Apartment Stories Ch. 01

Evergreen Apartments, so named as a joke or a nod to eco-trendiness despite all evidence to the contrary.

The area around the apartments featured no trees, evergreen or otherwise, and nor was the building particularly green, in color or environmental ethos.

The building had little to distinguish itself. Mid-rise and middling. It seemed to have been inspired by a Lego block. The one with eight pips, half as wide as it was long. Five stories. Boasting a bland color of no Lego block ever produced.

Evergreen Apartments. Unremarkable. Boring. Like any such apartment in any town anywhere.

That is, until you looked beyond the walls, into the individual apartments and the lives lived therein.

***

She leaned against the doorjamb, one clunky black boot crossed in front of the other. Her hands held a large fishbowl of what looked like condoms. Held it all casual, as though she were handling a bowl of M&Ms. Their wrappers were of different colors. Blue, red, green, yellow. As with M&Ms, I instinctively didn't like the yellow ones.

"Girlfriend?" she asked. I still wasn't used to her shorthand way of talking.

"As in -- do I have one?"

She nodded.

"No."

"Boyfriend?"

"No," I said, a bit more emphatically.

Helin nodded absently. "That's good, Matthew. Very good." She entered my room, put the bowl on my desk, and closed the door behind her.

I'd often wondered whether she was on the spectrum. Or on a spectrum, since there were several you had to consider these days. I couldn't quite get a handle on her. In the few weeks I'd known her, she'd kept me consistently off balance -- smiling or frowning in situations where the exact opposite might have been more appropriate. Asking questions of breathtaking intimacy while remaining steadfastly inscrutable. Making observations of questionable tact. There'd never been the slightest sign of interest, no personal inquiries at all. Until now.

My outward indifference to her was simply an expression of self-preservation. In my more susceptible moments, I had to confess that she had a certain charm and attractiveness that I could easily succumb to despite her weirdness. I would find myself staring at her when she wasn't watching, only to be told by her not to stare. At the same time, she reminded me of that last drink of the night, the one that was so appealing in the moment but guaranteed a screaming hangover that could have been avoided if only common sense had prevailed. I had a history of succumbing to temptation, often with dismal results.

She looked around my room. It was a mess. I wasn't expecting guests. Her expression revealed nothing -- no disgust, no judgement, no nothing. I watched her as she poked around my stuff, investigating this and that. Her clothes leaned retro. She had a beauty mark above her lip that reminded me of Marilyn Monroe's. And though she had the movie star's generous proportions, her hair and style was decidedly black, gothic, and aloof. She wore a black choker for reasons that I couldn't hope to grasp. Maybe there were no reasons. Maybe she was submissive. More likely she just liked chokers.

All three of us in the apartment were students. Alice, the leaseholder of unit 3E, was a standoffish, bookish PhD candidate who spent most of her time on campus, appearing only seldom at the apartment to eat or sleep. Helin, the gothic Marilyn who now stood before me with a fishbowl of rubbers, was a Fine Arts undergrad whose room boasted decidedly vaginal or phallic sculptures fashioned by her own hand or other body parts for all I knew. As for me, I was enrolled as a mature student whose first attempt at higher education had been derailed years ago by baser impulses. With the benefit of experience and a desire not to piss away my student loans this time, I was committed. Less boozing, more thinking.

Given our living arrangement, I might have fancied myself a fox in a henhouse if such idioms were not frowned upon by the enlightened. Hens, I had learned after suggesting as much to roomies, were egg-laying domesticated fowl and foxes were predators. No more. No less. After the correction, it was safer to consider myself a neutered Ken doll who cohabitated with two sexless Barbies. Everyone would be groinless and I would become ascetic in the service of knowledge.

It worked.

Until Helin's next words.

"Let's fuck," she said.

I paused a beat. "You bored?" I asked, because I was older now. Wiser and jaded. I would have jumped at the opportunity during my first foray into higher education, a nanosecond after the last syllable had left her lovely, plump crimson lips. Now I recognized the wisdom of waiting, of considering the angles. Seeing what strings might entangle me.

Her brows drew together, apparently nonplussed that I wasn't yet naked. "Yes," she said. "I need to relieve some stress too."

I considered the offer. Of course I recognized this as a potential hazard that might ruin a good living arrangement. Of course I realized that accepting the offer might add stress and woe to the uncomplicated serenity I needed to complete my studies without distraction. Not accepting it might too. I was, in truth, torn.

"Casual," she said, as if reading my thoughts, a little irritated that she had to make her case. "Something mutually rewarding to pass the time."

I didn't think casual was possible outside of fiction and maybe not even there.

It seemed that there was a time limit to her proposal. As I dithered, the doors of opportunity were clearly closing. She was losing interest, glancing to the door, reaching for the bowl of colorful prophylactics, considering other ways of passing the time that didn't include me.

"Okay," I said. There were limits to wisdom.

Casual hookups had never factored hugely in my life. Sex had always a stretch goal of any relationship, sometimes reached after weeks or months of pursuit, careful negotiation, and varying levels of expenditure. Half the time, I abandoned the chase before the finish line. Hardly ever due to impatience. More ennui. The dance, the posing, the smiling and feigned interest were things I didn't have the energy or aptitude for.

And that was why I found Helin's suggestion so welcome, so unusually direct. Sex for the sake of sex. Because it was fun. Because it felt good. Because it was an agreeable way of passing the time. Why freight it with anything more than that?

"Top or bottom?"

Alright. There might be some freight and I had no idea what she meant. "It's your party," I said. "You pick."

"Top," she said.

"No strings?"

"Some," she said. "Very thin. Just a sec. I'll be right back. Be sure you're naked."

Needless to say, things like this never happened to me. I'm sure they happened to others, people who took miracles of casual sex in stride and eased into wanton carnality with barely a second thought, but for me there was a definite Twilight Zone vibe happening.

I undressed in a hurry, but left my underwear on in the unlikely event I'd misread something. With Helin, it was entirely possible. I was just positioning myself on the bed -- hands behind my head, ankles crossed, all casual -- when she returned with a spool of black thread held between a thumb and forefinger. At that moment, I gave my head a shake. What was I doing? I was almost naked and vulnerable and she wasn't. All on a promise of sex. Was I nothing more than a groin, with legs down below for locomotion and a brain up above for no discernible purpose? Was I that much of a stereotype? That needy? Willing to drop everything to bury that middle appendage of mine in some slippery, anonymous embrace? Yes. Yes, evidently I was that stereotype, but I was also a student of life and was desperately curious to see how this would end.

I gathered my wits and with all the confidence of someone who wasn't almost naked in bed with a fully dressed gothic stranger, asked, "Really? Thread?"

"Really? Underwear? I thought I said naked." As I reluctantly shed the last bit of clothing and the final vestige of self-respect, she continued. "I save the heavier stuff for those with whom I have a relationship of trust. We can't trust each other yet. We hardly know each other. Anyway, the rule is pretty simple. You break a thread and you suffer the consequences."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you have more control than I would have thought. If you don't break the thread, you call the shots the next time. If there is a next time. That would be up to you in any case as you will have won the challenge."

"I'll be very still."

"We'll see."

"What are the consequences of breaking the thread? Specifically," I asked, even if it did dilute my bravado.

"You'll see."

So much for specificity. And yet I lay there as still as a corpse while Helin deftly tied loops of thread around my wrists, knotting the ends to the outside of my headboard. She then spread my legs and repeated the procedure with my ankles, attaching the thread ends to the footboard. It was unnerving, knowing that I was restrained but not feeling it, rendered immobile and vulnerable by something so insignificant.

"I wouldn't move too much," she said.

"What if you make me break the thread?"

"Don't be a sissy. I can't make you do anything."

She undressed then, very slowly. That part was reassuring. She was making me hard, giving lie to what she'd just said -- she could make me do things. All the while, she kept her eyes on me. If she harbored any self-consciousness, she didn't show it. She pulled her summer dress over her head. She wore a black lace bra and matching thong which somehow went well with the clunky black boots she still wore. I wondered how she pulled it off -- dark undergarments beneath the light, flimsy fabric of her dress. Maybe it didn't show through. Maybe she didn't care.

A tattoo of a butterfly graced the soft skin just inside the hipbone. I didn't take her as the type. Then I noticed that the butterfly could also be seen as a skull and it made more sense.

She unclasped her bra and I held my breath as her breasts fell free. I was never a tit man but could have allowed myself to be converted. I saw that her ears and nose weren't the only bits of her that sported piercings. Her thong followed and I noticed no piercings there.

Last but not least went the boots.

With my hands so slightly bound but bound nonetheless, I could allow only my gaze to caress her. From her full breasts to a waist that flared into shapely hips. She had some substance to her, which was a good thing.

My continued stirring was inevitable. As weird as Helin was, she was also very sexy. Zaftig.

"How cute," she said as she stroked once between my legs. My cock twitched obediently.

I'd hoped for a little more than a single stroke, but it wasn't on the menu. Instead, she stepped up onto the bed and stood on it, a foot on either side of my head. Her legs looked impossibly long from my vantage point, their apex lost in mysterious shadow. Her knees bent then and her hands grasped the headboard for balance. She lowered herself until her ass rested lightly on my chest, pussy tantalizingly close, a trim triangle of pubic hair pointing the way.

"You will please me," she said simply.

Before I could answer, she widened her knees and inched forward. My mouth soon met the furrowed flesh of her sex. I smelled a whiff of perfume and the unmistakable aroma of arousal. I desperately wished for the use of my hands at that point, to separate the labia and unveil that magical little pearl at their apex. Instead, I had to rely on my tongue alone. It dug a tentative furrow through her sex and licked up to the crown where it lingered for a moment, pressing and lapping in little flicks.

The humming gasp that I heard above me was music to my ears, a suggestion that Helin's aloof self-possession had its limits. She angled her mound just so and helped by spreading her lips with the fingers of one hand to better expose her clit to my tongue.

I licked and nipped, sucked the delicate flesh of her pussy into my mouth and ravaged it. Trial and error revealed to me the exact spots that caused her to mewl and curse encouragingly. I flitted around these spots to torture her a little and then zeroed in again.

First time and I already had her number. I allowed myself a moment of self-congratulation. Often it was more elusive, a lock with a tricky combo. But my face was wet with her juices and my ears discerned panting breaths from somewhere above.

I wanted to grab her ass, press my fingers into her flesh and pull her to me, but of course I couldn't. Instead, I bobbed for her clit as it moved to whatever music she was feeling.

At long last, an Oh, fuck! from somewhere up above and the baptism of juices began in earnest. She ran her pussy over my face as she quivered and hitched through her climax. My efforts were incidental at this point as she rubbed her sodden mound wantonly against my chin, nose, forehead.

At last the spasms passed. She sat on my chest, legs apart, forearms perched on her knees, pussy glistening, pink, and swollen. "You done good," she said.

It was embarrassing how chuffed I felt, as though I'd never given pleasure in this way before. But she seemed somewhat of a connoisseur and I took my compliments where I could get them.

Before she shimmied down my body, she licked my chin, maybe to get a taste of herself.

She examined my cock and I wondered what she thought. She must have found something appealing as it soon vanished into her mouth. She pressed her lips to its base and deposited a red ring of lipstick around it. She looked at the ring, shook her head, and placed another one, closer to the base.

Having satisfactorily marked me, she reminded me that I was restrained and asked me to watch. Then she began in earnest.

I noticed that some women approached the deed perfunctorily, as though it were an obligation brought to them by the fiction of porn and now generally assumed to be a compulsory part of the dance. Not so with Helin. She took her time. She explored as though mine were the first cock she'd ever encountered and it was covered in caramel. Used her hands and lips and teeth. She did none of that sloppy saliva play that seemed so de rigueur these days. She kept things neat, for which I was grateful. Maybe she had OCD.

She smiled up at me with my shaft captured tightly between her pearly whites. Unseen, her tongue swirled around the head, probing the slit, toying with the frenum. Her hands lay spread on my thighs. Then she started stroking up and down, lips taut around my circumference, cheeks sucked in. All the while her tongue played. Odd how it was almost more the visuals than the sensation that caused that tingling I knew so well.

One hand left my thigh and insinuated itself between my legs. There, between my balls and my anus, she pressed. Then her thumb described a small circle and pressed some more.

"Don't you dare come," she said.

"Don't keep doing that, then."

She gripped me tightly in her fist and smiled, running the head of my cock against her lower lip. "I do like your cock."

What does one say? Thank you?

"I think it's time to dress you up."

Soon I was sheathed in a condom. The wrapper had been red, one of my favorites, although I would have settled for a yellow one at that moment. Then I was sheathed in her. I held my breath until I grew light-headed. She hummed happily as she descended on me and I made a noise too, though nothing nearly as seductive. Helin faced me and her gorgeous breasts swayed before me. Unrestrained, I knew that my hands would be there, fondling and squeezing. Pinching and rolling the nipples. It was almost a crime that I couldn't despite all of the other sensations she was giving me.

Instead, she played with my nipples. First she pressed them between the pads of her forefingers and thumbs. Then she did the same, only this time with her black-lacquered fingernails. I confess to yelping.

At one point she lowered herself, draping her body over mine and nibbled at my earlobes. Her breath roared like a gale in my ears. All the while, her hips moved and swayed and wet sex noises emanated from behind her.

Yes, she was probably on several spectrums. In this, though, she was off the charts. True, she didn't moan or cuss though the act. She didn't issue commands or groan a vulgar stream of consciousness. Rather, she was silent through much of it, concentrating on the pleasure given and received. She was supremely in the moment with nothing left for theatricality.

And she experimented, using me as her equipment. Experimented with angles and depths, with different pressures. She used me to plumb that glorious passage, and when she found a particularly pleasurable combination, she milked it for all it was worth. The most she articulated her pleasure was a growling hum from deep within.

After tiring of my earlobes, she rose up and sat on me. She cupped her breasts and her fingers toyed with her nipples and played with the piercings. Her hips swayed and her abdomen undulated. The butterfly seemed animated. It was the slowest, sexiest belly dance I'd ever experienced. I swore that I could feel her cervix against the tip of my cock. Her right hand eventually abandoned her breast and slid down her torso, coming to rest between her legs where her fingers played. Throughout, her eyes remained closed. She seemed lost to herself, concentrating. I was incidental, but it didn't matter to me. I was happy being a spectator and yet a participant.

Despite her inward focus, she was still attuned to me. When it seemed that I was at the end of my rope, she slowed down. When the threat of my surrender eased, she'd speed up again.

All the while, she rocked and swayed, strummed her clitoris, fucked me almost meditatively.

I too drifted on rolling waves of pleasure. With little to do given my flimsy restraints, I could only concentrate on her movements, the tight wet embrace my cock inhabited. At times I watched as she rose, revealing my glistening shaft, connected to her only slightly. Then she would descend and her weight would press on my pelvis. At times I closed my eyes to better focus and knew that I couldn't possibly last.

"I wish you could put your finger in my ass," she said almost conversationally.

And that was it. The image defeated me.

She smiled. She knew she had me. Her hips rose a little and I bucked violently into her, although I knew that I couldn't possibly go deeper but desperately wanted to regardless.

She tsked at my loss of control but then joined me in the sprint. Hands braced on either side of my chest, she pounded her hips against me. More often than not, we met as intended. Upstroke met down stroke. Skin slapped wetly against skin. The bed shook. Into her silence I gibbered like some addled porn star with Tourette's. I couldn't help it and hoped that she wasn't listening.

I exploded and the spasms seemed to go on forever. Her pussy clenched around me in response. She might have come again, but I didn't know for sure. All I knew was that she nearly bit my ear lobe clean off as a low, guttural moan issued from her throat.

At last we lay there, spent, Helin draped over me like a blanket.

"That was a nice little break," she said.

I patted her back and then stopped. My hand. Was on her back. I hadn't felt a thread snap. Hadn't felt anything.

She noticed even before I'd snuck my hand back onto the mattress.

"Couldn't restrain yourself," she said.

"Evidently you couldn't restrain me either."

"We had a deal."

"We did," I admitted.

"Stay here."

She wandered off, still naked, and returned shortly with a paper towel and a wet washcloth. The condom found its way to the former and the latter cleaned off my working bits. There was no point in self-restraint anymore, so I broke all of the remaining threads that held me.