lazy bougie bitch

The washer is turning at full power, tumbling your threadbare duvet cover at 900 revolutions per minute, your eardrums pulsating to the rhythm of the round vibrations. Over the comforting din of your cotton-scented cocoon, you pick up the unmistakable pace of his gait stepping down the staircase. Unhurried, deliberate, leisured. It’s almost a feeling, an intuition formed on a cellular level. 

Frankie.

It’s insane—frightening, really—how fast new habits form. How little time it takes for the human body to adjust and settle. How powerless the mind is in its rebelling against it.  

Four weeks is all it took. Four weeks since that embarrassing encounter on Veteran’s Day, when he found you with your face buried in his shirt; 28 days of nightly informal encounters in the laundry room. 

Four weeks, and the thrumming of that tense line between your sternum and your belly is now constant. Like a string made of steel, of pure electricity, a strung live wire buzzing low and intense. It’s maddening, but it’s become familiar enough that you can disregard its existence, redefine its meaning. Ignore it. 

That very first week, you meet twice. It could be happenstance, were it not past midnight. 

The following week, he joins you every other night. 

Thanksgiving comes and goes. Jules and her family travel to the Hamptons to visit her in-laws, a tradition established shortly after Anthony and she got engaged. 

Rita goes to Connecticut to spend the long weekend with her niece. Frankie drives her there, a pillow behind her back, a blanket over her legs. You help them down to the street, carrying the old lady’s leather suitcase. Standing alone on the concrete pavement, you wave goodbye until the Ford pickup rounds the block.

Frankie stays away for the entire duration of the extended weekend. There’s no BBC karaoke on Friday evening, no Sunshine or Grump to greet you by the mailboxes, not even 2B to aggravate you with his sheer presence. The building is deserted. 

Growing up, the holiday wasn’t a celebration. Your mother had never been the loving kind, but after your father’s departure left her stranded with you, her bitterness didn’t leave room for merriment. Thanksgiving was like most dinners; she would place a frozen dish on your lap, still cold on the edges but burning hot in the center from its spin in the microwave, and turn up the volume of the TV, dissuading any attempt at conversation. 

Chewing soggy corn, the cathodic light reflected on your face, you’d find a twisted comfort in imagining your father’s whereabouts. In your thoughts, he was far from New Jersey, sitting at a long wooden table, presiding over a bountiful dinner, his beautiful wife across from him, a pretty little girl between them to his right. The wife had neatly manicured hands and freshly pressed clothes. The girl had slick, shiny blond hair and a round-collar blouse. She’d smiled at him, happy, docile. He’d smile back with pride.

Through the years, the little girl grew with you, becoming prettier and more accomplished than you could ever expect to be. You’d invent her first prizes, sport trophies, and spelling bees. The vision eventually died out in high school after you met Jules, but its reality had long been anchored in your psyche, sharp like a splinter. Nagging and tenacious. 

This year, for the first time in decades, the day feels particularly lonely. Its emptiness like a vacuum chamber, inviting in your old daydream. The teenage girl hasn’t aged; her delicate beauty crystallized in her fifteenth year. Slick hair, round collar. Medals and trophies. Time has blurred the wife’s face like an impressionist painting. Under the white sheet, your father’s tall, lean figure disappears. Only you know the gaunt face it conceals. Hollowed cheeks, shut eyelids. Mouth gaping dark and wide like a cavern, like a silent scream. 

Your grandmother’s absence hurts like a fresh wound. A throbbing pain that never quiets. It’s been twelve years since she last held you in her arms. Memories are losing their shapes. You’re beginning to forget the sound of her voice, the inflections in her phrasing. Her warmth, her scent.

The new apartment has never felt so cold. Cold and inhabited, with that thing moving along with the shadows after nightfall. Trailing you to every room you walk into. It has no density, no consistency, but you know it’s there. Wafting cold air, with a sound of whispering fabric, a raspy breathing. You remain deaf and blind to it. 

Clawing cramps contract your calves with increased intensity. You resort to using the blow dryer to warm up your sore muscles. A strange lump forms in your throat, pressing down on your vocal cords, warping your voice into something unfamiliar and hoarse. It becomes permanent. 

December materializes before you know it, icy winds, first snows, and Frankie’s with you in the laundry room seven nights a week. 

It’s a second day that starts with the night. A second life. Adjacent, parallel. A life with him.

By now, you’re conditioned to wait, ears trained on the sound of his bare feet on the concrete steps, anticipation wound tight in your chest, that damn buzzing string. 

The workday has shrunk into a succession of automated tasks, muscle memory inherited from more proficient times. You’ve restricted your interactions with your coworkers to a strict minimum. When you come home, the name of the game is stalling. An exercise in patience as you try to read, tackle the necessary chores, or watch something. Enduring with frayed nerves and failing focus that presence inside your apartment that you refuse to acknowledge, before you can trade it for the one presence you’re longing for, down in the building’s warm entrails.  

Every night, there’s a particular time when the rustling sound gets closer, when the raspy breathing grows louder, closing in on you. That’s your cue. You head out with the basket that’s nothing more than a prop, a safety blanket, leaving your ghost behind. Alone, ignored, denied. 

Downstairs, underground, in the brightly lit, sparsely furnished room, you wait for him. Like clockwork, like a cursed dream, Frankie appears ten minutes before midnight.

Another woman might put in some effort, invest in her appearance. Eyeshadow, mascara, a hint of lipstick. Brushed hair and flattering clothes. A seemingly effortless, carefully crafted appearance.  

Not you. The fleece pajama pants and oversized sweatshirt reign supreme over your evening wardrobe. You don't even check your reflection in the entrance’s mirror before walking out the door. 

Even if you were pretty, which you’re not, there’s the case of your peculiarity. You make everything interesting, Jules will tell you every so often, which is her own affectionate way of saying you’re weird and don’t fit anywhere.  By now, you’ve had enough unfortunate experiences, ranging from comical to humiliating, to understand your worth. You know better than to expect anything from anyone, especially where men are concerned, your ego stifled down to the size of a dormant concept. 

Francisco Morales is no exception. 

You’re nothing more to him than a commodity, and you know it. Available, interchangeable. An alternative to a wandering drive. Another way to kill the empty night hours. Laundry detergent is cheaper than gas, nowadays. 

Four weeks, and you’ve learned to tame the searing memory of that first striking glance, when time and space folded around you. Somewhere deep inside, you know that pull is the same one that brought you to fantasize about your father’s alternate family. A danger zone where you will be hurt to feel alive. You will not give in. 

You ignore the ghost. You ignore the pull. You ignore the warning. 

You ignore everything.

His behavior towards you makes it easy. He’s nothing but pleasant and amicable, and the conversation flows easy, but the banter is just that: superficial. There’s a distance between you like a chasm, or rather, an avoidance on his behalf. It’s in the way he steers the exchange away from anything too personal. The way he maintains physical distance. It’s in the ever-present hat, Standard Heating Oil, brim low over his eyes, concealing his thoughts, his conduct resulting in an unsettling imbalance in your relationship. 

At best, you feel overexposed. Weakened by every little bit of personal information you sacrifice to fill the deafening silences, chipping away at your defenses. Where you grew up, where you work, where your mother lives. Your best friend’s real name, throwing in some of her secrets, too, when you’re running out of yours, and meanwhile, he remains a complete mystery to you. 

You’ve run an impressive, perhaps concerning, number of internet searches on that hat’s logo. Aside from outdated commercial registrations, the only useful information that turned up came from digitized 80s newspapers. Stories about stolen trucks and suspicions of money laundering. Something about a connection to a crime syndicate. The trail dies out in the early 90s with the demise of the company’s owner, a certain Abe Morales. Foul play. No further clue on whether Frankie, who by your approximate calculations would have then been a teenager, and he were related. 

You can’t bring yourself to ask any direct questions, and he gives nothing away. Four weeks, and all you’ve gathered are pieced-up clues based on the beat-up paperbacks he sometimes brings with him downstairs, the time he spends working on his pickup, the discreet gum he chews continuously, and the handful of graphic t-shirts he rotates on a weekly basis. 

It’s a strange form of intimacy, distorted and faulty, where nothing’s named, only tacitly agreed. Where you’re familiar with his preferences in underwear but don’t know what he does for a living. And least of all, what are the ghosts keeping him from sleeping. 

Some nights are darker than others, his mood somber, weighed. The ghosts push harder against the frail door of your shared sanctuary. Neither of you talks. On those nights, you know better than to fill the silence. You watch for the deepening crease in his brow, the tension in his jaw. The hanging clouds, the raging storm. You repress the desire to smooth them under your lips. 

Around 4 am, he goes back up to his apartment. There’s always one last thing for you to do, an excuse not to follow, a pretense under which you can stall and stay behind. Should he really care, he’d probably see right through you. Once he’s gone, you lie down on the table. Wrapped in your duvet, you sleep for a couple of hours before daybreak.

On Saturdays, you manage the strength to execute chores and run errands, but your Sundays are spent on the couch, sleeping in the daylight, when the apartment is, for a few hours at least, finally empty and warm.  

How long your body will be able to sustain this pattern is not something you’re eager to find out. At this point, you’re so caffeinated your sweat smells like ground coffee beans. You’re fractured, fragmented. Fractionated. 

You keep going, day after day, with the promise of the night and Frankie’s presence. Of Frankie, coming down the stairs, barefoot and ragged t-shirt, belt undone. 

The machine gets louder; the footsteps get closer. Your pulse trips and your heart somersaults, fidgety fingers rubbing away the twinge in your chest. 

The door swings open. On your tiptoes, you rush across the room toward the lined-up machines.

“Hey,” he announces himself in a quiet, even tone, crossing the threshold without a look in your direction. 

Compared to the frantic beating of your heart, his entrance is anticlimactic. Head down, his features are partly tucked in the shadow from his hat. The black, beaten rucksack hangs off his shoulder, and in his left hand, the one with the target tattoo, he’s carrying a little red plate with some pastries. 

Amid the artificial clean scent inundating the air, you identify the familiar sweet taste.

“Are those… quesi…” you start but falter. You can spell the word, you can certainly eat the thing, but you’re too self-conscious to butcher its pronunciation when you constantly hear him and Rita converse in Spanish.

“Quesitos,” he finishes for you.

“Yes,” you nod. Are they from Rita’s niece?”

“Yup.”

He drops his rucksack down on the table and strides over to you with the plate in his hand, simultaneously pushing a quesito into his mouth in a sequence of surprisingly graceful movements. Your mouth waters at the evocation of the delicately sour taste and layered texture. His lips round the pastry, crispy golden flakes falling onto the plate, some catching in his stubble, on his gray t-shirt. You swallow thickly, eyes riveted to the movement of his jaw, the bobbing of his throat. The tight string buzzes wild down your core. The effort you put into averting your gaze shaves 5 years off your life expectancy. 

“That’s not fair,” you say. “I can drive Rita to Connecticut, too.” Your shot at playful and casual would be successful if your voice didn’t sound exactly like you’re thinking about what you’re thinking.

“You don’t have a car,” he states in a flat, neutral voice. 

A rogue groan rises in your throat, an expression of your frustrations, plural, that you promptly stifle. 

“S’really unfair,” you grumble, at a loss for a more clever comeback. 

“Good thing I brought you some, then,” he says. 

There’s a flash of a playful grin. The furtive curl of his plush lips, the crinkling corners of his eyes, the dipping dimple in his right cheek. A painful reminder that he’s dazzlingly handsome, despite your best effort to be oblivious to it. 

He’s extending the plate to you, and you look down at the three little rolls of rich, creamy cheese wrapped inside their perfectly glazed doughy blankets, surrounded by crumbs of various sizes, some of which have grazed his lips. The thought fuses inside your brain, rebellious, uncontrollable. If you were to press the tip of your index finger to them and bring them to your mouth, would he register? 

You take the plate and go sit on top of the folding table. The first bite is heaven, crusty against your teeth, melting on your tongue, the sour cheese taste tingling your taste buds. Your eyes flicker shut for a brief instant of gustatory ecstasy. 

When you reopen them, he’s staring at you. You hold his gaze in return. The moment is brief, fleeting, but long enough to throw you off balance. The weight of his dark look, the intensity etched on his face and radiating from his frame, unreadable, pinning you down. Echoing inside you along that tense line. 

He moves first, revealing the stern crease that splits his brow as he lifts his hat to comb his fingers through his hair. That key that still eludes you. 

Turning away from you, he unloads the contents of his bag inside the washer as you chomp on your sweet treat. Something catches your eye, a garment you haven’t seen before. It’s a sport jersey, probably from a university. You make out the name MORALES flocked in bold, capital letters across the shoulders. Blue and gold, you make a mental note to search it later.

“I come bearing a message,” he starts, commanding your attention back. “Or a bargain, I guess.”

“What’s it?” you ask with your mouth full.

“Rita wants you to come to her Christmas party,” he says, straightening up, hand plunging in his pocket to rummage for change.

“Her… what?” you start in a small voice, slowly lowering the plate on your lap.

“Yea, it’s a building tradition, with a Secret Santa and everything. Everyone’s invited. Your predecessor never missed one. Rita wants you to attend. Said there’ll be all the quesitos you can eat if you show up. I guess she knows you well enough,” he finishes, facing you again before you have the time to polish your stunned expression.

It stings, a burning kind of unsettling hurt, the idea of Frankie and Rita discussing your social anxiety in your absence. Jealousy slices through you razor-sharp at the mention of this assiduous predecessor. 

“I don’t… I don’t do well at parties,” you say, talking around the lumps in your throat that strain on your voice. “When is it?” you add with a hint of hostility.

He winces. “If I tell you when it is, you can make up an excuse, and I failed my mission.”

“Well, I can’t come if I don’t know when it is,” you snap, but there’s no bite to your bark, and he knows it.

“Mmh. Twenty-third,” he relents, pulling a rectangular gum blister out of the back pocket of his jeans. He pops the last tablet free, puts it in his mouth, and tosses the empty blister on top of the machine. The logo looks familiar; you’ve seen it somewhere before but can’t quite place it.

“Are you free on the 23rd?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” you mutter. 

“That’s not gonna cut it, Leigh,” he says, shaking his head. “I need a firm answer.”

“You mean you need a yes,” you retort.

He looks at you with a bemused grin, chuckling softly. The sound of which gets on your nerves.

“I do. I need a firm yes from you.”

An image flashes through your brain. Anthony and his Nicorette tablets—Jules complaining that they're everywhere since Enoch was born, the kitchen island, the console in the entrance, the car, the dining table, even the nightstand. 

“I didn’t know you smoked”

He narrows his eyes at you.

“I don’t. I don’t like cigarettes.”

“Why are you chewing nicotine gum, then?”  

“Nicotine without the smell,” he shrugs, as if the answer was obvious, before adding in a softer tone, “I hate to press you, Leigh. Will you be there? It’s not just about the party. It would mean a lot to Rita.”

His expression is almost pleading, entirely new to you, squeezing your heart like a cardiac arrest. 

You can’t remember the last time you were included in something Jules hadn’t organized, or that wasn’t work-related.  

“Sure. I’ll be there,” you fold. 

“Good,” he says with a short nod.

There’s a pause as the tension around you dissipates. You gobble down a second quesito, holding the red plastic plate under your chin to collect the crumbs. He grabs the blister and walks over to the sink to discard it in the trash can.

“So how did your meeting go today?”

“Oh, it went,” you sigh, surprised that he pays attention to your rambling. Your mind quickly wanders back to your boss’s soporific two-hour monologue about cultural programming, which, as the saying goes, could have been an email. “I mean, it was bad, but I was so tired I zoned out for most of it.”

“Still sleeping like shit?” he asks, leaning against a dryer, arms crossed over his chest. His hands are so large, they could probably wrap entirely around your neck and still overlap.

Blinking away the intrusive thought, you take a bite of your last pastry. Stalling for an answer that wouldn’t be a complete lie, but not the naked truth either. Even if he ever noticed that you stay behind to sleep down here every night, you can’t—you won’t explain why you do so, no matter how uncomfortable the lull in the conversation. 

“It’s a struggle,” you timidly provide.

“You ever tried melatonin? Or sleeping pills?” 

So that figure under its white veil can sit on the edge of my bed and watch me sleep? Not a chance. 

“I don’t like the idea,” you say. 

He chews in silence for a second, head tilted to the side, eyes trained on you from underneath the brim of his hat. Another question is coming, ready to shoot through the walls of your comfort zone. You speak first, before it’s too late. 

“What about you? How do you manage with so little sleep? Doesn’t it… doesn’t it affect your job?”

You hold your breath. He keeps chewing his gum, calm and assertive, looking at you in silence long enough that you start wiggling with discomfort on your hard seat because, what if you’ve just made a terrible blunder?  

“I do need to be sharp,” he finally answers. “I’m a pilot. Although I don’t fly much these days.”

“Holy shit,” you whisper. A pilot. His stoic demeanor suddenly makes a lot of sense, not that you’ve met many pilots before him. “What—where?”

“I’ve been working for a flight school upstate for the past two years. As a ground instructor. But I’m used to short nights. I never really had the leisure to sleep long hours until now.”

In the depths of your brain, a small alarm sounds off. 

“Why’s that?”

“Irregular schedules. I was… on call, sort of. I had to be able to wake up in the middle of the night and just go, and immediately be alert and efficient.”

Your discomfort has shifted into something else, something far worse than social awkwardness. Repressed memories of your father reminiscing, rolling his metal tags between his fingers. Boasting about being an early bird, by trade and by necessity.

“You’re not military, are you?” you ask, cheeks ice cold, legs like lead hanging limp off the table.

The chewing stops abruptly. He lifts his chin and looks at you, eyes raking your figure up and down. Inside your chest, the thrumming string is still and silent.

“Why? Is that a dealbreaker?”

Your breathing itches in your throat. Sweat prickles under your armpits.

“I have a problem with people in uniform,” you articulate.

“Like nurses and Girl Scouts?”

“Like army men,” you clarify with a firm voice.

Frankie’s lips twist into a fleeting grimace before he fully stands, pushing away from the machine. Your heart is beating painfully hard in your pulse point. You feel the empty plastic plate on your knees, your fingers clutched on its rim, the clip pulling on your hair, the cuffs of your sweatshirt circling your wrists. 

He lifts his cap, runs his fingers through his curls. 

He’s watching you dead in the eye when he delivers his answer.

“No. No, I’m not military.” 

—

The following days, you briefly—but seriously—consider moving to another building. 

You hate Christmas even more violently than you do Thanksgiving, this national commemoration of a genocide, and here you are, committed to taking part in a Christmas celebration with virtual strangers, a dress code, and traditions that the other attendees are already familiar with. Rita knew exactly what she was doing when she sent Frankie with a plate of quesitos to request your presence. 

The prospect settles like an anvil in the pit of your stomach. 

A few days later, you luck out by drawing Rita’s name in the Secret Santa draft. The opportunity to treat the old lady to something nice alleviates some of your anxiety. Enough that, on the 23rd, you knock on her door right on time, wearing the mandatory Christmas sweater—borrowed from Jules. 

Rita seems relieved to see you, as if your attendance had been optional, but self-consciousness tenses your jaw, pulling your smile down. She’s clad head to toe in a velvet burgundy dress, her short pixie hairdo enhanced by a dazzling pair of ruby clips and an ornate gold cross, in lieu of her usual, more discreet one. Considering how good she looks like at her venerable age, it’s easy to imagine why some of her suitors once upon a time slept on her doorstep. If anything, it’s a wonder they aren’t anymore. Meanwhile, you’re appallingly underdressed in your ironic Christmas sweater and black corduroy slacks. 

Your feeling of unease only increases with Kate’s arrival, who looks both festive and stunning in a red midi skirt and a Christmas sweater that somehow avoids ridicule. Her silver-stranded dreadlocks are coiled in a thick braid around her head, held by a single, long hairpin adorned with holly. 

Frankie shows up shortly after, two folding chairs under his arm, in a black sweatshirt with a Xenomorph dressed in a Santa costume. The garment is tight around his shoulders, hugging his broad frame in a way that makes him look twice as massive. He's wearing jeans, you observe with a sense of relief. Your eyes meet briefly. He greets you with a short nod; you reply with a coy smile. Your gaze follows his movements as he takes off his hat and places it on the small mahogany console in the entrance. To your knowledge, a mark of respect he only ever extends to Rita. 

Envy pinches your heart, playing over that taut, thrumming cord that sings for no one but him. You resent the humiliating emotion, but the tugging thought remains. If only you could touch that cherished, treasured object. Brush your fingers over the rigid brim. Feel the plastic mesh, the embroidered patch. Trace the letters with your fingertips.

The reverie is interrupted by Mike and Jason’s entrance, in cute matching Jacquard sweaters. To your great surprise, they’re followed by 2A and her son.

Rita greets them personally, introducing them to your small assembly as Amy and Emilio. 

“Alright, everyone,” your hostess announces, “some of you already know it, there are only two rules tonight. The first one is no politics. I know everyone here shares the same values, but we would rather not bring up unpleasant topics as we’re gathered to celebrate.”

“That one’s for you, Mister,” Jason nudges Mike with his elbow, earning them one of Rita’s winks.

“The second rule, perhaps even more crucial than the first: no leftovers. Now, everyone, please enjoy the party!”

Seven pairs of eyes dart to the table at the center of the room, its top disappearing entirely under several and various dishes, each more appetizing than the others. There’s a moment of collective hesitation, until Mike takes a plate and digs in. 

Eight people would be a tight fit for any of the building’s small units, so it’s a crowd for Rita’s cluttered living room. The temperature rises to a stifling point, but nobody seems to mind, engaged in cheerful conversation, feasting on delicious food. 

Kate approaches you first, coming to sit near you by your corner of the table, engaging you in pleasant conversation, and before you know it, you’re bonding over the urban nightmare that is the Fulton St. subway station. 

As you should have expected, all the guests brought Rita a present. But yours is the only one she immediately puts on. The vintage Pierre Cardin bolero in black sequins fits her like a glove. The lump in your throat weighs heavier on your vocal cord as you remember your grandmother in it, mostly from faded photographs. You’d rather see it on your friend than let it rot in your closet, though, especially with whatever thing lurks there. When Rita asks about its provenance, you remain vague, blinking away your emotion. You will tell her, eventually, but you will choose your moment. Preferably when you two are alone.

Frankie steers clear of you. No one would believe the two of you spend so much time together, and perhaps that’s the whole idea. Maybe he's ashamed of your relationship, whatever it may be.

You watch him at a short distance, in the crowded living room, his entire face transformed with every smile, every laugh. Crinkled eyes and dimpled cheek, he’s like a sun, like a bright light you wish you basked in. You pick up bits and fragments of jokes, delivered in his deadpan humor, the smooth rumble of his timber an undertone to the joyful brouhaha of the room, playing over that electric string between your chest and your core. 

You watch him blush as he opens Jason’s present, a grayish, short-sleeve button-up, with a herons pattern. Or maybe they’re storks; you can’t tell from where you stand. The fluid material is unlike anything you’ve ever seen him launder. You push away the image of it brushing against his tanned skin, and help yourself to more cod stew. 

The whole gift-exchanging part of the evening is a trial on your nerves. You are cruelly under-equipped to be anything remotely approaching graceful amid these kinds of social situations. The realization is chilling, especially when everyone else, Amy included, seems to be at ease. 

When your turn comes, you’re relieved to find out you’re Kate’s giftee, but the feeling is short-lived as you unwrap the most beautiful cardigan you've ever seen. The wool is luxurious, downy and fluffy like a cloud with horn buttons. The label reads Woolridge; your eyes widen, face flushing hot. 

“Don’t panic,” she laughs, “it’s second-hand! I walk in front of that store every day, and this beauty was in the window, calling out to me… When I drew you, Rita mentioned your place is always extra cold, so I knew what I had to do!” she exclaims, clapping her palms. 

Rita refills your glass with the bottle of sherry she keeps in her sideboard for special occasions, the heat in your cheeks cranking up a notch. 

More food is brought in from the kitchen. Guests break into small chatting groups around the table, some of them sitting around the table, others standing. 

In different circumstances, you probably would have left already. Preferably without notifying your host. But you feel too good to leave, good and warm and welcome, enveloped in your luscious sweater that was bought with your comfort in mind, expensive sherry sloshing in your veins and slowing your movements. When you get up to crack a window open, you’re surprised by the weight of your limbs. You stand with your back against the cool glass panel, taking it all in. The food, the soft light, the warmth and the laughter. The chill air wafting in. The soothing torpor of your mind. The enjoyable company.

Frankie locks eyes with you the moment your head comes to rest against the lintel. He keeps them trained on you as he makes his way toward your vantage point. Whether to pin you in place or give you a chance to escape, you can never be sure with this man.  

“It’s nice you came,” he says with no preamble. “It meant a lot to Rita.”

“Of course, I came. I had promised.”  

Another lie. Breaking a promise has never stopped you before. 

“She’s very fond of you, you know.”

You can’t withhold his gaze. You lower your head so he won’t see your cheeks color. 

“Do you want me to come check the heaters in your apartment?” he asks in his round husk. 

You shiver. 

“It’s fine, I got a nice sweater for Christmas,” you smile tentatively.

His frown is so apparent without the protection of his hat. Ominous. You glance at the room over his shoulder and feel his eyes scanning your face. It’s very subtle, the way he’s standing with his hand splayed wide and large on the wall, a few inches from your head. Leaning ever so slightly over you, shielding you from the rest of the attendees. Keeping your conversation private. 

From this close, you can smell his skin. Amber and leather. You can smell the red wine on his breath. Your mind drifts, numb limbs and sloshing sherry. Would his lips taste like the wine he’s been drinking? What does it look like to the others in the room, the two of you whispering on the side? Has he told Rita about your nightly meetings? Has he told anyone? Is he keeping it a secret? 

“Are you here for the holidays?” His voice summons you back to the crowded place. 

“Erm…” you start, clenching your eyes in concentration. “I’m spending Christmas with Jules and her family. Much to her husband's delight,” you add with a sardonic chuckle. “But I’ll be back before New Year’s Eve.” 

He hums, like a purr, and your blood courses faster.

“What about you?” you risk in a little voice.

“I’ll be here, mostly. I’m working. Our fu–our boss refused to close over the holidays. Like there’ll be any traffic. So I let the guys with the families have the days off. Anyway, my sister lives too far for me to go visit just the one day.”

He pauses. You’re suddenly alert, brain working against the alcohol in your bloodstream to collect that precious, tiny bit of information and store it safely in your long-term memory.

“There’s this cool bar on Manhattan Ave, in Greenpoint. Enid’s. I’m meeting some friends there for New Year’s Eve. If you ever wanna come out of the laundry room…” he trails off, finally taking his eyes off you. 

“Oh god, no,” you exclaim, a little more vehemently than you’d wish to, skin burning from the neck up. “I don’t do well at parties,” you reiterate. 

“So you keep saying,” he grins, “but you’re doing pretty well at this one. Or is something terrible about to happen? Are you gonna get drunk and start singing Total Eclipse of the Heart on the table?”

A rueful smile tugs up the left corner of your lips. You shake your head in defeat.  

“You’re not that far off,” you start. “I either overshare or can’t talk at all, depending on my alcohol intake. And then I ruminate about it for centuries, as I lie awake in bed, and—”

“Whenever do you lie in bed, Leigh?” he cuts, his features hardening. 

The power this man could wield over you, should you let him, frightens you more than the thing that followed you when you moved into your apartment. Why, then, do you keep choosing him?

You stare back into the dark pools of his eyes, if only to prove to yourself that you can.

“When I’m spent. When I’m tired enough. When I can’t think anymore.”

“Alright,” Frankie says. The pink tip of his tongue peeks over his plush bottom lip. “Okay.”

—

Once, on New Year’s Eve, you went out with a man named Michael you had met on the subway. In retrospect, the stakes might have been too high for a public transportation meeting, but Michael was fairly good-looking, and if you had to be honest, his attention flattered you. 

Rookie mistake. Five minutes into the overpriced five-course menu, he solemnly introduced himself as a magician and proceeded to perform tricks for you, talking non-stop about his pet dove as if it were a woman he couldn’t wait to go home and lie with. 

Another time, you let Jules convince you to ring in the new year in a nightclub, on a blind date with her then-boyfriend’s cousin. Both men showed up already stoned, but your date went the extra mile by drinking an entire bottle of champagne and vomiting all over your brand-new velvet jacket. Eventually, Jules and you had to pick up their tab and walk all the way home, having no money left for a cab. 

And then there was also that one time when your date broke down in tears halfway through driving over to Ho-Ho-Kus, parked in front of a closed 7-Eleven, and spent the following two hours reminiscing about his late girlfriend. 

Throughout the years, those misfortunes have become fun anecdotes. To this day, you can use Jules’ guilt to your advantage with a simple mention of Ralph the Barf, and every once in a while, Magic Mike has her keeling over with laughter. 

If anything, time has given you the confidence to guard yourself, and the maturity to discern which societal rituals you don’t need to conform to, peer pressure be damned. 

On some occasions, it’s easier said than done. But tonight, your being home rings like a victory.  You are exactly where you want to be: sitting on top of a dryer in your building’s basement, wrapped in your new favorite cardigan, your faithful duvet draped over your crossed legs, and a Lee Miller biography on your lap. Making good use of the pricey bottle of champagne Jules’ parents got you for Christmas. 

The boiler’s bass droning rolls in steady and soothing through the side wall. Loud voices and 90s house music from Jason and Mike’s New Year’s Eve party bump against the closed door in muffled ripples. Their drunken, cheerful countdown breaches the sanctuary of your isolation. Absentmindedly, you count along with them under your breath until one, when the image of the Crain’s obscured windows emerges in your brain. The vision turns your blood to ice. You can’t fathom anyone living across this place, let alone partying in such an exuberant way. 

Shouts of “Happy New Year!” explode above your head, irreconcilable with the aura of the abandoned place, sitting there like a dormant creature, like a sleeping monster. A black, empty hole, swallowing light, reeking of death and oblivion, exuding decay. 

You haven’t taken any in a while, but your New Year's resolution will be to ask Rita about this place and about the Crains. 

Across various social media platforms, feeds are flooded with recaps, countdowns, and wraps. As always, you will not partake, although if you wanted, you too could take stock. This year, you have a count of your own. Zero phone calls from your mother. One dead father. Eight unanswered calls to your aforementioned mother. Thirty square feet of grave plot in the Hoboken cemetery. A hundred and thirty-two gallons of unshed tears. Fifteen thousand dollars in student debt. 

Six new friendly acquaintances. One new friend. Well, two, if you can count Frankie. 

And of course, one shrouded figure. 

It’d be easy to think of it as an extension of whatever is going on in the Crain’s unit. But you know it’s not where it came from. You brought it in with you. Brought it in from the Hoboken morgue, and it followed along. It seeped out of your nightmares to permeate the realm of the living. And now you have no idea how to get rid of it. All you can do is keep ignoring it.  

Lost in your thoughts, reading the same paragraph for the third time, you’re oblivious to the steps descending on the concrete stairs. 

The door creaks open, wafting in fresh air and laughs and music, and you jump on the dryer, startled, left knee knocking into the bottle of champagne before you can catch it. Some of the liquid spills onto your duvet. You rip it off your legs like it’s on fire, freeing yourself, ready to fly, mind scrambling to make sense of the intrusion, heart pumping pure adrenaline. 

“Did I scare you?” Frankie asks, closing the door behind himself. 

“Jesus Christ! I did not fucking expect you,” you croak, angry. “You scared the living hell out of me!” 

“Sorry, not my intention,” he says, wincing apologetically. 

The clock above the doorframe indicates 12:53. He made quick work of driving back here from Enid’s. 

He’s wearing a thick trucker jacket in midnight blue over a pair of well-cut 501s in selvedge denim, a rather elegant upgrade from his usual attire. No hat in sight at first, but as he takes a couple of steps in your direction, you notice it’s tucked into the right back pocket of his jeans. 

You’re frowning with incomprehension. Probably not a flattering expression, but one that certainly pairs well with your tangled braid and your dirty pajamas. 

“Am I interrupting your celebration?” he asks. “You’re looking pretty cozy.” 

He comes to stand in front of the dryer you're perched on. It’s distracting, how well you can see his face without the hat planted on his head. How deep the crease reaches between his brow. How permanent it seems. How plush his bottom lip, with its central divot. His curls are luscious.  

“What are you doing here, Morales?”

“I can fuck off, if you want.”

There’s no aggressiveness in his tone, merely a possible outcome.  

“No. No, I don’t want you to fuck off,” you say. “I’m just surprised to see you. I thought you were with your friends.” 

“I was,” he says. “But then everybody got drunk, so I took their car keys and I left.” 

Your eyebrows flash up to your hairline. 

“You did what?!”

“I’m the designated driver. With a little bit of luck, they can hitch a cab back home.”

You chuckle, incredulous. Finding a cab on New Year’s Eve in Greenpoint is going to require more than luck. His lips pull to the side in a grin, enough for the dimple in his right cheek to appear, and you quickly look elsewhere.  

“I think I got a little bit of champagne left, if you don’t mind drinking from my bottle.” A real class act. 

“I don’t,” he says, grabbing the bottle from you. It looks disproportionately small in his large hand. His lips round the glass neck, and he takes a swig, eyes on you throughout the entire process. 

Transfixed, you watch the bobbing of his Adam's apple as the liquid flows down his throat. 

“Happy New Year, Leigh Reinhorn.”

He hands you the bottle and you drink in turn, tipping your head back to get the last drop without breaking eye contact. 

“Happy New Year, Francisco Morales.”

He shucks off his jacket, revealing the shirt Jason gave him a week ago. The top three buttons are undone, exposing the plane of his chest. Storks. The birds on the pattern are storks. He’s standing so close, you can’t slide down from the dryer without risking stepping on his toes. Freckles spring like fireworks from the dip of his collarbone. Cranes. The birds might be cranes. What the fuck do you know about birds? He hasn’t really answered your question. 

“What are you doing here?”

“I keep thinking about what you said the other day, at Rita’s. And how relatable it is.”

“What did I say?” you frown. You’ve replayed the conversation in your head a million times in ten days. There was no material for concern. 

“About not being able to lie in bed unless you’re exhausted.”

“Oh,” you exhale, heartbeat speeding up, pulsating inside your wrists.

He lifts his right hand to his head before he realizes there’s no hat there for him to lift. A pause, and his fingers card through his strands. 

The live wire thrums between your chest and your core, vibrating tense and stubborn, impossibly delicious. 

“I think we can help each other.”

His eyes pierce through yours, and it happens again. This complete collapse of time and space, this annihilation of everything outside the connection between you. 

This must be what fate feels like, you think, until your father’s voice smothers the thought and the feeling. There is no such thing as fate. 

Licking his lips, Frankie hooks both hands under your knees, uncrossing your legs and sliding you toward him over the machine’s flat surface in one swift move, with controlled, restrained strength, the memory of which has never left you since he lifted you up from the ground.

Your heart lunges at your rib cage. 

“We can help each other by making sure we’re both spent by the time we go to sleep,” he says, cold and factual, as if what he’s hinting at were harmless and inconsequential. 

His words drip down your spine like flowing electricity, and everything inside you is jolting to life. Pressure pounds in your ears as you swallow hard. 

He tugs on the back of your knees, prompting you down, and you slide off your perch, stunned, docile, wedging your body in the narrow space between him and the dryer, hips knocking against his hips, breasts brushing against his chest. He doesn’t budge. Not an inch. He’s like a mountain, unmovable. Towering over you, looking down at you from his height, head slightly tilted back, teeth clenching. 

“What—are you saying we should…” you start, but you falter, betrayed by your body, lungs closing, shallow, heart full and thumping. 

“I’m saying we should fuck, Leigh.” The crude word rings out like an explosion, resonating in the back of his throat, echoing inside yours. “Get some release, empty our heads, and go to sleep.”

Three simple steps. A mere transaction. He makes it sound casual enough. Meanwhile, your brain is raging static. Your limbs go numb. Your sense of reality is slipping.

He tips his face over yours. Around his blown pupils, the irises of his eyes glimmer in rich mahogany circles. 

The color thrills along the live wire in your belly. Fire and liquid. You blink and nod. 

“S’that a yes?” he asks, leaning down closer, the tip of his nose brushing against yours. 

“Hum… Yes?” you breathe out. 

“Are you sure?” he asks, impatience skirting his tone, body swaying away from yours imperceptibly, and you chase his density, his warmth, his scent, nodding more energetically.

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure,” you repeat, louder. 

His body swings back into yours, crowding you against the hard front panel of the machine. His hands reach for your hips, fingers splaying over the soft swell of them, digging into your flesh, and he breathes in. Breathes you in, long and deep, nose slotted into the spot under your ear. The air rumbles out of him like a growl, primal, terrifying. 

The string buzzes harder yet, the vibrations impossible to ignore. Arousal pooling down your core, molten, leaking down your thigh under your pajamas. You want him so bad, you’re honey and fire, losing yourself to the sensation, like you’ve never wanted anything until now. Like you’ll die if he doesn’t kiss you, and you’ll die if he does. It's overwhelming, your vulnerability, his strength, his mere presence; it bursts like pain in your chest as he lowers his lips over yours. 

“Wait,” you stop him. 

“Yea?” His voice is gravelly.

“No kissing,” you blurt out.

There’s a beat, a pause that lasts forever, the corners of his lips curved downward in a sullen pout. You’ve killed the moment, ruined it like you ruin everything. 

“Okay. No kissing where?” 

“On the mouth.”

He huffs a short laugh, breath tickling your face and torching your pride. 

“Alright. Anything else off the table?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“I got a wild imagination, Leigh.” 

He makes it sound like a threat more than a promise.

“That’s not what I’m scared of.”

His grip loosens. A shadow briefly plays across his features, understanding setting his jaw, gritting his teeth. It’s over in an instant, and his grasp tightens again, fingers burrowing into your hips, tilting them forward. 

“Good,” he says, tugging your cardigan off you and leaning down so close you think he’ll ignore your plea, crush his mouth to yours. You grow rigid in his hold, giving in to your irrational fear. But his lips brush past your lips, skimming your skin to latch on to your jawline, where he bites down, hard. 

You jolt into the wall of his chest. His smile curls over your skin, large hands sliding over the swell of your ass to squeeze you flush into him, and you scrabble for balance in his tight embrace, fingers clawing his biceps. Tangled up in fear and want and what are you afraid of? It’s a contract. A transaction. Not a commitment.

He soothes his bite with an open-mouth kiss, trailing down the column of your neck, plush lips, searing tongue, scraping scruff. The sensations mix and combine, you’re floating above the tiled floor, mind falling, body anchored.

He breathes hot against your neck, a long exhale, an expression of relief, spanning his hands across your back, pulling you into him closer, so close your spine hurts. 

The first time you wrap your arms around the breadth of his shoulders, it’s a rising high tide. A quiet earthquake, a gentle landslide. Arched into his hunched body, it’s a perfect fit, a flawless shape. It’s unexpected safety, and you cling to each other with a shared exhale. 

Above you, the music is roaring, bodies dancing to the fast beat of a song you can’t hear. 

There’s only his panting and yours, the ruffling of his shirt under your feverish palms, his lips fastening on your pulse point, sucking in the tender skin. 

He kisses you everywhere but where you denied him, kissing your neck and your cheeks, the shell of your ear, the hard line of your collarbone, the soft slope of your shoulder, pulling down on your t-shirt to kiss your naked breasts, stitches ripping, hands roaming your back and clutching, flesh spilling out between his splayed fingers. You hang on to him for dear life, for what’s left of your sanity. 

He bucks into you, once, twice, letting you feel the hard length of his sex against your belly, where the live wire is sizzling. The denim’s harsh and stiff through the thin cotton of your pajamas; you moan into his chest, hitching your leg up to his, seeking more friction, pulling yourself up with a wanton clutch. The fancy shirt is balled up in your fists, and he’s grabbing handfuls of your ass, grinding you down on him. 

“Can I see it?” he mouthes against your clavicle, breathless.

You nod, clueless as to what he’s asking, too disoriented to think, fingers sliding up through the silk of his curls. You rake your nails over his scalp and he produces that sound again, that growl, that rolling rumble inside his chest. His teeth nip at your jaw, hand coming down your front to cup you between your legs.

You hitch a gasp, stilling. 

“Let me see it,” he repeats, fingertips stroking you with a light touch over the dampened fabric of your pants. 

Understanding dawns on you, eyes squeezing shut with embarrassment. 

“Okay,” you whisper, and he peels away from you, your arms falling limp at your sides as he kneels in front of you. You pray he doesn’t notice your trembling legs.

He watches you, pinning you with one of his stares as he tugs your shapeless pants down, teeth gritting, nostrils flaring, like you might flee his touch. Like you need to be tamed, as if you could resist him. His dark eyes travel down your body to your center, and you bite the inside of your cheek so your entire face doesn’t quiver. 

“Hold this up,” he says, lifting your stretched t-shirt. You comply with shaking hands, nerves like a million pinpricks tingling on your nape. 

His fingers part the dampened curls of your mound, exposing how soaked you are for him, sticky slick and reckless want. You’re probably going to faint.

“Fuck, it’s pretty,” he whispers, scorching breath fanning your delicate skin. Your hold on your shirt turns white-knuckled. “Fucking dripping, can I taste it?”

He doesn’t give you time to answer, lunging forward into you, slanting his open mouth over your cunt, tongue darting past your seam with a grunt to collect your arousal, and you bite down on a whimper, a long shiver running down your spine, delightful, terrible.  

“Shit,” he says, resting his forehead on your belly, long curls brushing impossibly soft over your quivering skin. He mumbles something else, something you can’t make out with the static in your head, before he shifts in his kneeling position, hooking your leg over the bulk of his shoulder. You struggle for balance, fingers scrabbling for purchase on the smooth surface behind you as he licks a broad stripe through your folds with the flat of his tongue. 

Your head lolls back. You moan. 

He’s greedy, at first, voracious, pressing his entire face into your heat, fucking you with his tongue, chin pushing forward, fingers digging harshly into the curves of your tender hips, short bristly stubble abrading your skin. You can’t wrap your head around what’s happening, it’s too sudden, too sudden and too real. 

A transaction, you repeat yourself with waning conviction, staring at the roughcast ceiling but not seeing it; a transaction, as you fail to control the twitching of your leg with every drag of his tongue inside your walls, the sharp ridge of his nose rubbing against your clit. 

It’s messy, frantic, and eager; he’s rough in his hunger, and the sounds around you are wet and sticky, wet and sticky like your slick and his spit that trickle down your thighs. His grunts grow shallow and frustrated until he surges upward, pushing you back on top of the dryer. You tumble backward, ass hanging off the edge, your back bent awkward and bowed, the back of your head hitting the brick wall.

 “Shit,” he grits, “you okay?” 

He looks wrecked, tousled hair, glassy eyes, shining chin. 

“Yes,” you nod, almost soundless. 

He slumps over you, his forehead coming to rest on the plump round of your belly again, trying to catch his breath. His mouth wraps around your skin just below your navel, teeth sinking, sucking in, pulling sharp and hungry and needy, and this, too, will leave a mark, you think, aching with it, arching into it, the pain and the hunger and the need. 

He breaks away, letting go of your skin, kissing the surfacing flecks of purple, breathing long, settling himself. His hands a steadying caress along your thighs, calloused palms, thick digits.

You reach down for his hair but he’s moving away, moving down, down into you again. 

Eating you slow and deliberate, this time. Thorough and measured. Flat tongue licking up from your hole to your cunt, teasing the thin membrane in between. Plush lips fastening around your clit to play with it. You chase it, squirming and writhing against his restraint, but he traps you in place, banding his arm over your belly. 

He’s in charge, spreading you wide with the flat of his palm on your knee; eating you out, tongue and teeth and lips, humming with contentment, burning mouth, commanding touch. Repeated motions, alternating touches. Bringing you close but never quite there, relentless, clutching hard and bruising against your rolling hips. The heels of your hands are pressed over your eyes so you won’t picture the working of his throat, the strong column of his neck as he drinks you in.

Until you give in and let go. Until you surrender and relax into it, into the building pleasure, the endless coil, sweat pooling in the small of your back. You let him take you apart piece by piece, kiss by kiss, stroke by stroke. There’s no more fear, no more consequences. Only his appetites and your needs, and the beautiful, wonderful ways in which they meet.

The room is saturated with warmth and humidity, filled with the lewd sounds of his ministrations.

Suddenly boneless and pliant, your legs slack around the breadth of his frame. Like an offering. Your fingers card through the curling strands of his hair, hand resting over the crown of his head, following his movements, a long whine rising from your throat in the heavy air, swirling above you, shaping into his name.

Frankie.

He pauses, just for a beat, the briefest moment, his smile forming between your folds, blooming into you. 

“That’s it,” he rasps, pecking a kiss at your inner thigh. “Like that. Good girl,” and you can’t help but clench at the praise. 

Cool air hits your feverish skin; he’s released his restraining grip. His hand travels upward to your breast, cupping the swell of it, kneading with measured strength, his calloused thumb a teasing stroke over the peaked bud of your nipple. 

“Frankie,” you whine again, louder, the name a stretching plea over the upbeat music coming from upstairs.

There’s a harder suck on your clit; he pulls at it, trapped between his lips, before releasing it.

“Okay,” he says, rueful, “alright.”

The tip of his finger ghosts over your seam, circling your entrance ever so lightly. 

“Please, please, Frankie, please,” you beg, your voice alien, blatantly needy, openly desperate.

“Yea,” he says, sliding his finger in to his knuckles. It’s too much and not enough, and you jolt, hips spreading open so wide the angle hurts. 

“Fucking wet,” he mutters, bending into you again before you can recoil with self-consciousness, lapping at your dripping cunt. His finger still sheathed inside your tight heat, he turns his hand upward and adds a second digit, and you can hear just how wet you are. 

His mouth wraps around your clit, tongue gliding over it like liquid warmth, the hand covering your breast pinching your nipple, the other curling his fingers right at your center, and you know you won’t last long. The pain is exquisite, the pleasure unbearable. He gives a few strokes, fast and weighted, thick fingers spread wide inside your walls, stretching your entrance, and you ascend fast, breath caught in your throat. He’s rough and precise, the tension that builds up inside your belly nearly overpowering, and when he starts grinding against that soft spot deep inside you, the live wire snaps with an explosion.

You come crashing hard with a cry of his name, cunt clenching with a frantic flutter, spine arching, head thrashing back, flooding his hand. 

Dry sobs rattle your chest with the magnitude of your release. Pressing a soft kiss to your clit, he eases out of you gently, making sure you don’t slide off the dryer while you’re struggling to remain conscious.

Slowly, the heaving ebbs, turning to labored breathing, easing into steadier breaths. The sound of clinking metal brings you back to the laundry room, to the hard surface you’re lying on, to the heady detergent perfumes.  

You feel him run his knuckles through your folds, careful, gentle. His breathing comes in ragged, there’s movement in your peripheral. 

A transaction. 

You bolt upright, sitting up with a cinch, disheveled, wild-eyed. Sweat has dampened your hairline. The neon light is blinding.  

His belt is undone, heavy buckle hanging like a dead weight. His black boxer briefs are pulled down. You blink your sight into focus, the ripples of your orgasm still blurring your vision. Deft fingers circling his slick-coated length, he’s stroking himself. 

And oh–he’s big, so big you first fail to comprehend; his cock thick and rigid in the loose hold of his pumping fist, long and girthy and shameless in what he’s doing, watching you watch him, that tongue that was inside you mere moments ago licking over his lips. The same density that applies to every aspect of him, his body, his gaze, his hold, applies to his fucking sex. 

The live wire tenses right back inside your belly as you stare, hypnotized by the shiny tip of his cock disappearing in a steady rhythm between his fingers, by the rippling muscles in his flexing forearms.

A transaction. 

“I can—” you start, but you don’t know what it is that you can, you’re exhausted, awkward, stupefied. 

“Don’t have to,” he says, his tone strained, a groan slipping under his breath. 

A transaction. 

“I want to,” you say. You want to do to him what it is that he just did to you. You want to prove to yourself that you can have that effect on him. Even though you know that you can’t. 

“Gimme your hand.” He sways closer to you, hand grabbing yours and you’re holding him, holding his sex, hot and throbbing, soft like velvet, so fucking thick you can feel every vein, every ridge under your clumsy touch. 

The silky fancy shirt is balled in your fist again as you cling to him, inching yourself closer to the edge of the machine, the up-and-down strokes felt in your palm and against your thigh.  

You’re out of practice, embarrassed by your eagerness to do well, to satisfy him, but his hand guides yours, easing your grip into a slower pace. 

“Fuck, that feels good, Leigh,” he rasps, his other hand sliding under your shirt to find the round of your breast. 

A drop of precome dribbles over your fingers; you risk a glance down between your thrumming bodies, too shy to ask him for a taste. Instead, you bracket your legs around his hips and look up at his face, matted curls over his knitted brow, pitch-black eyes, parted lips. It tears you apart, just how beautiful he is. How intense and needy inside your hand, against your chest. Layers of unfathomable depth you want to slowly unpeel, lose yourself inside him, never to resurface. 

His hand covering yours is going faster, the movement picking up speed and losing amplitude. A deeper groan vibrates in his throat and with your mouth, you reach for it, reach for his neck, corded with effort, the freckled skin warm and fragrant. Tentative kisses at first that grow bolder, wetter, more pointed, encouraged by his guttural moans, trailing up and down until you catch his earlobe between your teeth, lips wrapping around it, and you give it a hard suck. 

“Fuck, fu—fuck,” he grunts, squeezing your hand so tight it cracks your knuckles but you don’t care, he’s coming, his entire frame shaking with it, forehead dropping on your shoulder, come spurting searing and thick on your thigh. 

A long breath shudders from you.

The transaction is complete. You’re both spent. He’s not moving yet, and you won’t push him away, but it’s over, and he will be going soon. Peeling away from your embrace.

Voices spark from upstairs, tumbling down the staircase. It never occurred to you that someone might walk in on the two of you, entwined and engulfed in each other’s satisfaction. No one will. 

Down here, it's just Frankie and Leigh. Nobody will find you. Not even your ghosts.

****