In Front

At 5:15pm, I’m in front at the light, watching the girl and the guy and their long goodbye. There’s an asshole leaning on his horn. He must be so far back that he cannot see that the light is still red.

At a different light, I catch a cute goth girl in the car in the left lane looking at me. I smile. She smiles back. The smell of exhaust and fried food wafts in through my open window. I breathe it in deep, and it adds years to my life.

I’m going home, but getting there slowly. Stuck in traffic and cursing, I can see a horse-drawn carriage. It’s gridlocked like me. It’s gridlocked with me. The two horses and I laugh ‘til we cry.

Squirrels

Squirrels are amazing. There are a lot of them running around the streets where I work. They’re constantly jumping from trees, running up telephone poles and into garbage cans. They’re great. Today I observed a squirrel dive into a garbage can and emerge with what must have been half of a candy bar. He darted from the can, up a tree, and between two houses before you could count to three. He must have been experiencing an incredible, euphoric joy. In that moment, it occurred to me that I am an asshole. I will deserve whatever suffering befalls me. The squirrel has half a candy bar and he is overjoyed. His life will span, at best, a fraction of mine. The sum of his life experiences will be proportionate. I have a nice job, a car, a house, a cell phone, computers, friends, family, a wife, a girlfriend, and all the enriching art, music, food, comfort, and healthcare I need. I live at the high water mark. As I walk down the sidewalk, gourmet coffee in hand, I am discontent, miserable. I am a plague upon the Earth. The squirrel is more enlightened and of far better stock than myself. People like me are parasites. I don’t want what I deserve. I want what I want because I’m too dumb to know better. I am proof that there is no such thing as god. If there was, he would have hit me with a bus by now.

Easy Moments

We had sweet, small, easy moments, in the early hours of the morning. Naked and having tea at the kitchen table. Our house’s windows are sufficiently high, that you can’t really see below her shoulders from the outside. I was always tired and slow to move. She was always hung over and sore. She was a burning paper airplane, destined to be ash before hitting the ground. I’d be there to help clean up.

Shower Scum

She was showering in my shower, in my bathroom. I was also in my bathroom, trying to watch, but the glass was clouded with soap scum. At that moment, I really began to regret my poor housecleaning habits. I could more or less figure out what was going on, but couldn’t quite see the details as well as I’d have liked to. Details are important. She knew she was putting on a show. It dawned on me to get a bottle of Windex and clean the shower door. Before I did that, I thought better of it and just stepped in.

Draped

There I sat, draped in her and the dim blue-green light. The light was fluid. It saturated everything it could touch, and jealously coveted everything it couldn’t. It coveted the cracks and crevices. It coveted the nooks and crannies. It coveted the spaces between us. The light soaked and languished in the spoils of its work. It was proud of everything that it illuminated and exposed, as though it had discovered these things first and brought them to our attention. In her tremendous length of thick, curly, red-brown hair, the light and I got lost. Together we shared in our good fortune.

Unexpected Good Day

The unexpected good day presents itself all of its own accord, because you never expect it. Why would you? It’s a bullet that was meant for you but missed. It’s an accidental stay of execution. The unexpected good day is the top step that was anticipated but wasn’t actually there. It leaves you stumbling in your wasted effort. It throws open the blinds and reconnects you with the world outside. The unexpected good day breaks apart your nightmare and reminds you how to smile.

The Women’s Room at the Tuscany

I’m not sure whose idea it was to fuck in the bathroom, but it wasn’t mine. I didn’t offer much objection, but I wasn’t exactly excited either. My wife and my girlfriend’s husband went in there first. They were gone for a few minutes and came back giggling. It was encouraging to see that it had gone well. It’s not an easy thing to fuck in a bathroom. I guess they had locked the men’s room door, and he had just bent her over sink and fucked her for a bit. I believe that was more or less the extent of it. Next I took my girlfriend (his wife) back. The men’s room was locked. So she quickly dragged me by the arm into the women’s room, which immediately made me uncomfortable, like I was trespassing, like I was about to do something very inappropriate somewhere that I wasn’t supposed to be in the first place. I understand that that’s the whole appeal of the thing, but it takes a lot of conscious effort for me to get past that. Anyhow, she’s a very petite little woman who was wearing a loose skirt and no panties, so we ducked into the stall and I just picked her up, held her, and we fucked standing upright. Neither one of us was drunk, but we were slightly buzzed. It was good. She was already very wet, so I slipped right in. We kissed deeply, and screwed for a bit, as best we could in our enclosed space. It must have looked hilarious from outside the stall, as I’m a full head taller than most bathroom stalls, and even in the weird sort of slouched posture in which I was standing, I could still see over the stall door. Neither one of us could cum in that uncomfortable environment. So we conceded that we’d just stop for now and finish up at home later. I pulled out and tried to manage my hard-on back into my pants, and as she straightened her skirt, the door opened. I ducked. A woman entered and started fiddling with the sink. My girlfriend lit up. She was so excited, so proud. We had a spectator! I was filled with a bizarre mixture of pride and horror, and tried not to look weird as we emerged from the stall. My girlfriend was beautiful and beaming. I didn’t look at our audience. It’s a magnificent thing when a woman is proud of you. It doesn’t matter what woman, or for what reason. It’s just incredibly validating when a woman gives you her approval like that. I tried to enjoy that esteem through the shame I felt for the judgment that I believed our audience was certainly projecting upon me. I felt guilty, like I had just done something wrong. Even though I knew that I hadn’t. I was proud that I had done it and overcome my inhibition. We returned to the table. My wife looked at me with big happy optimistic eyes, and asked how it had gone. She only wanted for my happiness. She can be wonderful that way. I appreciate that. We finished our drinks and left. When we returned to the house, we finished other things too.

Cock-Chafing Devil Snatch

One morning after a vigorous night of screwing, my girlfriend saw me rubbing lotion onto my limp dick after we got out of the shower. It wasn’t exciting or sexy, just habit. I think it’s a healthy thing to do. It keeps the skin supple. Apparently, she had never seen me do this before, and shrieked, “That sucks!” Terrified, I asked “Why?” and she replied, “Like I’ve got some kind of cock-chafing devil snatch?”

PA Turnpike Arby’s at Harrisburg

On our way back home from New York, we stopped at an Arby’s for dinner. The girl at the register was short and chubby with flaming red hair. She looked to be about 19. She had prison-style tattoos, done very poorly and very likely with a sewing needle and India ink. They were comprised of lots of little dots all strung together into letters and shapes. “BOO” in the center of her right forearm, in letters approximately an inch and a half tall, all caps. She had the following collection of shapes in the same spot on her left forearm: “$,” a small outline of a heart, the letter “M” on her left hand, and a smaller heart on the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. My favorite was on her knuckles, though: “MATT” on the left hand. I wonder about Matt. Where is he right now? What is he doing at this moment? Is he okay? Is he dead? Does she still feel the same way about him? Is he an asshole? Has she ever punched him with those knuckles? This girl was a sign that told me I was getting a little closer to home.

The 7 Train from Queens to Grand Central

We took the 7 train from Queens to Grand Central. July 21, 2006, 2:36PM EST. It was 96 degrees Fahrenheit. My wife sat to my right. To my left sat a young couple, younger and prettier than us, both of them. He wore expensive Italian shoes, expensive everything, and a very precise haircut. The upkeep on it must have been intense. He was asleep, hunched over. Face in his knees. His girlfriend was blond. Her silk hair flowed into her silk blouse, from which her left tit nearly peeked out. She was asleep on him, twisted sideways and not wearing a bra. Together, they were a giant crumpled pile of silk, expensive, soft, and very nice to look at. Out cold, and completely vulnerable on a train to Grand Central. Across the aisle sat some tough-looking workmen from the Queens Industrial Park with giant boots and callused hands. They were filthy, sweating, stinking, laughing their asses off.

The Soup

New York smelled like a pot of boiling urine and garbage. It was a fucked-up, fragrant soup, 90+ degrees Fahrenheit. July, hot breath, people crammed everywhere. Subways, sidewalks, bridges. People unable to get away from each other. Everybody was hot. Everybody was on fire.

Citgo Cogito

Today I was tattooed at a gas station in the backwoods of central Pennsylvania. Our friends recommended the place. The guy’s work is good, and so is his reputation. I got Renee Descartes’ “Cogito” lettered inside my right bicep. There weren’t very many people hanging around, but from the chair I watched a small coke deal transpire outside the big window as the sun set. Mustaches and mullets. It’s not that I know a coke deal when I see one, but my girlfriend was there with me. She pointed it out. She was more experienced with such things and thus able to identify them when she saw them. After my tattoo, she got a very Dr. Seuss-looking bird tattooed very near to her girl parts. Tom Waits was playing over the stereo, and life just kept coming. No matter where you are, or what you’re doing, or what’s being done to you, life doesn’t stop. It’s impossible to step out of it, for even a moment. No respite. Everything counts.

The original plan was to get this new tattoo right under the Occam’s razor tattoo on my shoulder. At the shop, I hatched the idea to get it inside my right bicep. The consensus among all parties present was that the inner bicep placement was much cooler than the original location. I went with it, expecting a bit of a fight from my wife when I returned and she saw it. My wife has a weird hang-up with me getting tattoos in very visible places. She’d prefer they were all able to be hidden by a t-shirt. My girlfriend didn’t seem too concerned. After the work was done, we paid and left the shop. As we approached the house, I secretly hoped that we’d walk in right after she’d just been fucked silly by her boyfriend, so the post-coital glow would soften the shock of my new, awesome-looking, but very visible ink. As we walked in the door, there were no obvious signs of any recent or current sexual activity, and my guts tightened a bit. I saw my wife sitting at their table. She seemed pretty content, so I showed her the new work, doing my best to really sell it. She seemed kind of disconnected. She wasn’t excited or angry. After a few moments, and a brief explanation from her boyfriend, it came to light that they had just smoked, and she was pretty well stoned out of her mind. I was grateful. It wasn’t my original hope, but it had served the same purpose.

The Drunk Bus

Our office took a field trip to the Firehouse Lounge. We were all picked up at the office by a yellow school bus driven by a very soft-spoken black guy. Then we were dropped off at the Lounge at 2:30pm. We drank and carried on, all on the company’s tab, until about 6pm, at which point we got back on the bus. Filled to capacity with salaried, drunk, white-collar white people dressed very casually, the bus rolled through town, taking everybody back to the office. People sang loudly, started chants, and acted like asses. As we approached our building, everybody noticed the cleaning lady, also black, climbing the stairs to our building. She was getting ready to start her evening rounds. They promptly began to chant her name out the windows. She endured it with a polite smile, and was very cordial as everybody emptied from the bus. From there, everybody walked down the street to another bar, and eventually drove home hammered. White is a poisonous, fat, bloated plague.

Cold Lips

I can still taste the last cigarette from her thin, cold, wet lips. I can see her in her crumpled pile of clothes at the foot of the bed. I can smell her on me. It’s a mixture of laundry detergent and moisturizer. Her clothes are always freshly cleaned. The weight of her tits is still tangible in my palms. The crests of her hips still feel present against mine. She is still here in many ways, though she is hours away now and likely halfway home.

July 30, 2006

My girlfriend just left with her husband. They drove off a little while ago. My twenty-eighth birthday is in two days. They came down for the weekend to celebrate it a little early. We spent the past 24 hours drinking, smoking, fucking, and passing out, at different intervals. Last night the orgy culminated with my wife riding her boyfriend in the cowgirl position while Iggy Pop played “Fall in Love with Me” loudly over the stereo. It was charming, pleasant, and somewhat surreal. The multi-colored lamp tinted the dimly lit room softly. It was hazy. I was hazy. My girlfriend and I had just finished. We were recovering and watching the two of them. My mind wandered, as it tends to do when I’m drunk and high. I watched kind of absently. The very first time you watch your wife fuck another man in front of you it’s a bit of a shock, but kind of titillating. It’s kind of like the first time you get tattooed, pierced, shoplift, or use any type of illicit substance. Once you get accustomed to it, it’s just fun. After a while, it loses its uniqueness and becomes kind of ordinary. We did it to do it. It was fun. It was rehearsed. I’m one year older. Now that they’ve gone, my wife and I have decided to fuck again just to prove that we still can.

Lip-Biting

This girl is biting my lower lip so hard that I’m concerned it might tear. She’s also pulling my hair with one hand and trying to flay the skin from my back with the other. The women have made a competition of leaving claw marks on our backs. It’s beginning to lose its tone of playfulness, and it’s becoming a subtly nasty game. Then he and I have to wear these markings of the women’s ownership on our backs. It all hurts. Not pleasant sexual hurting (except for the hair-pulling, which I love tremendously), but actual painful hurting. At the same time, there is cool spring morning air coming through the open window. It’s ventilating our tangled mess of limbs, and feels cold against the back of my balls and crotch. It’s nice, and almost offsets all of the pain caused by her intense climax. She fucks completely, like she’s trying to pull me through her. She fucks like there’s nothing else in the world she’d rather be doing. It’s absolutely wonderful. She fucks like it’s going to solve something, though at times I suspect it might be having the reverse effect.

Into A Storm

I’m driving into a storm. I’ve got the window open. The air smells magnificent. It’s chilly. Iggy Pop’s American Caesar is loud on the radio. The writing on that album is goddamned bulletproof. It is unimpeachable. Iggy is the man, no fucking doubt about it. The music is louder than the wind coming through my open window. I don’t want to get wet, but I don’t want to lose this air either. Fast, cool, clean, wet air. My cloud of long straight brown hair was billowing around my head. I’ll wait until the last minute, past the last minute. A few drops won’t hurt. They’ll start gradually, one at a time. I’ll drive. I’m not scared. I love the storm. I’m not scared to love the storm. The storm loves me. This wonderful-smelling air is its gift to me.

Broccoli

You don’t know that you don’t like broccoli until you’ve eaten broccoli. What’s more is that there’s a multiplicity of different ways to prepare it. Until you’ve tried broccoli every which way it can be prepared, you can't really be sure that you don’t like it. I’m generally not a fan of broccoli. It’s not really my thing, though I’ve had it on a few occasions. It’s not terrible. If you’re in the right mood, it can be pretty good. It’s not likely that I’ll ever seek it out explicitly, but if a situation presents itself, and there’s some decent broccoli on the table, I’ll likely eat it again.

Nailed To the Floor

My girlfriend had it in her head that I needed to be dominated. That was fine. I had it in my belly that I had just eaten a great big pot brownie and drunk a giant bottle of barley wine. That had me in a pretty agreeable mood. There wasn’t much to which I would've objected at that point. We were drunk, high, and already fucking as a group all over the living room. The focused attention of two women at once is a spectacular thing. My wife’s boyfriend and I had been sharing the pleasures of that situation pretty evenly. Previously there had been a great deal of talk, especially between the women, about getting he and I to play around together. My one previous male/male experience had gone somewhat badly. I’m thoroughly comfortable in group sex situations involving other men. I just don’t normally feel compelled to interact with them. I don’t find the idea unappealing when the mood strikes me. It just doesn’t often strike me, especially not in the presence of two readily available women crawling around nude. Regardless, it occurred to me that that moment would be a good time to give it another try. He was reclining on the couch, and the women were on their hands and knees taking turns blowing him. I had been fucking one of them from behind, I forget who, while they did this, and I decided it would be an appropriate time to give it another shot. I had been assured that he’d be receptive. So I did, and it went well. The women went nuts over it. He seemed to enjoy it too. A little was all I needed though, and I went over to his wife. He and my wife started fucking on the couch. With silk scarves, his wife tied my hands together up above my head, and then to one of the legs of my coffee table. I think she tied each of my feet to something separately, though I don’t recall exactly. She worked me over with her mouth and hands. I started to feel sick from the brownie and all the barley wine, but was pretty sure that I had it all under control. As she sat down on me, I almost forgot about what was happening in my stomach altogether. Everything was pretty great for what must have been about five or ten minutes. At that point, my primary concern was that I was actually feeling so good I thought I might pass out, which would be kind of embarrassing under the circumstances. Passing out during group sex would be a new experience that I wouldn’t be anxious to add to my life resume. Quite abruptly, however, it became very apparent to me that I needed to vomit…quickly…perhaps even immediately. At once, I decided to get up. All 6’ 2,” 210 pounds of me overturned the coffee table, a floor speaker, and the 5’ 4,” 105 pound girl that was riding me, as I arose and sprinted to the bathroom, where I started violently heaving into the toilet, buckets of the vilest puke I’ve ever puked in my life. Once I had vacated my stomach completely, I continued dry-heaving until my ribs felt like they would crack. Then I fell over onto my left side, resting on the bathroom floor. I was still very alert, still drunk, still high, but alert. Each time that I tried to rise, the room spun, I felt sick, and fell back onto my side, nailed to the floor, wrists still bound to each other with the silk scarves. I believed in my heart that death was imminent, though my rational mind knew that wasn’t the case. In a few minutes, the two women, both still naked, started coming into the bathroom in intervals to see how I was doing. It occurred to me that I had officially stopped an orgy. I was naked in the fetal position, on my own bathroom floor, groaning. At some point somebody covered me with a towel so I wouldn’t be cold. Those are the sort of sweet gestures that separate good friends from casual ones. I made note. I passed in and out of consciousness a few times. I remember my girlfriend coming in to piss, with me still at her feet. She apologized, and hoped that I wasn’t awake to notice. I was, but didn’t care. After about an hour, it was apparent that there would be no more screwing until the morning, and that we should all just go to bed. The only problem being that there was nobody in the house physically strong enough to move me. With assistance from the group, I was helped to my feet and guided up the stairs to my bed. My wife was back with me in our bed, and three good hours of sleep transpired, at which point I woke back up feeling pretty straight. So I brushed my teeth. We swapped beds and picked right back up where we had left off.

Early Friday Evening

The sky is bruised as if somebody had threatened it with terrible violence and then made good on his promise. Now badly beaten and broken-hearted, it’s about to weep. The air is cool. It smells like fall and somebody grilling hot dogs. It’s magnificent. “Brick by Brick” is throbbing through my car stereo. “We’re the undefeated. Always undefeated...” Window all the way down. Driving past a gas station, I can see a girl walking through the parking lot slowly, like she’s got nowhere better to be than in front of this gas station. Her hands are in the back pockets of her jeans, and her elbows are splayed out wide. Her hips and ass are almost perfectly spherical, and moving smoothly, like she’s dancing. I begin to think about how I wish my hands were in the back pockets of her jeans. Now it smells like fall, hot dogs, and gasoline. Life doesn’t get any better than this. Further down the road, there’s a man in a wheelchair crossing an ugly intersection. His legs are very small and atrophied. He’s wearing a tank top, and his arms are lean and muscular like Bruce Lee's. He looks to be about 50. Mustache and a balding mullet, his head gently convulses with each violent thrust of his arms. His chair jerks across this intersection. He stops at the grassy island in the center, changes directions, and begins his way across the ramp and onto the sidewalk which goes across the McKees Rocks bridge. It’s a long fucking bridge, and he’s a better man than me. His heart is stronger than my legs. It’s amateur night at Silky’s. Same price to get in as any other night, but inexperienced girls on the stage, instead of the usual trained professionals. They have shitty all-you-can-drink beer on tap. The leaves are starting to turn, and I’m thinking about growing a beard.

Asleep At the Wheel

My best guess is that he simply fell asleep at the wheel. We were driving home on a Sunday afternoon from a weekend with our friends, traveling down a three-lane highway. The little silver early '90s Nissan, driving in the left lane in front of us, drifted off the road into the concrete abutment. The rear driver’s side fender kissed the abutment, throwing sparks and dust. The driver must have awoken immediately and promptly overcompensated, going out away from the divider, and then slamming back into it. After the second impact, he swerved out much farther across the right lane. Fortunately, the man driving the rig which occupied that lane had seen the preceding spectacle and accelerated out of harm’s way in ample time, leaving that lane vacant. Likewise, riding in the left lane, behind the little silver Nissan, we decelerated and dropped back to allow him room. After crossing over two lanes into the right lane (and nearly off the road entirely), the driver of the Nissan overcompensated again and apparently stood on his brakes at the same time, nearly rolling the car over as it spun back across both lanes. He drove nearly straight into the same concrete abutment he’d sideswiped initially. He collided with it slightly less than head-on, just towards the passenger’s side of the vehicle, which was unoccupied. The car came to rest pointing in the wrong direction. The rig pulled over immediately, and we pulled over shortly thereafter, just in front of it, about 250 feet from the wrecked vehicle. I got out and looked back towards the wreck. The trucker was already out, talking with the young man, who was also standing outside his vehicle, apparently unhurt. The trucker was on a cell phone, presumably contacting the police. Traffic was already beginning to move past the event. Everybody was okay. Not wanting to add more people to the confusion, we got back in our car and drove off. It was a strange end to a strange weekend.

Coffee and Gasoline

Coffee is wonderful. It should be consumed in great volumes, without cream or sugar, undiluted, and in the presence of a strong smell of gasoline. It’s best accompanied with a three-pack of Zingers and some beef jerky. A long car ride, a book of Charles Bukowski’s poetry, and loud music are also helpful accompaniments.

Aftermath

The only clean thing in the room is the window. Everything else shares our guilt. Everything else was an accessory to what we all did. The window was the only thing in the room that tried to betray us. It tried to let somebody know. It’s 4am, and everything is quiet. Everybody has had their fill. There isn’t a drop left in anyone here. We’re all done for the night.

Mustang Sally’s

Mustang Sally’s is a bottle club. You bring your own beer and the girls get completely naked. Weird state laws prevent fine establishments such as this from selling alcohol when the dancers are totally nude. Most of the time you find clubs where they either sell alcohol and the girls wear pasties or you bring your own alcohol and the girls get completely naked. On our way there, on the winding narrow roads whipping through the backwoods, my girlfriend’s husband was driving us at seventy miles per hour. It was terrifying. I was in the backseat with all the windows open. It was making me chilly. Normally I enjoy being a little chilly, but this was just a little too much, just enough to be uncomfortable. The air was roaring.

When we arrived, the parking lot was full of trucks, men, and coolers. The building looked new, with a huge, impressive neon sign. Upon payment and entrance, you are given a plastic cup. They come in a few different colors. Mine was fluorescent orange. Neon pink and green appeared to be the only other options. It was also screen-printed with the black outline of a sexy-looking, cartoon cowgirl standing between two galloping horses, all in front of giant flames. The logo sat beneath, drawn in rope. Below that was the phone number of the club and its web address. The main stage was big, and lit dramatically. It looked like every other stage I’ve ever seen in a strip club, only newer. The spot where the brass pole met the ceiling looked like it had been peppered with buck shot. The little holes from where the girls’ heels had punctured the drop ceiling formed a halo in the panel around the top of the pole. Bad, radio-friendly metal from the late '90s throbbed over the PA. The girls were all in good shape. Many were quite athletic, and did things that made me dizzy. They smiled a lot, and looked cute and occasionally innocent in the neon glow. At other moments you could see their detachment. I watched a girl get on her hands and knees, point her ass at a man, spread her legs and pump her cheeks and crotch in his face, which was just inches away. He stared into her vagina like money was going to fall out of it. While she did this, her face was pointed away from most of the patrons. It was apparent that she didn’t think that anybody was looking at her face, as she looked utterly disinterested with what she was doing. Not uncomfortable, just disconnected. I generally feel disconnected from what I do for a living. How was this any different? It didn’t spoil the experience for me. I actually felt more intimate with her as a result of it. I felt like I had actually seen something that I wasn’t supposed to see, and that’s the very reason you go to a strip club anyway. I felt like we had something in common. It was humanizing. Later, the same girl came over and pressed her breasts against my face—a nipple in each eye—and shook them for a few seconds. I tipped her.

Eventually most of us got drunk and we all decided to leave. My wife’s boyfriend resumed driving duties, as he hadn’t been drinking. I got blown in the backseat on the way back to their place. He drove with no less abandon than during the initial trip, which made the experience that much more exhilarating.

Hiding

I’m not supposed to be here. So I’m hiding behind the bed, below the window. I am a large grown man, hiding like a child. Her father and brother are here. They’ve dropped by unannounced. They don’t know that I exist, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t want me here if they did know. I’ve got nothing to fear from them, but I am hiding myself simply as a courtesy to her. I am a large, naked, embarrassing toy with a hangover, nipple rings, tattoos, and a retreating erection. They are walking around outside her house, gathering up some assorted things they need from the shed. Tools, wood, a can of gasoline. They don’t know that she is also here. She is hiding with me, also naked, behind the bed. We are mischievous children. My wife and her boyfriend are both out walking around in the woods or something, and the only way this could get any cooler would be if they return from their date as her father and brother discover us hiding behind the bed. There’s a nihilistic part of me that just loves that sort of calamity and dysfunction, even if I’m a casualty of it. After about five minutes, the men outside get what they need and leave. No event. No consequences.

The Weird Egg-Shaped Porch Swing

I drove into the woods with my wife and a trunk full of booze. We drove deep into the middle of nowhere. She was a mirror. I was all cream, froth, foam and insanity. I was overflowing, spilling out the car doors onto the road, leaving a trail. The sky was vibrant, plum purple. Everything that was not the sky stood neutralized, in humble contrast to it. We went far. We were running from everything behind us, though nobody was giving chase.

When we arrived at their place, they were happy to see us. The sun descended the rest of the way down. We fell right in. My wife went inside with my girlfriend’s husband, and I stayed outside with my girlfriend. We talked on their porch. They live on eight acres, surrounded by nothing but woods. Beautiful. It was a cool night, and the air got moist. It began to drizzle, and we retreated back under the overhang, though we didn’t want to give up the outside air and didn’t want to interrupt what was most likely going on inside. They had a weird porch swing. It was made of white tubular steel with one spring suspending the weird egg-shaped chair, just under the overhang. It was meant to seat one person. She sat me back on it, and pulled me out through the zipper of my pants. She lifted her skirt, pulled her panties to the side, and sat back on me. Neither one of us is very heavy, but nonetheless I was relieved to discover that the swing held us both without any problem. The drizzle picked up a bit, and the air smelled beautiful. Not a drink yet or any weed. We were just bouncing gently in the weird egg-shaped porch swing. We both came, her and then me. Then we remained right where we were for a bit. Neither one of us wanted to move. I had forgotten about everything I had been running from earlier in the day.

Skinny

Standing before me is some kind of creature – skinny, naked, and not mine. We have different circumstances, needs, and expectations. I am an emotional cripple and a living cancer. I don’t always like to be touched, though I will tolerate it like a well-trained dog. She is in love with life, and she is the embodiment of joy. She is all things buoyant, fun and absolutely absurd. Ridiculous poetry. She is a mouthful of pure white sugar, nothing but whimsy. She struggles to offset the old coffee filter full of used grounds that is me. And I just don’t think there’s that much sugar in the whole world. But she likes to try. We’ll meet halfway. I’ll fuck her like she’s a skeleton, and she’ll hold me like a piece of raw meat. We will do it well, hard, and often. I will be everything she needs me to be. I am an image, an animal, a bottle of Jägermeister, and a jackhammer. She’ll tear my back apart, pull my hair, and ask for it again and again until I can’t give any more.

Kneeling

This hotel room smells like every other hotel room in the world. She smells like cigarettes, Chap Stick, and lots of old buried abuses. I’ve poured what must be a gallon of beer into her, and fucked her silly three times already. That only seems to increase her appetite. She thrives on that, and I love her. My wife and this woman’s husband are back at the house for the night. Regardless, this woman’s head is overflowing with dream analysis and other whimsical things. She’s got lots of bad memories and good reasons. Her ass is perfectly round, and there is not one hair to be found around her anus. I can’t determine whether it is naturally that way, or if she has groomed it thus. Regardless, it looks cute when she’s bent over on her knees, and I pull her hips closer.

Since the four of us who had formed this group had all been thoroughly blood-tested for diseases and had all agreed not to stray from our tight little square, we had all quit using condoms. Both of the women were on birth control pills. It probably wasn’t the safest way to operate, but it made everything that much more intimate. The idea that we should actually spend this night in two separate places was mine. It started off as a lot of fun, though by morning I missed my wife and felt mildly ashamed of myself for hatching such a depraved plan. I didn’t feel badly about anything that had happened. We’ve each fucked plenty of other people in front of each other before. Jealousy really wasn’t a factor. I just felt like an asshole for wanting a night away from her. Thus far, we had only spent evenings in separate rooms, under the same roof, or all in one big pile. Our close proximity to each other had always been a point of security for us. My plan had compromised that, even if the only person bothered by it was me.

Wilted Bouquet

The garbage can beside my bed is a wilted bouquet of used condoms and wrappers. The woman in my bed is not my wife. My wife is out in the living room, on the fold out couch, fucking the husband of the woman in my bed. We met them at State College about a month ago. He’s a nice guy, good-looking, courteous, well-mannered, respectful, and polite. He’s the kind of guy that you can let fuck your wife without any apprehensions. Apparently, I am also that type of guy. We’ve made an unspoken game out of trying to make the other man’s wife cum louder and more frequently. I don’t think that anybody is actually keeping score, though.