Contrast

This is the last chapter. I'd like to thank everybody for reading, and I'd especially like to thank DonnaBeck for doing a first read before I posted this chapter and the previous one. She's a wonderful writer with a great sense of story and character, and "Contrast" is much better due to her holding my feet to the fire on a couple of things.

The story so far: After a chance street meeting, a kind-of-meek white guy and a part-time-college black woman go back to her place and fuck like weasels. Then they agree to begin a just-for-sex, no-names relationship. What they expect to be a few days or weeks of a hot-and-heavy fling turns into months, and their constant intimacy brings both of them to a place much more emotional than they had planned. The rules of their game are clear and straightforward - no names, no personal details. But with every erotic encounter, something deeper and more powerful challenges their resolve to stick to that agreement ...

* * *

Him

The light is dim, one lamp across the room glowing at its lowest setting. She's on her elbows and knees in the middle of the bed, and I'm three strokes into fucking her in the ass ... when the phone rings.

God damn it.

We've done anal before, but it's rare. Maybe five times in the whole six months. So it's special - I mean,

everything

is special, every time is amazing and unique and its own mind-blowing experience ... but the butt sex is always over the top. Especially the penetration and the first few thrusts after that, when every push I make into her brings an explosive, animalistic grunt from her throat.

So the ring-tone's chipper little

I-don't-give-a-fuck-if-I'm-interrupting-anything

tune is even more aggravating than it ordinarily would be.

"

Guh

," she says, "don't stop ..."

I pull back with the tight-ring squeeze of her asshole sucking at my shaft, slowly revealing its veined length and glistening coat of lube. It's not that hard to ignore the ringing.

"oh," she says, "ohhh ..."

Then "

NGH!

" as I load myself back into her, and "Yeahhhhh" as I clutch her waist and hold the stroke deep.

Doo-do-dee-doo-de-do, diddle-oo-dee-do-de-doo.

This isn't the first time one of us has gotten a call during sex, but it's the first time we've had a precious in-through-the-out-door moment interrupted.

I really need to remember to put the damn thing on vibrate only.

Two more strokes, and I'm barely conscious of the annoying loop of electronica. Another two strokes after that, it finally gives up.

Her forceful gasps have gone to moans now as she moves with me in cyclical flesh-waves, breasts swinging free beneath her, forehead rolling against the sheets.

"Faster," she breaths. "

Harder.

"

My hands squeeze deeper into the cushioning flesh of her waist. I bring up my speed, add another notch of power.

"UH! God, yes!"

For a maybe a minute, definitely no more than that, we pound ourselves together, her gorgeous, full, round bottom swallowing me up, letting me loose, swallowing me up again.

Then.

Doo-do-dee-doo-de-do, diddle-oo-dee-do-de-doo.

I say it out loud this time: "God

damn

it."

She laughs, but something about the dainty synthesized melody infuriates me and gives my next thrust a nitro-boost of anger.

"

UHH!

" The gutteral intensity of her response sparks and sizzles a crossfire with the phone-hate in my brain, and I go into overdrive, every thrust a punch of revenge against whoever is on the other end of that line.

Damn

"Eee!"

you

"uh - uhh -"

you

"Yes, honey,

fuck

me!"

inconsiderate

"Oh god -"

sack

"I'm gonna ... I'm gonna ..."

of

"

UHHhhuuAAAHH!!

"

She's screaming, contorting, smacking one hand down against the mattress, and out of nowhere, my brain thinks -

Oh. What if it's the call.

I go completely still. She's panting, face buried in the sheets, hands clenched into fists. I feel the rhythmic throb of her orgasm clamping the sphincter of her anus around me in fierce pulsations. The phone has gone silent.

If it's Gabe, he'll keep calling. He wouldn't text me something like that.

Hesitantly, I take an experimental stroke out and in. She quivers and trembles and makes the most fantastic vibrating whimper in her throat.

The phone rings again.

* * *

Her

I have just had the most incredible motherfucking ass-gasm of my life, so hearing

another

call on his phone is nothing but hilarious to me. I laugh and I shake and I open my mouth to say, "Aren't you going to get that?"

But then I realize he's stopped again, and his hands are limp at my waist like he's forgotten me. And when I lift up and turn my head to see what's going on, he's got a look on his face that says something is very, very fucked up.

"Do you need to get that?" I ask, all the sarcasm I was about to lay on him suddenly gone. "It's okay."

He pulls out and rolls off of the bed. Something's wrong with his breathing. Without knowing why, I'm terrified for him. I turn over to track him as he stands up, bends over, picks up his jeans, fishes in one of the pockets for that ridiculous sing-song noisemaker.

In the glow of the screen, I see his eyes recognize the phone number. Then they squeeze closed and he swallows before hitting the answer button.

"Gabe."

Faint and buzzing, that ear-muffled other-end-of-a-conversation sound is all that reaches me.

"Okay," he tells Gabe, whoever that is. His voice is hollow and unsteady. "How long ago? Uh-huh."

The mattress shakes as he slumps down to sit on it. "Did you call Susie yet? I can, if you're - no, sure. I just don't want you to feel like you have to take care of everything. Uh-huh. No, I know. Thanks. That's why you were always the favorite son, Gabe - you have this kind of shit under control. Look, man, I ... what? Okay, tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Love you too."

As he punches the hang-up circle, tosses his phone away to land on his jeans, and puts his face in both hands, I crawl over to him, wanting to help but not sure if I'm allowed to. I don't know this man's name, but now ... he has, what, a brother or a cousin named Gabe, and a sister, maybe - Susan - and someone has just died, probably his mother or his dad.

I know what that's like. Except the brother and sister part.

Maybe our agreement means our lives aren't supposed to touch like this, but I can't keep my hands off his shoulders, and even though I don't hear him sobbing, I feel it, and I move in close and put my cheek against his warm, trembling back and slide my hand around onto his chest.

We're like that for long enough that I realize I'm smelling my ass-juice on his dick, and it pisses me off that my brain even notices it, because every single brain-cell that I own ought to be trying to figure out how to make him feel better, even though I also know, completely, that there's no way for me to do that.

Finally, he takes a few deep breaths and straightens a little, hands sliding together as he pulls them away from his face.

"I'm sorry," he says in a thick voice. "I'm sorry about that, I -"

"Shut up," I say, quietly, squeezing my hand into his chest. "Tell me what you need. Do you need to go? Do you need me to hold you? Do you want me to try taking your mind off it?"

It takes a couple more uneven breaths for him to answer me.

"Just ... lie down with me, okay?"

With a nod, I kiss his shoulder and slide across the sheets to make room.

Then we curl together on my bed, pressed together but completely still, and I have never known that a place could hurt so much and be so wonderful at the same time.

* * *

Them

A month later, their routine is more or less back to normal. Except that instead of occasionally holding her quietly after sex and thinking,

This is almost better than the actual sex,

he now thinks it all the time. With no "almost."

And instead of thinking,

Should I, or shouldn't I? Should I, or shouldn't I?

about the idea of asking him for more, asking for them to share names, to learn each other, she finds herself thinking,

How much longer will I be able to stop myself?

He comes over one Thursday after work with a bag of takeout Chinese. After kissing for a couple minutes just inside the door, they sit at her little round kitchen table and eat sesame chicken and moo goo gai pan straight out of the cartons, passing them back and forth. Occasionally she catches a mushroom in her chopsticks and holds it out for him to snag from their bamboo grip with his teeth. Sometimes teasing him by pulling it back at the last moment, which he doesn't mind because it forces him to lean closer to a fantastic view of the cleavage within her tight blue tank top, unhampered by any bra.

He's thinking she's quieter than usual. She's sitting with her heart pounding because she's done something wrong. Deliberately. On the nightstand beside her bed there's a book - her favorite book. It shouldn't be there, and all through the Chinese food she's on the verge of excusing herself for a second to go in and put it back on its shelf. It's part of who she is, and if he sees it and asks about it and she tells him even a little bit, he'll know so much more about her than he does right now. At least, that was her plan when she put it there.

Is she playing mysterious?

he wonders. Their chairs are close, her thigh touching his. Sometimes the mushrooms come circling around from his right side as she loops her arm across his shoulders and snuggles close enough to press one breast against his left bicep. She watches him closely as he turns his head to take the offered bite, and she's still watching closely when he turns back and puckers for a quick kiss before chewing.

Maybe she's just looking to see if I'm okay.

The hole where his mom used to be isn't filled in yet (and won't ever be). But it's mostly a part of his internal landscape now, something that became familiar and bearable much more quickly than he expected it to. Probably because they'd had so much warning, he told himself. Almost a year of knowing it could happen at any time.

Yeah

, he thinks, looking into her unbelievably brown eyes as he chews the last of the straw mushroom.

That's why you've been able to cope. Keep telling yourself that.

God, you've

got

to get up and go hide that book,

she thinks.

The second he sees it he'll know what you're trying to pull.

But she doesn't. She just keeps eating and watching him and seeing him watch her back.

How does he manage to be so fucking hot?

"Okay," he says at last, pushing the sesame chicken away, "you are way too sexy, and if I don't stop, I'm going to be too full to bone you. You ready to get to it ...?"

Bitch?

She hears him not saying the word plain as day.

Oh shit, what does that mean? Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Tell him, "Yeah, but give me a second" and go move that goddamn book.

But her heart's cranked up so wild she doesn't think her voice will be steady, so she just tries to give a shrug of,

Sure, what the hell

, as she puts her own food down.

He's up and walking toward the bedroom then, unbuttoning his shirt, glancing back, wondering what she's got up her sleeve for him. She's never this reserved. Something's going to break loose and explode when they get in the bedroom. Something good? He wonders what the hell it is and feels her presence like a wave pushing him toward the bed.

But ...

While still in the tiny hallway, he catches sight of the nightstand through the doorway.

What the fuck?

His first thought is,

Did she look through my wallet while I was sleeping and Google me?

There's no mistaking the cover of that book, even from across the room. It's the middle book of his first trilogy, the edition with that lame blank sky-blue cover he'd cobbled together himself in his early days of self-publishing. Where the hell would she have even gotten it? He only sold a few dozen copies before he paid to upgrade to a professional cover. And half those sales, thanks to the mysteries of Internet commerce, went to individual buyers in Italy and Germany.

No, if she Googled my name and bought a copy to plant, it'd be the new version, or one of the other books entirely.

She thinks she sees his stride falter as he gets to the bedroom doorway.

Great. Here it comes, you dumbass. Why the hell didn't you get up and move the damn thing?

He makes his decision in a split second and feels like a chickenshit doing it. Without stopping, he pivots so that he's backing into the bedroom, shucking the dress shirt, then putting a thumb over his shoulder toward the adjoining bathroom. It's not too hard to pretend that he's doing it so he can drink in a long look of her as he's moving.

"I'm going to take a leak real quick, okay?" He paints her body head to toe with his gaze, down and then up again. "But don't get undressed. I want to peel you out of those clothes."

"Sure," she says, with a clumsily faked casual tone. He saw it. She knows he saw it.

He's giving me a chance to ditch it.

If there's any doubt, just as he starts closing the bathroom door, he glances at the nightstand and says, "Oh. Hey, you left a book out. Uh, probably ought to put it away if you don't want me to see it."

He's a shy pisser. It's not that weird for him to go in and close the door, or for it to take a bit before she hears the stream of his pee hitting the toilet bowl. She stands paralyzed in the doorway, staring at the book in silence.

Inside the bathroom, he thinks,

She wanted you to see it. She wanted you to see it, and you pushed her away, you dipshit.

But what if that's wrong? What if she just forgot it was there?

Goddamnit. Then you could have just asked, "Hey, what's that? Any good?"

But no, because then he'd be lying, pretending he didn't already know the damn thing cover-to-cover. And if she

had

snuck a peek at his license and

was

trying to tell him she knew who he was, then playing dumb would be pushing her away just as much as handling it the way he had.

But either she doesn't know who you are and she likes your books, or she's trying to tell you she knows who you are.

He can't figure out which one of those is scarier, or more exciting. Then he realizes the third alternative is that someone loaned her the book and she doesn't give a crap about it.

Come on, you stupid fucker, piss already!

The last is aimed at his bladder.

When the splash of urine sounds through the door, she finally moves. Stomps to the nightstand. Grabs the book roughly (even though it's precious and probably one of the only things she would try to save from the apartment in a fire).

Yanks open the nightstand drawer, throws the book inside, slams it shut.

Stands panting with her back toward the bathroom door, trying to get herself under control while the toilet flushes and the sink runs.

The book is gone when he opens the door in his boxer-briefs, pants and socks discarded on the floor.

Because she didn't really want me to see it, or because I made her feel rejected?

He steps in behind her, wraps her in his arms, hooks his chin over her shoulder, closes his eyes, takes a few long breaths. Perfume. Deodorant. Hair. Skin. Her whole body feels taut in his grasp.

What do you say? What do you say?

It hits him pretty quick. "You know what I like about you, bitch?"

"What?"

"Everything. There is not a single goddamn thing wrong with you. You're fucking perfect."

Some of the tension eases out of her. "Well ... I did cock up and leave that book out. Almost gave away what kind of thing I like to read."

So she

does

like it. Or - she's covering for the fact that she peeked in my wallet. Dude, just ... turn it off, okay?

"Yeah," he replies, "but I think I would have lived. And anyway, it gave you an excuse to say 'cock up.' That was a pretty well chosen phrase."

She feels him hardening against her left ass-cheek then, and she lets go of her worry and frustration, squirms around to face him within the tight circle of his arms. His grey eyes say he meant it when he called her perfect.

"Okay. So we gonna fuck now or what?" She feels filled up with sunlight as she says it. Things are suddenly so good, there's no conceivable reason to change them.

"Yes, bitch, I believe we are."

His encircling arms loosen, slide his hands down her back. Her eyes close and she shivers as his fingers reach her waist, tickle their way farther down, find the hem of her tank and begin to draw it upward. He puts his lips to the rich fullness of her mouth, closing his eyes to match hers. The feel of her shifting slightly as she raises her arms sets him afire, almost makes him rip the blue top up and off, except that he'd have to break the kiss to do that, and he's not willing to - not yet. So he creeps the fabric higher and higher, releasing her soft flesh to the air in movements of inches. Her breasts momentarily weigh down his progress, until the fabric rolls up and around their curves, lifting and then letting them fall. He breaks the kiss then, to lean and get his mouth to one of her nipples. The tank top goes up and over her head to be tossed across the room.

"God, it makes me so hot when you do that," she breathes at his suckling. A quick circle of his tongue around the nipple makes her gasp. "Yeahhhh. You getting my skirt, or am I?"

He rises up, looks her in the eye, one hand on each side of her rib cage. The way she stands there, nude to the waist, the color of coffee with a dash of cream, and then an extra dash in the band around her breasts and ribs where the sun never hits, and then the deep chocolate of her areolas and nipples, the bronze of her hair, the buff of her palms - he could write a whole book on just the different browns of her.

The look he's giving her makes her forget her own question about the skirt. For a while, she just meets his stare and knows and needs nothing else. Then a heat like being belly-down on hot sand suggests at least one other need. Maybe the same thing hits him at the same time, because he kneels and works the catch of her skirt, unzips it, glides it down with both hands, the fingers spread wide to cover and sense as much of her flesh as he can.

As the denim curtain descends along her thighs, her silky off-white panties are laid bare, an aromatic painting of female arousal. He stoops and bends and grazes her still-clothed mound ever-so-gently with his teeth, making her suck in a lightning-quick breath.

"I want to ride your mouth," she says. His grey eyes glitter as he brings his jaw and lips to a slow close, sending soft heat and a bit of extra dampness into her panties with his delicate kiss. Then he tongues a crease into the cloth along her slit and leans back, getting his thumbs through the leg-holes to either side of her mons, to tug the fabric down.

They move like a single creature: her, stepping out of the wet, silken cloth, him sliding his legs through her wide-spaced ankles, her coming forward and down, him easing down and back with just slightly less speed so that the space between her labia and his lips closes in time with their descent to the floor. His head touches the carpet just as she settles fully against his mouth, the subtle and intricate involutions of her flesh tangy with lust. With a few careful shifts and adjustments, she positions her legs, her hips, just where she can press herself to him without her weight crushing him or straining her knees.