“You could use my phone. If that’s easier.”
Tyler’s face wrinkled. “I don’t know her number—I know, I’m an idiot. I can’t remember anything. It’s like this phone is my brain.”
And then a shout from behind us—“Hey! Coming through!”
We both jumped back. Two guys, stumbling. One had his arms wrapped around the other’s torso, straining to keep him upright. They swerved in a wide arc, then back, hurling themselves down the street.
“Wow, people are wasted out here.” Tyler laughed, his own pale cheeks flush with drink, or maybe the cold. “But don’t worry about it, I can just go back to the hotel.”
“No—of course it’s fine. Come on up.”
He followed me inside, down the narrow entrance hall. We walked in silence up the creaking flights. At the landing I fiddled with the doorknob, struggling before I realized I was holding my office key. I found the right one and let us in. I flipped on the lights: my apartment looked small and dingy, in need of a fresh coat of paint.
“There’s an outlet over there.” I pointed next to the door. “Just let me find the charger.”
I went to my bedroom. I picked up the charger from the chair beside my bed. I stood in the dark, holding it in my hands, not moving. If I stayed in here long enough, maybe Tyler would just leave.
When I returned to the living room, Tyler was looking at his phone, face glowing in the flare of its screen. “You’re back.” He glanced down at his phone and laughed—that soft laugh. “I guess it wasn’t dead after all.”
“I guess not.” I looked at him, standing in my living room, small shoulders stooped, a half-smile on his face.
“Can I ask you a question?” he said.
I nodded. “Sure.”
“I was wondering—did you have plans tonight, for after the event?”
I nodded again. “I did.”
“And you bailed on them? To come meet us?”
I opened my mouth, as if I might say something else, then simply admitted it. “Yes.”
“I thought so. Or maybe.” The half-smile bloomed, spreading across his face. “I’m glad you did.”
I don’t remember crossing the room, if I went to him or Tyler came to me, but then I was kissing him, his open mouth under mine, tongue against my teeth, breath gamey with wine and nicotine. He slipped from his jacket and lifted his T-shirt over his head. I watched my hands skimming up and down the length of this body I had conjured so many times, the ridges of his ribs rippling under my fingers. He dug into me. I pulled him closer, lifting his face to my own. From low in his chest, an animal moan rose up.
He pulled away and we faced each another. A quick panic seized me—was that it? And then something else came over me and I felt in that moment, with absolute clarity—this is my chance to become somebody else. I tore off my jacket—I still had it on, I was baking inside it—and undid my shirt, the small buttons slippery under the rush of my fingers. I threw the shirt to the floor and Tyler reached for my torso, fingers grazing me—I started at the live wire bolt of his touch on my skin. I grabbed him and spun him against the couch, pushing into him from behind, holding him there—his back against my chest, breathing in sync. I reachedaround and unsnapped his jeans, slid the zipper down. “This okay?” He nodded and whispered, “Yes.” The edge of his underwear peaked out, black briefs. I hooked my thumb into the waistband and peeled them down with his jeans, just enough. I stepped back and looked down—his exposed ass, the taut swell of its muscles.
I took him by the wrists, my hands easily encircling him, and knelt. I leaned forward and inhaled, my body seizing in disbelief. I let go of his wrists and his arms hung slack with surrender. I thought—how is this happening? And then I yanked down his underwear and jeans—he gasped, a sharp cry of surprise. The clothes bunched at his ankles, the backs of his legs rosy from the rough rubbing of elastic and denim. I pried his thighs apart, opening him up, and he growled, pitched and low, holding the back of the couch and bending forward. I licked at the inside of one leg and then the other, my tongue leaving a trail of spit behind. A dank heat poured off him, I could smell it. The hair of his legs was coarse and brown, darker than the hair on his head. It became soft and almost invisible as it reached his ass cheeks, a coat of pale down. I rubbed my face against it and gripped his hip bones, pulling him to me, pushing in my eager mouth. My tongue searched him out, lapping up the pungent, alloy taste of his asshole. He made tiny, whimpering sounds like it hurt, a hand clutching the back of my head.
I stood, pressing into him and undid my pants. I pulled out my cock—the relief of pressure a kind of aching. I tapped it against him. “Oh fuck,” he said, and giggled. I pulled back, making space for him. He kicked himself free of the bundled clothes and turned around, naked. His damp hair was matted across his forehead. The skin of his face splotchy and almost swollen from the blood-rush of leaning over the couch. Violet pinpricks of pimples dotted hischeek and chin. I looked down. He had a small dick. It curved toward the flat of his stomach in a tight, hard loop, like a finger calling you forward. It was a shiny scarlet against the dark of his pubic hair, which he’d clipped short. He wasn’t circumcised and the foreskin had pulled back, revealing a bright, round head glistening with precum; I could see a string of it hanging like spittle. I pulled him to me, kissing him roughly, and then lowered him, guiding him to the floor. He looked up, eyes yellow-green slits, mouth open. I spit on my fingers, rubbing my saliva across the dark pink of his lips. I slid my fingers into his mouth. He sucked at them, his tongue whirling over my knuckles, down the groove where they split.
I hooked my fingers to his teeth and pulled, forcing him open. I rubbed my cock against his face and bounced it along the curve of his cheekbone—it made a popping sound against the hollow of his open mouth. “Wider.” He did as I said and I forced myself in, over my fingers and into his mouth, to the back of his throat. He grunted and with my other hand I grabbed his hair, greasy in my palm. He sucked at me wildly, too hard, teeth scraping. I pushed in deeper and then pulled out and hoisted him up. We looked at each other, heaving, the wildness I felt inside myself reflected across his face. I turned him around, against the couch again, my palm cupped beneath his chin. “Spit.”
I felt around for the nub of his hole and rubbed his spit against it, coaxing it open. I eased in the tip of a finger, waiting for him to loosen around it, and then another. The inside of him was warm and pulsing, warmer as I pushed deeper, twisting inside him. I moved my fingers in and out, getting him ready. My other hand skated the front of him: the small, hard edges of his abs, the dip of his breastbone, over the razor edge of his collarbone and up to his neck,pressing along his jaw. I licked at the salt of the back of his neck and then around to his throat, my tongue trailing across my own hand.
“Should I get a condom?”
He took shallow, quick breaths and for a moment I thought he couldn’t speak. But then he said, “I don’t care.”
I curled my fingers inside him. “Are you sure?”
Above my hold, his head nodded, the smallest movement, up and down.
I slid my fingers from him. They were gummy with saliva and a thicker mucus, a taint of rusty-orange from shit or blood or maybe both. I wiped them against my leg. I spit on myself, rubbing it around. Slick lines of sweat ran from Tyler’s armpits down his sides, tracing the length of him. I gripped his neck again, tilting his chin. His throat hummed. I guided my dick to his hole and nudged the head to the opening, flicking against his wetness. His breath caught.
“Okay?”
