Forever Autumn

by Christopher Scott Wagoner

  Satisfied that his appearance was at least cursorily acceptable, he dressed in one of his better suits. The body spray he had used seemed quite pungent, and he considered getting back in the shower to wash it off. Glancing at his phone, he realized there was not sufficient time, and he left his apartment.

  As he rode in the elevator to the ground floor, he checked his phone for messages. The people crowded in the elevator were the same ones he rode with every day, yet they did not speak to one another. Everyone just stared at the doors or at their own mobile devices. He wondered how many of them were silently battling apprehension, as he was.

  The walk to the subway station seemed to take longer than normal, as if the universe itself wanted his misery to linger. One short train ride later, he was walking up to the revolving doors of Vickers and Sons. He walked toward the elevator, then decided to take the stairs to avoid Rich.

  He scanned the office floor before exiting the stairwell, searching for the blond man. The coast seemingly clear, he made a break for his cubicle.

  “Almost there…Made it!”

  He sat down in his rolling chair and turned on the computer. Sighing, he said, “And now for a day of blissful productivity.”

  “Why the fuck did you take the stairs?” Rich asked, startling Phil with his sudden appearance. “Are you on a health kick?”

  “Yeah,” said Phil without turning around, “that’s it.”

  “Man, dating a hottie for four days and you’re already self-conscious.”

  “I have work to do, Rich.”

  “Das Wunderkind? You always do a goot job, ja?”

  “Good-bye, Rich.”

  “You know,” said Rich, his tone somber, “sometimes, the way you talk to me, I don’t think you respect me at all.”

  “Can’t imagine why.”

  Rich’s good looks twisted darkly, but then he was distracted by a busty secretary clicking by in her high heels.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he said, leaving Phil by himself at last. “If I was in charge of the alphabet, I’d put U and I together!”

  Phil glanced at the time displayed on his desktop. He slapped himself in the forehead when he realized it was just now eight a.m.

  “Come on, four o’clock.”

  Steve practically ran to the door of his dimly lit apartment, pulling on a shirt over his muscular chest as he did so. The view out his window indicated it was twilight. He opened the door while wiping the sleep out of his eyes.

  “Autumn,” he said with surprise as she stood in the doorway.

  She was dressed in her barista’s apron under her long black coat, a white dress shirt and dark pants completing her ensemble. Her shoes were platform black boots, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

  “I thought you had to work tonight.”

  “I did.” She came inside and put her purse down on his kitchen table. “They sent me home ’cause I threw up.”

  “Oh my god! Are you all right? Do you need to go to a—”

  “I’m fine,” said Autumn quickly. “I just drank too much coffee on an empty stomach.”

  “Well, I’m glad to see you at any rate.”

  He stifled a huge yawn.

  “Were you asleep?” she asked.

  “Taking a little nap.”

  “At six thirty on a Friday night?”

  “Haven’t got much sleep, lately,” he said with a lascivious grin.

  She returned the grin and went to him. They wrapped each other in an embrace. The smell of her hair reminded him of the fiery night they had spent together.

  Autumn pulled away from him, a wry smile on her face. “So, what do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know. We could catch a movie or something.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like it could be fun.”

  “We could take one of those cheesy carriage rides through Central Park and make fun of the tourists.”

  “You know how much I like making fun of people.”

  They both chuckled, then grew silent, gazing into each other’s eyes. Suddenly they were embracing each other again, mouths meeting in a fit of passion. Ignoring the line of drool that briefly spanned their lips, they paused for a moment.

  “Or we could stay in,” he said.

  “Absodamnlutely,” she said, mashing her lips against his again.

  There were less clothes between them, and she became a few inches shorter as she shed her platform boots. Autumn nibbled at his neck, the bites just near the edge of painful. He responded by putting a hand in the small of her back and crushing her to his chest. She giggled playfully as her feet were lifted off the floor.

  “You beast,” she said through a sensuous smile, her eyes narrow.

  Smiling himself, he turned around in place and sat her on the back of his sofa. They kissed again, their breath hot in each other’s mouths. With a grunt he lifted her again and spun her around to face away from him.

  “Oh, ho ho ho,” she said in mock distress. He stared down at her smooth, round buttocks, sliding his hand over her inked skin. She giggled as he slapped a hand lightly across her cheeks, then caressed the skin.

  Her laughter was replaced by a long groan as he slid inside of her, hands gripping her hips tightly. Autumn turned her head to the side, face buried in her own forearm. He reached out and gathered a hand full of her thick locks, tugging carefully but firmly until her mouth was in reach of his own. Steve kissed her forcefully, which she returned in kind. Vigorously, he worked his hips against hers, enjoying every grunt and sigh that escaped from her mouth into his own. The sofa was pushed forward a bit with each shuddering thrust, until it was flush with the entertainment center.

  Steve was soon glistening with sweat, as was Autumn. He swiveled his hips, his erection rubbing against the walls of her slick flesh. Their mouths parted when Autumn twisted her head and let out a visceral scream.

  When Autumn lurched back over the couch, her head nearly bumped into his flat-screen TV. He struggled not to release until she had reached her own summit, grunts escaping from his clenched teeth. Finally, she ground her backside into his pelvis, and they both gasped in unison.

  “Wow,” she said, turning around and putting her sweaty arms around his neck, “what got into you?”

  “I don’t know.” He felt more than a little bit embarrassed. “I’m not normally that, uh aggressive.”

  “It wasn’t a complaint,” she said, kissing him deeply. “It’s not like you broke out floggers and ball gags.”

  “Not on our…What is this?” His face scrunched up. “Our third date? Fourth?”

  “I’ve kind of lost track. It’s been quite a week.”

  Her brows knit together, fear in her soft brown eyes. “You must think I’m a skank, to just jump in bed with you after one night.”

  “No,” he said, putting a palm against her face, “of course not! I normally don’t—don’t let things move this fast myself.”

  Autumn smiled, a satisfied gleam in her eyes. She brushed her soft lips against his neck, teasing him with her tongue.

  “How many condoms do you have left?” she whispered in his ear.

  “Plenty,” he said, a bit nervously, “but I’m not…ready yet.”

  A cunning glint came into her eyes. She pushed him away from herself, holding him at arm’s length.

  “I bet I can help with that.” Softly she trailed kisses down his chest. Slowly, she worked her way down to his navel, then lower, and lower still.

  “God,” he said, putting a hand gently on the back of her head and gasping.

  “Let me know,” she said for a brief moment when her mouth was unoccupied. Autumn had a way of looking up at him from her ostensibly subservient position with a smirking glint in her soft brown eyes, as if to say I’m still the one in charge. For some reason it made it all the more thrilling, that he was the star of his own adult movie, minus the bad music in the background.

  She recognized the way he tugged at her head gently as a warning, and quickly employed he
r hand upon his slick erection as soon as her lips slipped off of him. Steve’s legs went rubbery, his head tilted back so he could see the ceiling vibrate as his neighbor pounded on it.

  “Sorry,” he said. When he glanced down at her, a dreamy smile on his face, he noted that he had spilled himself along her shoulder and back.

  Autumn was wiping away at it with her hand, but didn’t appear to be horrified or even disgusted. “It happens. Not like I want you to drench my face with it, but it’s the inevitable consequence of what we do, right?”

  “Yeah.” He tossed her a damp paper towel. He had trouble meeting her eyes, feeling somewhat guilty about his thoughts earlier. She was a real woman, not a djinn conjured from the Internet that could be dismissed as easily as wiping away a stain.

  “What’s wrong?” Autumn asked, chuckling at his trepidation.

  “Nothing,” he said, smiling nervously.

  “It’s waaay too late to be bashful, sugar,” said Autumn with a snicker.

  “It’s not that…” Steve paused, unable to find the right words to express what he was feeling. He stumbled forward regardless. “It’s just…you’re a great gal, and I want to…that is, well…”

  Steve’s jaw suddenly set hard, and he put his arms akimbo. The gesture was somewhat comical as he was in the nude, and Autumn giggled.

  “What’s so funny? You know what, never mind, I need to say this…I’m starting to care about you, Autumn. A lot.”

  Autumn cast her gaze briefly downward, seeming small and vulnerable in spite of her fearsome tattoos as she knelt nude on his carpet,.

  “I know, Steve. You think I don’t care about you? Because I do, you know. I’m just not the girlfriend type, you know? I have rough edges that will never, ever be smoothed out.”

  “Hey, it’s not like I want to propose or anything. I just kind of need to know, is this just a physical thing, or is it something more? Because at the risk of putting myself at your mercy, I really, really, hope it’s more.”

  Autumn stared up at him, and for a moment her lovely umber eyes were free of conflict. “It’s more. It’s so much more it scares me. Now stop being cute and let’s get back to the physical side of our…relationship, or whatever.”

  It wasn’t long before they had retired to the bedroom, and he repaid her in kind. Steve laid her on her back and kissed her, very slowly and gently. Gradually, their mutual passion caused the kiss to grow more intimate. He kept her lower lip in his mouth for a moment, tugging it very gently with his teeth before he released the pliant flesh. She gasped as he trailed kisses down her neck, moving his hips to the side so he could continue his ministrations. When his soft lips touched her nipple, she abruptly slapped her hand on the back of his head. Taking her gesture as an invitation to be more dominant in his explorations, he roughly took the dark brown flesh in his mouth. Animalistic grunts escaped his mouth in the brief moment he was not using it to maul her supple skin.

  When he got to her belly, she giggled as he discovered a few ticklish spots. He paused as he got to her smoothly waxed labia, marveling in her scent and her undeniable sexiness. Very gently, he used his tongue to tease her outer lips, and the sudden, vigorous way they quivered made him forge forward with confidence. He used his long arm to reach up and cup one of her breasts, while he used his other hand to spread her wide. Finding her “little man in the boat” was easy, as she had pierced the outer hood. She used her own fingers, black with nail polish, to tug gently up on the ring, allowing him access. As she gasped, her hands clamped down on the back of his head, crushing his mouth into her soft flesh. Her nails dug into the back of his head so tightly he felt as if she would rip his hair out by the root. He persevered through the rough treatment, face buried in against her clit, until her voice raised loud in a passionate scream.

  They both laughed a moment later when his upstairs neighbor banged on the floor/ceiling.

  “Guess we need some cover noise,” she said as he crawled back up her body, lying next to her.

  “Fuck him,” he said with a sneer.

  “I don’t think I’m tight enough to fuck anything right now. Whew. You sure know how to speak in tongues.”

  He gave her a shy smile, stroking her hair with his large hand.

  “Oh, good lord,” she said, rolling her eyes. “When you guys are with each other, it’s ‘cock’ this and ‘pussy’ that, but when your girlfriend does a little dirty talk you all turn into bashful little boys.”

  He laughed helplessly. “It comes from watching porn when we’re fourteen. We all know how cheesy the dialogue is, so I guess that makes us feel cheesy when we talk dirty.”

  “Dirty talk is so much fun, though,” she said, cuddling up to him and putting her hand to work.

  “Again?” he asked.

  Phil stood outside his building, peering intently down the street in an attempt to spot Crawley’s white car. With nervously shaking hands, he withdrew the phone from his pocket and checked the time. It was eight thirty, making her half an hour late.

  He was just about to call her when he heard the sound of a car horn. He glanced up to see Crawley waving enthusiastically from the passenger side of a large white van.

  “Hello,” he said, his brow furrowing in confusion. “I was looking for your other car…”

  “Oh, sorry,” she said, a wide smile on her face. She had her hair drawn back in a ponytail and wore little makeup. She was dressed in black pants and a modest button-down shirt. Crawley leaned back in her seat so he had a view of the driver. “Me and my dad had to finish up a few errands.”

  The driver was an older man, clearly of Pacific Asian descent. He had narrowed, dark eyes that seemed to pierce right through Phil. A closely cropped head of raven black hair sat atop his head. Thick, dun-colored lips parted in a smile, but it did not seem to reach all the way to his eyes.

  “Nice to meet you, Phillip,” said her father.

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” Phil replied, swallowing hard.

  “Why don’t you jump in back,” said Crawley. “You can ride with us back to our house and we can pick up my car there.”

  “Okay,” said Phil, taken aback by the change in plans. He gripped the cool metal of the door handle, trying to yank it open. It took several tries, and advice from Crawley, to get it to budge. When the door slid open at last, he was greeted with the sight of dozens of clear plastic tubs filled with tiny white Styrofoam cups. He couldn’t tell what was in the cups, due to the low level of light in the van. He took one of the unoccupied seats and closed the door.

  “Buckle up,” said her father from the front seat, and he hastened to comply.

  The van lurched forward, swerving in front of a large pickup. The sound of a blaring horn ripped through the night, eliciting a stream of cursing from Crawley’s father.

  “You stupid motherfucker!” he shouted, leaning his head out of the window and peering back. Phil was horrified at the cavalier way the man took his eyes off the road. The van began to drift into the oncoming lane.

  “Fuck you, Beaner!” came the response from the truck driver.

  “Beaner?” shouted her father. “Beaner? I’m Filipino, you dumbass!”

  “Uh, Mr. Crawley, you’re in the wrong lane,” said Phil.

  “Daddy…” said Crawley, her eyes going wide.

  Adding one last stream of cursing at the driver behind them, her father jerked on the steering wheel and righted their course. The containers were jostled, causing one of the cups to fall on its side.

  “So, Phillip,” said her father as he wove between slower moving cars, “Ellie tells me you’re an accountant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How’s that working out for you?” he asked.

  “I can’t complain,” said Phil. “The work is satisfying.”

  “It’s good to find satisfaction in your work,” said her father, nodding. “Something I’ve tried but largely failed to impart to my daughter.”

  “Daddy,” said Crawley, a note of anger cree
ping into her voice.

  “If she cared more about her work, and less about her silly rock music and Dungeons and Dragons crap—”

  “World of Warcraft, Daddy,” said Crawley. “It’s where Phil and I met. Well, sort of.”

  “Oh,” said her father, taking his eyes off the road to stare back at Phil. “You do that stupid computer crap too? Well, if somebody smart enough to have a good career trajectory like yourself is into that nonsense, I guess it can’t be all bad.” Ahead of them the light changed to yellow, then red, and still her father did not turn around but continued to smile at Phil.

  “The light, Daddy,” said Crawley.

  He turned around and slammed his foot on the brake. All three lurched forward, restrained by their seat belts, as the van screeched to a halt.

  As the ride continued, Phil was troubled by two things. One was the noticeable tension between Crawley and her father. It seemed to go to a level beyond the normal parental criticism, and it pained him to see the hurt in Crawley’s eyes.

  The second was the occupants of the little containers. He was pretty sure they were too small to hold snakes, or anything dangerous, but they still weighed heavily on his mind in the brief moments he wasn’t trying to fend off an argument between Crawley and her father.

  The van crossed the river and headed to Manhattan. Soon they were pulling up outside a modest two-story brick house. It had a shaded porch with a well-maintained swing dangling by four stout chains. Nicely trimmed evergreen bushes flanked either side of the short flight of stone steps at the end of the sidewalk.

  “Could you give us a hand, Phil?” her father asked.

  “Sure,” he said.

  The three of them each took a plastic tub. They were not heavy, but due to the unsecured cups within they had to be carried carefully. Soon they were standing on the porch as her father thumped on the bottom of the door with his foot.