By Om Puri
In the annals of a narrow corridor in the office, on the ninth floor, a dropped ceiling, white ceiling tiles made of spongy mineral fiber, rough and abrasive, ready to powder away; they alternate in chessboard diamonds with the tiles of fluorescent lights, flickering; the grey carpet; a cream-grey cubicle, a woman in a white blouse and navy skirt, black tights, black heels. The computer was on her Facebook screen. Her chair rolls on a plastic mat when she turns to answer the phone. Her light brown hair is in a bun with Japanese hair pins in them. She answers, speaks on behalf of Capital One Credit. It was not a customer but her supervisor in the division, a conversation about new employee policy. Insider her her mind drifts; she focuses and sees a diamond — cut and polished to a point, no blemishes, outside her voice on autopilot. Just don’t say who you are Mary thought from a place deep inside her.
Dark skin pressed against hers, the smooth movement of his muscles and abdomen over her; the fullness of his finish inside her. Mary placed the phone down, took a deep breath. Closed her eyes; opened them, felt the sudden heat in between her legs. She had to focus on the task at hand—which was nothing—and she pressed her hand down on the computer keyboard. It was only 3:00 o’clock. Two more hours until Friday really started.
The flash in the darkness. The pink color, the fog, the woman’s eyes. The black hands, the black legs, the black hair that she felt her tongue roll over, the feeling of her braids in between her thighs. Start, shutdown, she clicked, stepped back from, walked away, navy jacket in hand. In the dense interior of the parking garage her dark green Ford Taurus flashed among the rows of cars, the grey large pillars, the concrete that slanted, the rows behind it descending, zig-zagging. She puts her black heel against the accelerator. Back and forth the wheels go and squeak as she goes down level, level, level….when she reaches the outdoors into the light the sky, the skyscrapers. She shifts quickly into second gear and peels out, hits the accelerator, gear three. Fingers with long red nails turn the black dial. The volume turns up. The licking lips of a guitar, Latin,
(Man, it’s a hot one;
Like seven inches from the midday sun;
Well, I hear you whispering in the words, to melt everyone;
But you stay so cool;
My muñequita, my Spanish Harlem, Mona Lisa;
You’re my reason for reason;
The step in my groove)
When she got home in the corridor of the carpeted hallway she kicked off the navy pants, waddled before she got out her feet from the cuffs. She let her hair down. She lifted the white dress shirt over her head, then the under-shirt. When the black lights swiveled over her that made the club glow the white-purple, the white-purple teeth that flashed, the eyes, the piercings that danced, the light of her eyes was outlined by eye-liner that she had darkly penciled in like Cleopatra. Red and blue lights like awkward robots waved over the packed house in the dark and fog. Her waist lowered, her knees bent. Her ass came lower than even the high heels that tilted her feet up. She rose, back and forth; arms came out like they were in handcuffs. A pulsating beat, like neon lights on the records that spun in the hands of the DJ. The drum beat that kept their feet and hips moving.
Inside her Mary heard a sound that was deep deep within; it was a guitar licking at blues scales that she shook too, laughed. The DJ, framed by black tower speakers, a large heavy man looked up, his eyes in shadowed darkness, his expression silent and expressionless, face stubbled, lit in black light. His hand spun the record back and forth. Mary’s hand waved, past her eyes. There weren’t no rings on her left hand he thought, a man that danced. When Mary walked back to the bar that was centered in a square of neon pink lights that waved, like sound waves, glass shelves with the liquor, in her dark green dress that sparkled, the man disappeared. She never saw him again.
Her hips slowly rocked from side to side as she held her hands high, the lights that swiveled above her. The bass swam like a snake through the darkness. She had taken an Uber to the club, riding under the Orlando night sky where the midnight black had the ruby glow of the nightlife, palm trees that underscored the party atmosphere. She left in a Toyota Rav4 that drove past Lake Eola, Lake Underhill, under streetlights at 3:00 a.m. and counting; a night so dead quiet and static the lights seemed alive; the air was like breath. They got on the highway where a tall man with brown-black hair combed back and thin black pants and a black jacket got off at a condo in Winter Park where he unlocked a door into darkness, turned on a bright light that lit the room just as well as if it was day. Not a spectacular room, weathered wood floors and conventional big box store furniture, like the couch, coffee table, then an obscene gigantic Samsung tv that was curved, that made glass into art. Footsteps followed into the bedroom, a second hd tv that was flat and a few years older, on a black wood-mesh and glass tv stand. It was silence but the echo of the heavy reverberating beats inside the club was still in their minds, far away in time and yet the vibration still simmering in their mind, in their skin. Her lips spread apart pressed against his; her tongue played with his, strong and firm, her brown nipples erect and hard, exposed in the dimly lit condo. Minutes passed in methodical preparation, the unlatching of the bra, belt thrown off, socks. But when she felt him against the naked skin of her ass, his arms reach across her back and toward her hand, she could feel the sweat, the body heat. Mary pressed her hands against the wall with her eyes turned halfway back, her lips open voice exhaling and moaning in pleasure. She lowered at her waist as much as she could as he pumped back and forth behind her.
Days later she would be able to imagine herself against the glass of her office building on the 24th floor in the same grip of heat, eyes flashing out toward the city and the traffic of cars below, over the small palm trees, the erect softness of her nipples pressed like a face against the glass, her cheek against it. The back and forth, the back and forth, the lips between her legs dripping wet, not just dripping but running. That night early morning getting fucked from behind she turned to face the shape of the man in the darkness. Her right hand pulled the condom off and threw it to the side. She pressed her forehead against the wall, her wet hair in strands falling across her cheeks. She curled her lips and made a soft sound of pleasure. The walls shook through her hands.
Two years later on the way to the ceremony by the lake, in the limousine with her bridesmaids she heard the radio switch songs; the roll of drums, the familiar Latin high pitched guitar with the Caribbean instruments shaking and rattling behind it. When the man from the club all those years ago lifted her white crocheted veil, kissed her with all the earnestness he was capable of, to which all else was excluded for that one moment, it was the happiest day of her life, the breeze of the open water that flowed through her hair, the taste of freedom.
(And it’s just like the ocean under the moon;
Oh, it’s the same as the emotion that I get from you;
You got the kind of lovin’ that can be so smooth, yeah;
Give me your heart, make it real or else forget about it)
***
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/7vko2p/raw_an_erotic_short_story