Wanderlust

Prologue: Back Then

Back then, she would drive five hours wearing no panties to see me.

We seldom made it as far as the stairs, much less all the way to my room. I would give her a hug and a deep kiss hello, and the smell of her would get me hard. It was a combination of fresh lipstick, a breath mint to cover the cigarette she'd smoked to stay awake for the drive, and the faint scent of dripping anticipation. We would stumble across the living room, pulling my pants off as we went so that as soon as we got to the couch she could slam her hips down over my cock. We always came very quickly the first time. The waiting was our foreplay.

After a few moments of me resting inside her, our hearts pounding against each other, she would reapply her lipstick and kneel down to clean off my cock. If my roommates weren't expected home for a bit, I'd pour some scotch and we'd talk about her drive and everything that had happened in the two weeks since she'd last been down.

After our second glass she would kiss my neck and I would unbutton her shirt, and I'd grab her ass and squeeze it hard to see how she was feeling. She'd whisper something in my ear, like "harder" or "please," and I would bend her over the bench next to our kitchen table and slide her skirt up, caressing her soft skin then holding my hand high above her ass until she began to wonder whether I actually going to spank her. The pain of the first one would always catch her off guard, and what began as a squeal of pain would finish as a gasp of pleasure. I'd fuck her over the bench until I was just about ready to come, then she would finish me off with her mouth, and finish herself off with her free hand. While I moved the furniture back into place, she would roll a joint for us to smoke as we walked to the little restaurant a few blocks down.

She was starving after her drive.

Chapter 1: Sitting at the Table Where it All Began for Us

After dinner, we liked to go to a bar around the corner called One Last Shag. It's the kind of place where the bartenders come early, sober up during their shift, and stay long after the doors are locked. There's a garden out back with tiki torches and a fake beach, and on summer nights when it was crowded you could always find someone willing to share a toke with you. The first time we went there was after our first fight.

Earlier that snowy afternoon we had been whispering to each other on the bed, my cock inside her, when I asked her if she had any experience with strap-ons.

"One time," she said shyly, and with a touch of annoyance.

"Giving or receiving?"

"Receiving," she said.

"Me too."

She pulled me out then without a word, and I went soft with shame at having overstepped. That afternoon, for the first time, we didn't know what to say to each other. Since the awkwardness of staying in was intolerable, we decided to go out. As we walked past full bar after full bar, the snow turned wet and became sleet. With each bar we couldn't get into, I got grumpier and she got colder.

One Last Shag was packed and too loud, but there wasn't a cover charge and everything was about to fall apart if we didn't get a drink soon, so we pushed our way in and fought towards the bar. We were both nearly blind behind fogged-up glasses, and it was starting to seem hopeless that we'd ever manage to get a drink. Just then someone planted a kiss on her cold cheek and handed us a full bottle of champagne. That was the kind of thing that happened at One Last Shag. She and I passed the bottle back and forth, our bodies and our dispositions warming with each swig. By the time the bottle was half gone we were making out, and when it was empty she had started grinding into me, caressing my chest and grabbing my nipple ring beneath my shirt.

Shots were flowing freely at One Last Shag, the braless bartender handing them out to any girl who would kiss her. After several of these shots, we found our way to the jukebox and flipped through the catalog until we found a song we both liked, Just Like Candy. Sweaty bodies on the packed dancefloor pushed us together as we waited for our song to come on. My jeans were tight over my hardening cock, and she fucked my thigh unabashedly. I whispered drunken declarations of of love into her ear, and she whispered this into mine:

"The things I want to do to you I can't do on the dancefloor."

I kissed her and started toward the front door, but she confused me by pulling the other direction. We found ourselves in the bathroom, and as I pulled the door shut behind us she plunged her hands down the front of my pants. She was on her knees unzipping me before I knew it, but I pulled her back up to kiss her—partly to taste the mixture of cheap whiskey and precum on her lips, but mostly because I wanted to fuck her.

I turned her around and bent her over the sink, undid her belt and peeled her jeans down just far enough to spank her. I hit her again, harder, and I slid one finger over her vulva her to see how wet she was. Usually she liked taking my cock before her cunt was really ready—the first inch hurt us both, the second just hurt her and made her scream, and by the third she was soaking and ready for the next five inches. But since we in a public bathroom, I didn't want her to scream, so I checked her pussy with my fingertip. She was soaked already. My cock slid in to the hilt on the first push. In the mirror over the sink, I watched her elbows lock as she pushed herself back against me, deeper onto my cock. I pulled her hair and fucked her hard over the sink.

Right around the time our song finally came on, I could feel her juice dripping down the base of my cock. She was close. That's when the banging on the door started.

She gasped, either because it killed the moment or because the reminder that someone was just a few feet away pushed her over the edge. Either way, she pulled herself off my cock and I started to zip my pants. She looked at me with her mischievous smirk, kneeled down in front and sucked me off before the next angry knock from outside. She stood up, swallowed, and gave me a passionate open-mouthed kiss that left both of our lips slick. I opened the door to the fuming face of the braless waitress, her cheeks and chest flushed, her tiny tits poking through the sheer gray fabric of her shirt.

She recognized us from the shots. Her admonishing frown was replaced by a conspiratorial grin. She leaned in and gave me a peck on the cheek before giving my girl a long drunken kiss and then spanking her away from the bathroom.

Later that evening when we finally decided to leave, we saw her on the sidewalk in front of the bar, about to light a cigarette. Our eyes lingered a moment too long as the realization hit us that she could probably still taste our sex on her lips as she pulled in her first drag.

She smiled and waved goodbye. We fucked again, thinking of her, as soon as we got home.

That was five years ago.

Now I'm back at One Last Shag at 5:30pm on a lonely Friday, sitting at the end of the bar down near the silent jukebox.

Chapter 2: This Surely is a Dream

The afternoon drinkers, for the most part, have cleared out, and the after-work crowd has just started to trickle in. I'm one seat down from the end of the bar with only the latest in a series of Shaggy Mules to keep me company. Each one compromises my judgment a bit more, and because there's no one next to me and anything goes here anyway, I pull up the video on my phone.

Though I remember every detail, I haven't watched it for months, not since our final fight. I even remember the prelude to this video: the days before Superstorm Sandy hit, which we spent stocking up on food, beer, weed, and candles as the subways shut and New Yorkers prepared for the worst.

When the storm finally arrived, I was battening down the final hatches upstairs, she was downstairs setting up the tripod. We watched a scary movie until the electricity went out. While I lit candles, she got dressed. I had already gathered her long black gloves, the six-garter maitresse belt and silk stockings, and her open French bralette. She slipped into them while I lit more candles, enough light for a grainy, noir cast in the video we were about to film. She lay down on our red satin sheets and I tied her wrists to the bed posts. Once her blindfold was tight, I reached over to the side table drawer and took out our nipple clamps and ring gag. The gag was first, so that she couldn't say no to the clamps. Her favorite vibe, the curved maroon one with one pressing her clit and the other against her g-spot, slid easily into place. Everything was now ready. I pressed "record."

The first shadowy still of the video is on my screen when I sense someone sitting down on the stool next to mine. Ashamed to be the single guy at the end of the bar looking at porn, I close the video hoping she she didn't notice it. I glance at her and try not to stare at her plump red lips, curly auburn hair with the the last hints of a black dye job almost entirely grown out, or the elastic of her fishnets peeking out from under the hem of her skirt. She reaches up to take her cocktail from the bartender, and I see the wrist portion of a tattoo sleeve. I turn away and stare into my drink, attempting to appear pensive and mysterious, rather than pathetic.

A few minutes later, I feel her foot casually brushing against my leg, as if by accident. I turn to say hello.

She had been looking straight at me, smiling skeptically. Even though we are complete strangers, our conversation flows without introductions or awkwardness. I ask about her tattoo and she tells me how, someday, it will continue over her shoulder and down her back, over her hip and down the front of her thigh. She tells me how much this bar has changed since she lived in the neighborhood. This would be her last visit for a while because she's moving to Miami in a few days. I tell her how jealous I am that she's moving to such an amazing place. She says Miami is where her family is, and that moving back there feels like a failure. I try to buy her a drink, but she refuses politely.

"I'm going to see a friend later tonight, and I don't want to get started too early."

We talk for about an hour, closer and closer, her hand on my knee, then mine on hers. I can feel her hot skin through the fishnets.

Then she says, "I have to go. Buy me two shots."

I buy four and we drink them, and she says, "Listen, here's my number. Give me a call later, OK?"

The second shot had made me drunk, and as I fumble to save her number, flustered by the interest of this enticing stranger, she looks at me with a touch of pity and says, "You know what, come along. I'm afraid you'll pass out and forget to call me."

She flags a cab, and we sit in the back making out. I brush a hand over her breast, and to my surprise she grabs my wrist and pulls it away. Then she pins it against the car seat and kisses me harder.

I don't know where we're going, but we're crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. As we sit in late night traffic into Manhattan, the skyline shining through the windshield, she says to me, "This might be a long ride. Tell me something you've never told anyone else before."

Chapter 3: Just a Kiss Away

A breeze blows in through the window, and I lean close to her ear so that the driver can't hear and so that she can feel my the heat of my breath as I speak these words for the very first time.

There were two sexiest moments.

The first was a few minutes after I walked in the door. An hour earlier, I had gotten this email: "I have a friend here who wants to see me fuck you. Come now. Don't think, just come right now."

Up until I dialed the apartment from the lobby I had no idea what would happen. I rode the elevator up and knocked on the door. After a long minute it opened, just a crack, and a woman smiled out at me. When she let me in I saw why she was hiding behind the door - she was naked, her dirty blond hair disheveled, her hips wide and fit, her large breasts red from whatever had been happening just before I arrived. I instinctively reached out to shake her hand, and with a giggle she introduced herself. Then she said, "Follow me."

The whole apartment reeked of fresh fucking, but it was strongest coming from the bedroom. The lights were off and the shades down in most of the apartment, but the late afternoon light shone through the bedroom window. She led me towards the door.

He was standing in front of the window, shirtless, and when he turned to greet me I could see the outline of his cock through the thin fabric of the pants he'd just pulled on.

"I'm Jefferson," he said. "Nice to meet you. Have you ever kissed a man?"

My hesitation was answer enough. He pulled me towards him and kissed me without tenderness but with a sexuality as raw as the stubble that was now scratching my face. I detected the faint taste of pussy on his lips.

"Good. We got that out of the way," said Jefferson.

At first I had no idea where to put my hands, but they found their way to his ass, and as he kissed me they slid around in search of his cock. The shame and mild revulsion I felt from the kiss were replaced by unrestrained arousal as soon I found it. I untied his pants and slid them down. She watched from the edge of the bed, an intent smile on her lips and a lowball of whiskey in her hand. I took each of his nipples in my mouth, sucking and then biting them, while his cock hardened in my other hand. He pulled my pants down, and I leaned toward him, rubbing my cock up against his and squeezing them together. He kissed me again, and I knelt down in front of him.

That moment—the city lights shining through his window against the darkening sunset, the unbearable anticipation, his cock against my cheek—strangely reminded me of another moment a few years ago. When I was a kid I loved the outdoors and I wanted nothing more than to visit a national park out West, but I never had the chance to go. Then, finally, when I was 23, I could afford the trip myself, and after a six hour flight and two more hours of driving, I arrived at the towering stone gate of the entrance to Yellowstone. I stepped out of the car, the afternoon sun shining around the edges of ominous afternoon clouds, so that I could feel the windswept drizzle stinging my face and remember that moment. The thing I had imagined so many times was about to become real.

I took a deep breath. I walked through the gate. That was the first sexiest moment.

Chapter 4: Chelsea Hotel

We pull up beside a nondescript brick building on 11th avenue, and she pays the driver.

"I guess I'll have to wait to hear about the second sexy moment," she says with a smile.

She sends a text message and a moment later someone buzzes us in. She leads me up five steep flights of stairs to a heavy green metal door.

It's open.

The smell of incense, oil paint, and body odor fills the canyonesque space, a long but narrow studio with 20 foot ceilings, a bare pine sleeping loft, and a huge industrial sink that seems to double as an illegal shower. One of the walls has a ladder up against it and I can see six foot tall knee-high boots painted on the brick, fading into the unlit reaches of the upper wall so that I couldn't make out who was wearing them. A trim woman in her mid forties turns when we come in the door, her face glowing with a mischievous grin. She's wearing a pair of paint-covered, ass-hugging jeans. As she turns, her braless breast nearly falls out the side of her tank top. When she gets closer, I can see her nipple piercings showing clearly through the loose fitting top.

She squeals at the sight of my companion, ignoring me completely and exclaiming, "Natalia! You can't go to Miami!" It's the first time I've heard her name.

Natalia kisses her on the lips, hugs her tightly, and says, "My dear, I don't know how I can leave you." She introduces me. The painter's name is Max. Max points to three decrepit office chairs surrounding a makeshift table made out of a mirrored tray and an overturned trashbin, and says, "Have a seat. I'll get the booze."

She steps into an alcove and reappears with a half-empty bottle of Glenfiddich and a bag of white powder.

"I brought the good stuff for your going away party," says Max, "but I forgot the glasses."

She passes me the Scotch and empties some of the powder onto the mirror, then pulls a MetroCard from her back pocket to make three neat lines. Without asking if I want to partake, she lifts the tray and hands it to me with a rolled dollar bill. "Tell me about yourself, Natalia's friend," she says.

My judgement still impaired, I snort a line. Instead of the expected rush of coke, I feel the slow warming of MDMA. I pass the tray to Natalia, and then say to Max:

"I love this studio. Who's attached to those gorgeous boots on the wall?" She smiles and flips on a light, and I see that the wall is covered in a 20-foot portrait of none other than Natalia.

"She's my muse," says Max. "Is she yours as well?"

We chat, and by the time the bottle makes its way around twice we're old friends. I do my best to sound like I know something about painting. My efforts, if not convincing, at least seem to be endearing for Max.

"I know what Natalia's creative outlet is," she says, "but what's yours?"

"I used to draw. Mainly self portraits, in charcoal and pastels. I lived in an attic and I'd hang my drawings from the rafters. I did nudes as well, and I started doing the self portraits in the first person, from my own perspective. My legs, my hands, my cock, all just like they looked to me."

Natalia asks, "Do you still have them?"

"I don't know. They're probably rolled up somewhere. I haven't even thought of them for years."

I take a swig of the Glenfiddich, then continue. "There was one time I was doing a self portrait looking down at a mirror mounted at the bottom of the easel. It was the first time I moved away from charcoal and into pastel, and the colors just blew me away. I might have been high, but when I looked at myself, with this distorted perspective and these intense, absurd colors, I..." I hesitate, a brief wave of shame passing through me at the prospect of sharing this memory so freely.

"You what?" Max asks eagerly, not tolerating my embarrassment.

"I got hard. I got turned on by having created it."

Max and Natalia share a smile. Max glancing at the portrait on the wall, says, "I know what you mean. So, what happened? Why did you stop?"

"I don't know." I think about it for a second. "Internet porn? Antidepressants? A reliable weed connection? Drawing couldn't really compete I guess. But I'm curious, how did you guys meet?"

Natalia explains. "We were at an opening in Greenpoint. Shitty artist, free wine. Mutual friend. What was his name?"

"Fuck should I know?" says Max. "But Natalia and I hit it off, and I crashed at her place for a while until I found this place."

"I've got a bunch of Max's paintings at home. All packed up now, though. Those things will be worth a lot of money in Miami. It's Brooklyn art!"

"Yeah, I did some painting for Talia and we arranged a little barter system. We've still got it going, as a matter of fact."

"Natalia, what did you trade for the paintings?" I ask, naively.

"Good question!" she says, and then she stands up and walks toward the door, stopping at the alcove to grab a bag.

"Bathroom's in the hall," says Max. "She has to get ready." Then she twirls her finger in a little circle and says, "Why don't you roll yourself around for a minute. I need to get undressed."

I'm still processing this.now facing away from Max, when I hear her say, "You have no idea how fucking lucky you are, Natalia's friend."

Things had changed very quickly.

"Ok, you can turn around now."