Another workweek started, and again, Nathan Sinclair was on my mind.
Again, I was distracted from my work.
This pattern was already old, despite its newness. It pissed me off. I hadn’t wanted Nate to invade my space, and that included my office space. He didn’t belong there, lingering in my head, feathering through my thoughts, causing me to mix up the Pershing file with the Parson file and twice to put the wrong color-coding on Hudson’s calendar.
And still, I longed for Nate to call.
I wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to say new things to him. I wanted to be a different person than the person that I was, and maybe then I’d find a compromise between us.
After a couple of silent days had passed, I wondered if I should call or text him myself. I’d told him I wasn’t the relationship type, yes, but did that mean we were over? There wasn’t any closure, but if I called him, would that give him the wrong idea? Would he think I wanted something more? That I was giving in?
That I secretly hoped he’d give me exactly what I said I hadn’t wanted?
No, not that. I got claustrophobia every time I let my imagination run as far as labeling our relationship.
But I did hope that every time the phone rang, he was calling to say he needed another meeting with Hudson or that he just wanted to talk to me.
While running errands after work on Tuesday evening, just as I was deciding that I might be able to envision a Saturday without his perfect body, a text came in from him. I took a deep breath, trying to convince myself I wasn’t as excited as I was.
There was an image attached, a picture of a sporty red car in some sort of ad campaign that Nate must’ve been working on. It was late, and apparently he was still in the office. This color reminds me of your lips around my cock, the text read.
I giggled, right there in the produce section of the Harold’s Supermart.
He did have an eye for color, art dealer that he’d once been. I was pretty sure the shade I’d worn to the fake wedding after sucking him off had even been called Racecar Red.
Now that he’d reached out, I couldn’t remember one good reason why I hadn’t tried to talk to him earlier in the week. I wanted to respond.
Thinking quickly, I walked over to the produce section and picked up a nicely shaped cucumber, snapped a picture, and sent it back. And this reminds me of your long, thick cock.
His next message came back immediately. Put it in your mouth and take a picture so I can remember.
I paused, considering.
Hell, I was going to buy it anyway.
I looked around to make sure no one was watching, but did I really care if they were?
No, it was Greenwich Village. Sexting in produce was par for the course. I stuck the cucumber in my mouth, snapped a pic, and sent it.
The next message that came to me was a bunch of happy face emoji’s.
That was all I heard from him until that Thursday. It was particularly annoying, seeing as I’d thought about him plenty. Thought about him at lunch especially, when I wondered if he ever took breaks. His building was nearby. Would it really be so bad to share a meal in the middle of the day? There were other things we could accomplish in forty minutes or less. Personally, I could probably have five orgasms in that time. But I wasn’t going to be the one to extend the invitation.
So I never bothered posing the lunch question. But then that afternoon when I dug in my purse to find my compact and refresh myself, I noticed that my phone was blinking with a notification. When I checked it (all the while muttering to myself not to expect what I wanted) I found another message from him.
There was another image, a picture of his office, I supposed, and it was minimally decorated, much like his house, with big windows that overlooked the city.
I wish I could duct tape you naked to that window. It would sure make these meetings fly by faster.
It might be a bit distracting for your clients, I typed back. Then I pointedly threw my phone back in my purse since I didn’t keep it out during work hours as a rule. A rule I considered breaking for the next three full hours. It was a genuine miracle I managed to do anything else, considering how preoccupied I was with his possible response.
When I (finally) checked it again after work, there were two texts from him. Yes, but it would be much more distracting for me. And that’s really what matters.
The next had come in twenty minutes later. I can’t stop thinking about you.
My heart jumped in my chest and I remembered what it felt like suddenly the first time I’d gone to Coney Island, the first time I rode the Ferris wheel up to the tippy top, and the way it had felt to come back down, like my heart was still in the sky, even though my body was tumbling toward the ground.
That’s what it felt like when I thought about Nate. Like I was swearing and tumbling all at once. Like I was flying and falling. It was the float and the tug, the search for equilibrium. All I could think about was how eventually the ride had ended. How I didn’t even like amusement parks as an adult.
So I didn’t text him back.
* * * *
“Your skin is so soft,” a sultry alto said.
“Right there, yeah, right there.”
Grunts and sighs interwove with gasps and moans, all of it underscored with the quick-paced breaths of desire.
These were the familiar sounds of a make-out session.
I was at the center of this one. I’d long lost my dress and was naked in the middle of the plush rug on the floor of some bigwig’s penthouse overlooking a snow-capped Central Park.
It was glorious. Complete divinity. My raison de vivre.
I was dizzy in leisured lust, high on endorphins and sweat. Everywhere I put my hand, there was a body to touch and feel and fondle and kiss. My blood hummed with sensation and my belly knotted in a warm bow.
Behind me, Chuck Richard rubbed his cock between the cheeks of my ass. He was teasing, taking his time, but eventually, he would make himself come this way.
While he thrust up and down, his legs entwined with mine, he stroked my arms with long, feathery movements. It felt so good to be stroked and caressed. Occasionally, he would move his hand in front to palm my breast, play with my nipple, squeeze the ample flesh.
But my tits had others attending to them. A beautiful middle-aged woman I’d just met had made them her treasures. She was Persian and her short black hair had a streak of gray that had to be natural but was so perfectly set that it looked like it had been dyed. She was bare from the waist up and came at me from the other direction, her mouth meeting mine upside down, kissing me while her hands played with my breasts, and my hands played with hers.
I was fascinated with her more than almost everyone else in our group. With her teardrop breasts and dark peaks. With her soft lips and the sensuous slide of her tongue. Imagining what we looked like while we petted and kissed, imagining that Nate would be hard and in awe if he were there watching.
Nate.
His name whispered in and out of my pleasure-filled haze, always at the back of my mind, even as I was sucked and stroked by the hands and mouths of others.
Kennedy was between my thighs, his face buried there for so long that I was sure it would be red with a rash when he came up. I lost count of how many orgasms he’d given me, how many times he’d put his fingers inside and manually fucked me until I was shaking and trembling, until I was shouting and writhing.
I was sure there were other hands and other caresses going on, other people getting attention that I was unaware of. The Persian woman had another man nuzzling at her neck. Who even knew what was going on with Kennedy and his cock? Someone was attending to it, surely. It wasn’t my concern at this meal. I was the main course of this particular feast, for no special reason other than that was how the kisses had turned tonight, and the main course didn’t look at the other servings to see if they were being enjoyed.
But I did keep coming back to Nate. Wondering if he’d make an appearance. Wanting to see his face at my feet, between my legs. Just in the room watching, even.
My mouth was swollen and the scent of sex was heavy in the air when I finally heard his voice.
“Perfect. Always so perfect.”
I opened my eyes from the haze of ecstasy. Could it really be…? It was what a junkie must feel like coming down from a high. Or maybe I was the junkie, desperate for another fix of the man I knew was bad for me? I had to swim through a cloud of indecision before I could focus on my surroundings.
My eyes found him, and it felt like finding myself, like finding home.
Had I missed him this much, or was everyone else just so pale in comparison to his colorful life, his sexual prowess, his surprising answers?
Like that first night, he didn’t get too near. Just stood watching. A voyeur.
But this time his tuxedo pants were pulled down, and his cock was in his hands. He fisted himself tightly, jerking off while his eyes stayed pinned on me, on the beautiful display of my sex being adored in front of him. I stretched, opening up in front of him, as though I were a flower and he were the sun. I wanted him to see all of me, wanted him to see me being admired like this. Wanted him to see me being alternately used and served.
I saw him watch as Chuck rolled one of my nipples between his thumb and forefinger, saw Nate’s expression when my mouth curved into an O, as Kennedy brought me to yet another orgasm, and my back arched up, up away from the man behind me and into the mouth of the Persian woman waiting to suck on my lower lip, on my jaw.
“Fuck, you’re killing me,” Nate said, and I could tell from the tightness in his tone that he was close to his own release. We’d only been with each other a few times, but it was enough for me to learn his cues, and I wanted to see him, I wanted to be there for him.
The closure we’d never had could be turned into a new beginning, if he’d just come with me. Come for me.
I pulled away from the touches of other arms, other legs. I untangled myself and bent my knees in front of Nate.
“I’m your canvas,” I said. “Make me your art.”
Nate’s eyes hooded as he tugged harder on his cock and stepped closer. God, he was beautiful. He was a work of art. His body strong and finely chiseled, his jewel-green eyes arresting.
Behind me, Chuck followed to where I knelt so he could wrap his arms around my tits, one in each hand. He pushed them together, making perfect cleavage for the man in front of me.
“So hot. So fucking sexy.” Nate began muttering a string of words, dirty, filthy words, and then he shot his cum all over me—all over my breasts, over Chuck’s hands—painting me with his bliss.
That was what I loved about these parties. This community’s communal goal, everyone reaching toward their own climax, everyone helping everyone else attain pleasure. And sometimes it wasn’t even an orgasm, sometimes it was just watching and feeling every kind of sensation. The beautiful words exchanged. The sounds… God, the sounds that we made together. The harmony our bodies produced. It was my favorite thing in the world.
I’d never had to have any of it outside of these nights, never needed to take anyone outside of these walls, but seeing Nathan Sinclair, I wondered if that had changed.
Had he changed me? How much could I change?
I pulled him away to a bathroom to clean up with me.
“I didn’t think you’d make it tonight,” I said, not wanting to give away how glad I was to see him, but desperate to say something at the same time. To acknowledge that he was important to me.
“I wouldn’t have missed you for the world.” He kissed me, his tongue moving into the deepest parts of me, the places that I didn’t always want to share.
When he broke away, I felt unsettled.
“Busy week?” I asked, looking away as I pulled my dress on over my head, not wanting to meet his eyes. “You seemed to be working late when you sent your texts.”
“Yes. With Weston on his quote-unquote honeymoon, I had to pick up a lot of slack in the office. Donovan took his girlfriend off for the weekend, which meant they both left early yesterday, so I was working today too.” He helped straighten my dress and rubbed off my smudged eyeliner. “I took a break tonight to come and see you.”
“I’m sure everyone loved having you here.” I pushed out the bathroom door, wishing he hadn’t made tonight all about me. It made me feel shackled even though my stomach fluttered at the same time.
Once again, I was worried what he thought was going on between us.
It would sure help if I had a handle on the idea myself.
“Did you want me to grab your coat?” he asked when we were in the hall.
“Sure. That would be great.” Grabbing someone’s coat for them was harmless. Right?
He disappeared into the guest room where the coats had been stored. As soon as he was gone, Chuck Richard came up to me, fully dressed now.
“Miss T,” he said, brushing his fingers along my jawline. “You are so sexy tonight. And I’m still so hard for you. Let me come home with you.”
This was pretty standard. Almost every week he asked if he could go home with me or if I would go home with him.
“I’ll take you to a hotel if you’d rather,” he suggested this time. “We’ll keep the neighbors up all night long.”
“Sounds like a blast,” I said with a flirtatious wink. “But I’ve got my rules, Chuck.”
“Rules were made to be broken.” He rubbed his nose against mine.
I was about to give him another one of my patented brush-offs when Nate returned with my jacket. “She’s going home with me,” he said adamantly.
I stiffened.
What the—? I mean, he hadn’t even asked me. We hadn’t talked about it. He’d just assumed?
I wasn’t going to challenge him though, not in front of Chuck Richard.
“So you do know rules are made to be broken,” Chuck said, his eyes darting from me to Nate, assessing how serious the situation was. “I knew you couldn’t be that strict of a rule follower. No one here is.”
I bit back the growl threatening at the back of my throat. Because I was that strict of a rule follower.
Just somehow my “date” had yet to get it through his head.
I would have to take care of that.
Nate helped me with my coat, and I didn’t say a word, silently seething. The three of us walked out the doors together into the brisk night air. Chuck’s driver drove up and, almost immediately afterward, a cab pulled in behind his car.
Nate opened the door for me to get in. I hesitated for a second, but Chuck was still watching us, and again, I didn’t want to make a scene.
So I got into the car, my cheeks red, as much from rage as from the cold.
When Nate started to give his address to the cabbie, I interrupted and, with a pointed glare in Nate’s direction, gave mine instead.
Then, as soon as the cabbie started driving, I shoved my mask onto my forehead and laid into him. “You told Chuck Richard I was going home with you.”
“I wasn’t trying to assume,” he said apologetically.
“Damn right you weren’t trying to assume.” Fury underlined every word I spoke. “I never said I was going home with you. You didn’t even invite me!”
“Would you like—” he began.
But I cut him off before he could finish. “Don’t you dare ask me now. In hindsight. If you had asked beforehand, by the way, I would have told you the same thing I told Chuck. I have my rules for a reason.”
Nate’s head tilted with a sigh. “You can calm down. I remember your rules. I didn’t mean to step over them. I was simply trying to help you out of a sticky situation.”
“I didn’t need you! I’ve handled him by myself a hundred times in the past. I didn’t ask you to help me.”
“Well, I’m sorry for that.” His voice was calmer than mine but his irritation was just as evident. “Excuse me for wanting to help.”
His lack of understanding riled me up further. I swiveled to face him head on. “I’m not your responsibility, Nate. Don’t you get it?”
“I didn’t think you were. I just didn’t like the way he was coming on to you. I was protecting you.”
There was the protection angle. It was one of my least favorite parts of society’s favorite traditional lifestyle. Men always thought that they knew what a woman needed. Men always thought that a woman needed them. That all women required a chaperone.
Well, we didn’t.
I didn’t.
“I’m not your girlfriend,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and measured in the same eerie way my boss spoke when he was displeased and didn’t want anyone to know. “I had fun with you. And I don’t mind going someplace to fuck, or attending these things together sometimes, but we aren’t a couple. I hate that tonight you had the expectation that we were going to leave together. Or go home together. There are no expectations between us, remember?”
Now he turned to face me, his body as far from mine as it could be in the small backseat of the car. “You wanted to go home with someone else?”
“No. That’s not what I’m saying, and not even the point.” I twisted my head away in a frustrated huff. “I should never have brought you home.”
“You didn’t bring me home. I brought you home.”
“And I should never have gone,” I retorted. “Because this always happens. There always comes a point where men, and clearly you are included here, start to think possessively. That you have some type of ownership over me. That was why I set up those rules in the first place. I want to be able to go to these things and not worry about anyone but myself. I don’t want to have to think about who might be getting hurt or jealous, or worry about who expects what from me when it’s done.” My eyes burned.
“I wasn’t jealous or hurt, and I didn’t expect anything. I loved watching you play tonight,” Nate said sincerely. He stretched his hand across the distance to lay it just above my knee. “If you don’t want to go home with me, Trish, then just say so.”
“I want to go home alone.” It felt like a lie for some reason, even though I meant it.
“Fine with me.” His tone was short, but I could tell he was more frustrated than angry.
And to be honest, I was frustrated too. Because I didn’t understand myself. I did want to be with Nate. I really did. But I still didn’t want to compromise the life I’d built for myself. I wanted the rush of the fix without the commitment of the addiction.
Why couldn’t I just have everything?
When the cab driver dropped me off at my house, I muttered a quiet goodnight, which Nate returned, and I couldn’t help wishing it were more. Couldn’t help wishing it were a kiss, couldn’t help wishing that he would at least walk me to my door, or say something that would break this terrible tension between us.
But he didn’t, and I watched the car drive away from the lobby of my apartment building, wondering if I’d fucked up everything. Which was stupid, since there wasn’t supposed to be anything to fuck up in the first place. Maybe I was the one that was fucked up. That would make the most sense.
With my head hung, I rode the elevator to my floor.
Once I was in my apartment and dressed in an old ribbed tank top and cotton panties, I tried to settle myself down. This was my life. My home. My stuff. I was happy, damn it! He couldn’t understand that?
I took a picture of my favorite armchair and texted it to him with a message. Alone means I don’t have to fight anyone for this.
A few minutes later I had a response. And I don’t have to fight anyone over this. Attached was the image of a bottle of bourbon.
Admittedly, it made me chuckle. I wouldn’t have fought him over that anyway.
My amusement didn’t last long. I was glad to be in my home, alone, amongst my things, in my own space, but I was still agitated. I wasn’t sure if my frustration was aimed at Nate or myself, but it vibrated through me, as alive as the sensations of passion I’d felt earlier in the night.
I turned on Hulu and searched for something to redirect my attention. When I found an episode of Harlots that I hadn’t watched yet, I pushed play.
That was something else I could do because I lived alone.
I took a picture of the screen and sent that to Nate. And I can watch whatever I want without anyone arguing over the remote.
He didn’t respond to that. Which was fine. It was weak anyway since these days a pair of headphones and a laptop could settle most viewing disagreements.
But I sent him another text. And I can sleep in my bed, without worrying about anyone hogging the covers. I took a picture of my bed in case he’d forgotten what that looked like.
Petty? Maybe. But it did make me feel a little better. Even though he hadn’t texted back.
Inspired, I got up and ran to the bathroom and snapped a picture of my makeup spread all over the place and the clean white sink. No one yells about me taking all the counter space.
And I don’t have to worry about finding whiskers in my sink.
Still no response.
I took a picture of my shoes that were still on the floor where I’d shucked them off. No one nags me to put my things away.
Then I took a picture of the outfit I was wearing. I don’t have to worry about looking good for anyone. I can sit around in my ugly old pajamas.
He responded to this one, of course. I’d bang that.
He was being too nice. I looked atrocious.
I sent another text, this time including a picture of the book I’d been reading off and on. And no one can nag me if all I want to do is read all evening.
He answered this text immediately too. And no one can nag me if all I want to do is whack off. The picture that followed was of his dick.
Somehow every good text conversation ended in a dick pic.
At least it was a good dick pic.
I couldn’t help myself. I may be able to find room for that here.
It’s a tight fit.
I threw my phone down with a huff. This wasn’t helping. Not because now I was just thinking about his dick, though I was, but also because even though I did want to come home to my stuff and have my space, and know that no one was going to intrude or yell, or want me to share my time and obligations with them, it was still really nice to have him to text. Was really nice knowing he was somewhere out there, wanting to talk to me.
I forced myself back to my armchair, to the show I was so lucky to be able to watch without anyone interrupting me. Though I couldn’t quite focus on the storyline, I sat there until the episode finished, then I crawled into my bed.
Alone.
I did like having the pillows to myself. And not having to share the covers.
But I still picked up my phone one more time and sent a final text. I miss you.
He responded. I’ll fix this.