Into Wasteland

He was a friend of her brother's. Out to dinner with a large group of his friends only a few hours after her flight had landed in Prague, feeling overwhelmed and peevish, she'd shifted in her seat and their knees had touched. There had been hastily mumbled apologies from both sides, a shared laugh at the over-politeness of it all and then he'd struck up a conversation. He was just trying to be kind, she was sure, but he wasn't patronising and she was grateful. He asked about her degree, mentioned he was also interested in photography. Oh, so he was that James. Yes, her brother had spoken about him, that he was self-taught and had had a couple of fairly successful exhibitions. He'd told her about one that was a huge flop and it had made her laugh. She liked that he was self-deprecating, it made him seem humble, accessible. But when he brought out his camera to show her what he'd been doing that day she noticed a quiet pride in him which warmed her to him even more. And he'd asked her opinion and she'd shared her thoughts and they'd got excited about similar things and unconsciously, she'd stuck to his side all night. Eventually their group had stumbled from the pub and her brother had called to her to walk with him to get the night tram. She smiled a shy farewell to James and he leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek goodbye. He smelt of bitter Czech beer and smoke and his beard scratched her face. As he walked away she felt his saliva evaporate from the corner of her mouth into the night air.

In bed that night, her blood still effervescent with alcohol, her head still dizzy from his attentions, her fingers ran over the thin cotton of her dampening knickers. She pictured his face, that look of earnest concentration she had observed as they'd pored over his camera together and imagined him giving that thoughtful consideration to every inch of her body. His delicate but masculine hands tracing an unseen picture on her skin, his tongue moving its way deliberately down her torso, over her stomach. As she slid her own hand inside the fabric of her underwear she imagined it was his tongue that was right now coming into gentle contact with her clit. As she writhed and bucked against her right index finger, her left hand grabbed at the sheets the way she would grab at his hair and pull him into her sex. She moaned quietly into the empty bedroom as her incessant administrations pushed her closer and closer and finally over the edge.

And now, two days later, she sat drumming her fingers on her knee, tightly clutching the strap of her camera, the carriage rocking gently as it hurtled through the blackness. When the train pulled up to Želivského she was already at the door, palm sweaty on the red handrail, the booming beat of her heart in her ears.

Down in the penetralia of the metro, the concrete tunnels chill the wind that gusts through them making skirts fly up and tearing the hairs from your scalp. No matter the temperature outside, the underworld of this city will always chill your bones. As she stepped outside into the heat of the day, the blazing June sunshine dazzled her, bleaching her surroundings of their colour. A warm breeze billowed the fabric of her t-shirt but, as if the cold air of the metro hadn't yet left her, a shiver rippled through her body. She pulled the well-creased map from her pocket, read through the clearly penned, thorough directions she'd written and set off. Her brother had said it was just a two minute walk from the metro station. She'd made him go through it several times, pointing out that he didn't want her to get lost and have to bother him while he was working. This was the furthest from the centre that she'd been in any of her visits here. An area full of cemeteries, dissolving here and there into wasteland, scrubby and bleak.

Walking down a seemingly abandoned street, past shops with their shutters down and a burnt out pub, she felt this place suited James. The work of his that she'd seen seemed apocalyptic in theme, each picture infused with a thrilling sense of forbidding doom. They inspired something in her she couldn't name.

There was no buzzer for his flat so she had to call him with shaking hands. His voice melted her spine and she gripped the hot, rough brick of the wall with sweaty fingers as she waited for him in the baking sun. But when he opened the front door to greet her she felt there was something wrong. The affability of the other night had been replaced by something colder, harder. His terse greeting left her with the same chill she'd felt down in the metro and it threw her. They set off in an unspecified direction and she tried to make conversation but all her carefully rehearsed questions came out wrong. She felt her tongue getting clumsier with each attempt and eventually she lapsed into embarrassed silence as she tripped dejectedly one step behind him, wondering where it had gone wrong.

So immersed in thought was she, it came as a start when he grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto a dirt path edged with brambles browned by the sun. He had quickened his pace and with the acid of panic rising in her gut she realised she was walking into wasteland with a complete stranger: she didn't know anything about this man's past, didn't even know how well her brother knew him. And his fingers were circled tightly around her wrist and he was pulling her onwards, moving more quickly with each step.

Then he stopped and the abruptness of it threw her a couple of feet away from him. They were in front of some squat, cylindrical concrete construction. It was giving off a faint hum that vibrated the still summer air but she didn't have the first clue what the building could be. She tried to take in her surroundings but once again the sun had bleached the colour from everything, making her feel like she was trapped in a sepia still from an old film. She squared her feet in the scrub as she felt his predatory gaze on her. He was like an impending lightning storm, energy crackling from his body.

She knew he was coming for her but it still made her gasp as he pushed her up against the unyielding wall of the strange building. He had her arms pinned by her side and his breathing was jagged as he dug his erection painfully between her legs. She looked into his eyes, hoping she might find some way to reason him out of whatever it was he was about to do, and what she saw there shocked her into tender sympathy. Those grey eyes were a tornado of pain and confusion. It was as if he had no idea what he was doing, like his body had taken over and he was trapped deep inside. She felt so sorry for him in his tense desperation, she leaned in and gently brushed her lips against his. He let out a wounded animal groan and crushed her mouth under his, forcing his tongue in and pressing his body even closer. The roughness of the concrete scratched at her exposed skin but she pushed back into him, her tongue fighting his and her crotch moving lewdly against his swollen cock.

One hand released her arm and grabbed at her breast, determined fingers pinching at her already stiff nipple. The pain of it made her yelp into his mouth, exciting them both further. His kisses became wilder, knocking her head against the concrete as his hand moved down to grab at her cunt. He must have been able to feel how wet she was, even through the denim of her shorts, and together they fumbled at button and zip until his desperate hand reached her desperate, swollen clit. He bit her lip hard before burying his face in her neck as he began to finger her harder and faster, his thumb working furiously at her clitoris. She widened her legs so his fingers could dig in deeper and she braced her back against the wall as in moments she felt her orgasm rising through her belly. Her cry rang out through the still afternoon as her muscles clenched and contracted. He slowed his pace and then gently pulled out his fingers and licked them hungrily. Without meeting her eyes he fastened her shorts for her, turned and walked away. She hurried to retrieve her camera from the barren ground and stumbled after him. In a daze she sucked thoughtfully on her lower lip. And tasted blood.