Red
Damn, that was good sex. I don’t even know if good can cover it. Fuckin’ great sex. Most likely the best sex I’ve had in my life. Nah, screw that, definitely the best sex I’ve had in my life. I think on that as I get dressed and Christina goes to the door, listening for intruders. The best sex I’ve ever had, and why? It wasn’t the dirtiest, or even the longest-lasting. So why? I pull on my shirt and my underwear, my jeans and my jacket, and I’m still no closer to an answer. Just the way her pert tits were bouncing, her hair spread out over the desk, the way she rode up and down on my balls like she was trying to break ’em. And man, when she came…I’ve never been one to take pleasure from a woman coming, more interested in my own pleasure, but watching her come was something special. Her green eyes got wide, bright, startled, and then closed as her body vibrated like she was about to burst into flames; she felt hot enough for it.
I feel sleepy as I return to my chair, ready for a cigarette and a whisky. Christina, when I’m dressed, returns to her seat. She offers me a small smile, and then looks down at the desk. She picks up her computer screen and rearranges her keyboard, brushes down the desk, and then looks at me. I can tell she’s struggling to keep her gaze on me by the way she constantly looks over my head, toward the door.
Just looking at her, hair messy and curling around her face, cheeks flushed red, eyes wide with the aftermaths of pleasure, makes me want to leap across the desk and take her again. But somehow I get the sense that something has changed.
Without even thinking about it, I say: “Let me give you my number, Christina. We should definitely do that again.”
I immediately regret it, as well as not understanding it. Why did I say that? Why am I even still here? I don’t know what’s come over me. It ain’t me to offer women my phone number. Usually I want nothing more than to get out of the situation before they ask for my number, and yet here I am offering up like an eager teenager. And worse still, I can tell by the way her face changes when I ask my question that she doesn’t want to do this again. The fuck? She clearly liked it: more than liked it. She clearly had the time of her fuckin’ life.
“I think…” She pauses, hesitates, and then hardens and says, “I think it’ll be for the best if this is a one-time thing. I just…well, ah…”
“Just say what you wanna say,” I mutter, getting tired of this. Tired and angry. Not that I give a damn. No, not me, not Red, not the man who learnt all about rejection before he became a man. No goddamn way. And yet…No, I swallow, swallow down the anger and the rejection, the budding resentment. “Just say what you wanna say,” I repeat, when she just stares at me.
She swallows, and then nods. “I just think this will be better as a one-time thing. I feel like I’ve—this is going to sound cruel, but I really don’t mean it that way—I feel like I’ve scratched my romance alpha itch, you know?”
I shrug. “Yeah, sure, fine. Sure, sure.”
Then, before she can say anything else, I climb to my feet and leave the office. I go out into the parking lot, into the sun which I hardly feel, past people who I hardly see, and to the club’s pick-up truck I used to drive me and Ryan over here. I get behind the wheel, but I don’t start the engine, not straightaway. For a while I just sit there, hands gripping the steering wheel, cock sore from pounding Christina, and wonderin’ what the fuck happened back there. The best sex ever, and then—the door shut in my face. And then I get even angrier, grip the steering wheel even harder: pissed at myself for even wonderin’ about why any woman did anything. That isn’t my concern. That isn’t who I am. I shouldn’t give a shit about that.
I start the engine and head down to the club-owned gym, a boxing, free-weights place called Clover and owned, oddly, by a Scotsman. I go in, past the faded picture of a four-leaf clover above the door, up the creaky, grimy stairs, and into the gym area. The Scotsman sits against the wall, watching one of his students work a punching bag. He makes to stand when he sees me—sees the patch—but I gesture with my hand for him to stay sitting. I go to the free weights, take off my jacket, and just start lifting like mad. Dumbbell press, bench press, bicep curl, tricep extension, pushups, diamond pushups, sit ups, on and on, trying to work hard enough so that Christina and that perfect body are no longer in my mind, trying to work hard enough so that I stop making the cruel connection between the way Christina rejected me just now and the way Mom rejected me all those years ago.
When I’m done, I sit on the edge of the bench and look at myself in the mirror, wondering what’s happening to me. One woman, a good fuck, sure—maybe the best fuck—but still, one woman. We fucked; I got what I wanted. One woman…I shouldn’t be thinking this much about one woman, especially after we’ve already fucked. And I offered my phone number. I’ve never done that. I massage my temples, thinking that something strange must be going on inside of me—but then I kill that thought. Nothing strange is going on. I just need a distraction. A fight, a drink, a cigarette. Something to take my mind off those perfect bouncing tits, that tight ass, that pale skin, those wide green deer-eyes, that wavy messy chestnut hair.
I stand up from the bench, pull on my jacket, walk down the creaky, grimy stairs, and out onto the street. I breathe in the fresh air, but that does little to clear my head. Instead of heading for the car I walk down the streets, hands in my pocket, gaze down, thinking. I try not to do that too much: think. All thinking does, as far as I can tell, is remind you just how far up shit creek you are. There’s no point thinking about any bad shit that’s happened to you, ’cause all that’s going to do is make you feel like dog shit. Doing something…that’s more like it. But what can I do about Christina? What can I do about Mom, living a new life somewhere with a kid who’s probably around nine or ten right now, a half-brother or half-sister I’ve never met? What can I do if Christina says she’s done with me?
“I don’t give a fuck,” I mutter as I get to the end of the street.
There’s some homeless guy sitting in the doorway of an abandoned takeout place, the tall long windows obscured with cardboard, the gutter pipe twisted in the wrong direction. The homeless man is black, with bright eyes whose color are difficult to determine.
I walk up to him, reaching into my pocket. “Tough day, eh?” I say, handing him a few notes.
He reaches up and takes the money, nodding shortly. “Always is,” he says, tucking it into the folds of his ragged sleeping bag. “Just gotta get on, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “Yeah, man, you’re right. Yeah. Have a good one.”
He laughs sarcastically. “A good one—you too, boss.”
I head back toward the truck, telling myself that I do not care, killing my emotion: stomping it down into the deep dark place inside of me where a heart used to be.