Paint

I had finally found the perfect apartment. Even though it was a bit more than I wanted to spend, I knew as soon as I walked in that it was mine. I moved in full of decorating ideas and motivation, hell bent on starting my "new life" the right way. Then I slept for a week straight. Then I went back to work. Six months later and I was still living out of boxes. Then it hit me again; the motivation. I was coming up on another much needed week off of work, and decided that it was finally time to make this apartment my home.

It really was in a perfect location, and the building had some fantastic perks. The apartment across from me was vacant; the owner not wanting to live in it but not wanting to be rid of it, either. Next to me was an older couple that traveled often, visiting with family all over the country. When they were home, Mrs. Graham would bring me homemade blueberry muffins and bread that was absolutely delicious. The apartment above me housed a small family, but they were relatively quiet except for the occasional pitter patter of little feet running around.

And then there was Ben. Living in the apartment diagonally from me, he always seemed to be handy whenever I was carrying something heavy. The first time he helped me was with groceries, and when the handle broke on one of the bags and my pack of chicken fell to the floor of the hallway that separated our apartments, he picked it up and commented on how he made an amazing chicken alfredo. I commented that I was a horrible cook, thanked him after he deposited my groceries on the kitchen counter, and then he took his leave.

The next time, I was carrying a small end table that someone had left out with the garbage. He came out and took it from me, commenting on how he had once saved an entire living room set from the garbage man and restored it to it's former beauty. I had planned on painting it and putting a plant on it, and told him as such. He came in and placed it in the corner I asked him to, I thanked him, and he took his leave.

In the six months since I had moved in, Ben had enlightened me on many of his skills, be it plumbing, art, how fast he could read a book, downing beers, and even how well he could wrap a present. It came to no surprise to me as I walked towards my door with two gallons of paint and a bag full of supplies that Ben presented himself, reaching for the paint that I had already began to hand to him. "Let me guess; you're a genius when it comes to house painting?"

He grinned at me as he fell into step beside me, allowing me to dig in my purse for my keys. "Why, yes. How did you know?" I chuckled as I unlocked the door, entering the room and holding the door open for him to come in, since it tended to close all by itself. He made his way into the living room while I turned to the kitchen to deposit my purse on the counter. "Well, my oh my. Looks like someone is finally going to make this place a home."

I walked into the living room and flung my jacket over my plastic covered furniture, all cluttered in the middle of the large room. I stood beside him and put my hands on my hips, looking up at the high ceilings and letting out a sigh. "It's time."

"Well, I have a prior engagement this morning, but I'll be back around three-ish to give you a hand," he said as he made his way to the door.

"Oh, Ben, no. I mean...wait...you know what? I would love the help. And it's about time you show me some of these skills you keep going on and on about."

He had turned around at the door when I had started to speak, and smiled when I agreed to take his help. "Might be closer to three thirty-ish," he said over his shoulder right before he closed the door behind him. I smiled, and then turned back to my high ceilings and the three windows I needed to tape up. I could feel the look of determination take over my face and I turned towards the bedroom to change. I put on some old jeans and a tank top, but it was still a little chilly since it was early spring, and found my favorite, old Alice and Chains long sleeve shirt that had seen better days.

I had finished a lot of prep work the night before while I couldn't sleep, so I was able to get right to taping up the windows. I opened them, and then went to the kitchen to get the tape. I grabbed my MP3 player and put it on random, placing it in the boom box looking speaker set my sister had given me for my birthday. I smiled as the first song boomed through, heavy and fast paced metal that instantly got me pumped up and ready to conquer.

Before I knew it I had all the windows taped up, the tarps placed on the floor, and I was working on painting around the third large window. It had warmed up as the day progressed, and had to take off my long sleeve. I was singing along to a song in full gusto when I heard another voice join in the chorus and turned around. Ben was crouched down and stirring the gallon of paint I had opened, smiling at me as he sang along in a loud and clear voice.

I came down the ladder and went over to the boom box, turning the volume down just enough to make conversation possible. "Good at singing too, eh?" I smiled, and he smiled back while shrugging a little.

"What can I say?" He pulled out a paint pan and started putting together a long arm roller that he must have brought over with him. He was dressed just as messy as me, his jeans stained with paint and oil and his shirt matching. I had an unfortunate weakness for forearms, and I could see the muscles of his working as he put the roller together and had to turn my gaze elsewhere, otherwise I would have become utterly distracted.

He poured some paint into the paint pan and I knew he was ready to get down to business. I turned the music back up and went back to my ladder. We spent the rest of the afternoon painting our asses off. We worked well together. My music went back and forth between metal, 90's rock, and female angst. There were many times I heard Ben laugh at a song and I would look over at him and he would be looking at me, shaking his head. Other times he would be singing along and bobbing his head along to the beat.

As the sun started to set we were finished, and Ben took the pans and brushes down to the basement to rinse off. I tidied up everything else, and when I had finished he had returned. I was looking at the room, turning in slow circles to take it in. I had chosen a deep red; not too dark and not to bright. It was perfect and I smiled. "It really is an amazing color, Marie. Especially with the sun coming through the way it is right now."

I was standing in the light of one of the windows, and looked over my shoulder to smile at him. He smiled back, and then looked around at the walls again. "So, I am pretty sure I owe you dinner for your labor," I said. "Should I order Chinese? I don't feel like going out with paint in my hair." I made my way to the kitchen, and heard him follow slowly behind me.

"If we are getting Chinese, then I insist on going to pick it up from a place I know. It's the best."

I laughed a little and dug into my purse to get him my credit card. When I turned to hand it to him he was right behind me, and I was startled for a moment by his closeness. I held the card up between us, and looked up slightly to make eye contact with him. "Just tell me it isn't too far. I'm starving." Being this close I could notice the flecks of green in his eyes, and a few little dots of paint on his face. "You've got red on you," I said while pointing at his face, quoting a line from Shaun of the Dead. He chuckled, reaching up and rubbing the side of his face, looking down at his hand to see if it had come off.

I took the opportunity to shuffle away from him, and made my way out of the kitchen. "Get some booze!" I yelled over my shoulder and made my way to the bathroom for a shower. I closed the door behind me and leaned against it, listening to hear him close the door before I started to undress. This may have been one of the most enjoyable afternoons I had spent with a man. The closeness of him had completely thrown me off, and I had to remember that Ben was just a nice guy, helping a neighbor out.

I took a hot shower, soaking for a bit and getting as much of the paint off as my patience would allow. When I was in the bedroom I heard the front door open and Ben's voice announcing his presence. I finished dressing in pajama pants and a tank top, throwing a thin sweater on and putting my hair up in a messy ponytail.

When I came out Ben was taking the lids off of the carryout food that he had laid out on a tarp we hadn't used. He must have ran home for a quick shower before bringing the food over because his hair was still wet and he had on clean sweat pants and a t-shirt.

"Awwwwww...well aren't we romantic," I said before thinking, and he grinned as he reached behind him and presented a bottle of wine.

"We are celebrating," he said while he pulled a wine opener from his pocket. I went to the kitchen and got two wine glasses out of the cabinet and headed back to our indoor picnic. I sat Indian-style across from him, and as I looked around for a fork he handed a package of chop sticks.

"Ooooh, spiffy," I said as I pulled them out of the pack and snapped them apart, quickly digging into the food as Ben poured our wine. My eyes rolled into the back of my head when I took my first bite, and I gave him a thumbs up as I stuffed a pot sticker into my mouth. We sat in silence for a short time, just stuffing food into our mouths and making mmmmm sounds at each other. Finally, my initial hunger stuffing was satisfied, and I was able to talk. "I feel like I should be thanking you for dinner instead of the other way around. This is amazing!"

He nodded, finished his bite, and then took a drink of wine. "I always find the best food places. Call it a gift."

I laughed at him, and then took a sip of the wine. "And the wine, too. Let me guess...another gift?" He shrugged, and I laughed a little more. "Is there anything you aren't good at?"

He took another drink of his wine and looked off into the distance, like he was trying really hard to think of something. "Nothing is coming to mind at the moment. I would rather talk about the things I am good at, anyway. Do you like card tricks?"

I laughed again as he pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket and started to shuffle them. I got ahold of myself and sat up a little straighter. "Go ahead, then. Amaze me."

Ben spent the next hour amusing me. He did a few card tricks, which I had to admit were pretty good, then he said the alphabet backwards. I tried to see him fail by asking him the few riddles I knew, but he figured them out. He then told me some of the dirtiest jokes I had ever heard. When I got up to get another bottle of wine from the kitchen, he ran to his apartment and came back with a guitar, with which he started to play the song More Than Words, which had me erupting with even more laughter. Then we played five hands of poker, he won 4 of them, and I'm pretty sure he rigged the cards so that I won the last one.

I was still laughing when Ben stood up and extended his hand to me. I put my wine glass down and grabbed his hand as he helped me up. "What's this about?" I asked as he pulled me up, and he led me to a part of the living room not occupied by plastic covered furniture and tarp picnics. He turned me so that I was facing him and placed his arms at his sides. He looked at me, and I looked back at him with a look of puzzlement on my face.

He looked up at the ceiling, and said "I don't know how to slow dance."

"Ha!" I snorted, and he looked at me a little offended. I started to walk away, shaking my head as I did so. "Oh no, sir. Nope. I'm not falling for that one."

"Not falling for what?" he asked, and I turned and looked back at him.

"Seriously? So the plan isn't that I start to teach you, and then we move in close...our bodies close together...and then somehow Unchained Melody comes in softly through the windows...and then we kiss...and we move to the floor...and we are magically naked...and we make sweet love on the floor..."

At some point during my rant I had been rolling my eyes and looking at the ceiling, but by this point I had turned my gaze back to him, and he was standing there looking at me with giddy amusement displayed plainly on his face. "I mean, I can make that happen if you want, but I was seriously just confessing something I couldn't do to you. You're the one that mentioned all that other stuff."

"Oh." That was all I could say. I pulled my sweater closer around me and looked uncomfortably at anything other than him.

"Well, then."

"I mean, we could..."

"Could what?"

"Do...that."

"Do what?"

"That other stuff you mentioned."

"Oh. I mean...do you want to?"

He looked at me like I just said the stupidest thing he had ever heard. "I'm a guy, Marie. And you are a very attractive woman. There would be something wrong with me if I didn't want to."

"Oh. Right."

"Do you want to?" he asked, looking a little apprehensive for a second.

"Now?"

"Now, tomorrow, next week...I mean in general. Do you want to...with me?"

"Well...yes...I suppose so."

"You suppose so..."

"Yes...I mean yes. I do want to."

"Well, ok then..."

I blushed a little, and looked away. "Alright." I said, turning my gaze back to him. We stood there for a moment, just looking at each other, and Ben's expression started looking less amused and more serious. I took a tentative step towards him, and he quickly closed the space between us, startling me slightly. We hadn't broken eye contact, and he stood just a few inches from me, not touching. He looked down at my lips, and started to slowly ease himself towards me, but I was too impatient for that. I flung myself at him, throwing my arms over his shoulders and pulling him hard against me as our lips met.

He let out a surprised sounding "Umph," as my body collided with is, but soon after his arms were tight around me, our kiss quickly escalating from just a contact of lips to tongues and teeth and moans. He had turned me and started to back me up against the wall, but I broke away just long enough to mumble "Paint!" before his mouth was on mine again.

He turned me in the direction of the hallway, and hefted me up so that I could wrap my legs around him as he walked quickly down the hall to the bedroom. He took only a few steps into the bedroom before he ran into a barricade of boxes and tried to make his way around them without breaking contact with me. I started to chuckle against his lips and he broke away to look down and around him. "What in the bloody hell, woman? How difficult are you trying to make this for me?"

I laughed loudly now, unwrapping my legs from around him and sliding down the front of him to place my feet on the floor. "It wasn't like I had this planned!" I turned my back to him and bent over to push some boxes out of the way and make a path to the bed. Before I could slide the boxes two feet I felt his hands on my hips as he pulled me back against him. I felt the hardness of him against me, and a surge of heat went through me and collected at my center.

I pushed back against him and shifted up and down slightly. His grip on my hips tightened and he let out a deep sound; something between a moan and a growl. He bent himself over me, sliding his right hand down the front of my pajama pants while the left slid under my tank top and wrapped around me to cup my right breast. He straightened himself while bringing me with him, his fingers starting to roll my nipple and making me jolt against him and draw a quick intake of breath.

Ben started planting light kisses along my neck, making his way up to my ear. "Did you think that sweater would hide that you were braless? Or did you do this on purpose?" He released my nipple and moved his hand to my other breast, letting it fill his hand entirely before he began to knead it. I couldn't talk. It was all I could do to control my breathing so I wasn't panting like a dog. He lightly scraped his teeth along my neck as he started to roll my other nipple between his fingers, and I felt my legs start to go weak. I reached up behind me to grasp the back of his neck for balance, and the hand that had started to make it's way under my pajama pants started to slide lower down.

I could feel how wet I was, and I couldn't wait for him to feel what he had done to me. His middle finger slid easily between my lips and directly found my clit, making me tense up and my hips thrust forward reflexively.

He made a deep and satisfying sound into my neck as he slid his finger back up, and slid two fingers back down. I let out a loud moan, louder than I had expected it to be, and those two fingers moved up and down slowly...achingly slow...torturously slow. They would linger on my clit as they moved, and after about the fifth or sixth pass I was utterly on fire.

And then the fingers were still, forcing me to move against them to keep the sensation going. Ben's arm around me tightened as I moved, pushing me against him so I could feel him getting harder and harder against my ass as I moved up and down.

I hadn't noticed I was making frustrated noises until he removed his lips from my neck long enough to whisper "Shhhhhhh," into my ear. As I calmed down he began to move his fingers in a circular motion, and I started to see stars.

I had never come standing up before, and I suddenly had a fear of collapsing on the floor. "Ben..." I whimpered, feeling the orgasm building inside of me. His arm wrapped even tighter around me, making me feel confined, helpless, and completely safe, all at the same time.

"Shhhhhh," he whispered again, as the circular motions stopped and he began sliding is two fingers very fast up and down my clit. I called out, digging my heals into the floor and leaning back against him completely as tremor after shattering tremor exploded over my body. The warm, liquid feeling of my orgasm engulfed every muscle of my body, and soon I was a glowing ball of dead weight that this man was somehow holding up.

I got my feet back under me somehow and slowly eased myself away from him. I slowly turned myself around to face him, and before I could say it, Ben said "That was amazing." I placed my hands onto his chest and moved them over his shoulders as I pulled him against me, kissing him deep and slow. His arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me even closer to him, and soon our movements started to get frantic and impatient.

He had ripped my sweater from my shoulders right before I broke away from the kiss to pull his shirt over his head. I took my own shirt off before slamming back into his body, our flesh hot. I grabbed the waist band of his sweats and started to pull him back toward the bed, kicking boxes aside that held nothing more important to me than having him inside of me at that moment.

I must have been moving fast because when the back of my thighs hit the bed, I sat abruptly. I took the opportunity to lay back and lift my ass off the bed to take off my pajama pants. Ben used it as well to take his sweat pants off, and when he did, all I could do was stare. He was big, thick, and veiny, and I felt a wave of fresh juices flow from me at the thought of him burying himself inside of me. I spread my legs wide, but instead of climbing on top of me, he knelt down.

"What...what are you doing?"

"I need a taste...just a taste..." and he buried his face between my legs. I was still very sensitive from the last orgasm, and as he moaned with delight against my folds, his tongue lapping at my wetness, I felt a very strong orgasm come out of nowhere. My hands went to the back of his head as I arched against his face, my moans reverberating off of my undecorated walls.

I felt like putty. I vaguely remember him climbing on top of me, but every part of me awakened as I felt him start to ease his beautiful cock inside of me. I didn't open my eyes as the first inch entered me, or the second; I could only mumble "Yes...yes...yes...yes," over and over. Deeper and deeper he went, slowly, and right when I thought he couldn't go anymore, he went even further. My eyes opened wide and I looked up at him with my mouth wide open in amazement, and just a little delightful pain.