D.

Three.

That's the number of orgasms you pulled from me.

One for every inch I have on you.

Remember how afterward you shushed my whimpers? How you used a corner of your quilt to wipe the sweat from my brow, my shuddering belly? And when I'd quieted, you let yourself breathe the question. 

How the fuck did this happen? is what you asked me. Your voice was reverent, like you were an initiate beholding a mystery. I’m smiling now to think of myself like that, as your mystery. But that night, I couldn't answer. I was too far gone. So I'll try now. 

I remember the first time I saw you. You were on the corner waiting for the bus under the overgrown bougainvillea that twines from the restaurant onto a telephone pole. Its low-hanging tendrils just cleared the top of your head. I have to duck to pass under when I haul the garbage out to the dumpster, but I was still a good hour away from that chore. I'd come outside to leave a check for a couple of regulars lingering on the patio. When I swung the door open, I saw you and your inky eyebrows, quirking up at the sight of me. I looked at you for only a second. I remember it was late, I had blisters from my new boots and someone expecting me after my shift. 

That last part, the waiting someone, had charged me with a secret shiver of anticipation when my shift began and even before, rubbing oil into my skin after my shower, doing my makeup. But the thousand little difficulties waiting for me at work— persnickety customers in the middle of the dinner rush, the POS system on the blink, chef in one of his humorless, sardonic moods—had wrung all pleasure from anticipation. Drudgery cast its shadow over everything, including my liaison. I thought I might just cancel. I thought I might just go home and read and be alone.

I saw you see me, but I had no time for it. I went to the table and dropped the check. I tried to assure my quick exit by filling my hands with the empty dessert plates, but the regulars drew me into conversation anyway, some meaningless question. With regular customers you have no choice but to indulge what they really want, which is your engagement, the familiar interaction that comes with it. A breeze raised gooseflesh on my legs, bare between the tops of my boots and the hem of my dress. My left thumb sank into a smear of whipped cream on the lip of the plate. I had that unmistakable sense of being watched, and I knew it was you. 

Finally I turned from the table and shot you a chilly look on my way back inside. A women finds herself in the crosshairs of appraisal enough times that the experience becomes routine, her response automatic. She won't deviate unless something about the circumstance or the man draws her interest. That night I simply went about my business in the dining room, clearing tables, polishing silverware. 

But as I did, I felt this bolt of longing for the man I was supposed meet. I conjured the smell of him, his fingertips trailing up the bare stretch of my legs—the same stretch your eyes had just traveled. I checked the time and texted him. 45 minutes, it said. I could hardly wait. When I went outside again the regulars had gone and so had you.

After that, you began to appear regularly at the corner on Friday and Saturday evenings. I learned your name and that you worked in the kitchen at the new, trendy place that just opened down the street. You became friendly with Rigo, our dishwasher, who called you paisa and planned his smoke breaks to coincide with your arrival at the bus stop. 

Each time you saw me, you gave me that look, the once-over that ended with the suggestive lift of your eyebrows. If Rigo was with you, you’d comment in Spanish on the parts of my anatomy that most impressed you, describe a few ways you might enjoy me further while highlighting your apparently infamous virility.

For some reason it never bothered me to hear you talk about me like that. And I never let on that I understood what you were saying. I guess I knew your peacocking was mostly for Rigo’s benefit, to make him laugh and slap you on the back. Whenever he did, you smiled so broadly. Do you know that you and he have the same crooked incisors? You look like you could be his nephew.

With repetition, the once-over moved further away from whatever lust had first inspired it. It wasn’t so much a leer anymore as it was a ritual greeting. I began to anticipate it—the sweep of your eyes, the small curl of your lips. I looked forward to it, our special version of hello. The first time I greeted you by name, you blushed and stared shyly at the gutter, and I worried that I’d ruined things by deviating from form. I thought you were a sweet kid playing the macho. You checked me out next time though, and that boldness endeared you to me, all the more so because I suspected, having seen the real warmth between you and Rigo, that you were secretly kind. I was right about that, which may be the beginning of an answer to your question: How the fuck did this happen? But that’s only part of it.

Another part: yesterday, Saturday, another march. The streets outside the restaurant were clogged with foot-traffic, hundreds of people streaming to the protest downtown. We were busy as hell all day, first with the antsy, eager groups who wanted the check with their entrees, then later those who turned up stiff and famished from the frontlines, all of them desperate for the toilet. Rigo, in a near-frenzy to keep up with the dishes, kept referring exasperatedly to el maratón, despite my various attempts to explain.

By time I flipped the sign to closed, we were all exhausted. I poured myself a glass of wine and passed out beers to the cooks. I was not looking forward to the lull that came next, the long, idle wait for the last of the glasses and silverware I’d need to polish. I had a dishrag over my shoulder and my phone in my hand. I was fighting the urge to text someone, someone I’d decided not to see any more. Someone whose power over me surprised and frightened me because he felt no real responsibility to it.

That’s when I saw you through the back window, jogging up the street toward our dumpster where Noemi, the sweet, wizened crone for whom we separately bag our bottles, was fighting with her cart. Full to bursting with collections from the march, the cart had slipped from the curb and stuck itself askew in the gutter, right in the path of a city bus, chugging up the road behind you.

You reached Noemi just in time, lifting the cart to safety as the bus hugged the curb and stopped at the corner. When it passed, you scrambled into the street to retrieve the cans that had fallen. I could see Noemi’s arthritic hands knotted together at her throat and the flash of your teeth as you smiled and squatted and reached. When you finished, you secured the loose bags and began to push the cart up the sidewalk with bent Noemi plodding beside you. I watched you through the front door as you turned the corner together and passed out of sight. 

You reappeared a little while later, streaking down the street to the corner. I was polishing the last of the wine glasses, and I saw you pull up short at the curb as the bus eased through the intersection and on up the street. You were breathing hard, your arms lifted in defeat. I propped open the front door with my foot and called your name. You turned. The look on your face—was that surprise, fright? I invited you inside to wait. You looked at your shoes and fumbled the latch to the patio gate. You didn’t look me up and down. You didn’t look at me at all.

I poured you a glass of wine, invited you to sit at the bar. With a little awkwardness, we exchanged those sympathetic sighs of fatigue. Your restaurant had been slammed all night, too. We traded a few war stories: dishes sent back, the impatience of customers asked to wait. Neither of us mentioned Noemi. 

I’m not sure if it was your act of kindness or the sudden absence of your customary once-over, but something set me on the path of pursuit. If you’re still wondering now if I was flirting with you, the answer, of course, is yes. I was trying to make you relax, make you smile. The untuck of my shirt, the sliver of stomach exposed during each long reach up to the glass rack—deliberate, an invitation to look. You hesitated, then accepted. 

My pleasure at the feeling of your eyes let me know how much I wanted your appraisal. I admit that I was enjoying the work of it, the performance—languidly cocking my hips, lingering in a bend as I replaced the wine bottle on its low shelf. When, finally, I leaned across the bar and looked at you, this, too, was an invitation. You availed yourself of the view, but I wanted more. I was watching your face. Your lips were parted, stained red from the wine. Your eyes lingered on the tops of my breasts pressed together, then slid up my throat to my face. At last, your eyebrows lifted, your lips curled. Victory.

I didn’t plan what I did next, which was to lay a hand on your cheek and kiss you, lightly on the lips. It just seemed a fitting reaction to my moment of triumph. The kiss stunned you. You gaped at me, but only for a moment. Then you took my face in both your hands and pulled my mouth to yours. You were not gentle. Or hesitant. You parted my lips and tasted my tongue like it was urgent.  

I want you to know that your mouth felt beautiful. The soft curve of your upper lip away from your crooked teeth, the stiff hairs just cresting the edge aroused my urge to lick and suck. The heat rose in my face, an electric charge gathered between my legs. I lost myself in the kissing. I didn’t want to break the seal of your mouth on mine but when I heard the wheels of Rigo’s mop bucket on the dining room tile, I pulled back. I wasn’t embarrassed, just amazed to find us there, which is why I wiped my lips and said, Perdón. It was Rigo’s turn now to lift his eyebrows. No, no, he said, excuse me. He grinned at you, then wheeled his bucket toward the bathroom. That’s when I asked you to take me home with you.

One. 

Side by side in two front-facing seats near the back of the bus, florescent light drenches us, reflects the pair of us back to me in the face of the window. You’re so young, so slight. What am I doing? I don’t want to lose the heat of connection that crackled between us at the restaurant, so I take your hand and place it on my knee. You turn to look at me. I’m expecting patent hunger but your expression is unreadable. Slowly you withdraw your hand and cross your arms over your chest. Your eyes desert me, you face the front, as if I were an untoward stranger. I would have been less surprised if you’d shoved me. My shock and confusion pass into shame, then edge toward anger. The bus slows, releases a passenger into the night. 

I have half a mind to get up from my seat, but I don’t. The doors close, the bus springs forward. That’s when I feel it—the flick of a fingertip over my nipple. You shift slightly in your seat. Your fingers, splayed so casually from the hook of your elbow, reach inside my open coat. My nipples harden quickly and you trap the nub between your thumb and forefinger. I gawk at you, your daring, but you won’t return my gaze. You only increase the pressure of the pinch, which travels by synaptic lightening to my clit. I rock my hips forward, press my cunt against the vibrating seat, confronted now with the wetness of my tights against skin. My breath catches, I want to cry out. You tug harder, then release me. Here, you say. I don’t understand until the driver downshifts and you stand, that you are leading me, by the tether of my want, to disembark.

Many stairwells, labyrinthian hallways with dingy carpet and cooking smells lead to your place. Before you can even get the door open, I’m on you. We are a tangle of mouths and limbs and coats in the darkness, staggering, falling onto a low mattress. I am moaning, feverish, tugging at the waistband of my tights until you stop me. I’m lying on my back, your hand pressing flat against my chest. You lean over me, speak into my open mouth. Shh, baby, shh. Relax! You command me with surprising force. I grow still. I breathe in and out. Your hand rises and falls. 

Good girl.

You tug off my dress and start slow. I am quiet for you, letting you taste my lips, letting your fingers rake from my collarbone to my navel. I shudder as you move over my belly, then under the waistband. Your palm cups my crotch as the fingers slip instantly, at last, between my dripping lips. At that we both release a little moan, it’s nearly the same pitch. Qué rico, you whisper against my neck, qué mojadita estás. You are unhurried, exploring my pussy without penetrating. I cannot help but lift my hips to your fingers, but you threaten to withdraw until I still. Only when I am nearly motionless do you peel the tights down. You want me to feel every inch of the receding nylon. You spread my legs and kneel between them. You inhale deeply. Qué rico, you say again. And then you begin to kiss my cunt.

I say kiss because that’s exactly what you did. You kissed me between my legs exactly as you’d kissed my mouth, hungry but savoring, tasting my lips then parting them. The tip of your tongue made a soft arc from the opening up, skimming over the hood of my clitoris and back down the other side. Again and again you repeated this sickle course. I squeezed my tits. Your hands rested on my thighs. 

At last you sucked my clit inside your lips. Then you dragged the flat of your tongue along the face of it, over and over, in soft, rhythmic licks. You let my hips buck, your fingers stroking the swollen flesh at the mouth of my cunt. You broke contact for a mere infuriating moment to say, Yes, baby. Come for me, then resumed your lapping. I did. Thunderously.

Two.

As the wave of orgasm recedes, your mouth hovers, your breath cools the wetness. The air itself seems to vibrate. From their position at the entrance of my cunt, your two fingers make their slick advance, setting off a deep ripple of contraction. You close your lips over my still-tender clit. The suction of your mouth, the pull of your finger pads inside me give me the impression of being milked. I come again almost instantly. The muscles of my legs and belly firm, my back bows. I can’t stop my legs and hands from twining about your head, from crushing your face into my pussy.  

Three.

The second orgasm—deep, vaginal—makes me feel like I could fuck endlessly, or at least for hours. You’ve done this to me, and so I think you ought to reap the rewards. In fact, I’m convinced that only you can satisfy the lust you’ve stoked so expertly. I can think only of cock. Your cock—filling me, pounding me. It’s a mania, a sickness. I’m greedy for the taste of me on your tongue, I’m fumbling your fly. I’m begging you to fuck me, please fuck me. 

But you don’t. You remove my hand, take my nipple between your lips. I think at first that you are teasing, continuing a game that’s gone too far. I assume you must by now be desperate for your own release, so when you reach between my legs again I roll away, onto my belly. I present my ass to you. Fuck me. I inch backwards toward your crouching form. Fuck me. I demand, beg, cajole. I place your hands on the globes of flesh, spreading the cheeks for you. 

I can’t, you whisper, but I don’t understand. I press harder against you before I notice the absence of a palpable erection. 

Your hands are trembling. 

Please accept my apologies for the weak reassurance that followed, the stammer with which I delivered it. I know that telling you it was okay was not the right thing to say.  Your shame had presence, like a spirit invoked, falling between us, charging the room with unease. A kind of panic rose in me, which is why I didn’t see it coming—the swift, hard blow of your hand to my ass.  A jolt, a smack, an exorcism of flesh. It's vibration traveled through my body, poured out my throat in load, piercing cries as you held my face against the mattress and filled my pussy with your fingers. Touch yourself, you hissed. I wiggled a hand beneath me, ground my clitoris against it. You released my neck to spank me again—once, twice, three times. I climaxed with the sting of your palm.

The third orgasm obliterated all sense. I was bereft of thought. You tended to me then as if I were some luxurious possession put through its paces, made to perform—a thoroughbred or a Ferrari.  I hope everyone gets to feel precious like that at least once in their life. Your gentleness felt like gratitude.

I'm grateful, too. I want you to know that this isn’t a your-secret’s-safe-with-me letter. It’s a love letter to your lips and tongue and crooked teeth. To your fingertips and the palm of your hand. To those black brows I hope will lift the next time your eyes find me.

Yours,

© 2020 ROSEMARY CUMMINGS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.