Perfect Strangers

5

I groan, banishing the conversation from my head as I squeeze my thighs together and try very hard not to enjoy the sensation of my fingers rubbing back and forth over the damp seam of my pajama bottoms.

Try—and fail spectacularly.

Truth be told, I’m shocked to discover I still have any erotic feelings at all. It’s been years since the slightest flicker of heat has touched my loins, even more years before that that I tried to pleasure myself. I had what I consider a solid s*x life with my husband, though we weren’t adventurous by any stretch of the imagination. And though in the last dying embers of our marriage the s*x disappeared altogether, I never turned to self-pleasure because I never had the urge.

My libido died along with everything else that mattered.

Except for yesterday, when a stranger’s searing blue gaze lit me up like a Christmas tree and sent shockwaves of heat pulsing straight through my core.

“I’m James,” he said, with a tone like he was already thrusting inside me.

A series of masculine grunts from across the courtyard has my fingers slipping inside my cotton pajamas and past my panties. I’m already soaked. I bite my lip and squeeze my eyes shut like a guilty child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

A superheated, long neglected cookie jar, whose cookies are quickly crumbling to bits.

“James,” I whisper, picturing him on top of me.

He was a big man. Much bigger than my husband or the few lovers I had before him. I usually go for men with trim builds who look good in expensive suits. Your typical Wall Street type, a clean cut WASP with manicured nails who’d give himself a hernia if he tried to lift me.

James the rugged blue-eyed stallion could probably hoist me overhead with his pinky.

What would it be like to lie beneath a man that size? To feel all those muscles bunching as he flexed his hips, to feel the slide of his rough hands over my skin, to feel his hot breath in my ear as he grunted in animal pleasure the way the man across the courtyard is grunting?

Probably delicious.

My fingers move faster as my imagination takes the reins. I sketch a scene in shorthand with myself and James in starring roles.

Her thighs clamp around his strong hips. Her hair spreads out in dark waves over the pillow. She writhes beneath him, crying out as he f***s her with short, hard strokes, her breasts bouncing with every thrust. He’s braced above her, his arms corded, his skin slicked with sweat, dominant and focused, fully in control.

Suddenly, he rises to his knees. He flips her over. With one arm around her waist, he hikes her bottom in the air and drives into her from behind.

As pleasure obliterates every thought from her mind, she buries her face into the pillow and screams.

He fists a hand into her hair, slaps her ass, and makes a noise like the growl of a wolf.

I come violently with a sound that’s part gasp of shock and part yelp, my entire body stiffening, my back bowing up from the bed. My eyes fly open as contractions rack me, over and over, jerking my body and the whole bed, too.

Then I collapse against the mattress and dissolve into weak, disbelieving laughter.

I just brought myself to orgasm to the soundtrack of the exhibitionists getting it on.

I’m a pervert.

Kelly would be so proud.

As great as my impromptu little porno was, it did contain one glaring flaw: if a man ever slapped me on the ass, I’d whirl around and punch him in the face.

I mean, I think I would. I’m pretty sure. I’ve never had anyone attempt it, but ass slapping during s*x strikes me as borderline abusive. Or just silly, I can’t decide which. In any case, I seriously doubt I’ll ever be forced to choose because my chances of a future s****l encounter with a man who’d be into that sort of thing can be classified as slim to none.

No alpha wolf ass slappers need apply, thank you very much.

Interesting that you’re fantasizing about it, then, notes the Kelly that lives inside my head while calmly filing her nails.

To which I answer, “Shut up,” and rise from bed, avoiding my reflection in the bathroom mirror as I head to the shower.

It’s too early in the morning to see what a voyeur with haunted eyes and conflicted feelings about rough s*x looks like.

Later that afternoon, I’m sitting at the huge roll top desk in Estelle’s stuffed-with-first-edition-classics library staring at a lined yellow pad of paper, pen poised in hand, filled to the gills with every bit of the fear, conceit, and existential anguish every writer feels when faced with a blank page, when the doorbell rings.

“Thank God!” I shout, wilting with relief. I throw the pen down and heave a sigh.

It’s moments like these that affirm to me the existence and merciful nature of a supreme being. I’d been sitting in the same spot, staring at the same blank page, for going on an hour.

I was just about to crack open the bourbon again.

Springing from the chair as if launched, I hustle through the apartment to the front door, which I throw open with an overabundance of exuberance. It slams against the wall. To the small elderly man standing there, I boom with a theatrical flourish of my hands, “Hello! How may I help you?”

For a moment, he’s a deer in headlights, his eyes wide and unblinking. The black beret tilted at a rakish angle on his bald head seems to quiver in fear.

Poor man. I really shouldn’t be allowed to interact with the rest of the human race.

But then he recovers, straightening his bowtie and offering me a tentative smile. “Er…bonjour, mademoiselle.”