Drought

It hasn’t rained in weeks. The Dog River, which splits this town between above and below, high and low, drip coffee and latte art, has drained to nothing. Under the bridge at State Street a bicycle rises from the mud. 

But today, change is in the air as the iron of summer presses any remaining moisture from the dry earth, sending it skyward to chill, darken and coalesce before returning in buckets. Today, it will rain.

I stick my head out the shop door and look down Main Street through hazy heat. To the west — looming, building, thickening — the sky is blue-black. Bold. Beautiful? Possibly disastrous. 

Pedestrians scoot to the shelter of cars and other places, pointing at the approaching wall.

I return to work at the bench, finishing up a belt with dark stain, red border stitching, stamped antique roses, and dancing skeletons. 

When she commissioned the belt a few weeks ago, we’d never met. She came in and circled the store. I glanced up more than I ever do. What I saw gave a grateful jolt to a sleepy afternoon. 

Tall, fitted jeans, a tumble of hair, glittery eyes, wide smile. At her shoulder, the strap of a bra, barely visible. I followed with my eyes, and allowed myself a daydream. 

In it, she browsed as I watched. She stopped, glanced my way, locking my eyes for an extra second. My hands held in mid-air as my chest fluttered.

She leaned forward, looking at me, and slid her right hand down, over the cup of her breast, past the top button of her pants into the space where her thighs came together. I set my needle down, still attached to the red thread. 

Her thumbs reached under her waistband to peel her pants and underwear over the round of her ass in slow motion. I imagined the view from behind; the crack of her ass, opening. I stared into short hairs at the ribbon. Her right hand went to her mouth then to her pussy. 

I move towards her. She spreads her ass, inviting me. I lick the split, my tongue pushing inside, then stand, unbuttoning, springing free. I slide in, thinning the skin where she stretches over me… 

“These are sweet,” she said from across the room, holding up a single antique glass from a set of four.

I tried to respond. 

“If those glasses could talk,” I said, fumbling my words.

She continued her browsing, picking over my collections of old and new: boots I’ve resoled, solid cologne, handmade wallets.

After a lap of looking, she came to the bench and asked about designing a piece for her brother, the front man for a Grateful Dead cover band. We laughed at my admission that the Dead don’t do it for me 

A week later, I saw her at the COOP, standing in the bulk section at lunchtime.

“That’s a lot of rice,” I said, rolling my words in a quiet tone past the thick-cut oats. 

“Oh, it’s you,” she quipped, aping my soft volley, “the Dead fan.” 

“Going to a wedding?” I said, smiling at the arborio.

“People don’t do that anymore, you know, it kills the birds.” 

“Really? OK, second guess: You’re opening an horchata stall at the farmer’s market?”

“Close. Paella for 10. Book club dinner night.” 

“I should have bought stock in saffron.”

“And #10 prawns,” she added, gesturing to the haul of packaged seafood in the cart. 

“Chilled Cava, too?” I said, following with a whistle.

We laughed. There was a pause. It continued.

I was there to grab a sandwich. I felt her surveying me. 

“Well…I’ll let you get to your shopping. You have fun tonight.” And I was off with a wink. She winked back. 

After lunch today I finished the belt.

Now, in the distance I hear a rumble. At the shop door I stare out into veiled light. Dusk in June is hours away but not today. Gray slides in overhead like a lid closing on light to the east. 

I switch everything to lamp light, setting the shop aglow in soft pools. I grab my favorite rocks glass, add ice, and twist the cork out of a bottle of rye. The ice seizes and squeaks.  

I walk to the door and flip the sign to Closed as the first drops hit the front window with an outsized slap. The sound grows from intermittent to constant: a white wall of noise. Gusts build, sidewalk traffic shifts from hurried to running. In an instant the rain is so heavy that I can't see the other side of the street. 

Lightning strikes like a flash camera, then a boom. A figure runs full speed past the shop then quickly doubles back, ducks under the awning, and comes to the door. 

I open it a crack, just wide enough to say, “closed,” and slam it shut before a response is possible.

I wait a long second, the roar of rain builds, then I reopen it, more slowly than necessary.

It’s her. Soaked, gorgeous, dripping.

“Not funny!” she says. “I’m gonna drown out here. Then how would you feel?”

“Well, you didn’t pay yet, so pretty bad, honestly,” I say, surveying her soaked state. It’s as though she were thrown in a pool and dunked.

She stands just inside the door, water forming moats around each shoe. Her hair is drenched — her jacket, her jeans, her socks and, I’m assuming her bra and underwear, too. Waterlogged. 

As I take stock, drink in one hand, I delight in the fact that we’re going to be here for a minute while the storm rages. 

“You want some warm clothes?” 

“That would be great, actually.”

I go to my dresser in the back and pull clean sweats, a hoodie, socks, and a pair of lambskin house shoes, then return to where she stands in her puddle perimeter. 

“How’s this? One size fits all,” I say. “And there’s a bathroom in the back — you can leave your things on the hooks in there. There’s a shower and towels.”

“But can I place a cocktail order?” she says, raising an eyebrow at my glass. 

“We are pretty busy tonight…” I respond with a mock frown. “But let me see what we can do.” Pause. “Table for…one?”

“Two.” 

“Oh!” I laugh. “This way please.”

She leaves her jacket and shoes by the door to drain. I lead to the back and point to the bathroom. 

“How about an old-fashioned?” 

“Yes, please,” she says, and heads into the bathroom. 

I wrap the belt and place it in a cedar box with a business card then add the lid and a blank card and envelope for a note.  

I mix her drink — rye whiskey, a luxardo cherry, twist of orange peel, a handful of ice. I move to the sitting area and sit on the couch. I glance to the front where the world is getting pushed sideways. 

After a bit she returns, perfectly snuggled in the sweats. Her hair is toweled off, I catch the light scent of the bodywash I keep in the shower. I see her breasts swing their tips under the hoodie, nipping shapes against the fabric.

She sits and takes a sip. I go to the bathroom to wash up. Closing the door, I see her soaked jeans, a black top, a beautiful bra — blue like a robin’s egg with sand-colored embroidery — and a matching pair of underwear: low rise, hipsters. In a second I’m back to the daydream. Back to the rush of wanting her. I push down the impulse to mash them against my face and breathe in whatever bit of her remains in the fabric that spent the day cradling her pussy like a hammock. I feel flood gates open in valves below my belt, blood rushing, dizzy, swirling into blackness. I splash water on my face, towel off, and return to the couch but not before feeling the fabric of her lingerie between my thumb and forefingers. Just touching. That’s it. 

In the shotgun shape of the shop, we’re 30 feet from the bay windows and the storm. Brick walls and low lamps give the space a heavy comfort: intimate, protected, fortified. I couldn’t have lit the scene better for this stormy day.

She’s lounging on the couch when I come back. Comfortable, feet up. 

We chat. Wind flexes the bay window with a creek and wobble. Birds have gone to their secret places, a lone car creeps past, lights cutting a swath of yellow light. Storm drains chug water like a parlor trick, sending it into the Dog. Choked troughs and sloughs lose weedy blockages. The bicycle at the bridge feels water on its pedals. 

We talk through the town — nude sunbathing to gas station Indian food — but we don’t dip fully into anything particular. Sincere, yes. Interesting, yes. Fun? Yes. But the elephant in the room, the thing that we’re headed for, has nothing to do with any of this. After a few minutes and another pause, I gather my courage and say it.  

“Can I kiss you?”

She holds. I wonder if I’ve misread things. She takes a slow breath then nods. 

“If I can kiss you back…” she says. Seriously.

I place my drink on the table and close the gap between us. I lean in, nuzzle her cheek with my nose then reach with my right hand to the back of her head, weaving my fingers into her hair. My cheek against her cheek, nose against her ear lobe, it’s tender. More softness than sex. And slow. My lips brush her mouth and circle down to her neck. Surveying. Smelling. Knots twist in my stomach. 

I come back up and we kiss. Close-mouthed, press of lips, tender.  

“Hi,” I say, softly. “You doing alright?”

“Mm-hmm,” she responds, in a quiet tone. We’re talking like we might be overheard, hushed. 

“I’ve been thinking about you,” I say.

“I know.”

“Obvious?”

“I mean…”

“Should work on my game.”

“I don’t mind...”

“You mean, you don’t mind if I undress you with my eyes while you browse?”

“I’d mind if I wasn’t doing the same thing—”

“I should have said something…”

“Naaah, let the tension build. But when I saw you at the COOP, you could have—”

“I didn’t want to assume…”

“You saw me looking, right?”

“Maybe?”

“Well, I was checking you out.” 

“What were you thinking?”

“Just wondering how you feel under your shirt. How you smell.” 

I turn my neck and move close to her face, offering myself.

She inhales. 

“Mmmmmmmmmm,” she says, barely audible. “Cedar, citrus.”

“Sandalwood and bergamot,” I say, smiling, “comes in two sizes.” 

Her nose goes back to my neck for another nip. Outside, the wind pushes the downpour through in waves that sound like we’re in a car wash. At the sunken intersection of State and Main, water is up to the curbs, forming some oddly-placed swimming pool. Crosswalks and traffic lines are swim lanes under rising waters.  

With her chin at my collarbone she traces the muscle that runs from my sternum to behind my ear with her tongue. Slowly. She’s saying, here’s how I’ll lick you. Here’s how I’ll feel your skin in my mouth change from shining head to shaft as you slide past pressed lips. The suggestion shuttles blood into the cramped space behind my button-flys. I move my hand to the ache without thinking, and squeeze.  

Her head on my shoulder, she notices. “You ok?” she whispers.

“Um-hmmmm.”

She comes to my mouth, open. Wet tongue, whiskey lips. Her left hand rests on my leg just above the knee. My heart races. She kisses me and slides fingers along the denim, moving up until there’s no place left to go. She cups me through the jeans, then squeezes, harder than I expected. I grind the chords in my throat. She makes her own noise: a sigh, a release.

Under her breath, mouth in my ear, she lets her voice out slowly. “You like that.”

I respond with a noise that says, “Yes,” but not in any language. 

I lay against the back cushions of the couch. Wind rattles the door against the deadlock. She takes my right hand, moves it to my belt buckle, and looks into my eyes. Unbutton.

A younger me would have been shy at this moment. Reluctant. But here I am, comfortable. Relaxed, willing. If it turns her on to watch, here I am, all of me, start to finish.

I release my buckle, pop the fly, and pull open my jeans. There, under the fabric of my underwear, the form of me is clear and hardening. I slide my hand under the waistband, our eyes meet. I feel anticipation streaming through her eyes and let myself sink into the sensation of want. The quiet, no-place-else-to-be of this moment where time and space and a world defined only by what we can feel, touch, taste, or hold, sends a wave of intoxication over me. I’m drunk, drug-woozy, rapt. Everything but her and this heat falls away.  

I adjust myself, pointing my tip upwards, towards my belly inside my underwear. With a look into my eyes her hand cups me over the underwear. I feel warmth through the fabric as my heart hammers and my breath quickens.  

Holding me, she pushes down in a way that lengthens everything. I flex upwards, into the tightness. Her hand strokes me over the fabric then her thumb slips under the band of my underwear as she slowly begins to slide it down, revealing me. She looks in my eyes again, longer than a glance, then continues, pulling the fabric an inch at a time. Where her thumb holds the waistband I feel her skin. When she reaches the base, stretching the material downward, she pauses again. The look in her eye — serious, hungry, vulnerable — makes me think she might suck me in, speeding us into another gear where she straddles and slides me inside. Instead, she takes my hand and places it where I’m hard. Show me.

I understand. 

“You want to see?” I say, quietly, as she leans in to kiss.

She nods slowly, unblinking, her lower lip held in her teeth.

I push my pants to my knees and lay back, head resting on a cushion. I pull my t-shirt up so that I’m nothing but warm skin, abs, and hip bones. If she wants to see, I want to show her. 

I start slowly. My hand runs across my stomach then searches around to the dark space of my ribs. We look at each other. Where there were jokes there are straight faces. Where there were smiles, the mood turns more desperate. 

She kisses my chest — gently, close-mouthed, right above my nipple — then places her cheek on me, settling, ready for the show.

If the length of me, rising off my abdomen, is a bullseye, at first I aim for the outer rings. Running hands across my quads I grip and flex, tighten, then release. I lift my ass and slide my hand underneath, cupping, firming, relaxing, enjoying the smooth skin, teasing and delaying the moment where I grip myself. 

My legs open and I slide into the space between, moving underneath, into the crack of my ass, and around to the base of my tailbone then back towards the front, slowly, surveying where I open, the skin between, then the loose tissue of my balls where I roll them in my fingers, enjoying the relaxed skin, a slick pouch.

Coming up, I run light fingertips over the entire shape, finally feeling the charge and tingling surge after making myself wait. I open my right knee, laying my leg on the couch. My left hand falls into the space below, pulling downward on the skin at the base. The right hand delivers a squeeze and rhythm that I’ve been dying to feel. With my thumb on the side facing me and the remaining fingers underneath, directly on the midline below the head, I move up and down, base to tip, with a rhythm that’s light with pressure but steady. I immediately feel the tension build as I turn my head to kiss her.

The storm won’t pass quickly. Her lips circle mine — full mouth and tongue —  as her hand dips between my thighs, circling, caressing, conjuring, stirring this pot of warm skin and blood.

She moves off the couch and slowly comes to standing, holding eye contact in a way that says, Don’t stop. She steps out of the house shoes then tucks fingers under her waistband and lowers the sweats. It’s a slow reveal — look what I’ve got, trimmed hair, beautiful lips, sweeping thighs — she’s so beautiful that it hurts. I want to stop everything that involves me and throw myself against her, smelling, tasting, feeling. 

Pants off, she comes back to the couch and sits sideways, facing me. Leaning back, one leg slides to the floor, the other leans against the back cushion, opening. There it is. She moves her hand over her thighs, across the round of her belly, then down, brushing through hair, across her lips and underneath to her ass, then back up. My mouth soaks itself as I watch. My left hand rests on her thigh, my right hand quickens. 

She moves the middle three fingers of her hand to my mouth. I kiss, then wet them on my tongue. The fingers go directly to her pussy, circle her clitoris, then dip lower, adding wet to wet, before moving in a circle that presses through folds and creases, feeling the swelling bump of her in the middle. She pauses to unzip the hoodie then runs her palm over nipples that firm as they feel air and skin. Her fingers return to my mouth in a gesture that feels like a gift, letting me smell and taste her. Her left hand joins, slipping a finger inside as her pelvis tucks itself towards the sensation. 

“Beautiful,” I say. Low tones, slowly, I can barely get the words out through the building tension. 

Her response is a slightly open mouth and a furrowed expression like somewhere, on a hidden part of her body, someone is pinching her. Pain and satisfaction, like pressing on a bruise.

My speed increases, our paces match. She comes closer, pushing my pants below my knees. Kneeling on the couch, she straddles my left leg and puts her hand on my chest to steady. But rather than sitting on my cock, she sinks down onto my thigh placing the wet of her pussy and folds onto my leg, pressing against the muscle. With her right hand rubbing, she grinds a rhythm, inches from where I stroke, so hard. 

I can tell she’s close. The expression of pain intensifies, as she presses and slides on my leg. I’m gonna cum. She wets her hand again and grabs my cock, squeezing, pumping, pressing — faster, faster — until we explode, bucking, shuddering, shaking, trembling. She grinds through the convulsions, breath held, exhaling in bursts. Her hand strokes it out, cum running down her fingers. My hand cups her ass as she slides back and forth. 

I’m not even soft yet but I’m already imagining ahead to how I might lick her. How we might outlast the storm. How we’ll emerge to walk soaked streets, kiss at a submerged intersection, and cut our way through a summer night only to return to my buckle and her waistband. No more drought.  

She climbs off my leg and snuggles in next to me, knee draped over, pussy against my thigh, wordless. My cock slowly recedes on my belly as the storm rumbles away. The shape of us, spoons in a drawer.

~~Epilogue~~

Outside on the street, it’s as light as it’s been for two hours. Dusky, fresh, gutters pour the excess. We quietly dress and decide to look around. 

On Main everything feels scrubbed. An umbrella, deployed but flattened and spread, blocks a storm drain. I nudge it, releasing the backup.

A guy stands in front of our slice shop, apron on, surveying things. 

“You open?” I ask. 

“Yup.”

“Upstairs, too?” 

“Yeah, he’s there,” he says as we follow him inside. 

“Could I get two cheese for upstairs?” I ask. 

“I’ll bring ‘em up.”

We walk to the back of the shop and take the narrow stairs to the second floor where some hipsters have opened a cocktail bar that relies on slices from downstairs for food. 

We find a quiet corner and order drinks, sitting side by side at a banquette.

“I feel a little overdressed,” I say, smiling. She’s still wearing the sweats I gave her. 

“You seemed to like my outfit a few minutes ago,” she says, demure. 

The reminder is like putting my finger in a socket. I feel myself flush with want, we have unfinished business.

Our slices come — reheated, crisp, just greasy enough to satisfy — and we sip through our spagetts: Miller High Life with a shot of aperol. Every time she gestures, her breasts swing, braless under the hoodie. I think about her lack of underwear. I inhale the musky sweetness on my face and wonder how it would feel to slip inside her, the expression on her face contorting as she takes me.

I must’ve frozen with these thoughts. She tilts her head and catches my eye. 

“Hi.”

“Sorry, thinking about....” 

“About?”

“Um.” Pause. “Is it too early to ask you on a second date?”

She scoots in, no space between us.

“I think we’re already on it.”

I reach around and ratchet her into me, shoulder to my chest, hip to hip.

My hand slides around her, pulling her in. She turns her head and we kiss. I feel life returning to where it had been sleeping.

“Cheers to second dates,” I say, softly. We clink. 

Walking back we take the alley route. Daylight wanes as stars play peek-a-boo behind puffy clouds. We pass the shadowed back ends of buildings that face Main. 

She pulls me into a doorway, arched brick and shadow. We kiss. My hands find her waist band and slide inside. Warm, smooth. An ache builds as I cup under and feel the weight of two halves in my hands. My right slips around to the front, then down, cupping her. Fingers over short hairs and folds. Heart racing, I circle the area with light pressure. She reaches for my buckle, opens my pants and drops, catching all of me in her mouth before I’m completely full. I brace myself with a hand as the sensation of suction and being swallowed whole buckles me. I harden and fill, growing in her mouth. 

She sucks briefly on the tip then stands, our movements speeding. My turn, I push her sweats to her knees and kneel, face into her crotch. She opens her angle and presses into me, hand on the back of my head as my tongue lays a swath of moisture into her folds. I wet my finger, and circle underneath, then find her clitoris with my tongue. She raises me to my feet and pulls me in, facing her. I unbutton my shirt, she unzips the hoodie. I lick her nipples as she brings me towards her. She wants me to fuck her. I lower slightly and she guides me, moving to gather wet before I disappear inside, a half slide, wet the shaft, then a full push into her. I hold her up with her ass against me and we’re immediately into a high gear. Fuck me. 

She slows, takes me out and turns around, placing hands on the wall. I’m immediately reminded of the daydream. Tip inside, her head arched over her shoulder, every inch of me buried inside her. I lean back, fucking up, into her, spreading her ass open with hands on either side. Alley light streaks in, showing where she opens, slick skin stretched over me. She drops her right hand to her clitoris and rubs as I bang into her, jostling with each entry. Fuck. My right hand raises as her energy quickens. I slap the meat of her ass so hard that there will be a mark in the morning. I’m going to cum. I feel her begin to buck as the surge of cramping builds then breaks in contractions. Squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, waves of ache and release, as we continue our rhythm. We kiss over her shoulder, my hands caressing her stomach and chest as I slide. Holding, feeling the last of our storm on soaked streets.