delphi's archive

And it's flawless, because she makes it flawless - which is the true cruelty of it.

You reply: for the record, I poison the food, trace amounts, bioaccumulative. you'll go quietly in your sleep the week before you become partner, and i'll be left to grieve into your half of a security deposit

we are never seeing that deposit again because you put your fist through the drywall demonstrating a rear naked choke

You said you felt unsafe walking to the subway

I feel unsafe walking to the kitchen, thank you very much. She turns a page she was reading - now drink your spit.

Gladly

You'd had this apartment since you were both broke - instant-noodle broke, splitting one metrocard broke, the sort of broke that's almost fun in the rearview because you survived it by the skin of your teeth.

Now she bills more in an hour than the rent. You do something with capital you've stopped trying to explain at parties - rather, take a middle distance, talk about all the publishing companies you've sponsored. exclaim books aren't dead after all! [1]

[1] of course, the irony of it is that they are, kind of dead

The radiator finds a new place to leak everyday, the second bathroom is a closet on account of all the pipe failures - and you have to pass by her bedroom to go to the bathroom. You'll take your grim - as she says - 4-in-1 facial cleanser, moisturizer, toner, window cleaner beside her 70 products to - as she says, to look like a porcelain cup. Either of you could leave tomorrow. But you don't.

I'm making you a tinder profile you say, taking her phone off the counter, sliding in the code to her phone.

I don't need a profile

You need a life. Or, at minimum, an orgasm that isn't self-induced.

She scoffs at the answer, still focused on the book -

You read aloud what you type in: emotionally available between the hours of never and also never.

Keep going. I'm aroused.

Lawyer, with three working holes

She sets the book down - this is how you know you've drawn blood - give me the phone

Make me

You had reserved a restaurant for the two of you, this new restaurant that was supposed to be great according to 15 google reviews who probably were the owner's extended family - doing their due diligence to make sure that this specific child doesn't become the family disappointment.

As always, the food comes out less than satisfactory; all the dishes are doused in butter; and the salad section was the most calorically dense section of the menu. You whisper about how much better you can make each of these dishes back home - and she'll agree, for once:

You ruined restaurants for me. I used to enjoy being disappointed by the $20 millennial man-bun burger. Now there's a douchebag at home who makes a great burger.

my pleasure with a smile.

She's scrolling tinder, still scrolling ever since the morning. Look at this, look at what's available to me. This one opened with the word 'yes'.

Atleast he's confident about it.

Oh please... she sighs, and this one wanted to know - whether i would rather have one thumb for a tongue or a tongue on every finger.

What did you land on. I think the tongue on every finger -

Nothing! It's so impractical, i'd rather think about - i don't know, vigorously masturbating.

You choke on some food you were actively chewing on, and she giggles - of course she does - and this one spelled 'pussy' wrong, this one wrote 'wyd 2nite' and I just have to scoff - how lazy do you have to be. It is ONE keystroke. T-O.

She drops the phone facedown, Who raised these men. Who looked at a child and thought: i will release this, unfinished, into the apps.

You'd know more about raising them, if you'd dated more than one person since the Pleistocene.

Atleast I committed, you - you just find anybody to fuck around with. She points at you, still chewing the complimentary bread - there was that one with the lululemon workout gear, said that's her sexpertise - she mimics a gag - then the DJ. The other DJ. Then I think there was another fucking DJ. I just genuinely -

Respect the hustle, Sohyun.

Respect the hustle? Your dick has commitment issues.

You laugh, and she's laughing too, the helpless one she hates, hand over her mouth, a soft cackle, perfect, uneven teeth showing - and you pay before she can fight you about it.

There's a dress shop two blocks down, on the way back to your apartment - and there's a green dress of something very expensive, to which she slows just a tad for -

You: Try it.

No thanks. It's ten thousand dollars with a tag.

So is everything you own. And then, you can't help it, it's right there - you lower your voice into something oily, shriveled, all menace, Let your uncle get it for you.

Absolutely not, strike it from the record

Uncle's had a very good quarter sweetheart. You pat a pocket. Uncle wants to see you in the green one.

I will call the actual police, I will have you locked up in maximum security - but, that laugh, she can't help herself, laughing into her hand - ...does uncle want to come in - watch me try it?

And for once, neither of you has the line to pull back.

...That got away from us, you manage, like something's lodged in your throat

That got away from you. She says. Buy me the dress, uncle. I've earned it.

Of course. You buy it.

The weekend arrives with the both of you brushing in the same bathroom, the only usable bathroom. She gargles, lets the foam clear away before slotting a length of floss between her teeth - By the way, I've a date today

With a... functioning human being?

His name is Mark. He used a semicolon correctly, nearly proposed on the spot.

So he's unemployed

He's a structural engineer, building the finest bridges.

Man who builds bridges and stays punctual - sounds like you matched with linkedin premium.

He's nice. Two long relationships, both ending kindly. Tips like he's apologizing for capitalism.

...So a serial killer?

He's just nice, man. She moves to throw the length of loss away.

Nobody's just nice. 4 months later the neighbors will find the crawlspace. You amble a comb through your hair. and then, I'll say I told you so.

She presses an index finger into your gut and you reflexively jolt - save this barking for later, uncle.

You move into the living room, waiting for Sohyun to get ready. You didn't get to see her in a green dress yet -

Uncle, I'm ready. She says, behind the door.

This uncle bit is getting old, Sohy - She comes out, the green dress skims her curves, the v-neck that presses her cleavage together, gleaming hair, glowing skin, plump lips -

Eyes up here mister.

Right. Get a hold of yourself - yeah, it looks great. Like, I don't know, it's like an accidentally sexy librarian.

Your eyes are fixed to my cleavage, I'm not even sure if you got the full view.

You did, you definitely did. This is, without a doubt, the hottest woman you've ever seen.

Now, help me zip up this thing.

There's the long bare reach of her back, you drag it up slowly, the zipper is small and your hands are big and you don't want to waste a moment of counting all the moles on her back.

I'm sorry but there won't be a person left in this city who hasn't looked down the front of that dress you say, pulling the zipper by parts.

Here I was, hoping the one exception was you.

Afraid not. You move some hairs away from her nape to get the zipper fully closed.

And she turns again, the dress comes out even more pressed to her curves, and that v-neck, god almighty. She steps into the heels -

I'm picturing it, you - a human - and this... linkedin premium.

God please no

I'm picturing it - two barbie dolls in the dark, knocking smooth plastic parts together. You say, vulgarity be damned.

Please stop talking - a familiar twitch to her mouth, god what you would do to continue living with her.

He won't get anywhere regardless, you add, holding out her coat unasked. Ten years with one man, a year of nothing since: there are cobwebs in there.

You know what's charming about the women you date? she says, taking the coat. How they all vanish after exactly one dinner. Like you're running a very tidy little murder operation

You know what's charming about the men you date? They don't exist. Mark is the first confirmed sighting. That's a million dollar sighting. Rarer than bigfoot.

Mark exists.

We'll see if he survives contact. Go easy on him, castrator

Don't need to go easy, dahmer. He's structurally sound. She slings a bag over her shoulder. Dont wait up.

You wait up, badly: lights off, a finance newsletter open on your phone that you're not reading, slouching on the couch like a man who is definitely not watching the door, ambling away the scalding minutes.

The lock turns at around eight PM. She comes in on the green dress and a drunk smile -

So, you say

So. She drops her shoes

How was Marco

Mark - she says, with emphasis - was wonderful.

And something about it feels wrong. Like swallowing something that's whole, cratering its path through your esophagus. Wonderful how, be specific, treat it as a deposition.

He's funny, actually funny, she pads into the kitchen, where you've already moved, filling two glasses of wine - we didn't stop talking. Three whole hours of talking, they flipped the chairs onto the tables around us.

Insufferable

There's a second date, a sip from the wine, a gentle smile on her. You wouldn't know the feeling.

Conversation's never been my deliverable.

No. I've seen your deliverable. It leaves before the coffee and changes its phone number

It leaves satisfied, you gesture, A courtesy Mark may never trouble you with

She hops up onto the counter, legs swinging in a gentle rhythm. And that dress - your dress, your genuinely terrible idea - pressed high to her thigh, all pretense of hem gone, riding clean all the way to the upper -

You'd buy it anyway. You'd buy it on leverage you don't have -

Oh please, monk of the orgasm temple. She scoffs. "Satisfied." Then tips her head, lowers the lashes, entering this little play that she imagines your women sing: I see you across the bar and - gosh (this emphasis on the trashiest possible gosh) - you really want me to put my tongue there!? I've never done that before. Sweet as a song. Does that play? On the book-illiterate?

Devastatingly so, you say. You should audition to be one of these... book-illiterates. I'm always casting.

No thanks. I've got a second date to look forward to.

Do you even get to the regular stuff, you ask, or do you have to bury the body first?

Now - she aims the empty glass at your sternum - you're trying to get me worked up.

You retrieve the glass, but up close she's all wine-warmth, hot perfume, the gentle trace of another man's cologne, and your body, traitorous as it is, gets worked up.

Oh my god. she says, looking down, radiant, with a ticking-time-bomb of a laugh - is that what I think it is?

Quickly, try to play it off - Don't flatter yourself, I was outside for a while and walked past alot of women - and she catches the lie like it's nothing, scoffing: You walked past, maybe, a leaking radiator.

The radiator's been forward lately. I haven't wanted to make it weird.

Should've seen it sooner, looks like we're arranging the date soon for the radiator fucker, she rules.

Oh, but I'm shy - an awful pitch to your voice.

And there's this soft silence, like nothing's wrong in the world - and Sohyun's grinning at you, wine marking her lips a tad darker, like you could just -

She tilts her head, openly appraising - I've always had a soft spot, she murmurs, for the small and the weak.

There's nothing small about me

You bring your dick up an awful lot. She slides off the counter and lands close. I wonder what that means.

It means you keep looking. I knew you would.

I wanted a visual, she says, It'll be giving me nightmares for weeks, thank you very much.

And then nothing's said. Kitchen too small, this green dress too close, the fact that you've got a hard-on to her and she... Fucking. Knows.

Goodnight, Dahmer she brushes past - because she has never once let you have the last move - and goes down the hall to her bedroom

And you're fine.

Completely fucking fine.

A month passes, Mark, the angel Sohyun's in love with has her busy on the weekends, letting her experience the city for what it's worth, letting her live a life she's missed out on for years.

He texts you on a Tuesday. Apparently I've been dating your roommate a month and never once bought her roommate a drink. Let me fix that - Friday? Sohyun's in, obviously.

You go to hate him - an agenda that Sohyun is already aware of. They're already there in the corner booth, two of them sitting next to eachother - and Mark rises to shake your hand. Tall and good-looking, how cliche - like he's never been escorted out of a holiday party by the shoulders.

You came. Mark says. Sohyun bet me twenty you'd bail.

I should have. I had a flawless evening of resenting you from across the city already booked. You slide in across from them.

So, you say. Bridges, tell me about the one that collapsed. The bodies, all the bodies.

None of mine have collapsed

That you know of.

He won an award, Sohyun interjected.

An award for a bridge that hasnt failed yet - committee's bold then. Waitress brings a beer, foam leaking at the top, and you take a sip - Personally, cantilevers - I say as a layman - overrated.

Overrated how. He gives a pleasant smile

The general load -

You don't know what a cantilever is.

I know it's a kind of bridge

It's mostly a kind of shelf. And he's kind about it, which is just unsufferable. You just came to find something wrong with me.

A felony. An ugly walk. An ugly way of chewing. Maybe you cheer for Arsenal. You reply, suavely.

Sorry to disappoint.

It's enraging. I keep waiting for you to mention the women in the well.

No well, he mock-sighs. HOA's strict.

It's the moment you tip - Has she told you what she actually does? She castrates men for a living. It's all framed back home.

And Sohyun - careful all night, porcelain-beautiful, hair curled to perfection - It's family law, castration for itemization. There's a huge difference.

Then she adds: Don't let him do the wounded act by the way. He's a "venture capitalist" and calls it a vocation.

I also keep a few dying publishers as pets, you tell Mark.

Sohyun, not missing a beat, There's a working theory. I won't bore you with the evidence but it has to do with organs.

There's no evidence. You point at her, then finally finishing the rest of the beer. It's all gone, mysteriously.

Mark interjects: They're not dying, though, the publishers. A little lost.

Oh, they're dying, you and Sohyun say, at the same time, in almost the same key - the both of you laugh.

That's the first time you feel him fall behind. He laughs too - but it's lagged, late.

You always look like you're one step off a knife fight, she tells you.

I'm delighted to be here, actually. Means I'm not off evicting some single mother from a shelter.

That was an accident.

Hmm.

There was a - Mark starts. - a shelter?

Long story, you and she say, in unison, and don't tell it.

He sits back a little.

You mention you came straight up from the office and she says she didn't realize they let people jaunt back and forth over the River Styx[2] like that, and you say there's a small toll, it's all very very very civilized, and Mark says the cross-town traffic this time of night is honestly murder -

[2] Sohyun's foul mouth comes up with a brilliant joke: that you are dead, but you still walk back and forth over the River Styx, which is the boundary from the living world and the underworld in greek mythology. Curse her!

and hears himself, and stops. Lays an arm along the booth behind her, losing the ability to time himself, and just watches. Like this girl was nothing like what he was looking at, something nearer to wonder, a man at the aquarium glass.

She laughs, turning mid-laugh to bring him in, asking isn't this funny, and finds him already looking at her, gone soft and far off, and the laugh snags in her throat.

Mark calls for the check - On me. Least I can do. For the floor show.

Laying - drunk off my tits the wine we spilt painting the ground there's a barrier that jives around his warm face And I notice then, you could ruin my life

Chapter 2:

A day later,

You get home, you spot a bottle of something brown open, shining on the island. You're good at connecting dots. There were peonies scattered on the floor (Mark is the one to end things with flowers, pleasant as always).

And she's drunk enough to reach for the old shtick. So. Who's the lucky sixty-nine-year-old you've been ruining lately?

My aunt.

Your aunt's dead.

Which would explain why she's been so pleasantly quiet in bed.

She laughs, then she stares at the open window, ruminating:

I had someone. He left his contacts wilted on the bathroom counter, fossilized into half-globes. I'd come home and want to hear about his day - I mean I really wanted to, almost fetishistic, kiss what was left of the razor burn on his neck. He made the worst scrambled eggs. Rubbery, every morning, and I ate them every time. She turns around: ten years of rubber eggs.

What about you, she asks.

I had a woman. You take a sip of the brown she was drinking. She used to argue about the doneness of pancakes and then put her hands up my shirt and call the whole morning menial, and I'd ask: what purpose do we serve. The answer was always: I'm fine right here.

She sits, lets her head rest back against the cushion. Everyone wants somebody to understand their personality and their childhood and what each of those things has done to the other one. That's the scam of it. You show your pale underbelly, turn your ribs inside out, fashion your whole interiority for them and beg them closer, closer than that, even closer - and they get close enough, and then it's - they're already on the other side, and everything's over.

She picks up the bottle and sips. I feel like an alarm. Wailing. That's the humiliation of wanting. Capitalists fooled us into thinking wanting is shameless. Love takes you to shame two times over. 10 years. A scoff at the number.

You're not an alarm.

That's very funny. She stares past you, calculating the whole of you. A lawyer and a venture capitalist with Beckett on the shelf. He'd write us as two people in bins.

I once saw a pigeon on its back, she says. Alive but dying. It blinked at me, tire-smirched, blood-grizzled. I didn't do anything. I should've stepped on its brain. You know why that's sad? Pigeons know how to hurt but don't know how to sin. She drinks. I'm not sad about me. I get exactly what I deserve.

What do you deserve. You ask.

I don't know. Everything terrible. A man who makes bad eggs.

She's close enough now that you get the liquor and under it the her of her, the scalp, the skin, and you think of the skyscraper poem your ex wrote: how we overextend our necks staring at something enormous, like those mornings when someone's still asleep and their face is so calm and wantless and they're not even being a person yet and they're so perfect you want you want you want.

Do we ask the earth for permission? she says. Do we? There are little arachnids living on our eyelashes right now, clearing our pores and mating under the full moon, and their whole lives depend on us, and they never asked and we never asked - do, we, as arachnids, need permission from our earth?

No.

You press a hot hand to her stocking-clad thigh. She presses a flat hand to your chest, slips a whole hand in between the buttons of your shirt, spreads her fingers over the heartbeat.

Do you feel that, you say. Do you feel what you're doing to me.

You hold her hand there until the urge to kiss the fingertips wins - pen-worn hand, redness at the tips from gripping the legal pad all day, nails short and practical. You lift it, kiss one fingertip, and she makes a sound, this small mewl, and leans forward, mouth to your chest through the shirt, your neck, your jaw. You hold still. If you move you'll move wrong. You'll break whatever calculus she's built in her head to let this happen.

How am I supposed to not want you, you say.

What's the difference between you and other men. They're all horrible.

I'm horrible. But I'm here.

Don't be full of yourself. She pulls you in by the tie. You're preposterous

Her fingertips find a piece of twine protruding from a button and incise it. Your mouth on her shoulder. Her spine under your palm. The heft of her hair hooked left, more kisses, the tendon on her neck, the jaw, her mouth again, and she pulled you by the the tie, left and right, kissing whatever remained unkissed - a gesture so old, as old as the grandmother who named an ocean on her grandfather's wrist, who kissed each knuckle, who drew an island into his palm and told him which parts they would share and which they would leave alone - the open brown, the Francis Bacon print on the wall, and to think of her holding you down tugged up the wire of every species on this earth, not the electric inventions, something bigger, a fevered movement across the world, all the trees at once turning dewy -

nothing else matters at all.

stomach-churning pulses grinding through your intestines - and she's between your legs, pressing your legs apart, pulls off her dress shirt, her skirt, all that's remaining: nude bra and panties.

There's a soft unsteadiness in her, the alcohol, the need, the want all combining into this weak-knee'd unsteadiness - you hold her smallest fingers, steady her.

Did you jerk off thinking about me? she asks.

All the fucking time.

She smirks, sinking to her knees, hands bracketing the heat of your thighs. Her hands twist into your trousers.

I want to taste you, the weight of you on my tongue, the stretch. The heat of your cock.

She gently pulls down your trousers all the way, hands tracing the heat of your thighs - ignoring the obvious, the trapped heat.

She reaches up, still kneeling, finds the first button of your shirt, let's a hand go under to feel your warm abs as she unbuttons with one.

Did you do this with Mark, you say.

A smile on her - No, no I didn't. Are you glad?

You sigh with relief -

She grins, splays a hand on your chest, all the buttons off, the heartbeats -

do you feel it Sohyun - do you fucking feel it - you're driving me insane.

She takes a deep breath, breathing you in, the cologne melting off with your sweat, and you dot kisses on her scalp - that flowery shampoo, that smell that's hers, distinctively.

She's easing the lid open on you, finding the kinks in the armor. dotting kisses on your pecs, sitting up, still on her knees, pressing her fingers into soft spots and hard spots alike. She runs her palms down your thighs, closer to your cock, back up again.

You pull her hand into you, hand on her cheek, tilting her head up and pressing your lips onto hers, tonguing at her. Retaliation beckons: she palms your cock, rubs her palm over the heat, working the thin fabric for all it's worth.

She leans forward as she curls fingers over the band of your boxers, kissing the V of your waist, and she trails lower, closer to the heat. And you're pulsing, barely keeping it together and she lets your cock rest next to her neck -

it's so fucking hot

I know, please. you barely let out

please what?

stop fighting me, you're torturing me.

She presses a kiss on the first thick inch she sees:

You're granting me all this control - second inch, fingers curling on the base of your cock. kissing the inches, all the way - and the fingers - wrapped all the way around the thick of it.

it's hard to even close around it. And she's almost relieved.

It's hard to breathe, do you tell her that? Do you tell her that she's ruining you with just her hand staying static around your cock? That her little kisses are already taking you to that extreme?

You're twitching. A venom to her voice.

What do you want? your hands turning white gripping the couch.

I want you to fuck me. fuck my throat, turn me into a whore. I've all this control and it disgusts me.

But before you could process any of it, the sickening thrill of it: she grips harder, lets you throb in her hand, the burn of your cock; and leans forward, dragging her tongue flatly from base to tip in a wet line.

Your thighs tick forward.

And she mewls: I want more of that

She shifts higher, brings her mouth to the head of your cock and lets saliva drip along her tongue.

Pushing, letting it glance unevenly over the head - she flattens her tongue again, drags it over your cock, drags her fingers oh so soft. All this slick, the twist of her wrist, the second hand now closing in around the head of your cock, fist curving tighter over the sensitivity as it slips through all her spit.

And you're losing it: she's turning her wrist near the top, letting it meld into her soft tongue, letting your thick cock hit her tongue once or twice then not again and you can't fucking take it:

please

what?

please - what more can you say? She's trying to end you and it's all self-fulfilling.

you dig your palms into your eyes trying to process, you're already on the edge, twitching, weeping pre-cum onto her tongue and she's taking it all like it's everything to her. like the tears of weeping angels.

Another hip twitch -

this salty-sweet tang of your precum, you're so adorable. And she drags both fists up, spreading the remaining precum all over your cock -

Her mouth connects, sucking hard at the head, gripping tigher with her hands, lips stretched, mouth wide, as she sucks and tries to swallow more of you.

She pops off gently, getting breaths in, letting your weeping corded cock rest on her red-hot lips, before swallowing you back down, all the way until the head of yours bumps the back of her throat.

Relaxes - enough to breathe just a little, your cock still taking space in her throat - pulls your hand all the way to her hair, letting it entangle.

Sohyun's spit-slick, hand lands on top of your hand. And she presses down, like demonstration -

but you yank back, and a girlish yelp leaves her -

You finally coil enough power to get a turn. You pull her up by her armpits - and how light she is, like a fucking doll - you rip the stockings underneath her skirt, let two thick veiny fingers enter her sopping wet pussy.

clit rolling against your rough palm, the wet satin of her panties barely there.

And you scrape your teeth over her neck, sucking a mark onto her, as she bounces desperately over your fingers.

such a little thing, locking her waist into you as you push your fingers even deeper. two fingers trying to tear off her bra. two breasts pressed to your face, a nipple in your mouth.

made to fit me.

Cunt squelching on your palm, head dropping back. And you're sick with it, pulling her underwear to the side to watch her cunt weeping on your fingers.

Kissing all over chest, marking her up with your mouth.

On the bed, you think, sink inside her -

but you grab your cock anyway, dragging your head along the slippery pink of her pussy, and Sohyun moans - all sorts of needy that makes your cock throb, weep outside her.

sink on me, princess.

She sinks, forehead pressed to yours, and she's trying -

Feeling her, the wet and slick and tight - the spasm of her cunt, the clench, the leak of her arousal down your veiny cock.

You're fucking her raw, without a condom, rutting up into her, again and again, and she pushes back gently, trying to find a pace that doesn't utterly ruin her and you're chasing her, fucking her deeper, ruining her little pussy.

Until she presses a soft hand to your shoulder, leaning back, face flushed, nipples pink and hard, stomach tensed.

Stare at her - how fucking ruined she is: swollen lips from sucking your cock like it was made for her, sweat beading down her forehead - god is the sweat running down her face. You kiss the salt-worked forehead - a moment of softness.

Then she rolls gently, slipping a hand between her legs, past your thumb resting on her clit, onto the soaking mess of her, that hot pink mess that she's responsible for -

let me hear you, you growl, to her collar, kissing the blooming hickeys you left earlier.

grab at her hips, sit straighter, pull her into your body, let her wrap her hands around your shoulder - grasp at levity as this goddess is cock-drunk off you, still rolling, offering her clit to your thumb.

And she pants.

Clinging onto you.

letting her sopping cunt cling onto you like this was fucking prophecy - it's hot - sweat beading along your back, between your bodies, sticky - the wet noise of her cunt being excavated by a cock a smidge too large.

You're both close, these petty uncoordinated movements making the orgasm closer - sensitivities reaching an opus - only these little shifts of her hips - the urge to stretch this moment for as long as possible

And only then: the quietest orgasm, stuck to the top of her breasts, barely hanging in there, her waist locked between your thick forearms, cum spreading, filling in whatever was left between you.

poems for fucking:

romantic walks up your arm with my lips dinner on your collarbones, a bottle of wine paper bagged somewhere on your ribs I want to see your city, and by don't take me home just yet I really mean: Let's share a whiskey, take the train over your city, spot the pennies lodged between the pavement - let's make sure every part of your skin's been kiss-bitten and that'll take us a while and if it means anything at all, putting a stamp upside-down means I love you and I would turn over every post office in the world just to show you how much I care.

You wake to the cold half of the bed, and the rest of it makes a grim kind of sense: she's gone. Most of her stuff is still here, her shoes, but her daily shoes - gone.

You call, and it rings and rings until the call cancels - you text and the delivered stays there.

It's a Saturday. There's nowhere a person needs to be on a Saturday - but she's a workaholic - and the dots connect: you drive to her firm.

The weekend guard waves you up on account of being acquainted with Sohyun. And you get to the floor where she's usually working, and there she was, through the glass - neat-clothed, glasses on her, working hard on a case you'd never understand.

She looks up and clocks you, immediately bolting to the men's restroom - not toward the elevators or the stairs. And you go in after her -

Sohyun. I just want to talk

God, listen to you. "I just want to talk" Do you have any idea how many women have said that to your back while you looked for your shoes?

Yes. I'm aware of the irony, it's why I'm standing inside your firm at eight a.m instead of pretending you don't exist.

There's nothing to talk about. We were drunk, it was -

There was a shuffle outside the door - an employee? - but before you could look back, she pulled you by your tie into one of the stalls.

And you were dangerously close to her, her face, this face you've been in love with since forever. The one face that you cannot imagine living without - Listen, you try to say -

and she's off the tiles, fist in your tie, pulling you down, kissing you. Shut up.

You take her face in both hands, gently, and hold her back just far enough that the kiss can't keep doing the talking.

I'm not leaving. I'm going to be the worst thing that ever happened to your avoidance. Kiss me to keep me quiet all you like. I'll enjoy it, I'll still be here when you open your eyes.

Her hands press against your shirt, head pressed to your sternum. She stays there for a moment.

Starts kneeling -

Sohyun. You catch her hands. You dont have to -

I know. She looks up, Let me.

The Castrator, who has never once knelt to a man in her life, lowering herself to the tile of the worst room in the building.

You put a hand in her hair, to hold. The dots connect.

Daddy, she mewls.

Hands in your lap.

There's no sympathy for her. You're in this cramped bathroom with her, your groin pushed up to her face, and all she can say is: Daddy.

Open your mouth

Through the small opening in her mouth, you slot in a finger, trace the lower lip and upper lip - gather spit from the tip of her tongue to glaze her lips.

Wider. You say.

She's just sitting there, rubbing her thighs together - like she isn't so fucked and slippery in her underwear that just a small touch could make her cum - that you pressing a finger into her mouth - letting her throat close around that digit - wouldn't make her burst into decibels and let the whole town know that you are fucking her dumb.

She's staring at how you unbutton your pants. Button by button, all the way until your cock's out half-mast diagonal to her face and she's fucking drooling. Slowly moving forward and you pin her head to the wall of the bathroom stall.

How do you want this dick?

Like how you fucked all those other girls.

You think I'm not enjoying every moment with you? That day, we fucked like lovers. You cup her cheeks with one hand and her glazed lips point out duck-like. I'll show you what I like.

You bundle two fingers - index and ring - down her mouth, until her throat closes and she half-gags. Eyes fill with these tears and she tries to straighten herself. Fingers still down there, and it makes it hard for her breathe but -

She's fucking climaxing, barely keeping her hands on her lap. A breathless moan escapes her and you take this opportunity to let your fingers in deeper. Her chest jerks, a tear goes down her left cheek as your knuckles bump her teeth.

Roughly: good girl.

White-knuckled against her spit-trickled dress shirt that won her millions in lawsuits. Just then, you pull your fingers out, and she finally gets to swallow down.

You should be able to price anything. Be cutthroat about it, hedge your potential losses, then hedge on top of them - that's the only way to win. You've seen people go full-in, bet their futures on a life they so desperately deserve and by the end of it, they're lost souls, begging for the past. You thought it made you the only adult in the room. Then the day after that you came inside her and everything crumpled.

Your spit-slick fingers wrapped around your cock and you fisted it gently, just inches away from her mouth. She couldn't help but move forward, but you pin her head again and she's completely mindless - obeying any mechanic of hers that'll grant her a feather of stimulus. You tap your cock against her tongue. You could see the way her lips twitched to close, but she seemed to contextualize enough to know that anything that you didn't allow would be swiftly punished. And maybe now everything was dawning on her:

That you enjoyed sex with her rather than the opposite - that it's supposed to be as intimate as the day you came inside her.

Because this? This was heady, broken, and embarrassing - and all of it was happening in her own office bathroom that she shares with subordinates. One mistake and she's kicked off the ladder. And yet:

I want all of it. I want it. I want it.

You could see how her cloudy eyes mechanized - she was about to cum again - you let your tip on her tongue and she's already around the cycle again. You press the heft of your shaft into her mouth and push in gently. Push in gently because she already came, push in gently because you want to savor - for a few moments longer - how she crumples under you.

You're gentle with it, letting her set the pace, letting her get breaths between strokes. She anchors herself, and this control you give her makes her shiver - even the way her throat clenches when she goes too fucking deep.

She pulls back to breathe, a strand of saliva still connects your tip and her lower lip. And she's staring at the corded red-tipped shaft, speechless.

Stand up

She does, her skirt crumpled just a way's up. She's expectant, wanting something. But this wasn't a day for her wants.

You grab the waistbands of her panties and nylon, pull it down midway and her pussy's just glistening - all-pink, heady, musky, almost pulsing.

Hold your skirt up

And she does, further surrendering to your hand around her throat. And everything was a bit clearer:

You began fisting your spit-slick cock again, pointed down to her panties. Another embarrassing and heady position she can't seem to get enough of: Her eyes are full of will-you's and wants that she can't act on. You press a thumb over her pulse - grunting more hunch-backed trying to not spray your cum too early - and you tighten, tighten until she grips your forearms and loses her breath for just a second - then you release. There's this rush of inhales and exhales as she catches some air and you repeat the choke - until, just until, you press harder than you've done before - her legs going loose, eyes going to back of her head - and you cum all over her panties. Cloudy liquid dotting her skirt, the floor, the nylon , the front of her pussy, and all over the panties.

Fuck.

Is all she says, can say. You pin her jaw to the side so that she can't look at you, only the door, the cruel door that may open for a coworker - and you jolt closer, scooping a bit of your cum and letting two fingers enter her just then. And she's already climaxing, screaming in her own hand.

This is what happens when I do what I want.

Your nose is buried into her exposed throat and your fingers throttling her pussy. your callused hand scraping the hood of her clit, your hooked finger rubbing that spot that makes her legs splinter half-way. You take your fingers out and mash the front of her pussy with the heel of your palm before going into her again. She's rolling with how your cum-slicked fingers penetrate her.

Her body finally gives out and that's when you hug her, your fingers still slotted into her.

In truth, I can't fuck you the way I fucked these other girls. Your fingers finally slow their rolls. I want to enjoy my time with you, not treat you like trash.

And her reply, as best as it could be presented: a wet kiss, hands wrapped around you, grasping the hair behind your head.

Her kiss fluttered gently as you finally let her have one final climax.

I love you.

I asked his friend, at the funeral, after the reception, the terrible food, and he replied: what took him so long.

It's quiet shattering I think. Her fingers tightened its hold on your hand on the counter, anchoring.

She was wearing the blue sweatpants, the one with the hole near her left knee, braless, hair knotted like those coastlines; pistachio shells between you both on the table, orange peels shaped like bowls and curled like small fists. She moved around the house unencumbered by beauty's cage, which is a thing you would never say aloud because she would hit you with a cushion and she'd be right to.

I'm disgusting. She said, when you looked around at the evidence of your love.

You're not

I'm compost.

Your fingers trace the pallor of her small hand, dainty and you say: the pistachio shells, the orange peels, that hole on your much-loved sweatpants, you think I get the worst of you - I love you. I loved you ever since you began letting the pistachio shells linger longer, the perfect orange peel bowls, entering this animal-you wandering this tall grass arena of ours, because for the first time, you believed in love - as have I.

Her lips land yours.

It's clumsy and fast - she lands on her back on the counter, and you pull your waistband down; pull her sweatpants just a little over her ass, part her panties to the side to her glistening cunt - and you push in.

Move

You obey, the flutter of her cunt giving way as you thrust up into her. You do it again and she's clenching around like you're meant for her.

Hand dropping between her legs, fingers pressing down in tight circles. Her heels dig in, breasts bounce erratically, and her fingers tangle in your hair.

I love you, you say to her skin. I love you, I love you, I -

And she gushes: back arching off the counter, cunt milking you, soaking your thighs, body trembling. And the sight of her being undone, ruined, that animal-her - you bury yourself as deep as you can go into her cunt. Pulses of hot cum into her.

That she says, was the worst of me

The both of you share a laugh.

She let you into her world for a reason - a night, hot and sweaty from coupling bodies together until muscles give out and not the mental urge to kiss every jutting bone of her body, every crease and every hollow, she:

Everytime I'm in an airport. I think to kill the kid stuff, act my number, set fire to the clutter - i'd be beautiful beyond buying, fix my problems with property and fame. Then, I think of you, home with the dog, the windows open as we wake to the dewy air. I want to be back where I am again, go through the whole thing again. We're small and flawed and I want to kiss your moles.

He was protecting himself with the short words.

I know.

If he'd ever said the whole thing - he'd have to feel it. The slide of the word - l-o-v-e. lv is quicker than love - luuuuv. She compared the length of the two words.

You could see her breathing, diaphragm expanding. The pleasure of hearing her breathe, of having her under that roof, asleep or almost. The pleasure of seeing her sleep - face gently pressed to the pillow, bare-faced, nostrils sizing up and down, was as precious as that of feeling her live. The aliveness and stillness.

I'm not like him. I don't think I'm like him.

You're not.

How do you know.

These forms, you wanted to tell her - sweatpants, shells, knotted hair, stained cotton - in lonely rooms and in hours of weariness, you felt sweet sensations, in the blood, in the heart. The way she sits in a chair with one leg crossed, the way she peels an orange in one long spiral. These things, lighten anything - the heavy of this unintelligible world. And for once, a three word prayer feels as natural as breathing:

I love you, without question.

Perhaps the same circuit went off in her brain: the way you sat, the way you slept, the way you hunch over the computer. And she, too, said:

I love you.

The next day, you went to her uncle's grave. Lived 64 years, a minimal grave placed right to her wife -

who passed earlier.

Do you think I'll be like my uncle if you go?

Possibly. You pull her tighter, hand caressing the wool of her jacket - the calculus changes.

The black-and-white photograph of her uncle and his wife was attached to the granite, before she died - captioned and signed by the uncle 'I love you, I love you, I love you, dear wife. let's have a long life together, dear.' - before she went, he had used the full words of love.

Not lv.