Strangers Together

A small bar full of lonely people, like every other in New York.

The night has grown old. Each breath is stained with either the musk of beer or the sweet sting of liquor. The steps of all sway the same.

Shoulders knock down the narrow corridor to the bathroom.

Cigarette smoke is exhaled in a stockroom where the runner was sent to get a new keg. It follows him back to the bar.

A girl in white pants and a boy in all black blush the same shade of red as they catch each-other staring.

The clack of a pool game and the clank of glasses.

A hand finds the lining to underwear easily under a short dress. She leans in.

Two boys at the bar laugh harder at each other than they did an hour and two drinks ago. Their feet weren't touching back then either.

Everyone can still hear the music playing, but what the particular song is lost importance 2 hours ago.

It is a small bar full of lonely people, like every other in the world.

Most of them spend most of their time in the bar wondering why they are even here (most will leave without an answer). But tonight, he'll find out (he doesn't know that yet). He's sitting at the end of the bar (he came in alone, after all). A lady asks him if he wants another (she knows the answer before she asks).

Sitting to his right is a man with an eyepatch over his left eye, and to his left is a girl that looked alright until she turned her back to him. He thinks back on where the night has gone and where it is going. Both are blurry.

The lady gives him the drink and he peels off another single to add to the tip pile. He considers his tab pile. He turns his head.

She sticks out among all of them, even though she's in the corner.

"Is she staring at me?" He thinks. She nods an answer.

He finds his way over to her by way of feigned interest in a game of pool. A player asks him to move so he could take a shot and he finds himself within feet of her. He can smell her perfume. It draws him in and he turns to her,

She bites her lip. She beckons him over with her finger.

He Freezes.

After a short breath, he thaws and stumbles over. She nearly has to catch him.

"Sorry, I, Uh-"

"-It's fine." Her lips are a shock of crimson in a sea of ivory.

She notices the blush filling up the spaces between his freckles. He has nice lips, they part to say something. She ignores it entirely and tells him to stand closer. She gets off her stool. They're so close they can feel each other's warmth.

A cackling laugh somewhere far off rises and falls.

So swept up in the moment, neither realizes that they are now touching.

They talk, but the individual words, like the individual songs, blend together into a kind of noise that holds them here, with each other, in this bar (like any other).

His hand softly pinches her thigh and she sways away from him only to sway back closer than before, pressing herself gently into him, doing some pinching herself. His hands slip around her waist to steady her. Then down the outside of her thighs. He can feel the stitching in her leggings through her skirt.

She pushes him away, her palms landing on his chest. He wants to grab her wrists and pull her back but she's too quick and she is gone (she isn't gone).

She surveys the bar, taking stock of the bar (she also wants to give him a chance to see her from behind).

She considers the night and him. She wonders if it's right and decides it is. He looks like a romantic.

He is.

"Place a bet on me", she says.

"On you?" He says.

She points to the pool table.

She watches him walk up to two guys who look like the kind of guys people don't just walk up to often. He nods and reaches for his wallet and places some money on the table. They oblige.

She shoots the break (stripes) and then the next three. His heart rate rises and falls with her skirt over her thighs.

On his turn, he sinks two and then misses the third. She giggles. If the laugh wasn't so melodic he'd be embarrassed.

On her next turn, she clears the rest and then the 8ball. The two gentlemen they've been playing against demand another game.

He puts the money in his pocket and says they really can't.

The two gentlemen insist.

He grabs her wrist and they run out the door. The night is cold but they don't realize it. After two blocks they slow down, forget the bar, and remember each other.

The glow of the moon and the streetlights blankets each of them differently than the dimmed lamps of the bar.

A wind blows. They shiver. Every heavy exhale is turned to smoke by the cold. She likes the way it looks leaving his lips.

He can read minds, she thought, as he pins her to a door. His hands just under her arms, pressing her shoulders to the cold steel. He extends a knee forward and she straddles it. He lifts up and she stands on her toes.

She shudders under his pressure.

She pulls him in by the collar and his teeth sink into her neck. She lets out a curt moan that catches the attention of a Chinese cook standing in the shadows across the street pulling on his second cigarette.

Her hips buck involuntarily on his leg. He can feel the warmth on his thigh. He alternates between bites and swirling his tongue gently on her, exploring the top of her jawline to her collarbone. He's lost in her but a firm slap across his face snaps him out of it. He winces and recoils, opening in his eyes slowly. She doesn't look offended, she doesn't look harmed. Instead, she looks like she's searching his face for something.

She finds what she's looking for and he feels her exhale a quiet laugh and then a sigh into his neck.

He releases his grip on her shoulders and she collapses onto him. The warmth on his thigh has grown. She grinds on him as he runs his hands around her neck and then down to her chest. He cups her breasts and pushes her back onto the door. She responds with a firm bite on his lip and pushes her tongue deeply into his mouth. His knee lowers and she's back on her feet.

His hands release her and continue their downward movement, over the gentle curve of her belly, and lands in between her legs. He rubs her deeply and her eyes roll back.

He peels from her and asks if all of this is ok. He looks out of the doorway they are in and finds an empty street.

She unbuttons his pants and finds him already hard. She pulls him out of his briefs and into the cold air. He looks around nervously but sees no-one. He wonders if she and he are the only two people awake in New York, awake in the world.

He turns back to her to find her stockings slid down just above her knee. She slides two fingers from between her legs and into his open mouth. He savors her.

Her hands are cold as she wraps her hand around him. She can feel him pulse and he gets even harder in her hands.

She pulls him in, pushing the tip of his head into her clit. And then she's back on her tip-toes, rubbing his head down her sex. He feels the warmth and the wetness. His hands pull her in close, their bellys touching, their breathing heavy.

She raises a leg and plants a foot on the wall. Her skirt slips up to her waist and he sees a small tuft of hair sitting just above her sex. She glistens in the blinking light of a dying light post.

A shout from the kitchen calls the onlooking Chinese cook in and he curses in his language and ashes his third cigarette at his feet.

His hands slip down her back side and she sits in his palms. She can feel the callouses and she wonders what he does and who he is.

She raises her hips towards him, presenting herself.

He wonders if he's crazy. She wonders if she's insane. These concerns dissolve with the sensation of the first penetration. He thrusts shallowly and slowly until she becomes restless and lowers herself onto him.

A door to the right of them swings open and they hold each other and their breath. He feels her tighten around him. His legs grow weary with wanting and waiting.

She half wants to push him off. The steps fade in the opposite direction of them. They exhale deeply in unison. Panting quickly turns to laughing. The bobbing of their bodies with laughter spirals back into thrusting.

She wants more. She wants what is to become of the night to happen right now. She raises his hands to her neck. He furrows a brow in confusion. Her eyes are full of longing.

He tightens his grip around her. The rhythm grows faster and the noises more desperate.

She has dissolved into him. He has to work twice as hard to keep her upright as she begins to moan in ecstasy. He shifts her neck into his left hand. With his right hand on the back of her head, he buries her moans into his shoulder.

Her hands begin to grasp wildly. She pushes and pulls and bucks and tenses. She likes the feeling of him holding her back and thrusting. She likes to know he is working for it.

Her face has grown red from a lack of oxygen and an abundance of exertion. The moans cease and she lifts her head out of his shoulder. She coughs up the words "Harder...Choke...harder."

He nearly slams the back of her head onto the door but she's resisting just enough. What was once rhythmic has become thrashing. His hips buck wildly into her and she widens her legs to absorb it. Her face turns from red to violet.

They can feel each other losing sense of the world. They know it is about to happen (but they can't imagine it will end).

She finishes poetically, her moans a gentle rain.

He finishes powerfully, his moans a thunderstorm rolling over the curvature of the earth.

They hold each other in the moments after. A wind blows and the sensation of cold on her skin seems to awaken her more rational side. She pushes him away just enough to put on her panties. She pulls down her skirt and spreads it smooth.

He buttons up and looks towards a siren that wails in the distance.

"I don't usually-"

"I know." She says, not wanting to spoil the moment.

She has thanks in her eyes, although he doesn't see it as he is looking anywhere else.

He asks for a number but she gives him a deep kiss, instead. He tries to hold onto her with a gentle bite of her lip and a gentle grab at her hands.

He should know he'd have to do better than that, but he doesn't.

She does know, and so she leaves (she is gone).

He wants to chase after her, but what would he do when he catches her?

He heads in the opposite direction.

And so they were alone again. And the sensation of loneliness became so overwhelming it makes them wonder if they were ever together.