The Brooklyn Book Boyfriends

by Kayley Loring

  “My place this time,” she whispers. She takes my hand and leads me to her door. My hands are massaging her hips while she comically struggles to get her key in the lock. She’s trembling, and I can’t stop touching her. If knowing that it can’t go anywhere is an aphrodisiac, then not seeing her for a week, followed by hours of seeing her without being able to touch her, is a fucking Viagra bomb.

  It’s entirely possible that I’d feel this way about anyone I’d have sex with now, but one whiff of her neck and I find myself holding in a sigh. It’s not cool. It’s not good. But damn, this woman is doing something new to me and I like it.

  As soon as she gets the door open, she pulls me in, shuts the door, and shoves me up against it. She’s really pushing and pulling me tonight, and I’m fine with that. She doesn’t turn on the lights, and that’s fine too. Her lips find mine. She tugs on my lower lip with her teeth and sucks my tongue in a way that tells me she is just as fired up as I am. Her hand finds the strong-willed bulge in my pants, and I hear her catch her breath.

  My neighbor takes my hand, leading me farther into her apartment. It’s still dark but not as dark as when there was a blackout. I’d come so close to kissing her that night. I would have, if the lights hadn’t suddenly come back on and Alanis Morissette hadn’t started shrieking from the other room. Talk about a mood killer.

  She stops in front of her sofa and pushes me down onto it. Still no lights. I know she isn’t shy about her body. Maybe she’s trying to make this more impersonal. That’s probably it.

  Also fine with me.

  She feels as good as she looks. Her hands are smooth and deliberate, exploratory and unwavering. All my other sense are heightened.

  She removes my shirt, leans down, and presses herself lightly against my chest while unzipping my pants. She has taken her top and bra off, teasing me by brushing her erect nipples against my bare skin. When I reach for them, she pushes me away. When I try to bring her closer, she moves my hands and places them behind my head. Somebody wants to be in control tonight…

  I lean back and lift my ass up so she can tug my pants and boxers down. Now she’s removing my shoes so she can take my pants off completely. She is nothing if not thorough, and I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. This might be retaliation for when I took my time with her last weekend. No good deed goes unpunished.

  Her hands move up my legs to my thighs. She pushes my knees apart, and I feel her settle herself down in between them. I have to grip the back of the sofa to keep from rocketing to the ceiling when her warm tongue meets the tip of my cock. I groan out her name, just once, before I lose the ability to form words. An asteroid could hit Manhattan, and I wouldn’t notice anything besides this feeling of Bernadette’s mouth and hands on me and the sweet sounds she’s making as if she’s genuinely enjoying it as much as I am. Every inch of my dick and balls are enthusiastically being attended to. My hands are in her hair, and I can’t think of anything that has ever felt this good. She is an artist in so many ways.

  I’m not sure how much time has passed—somewhere between thirty seconds and infinity—but as much as I’m loving what she’s doing to me, I need to do something before I detonate. As if she can read my filthy thoughts, I can hear her reach for my pants. She hands them to me, and I pull out the condom I just happened to have in my wallet.

  I clasp my hands onto the sides of her waist as she lowers herself down onto me, oh so slowly, and I savor her tight, wet hold on me before asking, “You want to keep taking this slow?”

  “Oh hell no.”

  Thank God.

  She bears down on me, and we find a rhythm for a while, and then I get to work rocking my hips up and down, one hand on her shoulder and one on the back of the sofa in an attempt to anchor it. I really hope there are felt pads on the bottom of this sofa, because it’s not staying still tonight.

  “You…are…such…a…show-off!” she manages to exclaim between breathless gasps.

  “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

  She laughs, briefly, until I ramp things up. I’m thrusting like my life depends on it and then carefully raise her up and flip her around so I can squeeze her breasts from behind while she’s bouncing up and down on my cock. I reach down to apply pressure to her clit. I wait until she’s done with her chorus of “Oh God! Oh yes! Oh fuck! Oh my God—Matt!” before maneuvering her so her knees are bent on the sofa and making sure her hands are holding on to the back of it. And now that I’m standing, I grip her hips as I slam into her with so much drive to connect with this woman it overwhelms me. When I come, it’s such a release, I am louder than usual. When we’re done, we are both drenched in sweat. She’s collapsed on top of me, breathing heavily into my neck. I’m exhausted and I probably pulled a muscle in my lower back, but I still can’t stop touching her.

  “Well, that was fun,” she says, and I’m treated to another throaty laugh, and then she falls quiet and still.

  I grunt in agreement. There’s nothing I can say that would match how I feel right now, and there certainly isn’t an emoji for it. I’m high on the scent of her, and she’ll need to come up with a really valid reason for me to remove my hands from her perfect peach of an ass.

  A few minutes later, once our heartbeats and breaths have slowed, she pulls away from me, and I feel the cool air rush in between us when she comes up with a very valid reason.

  “Well…you should probably go check on Daisy…right?”

  “Right,” I say, feeling around for my pants. “I’ll let you get to your binge-watching.”

  I give her a quick kiss before finding my way to the door in the dark.

  “Good night,” she says. “Thanks.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “My pleasure.” I know most of my buddies would put up a statue in Bernadette’s honor if they knew how cool she is about this kind of situation. I have no complaints.

  We don’t want to get too attached. I’ll have to move to a new place eventually, maybe even soon, and this arrangement probably won’t work if it isn’t as convenient as it is now. She’s probably still obsessed with her boss, and surely one day he’ll realize what a catch she is and snatch her up. How could he not?

  When I open the door to my aunt’s apartment, Daisy is waiting for me in the hallway, shaking her bum, jumping and twirling around, ready to lick my face off and then go outside for a quick late-night walk.

  Maybe this is the perfect situation for me.

  Maybe this is all I need—an interesting woman to have amazing casual sex with and a dog that I can love with all my heart.

  Daisy tilts her head at me, blinks, and snorts, as if to say, “That’s basically what I’ve been telling you all along, dummy.”

  13

  Bernadette

  After that somewhat awkward transitional period, Matt McGovern and I have eased into the perfect neighbors with benefits arrangement, and I am determined to enjoy every no-strings kiss and beneficial thrust while it lasts. We’ve had a week of nightly sex and one more intense make-out session in the laundry room. I’ve even started separating my lights and darks so I can spend more time hanging out in the basement with him—and I left my phone upstairs so we wouldn’t get interrupted.

  Get pounded by ridiculously hot neighbor while doing laundry all morning is now at the top of my Will-Do list for this Saturday.

  If there were a security camera in the hallway outside our apartments, someone could edit together a pretty fun montage. I come home from work, shut my front door, open the door again, and then enter the neighboring apartment. Then I come out again with a blissed-out smile on my face and my hair all messed up. Matt knocks on my door; I open it and grab him by the shirt collar to pull him inside. He walks back out the door with his shirt unbuttoned and my lipstick all over his face. With some upbeat nineties tune playing, to signify to everyone that this is not serious.

  We tease each other and chat, and I have absolutely no idea if he’s looking at other apartments or when Dolly will be comi
ng home, but it actually feels like we’re doing this right. It’s fun. We’re respecting boundaries. Nobody’s asking where this is going or trying to share their feelings. But…orgasms, orgasms, tra-la-la-laaaaaahhhh orgasms!

  It’s still new, so we seem to be going for the gold every time, but I find it difficult to imagine that sex with Matt could ever get boring. He’s so generous and passionate and responsive. So different from what he’s like the rest of the time.

  I get home from work relatively early on Friday, at around five thirty. Sebastian has been fairly complacent and undemanding this past week, it seems, or it may just be that I’m not as keyed into his every mood and whim as I used to be. My plan is to give my vagina a rest tonight, in preparation for laundry day—my fingers are itching to do some sketching—and there’s a new Netflix series I want to plow through. To be honest, I also need to prove to myself that I’m still capable of getting through one night alone, without a particular person’s penis inside me.

  As I reach my building, I find an Uber car double-parked out front. I recognize the guy who’s holding his hand out to someone in the back seat—it’s Lloyd the protégé. He’s holding a pair of crutches in one hand and helping Matt out of the car with the other. Seeing that man accept help from another human does strange things to my heart. The tip of my nose starts tingling. When I see that he’s wearing sweat pants and an ankle brace on his left leg, I get that same feeling I had after I witnessed him with Vanessa and her new boyfriend. I just want to make him feel better.

  Matt doesn’t lean against Lloyd for long. He takes the crutches, and the closer I get, the more obvious it is that he has the sweet hazy demeanor of someone who’s stoned on painkillers.

  “Hi there.” I try to sound casual and not overly concerned. “What happened to you?”

  “You happened,” Matt grumbles with just a hint of a smile on his lips. He is bleary-eyed, and his face looks so different without the usual tension in his jaw. His features are slightly less defined and much less intimidating.

  “Really? I did this to you? Seriously, what happened?”

  “I have to get Daisy from daycare,” he drawls to no one in particular.

  Lloyd scratches his head and checks his phone. “I can go pick her up, I guess.”

  “No, I can get her,” I say. “Hi, I’m Bernadette. I live next door to Matt. Lloyd, right?”

  “Yeah hi, hey, I’m Lloyd, yeah. Hi.” Lloyd reaches out, and I shake his hand while Matt dreamily stares around at the air in front of him.

  “What happened?” I ask Lloyd. “Is he on painkillers?”

  “Yeah, the doctor said he should only need over-the-counter, but one of the other lawyers gave him a Percocet before we left the office just now. He sprained his ankle playing basketball at lunch. I took him to a clinic. It’s a grade-one sprain, but the doctor said he’d heal faster if he stays off that foot for a few days.”

  “I’m fine,” Matt declares as he heads for the door to the wrong building.

  “Hey!” I whistle. “Over here, champ.” I wave at him and jerk my head toward our building.

  He adjusts the direction he’s heading in, as if he was just taking the scenic route. Even on crutches, he moves with grace and confidence. It almost makes me want to trip him.

  “So, Lloyd,” I say as I open the front door to the foyer. “I hear you’re into raves and house music and all that stuff.”

  He laughs. “What? That’s hilarious. Where’d you hear that?”

  I narrow my eyes at Matt, who is oblivious.

  “Guess I’m thinking of someone else.”

  We look up at the stairs.

  Lloyd groans. “What floor is he on?”

  “Fourth.”

  “I can go up myself,” Matt insists. “I can hop on one leg.”

  “Don’t even think about it, mister,” I say. “Maybe you should get a hotel room for a couple of nights? So you can use an elevator?”

  “No,” he says stubbornly. “Here.” He doesn’t say it, but from the way he looks at me, I’d like to think that he wants to be here so he can stay close to me.

  Honestly, surprisingly, it’s what I want too.

  Sprained ankle be damned.

  It takes him less than two minutes to reach the second floor, both Lloyd and me hanging back behind Matt as he eventually gets the hang of ascending the stairs with both crutches. Good thing he has such impressive ab strength. The only thing slowing him down at this point is probably the Percocet.

  “Have to get Daisy,” Matt mumbles as we reach the door to 4B.

  “I’ll get her,” I tell Lloyd. “I know where the daycare is. Can you stay with him until I get back? Make sure he stays off his feet?”

  “Yeah, sure. I have a dinner date in an hour, though.”

  “I’ll definitely be back within half an hour.”

  “My keys are in my pants,” Matt says to me, grinning like a naughty boy. “Wanna get them for me?”

  “Oh yes, may I?” I roll my eyes as I reach into the front pocket of his sweat pants.

  Lloyd quietly clears his throat and looks away.

  Matt’s head is tilting down toward me as I pull the keyring out. I lean back because we’re not supposed to kiss in front of other people, but he probably doesn’t remember that in this state. I open the front door and place the keys on the console table as Matt and Lloyd enter.

  “I guess you should text or call the daycare to let them know I’m picking her up, right?”

  Matt grins at me. “My phone’s in the other pocket.”

  Lloyd is watching us curiously and looking at Matt like he doesn’t even recognize him.

  “Okay, well, why don’t you sit down on the sofa so you can get off the crutches and get it yourself? Lloyd, why don’t you help him with the texting? I’ll head out to pick Daisy up now.”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  “You better bring Daisy back,” Matt warns me.

  “Please,” I say. “What do you think I’m going to do—take her on a bus to my parents’ farm in Vermont?” Although, as I say it, I mentally picture how wonderful it would be to see Daisy running around on my parents’ vast property. It makes me sad and happy at the same time, as most thoughts of the farm do. Or maybe it’s my thoughts of Daisy that are bittersweet lately. Having a connection with someone who isn’t mine should be freeing—because I don’t have to take responsibility for her. But knowing that each time I see her could be the last is beginning to weigh on me.

  It doesn’t help that Daisy is so happy to see me when I get to the doggy daycare. She scampers toward me, carrying her leash in her mouth, and stands up on her hind legs in front of me. I only briefly consider buying us two bus tickets to Vermont… Walking her home is fun. I regularly consider adopting a pet for myself, but it just doesn’t seem like a good idea, given that I live in a walk-up and have little control over how much time I can spend at home. As always—no-strings is the best possible scenario, and I just have to keep my feelings in check and enjoy what’s happening now.

  I suppose there are worse places to be living than the fourth floor of walk-up when you have a sprained ankle. Like, the fifth floor of a walk-up. Or a treehouse. But I don’t really want Matt to stay anywhere else, and I really don’t want to think about why he doesn’t want to stay in a hotel either.

  When Daisy and I get back to 4B, Matt is sprawled out on the sofa with his left leg resting on the back of it and the other foot on the floor. I’m pretty sure I was in that exact same position on that sofa on Tuesday night, with his face up in my lady business. If Dolly knew what her nephew and I have been up to on her furniture, she might double my rent. Or, more realistically, she would ask for details.

  I relieve Lloyd of his duties so he can get to his dinner date. I order groceries and deli meals for Matt and go downstairs to get them when they’re delivered. I put everything away in the kitchen, make sure there’s toilet paper in the bathroom, make an ice pack, make more ice. I find a serving tray and load it
up with a bottle of water, box of tissues, an apple, and a pack of oatmeal raisin cookies. I take it all to the guest room before insisting that Matt trade the couch for the bed.

  “Why?” he asks because he’s a stubborn boy.

  “Because you need to sleep. For a long time. And you need to get to bed before the drug really kicks in.” I hold up the crutches in front of me. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “Yes, sir.” All eight of his abs get him up off the sofa without him having to put any weight on his left foot, and he leans into the crutches toward me. His face stops two inches from mine. “Hi,” he whispers.

  “Hi.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You aren’t gonna go yet, are you?”

  “I’m going to make sure you get into bed, and I’m going to make sure your feet are elevated, and I’m going to make sure Daisy’s fed and walked again before the end of the night.”

  He pouts, a little bit, for a second. Now there’s an expression I never in a million years expected to see on that face.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  When we get to the guest room, I take the crutches from him and he carefully lowers himself into bed.

  When I lean the crutches against the bedside table, I notice the copy of Just Kids by Patti Smith.

  He’s reading my favorite book.

  “I was thinking about you,” he whispers.

  “What? When?”

  “When I sprained my ankle. I was dunking the ball and thinking I wish you could see this, and I landed wrong. You’re ruining my life.” He smiles when he says it, but he really seems to mean it.

  “I know what you mean. You should lie back and put your foot up on pillows.”

  He lies back, and I run to the living room to grab a couple of pillows and then place them under the sheets and prop his foot up on them. He watches me, still smiling. It’s a drugged-out smile, but my heart still skips a beat every time I catch him doing anything other than Sexy Hot Guy Face.