He pressed her to him like a vacuum trying to suck up a
large rubber ball.
His first casual encounter was with Linda, a dark-eyed woman at a law school mixer. As the party drew to a close, he used a line that had failed on every other woman before; to his astonishment, Linda played along, and one hour later they were at his apartment, on the couch, undressing.
The more they kissed, the less they talked and the more probing their conversation of passion became. If he stroked her cheek, her hand would graze down his shirt like a little spider. If his hand slipped underneath her blouse, she'd nod and grab the back of his head tightly but lovingly. If he tried to unzip her pants, she'd laugh and say, "You'll never figure out how to do it."
"Watch me try," he said.
"No," she said, brushing his hand away." There's a trick." She unhooked a button and looped a knotted chord around the zipper.
"Oh, great, a chastity belt."
"That's good," she said as he lay his hand over her warm panties.
"Your chastity is safe in my hands," he whispered. "Is it safe to talk about safe sex?"
"Sex is safest when you abide by the speed limit."
"I'll wear a condom if you like."
She smiled, and that smile – that discreet but lascivious smile – sent him reeling in anticipation. He excused himself to hunt for condoms in the bathroom cabinet, telling her to make herself at home. She made wisecracks about the decor (or lack thereof) while he tried to remember where the damn things were. Two years ago he had put a box here precisely for this kind of situation, and now they were nowhere.
"Your place is a mess!" she called out.
"I know," he replied, taking a single condom from his overnight bag. He had once stuffed it there with overoptimistic expectations. "I'll be out in a minute."
"Do you have cable TV?" she asked, and he heard her turning on the TV.
"Just the basic channels." He tried tearing it open, but when he couldn't, he used a pair of tweezers to poke though. Unfortunately, he succeeded too well, puncturing the slimy bit of plastic. He cursed, threw the condom out and started searching for another. After a while, he slammed the cabinet shut and went out to tell her the news. Linda was sitting Indian-style and topless on his bed. "Hello," she said, proud of her licentiousness.
He embraced her, bringing her bare breasts against his chest, feeling her warm readiness. "You are beautiful," he whispered.
"Thank you," she said, "do you like my tits?"
"I do," he said, stroking the naked skin of her shoulder. "By the way," he said, "I can't find the condoms."
She laughed and gave him a passionate kiss. Then frowned. "Does that mean we can't do it?"
"Afraid so," he said. "Unless..."
"Unless?"
"Unless I run over to the convenience store across the street."
She lay back and curled over the sheets and started pretend-crying. "I don't know if I can wait that long."
"I beg you," he said, kneeling at her feet. "I'll do anything..."
"Anything?"
"Anything to make your stay a pleasant one."
"Make haste," she said, crawling beneath the covers. "Maybe I'll just take a nap." He turned around. "Can you pass me the dictionary?" He took the large brown book off the shelf and balanced it on her head. "Thank you," she said, flipping to a random page. "Dirndl: a woman's dress with a close fitting bodice and full skirt. Disbosom: to make known; to reveal. Are there any words you'd like me to disbosom the meaning of?"
"Look up 'kiss,'" he said.
She flipped through the pages while he rebuttoned his shirt. "We have several kisses to choose from. We have kissing bug: a person much given to kissing. Kissing gourami: a whitish fish noted for the habit of pressing its fleshy protrusible lips against those of another." He laughed while putting on his shoes." Is that your vacuum cleaner?" Linda leapt to her feet. "Wow! Did it come with all those attachments?"
"I don't know. I got it from my parents."
"Bill, it's beautiful," she said, choking with emotion. "It's a work of art. And yet I get the distinct impression that you're not giving it the love and affection it needs. Just look at this place!" She started rolling the vacuum around. "This vacuum needs time to roam around." She turned it on and started vacuuming, her half-nude skinny body dancing gracefully over the living room floor. He was about to leave when he spied her lovely figure in the wall mirror. He went up and pressed her to him like a vacuum trying to suck up a large rubber ball. They looked at themselves in the mirror amidst the vacuum's loud groaning.
"Linda, while I'm gone, I want you to think of the kinkiest thing you've ever wanted to do to a man. When I return, that's what we'll do together."
She looked deviously at him and resumed vacuuming.
He left the apartment in a delirium. Yes, he genuinely liked Linda. He didn't even know her last name or why she was at the party. It didn't matter. She was terrific. Terrific and sexy. Besides these mysteries enthralled him. With her, the usual introductory information seemed unnecessary, irrelevant, distracting. She liked playing games, and so did he (yet in his normal life he did it so rarely). The past three hours with her was an adventure with the allure of a potential conquest. He was seething with sexual desire this evening, and that was why it was so peculiar a moment to bump into the apartment maintenance guy. Here on the sidewalk, in the middle of the night, with a hard-on and unlaced shoelaces, he suddenly remembered his ongoing battle to get the broken door latch fixed.
"Hey, Jose," he said, "Didn't you say you were going to come by yesterday?"
Jose winced and began a long explanation in broken English."It's no time – manager asked me to – look at the foundation—no time for anything else. So sorry – "
"That's okay," he said. "I just don't like leaving the key under the matt."
"It's the doorlock?"
"No, the latch to the patio door. It's stuck." (He mind wandered to Linda strolling about the living room).
"Tomorrow I have off, but I can do it Monday. That okay?"
He thanked Jose and walked down the sidewalk to the store. How strange! He'd been unable to reach Jose for the last two days, and now the guy appears out of nowhere. Jose was a bumbling man with a funny-looking moustache. Linda would find him hysterical.
Considering the hour, he thought it strange to see four cars crowding the store parking lot. A delivery truck was preparing to unload a cartful of bakery goods, and a policeman was filling up a cup at the soft drink dispenser. A teenage girl in a leather jacket was outside using the payphone, and he smiled at her as he walked into the store. He thought about his last words to Linda: think about the kinkiest thing you'd ever want to do. If somebody had suggested that to him, he wouldn't know what to say; there were just so many possibilities. Even in a convenience store there were enough props to do almost anything. Just walking down the aisles gave him ideas. There was maple syrup (he could rub it down her buttocks and thighs), ice cream (scooping it on her lips and over her tits), a bag of ice (he could toss it on her in the middle of the night), and beer (after pouring it over her body, he could lap it up as excitedly as a dog after a long walk). There was the old reliable banana (nice to stick up her you-know-what and lick up the mushy remains), the dirty magazines (she could reenact the same raunchy poses and even be ordered to buy the magazines herself). The store didn't carry whips and chains (it was a family establishment), but it had a fly swatter and dog leashes (to lead her forward or strap her down). He would love to go outside to the payphone, call her and whisper all the obscene things he wanted to do. Or better yet, he could pay the teenage girl to call Linda up and say the very same things. He'd love to bring Linda here and wait in the car while she disrobed before the cashier and security cameras (it could start a trend; instead of robbing convenience stores, people could strip in them). They could drive around town one night stopping at only the stores with the best-looking male cashiers. He could accompany her inside and caress her shorts in an inconspicuous corner in the store. They could linger in the store all day and rate the sexual desirability of every customer and later fuck each other pretending their partner was the customer with the highest score. He could take over the cashier's spot for a night and have her sit underneath the counter sucking his you-know-what when customers weren't around. He could microwave hot fudge and pour it over her as though she were some magnificent banana split (yes, with the same banana from before). Or he could stick his entire you-know-what in the hot fudge jar and create a brand new confection. He could blindfold her, ask her to open her mouth and alternately cram his you-know what and an ice cold fudge bombsicle into her mouth. Or he could bring a fudge bombsicle outside the store, unwrap it, place it near his crotch, ask her to kneel down and suck it slowly while humanity watched. He could masturbate into a cola can in the restroom and later watch her drink it in full view of customers. He and she could at alternate times go to the store restroom and do the wild thing while sad souls came in to buy lotto tickets, pay for gas and get money at the cash machine. They could drive a car with tinted windows into the parking lot and do all kinds of fucking while unsuspecting customers pass by. She could walk in and buy groceries with a miniature vibrator humming away inside her. She could introduce herself to a male customer, hand him a survey describing a variety of sex positions and ask him to mark the ones her boyfriend should do to her that evening. Or after pleasuring him with her mouth, she could walk across the street with the fluids in her mouth, swallowing only to say "thank you" when the cashier hands her the receipt. She could enter the place in shorts and no bra and pretend to faint in front of a handsome store cashier. He and Linda could pretend to be strangers and arrive separately, and then in front of customers he could offer her money for sex. Or outside the store, she would accost male customers and ask for money to buy condoms (explaining that it was part of a truth-or-dare game). He would watch this from his car, and they would not make love until she had found a generous man. They could buy a razor and shave their pubic regions clean (okay, that was dull). Using a series of products bought here, she could become his personal servant, giving him private baths, shampooing his hair, washing his body, applying a touch of aftershave and using the hair dryer to comb his hair to perfection. After buying a stick of incense and lighting it, they could make love without climaxing until the stick had completely disintegrated. He would ask her to shoplift something minor (a candy bar?), slip it inside her panties while nobody was looking (nothing was sexier than making love to a doer of illicit deeds; but what if she were caught?) He could buy a pair of dark sunglasses and make her wear it whenever they made love. They could use lottery tickets to determine the frequency and variety of their passion. They could assign a secret sexual code to all the numbers, and do whatever acts correspond to the numbers they scratch off. They could go together into a convenience store and purchase every single condom off the rack. He could buy a candy pack to use as a series of rewards whenever she pleased him in bed. He could hide semi-obscene messages under store products and refuse to make love until she found them. He could rent a security guard uniform, catch her shoplifting and frisk her until he discovered the pilfered item (a candy bar perhaps?) Perhaps he could handcuff and take her away. He could buy a pack of little cinnamon candies and lay a trail of them over her erogenous zones and lick them up one by one. The same could be done with whipped cream, but this time, she'd be applying it onto him, and she'd have to lick up every last drop. Or they could park in a pickup truck out of view from the cashier, do it lying down in the back and hide under blankets every time a car drove beside them.
He paid for the condoms and walked home gleefully. He hoped Linda didn't mind the wait. Perhaps she was busy indulging in her own erotic reveries. For every erotic notion that came to his mind, Linda must be dreaming 99 others. Now he could finally act out those kinky scripts he had composed long ago. For once (and for the first time) there would be two restless imaginations to play with.
The first thing he saw upon returning was the vacuum standing upright in the corner. Its chord was wrapped neatly around its vertical frame. The bedroom door was shut, and Linda made no reply when he called her name. Disrobing, he fit the condom over his prized possession and knocked on the bedroom door. "Linda," he said. "Are you decent?" Silence. He laughed, deciding to play along with this game of hers. He opened the door and went over to the empty bed. "Linda?" he whispered, half-expecting her to jump out from the darkness. He switched on the light, whipped open the closet and checked the living room before realizing that Linda, the girl of his dreams, had slipped away.
Written March, 1994.
