She grasped the warm cup again and raised it to her lips, slowly drank in the last of the day's first cup of coffee. Sucked in the bitter edge of it and sighed. She always wanted more.
She was reluctant to start working, and drifted about the apartment, looking for distraction. Out beyond her bedroom window the builders were working, their green hi-glo vests beavering in the morning heat. It was not yet 8am.
She wandered into the shower, turned it on to its fullest and let the water almost scorch her. She wanted to be entirely clean, ready as if for a lover. She shaved her legs with her lover's shaving foam.
After the shower she toweled herself down; it was summer; she was half-hearted about getting dry; she liked the wetness against her skin in the cool air. Wandered back, naked, to the bedroom. For an instant, she thought, she caught the eye of one of the builders. They were four storeys up, maybe eighty metres away through the air. Enough to see she was naked, maybe, she wasn't sure. But the possibility brought some life to the day. She liked it.
She threw herself under the sheets and drew the soft cotton up around her. She leaned over on the pillow and could see the builder working away - maybe he could see in, maybe it depended on the light, she wasn't sure, she nuzzled into the pillow, angled herself to get a better look. She peeled back the sheets and started to touch herself, rubbing the last of the moisturizer into her breasts. It was soft, supple, it flowed around her like sex.
She imagined him doing that to her, the builder, doing it still dressed in his dirty overalls. She remembered her lover then, remembered looking down on him while he took her nipples in his teeth like a baby. The way her thighs trembled, the way he looked so peaceful, so beautiful, so dedicated to being there. The way she begged him to enter her, asked him to put his fingers inside her; how suddenly and roughly he did it, how full and content it made her feel. Complete, suddenly, no longer adrift at all. She loved his hands, their forcefulness inside her, their hunger, their possessiveness.
She thought about displaying herself to the builders. She wanted them to be watching. She thought about them wanting to enter her, arguing, fighting over her. And then she imagined one, coming up to her from behind, teasing her, refusing to give her what she wanted. What did she want? Everything, probably, but slowly. Yes, everything. But she wanted someone else to be in charge.
She showered briefly again, threw on some jeans and went downstairs through the old building; needed to get to the bank before it closed, lodge a cheque, buy some milk, maybe stop for another coffee, look at the passing men. Imagine being in bed with one of them, maybe. She walked past the building site, smiling.
'Hey' she thought she heard 'hey, you' the voice was quiet, slightly shy, but strong too. She glanced behind her. He peered from around the hoarding, hat and everything 'hey' he said again. 'C'm here...,' she found herself walking back to him, knowing she shouldn't. 'I need to show you something' he said 'you're the woman from that flat, aren't you?' she blushed, didn't know what to say...There was nothing.
He surprised her, when she reached him, reaching toward her with his thick builder's hand, gruffly running a finger across her lip without warning. Huh? he couldn't just do that, could he? But he had. He took his hand roughly away, and she felt her lip curling away from him. She still felt his finger there. The floury, blank taste of it – plaster - or something? She loved that – how did he know that?
'C'mon' he said. He grabbed her hand and led her across the empty site. 'I liked doing that to you' he said. 'I think you liked it too, though you won't say.' There was no one else around; perhaps they were at coffee. He brought her into the shell of the building she'd seen so often from her flat, thought about being fucked in. This was crazy. It scared her, yet she trusted it too. Something about him made her feel safe. They climbed the stairs, he was half dragging really. 'I want to touch you again,' he said' I swear...' and then he let her hand go and she ached for him.
'So...'he said, they were four stories up now, and panting. He opened the door into a shell of a room – just breeze blocks mostly, an empty space where the windows would be, some hunk of navy carpet on the floor, a stool, tea cups, a kettle, 'this is where I've watched you from'. She blushed again, and was silent. 'And this,' he said, 'is what I've wanted to do to you.' He unbuttoned her jeans - slowly, methodically, as if he had done it a hundred times, as if he was her lover and had the right, peeled them away from her, half way down her legs, left her standing there like a child about to be punished. She wondered if she was, half wanted it. But he kissed her belly slowly – to make up - looked up at her, and stood away from her body for an instant.
'Now' he said. He burrowed his face into the fabric just above her hair and breathed hot air, into her, through them. He was so calm and intimate about it all, it was terrifying. Then he let her go again, stood back again, wandered around her body, looking at and touching it as if it were his property. As if he was wondering whether to buy it, whether he really wanted it enough. He ran his fingers lightly over her ass, back and forward, nothing else touching – just his fingers, like a sculptor, caressing something he had just made, wondering if the lines were right.
