Nice Girls, Naughty Sex

by Jordan LaRousse

  We spent the first day listening to speeches in the big dining room with the fake gold chandeliers, sneaking touches under the table and exchanging looks. You had on a black dress with a slit, exposing your perfect calves, and I was wearing a youthful, knee-high, faux-velvet red thing. I spent the entirety of the second speech surreptitiously looking down your V-neck. At nineteen, being horribly oppressed by the patriarchy got me so wet.

  When I looked at the program and saw that there were still three speakers to go, I knew I couldn’t wait. I rocked forward in my chair, pressed my crotch against the hard wooden surface, spread my black boots apart so I could lean in close to you, and whispered, “I gotta pee.”

  Your eyes didn’t move from the stage. “Then go pee.”

  I tilted my head so my hair would brush against your bare arm and make you shiver. “You know I can’t use public bathrooms. Let’s just go back to our room.”

  You gave me a sideways look. My squeamishness with public bathrooms had been the dictating factor in all our dates so far, forcing us to have short dinners and leave bars early. It was the reason I had worked freelance for so long; I could never pee in an office on a toilet where dozens of other people had rubbed their asses. It was just disgusting.

  But you wanted to talk to the last speaker about a project, so we couldn’t cut out early just because of my bladder.

  “I’ll take you to the bathroom,” you said. “And we’ll analyze you, overcome your phobia, and piss—in time to get back and meet Neil.”

  I doubted I could pee in the regular bathroom, but at that point, I would do anything for a change of scenery. So as the speaker finished and the crowd clapped, I followed you through the back doors of the dining room and to the women’s restroom across the hall.

  The facility was nice, by public bathroom standards, with a sitting area and a sparkling, clean floor. You led me into the handicapped stall, put a paper seat cover over the toilet, and said, “Go.”

  “You’re watching?” I said as I lifted my dress. “Kinky.”

  “It is not,” you said with a chuckle. You had grown up with three sisters, and you were probably constantly watching people pee. You probably pissed in packs.

  I felt like gagging as I sat down on the toilet seat, but I stared at the skin on the inside of your elbow until the feeling passed. To my amazement, I did go. I cleaned myself off and stood up. “Want a turn?”

  You eyed me curiously. “You’re not wearing underwear.”

  I smiled. “I never do.”

  “You always do.”

  You were right. I had two dresser drawers full of sexy thongs, frilly panties, cotton underwear, cartoon-adorned boy shorts, sheer stockings, and shiny garters, and I loved to show them off. But sometimes a girl would get me going so hard that I didn’t want there to be anything between us. You were one of those girls.

  I stood on my toes and looked into your eyes. “I never do when I’m in love.”

  It wasn’t the word I’d intended to say. I meant lust, or sex, or almost-love, or even let-me-move-in-my-rent-just-went-up. But I said love, and it was the first time I said it, and you looked shocked.

  You were such a damn professional, even in the toilet. Every expression was subdued. A smile was a quirk at the side of your mouth, a shock was a slight raise of your eyebrows, an I love you was a paper seat cover over a toilet.

  You took a step closer to me and put your hands on my hips, forcing me to back against the metal stall divider. Before I could think about how many germs were living on that divider, your mouth was on my collarbone, licking and kissing, warm and wet.

  “Ears, ears,” I muttered, and you chuckled as you licked the curve of my ear and bit down on my earlobe.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I said through urgent gasps. “You’re going to fuck me in the bathroom, and then some day, after you leave me, you’re going to come back for another conference and have a nice memory of me every time you pee.”

  “Shhhh,” you said, moving your mouth over mine.

  Your hand slid between my legs, pushing my dress up over my thigh, exposing everything. I loved the look of my trimmed pubic hair in the harsh fluorescent lighting, a shade darker than the hair on my head, soft and curly from being free of panties all night. It was so wrong, to be naked in public from the waist down, and the bad-girl aspect of it all made me wet. I didn’t know what you had in mind, but something was coming, and my pussy tingled, moist, bucking up toward your hand, wanting.

  You ran your finger gently down the length of me, as if measuring the surface, and you whispered, “Open up,” against my mouth. You dipped right into my wet, hot center, coated your finger, and dragged it up, smearing my juices all along me.

  “Oh, fuck,” I moaned.

  You moved your hand down and dipped again, getting your finger even wetter this time, sticky and soaked to the second knuckle. Then you brought it up, up, until you found my clit, hard and desperate for contact. I moaned loudly, and if anyone had come into the bathroom, there’d be no question as to what we were doing.

  You rubbed it up and down, your touch just gentle enough to drive me crazy. I lifted my pelvis, but you pulled back, maintaining the maddeningly light pressure. Your wet finger rubbed a circle, and I choked out, “Please!”

  You pulled your finger back, and I gasped out a sob at the loss, but in an instant you pushed inside me, deep and hard.

  “More,” I gasped, and you added your index finger. I pushed down against it, wanting more, wanting to get fucked hard, but you were much too patient. You dragged your fingers out, danced them on the edge of my cunt, like playing a piano, then plunged them in again, this time adding a third finger.

  “Oh fuck, please,” I moaned, begging now, so close that the room was blurry—a watercolor of your dark skin and the white tile walls. You tilted your hand so the pad of your thumb was pressed against my clit as your fingers strummed the bundle of nerves inside me. I grabbed your wrist and bucked against your hand hard, until there was nothing in the world but your hand, my pussy, and an explosion of light behind my eyes. I scrambled to hold on to you, moaning so deep it sounded like crying, and you held me as I came down, leaving me panting and sticky against the probable alphabet of hepatitis on the wall behind me.

  “Hey,” I said, reaching out to caress your breast through your black silk dress.

  “Later,” you said, your sparkling eyes a promise.

  That night changed my life. Not because you convinced Neil to send some work my way, which became my first big account. Not because later, wrapped in sweaty sheets in the dark, you whispered that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me. It’s because now, a lifetime after we broke up, I use public bathrooms.

  I work in the largest firm on the West Coast, with twenty-two stalls on each of the seventeen floors. And when I leave my corner office, lock myself in a stall, and close my eyes, I can still feel your lips on my chest and your hand between my legs. I lean my head against the wall, and my whole body tingles, remembering you, how you touched me, how you loved me. The toilets are antiquestyle, with elevated, ivory-colored tanks. There are plastic seat covers instead of paper, and they dispose of themselves automatically.

  Instead of tile, the floors are a creamy beige marble, like all the ballrooms where we never danced. I close my eyes and remember moaning against your lips as you pushed inside me. And none of my employees say anything when they see me, this little old lady, strolling out of the bathroom, smiling and soaking wet.

  AN OPEN LETTER

  Aimee Herman

  I saw you at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Sixth Street. You were wearing a white T-shirt with wine stains, from that time we ducked into the shop to hide from the rain. Twenty minutes left of the winetasting. I wouldn’t allow time for embarrassment when you missed your lips with the California pinot noir. I took in a giant sip and allowed it to swirl inside my mouth before releasing it on the front of my shirt. Do you remember? I told you that if our shirts bec
ame drunk before us, it would be a safe night. It wasn’t. I left with you.

  I saw you on the bus. I stared at the back of your head for six stops, until you reached out your hand to pull the thick wire, alerting the driver it was your time to get off. I was reading Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, though I remained on the same paragraph that entire time. We were on the 10 going downtown. Or, I was. You were—you weren’t you. You got up, and your tattoo had switched to your left forearm and your skin tone had lightened. Your preference for denim was replaced with corduroy. You had forgotten to put on your glasses. You didn’t smell of saffron or whiskey. I miss you.

  I AM GETTING MY HAIR CUT at Selah’s salon. I only do this twice a year because it is more than I can afford for some chopping and head massaging, but I roll up all my coins for this appointment. She is tall, with freckled, tan skin and magenta hair that sticks up in the places she orders it to. Her voice resembles the sound a cigarette makes after it has been sucked from top to bottom—crispy, thick, and affected.

  The studio is small, one room with shiny wood floors. It smells of hibiscus and cloves. She has a red couch shaped like pushed-together lips. There is a glass coffee table nearby displaying several fashion and yoga magazines. There is only one chair in her studio. I am in it. She is behind me. This is why I come here.

  “What are you looking for?” she asks, strong fingers fondling my roots.

  “What a question,” I answer. “I’m looking for so many things. Hair related? I guess just a trim. Something different or . . . the same. Make me look like someone else or just . . . slice away my split ends.”

  Selah stares at me in the mirror while I watch her move my hair as though it is water and she is altering the shape of a reservoir or small ocean. She likes to cut my hair while it is dry, but she still spends time before cutting, massaging my scalp and loosening my hair follicles.

  “Been a rough six months? The last time I saw you, you seemed to be having some relationship issues. Breakup?”

  She picks up a long piece of black fabric and wraps it over me to catch the fallen hairs. She lifts my hair to fasten the drape closed. It feels like my neck gasps, reacting to her sharp fingernails.

  “Maybe that would make it easier. No, we’re together,” I said. “Same apartment. Same schedule. Takeout on Saturdays and Sundays and dinners against the glare of the television screen. Our relationship feels like a story with seventy pages gutted out. The heart still remains, but confusion has begun to set in with a slight agitation that something is definitely missing.”

  Selah continues to knead my head.

  “And I keep seeing . . . her.”

  “Who?”

  “Her. Hers. All the hers of my past. At the grocery store. Library. In the back of the elevator. In the car behind me. I feel like I am having random affairs on the street, except that nothing is really happening, but I get this desire to—”

  “To . . . ” Selah pushes.

  “Masturbate. All these women that I crushed on before I met Leo. Some whose thighs I can still taste in my mouth. Some who I never even got the chance to kiss, that I just continue to wonder about. There is always a sense of urgency about it. I see someone who prompts one of my memories to reemerge, and I cannot wait for a bed, for the privacy of my home. I turn left into an alley and shove my hand down my pants. My fingers hide inside me, squirming and shaking. My thumb and pointer press the thickness of my clit and rub it toward a harder shape. I come all over my underwear and then just slip out and walk away. Go back to work or catch the bus or walk to grab lunch with a friend. Of course, I always suck away the evidence.”

  “I—umm—wow. All of a sudden I feel like I should be paying you.” She lets out a nervous laugh. Selah reaches over to where her clips are and lifts up small chunks of my hair. She picks up a pair of scissors and slowly begins to chop away. “Let me know when to stop, okay? You know me. I lose myself in hair and forget about the original request. But, you’re always happy, right?”

  “Of course,” I answer.

  “Go on. Tell me more. Please.”

  “Alex. Alexandra, but I never called her that. She was a dishwasher at a café I used to work at in Jersey. Dark hair with blond dotting the ends. You would have gotten lost in that hair. It was short, but there was a lot of it. It was closing shift. A Tuesday or Wednesday. It was always so slow in that place; they wound up going out of business. I started to help her out—putting the dishes away—so we could get out quicker. The owner, our boss, was in the front talking on the phone. Alex came up behind me and started rubbing my cunt. Pants still on, of course, but, I got so fucking excited. She never actually touched me—skin against heated skin. I wanted her to. I never wanted anything more. So, I turned around, and she brought her lips to my breast, and she sucked. Shirt still on, but she sucked the threads right off. Metaphorically. She breathed warm air, like the dishwasher itself, and brought my nipple to stand at attention. It was . . . well, it was incredible. Anyway, I saw her the other day. Alex. At the Laundromat a few blocks from my apartment.”

  “Really? Did she look the same?”

  “Yes. No. It wasn’t her. I thought for a moment it was. I wanted it to be her. I took my clothes out of the dryer, stuffed them in my bag, and ducked into the bathroom. I needed to dig into myself. To feel her hands on me again. This is crazy, Selah. I’m crazy.”

  “No. You’re a dreamer. A romantic. Something’s missing for you, so you are finding it in others, whether real or not.”

  I considered this for a moment and continued. “Okay, so yesterday I’m at the bookstore getting my fix of my weekly magazines. I had, like, five already in my stack to read, and I was going for a sixth when I saw her. Kathleen. I knew her about four years ago, when I was living in Brooklyn. We met at a dyke bar. Nothing . . . ever happened. Well, nothing that I can attach verbs to, exactly.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “This is so weird just thinking back to it. I never experienced anything quite like it. She was—how can I—”

  “She was what?”

  “She wrote me letters. We met and drank and drank and drank. Slipped quarters into the jukebox and flirted through song selections. Mazzy Star, Portishead, Liz Phair, Violent Femmes. We talked about nothing, which articulated into much more than that. We didn’t kiss, but we talked about it. Our lips spoke in kisses, without actually touching.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “So, the letters?”

  “We hung out a few times, and then she began writing me letters. We’d talk on the phone, make plans to meet somewhere, and then when I’d get there, she’d never show up. But, there would always be a letter from her waiting for me. I began having an affair with paper, but it was fucking wonderful. You are going to think I’m so strange, but Selah, it was the best sex I had in my life.”

  “You’re right. That’s strange. What do you mean the best sex?”

  “Just like when we kissed—when we talked about kissing—she wrote about fucking. She wrote this open letter of what she would do, what I would do. How it would be. Like, turning left on Sixteenth Street into this little alley behind a bar with a stash of old furniture and strung-up lights. Pushing my back against the brick wall of the building and hearing the sound of my breaths falling out of me as she dug her neck between my legs, threw my pants down against the cement, and ran her eyelashes against my clit. Blinking over and over against the most sensitive spot on my body. Taking the tip of her tongue, spelling dirty words across my thighs with her spit. Sucking on my earlobes. Tracing the grooves of my neck and shoulders and belly. Pages and pages of detail.

  “So, there I was, standing in front of the magazines, and I saw her. I swear I saw her. I swore I saw her. For just a few seconds I could read all those letters again. All her words. Her illustrations. When I stared hard enough, I realized it wasn’t her. I never saw Kathleen after the letters began.”

  “How long did you get them?”


  “Well, just a few weeks. Her last letter was the one against the wall. In the alley. When she fucked me so hard that her fingers grew numb from sliding into me over and over. When I had bite marks behind my knees and below my waist, on my breasts. That was the last one. And she never signed it. So, it felt incomplete, you know? Like, something else would be coming. I guess I never stopped waiting.”

  “All these haunts and reminders. Girl, you need to act on these fantasies. Forget Leo. Forget monotony and monogamy and schedules. Maybe you need to write your own letters. Or start acting them out.” Selah smiles, her thick red lips spreading into smooth skin. She swirls my chair around so that I am no longer facing my reflection. I take in her smile and match it.

  “Are you done already?” I ask.

  “Maybe. Maybe I don’t want to wait another six months for you to come in here. Maybe I’ve spent the last twenty minutes feeling penetrated by your stories, wanting to be another her to add to your memories. Maybe I want to haunt you. Maybe I’m the crazy one.”

  I pull off the black robe and watch my detached hairs fall to the floor. I lift my body from the chair and stand in front of Selah. She is a few inches taller than I am, so I stretch my gaze to meet hers.

  “I didn’t mean to spend this entire appointment trying to turn you on. I don’t know what got into me. You’re easy to talk to. I’ve been holding all this in—”

  “Hold me in. Act out that letter,” she says. “Finish it.”

  I grab Selah’s waist and push my fingertips beneath her shirt, slowly learning the texture of her skin. I take her chin with my lips and suck. Then, I move up to her bottom lip, like a rolled-up blanket, smooth and thick. I clasp onto her tongue with mine and taste her morning coffee still sitting on the top layer. She captures my breaths, trading hers for mine.