I got rid of the condom before either of the cats could get it. At least he had used one, right?

Right.

What the hell had happened? What the hell was I thinking? Why didn’t I listen to him? I had more questions than I felt I could come up with answers to. I had wanted him, and I had gotten him, but I’d fucked it up.

I tried to walk through the encounter in my head, over and over. Each time, the point at which it went sideways was when I didn’t listen to him, and now he was gone. Where did he go? Back to Strickland’s? Why would he do that? What about me? Was that where I was going? Why? It was a little past seven. If I went, I’d just be back in the next three hours. If I went, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate.

I fed the cats and picked up the phone. It was a rare Wednesday night when both Zahira and I were free. I asked her to come over. Before she got there, I decided to take advantage of the fact that I was actually home. I finally opened the box that my cats had been using as a scratching post. It was from New York—my mother. Inside was some of my old sashes and tiaras from my pageant days. She probably thought it would be funny. She would send stuff over to me when she wanted to communicate subtly that it had been too long since my last visit. I had been hoping that maybe I’d be able to make it for Thanksgiving that year, but it was still up in the air.

She didn’t live alone. I never worried that she was lonely. She had started fostering kids when I was still in high school. She was still doing it. She had never married my father—or anyone for that matter. He was one of her college professors that she had had an affair with and I was the result. She had studied opera in Italy, and he was a teacher, or the dean—whatever, it didn’t make that much of a difference his exact title, their union had been prohibited. She had never badgered him for child support. She had wanted a kid, and she got herself one. My aunt—her sister—lived close to her and they were close, so I never worried about her. I was overdue for a visit, though. New York in the fall was the city at its most acceptable and beautiful. I hoped I could go this year.

Zahira brought homemade Dominican food. Homemade in someone else’s home, not hers, but still delicious. I reheated the croquetas and tostones up in the oven. She hadn’t planned to spend the night in her studio that day—if I hadn’t called her, she would have called me. We got talking. The conversation inevitably found its way to Levi because I had steered it there. She listened silently as I told her what had happened, in my apartment, against the door she’d walked through that night.

“So?” I asked. I wasn’t afraid that she’d call me easy or anything like that. I genuinely didn’t know what to do. Maybe I did but just wanted someone else to hear me out, so I knew it wasn’t totally crazy.

“You sound like you want to see him again,” she said.

“I do, I just… I think I fucked it up. I don’t think he wants to see me again.”

“You know the only way to find out is to ask him.”

“I can’t do that, Zahira. He was so mad.”

“Well, you have to do something, Audra. Do you think he’s going to come back looking for you again?”

“Most likely not.”

“Wow. I need to meet this guy if he has you this fucked up.”

“He doesn’t have me fucked up, Zahira.” He did. Of course, he did. Everything I was doing right now said he did.

“I still say you should talk to him,” she said. “Unless the sex meant nothing, and you didn’t want anything out of it in the end.”

“So, what should I do? If I decide to see him again.”

“See him again, like date him? If that’s what you want, you need to get to know him. You need to look him up,” she said.

“Look him up? Like on Google?” I asked. She nodded. “You don’t just look people up. Why would I do that?”

“Why haven’t you already?” she asked like I was the one who wasn’t making sense. “In this day and age, everyone has something about them online. Is the man married, does he have a DUI, what sign is he? It’s all out there.” I frowned.

“I don’t fucking know.”

“Well, what do you know?”

His name? What he looked like? That he had a dead dad and was the middle child? Oh, my god. I had had this guy’s cock down my throat, and I had barely had a full conversation with him.

Maybe… maybe this was okay. We weren’t dating. We weren’t even friends or anything. We were just having sex. Who was I kidding, we weren’t even doing that? I had blown that chance, more than once. We were nothing. There was nothing between us, and therefore there was no reason for me to care.

Once the auction process was over and he got his money, we wouldn’t even have a professional relationship anymore. It was his brother that was taking over Strickland’s, not him. I shrugged looking at Zahira.

“Nothing that matters,” I muttered.

“Are you actually interested in this guy, for real?” she asked.

Was I? The answer to that was glaringly obvious in the fact that I was discussing him with Zahira. Was it the noblest interest? I mean, I wanted him to fuck me. For real this time, not stop in the middle because I made him mad and not let me come. I also, maybe, wanted to apologize. I didn’t think his feelings were hurt; I just thought he felt, I don’t know, disrespected or something. I also… I wanted to see if it was in my head, the connection I thought I’d felt with him when we kissed and when he was around me. I was hung up on this guy, and I wanted to know that I wasn’t wrong for it.

“I mean I… I’d like to see him again,” I said.

“So this is more than just rebound sex?”

“Why does it have to be more?” I asked quietly.

“It doesn’t sound like sex is all you want.”

It wasn’t. It wasn’t. She was right. I didn’t know what it was that I did want, but it was something. She left, but she let me keep the leftovers. I could have them tomorrow morning. Nothing changed when she left. I just thought about him because there was nobody in the house anymore to talk about him to. It was one thing to want him. It was something else entirely to feel what I was feeling. I still wanted him, but more. Not just what he gave me that night.

I did the dishes and checked my email, but I could feel myself doing it. Look him up she had said like it was the most normal thing in the world. I caved and typed it in. Levi Strickland. Google came through with autocomplete suggestions because I was clearly not the only one who wanted to look this guy up.

I ignored them and let Google give me what it had. I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly, something incriminating? The general stuff came up, like his full name, age, birthday and what not. May 30^th. He was a Gemini. Zahira, what did that mean?, I thought.

I looked at the other suggestions. Levi Strickland girlfriend came up as the first option. Her full name was Deborah Fellows. Heiress and socialite. Yeah. She looked like one if that sort of person has a particular look. I was right, or at least a little bit right. They had some sort of romantic relationship, on again and off again. Last I saw they were on again, but he had come to me, so maybe they were off again. Maybe they just weren’t exclusive.

I shook my head. It was none of my business. None of my business. We weren’t together, so what he was or wasn’t doing with Deborah Fellows was none of my business. Great. Since it was none of my business, though, what was the harm in clicking through a few more of these pages? It was all out there, I mean, none of this was a secret. He was clearly a public figure of some type. I was totally justified in doing this. This was fine. Not creepy at all.

Levi Strickland net worth was the second option. I didn’t want to click it. I had an idea of what it might be if his father’s status and wealth was anything to go on. They had grown up in Marin, and their father had an art and antique collection that would rival some museums. That told me everything I needed to know.

The third one was Levi Strickland sex tape. I clicked it before I could stop myself. The video began playing immediately when the page opened. I paused it because what the fuck was I doing? I didn’t want to see that. I didn’t want to see Levi having sex with someone.

This was a bad idea.

I closed my browser.

There was nothing Google could tell me that I actually wanted to know. There was nothing he could tell me either because I knew already. He was obviously one of those men that had never been told no in his life and was used to people asking how high when he asked them to jump. When he told them to jump; he probably didn’t do too much asking at all. He didn’t ask me anything, except what the fuck I thought I was doing moving my hand when he’d asked me not to.

What an asshole. Why was I thinking about him so much? He was obviously controlling, and accustomed to the sort of things sexually that I was in no position to provide for him. He probably had gotten what he wanted, anyway. Did you go to bed with someone you hardly knew unless that was all you thought they were good for?

Too bad he had felt amazing inside of me. Too bad once he had started I didn’t want him to stop. When I felt the head of his cock against me, I was so shocked I didn’t say anything. What I would have asked was for him to not bother with the condom at all. To just fuck me raw and then come in my mouth, or inside me. If he’d preferred to come inside, I don’t think I would have told him not to.

Bed. That was what I needed. I had work tomorrow. I would probably want to make up for the hours I’d lost today, anyway. Everything is clearer after a night of sleep. I took a shower and climbed between my sheets. I braided my hair down my back before I did so it wouldn’t be a mess in the morning. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes of tossing and turning later, I got up to get a glass of water and try again.

I couldn’t sleep. I was restless. I was tired from work, but my body was wired. My mind was racing, and I knew what was bothering me. I just didn’t want it to be what it was. Him. If I put my hand between my legs, it wouldn’t feel like his cock. If I touched myself and came, I knew it wouldn’t be the same as coming around his cock.

He had never let me come. Was he punishing me at the time for not listening to him when he wanted me to keep my hands on the door? Did it make a difference? My hand spread my lower lips, and I lubricated my fingertips in my own gathering nectar. I spread my legs and pushed two fingers into myself. It wasn’t enough, but it would have to do until I got to feel him again.

I didn’t care whether or not it was appropriate for me to think about him that way, I was buzzing, and it was because of him. Whether or not we ever had sex again, I wanted this release. I needed it. I thought about his hard body pressing me into the door. I’d seen him without a shirt on; he was all muscle and sinew, thick and solid. I imagined him covered in sweat driving his cock into me hard, relentless. I remembered his cock between my lips, his groan when he came, his hands in my hair, smacking my ass till it was sore.

I fucked myself with my fingers faster. My breath quickened, I was nearly there. I could practically feel him on top of me, holding me down while he mercilessly fucked me. I had never been restrained before. Was that what he wanted? I wanted to please him, to make him come, harder than the first time. In my mouth, on my tits, wherever he wanted. I touched my clit, rubbing it as my fingers plunged in and out of me till I felt myself convulse, my pleasure exploded and spread through my body.

My body seemed to cool down as I came down off the high of my orgasm. There was scuffling in the other room, the tap of the cats’ claws on the floor. They were up and about doing whatever it was cats did at night. I turned on my side and tried to get to sleep.

Maybe I’d be tired after the orgasm, but something told me I wouldn’t be.