Chapter 12 – Amelia
To get to the Plaza, I run to the subway stop that’s down the street from my apartment - and I grab a bagel on my way. Yesterday’s bagel had gotten ruined, after all. Plus, I’m starving. Dancing burns plenty of calories. And so does that other thing. Having sex with strangers in alley ways.
I sit on the subway, eating my bagel. Part of me wonders if the people around me somehow know what I did last night. Can they smell it on me? No, that’s ridiculous. This is the subway, where the scents of pee and weed smoke cloak everything.
I’m safe on the scent side of things. But I still feel…guilty? Is that what this is? Guilt, hesitance, uncertainty? I’ve never slept with anyone I wasn’t going to wake with the next day. Not that I had any problem with people who did - to be honest, if I felt anything towards them it was usually jealousy. Because I never thought I could be that carefree and fun-loving.
The juxtaposition of my first one night stand with the fact that I’m headed to what was meant to be my wedding venue makes my head spin a bit. I close my eyes and rest my head back, using my innate New Yorker strength to tune out the shouting, moaning, screeching machinery, and other assorted noises that permeate any subway ride. With my eyes closed, I try to figure out what I’m going to say to the people at the venue, if anything. Part of me still wants to go with Rosa’s “get free shit” plan, and the rest of me is saying that trying to get free stuff on top of getting laid is asking too much out of a twenty four hour timespan.
The train jerks to a stop, and I count without opening my eyes. Three more stops. Part of the reason I’d wanted to look at the Plaza for the wedding was because I walked past it every day for months when I first moved here to New York and was working as a paralegal. I worked at the kind of firm that takes out ads on the side of buses, hoping you’ll get distracted and run into the bus while you read it. Nobody ever did, as far as I know. It was awful, but I worked there anyway, and every time I passed the Plaza, I thought about how one day I would be fancy enough, rich enough, good enough to get inside.
My rumination, as usual, proves totally unhelpful. I want to get inside, but doing so under false pretenses now that I’m no longer engaged feels, to my lawyer brain, somehow like cheating. And walking away with nothing would not only be embarrassing, but it would also cost me the deposit (which I’d paid out of my own pocket anyway).
God, Jason was such a cheap ass sometimes. He’d said we should get married far away from the City so that it would cost less. It’s just a day, he’d said—why waste so much money on it? Good thing I didn’t waste money on one day—or the rest of my life—with him. Who wants a ceremony in the countryside anyway? The last thing I need is a herd of cows as witnesses to my wedding.
I keep my eyes closed, waiting for the next stop. To distract myself from the decision I need to make about what I’ll tell the wedding venue people, I let my mind drift back to last night - not that it needs much excuse to do so. I can still feel the cool air on my skin, hands on my thighs, the dampness between my legs…
Without realizing it, I’m smiling. I can feel the muscles in my face curving up as I remember the kiss, the touch, the fuck. I twist my hips just a bit on the subway seat, and the light abrasions on my ass from the brick wall tingle in response, even through my skirt and underwear. It seems I can even feel his hand marks and the welts, from where he spanked me and grabbed at my ass.
I bite my lip, already wishing that the guy from last night could be here to do it for me again. Do not masturbate on the subway, Amelia, I tell myself. Even without a single touch, I can feel myself getting revved up - heartbeat increasing, legs opening, panties just a bit wet. So, I do the only thing I can to stave it off: open my eyes.
Around me, no one seems to have taken notice. Whew. I scan the faces just to be sure, and - What the ever living fuck. No.
Down the car, there’s a guy in a tan jacket. A guy with a great jawline, sandy hair, lean body…and a dick that was inside me less than 12 hours ago. Fuck. That can’t be him. But it is. Even without the strobing lights of the club or the pale streetlights of the alley, my brain knows what I don’t want to admit: I’ve somehow managed to get on the train with my one night stand, the morning after said one night stand took place.