between his legs, his breath deep and raspy. This pushes me over the edge, and I am coming, a long, slow, deep orgasm that starts in my toes and shakes my whole body and makes me moan and whisper his name.

"I'm coming too" he whispers. His hand is going like a sewing machine. I have two fingers up my cunt now, grinding myself against the palm of my hand and I am going to fucking come again.

"Can I come on you?"

"Yeah, oh fuck yes" and suddenly he is coming. I hear him gasp, and his hot semen splashes onto me, landing on my stomach, my chest, my tits. There is a lot of it. He comes and comes, making a large puddle on me. I spread it around with my fingers. It is sticky and slippery and feels cool in the night air. He kisses me on the forehead, then on the lips. I bring my finger up to my mouth, and lick his salty essence off of me. Now he is inside me.

I can tell from his breathing that he has fallen asleep, and I will have to sleep soon too. Morning will come soon, and before he is awake again I will have left, for my job and for Nora's studio. Someday he will lick my pussy, fuck me in the ass, piss on me to show his ownership; and I will do the same and more to him. But for tonight, we are just two lonely bodies cast adrift on a wide and troubled sea.