by Radclyffe
THE USUAL
KI Thompson
I’ve always wanted to fall in love, but I never really believed it would happen to someone like me. Quite frankly, I’ve never had the time or the desire to date someone for long. The inane chitchat you have to go through in order to get to the sex bores me. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t take women for granted or treat them as sex objects; believe me, they’re quite satisfied by the time I’m through with them. I’m just not interested in sharing my life, or my living space, with one particular person.
That’s why it really threw me for a loop the day I met “the one.” She hated me. Well, maybe “hate” is too strong. Let’s just say she wasn’t exactly enamored by my winning personality. But I loved her from the moment I saw her. I had just moved to New York City and asked the doorman of my building to recommend a good place to get a late-night breakfast.
When I peered into the window of the Greek diner on the corner of 9th Avenue and 23rd Street, she immediately caught my eye. The olive complexion, the jet hair piled atop her head with several wisps falling around her face, the full lips, and ebony eyes were certainly striking. But the quick smile and easy familiarity with her customers at two in the morning on that brisk December night really touched me. Somehow, being there felt right, and good, and I wanted to be a part of the warmth going on inside the diner—her warmth. I wanted to belong, and I wanted to belong to her.
She plunked a heavy cream-colored coffee mug on my table, took one long look at me while she poured, and said, “It’s late, I’m beat, and I’m not in the mood. So what’ll it be?”
“Was it something I said?” I lowered the menu to give her one of my most endearing smiles.
She sighed and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Tossing the order pad onto the table, she lazily placed one hand on her hip. “Look, I know your type, and I don’t have time for it. I’ve got one more hour on this shift and then I go home to bed…to sleep…alone.”
Personally, I thought the emphasis on alone was unnecessary, but sitting in the cozy booth, sharing the friendly atmosphere, my cold hands wrapped snugly around the cup of hot coffee, I felt invincible. Nothing she could say would deter me. Besides, I had just found out she slept alone.
“Well then, what do you recommend?” I gazed intently at the menu, feigning interest in corned beef hash with an over-easy egg.
“What do you like?” Her response sounded automatic. I grinned and winked, but she only rolled her eyes. She picked up the pad and waited.
“How’s the hash?”
“Fine, if you like artery-clogging meals.” She reached for my menu, but I pulled it back.
“What do you like to eat?” I wanted to know so I could choose a restaurant she would enjoy going to.
Instead, she pointed to the left-hand side of the menu. The top item read, “Fresh fruit, yogurt, and granola.”
“I’ll have the hash.” I folded the menu, grinned again, and held it up. She snatched it and whirled off to the kitchen. I love diners.
The food came fast and was surprisingly good. When I reached for the ketchup bottle, she grimaced and stormed to the patrons across from me to refill their cups. She dropped the check off at my table, and I threw down an absurdly high tip, but she seemed unimpressed.
“Thanks.” She gathered up my dishes as I rose to leave.
“I’m Jill,” I said, but she ignored me. “The food was great and the service even better, although, if I could give you a piece of advice, you might try smiling a little more often. It makes the customers happy.”
The look she gave me was not the kind I usually received from women, but then, she didn’t know me that well yet.
It didn’t take me long to discover she only worked the night shift and attended NYU part-time during the day. So I dropped by the diner every Friday night, about an hour before she got off work. There’s something oddly intimate about being in a diner at two in the morning with the same strangers night after night. I looked forward to every Friday; it was fun to share my life experiences with her.
“I came in second place in my elementary-school spelling bee,” I bragged.
“How nice for you.”
“Ask me to spell something. Go ahead.” I waited expectantly.
“Are you always this obnoxious?”
“Obnoxious. O-b-n-o—”
“I guess you are. Here, spell this.” She began to hold up her middle finger, but I grabbed her hand.
“Now, now. The customer is always right, remember?” I held onto that soft, smooth hand for as long as I could and let my fingers wrap gently around hers. My heart thudded painfully, and I wanted nothing more than to kiss her right there in the diner. Slowly she retracted her hand and looked away. Mumbling something about returning to work, she strolled back to the kitchen.
The following week she didn’t even glance up as she poured my fourth cup of the night and cleared the remnants of the hash. I was delaying my departure, not wanting to step back out into the frosty night air. I was dreaming about her now, and had increased my visits to the diner to three times a week. Her name was Irene, which I found out early on because everyone knew her—and she knew them. I seemed to be the only stranger in the place. Try as I might, I couldn’t get her to include me in the convivial circle of her regulars. I was an outsider looking in, and she was content to keep me at arm’s length.
“Say, that new foreign film is playing at the Angelika tomorrow night.” I took a sip from my mug. “If you aren’t busy—”
“I’ve seen it.” She gathered up my dirty dishes and flung my napkin on top.
Now, I’m usually fairly patient when I want something, and I wanted her badly. But after weeks of being spurned, I was frustrated. Perhaps I needed to shift tactics. This time I waited out in the cold until I saw her exit the front door and the manager lock up behind her. She was juggling a book bag, her purse, and a large brown paper grocery sack. I saw my opportunity and hastened to her side.
“Here, let me give you a hand.” I snatched the paper bag from her grasp and slipped it easily into the crook of one arm. She hesitated and eyed me warily, but with her load lightened, she slowly resumed walking down 9th Avenue.
After several minutes, the silence was killing me. “Would you like me to hail a cab?”
She shook her head. “I live a few blocks away.”
My pulse revved. I was going to find out where she lived. Maybe she’d invite me up for a drink or a friendly cup of coffee. Now I was getting somewhere. A little more patience and soon I’d be removing her clothes. I gazed at her surreptitiously, observing how sexy she looked even with ruddy cheeks and Rudolph nose. Her breath came in soft puffs of white clouds, and her eyes sparkled like fireflies in the glow of the street lamps. She was beautiful and gazed straight ahead, as though we were complete strangers who happened to be walking down the same street in Manhattan at three o’clock in the morning.
I tried again to engage her. “So you go to school during the day. What are you studying?”
I hadn’t realized she’d stopped until a few steps later. Turning around, I noticed a frown on her face and a guarded look in her eyes. “Why don’t we cut the crap,” she said. “I told you, I’m not interested, so why are you doing this?”
I shifted the bag to my left hip, wanting to convey all my stomach-wrenching, mind-blowing feelings in my words and in my expression. I wanted her to not only hear what I said but experience it intensely. I laid bare my heart so she could see who I was inside and how much love I was capable of giving. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”
She blinked. Then a slow grin formed and quickly built into a chuckle. From there it evolved into a guffaw, then into such a cacophony of laughter, cackling, and coughing that for a moment I thought I’d have to perform the Heimlich maneuver. When she finally gasped for air and clung to the wrought-iron railing of the steps in front of a building, I’d had enough.
“I’m so glad you find this amusing.”
“I’m sorry,” she breathed, “but that’s such bullshit.”
I tried my best to show how hurt I was, but knew I was only kidding myself. “Okay, you’re right. I think you’re hot and you have great legs. It’s gotta be maybe thirty degrees out, I’m freezing my ass off, and I just want you to ask me inside for a cup of coffee. If you can’t stand me after ten minutes, you can toss me out. Okay?”
Once again that wary look crossed her face, like a beaten dog being offered food from an outstretched hand. An agonizingly long heartbeat later, she motioned me up the stairs and withdrew her keys from her purse. Once inside, I followed her to the second-floor landing where she unlocked her apartment door and led me inside.
It was a typical studio apartment—excruciatingly tiny, with only one window. But what made it really stand out was the absence of any furniture, save a full-size bed. No mementos, no pictures—though nails randomly decorated the walls—nothing of personal note or value to speak of. A stack of books on the floor by the bedside and a single, pathetic strand of flashing Christmas tree lights drooping from the window were the only additional items in view.
“So you’re into minimalism.” I glanced behind me in case I’d missed something.
She stood in the center of the room, following my gaze, as though trying to see what I saw.
“My ex took everything.” She sighed heavily and tossed her coat and bags into a closet. “I bought the bed last week.”
In the kitchen, I handed over the groceries, and she began to remove the contents.
“Would you like some tea?”
To say I was feeling a little sheepish would have been an understatement. I watched the deliberate way she poured water into the kettle and set it on the stove. The click-click of the gas burner before it roared to life sounded eerily loud in the empty room.
“Sure,” I said. Not knowing what else to do with myself, I strolled over to the bed, removed my coat, and sat down. Normally that would have been a precursor to my next move if I were planning on seduction, but now I felt inexplicably sad. I crossed my leg and dangled it nervously while she removed two mugs from a cabinet, dropped a teabag in each, and waited for the whistle to blow. Moments later, she handed me a chipped green mug and sat beside me.
“So, were you together long?”
“Four years,” she said, blowing gently on her tea before taking a sip. “I think I was in lust more than anything else, and deluded myself into thinking it was love. Still, it hurt.”
She looked so small and fragile, completely unlike the woman I bantered with on my visits to the diner. I suddenly felt like a cad, pressuring her into letting me inside her apartment, ready to pounce at the slightest opportunity.
“Nothing wrong with lust,” I said, trying to lighten things up. She peered at me and frowned. I must have exceeded the boundaries of polite conversation and was making it worse. I mentally berated myself—sometimes I’m amazed at how insensitive I can be.
“Is everything a joke to you?” she asked.
“Well, it’s better than being depressed.”
“I’m not depressed.”
“I didn’t say you were,” I said.
“You thought you could just come up here, have a quick fuck, and be on your merry way, right? No strings, no emotion, no attachment. Just a good time.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I…” What could I say? She hadn’t believed me when I told her it was love at first sight, and a big part of me didn’t believe in it either. Yet something was there, something I might not be able to define, but the feeling was so strong that if it could take shape, it would be as solid as a New York City cab.
“I just…I just want to be near you,” I blurted. “You seem to be…normal, in a city that doesn’t encourage that. I like the way I feel when I watch you take care of your customers. It makes me want to do nice things for people too. And yes, I think you’re beautiful, and sexy, and if you’d let me make love to you right now, I’d be deliriously happy. But more than anything else, I don’t ever want to see you look as sad and vulnerable as you do right now. It hurts me to see that, so I can’t even imagine how it must make you feel.”
For a long moment she didn’t move, but then very slowly, almost imperceptibly, she leaned away from me. Her eyes never left mine, and her look of mistrust was replaced by something I couldn’t decipher. I hate it when I can’t read what’s going on in someone’s mind, so I figured I might as well cut my losses. This one had too much baggage that she didn’t seem to want to let go of. I needed that like I needed to be caught near the East River alone at two a.m.
“Look, it’s late. I’m sure you’re tired after working so hard, and all I’m doing is making it worse.” I rose from the bed, careful not to spill the now lukewarm chamomile on the quilt. But before I could take a step, her hand rested on my forearm.
“I’d really rather you stayed,” she whispered. Her dark eyes were warm and moist, with a hint of melancholy in their bottomless depths. It was the kind of expression I usually ran headlong in the opposite direction from. It was the little-lost-puppy look, the kiss-it-and-make-it-better look, and it scared the hell out of me.
Wordlessly, I took the mug from her and placed both of them on the floor. I kicked off my shoes and then wrapped my arms around her and lay back on the bed. For the longest time I held her, and as far back as I could remember, that was all I wanted to do. I don’t know how much time had passed, but very quickly I felt comfortable in that empty little space. For some reason, I no longer felt like an outsider.
Soon my eyelids felt like weighted curtains, and I struggled to keep them open. They had no sooner slid shut when I felt her warm lips and cool breath on my neck. But I thought if I opened my eyes, or moved in any way, this spectacular sensation would end. So I lay still, allowing my skin the delicious pleasure of her attention. When her hand slowly wandered from my thigh up to my belly, I was definitely wide awake.
She rolled on top of me and continued her kisses down my throat and into my open collar, all the while rocking gently against me. Her weight, combined with the rhythm of her movement, created a delicious friction that I let my body revel in. She explored farther down my chest, kissing through the fabric of my shirt, and I could feel the damp areas left behind by her lips. The moisture gave me chills. She fumbled at the buttons on my jeans, and a warm hand slipped inside.
“Oh, yeah.”
Those were the first words I had spoken in quite a while, and it sounded as though I had shouted in church. Fortunately my outburst didn’t interrupt her musings on my clit, because her fingers spread me open and slipped inside. I was wetter than I realized and sighed at how good it felt to be touched and stroked and how much I wanted her to make me come. The insistent pace of her rocking brought my body into sync with hers, and knowing that had been her intent from the start really turned me on.
Up to this point I had remained completely unmoving, but I finally brought myself out of my inertia and clutched her ass, squeezing her cheeks and pressing her into me. She moaned into my mouth as her hand continued its work. For an exquisitely brief time, we hovered in that moment between heaven and earth when you’re not quite sure where you belong. But the rush in your ears and the pounding in your chest quickly remind you of your mortality, and all that matters in that moment is the explosion that rips through your body.
She rode me a while longer, drawing out the last vestiges of her orgasm, and then lay still. I held her tight, needing to ground her to me, needing to make it all real. Her heart beat loudly against mine and I rubbed her back, trying to soothe her. A short while later, she fell asleep on me. A long while later, my legs began to fall asleep as well, so I gently rolled her off and onto the pillow. I tried to be as quiet as possible an
d extricated myself from her arms. She only murmured briefly while I covered her with the quilt. Then grabbing my coat, I tiptoed to the door and out into the shocking cold of the night.
I stayed away from the diner a few days after that, unsure of my feelings as well as what to expect. But I couldn’t stay away long. I needed to know what she thought of me, if I was the cad I believed I was, or if I should hope at all. Bracing myself, not against the cold but against what awaited me, I entered the diner early Friday night and stumbled to my usual table.
“Hey, Jill.”
It was the security guard who worked the graveyard shift and sat at the counter. He always ordered pancakes with a side of bacon. I was surprised he remembered me and knew my name. A quick glance over my shoulder to see if he was talking to someone else, and I waved weakly at him.
“How’s it goin’, Jill?”
The homeless guy who never had anywhere to go and came into the diner to keep warm at night grinned toothlessly at me. Most places would have thrown him out long ago, but she wouldn’t hear of it. He always managed to scrounge up enough change to buy himself a cup of coffee, but if he couldn’t, she would pour him some anyway, and slip him something extra, too.
I sat at my table, bewildered by the sudden recognition of several other patrons who nodded my way. Maybe I’d walked into the wrong diner.
“Hey.” Irene poured me a cup of coffee. “The usual?”
I searched her eyes and found recognition there—and more. I wanted to touch her and make her laugh, make her come, make her feel in an instant everything she ever wanted to feel. I wanted to take away all the pain that anyone had ever inflicted on her. I wanted to buy her furniture.
“Yeah.” I smiled. “The usual.”
LAST CALL
Karin Kallmaker