This Year's Love

The thing about your year in Adelaide is that, being at the edge of the world, out of time and out of place, it carried a sense of displacement with it. A sense that nothing was actually real. A sense that followed you out the door and into the busy fall street. And that you carried with you onto the tram to Glenelg in the lowering light.

You weren't sure why you were going or what would happen when you arrived. Arrived wherever it was that the hastily scribbled set of directions were taking you. But you still made an effort to dress the part. Seductively cute, you thought, catching your reflection in a shop window as the tram rolled to a stop. Would there be a seduction? You don't wear that kind of underwear if there isn't going to be a seduction.

The shop window featured a sort of winter scene, so that, as the tram lurched forward again, your reflection looked like it was skating along the ice. What a weird choice to go skating in a short black dress with spaghetti straps. The thought made you laugh a bit, out loud.

Aussies are famously friendly, but in Adelaide not too friendly, you'd found. In a city where everyone seemed to know everyone else, they could be a bit stand off-ish with outsiders. But a bit of thigh could do wonders, if you want to warm people up.

"What's funny?" He asked. It was a good voice. A nice voice. Full of broad Australian 'A's'

You nodded toward the window where your reflection was just sliding off the end of the ice into a gray cement void.

"For the best," he told you. "You're not dressed for it anyway."

He was meant to get off at Victoria Square, you learned later. But instead sat with you all the way to Brighton road. And when you stood to get out, he seemed to wash along behind you. Off the tram and up the road.

When you fumbled the paper with the directions and it floated back toward the tram line, he scooped it up, handed it back and asked "where are we going?"

You thought of a thousand reasons he wasn't coming. But a warm smile opens as many doors as a short skirt, and you were too charmed to object. So along you both drifted, up the road to the address on the paper.

The party was a bust. At least insomuch as he wasn't there. Hadn't been there before you arrived, and never showed before you left. The good underwear for nothing. Perhaps.

But it was also not a bust, in that your companion was as charming as his smile. The two of you existed in a world of your own. The party more an impression of colors that swirled around you, than a tangible thing you were forced to interact with. The music felt muffle d. Even though it was busy enough, you were untouched, un-jostled. The cigarette smoke drifted past without tangling in your hair. And you were secretly thrilled to find yourself in a little bubble with this beautiful person. Enjoying all his focus and attention. All to yourself.

He told you about the city. About how Adelaide was unique in Australia as a free city and how its design of broad avenues and abundant public squares was supposed to reflect the open opportunities available to its residents. He told you about Rymill Park, how it had once been a meeting area of the aboriginal people of the area and how the lake was a man-made construction, just 50 years old.

And while he spoke, his soft gray eyes never strayed from yours. Never traveled down to where you toyed with your short hem. Never lingered on the pendant you wore long enough to lay in your cleavage. A strategic choice that paid no dividends now. Rather than lingering on your curves, his eyes seemed to look beyond yours, seeing the city he described.

The last Royal Hospital tram left at 11:30. You assumed you had hours left, but were surprised to see midnight creeping up on you. What would be a mere half-hour ride was a full two hour walk, if you missed the tram. Not doable in those shoes. Better to run for it than trying to walk the Anzac highway barefoot.

The sun was still up, just, when you had arrived. Now everything looked altered, ghostly in the moonlight. The crash of waves in the distance propelled you up the street. You held your shoes by their straps as you ran, the chunky heels clunking together on each step. With your purse in the other, your hands were too full to take the one he offered. As your legs pumped, the hem of your dress inched higher. But even so, it felt like you floated through the night.

Luckily you made it in time to just catch the tram, which left the Brighton Road stop three minutes later than you'd thought. You were the only two inside, collapsing into your seats and breathing hard.

A strand of hair had escaped and was falling over your face. He reached up a hand to brush it back for you, but then pulled it back, uncertain, his eyes falling down to the low neckline of your dress for the first time since you'd met.

You tucked the hair behind your ear and were about to say something, it's hard now to remember what, when the tram jerked to a start and you were on your way back. You looked ahead for a moment as the tram rolled forward. And when your eyes returned to his face you could see that his were fixed on your lips.

You still don't know what came over you. Your own eyes dropped to his lips and you were just reeled in. Was that the first time you actually touched? When your lips met his.

There was no discussion, but somehow he ended up at the door to your place. Your shoes back on your feet and his hand in yours. You giggled as his lips brushed your neck and you shushed him... or yourself?

Your roommate barely looked up as you tumbled in the door.

"Go well?" she asked over her shoulder, her eyes fixed on the computer in her lap. "Did he show up?"

You made a vague, negative sound and she said, "figures". She never looked up or even noticed your guest. And that was just fine with you. Some things you just want to keep to yourself.

You shut the door to your room softly, pressing the flat of your hand to the frame as if to seal it.

"We should be quiet," you said softly as you reached back to undo the clasp on your dress.

His hand trembled a bit as he reached up to touch your bare side, leaning down to put his mouth back on your neck.

You sighed deeply as you felt him kiss and then nibble there, where you are so sensitive.

You were surprised to find your bra was hanging loose from your shoulders. He'd maneuvered to undo it as if by magic.

But before you took it all the way off, you pushed him lightly back, grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled up. He had to stoop down to let you pull it over his head. By the time he'd shrugged it off his arms, your breasts were bare. You moved your arm vaguely up to cover them, but stopped halfway with small laugh and dropped your arms to your side.

His breath caught in his chest as he noticed you. He just stopped. And looked. Just for a moment.

And then his lips were back on yours. More intense than before. His hand came up to caress you. A thumb brushing over your stiffening nipple.

His mouth tasted of apple and wine and some spice you couldn't put your finger on.

Moments of passion always feel a bit like a dream to you. That moment when your body frees itself from your thoughts and it just moves forward. But even so, that feeling of non-reality that carried you through the night's whole, bizarre adventure, was even stronger now. And in that way of dreams, you found yourself naked on your back, on the bed, without any idea how you'd gotten there from the door where you'd been making out.

You heard your own moans, muffled in the pillow where you'd turned your head to the side. Heard them before you felt them, if that makes any sense. But soon enough the throbbing ache of approaching orgasm caught up to you. The tongue on your clit, the fingers inside you, bringing you right up to the edge. Was that your own voice? Shushing yourself between gasping breaths?

You reached a hand down to grab his hair, but somehow missed the target. And then he had you flailing in your bed and you lost track of what you were trying to do.

You had no idea what exactly he was doing, why it was driving you so crazy, you just knew the approaching climax was going to be extreme. Whatever it was, he had you reduced to a wet, needy cunt and little else. He maybe had his fingers digging into your hip to try to hold you in place.

"Fuck. Me." you just managed to get out in a low growl.

He paused and looked up at you from between your thighs then, his face covered with smears of silvery wet. That moment seemed to stretch out before you, as you hung on the edge of cumming. Your hips making little thrusts at the now missing mouth.

And then he was in you. You felt completely filled up. More than typically. As if his whole body was inside you.

But before you could even question it, the intensity was turned up like a dial. And you were thrashing back and forth in your sheets. One arm thumped against the wall and the other hand grabbed the sheets. You fumbled for the pillow and stuffed it in your face. And then you screamed.

And you didn't stop screaming until the fourth or fifth wave of orgasm had passed over. Your heart, which had threatened to explode out of your chest, began to slow. Your gasping, crying breaths steadied.

You blinked tears from your eyes and stared up at him in wonder. No one had ever... EVER... done that to you. Made you cum like that.

You wanted to tell him. To ask him: "what the fuck WAS that??"

But you noticed his hard cock bobbing near the bed and pounced instead, getting about half of it in your mouth right away.

You wanted to do for him what he had just done for you and so you did everything you could. Licking, sucking, kissing. Squeezing. You sucked on his balls while you stroked his cock. You got it as far into your throat as you could. You smacked his hard cock against your tits, against your tongue, your cheek. You took it out of your mouth and blew on it before dipping your head once again. You stared right up into his eyes as you sucked him. You made love to that dick. You literally worshiped it.

And when he came, you swallowed it all. Every fucking drop. And then sucked on the head to get just that little bit more.

He collapsed next to you on the bed and you curled up into him, shuffling your body half under the bundled sheet. His arm came around you and rested on your breast. You pressed back into him and felt the sheets bunch between you.

Your eyes started to drift closed and you wondered if he would still be there in the morning. The whole night had been so strangely surreal.

But there he was, as the sunlight slid through the gap in the cheap curtains, sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed and watching you.

"Good morning, you," you said. He just smiled.

"Let's get us some coffee," you offered, and wrapped the sheets around you and ventured out of your room.

Your roommate was on the couch. Again? Still? You couldn't tell. And again she barely looked up.

"I'm making coffee, you want some?" you offered.

"Nah, I'm alright," was her only response. You weren't keen on a lot of chit chat with your overnight guest, but she was starting to seem rude. Not worth a confrontation though.

As it happened, he declined the coffee you'd made him and preferred to quietly watch you sip yours at the kitchen counter. You smirked at each other when the roommate's keyboard clacking grew louder and took it as a sign to call it a day.

But once the door was open, you were oddly hesitant to let him walk through it.

"Can you close the door?" your roommate called from the couch. So you let it shut behind you and rested your back against the outside of the door, feeling the cool where the sheet had fallen a bit and you made direct contact.

He lent down again, then, and kissed you lightly on your lips. You smiled and brushed a lock of hair out of your face. "Will I see you again?" you wanted to know.

He smiled and told you he hoped so. But he said it with a kind of shrug, like it wasn't entirely in his control.

Your sheets started to slip off your shoulder. And, not fancying giving the neighbors an eye full, you stooped over to gather them up again. An oddly cool breeze blew through the hallway and you took an extra moment to pull the sheets tighter. By the time you straightened back up, he had just... faded away. This sudden disappearance only added to the sense of displacement that permeated the whole experience.

Slipping back in the front door, you saw your roommate had finally got off the couch. She was sipping the abandoned cup of coffee at the kitchen counter.

"You know, I thought I didn't want this, but it's actually just what I needed. Thanks for making it anyway."

You didn't know how to respond to that so you just gave a half smile.

"Party was a total bust then, huh?" She asked. "That guy's a total player, you're better off anyway. I'm sure someone better will turn up sooner or later. Just keep an open mind."

In the days that followed, you waited to hear from him. Then expecting turned to hoping. Then hoping to frustration. But no call came. Not, you realized, that he'd taken your number. But he did know where you lived.

You asked after him, but no one had a clue who you meant. "What guy at the party?" and "Were you even there, I didn't see you?" was all you got back.

Even your roommate was no help at all. Perhaps not so surprising.

"I actually have no idea what you're talking about. You never bring guys back here," was all she said.

You'd wanted to keep him to yourself, but not like this. At first you were angry, feeling used. Then you felt a bit embarrassed.

Had he used you? There had been nothing predatory about him. And you had gotten back at least as much as you gave.

In time you stopped hoping, stopped looking, stopped checking out trams. But you never stopped thinking about him, about that crazy night, about how he had made your body sing.

And as you boarded the plane back to Chicago that August, you looked out at the crowd of people in the terminal. Your reflection in a shop window with a winter scene had you sitting on another block of ice. And then, just for a moment, you saw him in the reflection, sitting there with you, his arm reaching out to hold you one more time.