Nightswimming

The only solution was killing him. It was that simple.

My boyfriend and I were lying nestled together in a sweaty tangle of sheets, sadly formed not through passionate lovemaking, nor indeed through rampant, legs-behind-your-neck, headboard-crashing-through-the-wall-into-your-neighbour's kitchen balls-deep pussy-melting fucking, but which instead had everything to do with the heatwave sweeping the city. Going outside was bad enough – moisture seemed to suck the oxygen out of the air and the humidity leached onto my skin and swept in warm, tickling trickles down my spine and between my breasts. If the liquid had been cooler then it might have been almost titillating, or at least refreshing, but as it was the fat, almost greasy droplets rolled over my body like sweat and it was never long until I was actually perspiring, the salt irritating my skin.

Somehow, the heat seemed to get worse at night, as if it built up in our apartment during the day. The city was almost always overcast too, so unlike in the deserts, the heat had no way to escape. The irony was that usually summer in the city meant that the only change to your wardrobe was adding an umbrella to keep off the rain, or switching your thick winter coat for one that, while equally warm, was also waterproof. I guess when it comes to weather you can really only please none of the people none of the time.

In any case, the duvet on my bed had been thrown into a wardrobe, and decent sheets had been replaced with the cheapest, lightest material the local supermarket had to offer. And still, despite getting only about half of my required eight hours a night over the last week, my boyfriend and I spent most of the night tossing and turning, fanning the sheets to let cool air into the ecosystem beneath and flipping the pillows constantly, in search of a mythical cold side harder to discover than the Holy Grail or a person who hasn't read a certain awful novel on that topic.

So when my neighbour breaks my tenuous hold on sleep with a 3 a.m. rendition of Radiohead's "(Nice Dream)", I'm not inclined to appreciate that at least he picked an appropriate song.

I've never really spoken to the guy, though I've run into him a few times in the hall and stood next to him as we both checked our mailboxes. Something about this city – it doesn't encourage you to get to know your neighbours. He's the sort of guy who can look anywhere between the ages of 30 and, when he smiles his so-wide-it's-goofy smile, 20. His hair is jet black and spills round his face in thick, shaggy locks that a lot of the guys in my University classes spend hours at the mirror with comb and gel to achieve, the effect lessened by their artifice. He has these sweetly innocent hazel eyes that have probably parted a lot of girls' legs, even before they hear his sexy, low-slung voice. I've never seen him wear anything but black, loose clothing, so while I can tell he's slim, I haven't a clue what his body is actually like.

I don't know what he does for a living, though he keeps really odd hours, sometimes not leaving his flat for days, sometimes being out at nine every morning of the week, sometimes heading out at midnight with a briefcase and wearing a fancy suit. The reason I notice this is the same reason that my rent is so cheap each month: apparently the floors are made out of the cheapest material that'll support a reasonably svelte human being and apparently there's nothing between them. The guy, his name is John Amberson, by the way, lives directly beneath me.

And boy does he like music. Played loud, too. It's not normally that bad – our tastes are fairly similar, and I've actually discovered a couple of great albums from hearing them seeping up from below. I'm usually a deep sleeper, too, so if he played music at night before, it was something of which I was unaware. I didn't even mind that he sometimes sung a long. I knew he lived alone – just as I knew that my next-door neighbours were involved in a sad little game of adulterous one-upmanship – and having spent a year all alone myself, I knew the sort of habits you drifted into. Amberson had a pleasant voice, in fact – not great, but certainly a lot better than most of the manufactured stuff that gets played on the radio stations, which seem to pander only to the lowest common denominator.

But here I was, balancing right between wakefulness and sleep and just about to plunge into the embrace of Dream, when suddenly Amberson is doing a duet with Thom Fucking Yorke at 3 fucking a.m. Countries have gone to war for less. What was even more infuriating was that my boyfriend had some how managed to fall asleep regardless.

I shrugged his arm from off my shoulder, not caring if he woke or not, and untangled myself from the sheets. My boyfriend groaned gently and rolled over into the space I had vacated, still frustratingly asleep. We had made love earlier, though I hadn't come. I had made him wear a condom. Heh – in this heat, we'd probably have fought for the right to sleep in the wet spot. Without pause, I headed out the bedroom door, through the hall and down stairs to Amberson's flat.

I slammed my fist into his door so hard it hurt and then held it behind my back so the jerk wouldn't see that I'd hurt it. Despite it being nearly the morning, he looked perfectly fresh, still dressed smartly in a tight black T-shirt and, naturally, black jeans. He blushed when he saw me. Good, I thought, he does know how rude he was being.

"Um, can I...uh... help you?" he asked.

"Fucking right you can," I started. "Three in the bloody morning and as if it isn't difficult enough getting to sleep in this heat, I have to contend with you going all karaoke on me."

He half-smiled, half-laughed and nodded slowly. "Of course. It's really hot and I'd pissed you off. You must just have stormed out of your flat without thinking. Hold on one second."

He disappeared into his apartment, which was fully illuminated, and came back clutching a faded grey bathrobe. "You might want to put this on," he told me. I took it, it was made of silk and so soft and smooth.

"Why would I... oh." Then it was my turn to blush. I looked down and realised that in my haste, I had forgotten that during this unprecedented heat wave I had started sleeping in the nude. With the cool air flowing from the hall air conditioning, my small brown nipples had risen to the sharp, painful-looking peaks they formed during sex. The sparse hair I leave just above my bald pussy was jewelled with sweat. My pussy itself was still sticky from earlier.

"Look, I'll turn around while you put the robe on," Amberson said.

I did so hurriedly, wrapping that stunningly soft fabric around me, feeling it caress my breasts and buttocks with intimate tenderness, letting it rest, tickling, against my slight bush. "Sorry about that," I said.

John laughed. "Trust me, darling, no man ever complains about a free show like that." I wasn't blind, of course – I'd seen that big, big bulge in his jeans. "You want to come in?" he continued.

I did so and he went to his kitchen to put on the kettle – coffee for him, but tea for me. He brought the drinks in two old, well-loved mugs – the coffee was in one reading "World's Greatest Divorcee". "So," he said, "I play my music too loud at night."

Having just indecently exposed myself to this extremely handsome man, I found it hard to be as angry as I had intended. "Well, not everyone keeps your hours and it's so hard to sleep in this heat," I began. He cut me off with an almost negligent wave of one palm.

"No, no, you're quite right. I'd forgotten how thin these walls were. I tell you, the couple who lived in the flat before you... well, I used to hear them every single time they had sex. The guy just gave these low grunts like he was pretending to be Tarzan, but the woman! Heh – it was as if she were an opera singer." He ran up and down a scale in a falsetto voice.

"Oh," I said, a little peeved again, though his performance had made me laugh a little, "is that your way of telling me that Brendan and I are disturbingyou?"

"God no," he said quickly, "I've never heard the two of you. I didn't even know you had a boyfriend." I blushed again at that. "No, you're right. From now on at night I'll wear headphones, okay?"

"Thanks," I said. "And I'm sorry about coming down here like this."

"What, naked? I thought we'd covered that?"

I laughed. "You know this has actually been sort of fun."

"Well, if you ever want to talk again," he said and shrugged.

We were walking to the door when a question occurred to me. "If you don't mind me asking, what is it you do for a living?"

He gave a little hitch of his shoulders. "Well, believe it or not, I'm a novelist."

"No shit," I said. "Don't think I've heard of you."

He grinned widely. "Well you have and you haven't. I write my serious novels under my real name. They tend to get really great reviews and really poor sales – probably dragged down the charts by the weight of all the pseudo-intellectual quotes they force onto the back. What pays the bills though, are the horror books I write as" here he mentioned a really big name. Mentioned, in fact, one of my favourite writers. "I noticed you had my latest book when I ran into you on the stairs the other day."

"Oh my god, I love you," I exclaimed like I was still a fifteen-year-old girl with a crush on the safely sexless members of the latest boyband. "I have all your books!"

"Oh yeah?" he asked, with the epitome of a wry expression on his face. "I'll sign them for you if you like. Actually, I'm doing a signing in the local Ottakars tomorrow night. Do you want to come as my guest?"

"Really?"

"Yeah – it's not glamorous, but you can chat with the manager and staff before they open the door and you can sit up front when I do the reading."

"That'd be great," I said, "thank you so much."

"Trust me, you won't be thanking me afterwards."

"Well... good night John boy"

He laughed, "Good night. Come down around six, okay?"

I yawned and waved. When I got back to bed, I rolled my boyfriend over and slept with my back to him.

I was woken from a dream in which a tall, dark and handsome not exactly stranger whirled me around a massive ballroom filled with both my extended family and the casts of every sitcom I'd ever seen. Brendan, my boyfriend, had his head pressed tight between my legs, his small dark tongue bathing the lips of my pussy in thick spittle. When he saw I was awake, he stopped licking and climbed up to kiss me. I could feel his cock pressing hard into my thigh.

"Morning," he said as he guided it into me, lubricated more by his spit than by any arousal on my part.

"Morning," I replied and gave a little groan as he entered me fully. I could feel his heavy balls between my legs, the thick hair on them tickling the insides of my thighs. One of his hands played idly with one of my nipples. He braced himself with the other as he began to fuck me, moving in short, fast strokes and angling his shaft so it ground against my clit with every thrust. Brendan pressed his lips against mine, which I parted. He thrust his tongue into me with all the savage hunger his cock exhibited towards my cunt.

I flicked his tongue with my own, then ran around it in quick, delicate circles. I lapped at it slowly as I pulsed the muscles in my pussy – a skill learned through hours of kegel exercises. (The pubococcygeal muscles, fact fans).

Brendan's hands cupped my ass and he braced his legs, almost yanking me to impale myself on his dick. "I'm going to come," he said.

"Don't come inside me, Brendan," I said.

I rolled on top of him and pulled back until his cock withdrew from my cunt. It didn't want to let his cock go, it seemed – it came out with a wet, sucking sound. I smiled at Brendan and licked my lips, then knelt between his legs and sucked the head of his cock into my mouth.

I've always liked the way my pussy tastes. I know a lot of women don't. Theirs I mean – there haven't been that many women for me! In any case, I relished the taste of my cunt on my boyfriend's hard cock as I sucked his thick head, running my tongue slowly around the edge of his foreskin and flagellating the narrow slit on the tip. I slowly engulfed more of him, swallowing him centimetre by centimetre until his pubic hair tickled my nose and my chin dented his balls.

I began to fuck him with my mouth, letting my tongue work his shaft as I suckled on him. I cupped his testicles with one hand and played them almost as if they were Chinese relaxation balls. With the other, I stroked the flesh between his balls and his asshole, giving some of the sensation of anal play without the fact, which made my boyfriend a little insecure.

Brendan's hands were knotted in my hair, and he was moaning. Without warning, his pelvis shuddered and a great gout of come rippled through his cock and shot into my mouth. I swallowed it. Brendan's fingers locked in my hair almost painfully and he breathed out slow and deep. Still in the heat of my mouth, his cock wilted almost instantly, shrivelling into its flaccid state. I let it fall from my mouth and watched it, tiny and shiny with my saliva in the morning light.

"Thanks, Molly," Brendan said as he got up and walked on shaky legs for the bathroom. "I'm going to take a shower."

I sighed, and fished around in my bedside drawer for my vibrator. I had it hidden under my panties and it took me a moment to find it and a little longer to untangle it. The instant I heard the shower running I turned it on. There was no time for subtlety – Brendan would only be minutes in the shower – so I gave it one quick baptism in my cunt and then placed it gently on my clit. I had to bite my lip to stifle my moans, as the vibrations seemed to spread through my clit and deep into my pussy, deeper than Brendan had ever reached with any of his appendages. From there, the tingle suffused through my body, fluttering in my feet and shuddering through my breasts to explode from my nipples. My hair seemed to stand on end and my pussy seemed to fountain liquid. It was only through long practice that I kept silent as my orgasm tried to scream out of my throat. My tongue lolled over my lips and, as I switched off my beloved vibrator, my hand bushed delicately over my vulva, carefully stroking my labia and my clit and lightly fluting into my vagina, all in worship of the seemingly simple flesh that brought me such impossible pleasure.

Brendan came in. "You look pleased about something," he said. I smiled and lay back on the bed.

Brendan massaged his scalp roughly with the towel, his penis dangling uncovered. I looked at it appraisingly. Of course, its flaccid size had nothing to do with what its dimensions were hard. Brendan was a shower, as they called it – he had a fairly big cock when it was soft, but he barely grew any when he was hard. I remembered the biggest guy I had ever been with – when we had stripped, his cock had looked decidedly below average and then, as I marvelled and he watched with the wry amusement of someone who had seen this countless times before, it had grown to about ten inches in length. Brendan was about average. I'm not a size queen in any way – I'm firmly in the "it's not the size of the boat but the motion in the ocean" camp – so my inability to come with Brendan had nothing to do with his endowment. He just didn't know what he was doing and didn't want to learn. I didn't usually have a lot of trouble coming, in fact, though I was never lucky enough to be one of those women who come just from having their nipples touched for long enough.

The guy with the huge cock had known what he was doing. That had been a one-night stand – I suspected all his relationships were – but during that night he had pleasured me with consummate skill, playing expertly on nerves I hadn't know I had it. If it were possible with something as intimate as sex, it might have been too professional, but when you have as many orgasms in a row as he gave me, complaining is worse than meaningless. Then there had been my first serious boyfriend, Chris. Then neither of us had known what we were doing and we stumbled towards ecstasy like two blind people. More often than not, we found it too. There had been others as well, far more than I would admit to, and none of them had been as selfish and unskilled as Brendan. I wondered why I stayed with him – it's not like we had any emotional connection. We were one of those makeshift couples – forced together by mutual friends looking for an easy double date on a Saturday night.

Brendan looked at me with the sort of shrewd look a pig gets when he's figured out how to get more slop than another pig. "Come on – you look like you're sneaking something."

"Nah," I said, "I've just been trying to make a decision."

I walked past him, my naked body almost exalted by the cool air, which moved deliciously over my breasts and chilled the damp heat between my legs. I set the showerhead to its strongest setting and gave myself another orgasm and this time I didn't keep it quiet. When I came out of the shower, Brendan had already left for the day.

I met him for lunch, grabbing us a pair of sandwiches from the local bakery and then going to our standard rendezvous in the park. I handed him his diet coke and ham salad sub, left my own lunch sitting in the bag. "Brendan," I said, "we need to talk."

"Right," he said, sneering. "How did I know this was coming?"

I thought about responding, "because I never did," but it seemed facile to describe a symptom of our relationship's problems as the cause. Pretty fucking cruel, too. In any case, as Brendan was wont to do, he kept talking.

"Is it that jerk off lives below you? I heard you with him last night you know."

"I thought you were asleep," I said, regretting it instantly.

"I fucking knew it you bitch! Carrying on – I mean fucking getting out of bed after we'd screwed, like I wasn't going to wake up..."

"So you weren't asleep?"

"Fuck no! I was just trying to get to sleep – then I started wondering what my fucking girlfriend was doing leaving the flat with her pussy hanging out."

"Jesus! Keep your voice down," I hissed. People on the other benches were starting to stare at the foul-mouthed guy and his slutty, unfaithful girlfriend. I continued before he could start talking again. "That was a mistake of mine. His music was keeping me up, I was mad, just didn't realise."

"Yeah right."

"You know what – hell with it. We're through. I don't have to explain myself to you anymore."

He grabbed my wrist. "No, Molly, don't go. Were you sleeping with him?"

"Why do you want to know?"

He shrugged, but he looked so defeated, like a little boy who's lost his toy, so I sat down again. "No, I haven't slept with him."

"You want to, though?"

"I... I don't really know him. I only met him last night. And no, before you ask, I'm not breaking up with you because of him. You and I, well, we both knew from the beginning it wouldn't work out. We're too different."

He didn't say anything, but he let go off my wrist, let it almost fall from his grip.

"Bye, Molly," he said.

"Goodbye, Brendan."

Behind me, thinking I wouldn't hear, he said, "Maybe we're too much the same."

In the end, after much deliberation that was really more a means of justification, I decided to go to the book signing with John. I took a shower and dried my hair, but didn't really style it, then selected my underwear. I was going to wear my fancy little black dress, and I really hated those strapless bras, so I didn't need to worry about that, but I spent a while picking out my panties, certain comments of Brendan's echoing snidely in my head. In the end I settled for a fairly unembellished pair – but ones that were both black and made of silk.