M.

I wasn’t expecting to go home with you. Or anyone. I just wanted a glass of whiskey before bed and that anonymous company a bar offers for however long you want it. But I guess if I’m being honest with myself, I did want more than that. I'd been spending too much time alone. I didn't know it then, but I craved contact. I wanted to feel and be felt. I wanted to fuck.

But I wasn’t looking for it—for you. I can't do that. I’ve never mastered the art of the prowl. For a long time I didn’t have the opportunity, and once I did, I couldn't get the hang of it. It always seemed that the harder I scanned a room for opportunity, the more acutely I felt my awkwardness. The more desperately I searched for that hungry look in a pair of pretty eyes, the more I saw only my own solitude, refracted through the prism of an indifferent crowd. It was too alienating to spend all night watching yourself the way you think another might, fluffing your hair and adjusting your tits in the bathroom mirror. So I gave that up. I found other ways of finding company. But casual sex is by definition seasonal. There are dry spells, plenty of nights spent alone. You build up a long enough string of those and your body starts to get ideas. Long before the thick matter of your busy mind can even take note, something has begun to churn below the surface. 

I hadn't been to J— Bar in years, before the new owner gutted and remodeled it. I used to be a sort-of regular back when it was a sticker-and-beer-coated shithole, so I didn’t think I'd like the exposed brick and reclaimed wood aesthetic or this new, younger crowd that went with it. It’s not that I find any of those things objectionable, but there’s only so much change a person can take. Last night, though, when I passed by on my way home, the old pink neon was flashing above the doorway, the only bit of decor left over from the old days. I surprised myself by going in.

I recognized the owner behind the bar—she sometimes comes into the restaurant where I work. We said hello, and she poured me a generous glass of rye, then left me to enjoy it in peace, just as I thought I wanted. A dj began his set, 90s hip hop, which seems to play in all the trendier places now, and I watched the kids nod their heads with self-conscious coolness and a bit of borrowed nostalgia. Even the loosest among them still seemed a few drinks away from actually dancing.

I had no plans for making it that far. I’d finished my whiskey and was nearly ready to leave when the owner suddenly reappeared, refiling my glass and shaking her head at my handful of bills, saying, “This one’s compliments of the gentleman.”

The first thing I noticed about you: your hand—unusually large, with big knobby knuckles—waving at me from the other end of the bar.  As you made your way toward me, I felt my pulse quicken. It wasn’t you so much as the thing happening. My body registered it, the possibility contained in that moment, even if my mind wouldn’t. “Thank you,” I said when you were close enough to hear, “but I only planned on having one.”

The second thing I noticed: your accent, British. “Well then,” you said, “I hope I might convince you to stay a bit longer.” I smiled politely, ready to circle the wagons of my self-defense. Here you were, a stranger, standing close enough that I could watch your Adam’s apple bob as you swallowed and smell the faint aroma of marijuana on your jacket. And I like I said, I thought I hadn’t come in to be hit on. I’d just wanted a simple, quiet drink.

But I liked your face, the fair skin against the dark, floppy hair that fell into your eyes, and I wasn’t immune to the flattery of your attention. I lifted the glass to my lips. What was one more drink and a little barroom banter to go with it? 

I laughed at your jokes, enjoyed your whiskey. Then something else began to happen, without my conscious understanding or control. I found myself leaning closer to hear you over the music and the swelling crowd. Our thighs brushed under the bar, and you ordered us another around. I pulled my hair over my shoulder to offer you my unobstructed ear and felt the shivers of your breath on my bare neck. I wanted you to slide your hand onto my knee, and when you did, I knew I was going to fuck you.

But I didn’t know yet, not really. How can I explain? My mind, comfortably dulled by the whiskey, didn’t know. My pussy did. My pussy knew all along—before you bought me that drink, before I even decided to step foot in the bar. She knew back at work, when I took my hair down after my last table. When, without thinking, I reapplied my lipstick before locking up.

When you asked if I wanted to step outside for a smoke, I expected to bum an American Spirit from one of the hipsters out front. I wasn’t expecting you to take my hand and lead me around the corner, to pull a slim joint from your jacket pocket. The smoke curled densely from the end when you lit it and smelled so bitingly potent that it seemed more chemical than herbal. My first hit seared my eyes and lungs then seized me with a fit of coughing. I felt my head ballooning, my body dangling below it like a string. 

Maybe you really are funny, M. Or maybe your shit was just strong. We’ll never know. Just like we’ll never know how we went from giggling like idiots as we passed that joint between us to making out, pancaked against the brick wall of the bar. I wish I could remember how it happened. Did I press against you first? Did you take my face in your hand and look at me through the fringe of your black hair? There’s no moment of aching anticipation for me to keep, no sharp edge of desire to memorialize here in this letter. All I remember is that one minute I was laughing, and the next my back was up against the brick, your tongue in my mouth.

“You’re good at this,” you said, splitting open my coat, clutching my hips. The joint had burned down to my fingers, so I dropped it on the sidewalk and buried my singed fingertips in your hair. Your body against mine was a white wire—tight, electric. I could feel it stir me, conducting current from my mouth and down my torso. My balloon-head was blissfully emptied of thought. I was as pure as a conduit, nipples rising, my pussy who’d orchestrated all this surging to life.

Your hands found the bare skin of my back beneath my shirt first. They felt hungry, grasping for palmfuls, and my womanly flesh—tits, ass, thighs—vibrated with a corresponding ache to be handled. Your knuckles caught on the waistband of my pants.

Through your jeans, against my hip, your cock had grown hard, distinct with insistence. I felt entitled to my own handful, fat and firm, like a sausage encased in denim. You pressed against my palm, and I reached for your fly. That’s when you stopped me. The proper English gentleman, ever sensible. “Come back to mine,” you said.

But a location change, however sensible, has been the death of many a promising hookup. The spell of lust must be suspended for logistics (you called a Lyft), for the unavoidable intrusion of other people (the driver, then your roommate and his girlfriend cuddled up on the couch in the blue TV light). It’s a chance to sober up, to think twice. As you fumbled with your key, I noticed your white temples in the harsh porch light overhead, the high hairline peaking through the bangs, and I understood the strategy of your hairstyle. Inside your bedroom, you lit a candle scented with something stickily floral and struggled to rig your phone to a bluetooth speaker. I was prepared to judge your taste in music. When you offered me a drink, I gave you my mouth instead. We were loosing momentum—didn’t you feel it?—but you misunderstood my urgency. You practically ripped off your t-shirt and jeans. Your chest was luminous white, almost frail, but your cock was wide and red—the most vital-looking part of you. “Take off your clothes,” you said.

I did what you told me to. I wanted to—only maybe not so soon. Within seconds you’d rolled a condom on and pushed me down onto the bed, pounding me from above with one hand clamped on my tit. You hoisted one of my legs over your shoulder. I could feel the wave of wetness receding in my cunt, your cock softening through the rubber. You thrust harder, defiantly, then flipped me over. It wasn’t right, these porno-acrobatics. There was none of the heat, the sensual promise of outside the bar. I started to wonder what time it was, but there wasn’t a clock anywhere near the bed.

When I felt you slip out of me, I asked for that drink you’d offered. You looked relieved. While you were gone, I stared at my tangle of clothes on the carpet. In my mind I saw my neighbor’s grey tabby prowling silently through the darkened courtyard of my apartment building. But my pussy wasn't ready to give up yet. I lay back on your bed. The linens were worn but soft and fresh-smelling. It occurred to me that you wouldn’t be the first man who forgot how to fuck the minute he was presented with the opportunity. I turned onto my side and gazed down the length of my body, carved into shadow and light by the flickering amber of your candle. Perhaps you could be reminded.

“Jesus,” you sighed when you returned with the drinks and saw me. Take note, M.—that kind of naked appreciation goes a long way toward arousing a woman. But again you came in too fast, tugging your boxers down over your half-masted erection and thrusting your tongue into my mouth.

“Hey,” I said, easing you back. “Hey, shh. Slow down.” I brushed my lips against yours. I asked you to lie beside me. I took a sip of whiskey and offered you a taste on my lips. I could feel you settle in, understanding that it was your turn to play the conduit. After my next sip, you closed your mouth gently around my tongue. I reached between my legs. 

You ran your hands over my body, up my hip to the curve of my waist, knuckle-brushing my nipples to alertness as I touched myself. It was right, M. It was so good. I felt the wave of my pleasure begin to swell. I wanted to reward you, to bring you inside this feeling. I slid down between your legs and looked up at your face gone boyishly helpless with anticipation. I tilted my glass and dipped the tip of your cock into the whiskey. Your wide eyes never left me as I lapped at the drops on your dickhead and sucked the liquor from your red flesh. Between my legs the wetness was pooling. I reached deeper into it, moaning around your cock. You were hard as stone now, leaking your own salty liquor.

I wanted to cum. I wanted to feel you as I came. You stayed still for me when I straddled your hips and let your dick press against my clit, worming in the juices. You felt so fucking good so I lowered myself onto your cock slow, then rocked myself back and forth around the fullness. That, that, M., is how you fuck. I felt myself slipping under. I let myself go. I came on your fat cock, then bit your lips as you exploded onto my belly. “Sorry,” you said, “sorry.” As if that was the thing you should apologize for.

I don’t know if our paths will cross again, M. This feels like a moment rather than a beginning. But I want you to know that you’re a good lay, when you slow down and enjoy it. I know soon another woman will fall under the sway of your accent and floppy bangs. When she does, don’t rush. Feel her.

Be good.

© 2020 ROSEMARY CUMMINGS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.