Once upon a time, I nursed a horrible heartbreak like a sickly blue baby. I kept it alive at all costs and let it burn a never-ending hole in me. The man I love had left me, passively but decidedly, until he became a flickering ghost whom I could barely remember but constantly longed for.
Work during this time was the ultimate insult to injury. On top of being profoundly bereft, I was forced to endure mindless tasks that would have insulted a drugged monkey. The man in charge of the dismal warehouse office was a lecherous, asthmatic sort. I’d catch him staring at me through the glass that separated us, occasionally licking his cracked lips. He disgusted me.
Yet somehow, so desperate for attention, I’d allow his loathsome advances. Sometimes I’d even encourage them by dressing scantily and bending over slowly in front of him to pick up a dropped paper. I could feel his eyes trail up the back my legs and hear his raspy breathing, labored and slow.
At home, I’d undress and slip between my sheets, hugging an old pillow and mindlessly kissing it, wrapping my legs around the blankets, like a teenager in practice for an upcoming date. There was no one to give my wild, broken-hearted love to, so it was given to objects, to dirty bosses, and to myself, in bed, time and time again, until I fell into a dreamless sleep.
On Tuesday nights, I frequented a dive bar. Shadowed men would occasionally look my way but I wanted to be left alone to make love to my chilled vodka, suck deeply on my cigarette, and burn an endless stare into the dirty mirror behind the bar.
One fateful evening there, while drifting into an alcohol-induced unconsciousness, I was hit from behind. A tall, delicate man with glasses had tripped and fell into me, sending me and my drink flying. I’d seen him there before: he sat at the end of the bar and read newspapers furiously, raking his fingers through his tousled hair. He never looked my way. Now he was practically in my lap.
“I’m sorry. So clumsy…are you alright?”
“I’m fine. But my drink isn’t.”
“Let me buy you one. Please. Sorry, terribly sorry. It’s so dark in here and I’m…sorry.”
“I get it, you’re sorry. Buy me a drink and we’ll call it even.” I said curtly.
He picked up his papers from the sticky floor, laughing nervously. I perched myself back on the squeaky bar stool and continued my stare into nowhere.
“You come here often.” I heard him mutter.
“Seriously? Did you just ask me that? Just buy me a drink and go, please. Really…do I come here often? Fuck. Work on some better pick-up lines.”
“Oh no, it wasn’t a pick up line. I recognize you. Or at least I think I do. You’ve been in here before.”
For the first time, I bothered to make eye contact with him. He looked gentle and sincere. My face flushed with shame. He wasn’t trying to make a move on me. He was not another big bad wolf. He was simply reaching out.
“Do you want to sit down and have a drink with me?” The question hurt coming out of my mouth, like kindness had rusted in my gut and cut on its way up.
“Yes,” he stuttered nervously. “That would be nice.”
We spent the next few hours talking, laughing. He was a kind, sensitive man, in need of the same attention as me. Giving it to him warmed us both, melting my pain and his shyness. As the night wore on, I found myself moving closer to him. (Or was he moving closer to me?) As he began to ask me a question, I kissed him. The question was forgotten and we sat in silence, staring at one another for what seemed like a hundred years.
“Do you want to come home with me?” he asked in a bare whisper.
“No…no. That would be too much. Um. I just…I broke up with someone and…yes. Yes, I’d like to.”
We walked in silence back to his walk-up apartment on that starless night, holding hands nervously. As we climbed the stairs, I stopped.
“I can’t do this. I can’t.” The waning love of another kept me fixated; it felt physically impossible to allow my guard down for another.
“Turn around,” he demanded. His voice was suddenly deeper suddenly.
“Why?”
“Just turn around. Close your eyes.”
I dropped my bag and faced the wall.
“Put your hands on the wall and do what I tell you.”
I could have been scared. Or threatened. Or resistant. But I had nothing to lose. I relinquished my power to him and turned around.
He pressed himself into me, suddenly confident and assured. His hand ran up my bare legs slowly, methodically. His mouth reached my ear. “I want to fuck you. And you’re going to let me. Okay?”
I nodded, as he pulled down my panties and proceeded to fuck me in the staircase, my face pressed up against the cold cement wall. The pleasure was excruciating and divine. I let out a moan.
“Be quiet. Just be quiet and take it,” he said, covering my mouth. And that’s just what I did. I took it until I could take no more. I came and collapsed in his arms. He kissed my neck and whispered in my ear, “It’s better now. It’s all better now.”
He was right. The spell was shattered by sordid sex with a stranger in a cold staircase one evening of my life.
