A Single Stroke

It’s pouring. I mean, really pouring. The water is coming down in sheets.  It’s loud, really loud, but oddly calming. And then the voice on the phone says, “come to the door.”

 

I barely heard him say it. Not that I was asleep, but I wasn’t exactly listening. Six hours into the marathon phone call and while I was still awake, I wasn’t as fully engrossed in the conversation as I had been earlier. As was often the case with us, conversation had started to drift off into sexually suggestive territory. I didn’t mind really, because I trusted him. We both had highly complicated personal lives that would prevent us from ever being anything other than suspended in this odd, in between space. Friends, but not lovers consistently enough for it to count, not in love but oddly attached to each other in ways that defied explanation. Not partners in any significant respect, but stubbornly loyal and aligned each to the other. And all of this familiarity had existed for over a decade. For all those reasons long, late night conversations that veered into sexual territory were not forbidden. On nights like these, they were almost encouraged.

 

But when he said, “come to the door” a second time, I heard it echo off somewhere else. He said it again, a bit louder this time, and I definitely heard his voice coming from someplace other than my cell. A bolt of fear entered my heart. He was actually at the door. At my door.

 

I couldn’t believe it. This was very out of character for him. He did not engage in unexpected randomness like this, at least not with me.  I finally managed to say, “what? Are you serious right now?” into the phone. “Yes, I am,” he replied. “Come to the door.”

 

I flew into a panic. This was  not cute. I was not flattered. We didn’t engage in these types of late-night-damn-near early morning rendezvous. It was ridiculous. Plus I don’t like surprises. I am a planner. Especially when it came to the rare occasions when he and I managed to be a bit inappropriate with each other. As I mentioned, our lives were complicated. They didn’t lend themselves to spontaneity and unexpected hook-ups. And certainly not in my house. I didn’t have sex in my house for lots of reasons. And especially not right now, when I looked absolutely awful.

 

“Are you coming,” he asked, more insistently.

 

The house was completely enveloped in darkness. I made my way downstairs as quietly and carefully as I could, listening to the rain, hoping he wasn’t there, but also hoping he was. And when I opened my front door, there he stood. I quickly stepped out onto the porch and shut my door.

 

It felt wonderful outside. The streets were totally empty. There was a wonderful breeze accompanying the downpour that was absolutely delicious. And there he stood, in front of me.

 

“You lied to me,” I said. I wanted to speak first. I needed him to understand how uncool this was.

 

“I lied?” he responded.

 

“You didn’t tell me you were coming over. We’ve been on the phone all this time and during that time you were driving to my house.”
“You didn’t ask.”

 

“Why would I think to ask? You don’t come over. Definitely not unexpectedly. In the middle of the night.”

 

“I still didn’t lie.”

 

“Withholding important information that you know would be of significance to the other party is a lie. It’s a lie of omission.”

 

He was silent for a moment.

 

“Why are you here,” I asked.

 

The silence continued, and I knew exactly what he was doing. Choosing his words. He wanted to be as persuasive as possible. After a few beats he said, “when we were talking on the phone, you sounded like you…needed some…help.”

 

And just as he said this, he grabbed my hand and pulled it towards his sweatpants. “I want to come in.”

 

His erection brushed past my hand, as if it were looking for me. He pulled my hand harder and like a reflex I found his dick in my hand, my fingers encircling it.

 

“You can’t come in,” I said. I knew I should drop his penis to indicate how serious I was, but for some reason I could not let it go.

 

“Why?” he asked. His dick asked the question too. I felt it press against my palm with more force as he posed the question to me.

 

“You know why.”

 

“No I don’t.”

 

“My house is a mess. I am a mess. You didn’t ask me if you could. You can’t just pop up over here when you feel like it. You never do this. You would never do this. Have you lost your mind?”

 

I was really trying to make my point. But the entire time I was pleading my case, I thought about the 484 days that had passed since I’d last had sex. The 484 sexless days was another consequence of my very complicated life – and while I wasn’t happy about it, I hadn’t had the time or the energy or the bravery to pursue…well…anything I would have enjoyed sexually. And my trust issues had grown like weeds during those 484 days. Like I said…I have a complicated life. Always have.

 

“Are you letting me in?” he said. “Or, we can do this here.” And he began maneuvering his sweatpants down over his ass, and I knew he was serious.

 

I briefly thought about fucking him right there, outside, in the rain – sort of. I pushed the thought out of my head. I let him go and walked back towards my door, opening it. He followed closely behind me and closed the door once he was inside.

 

I was overwhelmed. Very overwhelmed. I felt my brain short circuiting. It was the shock of his presence, the shock of him walking up the stairs behind me to my bedroom, both of us carefully moving through the blackness, barely able to see, then down the short hallway to my bedroom. The rain continued pouring down in buckets outside, beating like jungle drums. I found my way to my bed and fell down and back onto it facing him, and he immediately crawled up onto the bed too. I scooted back and he crawled towards me. I opened my legs. Somehow he removed his clothes…I don’t really know how, I just heard things falling to the floor and felt the heat of his skin radiating everywhere once he was naked…but I could not see him…it was so dark…a bit of light was coming in through the window curtain, but not very much. My brain was starting to short circuit…the synapses were misfiring. I laid back and then he was over me, big and wide, making the darkened room pitch black from my vantage point. I closed my eyes, then opened them. There was absolutely no difference. Then my underwear was gone too, and my head went down and back as my legs went up into the air high and then higher. Tears came out of my eyes, and my head spun. I was there, then not there, I left and came back. Then there were three explosions in rapid fire succession in my head, one on top of the other on top of the last. The first booming sound occurred when I felt the tip of his dick finding its way to my pussy. It slid away at first because I was so wet but my lips instinctively pursed to receive him when he pressed forward the second time. I sharply inhaled and I moaned as I heard the blast in my head. The second explosion boomed in my brain just as he entered me. It burst forth as he began filling all the empty spaces he found, my eyes clenched shut tightly, my pussy clenching against him even more tightly. But I gripped him in the most desperate way imaginable, as if he was giving me my life back. I felt myself losing my grip on the present. As he came and my consciousness fell completely away from my body, fell completely away from my mind, I heard the third boom like a roll of thunder in the distance. And I left completely…it was too much…he was too much…too intense and insistent and present as he parted me and moved into me and through me as if I had no ending – like I was a road leading to a place he desperately needed to be. For several seconds I was passed out, and when I returned from wherever the shock of it all had taken me, he was still there, inside me, not moving. I tried to speak and found I could not. I listened for the rain again, hoping it would tell me what to say. But it was as done as we were, leaving only the silence and the wetness behind.