I was shaking. “Yes—oh god, yes.”
“Prove it.” His lips curved into a smile. “Beg for it.”
“Please, sir. Please…” I closed my eyes and threw my head back, almost verging on tears. I wanted it so badly, I would’ve said or done anything. “Please, sir, I want it…”
“As you wish,” I heard him say, as he pushed the tip of his cock into me. I cried out—louder than before—and had to grab a pillow to keep myself from yelling. Expertly, he slid it deeper into me, waiting a moment as I widened to accept him. My breathing quickened. I felt him pulsing inside of me; his face betrayed a look of pure ecstasy.
“Oh, Natalie,” he moaned, as he began pulling his penis out, slowly, before driving it back into me. I yelled out, indifferent to what the neighbors might have thought. This was my moment—ourmoment—and I would inhabit it.
“It feels so good,” I said, biting my lip. I was sweating, my dress clinging to my flesh. He was finally getting around to taking it off, and as he did he took my breasts in his hands and brought his tongue to my nipples, flicking his tongue across them, and then—once it was clear I was enjoying it—sucking on them. My nipples were so sensitive, and the sensation so disorienting, I had to shut my eyes for a moment, focusing only on my breathing and the wet of his tongue as it trailed across my chest. I had the fleeting sensation he was my child, and I was nursing him, but then he plunged his cock into me, and I remembered. We were strangers, yes. But the passion, the intimacy, was something which transcended carnality, and which I could only comprehend as making love.
“Shower,” I managed.
He looked up. “Yeah?”
I watched him slide out of me, and suddenly felt empty, eager to be filled. I made like I was going to sit up, but he didn’t allow me. He swooped me up, and I was again in his arms. Lucas kissed me passionately, and I kissed him back, for the first time understanding the cliché of fireworks, my mouth hungry for his. And that’s when he carried me into the bathroom—which was stunning, like the rest of the flat, but didn’t command my attention just then—and set me down on the counter. He went to the shower and turned on the water, which cascaded like a waterfall onto the marble tiles, and adjusted the temperature to his liking. Then he came back and picked me up. I tensed up, he was freezing.
“Wait, it feels—” I began, but before I could finish he had brought us both under the stream of the showerhead, and it felt so cold I yelled out. I breathed heavily, more heavily than I had when Lucas was eating me out, and he stared at me as I did, his expression slightly amused. As I looked into his eyes I began warming up, and once we resumed kissing and his hands began wandering, I realized the water was not as cold as I’d thought.
Lucas smiled. “Cold showers do wonders for libido,” he said.
“Clearly,” I said, looking at his manhood, which was so hard it could have cut diamonds. It twitched as if responding to my attention.
Then, in one fell swoop, he had me pinned against the wall, his forearms pressing into the back of my thighs, my legs behind him, and he slid his cock into me. It felt better than before—the cool of the tiles and the water, contrasting with the heat of his body—and I came so intensely I was lightheaded. I moaned like we were in a porno, only I wasn’t faking any of it.
“Yeah? You like that?” Lucas fucked me faster and deeper, and I came again; my body trembled, and I couldn’t tell if my face was wet from the shower or tears of pleasure.
“Lucas… Lucas…” was all I could manage, and as I did he held me tighter and kissed and bit my neck, the pain intensifying the pleasure, and I came a third time, harder than the last two. I felt as if I were coming with my entire body. I could have screamed, I could have jumped, I could have kicked, and still nothing would have conveyed the intensity of the feeling. My body went slack, and he pulled out.
“You’re incredible, you know that?” Lucas said, kissing my forehead.
The following sequence of events was forgettable. We showered and went to bed. I woke up early, hungover, to an email announcing the details of my new flight to Seattle, Lucas asleep just beside me. I got out of bed, got my dress, and tiptoed into the living room. I put on my shoes, grabbed my bag (and didn’t grab my underwear), and slipped quietly out the door, down the elevator and out of the building, blinking against the rosy dawn.
But I’d never forget that night.
4
An Unfortunate Turn of Events
Lucas
I awoke in a state of bliss. After an evening of passionate sex, the best I’d ever had, I slept like a baby. I rolled onto my side, feeling for Natalie’s warmth, but found her absent.Hmm…she must be in the bathroom.
It took a few moments to open my eyes—my sleep had been heavy, my dreams intense—but when at last I managed to open them and direct my gaze to the bathroom, I found it vacant.
“Natalie?” I called out. No response. With an eagerness I wouldn’t fully admit to, I got out from under the sheets and ran to the kitchen, thinking maybe she was making herself coffee or getting ready to leave for her flight. But there was virtually no sign of her. No bag, no shoes; only the underwear, which lay exactly where she’d dropped it the night before.
I was taken by a sudden shiver, as if the room had become very cold, before composing myself.Surely there’s a reason for this—she had to have left a way for me to contact her. Right?
But as I searched the entirety of the apartment—first the living room, then the bedroom, and even the bathroom—I found absolutely nothing, no tether between us two, no way of contacting her again. I sank into my bed, defeated.
“Natalie?” I called out again, hopelessly. And again, no response.
Natalie… did she mention a last name? Where she lived, where she went to school? Dammit, why didn’t I ask her more questions… wait! She did mention she was an artist!It wasn’t a lot to go off, but in the moment, it was my golden ticket. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand, opened the internet browser, typed “Natalie artist Minnesota,” and searched—to no avail. As fate would have it, there were many artists named Natalie in Minnesota, and none so fair as my Natalie. I tried narrowing specificity—“Natalie artist Minneapolis”—before realizing there was no guarantee she even lived in Minneapolis; it may have just been the most convenient airport to get to Seattle. Just then I was struck with a thought so ridiculous—searching “Tala wedding Seattle”—I had to set my phone down and make myself a cup of coffee.
But why would she do this? I thought everything was perfect!And then I began to grow fretful of increasingly improbable scenarios—she was in a relationship; she was a spy, sent out by a rival company to gain intelligence. Maybe I had been too drunk or too delirious on my flight, and she had been a mere hallucination—but none of them held. As I sat on the couch and nursed my coffee, I looked down at the discarded underwear.She was here. I kept repeating this to myself, over and over.She was here. She was here. She was here.
I was beginning to form the edges of an idea—She was going to Seattle, right? What if I checked the departing flights and saw her at the airport? There might be time still—when my phone screen lit up, the silence shattered by a too-upbeat-given-the-circumstances ringtone. I grabbed the phone: Julianna Mendosa.Mom.