At the bar I told the bartender it was my birthday. A man sitting next to me insisted on buying me a drink. He was pale and had a shaved head and light, crystal-blue eyes with dark lashes. He was wearing smart-guy glasses, which made me trust him. His friend came back from the bathroom and stood next to us. He was tall and barrel-chested and had wooly hair and a long, Germanic jaw. He smelled like spices and the sea, and he told me he had just gotten off a film shoot down by the waterfront. He did something with lighting. I told them I was visiting, that I was a grad student, a poet, and they both nodded as if that were the coolest thing in the world. Looking back now I wonder if they resisted the urge to snort, as so many men had before when I told them. I'd like to believe that I was the sexiest thing on earth, though.
And I really was at that moment. I had long, brown, curly hair past my shoulders and I was skinny and healthy from biking all over town and from long hikes at Big Chico Creek on the weekends, and my skin was clean and pure from all the fresh air, and I loved that dress I was wearing so goddamn much. I liked the way my breasts rose to the top of it, inviting everyone to look, and how it made me feel different and glamorous. When you feel sexy, you are, you are, you are.
In the winter the storms turn the ocean into swirling madness, and the air is so damp we are wet until spring. We drink
He went for my breasts right away, squeezed them right through my dress, and whispered in my ear, "I love your tits."
tea all day and clutch each other in the mornings with our arms and our mouths.
The guy in the glasses was an environmental lawyer. A lawyer! Maybe we would get married. I swear to God I thought that for a second. He asked if I wanted to go to another bar called Bob. Tommy and his girlfriend joined us, and we hopped in a cab and headed further downtown. There were lots of drag queens at Bob. Glasses and I started making out. It felt really good — hot and slow and salty and extreme. He went for my breasts right away, squeezed them right through my dress, and whispered in my ear, "I love your tits." He tasted like the city. His friend watched us, sort of, from the bar. Tommy was in the corner with his girlfriend, gently guiding her hand away from his ass.
"Do you want to go somewhere else?" Glasses said. I put my hand on his crotch, and his dick was hard. I wrapped my palm around it, to see how big it was. It felt nice. We kissed and held our tongues together. My whole mouth was full with his tongue. "Do you want to come home with me?" he said.
It's so quiet where we live that you can hear the waves through the window late at night, once traffic stops chugging along 101. And the seagulls, cackling and cawing.
"All I have wanted to do is go home with you all night long," I said. The drugs and the coke had made me phenomenally horny, and I could feel how damp my stockings were. I wanted him for my birthday present, and I told him that. He slipped a hand under my little black dress. "Okay, okay, let's get out of here," I said.
Glasses made us all vodka on the rocks and we all sat on the couch, the two men surrounding me. It took a minute before my dress was off.
Glasses, his friend and I all got in a cab. Glasses gave an address to the cab driver, then we started making out in front of his friend. He rubbed all over me. I was moaning. Then suddenly there was a third hand on me, his friend's hand, tentatively on my knee. Everything felt awesome. I didn't stop him. I kissed him, and his tongue was longer and leaner and he licked my ear. Then, suddenly, I was pushing his hand up my dress too. The cab driver turned down the radio, and we drove like that for a while, the noise of the city beating in through the windows, and the three of us sucking on each other, and touching all over, and all the little sexy noises that resulted from that.
We ended up on a quiet street down near the South Street Seaport. There were no bars, no street traffic, just a gorgeous loft building, behind it the East River wafting lazily. The three of us tumbled out of the cab, into the building and then a well-lit elevator, where we shielded our eyes from the light, from each other, someone's hand quietly pushing up the back of my skirt, until we finally arrived on the sixth floor. Into his vast apartment we went. There was a sunken living room, a long leather couch that stretched against the windows, a staircase to a lofted bed, big windows with a view of the water. Glasses made us all vodka on the rocks and we all sat on the couch, the two men surrounding me. It took a minute before my dress was off. Every part of me was gasping, my mouth, my chest, the heat that was coming out from between my legs. I was full of a kind of sexual steam.
We go bird-watching on the weekends.
I lay down on the couch and they split my body in half, Glasses down between my legs, licking me, and his friend stroking and
There was no way I would ever do it again, but I loved it, I loved the two men at once.
kissing my breasts, alternating between them, and then biting my nipples. After a few minutes Glasses got up and went to the bathroom, then returned with a box of condoms, which he dangled above me.
"Is this okay?" he said.
I nodded. I had ceased being able to talk. Then he lay on top of me. His friend continued to play with my breasts. With a few strokes Glasses was fucking me. I screamed. The rest of it was kind of blurry, the two of them switching off, there were different positions, there were always two sets of hands on top of me, or in me, fingers in my mouth, tasting myself, and, near the end, one cock in my mouth while one cock was in my pussy. It felt better than anything else, or anything since. It was the most complete I have ever felt sexually. I felt full. There was no way I would ever do it again, but I loved it, I loved the two men at once.
There have been many things about my husband I love. I love that he loves math like I love poetry. I love the way that he sees everything as possible, I love how much he needs me, I love how he never wants me to leave him. I love how he holds me close, how he is my baby, my sweetheart, my love. I love that he forces me to embrace the quiet, because that is the only way to really hear yourself think. To know yourself. But alone, alone, he will never be able to fuck me the way I want. Alone, on his own, he will never be able to make me totally happy. n°
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jami Attenberg is the author of the story collection Instant Love. She has written for Jane, Print, Nylon, Salon and The San Francisco Chronicle. Her novel, The Kept Man, will be published by Riverhead Books in January 2008. Visit her at jamiattenberg.com.
