Francine

Francine

Four years of celibacy are about to end today. I can sense it. My bank account has been foremost on my mind, currently with a stated balance of $1.17. I really don't care and I want to drink tonight. So I step up to the plate and withdraw another $100 cash advance off my Visa card so I have money to drink.

I go home, and heat up a can of Spaghettios on the stove while I listen to Ron Ashton on my black Sony box, and the food heats up. I wolf down the Spaghettios, put on my coat and head out into the Seattle twilight. I reach the Comet Tavern at about 7:00 and immediately order a LaBatt's. There is a Mariner's game against the California Angels in progress on TV that I sit down and watch for awhile as the beer flows into my heart and mind, filling me with an urge to seek. After a couple of these and an hour of alternating between the newspaper and baseball, I go over to the pool tables and put my name on the list, parking my ass down on a beer keg in the corner as I wait my turn. I haven't played pool in years, but I don't care. After a short wait, my turn comes up and I start playing this dude with greasy black hair and sideburns who is done up in leather and a T-shirt that says "Kill 'em all! Let God Sort 'em Out!" He lets me break and I get a pretty decent shot, scattering the balls about the table. He then proceeds to knock in the first three balls. I realize that I'm glad I don't have any money riding on this game. He misses his fourth shot. My next shot doesn't even hit the #10 ball that I was aiming for. He then sinks three more in a row, before I finally get the #6 to go in. When it does go in, I look up and see this woman with cat glasses and her black hair in a bob standing by the phone looking at me and smiling. I look back and am overcome with sudden anxiety and whatever confidence I do have begins to erode.

I haven't had sex in four years. I haven't been on a date in four years. I haven't had a woman give me her phone number in four years. I haven't had a woman smile at me in four years.

I look down and ponder my next shot while my opponent keeps sinking more balls. I have been long resigned to the fact that this game isn't going to last much longer and my anxiety is totally in control. My opponent sails along until only the 8 ball is left, but he fails to sink it, giving me a reprieve of sorts, and I go on about my business of trying to make this game respectable. I am able to knock in the #3 ball on a tricky corner shot and I look up. She is still smiling at me as she smokes and talks with her friends. She has a strange offbeat aloofness that I like, along with soft pale white skin, a pug nose, special cool lips and hard high cheekbones. It is a dark and sweet face with honest blue eyes intense and glittering. It is a face I have seen in daydreams early in the morning or late at night masturbating. I want to kiss her, but I have no notion of doing this. My last shot leaves the cue ball only inches from the 8 ball, which is only inches from the side pocket, and my opponent easily taps it in. He comes over and shakes my hand and I hand my cue stick over to the next guy in line and I get up the courage to head over to the bar where the woman is standing.

"Hi, I'm Jack," I say as my mouth sudden dries.

"I'm Francine," she replies extending her hand. "Can I tell you something?"

"Sure," I say.

"The reason none of your shots go in is because you aren't hold the stick right," she says.

"I figured as much. I haven't played that much, so I really wouldn't know. I did get three shots in, though," I point out.

"I don't play either. My brother does, and he taught me how to play."

I want to get another beer in me as soon as I can, so I get another pint. She gives me some money and asks me to get her one, too. Soon we sit down at a table with about five of her friends and continue talking and drinking. They are all younger than me, including Francine, and they talk about classes they are taking at Seattle Central, or their jobs, or a myriad of other things I am too nervous to pay attention to. I sit quietly, though and try to listen to them as I go through a couple of beers, but my attention is drawn away by the ballgame or the music being played or the other girls walking around. At some point, her friends then pick up on that fact that she wants to get friendly with me and begin to leave us one by one. Finally we're alone with a full pitcher of beer.

"Do you like to read?" she asks.

"Yeah. I'm actually reading a booked called 'Memos From Purgatory' by Harlan Ellison."

"Oh wow! I liked that one. I also like 'The Glass Teat'," she said, intrigued.

She looks around and then back at me and her eyes have that same glow they did when she saw me playing pool, and then she takes my hand. We keep drinking and talking, but I don't remember what about, and before long I see that it is almost 2 am according to the clock on the wall. We have gone through two pitchers of beer and she wants to go home. We get up and go outside into a gentle mist that has begun to fall. The last of the Comet crowd has gathered outside in the rain to smoke and talk and there is mention of some after hours party nearby.

"You wanna come over?" she asks. I'm pretty drunk now, but this has done nothing to quell my nerves. I say yes, but in the back of my mind I am prepared for something to happen, like seeing her boyfriend or husband there, or a group of her friends there playing some game, or any other situation than us being alone. She lives over by Cornish, so we take a cab over to her apartment on Aloha Street. In the cab she sits close to me, taking my hand again, and some and at that point the four years of celibacy along with five hours of drinking vanquish my insecurities and I lean over and plant a kiss on her.

"Thanks," she says, squeezing my hand, and in return gives me a deep tongue kiss, pulling me down over the back seat of the cab. We get to her apartment and she goes in first and tells me to close the door. She runs over and turns on some lights and then comes back to me standing in the doorway and looks right into my eyes.

"I want to have a staring contest," she says. She gazes into my eyes for about 90 seconds and slowly moves closer and closer to me. She doesn't blink for that whole time and I don't want to blink. By now, our noses are almost touching and we remain locked on each other to the exclusion of everything going on around us. She has moved a little closer, and then still a little closer than that to the point where are lips are almost touching, but not quite yet. Finally she gently takes my face, closes her eyes, and gives me a slow, soft kiss. Her lips barely touch mine, and mine hers as I go along. I have an impulse to stick my tongue in a little bit but I hold off on this as we continue this soft kissing.

"How about staying over?" she asks, taking both hands. I consent. She strokes my hair and says she loves it, and then on a dime we start kissing madly in the apartment, our tongues twisting and turning as we roll around on the floor of the entryway. She pulls my hair and I pull hers and she hurriedly gets up and leads me by the hand into her bedroom. We stumble in there and she slips off her skirt and blouse I take off my shirt. She takes off her bra revealing small breasts with very erect nipples which I gently brush with the back of my hand as she opens my pants and drops them and starts going down on me. The drinking has done nothing to induce impotence and she gently kisses the swollen purple head a few times, looking up at me as she does before licking up and down the shaft a few times. Then she cups my dick in both hands as she slowly bobs her head back and forth, licking the top and tasting my pre-cum of the as she comes up each time. She gently grabs my balls and I think I'm about to shoot, but I don't. She stops and looks up at me as she slowly strokes my cock.

"Are you ready to fuck me now?" I help her up and then she removes her black panties. She stands right before me completely naked. Her nipples are still hard and she has a beautiful thick bush. She takes me to her bed and pulls me down on top of her. We embrace and kiss and roll around on the bed as I kiss and gently bite those nipples. She grips my back hard and then has my lie on my back. She gets up and takes my dick in her hand as she gets in position to get on top of me. I can feel the heat from her pussy as she get closer to me and it is hot and wet and I almost scream as I feel the heat on the inner walls as she guides me in slowly for the first time. She gasps when I go in for the first time and slowly begins to moan. She moves around slowly looking straight at me.

"You feel good," she says, rocking back and forth. Then she picks up the pace and bounces up and down and begs me to thrust deeper and I do and I am pounding her and she starts riding me faster and faster and she almost bends my dick a couple of times. I look up at her and I feel the warmth begin to rise up my cock and she knows I'm gonna cum and we look into each others eyes as I explode inside of her, and she collapses on top of me.

At about 5:00, my natural alarm wakes me up. I have to be at work and I will have to get back to my place to clean up, but I hang around for another hour or so vainly trying to get back to sleep. After about another hour of this, I give up and I nudge Francine gently and when she stirs I tell her I have to go. She's half-asleep, but she smiles at me as I'm getting dressed. She roles over and grabs a piece of paper and a pen off the floor somewhere and writes down her phone number and asks me to call her some time, and I give her a kiss before I leave. When I'm outside, I fish through my pockets and find my wallet and realize I've spent more than $75, but I am able to hail a cab on Broadway to take me back to the brownstone and I quickly jump in the shower, make some instant coffee, get dressed for work, and dash out the door at 7:30, fully confident I will be at Triple A over by the Space Needle by 8, which I am. This is a data entry job, and I type in numerical data of some sort or another until 5 pm, and when I get home from work, I fall on the bed and go to sleep immediately. I never see or hear from Francine again.