2

       He comes over unexpectedly …

       I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

      James Joyce, Ulysses

      I was useless the day after I met HIM. HIM.

      My body was sore with aching breasts from the love bites he’d bestowed upon them. He’d fucked me to oblivion and back. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

      I stopped for a café latte at Starbucks before getting to the college. After my first class was over I ran to the women’s staff bathroom. My pussy burned when I peed. My eyes began to tear. Leaning against the side of the bathroom stall, I wanted to scream out in pain. Closing my eyes I remembered HIM. HIM. And I wanted to rush out of the school and go back to the downtown hotel. It didn’t matter that he’d probably left the room.

      I wanted HIM. I wanted HIM like mad.

      During class that day my students were whiny and needy. THE BOY seemed to have intuited my sexual liaison with the man from the hotel and he scowled at me. I barely listened to the other students. I blew off their questions after class and faked a headache. I couldn’t wait to get home so I could lie in my own bed and think about HIM. I was addicted to HIM already.

      THE BOY stopped at my desk after class. ‘Did you have a nice time at the hotel bar?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Well, I think you had more than a nice time. You’re all flushed,’ he said, laughing, then turned around and did not look back at me.

      I didn’t keep my office hours but quit the college in mid-afternoon, leaving a stack of ungraded papers on my desk.

      When I arrived home, my landlord was out in front raking leaves. Our daily exchanges were important to us both. He waved but I didn’t acknowledge him; I just wanted to be left alone with my thoughts.

      Inside my duplex I hastily undressed and headed for the bathroom. I ran a hot bath, lay in it with my eyes closed and immediately played with myself as I recalled the evening with HIM.

      I stayed in the bathtub until the water grew cold. After I climbed out I went and stood before the bathroom mirror. My body was still sore in places. He’d fucked me so thoroughly with his cock, his hands and his mouth, and I noticed a trail of love bites turning black and blue on my breasts. Swaying back and forth before the mirror, I grabbed my breasts and squeezed them hard before slipping my right middle finger inside my pussy. I came almost immediately. Because I was thinking of HIM. HIM.

      My body was my gift to HIM.

      I went and lay in bed.

      Later that evening, as I lay awake in bed, my phone began to vibrate. A text message. It could have been anyone but when the message arrived I stopped breathing. I could tell by the area-code number that it was HIM: the man who had put his cock inside me the night before and the man who would put his cock inside me again. I was certain of this.

      HIM: Hey, pretty lady. I loved last night.

      ME: Me 2. It was amazing.

      HIM: I want to c u again.

      ME: Soon?

      HIM: Soon. I need to touch you all over.

      ME: Yes. Where r u now?

      And then nothing. I waited for HIM to write back, heart thumping, staring at the phone and willing it to beep. The phone became hot in my hand but still I held on to it. I waited for an hour and then I texted HIM again.

      ME: Where r u?

      * * *

      And then I really began waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting, always for HIM. This is what I knew – I’d pretended I wasn’t lonely, but I was. Ever since I’d met HIM I’d become sick with loneliness. Getting out of bed began to feel impossible. Where was he? Why was he not with me? I tormented myself with these questions.

      My days crawled. I no longer felt inspired at work.

      Before I had met HIM, even if it was difficult to acknowledge, I was hungry, alone, angry and tired. I was prime for some sort of entanglement. The diverging road was sexually complicated and I took it, knowing that my love affair with HIM would alter my life in some irrevocable way. The intensity of the sex alone had been difficult to process.

      I was ripe for HIM.

      I was 33 years old and had lived in the same duplex since I moved out of my mother’s house when I started college, fifteen years before. My landlord, Sam, lived next door. He and I stood by one another through our loved ones’ illnesses and eventual passings.

      Sam’s wife got sick first. He and I more or less nursed her those last two years of her life. Then it was my mother who battled the same disease, only to die from it several years later. Breast cancer shows no mercy.

      Then my landlord’s vision worsened. He’d retired from his job as a civil engineer. He didn’t want to drive back and forth to work. He could barely see. I spent more and more time taking care of him. I began helping him manage the apartment buildings he’d bought nearby. We’d interview prospective tenants together. I’d help him with minor repairs in the buildings. I drove him to get his groceries several times a week and baked him pies using fruit from the trees in the backyard. In turn, Sam stopped charging me rent. We were an odd family but it worked for us. Eventually he became the father I never had.

      This was my backstory. I never thought of myself as unhappy, but my night with HIM had confused me profoundly. I mean, I hadn’t felt alone until I met HIM.

      I didn’t hear from HIM for several days, though it felt like a couple of weeks, but he made contact on a Friday. I’d left college early and returned, wearily, to my duplex. Sat down on the sofa and listened to the rain beating on my roof. I lit a fire and watched the logs burn before falling asleep on the couch.

      The vibration of the phone woke me. It was HIM.

      HIM: Can I come up, now?

      ME: Where r u?

      HIM: @ my downtown office. Just finishing up.

      ME: It’s raining.

      HIM: Don’t be silly. I can be there in no time.

      ME: Fantastic!

      I began the ritual of getting ready for a man. I took a long bath and reapplied my make-up. I found a black lace negligée. It fit my body perfectly. I took to my bed, waiting for HIM, occasionally fingering myself in anticipation. I was wet for HIM already.

      About an hour later he was at my door.

      I let HIM in.

      He embraced me.

      ‘It would be heaven to wake up to you every morning,’ he whispered in my ear.

      I gasped. What an amazing promise. It was a beautiful fantasy.

      I could already imagine being in bed with HIM each morning. We’d live in a pretty little seaside cottage. It would be a sweet little place. We’d be able to feel a soft sea breeze upon our skin when the bedroom window was left open in the summer months. What better place to make love to this beautiful man?

      I knew his promise was premature. But it didn’t matter. Already I was repeating