“…there is NO WAY that the Iron Chef could take on Martha Stuart. No. Way.”
It’s always like this: Friday night in our bar, last call in this dive in 40 minutes and the evening’s drunks who didn’t get lucky have gone through everything from the death penalty to battle of the sexes on the Food Network. 39 minutes. Not soon enough.
“…Man, if I was that guy, I woulda been like, ‘Daaamn, man.’”
“Shit, bro, I can’t believe he said that to you…”
38 and a half. Guh. Three years slopping drinks in this shack and it’s the same every Friday. Nothing ever changes here. Different faces, too young, too old, same stories. Same difference.
“…she did what? With a Frisbee??? Damn, dude. Your moms is whack!”
I so don’t want to know what the hell they are talking about.
“Last call!” I say, trying not to sound cheerful about it, but looking like someone’s under the bar caressing the inside of my thigh. The same looks as always, blank stares like I grew an eye in my forehead and winked at them. They should be so lucky.
“Vodka, with a twist of lime,” she says, and I wonder how the hell a woman like that walked in here without shutting the place down to a naughty whisper. She’s looking at me and I don’t know why. Maybe I’m supposed to be doing something other than staring at her. But that dress: red, the kind of red you see in comic books, surreal and stark. The kind of red that makes everything else seem black.
I realize I should be making a drink…something with a twist and that she did shut the place down, but not to a whisper: to dead silence. I pull out a clean glass like I hadn’t been in another place with her for a moment, someplace with sand and blue water and little paper umbrellas served by somebody other than me and start to put it together for her. She knows. I can tell.
Conversations return like a weak tide, soft and mumbling as if to itself. She floats up to the bar and all I can think is that heals like that should make some noise, announce to the world that they’ve arrived, but they don’t. They whisper sweet nothings to the floor and she knows that, too.
“Vodka, with a twist,” I say, and she smiles like she thinks it’s funny that I got it right. Maybe it is. I slide the glass down in front of her. Be cool, I think. No need to be anything else.
The glass sweats like everything else in this part of town at this time of night and time dies dead as a single droplet races for the cocktail napkin, in a hurry toward oblivion. It never makes it; saved by a lithe finger covered by a shiny red fingernail that seduces it back up the side of the glass and straight to her lips. They never part but she runs the cool droplet over them anyway. Not a bad way to die, I think, and I realize the glass isn’t the only thing sweating now. She notices, too.
15 minutes to go. Too soon. I could stare at her all day, I think. I hope I didn’t say that aloud but the look in her eyes says maybe I did. No one else is looking at me like that, but then again, no one else looks like that.
“…Hey! We should go shoot some hoops, man!”
“…Dude? What the hell is wrong with you?…”
They start to filter out the door with 13 minutes to go, something they have never done before. I figure they’re probably going to steal her car. Maybe bad that I don’t tell her. Maybe.
12 minutes and it’s just me and her and a glass of vodka that looks strangely like it’s being interrogated under the hot lights. She leans back on the barstool, closes those baby blue eyes and rolls the glass across her chest. A smile slips over her face, like when someone tells you a really good secret and when she opens her eyes I can swear that they’re darker now, some shift I shouldn’t perceive but do anyway. It’s hot in here. Just damned hot.
I never drink at work. Well, almost never. I see the glass in my hand before I know how it got there and suddenly I’m pouring a shot of tequila into it. Diced limes smile at me from the cutting board, eager to be a part of the mix. There are times when things happen so fast that you miss them, and there are times when things happen so slowly that you can’t quite understand them. Then, there are times like this, when perception is everything, and you miss nothing. Her hand glides to the board and red nails slice under green citrus like a cat scooping up something playful and in one slippery motion it’s in her mouth. There’s a name for the color of her lips and I don’t know it, but I know I like it. They separate and white teeth cut into the lime like they might kill it for something it did. She never loses the sly grin that overcame her the second I found the glass in my hand and I never lose sight of it. The tequila goes into my mouth the way tequila should: with a vengeance. Her palms are flat on the bar and she moves in waves towards me, lips with a color I don’t know connecting with mine and filling me with that lime that now somehow seems sweeter than it should.
We’re closed and I have no idea how 12 minutes past. Nor do I want to know. I swallow as she sits back on her stool and I find myself walking toward the door. Time to lock up. Whether she is in here or not. If she wants to leave, I’m betting she’ll say so. Girls like this don’t leave things open to discussion.
Keys in the door and that safe audible click of the old latch. Old but solid, like the bar top and the jukebox. I turn around and in that dream-like quality we sometimes find in art I discover that underwear come in that same indescribable shade of lipstick. Who knew? The dress has melted into a pile on the floor next to her heels. Oh my.
She’s still got that grin, but god it seems different, like maybe it tastes as good as it looks. I usually try not to ask myself those important questions like “why?” when good things happen to me. Now is no exception.
There is something about a half-naked woman in a public place that just works for me. It must be obvious. Her pink tongue licks playfully across those lime cutting teeth and I’m lifting her up on the bar before I know my hands are on her skin. I love it when time slips by me like that. She rolls off on to the other side and walks towards the hall. Apparently, laying down is for nuns. Fine by me. Choir-boy I’m not. I find her leaning against the wall, the old telephone on her right, a hundred useless phone numbers making abstract art behind her. Her blonde hair is long, cascading over her shoulders like a golden waterfall in the snow of her white skin. The bra is demi-cut and underwire with a convenient front closure. Somebody had me in mind when they made it cause it comes off with a snap and finds its way to the floor where it belongs. Good bra.
Blue eyes are bluer in the dark and her lips could be red. I’ll never know. The moment I start to think about it they’re pressed against mine, tongue exploring my mouth and I like it. Nobody kisses like this anymore. It’s like trying to transfer sensuality in a physical form. Nobody. My hands run through her hair, pulling her closer into me. Her hips have moved, too, and I can feel the heat of her silky body pressed against mine, rigid and more than ready. I see my shirt and it’s on the floor. Looks good there. Happy. I don’t realize I’m leaning against the wall until I hear my belt coming loose. Good. It’s always in the way anyway. Skilled hands slip inside and I can feel those red nails. I know now that I wanted to feel them on my skin the second I saw them. Not the time to wonder about fate and luck. Better to focus on how a woman can have a mouth that warm and wet. I’m naked now. Perfect. Clothes, not so essential in my life right now.
Her lips are perfect and they move with the kind of skill you hope every woman has. Somehow she seems to be smiling. A trick of light or she’s manipulating my mind. I don’t care, god, her mouth. I so cannot focus beyond that. Note to self: no gag reflex. She works me like I have no self control and she’s right. I know she can tell what’s going to happen and I can tell she wants it to. No use holding back. The rush comes to my head before other places and I close my eyes and ride it out until it’s reached my toes. My whole body is flush and that brief moment when all feeling leaves your body passes and all the sensation comes back but she hasn’t stopped. It make me laugh that deep sensual laugh and I throw my head back when it strikes me, only to strike my head on the wall I forgot was so close. She laughs out loud at me and I deserve it.
No man should stay this hard after that, but look at her. She’s cherries on cheesecake, sweet and melting in my mouth and I’m not even touching her. Panties in a color I can’t name but who cares since they’re hanging on the phone. She isn’t laughing anymore but she damned sure looks like she is going to eat me alive. I’m betting I have the same look on my face. I must. How could I not.
I move forward and she’s in the air, hands on my shoulders, legs around my hips, back to the wall in an instant and we’re one. She gasps and it makes me smile, always a nice surprise when the look on her face is absolute pleasure, nothing of pain. Thrusting when standing is something of and impossibility, but rhythm, that’s another story. Her hips rock hypnotically, sometimes on their own, sometimes because my hands on her ass help them to. Makes no difference. She leans harder against the wall and slides down slightly, arched away from it, attached to me on one end, shoulder braced against the wall on the other, and I can’t remember the last time I saw anything so damned delicious. She has total control this way, all I can do is keep her from falling and enjoy the ride. So be it.
Red fingernails add to the useless art on the wall as the rhythm of this song changes. She lurches forward and bites my shoulder, hips never stopping their swinging dance on mine. I can’t ever remember being this hard or wanting someone this much before. I draw my finger down her back and I know I left marks will fade in a day or so. She’s biting her lip now instead of me and all I want to do is kiss her, please her, make her scream. My turn to control. Fabulous.
I arch my body slightly. Deeper, so much deeper, and I realize she’s holding back. Good. I like a challenge. Especially one in 3 inch heels. My left hand goes under the small of her back as she tightens her grip with her legs and my right hand moves around to her stomach. Her turn to ride it out. Light pressure over her soft flesh and she’s leaning against the wall again, arm splayed out for support. I have no idea who’s in control anymore and I so don’t care. She’s not biting her lip anymore but she’s breathing the way runners breathe in the hot air. We pick up the pace. Finish line is in sight.
I press a little more, both with my hand and with my body and I know who’s in control now. She’s ruining the artwork again with those nails but what do I care. The screams are born as gasps and mature into wet sighs that make me want to kiss her again. But I don’t. No time for that now, we’re not done. A few deep thrusts that bounce her lightly against the wall and she looks at me as if to challenge me. I like that. Harder thrusts, breaking the laws of physics but what do I know about that? She’s banging into the wall now and the sensual screams are back. I smile with every inch of my body and join in the noise.
Our bodies close on one another and the wall lends its support. Good. I can’t stand on my own. I’m drained and the wall knows it. We slip down onto the floor and sit there for awhile, still inside, still joined. She never says a word, only smiles and every so often kisses me softly. Eventually she tells me to close my eyes, to rest and I obey. The warmth of her body is still flowing over me and it feels like home.
I open them back up and she’s gone. The sun is coming, I can feel it. The keys are still in the door but her clothes are gone, and so are mine. I try not to ask the important questions. To hell with it. I only live a few blocks from here and it’s probably nice outside. At least she left my keys. 