Summer of Sydney

"Do you have some kind of... arrangement?"

"Only that he knew who I was when we decided we were dating. And that I wasn't going to change for him or anybody."

"Does he do the same thing?"

"I don't think so. Maybe a few times. I'm not sure he cares to. He's a decent lay. Really generous in bed. He's just not a very sexual person."

"They why date him?"

She narrowed her eyes. "It isn't all about sex, you know. It's nice to have something steady, something to rely on."

Everything she was saying was reasonable in its own strange way. I was having to work through a lot of new emotions very quickly. I had been badly off I was in my expectations. I had no right to demand anything.

So why did it feel like I was being dumped?

I asked her, "What was that night in the van about?"

She rubbed her temples and sighed.

"God, that was such a hard shift. I kept thinking, 'As soon as I'm out of here, I'm going to give myself something nice.' I kept looking over at you while we were working. More and more, I thought, 'He'll do.'"

"So you were just using me."

"Isn't that every straight guy's fantasy? A girl who wants no-strings-attached sex, and you don't even have to pay for it?"

"I felt like you were just..."

Masturbating. Jilling off. Wanking. Having a date with Rosie Palms.

"...getting yourself off on me."

She whisper-laughed. "Yeah, I guess I did get my orgasm and get out. But was it really that bad? I like rubbing it out on someone else's body. Especially with a cock to fill me up. It makes it nicer."

I felt a twinge in me, a response to this short but sweet description of our night together from her perspective. I was dimly aware that I'd had an erection ever since she told me about the threesome with Eliza.

Even in hindsight, I'm not sure I could articulate what I felt. Sydney might have been willing to fuck my brains out. But there was a gulf between what I thought I wanted from her and what she could give me.

She saw me searching for the words.

"Sorry, bud," she said. "I'm a slut."

I was doing a lot of rapid-fire reconsidering of a lot of things.

"Okay," I began. "'Slut' seems kind of judgmental."

She shrugged.

"Can I kiss you?"

She shrugged again, then leaned down, took the back of my head into her hand like she had several nights before, and kissed me. Obscenely, possessively, licking and sucking my tongue as if giving a blowjob.

Okay. If sex was all that mattered to me, maybe I didn't need a steady partner.

She pushed me against the side of the van. Our pelvises came together.

Maybe all I needed was Sydney, or women like her. Women who would let me have these fleeting moments with them, but would never be mine or anyone else's. Women who wanted only sex, freely given, freely taken.

I swallowed a mouthful of spit. Hers or mine, I don't know, a little of both. I could feel her thumbs pulling down my waistband. My cock was out, sandwiched between our bodies. She shimmied her shorts down.

This was different from what I had envisioned for myself. But maybe it was what I needed.

IV.

Sydney humped me against the van, uncaring that her prodigious ass and legs were exposed, or about the echo of clapping noises. With her height advantage, my cock was angled perfectly inside her soft pussy.

As soon as her wet mouth released mine, I said, "I have a condom in the van."

"You really want to stop now?" she breathed into my ear, hot breath on the side of my face.

I shook my head no. In that moment, it was the absolute truth.

"Then fuck a condom."

She kept humping me, and, god, her pussy felt good on my bare cock. I felt surprisingly turned on by the weight of her, soft but powerful, pushing into me and holding me in place. Pinned. Helpless. Submissive.

When I came, I had well and truly stopped giving a fuck that it was just me and her and nothing in between, that we were fucking without any attempt at restraint, that my semen was decorating her insides.

After the last one or two feeble pulses of my softening hard-on, she moved her hips, releasing me. For a moment, we stood there, pressed together against the van, breathing heavily, my cock on her thigh.

Then she pulled away from me, and our legs and lower bellies peeled apart, the sticky sweat of work and of the nighttime heat, so much sweat, pouring from us, slick and inexhaustible. I didn't mind.

Then she had me open the van. I did as I was told. She bunched up some of my things on the floor and laid back on them, legs spread in the doorway, very casual about showing me her pussy for the first time.

"I made you come," she said, looking up at me as I stared down at her in bewilderment. "Turnabout is fair play."

"You want me to..."

"I want you to put your face in my pussy. Make me come."

Again, I did as I was told. I tried to ignore the rough asphalt that bit into the skin of my knees, or that I hadn't put my shorts back on and anyone could have seen my ass and balls under the street lights.

It was that warm, wan light in that hot nighttime air that lit Sydney's naked lower body like a beacon.

She was utterly unshy about the closeness of my face, of my deeply personal vantage point. Her pussy lips were plump, dusted with dark, untrimmed curls that covered her from her pubis down to her buttcrack.

She looked at me, sighting down her body and between her pale thighs like a marksman with a gun. She seemed impatient.

"I know it's pretty," she said, "but I didn't take it out for air."

I leaned in. She was fragrant with sweat and sex and the funk of a long, hard work day. This was her first respite. I was anxious to make it worth her time. I gave an experimental lick, right up the middle.

"Don't just tickle it," she complained. "Don't worry. It won't break."

I licked her again, more forcefully this time, from bottom to top, the tip of my tongue penetrating just a little bit. At the apex, I could feel her hard clit in its hood between the folds of soft, fat flesh.

The taste on my tongue was complex, the buttery funk of a horny girl combined with the staleness of sweat. I glanced up from under my brows, scanning her for approval. She watched me, a half-lidded stare.

"Spread me apart," she said. "Use your fingers."

I pressed two fingers into her and made a V. Her pale, hairy lips parted, revealing vivid pink. A fat pearl of white cum had seeped out and beaded up at the bottom, the pollen between two rose petals.

Even as I said it, I worried that I might offend her. But I didn't know how else to handle it.

"Should I grab some tissue first?" I asked.

"I know what's down there," she said. "I want you to lick me clean."

She was utterly comfortable with her nudity, her vulnerability, but nevertheless gave orders with total confidence. I hadn't offended her. And, if I didn't want to screw this up, I had to keep it that way.

I put my lips on her, at the base of her opening--that liminal spot between outside and inside, between her clit and her asshole. With the tip of my tongue, I touched my own cum, and suckled it into my mouth.

Maybe the extreme horniness clouded my judgment, but it wasn't that bad. A little savory, a little bitter, the texture of thick snot. I swallowed, licked, swallowed again, until all I could taste was her.

Being horny is like being drunk. Your decisionmaking gets... liberated.

I made a hash of it at first. (I was out of practice.) But, with her coaching, plus no fewer than three fingers inside her, I found her sweet spot, just under her clit. I kissed, I sucked, I tongued.

It must have worked for her. She gripped my head and squeezed my face into her. My nose mashed into her fleshy pubis. She ground me, her body vibrated. My chin and cheeks were smeared with spit and girlcum.

Then the life went out of her limbs. She laid totally slack, her bare legs dangling partway out of the van, her skin shiny with cooling sweat. I couldn't help myself. I stared, drinking in the sight of her.

I was a mess, covered in bodily fluids. As I came back to awareness, I was reminded of how hot and humid the outdoor was, even at night, and that I was dying of thirst. I guessed that Sydney felt the same way.

"Maybe we should clean up and get a drink somewhere," I said.

V.

I had envisioned going out to a bar. But with both of us a mess, and still in our work clothes, Sydney suggested against it. The rear booth of a late night diner seemed more appropriate.

The bathroom was a single occupant affair, with flickering lights and discoloration on every surface, like something out of a horror movie. Sydney and I took turns getting ourselves correct. I went first.

I gave myself a once-over, then washed my face repeatedly, trying to neutralize the telltale scent. I don't know what Sydney did, but she looked brand new, gliding out of the bathroom on long, powerful legs.

Sydney sipped on a glass of water. I had soda that was quickly watered down by melting ice. Sitting across from her, I was reminded of how unassuming she looked, when the situation wasn't sexually charged.

I had thought we were in for some kind of reckoning, some way of making sense out of whatever the hell it was that we were doing together. But no reckoning came. We just chatted. It was kind of nice.

I learned that she liked the feeling of bare cocks, of cum. She had a hormonal birth control implant, so pregnancy wasn't a worry. She got tested regularly for STIs and insisted that her partners do likewise.

When I admitted I'd never been tested, she told me, "I took one look and figured it had been long enough for you that you were in the clear."

Okay. Harsh, but fair.

Nevertheless, she insisted that I get tested a couple times a month. ("Do it on recycling days and you'll never forget," she suggested.) She offered to bring me with her to her next visit to the clinic.

Then the conversation turned a little more personal. Without going into detail--we weren't that kind of friends--she confided that her boyfriend was headed to France soon to live there for six months.

"Must be hard on a relationship," I said.

"We had a long talk about whether or not it makes sense to stay together," she said, staring into her water. "I wish I could say we got it all worked out. But it just made things more rocky."

I was tempted to ask if fucking other people was contributing to the tension, now that her relationship was uncertain. But that wasn't any of my business. And I didn't want to fuck up a good thing for myself.

As if sensing my thoughts, she said, "I'm not about to change who I am or what I do for anybody. And I don't expect him to carry a torch for me while he's gone. I'm not that kind of person."

I said, "But it still sucks to lose what you have."

"Yeah," she said. "It does."

"I hope you can work it out," I said.

It was a lie. But it was better to tell her what she needed to hear.

"Yeah," she said.

Nothing else happened that night. We shared a chaste wave goodbye and went our separate ways.

For a couple weeks, through the heaviest part of summer, we were in a pattern. If we worked the same closing shift-- which we did, a few times a week--we fucked. It was the more or less the same every time.

We would clock out and go out to the parking lot. Sometimes, to one of our cars, but it was so sweltering, even in the night, that we usually just did it standing up outside. Always quick, no funny business.

The parking lot was our intimate space. We'd still never been to each other's homes, never been in each other's beds, never even seen one another fully naked. We always did it with clothes on, or bottomless.

One night, we had just pulled our shorts back up. We were leaning against the van, waiting for our heart rates to come back down.

She murmured, "My little stress reliever," as if talking about a cigarette.

"I bet you say that to all the boys," I joked.

"Some of them, yeah."

"Do you always do it standing up in a parking lot?"

"Only with the ones who are short enough to get it in standing up."

"Rude."

She looked over at me and smiled. It occurred to me that this was the first time I could remember her looking at me with a kind of tenderness. Not that she was unfriendly... just not tender.

She said, "You've probably noticed that I love an upright quickie. And it only works with men who are a few inches shorter than me."

"Then I guess it's good that you're tall."

"There are a lot of ways that being a tall woman sucks. I might as well get what I can out of it."

"I love that you're tall. I think you're beautiful."

She shrugged and went back to staring into the middle distance.

Okay, noted. No physical compliments.

There was something I had been curious about.

"Do you ever do this with women?" I asked.

"Do what with women?"

"The upright quickie."

"I've done it with all kinds of people. Between women and other genders, men might actually be in the minority."

I felt it again. That flush, up to my hairline, like that night she told me about her boyfriend, her ex-boyfriend, the threesome with Eliza, the night she turned my picture of her life upside down.

I think she understood my silence.

"I was a lesbian in high school," she said. "I was into girls, and the boys were already calling me a dyke anyway. I was big, I wasn't very feminine, I played sports. I decided to lean into the stereotype."

"But you're not a lesbian anymore."

"I'm not an anything."

"Everybody's a something."

"I've been with all kinds of people. Different shapes, different sizes, different ways of doing it. It's just sex."

"That's inspiring."

She laughed.

I was getting hard again, imagining the life she'd had, humbled by the kind of worldliness I could only hope to have. I did nothing to hide the bulge in my shorts, and of course she noticed it right away.

"Sorry, bud, I have to get home," she said. "Your cum is soaking into my boxers."

We hugged and kissed. That sucking, sexualized Sydney kiss. Our sweat dampened each other's clothes anew. Then I watched her get into her car and drive away. The woman I barely knew, who I could barely know.

I wanted to experience all that she had experienced, with her. But it was sinking in that summer would end soon and our jobs would be over. We were inevitably headed for the lives we'd had before we ever met.

I stood there a while before I could bring myself to get in the van and go home for the night.

VI.

Sydney showed up at work one day in a stormy mood. She didn't say anything, at least, not to me, but she radiated bad vibes. I didn't get a chance to speak to her, but I don't know that I would have.

That day, I saw her saying something to Martha, who was the supervisor on duty. Then I saw her clock out and leave early. That night, I closed down, clocked out, went straight to my car, and went home.

The next few shifts I would have normally shared with her, she was out. I didn't know if she was sick or if she was called away. I hoped to hell that she hadn't resigned. But I wasn't the kind to ask around.

A week went by without seeing or hearing from Sydney. On Saturday, the most brutal night of the week, Samantha told everyone she was playing a show that night--"a gig," she said--at an open air bar downtown.

"I know it's late and everyone's tired," she said, "but I hope people come."

I was feeling destroyed. But, I figured, what the hell. I wasn't busy.

After I clocked out, I drove downtown, found street parking about 46 blocks away from the venue, and arrived in the middle of Samantha's set. She sat on a stool, singing and strumming an acoustic guitar.

Most of the people at the bar were chatting with each other at their tables. Nobody was up front rocking out. It wasn't that kind of show.

I sat there nursing a virgin cocktail (yeah, I'm a pussy) and politely clapped at the end of each song. It wasn't my kind of music--it was a kind of yodely '90s singer-songwriter type thing--but she was good.

At the end of her set, she came over to see me. I was surprised to learn that I was the only one from work who'd turned up.

"Thanks, love," she said. "I'm going to break down and put my stuff away, then I'll come back."

"I can help. If you don't mind."

She grinned her big, crinkly grin. "Really?"

I nodded.

"You're the best," she said.

Then she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. Just a sweet little peck, mind you. But, I shit you not, I felt butterflies. The smell of her hair, of the ocean, made me feel drunk. I was instantly hard.

I helped her carry her stuff to her car. It wasn't much--the stool and the P.A. belonged to the venue, she explained. But she'd brought the guitar, a small amp for it, and a bag with all the other accessories.

We stood next to her car, a hippie girl station wagon not dissimilar to Sydney's.

"Can I thank you properly?" Samantha asked me.

"Like what?"

"We could go back to my place and have a coffee."

My brain literally formulated the complete sentence, "Thanks, but if I have coffee now, I'll be up all night." But--in a moment of immense personal growth--I stopped myself from speaking the words out loud.

"Alright, let's go," I said.

She drove me to my van, then I followed her to her place. It was a two bedroom house that, I would later learn, she rented with another girl who was out of town to visit family. When we got there, it was dark.

She gave me the grand tour, which I was not thinking about in the moment at all, nor would I ever. All I could think about as I followed her was her scent, the way she moved in her cropped t-shirt and skirt.

We got to her room. It was small, cluttered, but cute, furnished exactly how you'd think someone like Samantha would furnish the only space in the house that was solely hers. Colorful, lots of trinkets.

Then she went quiet. She stood in the room, I stood in the doorway. She had an expectant sort of smile on her face. She was near the bed, but there was nowhere in the room you could stand and not be near it.

Once, I had asked Sydney if I could kiss her. I had never tried that kind of direct approach with a woman before, and it surprised me when it worked better than I could have hoped. I decided to try it again.

"Do you mind if I come in and shut the door?" I asked.

"Sure," she said, still smiling. Her eyes crinkled behind her thick plastic frames.

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. The room was full of her scent. I was close to her. I kind of had to be.

"Can I kiss you?" I asked.

"Sure."

She made no move. I put my hand gently on the back of her head, leaned in--she was just a little shorter than me, and kissed her lips. She opened her mouth and the tips of our tongues touched sweetly.

I pulled her to me, making sure she could feel my erection upright against her lower belly. She put her arms over my shoulders and pressed into me likewise, her nipples poking me through her shirt.

When the kiss broke, she said, "Should we get on the bed?" A suggestion more than a question.

We made out on her bed a while, that intoxicating ocean scent filling my head, her on her back, me on top at sort of an angle. It was an awkward affair at first. She was the world's most enthusiastic corpse.

Then I asked her if I could take her clothes off. She sat up and took her shirt off. As I'd surmised, she had no bra on. She had big tits for such a slim girl, with big hard nipples and little pale areolas.

She laid back down. I helped her out of her skirt. She had on a plain black thong; I helped her out of that, too. Samantha was clean-shaven pretty much from the neck down, belying her whole bohemian getup.

"Women doing whatever they want with their body hair is the new counterculture," she said.

Either she could hear my thoughts, or she'd had enough encounters with people who had the same reaction to her grooming habits that she was now coming into them with remarks she'd prepared ahead of time.