One Night (20 page)

He held the pillowcase tight, held it so I couldn't get away, and I rode him rough. He made all the noises. This time I did the riding and the choking and the slapping. I read his face and saw the pressure build inside him. My easy rise and fall made him grit his teeth and grip my hips. He wanted to thrust, but I didn't give him the range. I was in control. He realized that, backed down, took deep breaths and looked like he was about to explode. His eyes lost focus, like the world had gone blurry. My world was just as unclear. I moved, moved and I was there with him, was underwater, and was in the place of good feeling. My contractions, that achy feeling in my stomach came, and I was at the point of no return. I growled and moved faster. For me it was going to be an orgasm like being hit by a train. He made sounds like he was drowning in the same feeling. It was like he was going into convulsions. I was on top, in control, but he was pumping me from the bottom, prodding me with a fat cock made of steel. He grew inside me and heat traveled from his cock inside me. A doorway was opening, one I struggle to keep closed, one that guards my emotions. Euphoria arrived. Again I made enough noise to alert the living and raise the dead. The itch. The itch. The sweet itch. I moved up and down, scratching that itch. My eyes rolled to the back of my head and I grabbed him as an anchor. The tension in my body demanded to be unchained. I cursed. He grunted. I sang. He shouted, tensed, strained, became so damn powerful it excited and frightened me. His cock grew more. He told me he was coming. I bit my bottom lip, whimpered, put my hand around his throat, squeezed, and rode him harder. Skin slapped skin. This time, no matter how he tried to hold out, no matter how hard he tried not to, he was going to owe me a lot of cheesecake.

Soon I fell away from him, exhausted. Staccato breathing. Skin dank. He rolled away, spent; the world had been removed from his shoulders. Sounded like we both needed oxygen and albuterol. Coming down was intense. I wanted to cry. Emotions had been opened up. Aftershocks made me twitch, yet I felt peaceful, happy, drained, the fire slowly burning itself out. Slowly. Soon, I watched him. Watched him in his post-orgasmic state. He gazed at the illuminated time like it was a warning, made a sound like a soldier who had been mortally wounded on the battlefield, then collapsed on his back like he was knackered from his toenails to the tops of his eyebrows. He licked his lips, coughed, and blinked.

I laughed. “You look the way Loki did after the Hulk slammed his ass in the concrete.”

He caught his breath and said, “That was intense.”

“Baby, in bed I am the truth. And you can't handle the truth.”

“You win the cheesecake. Damn. You win a Cheesecake Factory.”

Thirsty, I dragged myself to the edge of the bed, reached for my glass of wine, sipped three times, and then sat up and pulled a pillow to my lap, again covering myself. He looked back at me, his smile not as strong. I hated that look, the appearance of a man who had to be somewhere else, somewhere more important. Negativity covered me. That was the awkward, impatient look Chicken and Waffles would give me at ten thirty. If I didn't understand that expression then, I knew for sure what it meant now. It hurt. It upset me. Seeing that expression on the face of this man, on this strange man's face, stung. Coming out of denial wasn't an easy thing to do. I sipped more wine.

I said, “I know. It's cool.”

“We're good?”

“Hit the shower again. Go wash the condom smell off your thingamajig. Go wash my smell off of your hot body. Out of respect, I'll send you home smelling as close as possible to the way you did when you left. And when you get home, take another shower, so you go to bed smelling like your soap.”

“You seem to be the expert.”

“I'm the expert on being made the fool, not having the upper hand. It's disrespectful for a man to come back home and his dick smells like his outside woman, like the pussy from a strange cat.”

“What happened to you?”

I paused, imagined the inside of my VW, the mess, the mess that had been there since it happened. Then I rubbed my shoulder, rubbed the roses on my right shoulder, and exhaled slowly.

I said, “Nothing special.”

“Are you crying?”

“We have to be more careful whom we choose to love. My love is very intense, and I have to do a better job of choosing whom to love. I'm damaged. I'm not mad. I'm just cognizant of who we are, of what we have done, of what you have done with a woman you will wake up at home tomorrow and probably remember as being no more than a wayfarer. You're anxious now. You can't keep your eyes away from the clock. You've been looking at the clock all evening, like it's counting down to some grand event. Like it's New Year's Eve. I see the conflict in your body language. You want your wife now. You want to go home. So let me make it easy. Now. Go wash your distraught wife's dick and go home.”

“I love you.”

“Baby, go wash your pecker.”

The man from Orange County took to the shower again, but didn't invite me the second time. Shame. Emptiness. Possessiveness. Annoyance. Relief. I felt it all. I fought every emotion. I wanted to get up, gather my things, and leave while he showered, vanish as suddenly as we had met, but I had left my bag in the bathroom. I should have showered first, then vanished while he washed away my scent. But I also felt exhausted. I wanted to go to sleep, but I needed to stay awake, needed to get dressed and leave the romping shop and walk out of the hotel with him, go back to my car, part ways, get back to my side of town.

I found the energy to move and checked my phone.

Chicken and Waffles had called four more times. He had sent a dozen text messages and just as many to Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. I'd never been MIA before. Had always answered his calls, responded to his texts, to his whims. Like I had been his wife. Like I had expected him to behave like he was my husband. Not tonight. I'd gone too far to turn back. This journey had to run its course.

I put my phone down. Felt a little nervous. Felt a lot tired.

I fell asleep. Natalie Rose was waiting for me. I saw her, saw her darling, breathtaking, angelic face. She crawled on me and I smiled for her, kissed my little elf on her chubby cheeks, kissed her wide mouth on the lips, pinched her cute little nose and told her she was my honey bunch, sugarplum, pumpy-umpy-umpkin, cuppycake, gumdrop. I sang her the Strawberry Shortcake song.

She laughed. I heard her laugh. The best laugh in the world, the laugh of a happy child.

I will never understand how a mother could harm her own children.

The man from Orange County sat on the bed, and that jolted me from my dream.

I jumped and said, “Fire. The Christmas tree is on fire.”

“The food. You just smell the food.”

Disoriented, I sat up and looked for Natalie Rose. By degrees, the room became recognizable.

By degrees, then became now. The clock told me only a few minutes had passed. He had showered and dressed in record time. Again he smelled fresh, like the hotel's soap, not like me.

He asked, “What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Was dreaming. Was just dreaming that . . . a Christmas tree was burning.”

“High cheekbones, apple cheeks, widest eyes. Graceful neck. Good posture.”

I almost asked him if he had seen her, but he was touching me, describing my face.

He was memorizing my features, using words to make that memory concrete.

I said, “High cheekbones, apple cheeks, widest eyes. Best laugh in the world.”

“Your laugh is beautiful. It is the best laugh in the world.”

“Runs in the family.”

He collected his clothing. And I memorized his sturdy build, prominent chin, and deep-set eyes, his beautiful eyes, memorized how his eyebrows slanted down like Christian Slater's, committed to my mind the features of a handsome man who broods, laughs, and loves like a demon.

This was over. There was a bittersweet feeling.

I said, “Let me take a quick five-minute shower, and we can leave at the same time.”

“Stay.”

“You sure?”

“It's late. You've been drinking.”

“You look pretty exhausted yourself.”

“I'm fine. Stay. Have them change the sheets if you want. Enjoy the room.”

“Thought you'd be ready for me to get out of the room when you left.”

“Stay. Room's paid for. No need for both of us to rush out into the cold.”

I pulled my lips in, felt the alcohol and overtiredness hold me.

I said, “I'll chill out another hour or so.”

“Room is yours until noon. Probably can relax until one or two if you get a late checkout. Wake up. Get breakfast. Watch the news. Make sure you watch the news. See the news and traffic.”

“I can't stay that long.”

“Up to you. It's paid for.”

I whispered, “It's paid for.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

I pulled the sullied sheets up to my neck, pulled the covers over my body. I felt so naked in front of him now, after the sex, after the orgasms, after the shared sex sounds, after the incredible thrusting and riding and licking and groaning and boning. During his adultery I'd felt empowered. It was as if I had risen to a place high above the laws of man or God, a place where I had ruled everything around me. After his adultery, I felt embarrassed, no longer a member of the Upper Room. He seemed different, too. I had no idea how a married man felt after sex with someone other than his wife. This was new territory for me, a onetime visit. I only knew that a man with empty nuts always behaves differently than a man with full nuts. He had had powerful orgasms and come down off of his lust-sponsored high.

He had come down fast, like a skydiver. I was floating to the ground on the back of a feather.

I didn't know who I would be after sex with a married man. Usually I was different after I had an orgasm, softer, more agreeable, more hopeful, more girly, and too vulnerable.

He pulled the sheets down, looked at my bare form, played with one areola, then the other. I quivered, rubbed my legs together, and became a purring cat. My reaction made him grin. I ached, and he enjoyed making me ache. He enjoyed making me arch my back and sing like Idina Menzel.

He said, “Guess it's a good thing I pulled off the 605 and stopped to buy gas.”

“Good thing it was the night I got up the nerve to try to make a fool out of somebody.”

“And you don't believe in destiny.”

“I don't believe in fate. Not anymore. I don't believe some things are destined to happen.”

“So some things could be avoided.”

Then he touched me again, my breasts, my nipples, outlined my hips with his fingers.

I asked, “What are you doing?”

“Remembering. Memorizing. Absorbing.”

I rubbed where his bull's-pizzle rested, massaged the sleeping giant.

I tingled, bit my bottom lip, tried not to move, but I wiggled with his touch.

He asked, “You okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“With what we've done, here, now, tonight, are you okay?”

I nodded that I was fine. “Thanks for the wonderful evening.”

He nodded, stood to leave, but curiosity and insecurity made me pull him back to me.

I said, “Tell me about her.”

“Tell you about who? The first woman to break my heart?”

“Your wife. Tell me about the woman you're about to leave me for.”

“Are you angry?”

“Your wife. Tell me about the intellectual model with the degree in international law.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Do you swive with her like this?”

“Like this?”

“You go two times with her? You rock her that long?”

“No and no.”

“You used to?”

“It's different with her. It's not like this. Never has been like this.”

I said, “Okay.”

“Do you please your boyfriend like this?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for starters, he's not as good in bed as you are. He's half a Snack Pack pudding, and you're crème brûlée. Compared to the way you throw down, he's whack in bed. And the real reason we do it doggy style, why we do it mostly
coitus more ferarum
, the true reason we have sexual intercourse in the manner of wild beasts, since you were so concerned with our positions, is because even though he's a big man, he's not a big man. Can't really feel him the way I feel you when he's on top, and he is painfully aware of his shortcomings and his fast coming, but I never complain, never damage his ego, so he gets it from the back, doggy style. I do that for me, to make it feel better, do it for me to make the vaginal canal as short as his dick, and it's good for his pride because then he can act like he's so deep and feel like a big man and make me whoop and holler like he's going where no man has gone before, but we all know that the penis can penetrate deeper into the vagina that way, when you're doing the congress of the cow. To be technical, the dick might make much-needed contact with the posterior of Susan's wall, like yours did as soon as you put it in, but that doesn't make him a good lover.”

“Why are you with him?”

“Why is anyone with anybody? Jesus. Not everybody gets the best partner. Most are lucky to have a partner. Some girl has to get the guy with the little dick, or the guy who comes fast, or the guy we pretend is better than he is. Or the weirdo who asks her to sit in a tub of ice so she can be as cold as a corpse, and then wants her to be on her belly and be still and play dead while he screws her. Someone gets the weak or weird partner. Someone gets the asshole hooked on symphorophilia or autonepiophilia, or she realizes when he says he's an animal lover, he's really an animal lover. Anyway. Look. Sex is nice, but you can't base everything on how ten minutes of up and down makes you feel. You just can't base it on a few orgasms. The other twenty-three hours and fifty minutes have to be considered.”

He nodded while I rambled, said nothing, the end of my diatribe leaving me feeling strange.

I said, “There is something that I have always wanted to do to a good-looking man.”

“What's that?”

“You've been very kind to me. You've been more than generous, so you deserve it.”

“Are you going to tell me or do I have to guess?”

“Let me show you.”

I went to him, tongue out, showing him my tongue piercing, showing him what had aroused him from the start, and then I pulled his pants back down, welcomed him inside my mouth. Wanted him in my mouth. He became my toy. The warmth and wetness of my mouth sent him to a place he had never been before, to the place good angels went after they had died in heaven. The hard ball on my tongue moved around and teased his cock. His fingers massaged my head, grabbed at the dreadlocks, at the history that aroused him. On the television the Isley Brothers began singing about a voyage to Atlantis. While they crooned, I used my mouth to massage his balls while I stroked him out of that state of detumescence, and when he was a little beyond flaccid, I took him inside my mouth and worked on the restoration of that organ to a workable size. Gave him eye contact, let him see my lust, my hunger, my power. My hands and mouth worked together. He gripped the chair and panted, stared down at my rhythm in amazement. I sucked him well. He chanted, grabbed my dreadlocks. I made him call for Jesus and his father to come and save him from my evilness. I sucked him until my jaws hurt. He was stubborn. I was persistent. I was in control. I was empowered. He tried to get away, he tensed, he pulled my hair harder. I sucked and made him roar and come. I stole the orgasm he had hidden in the back room of his testicles. He was oversensitive, tried to push me away. Then, as his hands let go of my dreadlocks, I rose to my feet and looked at him for a moment, tempted to kiss him, but instead went to the bathroom, closed the door, spat his soldiers into the toilet, and rinsed my mouth, first with peroxide, then with the hotel mouthwash. I left the bathroom barely able to saunter. I passed by him.

He lay collapsed on the floor, his pants and underwear at his knees.