Elif with the Long Blac Hair

Her name was Elif. She had long black hair, sleek and straight and thick, that descended to her waist. She was renting a room in a house in the suburbs while she finished her first year at UCLA's graduate school of Geography. She had graduated from her Turkish university with honors, and she was on a Fullbright Scholarship; her hair in front was cut into bangs just above the eyebrow line, and her eyes were green like the palm leaves waving in the Los Angeles breeze.

His name was — I forget his name — but he was living at home with his parents while he started his fourth year at the local community college. He had a job at Carl's Jr., a 2009 Toyota Corolla parked in front of the house, and a guitar that was collecting dust in the closet. He would wake early to study before going to work, leaving his bedroom door open so that when Elif left her room — to go downstairs, to have her coffee, to have a quick breakfast, to drive to her college — when Elif left her room he would see her walk out, dressed simply, dressed elegantly. She always smiled and turned towards him, waving and walking backwards until she was down the hallway, out of sight.

Their routine was like this. He would be sitting at his armchair, reading something, his door open, and she would get ready in the adjacent room, step out, smile at him and wave goodbye. When she came home, he was already in his armchair, back from work, back from school, showered, reading the assigned readings, and she would come back, in a simple blouse and dark pants, with her black backpack on her, waving hello to him and smiling with her green eyes. On weekends she would come back late, a little tipsy, with dark lipstick and smelling of cigarettes, long earrings, dark nails, and she would smile and wave at him, him sitting at his chair reading, before going into her room. On Wednesdays she would have no class and sometimes he would take her around, show her his town, or pick her up from the mechanic when she had car trouble, or go out to lunch with her and his mom, who had found Elif in the

Room Wanted

section of Craigslist.

Around this time, when Elif started living with them, he would have strange dreams. Once he dreamt he was in downtown LA in the middle of the day, the sun was precisely above him in the middle of the sky, but there were no cars and no people walking; he would occasionally hear the sound of someone running towards him, and he would turn around quickly but of course there was no one there. Then he realized why no one was around — a large cloud of small black birds twisted above the city threateningly, sometimes blocking the sun, and slowly descended like a swarm of locusts, eating the litter on the ground and the trash in the trashcans and the piles of collected things in the empty homeless camps. Another night he dreamt that he was a scarecrow in a field of wheat, and people he didn't recognize would walk into the field and stare at him from a short distance; he wanted to ask their names but he couldn't, he was a scarecrow. Another time he dreamt he was driving his car down a long highway and on his right was a large field of grass blazing gently in the evening sun.

He never dreamt with Elif, until one day he dreamt with Elif. He had woken up early and gone to the bathroom to wash his face, and in the mirror he saw Elif's face, or Elif's eyes, looking at him intently. He turned around but he didn't see Elif, he only saw another mirror, and in that mirror he saw reflected Elif, staring at him intently. He turned in the direction from which she was reflected and each time he saw not her but a mirror reflecting her, until finally he turned around too quickly and smashed a mirror with his left hand, cutting his small finger deeply, and as the dark blood ran down his hand he saw again Elif's face reflected. As he stared into her eyes through the cracked glass his legs trembled violently and he came into his pajama pants.

He woke up with a start, sweating in bed, but his pants were dry, and he heard the front door closing downstairs. He got out of bed and looked through his window out into the street to see Elif walking down the sidewalk to her car. Before she walked past the front hedges and out of sight she glanced up in his direction and froze, head turned, looking at him. They stared at each other for five seconds and without smiling or waving she turned and continued walking to her car.

Their routine continued as if nothing had happened — him sitting at his chair, her smiling as she walked out of her room. Exactly one week later something different happened. He was sitting in his armchair reading about Atto Melani, a eunuch in the court of Louis XIV. He heard the shower in Elif's room turn on — she was starting her morning routine, he thought to himself, and it would be another half hour before she stepped out to go downstairs. Then her door opened, but she didn't step out; he only heard the shower more clearly. A few seconds passed. He craned his necked to see what was going on, but saw now one. Suddenly Elif stepped through her door, a light green bath towel wrapped around her body and her black hair wrapped into a bun. She looked at him without saying a word, with a serious expression, and walked back into her room without closing her door. He got up and stumbled on the legs of his fold-up table, where his history book lay open. He entered her room. The bathroom light was on, the shower was running; he looked around but he didn't see her. Where was she? he thought. He took a step into her bathroom and she appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, almost lunging at him, and grabbed his neck and kissed him on the mouth. He, startled, pushed her away and looked at her, then grabbed her and continued kissing her. They kissed each other for a long time, pushing each other into the bathroom wall and rolling gently along it. He disconnected from her and gasped, the steam was rising around them and he had trouble breathing, she steadied him with her arm. He looked down, momentarily he didn't know where he was. He was holding an arm, slender and white, with soft brown hairs in waves, like a field of wheat waving in the wind.

She sat down on the marble countertop, the light green towel still wrapped around her body. She looked at him, he looked at her, she spread her legs to make room for him and he came to her, holding her head, feeling her hair and stroking her cheek, his erection pushed against the vanity. She grabbed her towel from the edge running around her chest and pulled it apart, like a curtain, revealing her body. Her breasts sagged slightly, wilting on her small frame; she had a band of porcelain white skin around her breasts — a tan line — and another right below her belly. A line of soft hairs descended from her navel into her dark pubic area, which was thick with hair, trimmed neatly and short. He took off his shirt and she felt his chest hair, his arms. She touched his right areola, and then his nipple, pressing it with her fingers. He took off his pants, bending down past her body, past her legs. He came back up and she grabbed his penis. Her slender fingers pulsed as he pulsed. She inched forward on the counter until she was sitting on the edge and she brought him in with her arms and her feet, her legs wrapping loosely around him.

He grabbed his penis and put the tip on her vulva. Her vulva was soft and dark, her hairs were soft on him. He moved his tip up and down her vulva and then pushed it in with his hand. She was tight and she wasn't wet. He moved his tip back and forth, going deeper into her, loosening her and finding the wetness inside of her. He rocked back and forth into her, now going fully inside; she held him with her arms and legs and breathed, with her head tilted up and her chin on his shoulder, into his left ear. Her liquid dripped onto the countertop, and her softness and warmth held him deep inside of her. Their chests pressed together, their hair in each other's eyes and mouths. I needed you, he said into her ear. I needed to feel you. I wanted you, she said. I wanted to have you.

He pushed into her quickly, repeatedly. He stopped suddenly. Her head pulled away from him and they looked into each others eyes. He pulled himself out of her and grabbed her left arm and her left leg and turned her around, toward the mirror, toward the countertop, and pushed her left knee up and pushed down on her back until her breasts were pressing on the cold marble. Her ass was in the air and her vulva was open at him; he grabbed her bun, now loose, and her long black hair undid itself in his right hand; he pulled her hair and she gasped quickly as he entered from behind. He pushed into her and rocked her into the marble, forcefully and quickly, her head pulled back by the hair, her breasts pressed, her pussy dripping; she moaned, at first quietly and with breath, and then louder as he pushed harder; she moaned louder, and then shrieked as he pushed into her softness; and as he began cumming into her he put his finger into the side of her mouth, and he moaned and she grunted, both of them sounding like animals.

He came into her, she was soft and wet and he was emptying himself into her, pulsing into her repeatedly; he felt the cum pulsing through him and filling her. They rested like that, her on the vanity and him on her back. He pulled out, she turned around on the countertop and came off of it onto the floor, resting her bottom on the counter's edge; they looked into each others eyes, they kissed, and from her dark pussy she began dripping his cum onto the floor. She got into the shower by herself and closed the shower door behind her.

He picked up his clothes, left the bathroom, left her bedroom, closed her bedroom door, cleaned himself up. He smelled his hands — they smelled like her; he found a long black hair tangled in his hair. He got dressed, got back into his chair and continued reading about the eunuch in the court of Louis XIV. Twenty minutes later Elif, in a blouse and dark pants, opened her door and turned around to look at him, smiled and waved with her green eyes, walking backwards until she was down the hall and out of sight.