Chapter One

 

As I walk through the city now, I feel autumn in my bones and between my legs. That unique dust is in the air, suggesting this decaying time of year. Something alive is about to die as the last blood of summer slips through scarlet veins. My thighs pulse in an undulating rhythm as this old season slides down those slippery sweat-covered slopes of fall, soon to freeze in the cold hands of winter-but not yet.

I'm sticky now between my legs letting a warm breeze move between my fluttering skirt and my quivering legs. Crossing the street just past the university, I walk into old- town where there are trendy boutiques freely mixing with derelicts, where the wine is either chic or drunk out of brown paper sacks, where I can stare into shop windows and wish I had the money to spend on black leathers, or offer change to a wrinkled hand extended in my direction.

I see him again today, the stranger. The man with the long, black ponytail and the trimmed beard and the physique of concrete and steel. He has the eyes of a conquering hero. I'm not sure he really sees me, or takes notice of who I am, or what I appear to be. But I see him clearly, a virile man who moves with grace-with feet anchored and eyes that know things. Again my sex quickens seeing the way his mood plays confidently along this street. He's got a boy's tight ass and the bulge of a man in front. I'd stare but I'd be embarrassed if he caught me looking so I simply imagine what he's like beyond the clothes. Arms like a truck driver, thighs like a wrestler, though he'd be none of these, just naturally powerful for power's sake alone.

Too aroused to wait until I reach Isaac's flat and its privacy, I duck between two buildings, the alley narrow but passable, until it opens into a deserted courtyard. Under the cover of a secluded archway, I pull up my skirt and rub my hand along silk tap pants. The aroma of my female body wafts upward. And there, under the folds I feel myself damp. Prodding one finger, silk and all inside the wetness, it's a quick finger-fuck, but it's not enough. I think of the stranger, his hold over my mind-and I've only seen him twice. If he were with me, I'd be naked now. As it is, I have one hand under my sweater fondling a tit I've freed from my bra, while the other hand manipulates the hard clit through silk. But when that's not enough, I pull my tap pants down over my hot hips. In my hand, I press them to my nose and draw a deep breath. The sex aroma is stronger still-of autumn and decay and my own musk. Breathing is drinking that fine seasonal wine. Fissures and flesh so enlivened claw at me as though something needs to be freed.

Getting closer to a cum, I can't stand the confines of the sweater's heated wool. Quickly drawn over my head, I toss it to the ground at my feet. Both tits pop from their lacy confines and I start getting shivers thinking that my stranger is about to turn the corner into the alley and confront me with those eyes. Enormous spasms of relief are so dizzying I want to fall in a faint, but the concrete beneath my feet would never comfort me the way my own hands can now that I'm cumming. Grinding my hips into the wall behind me, I feel the brick scratch my ass as the cum goes on. Moving on the wall as though it's a lover's hand, I press the sensation to a peak, gliding over the top. Bucking hard at the very end, until it's over.

I believe I've been silent, but gazing upward I see an open window and a face staring at me curiously. She's older than I am, dressed in jeans, looking dykish but interested-at least until I pull the sweater back over my sand-colored hair and she turns away. I've embarrassed myself, but decide to step out of my shame back into the autumn day.

It's quiet on the street, cars moving by lazily as though they're in slow motion. Just two blocks to Isaac's, I'm there in minutes, climbing three flights to his book-lined living room and study and the tiny guestroom where I sleep, and the cat he calls Smithereens-I didn't bother asking why the name.

Isaac's gone for the year, a sabbatical in Greece. He's there while I sweat at home, or rather in his city home away from my real one over the bridge and thirty miles south. Robby, the guy I married last year, thought it practical to house-sit Isaac's cat for a free room and no commute during the week. I suspect this makes it easier for him to have his other life, the affair with Chelsea and her mop-top curls. Robby and I did all the right things because we both wanted to feel safe, I suppose, being able to say "my wife", or "my husband." But this is no one's idea of a real marriage. Still, I love the house and the lake on summer weekends when it's hot, and Robby's great company after he has his fill of Chelsea's thighs and the spicy perfume at her neck.

Now, away from all that, I can imagine something extraordinary happening in this marginal part of town. That was the real reason I took Isaac's offer. I can imagine I'll get an answer to what's aching in me.

 

***

 

It's the end of another week. Friday. I tell Robby I'll be staying in the city for the weekend. His words suggest he's disappointed, but I can hear the pulse of excitement as I give him the news. He can have Chelsea in our bedroom is what he's thinking. I suppose just for good measure, I should show up anyway and catch them there. I wonder what it would be like to watch her tanned thighs moving with my husband's cock between them. He'd have her haunches up, ass wagging like a dog. It think he'd fuck her on the floor, the hard pounding variety. I'd juice just watching them perform with her athletic body going on for an hour before she finally gets exhausted. It's not hard work for Robby, though-he wouldn't have to get her off. She'd be into multi-orgasmic frenzies all on her own.

I'll find something as good for myself, but it won't look the same as their brand of sex.

The bar's crowded at four just as work gets out, and at least until six, until the dinner hour when the patrons desert this part of town for better restaurants and better beer. I've talked my way through three Bud Lights and am waiting for the fourth when I see the stranger. The tell-tale sign-his ponytail swinging against his back as he leans into the bar. Instinct must tell him that he's being stared at because he starts to move. Instantly, my body contracts, and I have to turn away, except that I've caught his gaze, and he mine. Finally breaking eye-contact, I reach for my purse as though I'm about to leave.

Suddenly, there's a hand on my hand as I reach for the floor.

"Haven't you ordered another beer?" I hear his voice for the first time. I know it's him long before my eyes confirm the fact.

My pulse is rapid, the beating of my heart twice as fast as I remember normal, and I can't help squirming my crotch against the wooden seat. Looking him in the eye, I start to sit up straight, forgetting my attempt to flee. I couldn't now if I wanted to with his hand clutching mine.

"What's your name?" he asks as he puts all his virile masculinity into the chair across from me.

"Ellen Laurey," comes out without thinking. Instead of Carolyn Cauthen, I use the name of a poet I met in college before she died in a car accident. I remember Ellen as someone who took chances, just as I know I'm taking one now, allowing this man to apprehend me with his grip of steel.

I see that his eyes are blue, cornflower dark, looking almost eerie coming from his face. His hand, tight on mine, generates heat and tranquillity-peace with his gentle caress, and I feel as though I'm sinking into the fabric of his clothes and the scent of him-scotch, cologne and bar smoke-and what appears to be the trace of a smile.

"So, Ellen Laurey, I've seen you haunting this neighborhood before."

"Is that a crime?"

"To stay here past happy hour suggests you're waiting for someone."

How could I tell him that I'm waiting for him? Maybe he already knows, one of those people with a sixth sense that you bond with instantly, that you can't let go no matter how dangerous you believe they are.

His hand moves over mine. "A boyfriend?" he pursues the question.

"No, I have ..." I was about to say husband but I stop myself. "I have no where to go."

"And nothing to do," he adds.

"And nothing to do," I agree with him.

"But you want sex," he concludes.

I don't confess or deny my desire, but we both have this figured. Maybe he'll ask to go home with me, and I'll let him, fucking him in Isaac's bed long into the night, then saying goodbye to him forever sometime before dawn. But no, the stranger has other ideas.

"I'll eventually have you in an alley since you enjoy them so much, but you have a choice tonight, the last one you'll ever have with me. Here in the bar or outside the back door?"

"You're going to have sex with me here? Now?" I whisper.

"You want anything less, Ellen?"

"No, no." I'm almost out of breath. "But how did you know?"

"About the alley?"

"And me?"

"I saw you walk into that alley and then leave looking like a different woman. Everything else about you is as obvious as your wet cunt."

He's never let go of my hand, and doesn't when he rises. I don't remember telling him where I wanted this first fuck, but I suppose that shouldn't concern me, the hallway on the way to the restrooms will do.

 

The corridor's a long one, well past the bar and the few people still milling and drinking, beyond the laughter, gawfaws and chuckles and the occasional giggle of a woman. I hear my heels tapping against the wood, seeming to roar inside my head. The stranger guides me with a hand pressed against my back. When we reach the end of the long hall, it makes a sharp left and I feel him push me against the wall ahead of me. With his hand at my neck, my face is mashed against the stucco. First cool, the surface is quickly hot from my breath. I grow dizzy, disoriented by his force and the humiliation.

Ripping up my skirt the stranger grabs for an ass cheek and squeezes hard enough so I feel his nails. I swallow the shriek that's stuck in my throat. He backs off and I breathe, for an instant feeling fresh air rush into my lungs. Though the alcove is quickly stale from our body heat and the fumes of passion from my crotch and his.

Running fingers over my behind, I sense he's inspecting me for flaws. There won't be any on my ass-not yet. Just cream-colored skin, milky, appearing translucent because the glow of light around us is dim, a warm yellow.

"You've been flogged?" he asks.

"No, never," I answer. I clench my cheeks tightly.

I feel a finger on my clit, having reached deeply between the flesh of my legs. He squeezes and I gasp, my breath is short again.

"You want that?" he asks. " A well-warmed behind?"

I nod because I can't speak. I imagine him sneering at me, but when I look back I see just the intent look on his face. I can see he's hot, especially as he withdraws his belt and I glimpse the pouch at his legs growing more robust with each second his eyes feast on my pushed-out ass.

I think he's going to whip my behind with his leather, but find that he has other plans more ingenious. The door to my left opens into a stairwell and he jerks me about, forcing me through. Pulling my hands behind my back he confines them with the belt wrapped three times tightly so they're out of our way. With the door closing behind us, the light around us vanishes into darkness-not the darkness that eyes become accustomed to, but the dark were there's no trace of light, where even staring with eyes wide open nothing penetrates the black. We're flesh to flesh in all this black.

My knees hit the stairs and I'm bent forward. My torso rests on the steps above, my cheek now pressed into a hardwood step that's covered with broken non-skid rubber, smelling old, like damp clothes and dust. There's no sound but the sound of my anxious breath.

I'm all touch and smells, my other senses unnecessary now. His flesh is seething, his heat fusing with mine and with my need. His cock parts my ass cheeks and rubs along the cleft. With one hand my hair becomes the handle to steady his hold. His first thrust hits bottom so that a leftover shriek escapes.

"Not a sound," he whispers in my ear, "unless you want the world out there to see you screwed."