JAMES AND CHARLOTTE
James stood in that strange girl’s bathroom, swaying a bit as he wiped blood from his penis with those wet naps she had sitting on the back of the toilet tank. It’s one of those things he had done with his girlfriend. Girlfriend(s) in the past. But now it was one of those, “if you don’t mind, then yeah I don’t mind kind of things.” Usually proceeded by the “I have bad news” line. Bad news being that James had shown up in time for menstrual madness…or menstrual joy depending on how you look at it.
It was one of those, was it worth it moments, cleaning menstrual blood off of your penis. James creating some strange equation measuring the size of her tits times the sensation he felt inside her minus the feeling he felt again of knowing what they, the women, didn’t know or maybe knew but didn’t care… that they, she in this case, was his third or fourth partner this week. Partner being a word that people used that immediately made sex sound simply like a transactional bridge for disease. A border handshake between two sexually impulsive parties. Signatures and all. Like a notary should be present. He pictured a drunk notary in the corner. In a trenchcoat and tie, pants of course. Slacks. British. “You about done, mate? Mind if I sign off on this one?” As if there was a seedy underbelly of notary’s that were the professional equivalent of the back alley abortionist. That guy you needed to be there but nobody wanted present to watch. Not even himself. He couldn’t stand it. His job. He should’ve studied harder in school, James thought. But, instead of times in offices and courtrooms, if that’s where notaries operate, this fictional bloke was relegated to watching couples make love or fuck. Waiting in nightclub door jams for a guy to make eye contact with him while holding the hand of a trailing woman who’s eye contact was a split of a split-second or nothing at all. Sex notary pariah. In James’s mind this was some kind of lucrative future business. Images of the typical stuff. Neon lights on dark doors and tattooed bar codes on shaved heads that’s what futuretimes are made of. Then that guy, the slummy mange of a notary. British man. British because in the future all people are British.
James realized he was letting his eyes lose focus to the point where he was getting dizzy. Letting his care of balance and equilibrium fade so much that it would end badly. In the focusup, the main question became should he stay there for the night. Should he stay or should he go.
Charlotte had turned the light on and instantly regretted it. She opened her mouth to scream, shout at the sky but kept the noise from coming out. A first world moment. Bloody smeared sheets. Not a lot but enough. She immediately weighed if it was worth it. The minutes of pumping and thrusting that culminated in nothing but this. That “fuck that was amazing” from that dude in the downstairs bathroom. Immediate ill thoughts of the man willing to sleep with her under these conditions. These. Framed in her mind first as his desperation then as his everyday. She figured she was his forth girl this week, probably his second on the rag. It’s a funny moment she thought when you think ill of someone for sleeping with you so quickly. The slut downstairs with the dirty dick. Gross. He smelled good. Sweat good. Touched in the right places. Felt very good. But, received almost too good o’ marks in all departments to be considered anything but a creep. Fuck. Just all around a bad choice. Now look at these sheets. Thread count all kaput.
James wanted to go but didn’t want to walk home. He wanted to walk a block and be in his bed or be in the bed of someone who would greet him at the door downstairs and carry him up three or so flights, cradling him, dipping him in warm water that would make him instantly clean before she dried him with some powerful wind machine that came from all angles and made beads of water slide back and forth on his skin. She’d drop him on a soft sheeted mattress that would take the mold of his grown body still tucked in fetal form. Then the frosting would come when she big spooned him, this little woman with incredible strength and baby soft hands. This impossible creation. So beautiful and so gentle and so kind. So kind enough to be gone by 9 or so.
Charlotte stood looking at this guy’s shoes. He’d taken them off without untying them. But, he was tidy enough to put them side by side with all of his clothes stacked next to them almost in the exact order he would need to put them on. A quick exit save for the mistake he made not untying the shoes. “Oh what these shoes had seen,” Charlotte thought. She looked to the side of the bed she had gotten in on. Her clothes stacked exactly the same way. When had he done that? He had pulled everything off of her and off of himself and thrown each item after doing so. Like that? So they’d land perfectly like that? Is that possible? It was all a mystery too big to be solved so she made it disappear, correcting the second mistake she had made that night.
James was tired and his small strong lady wasn’t real. He wiped off the toilet seat he had been too lazy to lift up. Flushed the paper down and turned off the light.
Charlotte had peed already like her mother always told her to do immediately after sex. She slipped on her panties and pulled the top sheet over the one she had ruined, they had ruined. That guy and her together. She laid on top of it and slid under the duvet and awaited his return, to get dressed and leave, or not. To lay or cuddle or whatever he was planning. Probably no planning needed. Whatever he was going to do would come natural to him. This type of guy.
James was comfortable with cock and balls out, knowing the roommates weren’t home. Having been told that between kisses. Those incredibly suffocating, deliciously combustible, mouth and tongue meld kisses. “Fuck she kissed well.” He remembered and it made want to get into bed again.
Charlotte saw him cock and balls first. Leading the way in whatever thin light came sliding in from the window. Moonlight maybe. Streetlight not likely. Light from the city. Best bet. The sight made her giggle. Out loud even. A little. A little giggle. She was convincing herself it was just that. She thought of her roommates coming home days early to a man gliding naked up the steps. Those shrill birds she lived with. The kind that fucked a lot but always complained about it because the men they fucked, fucked them and didn’t give a shit. Just assholes in search of holes. They never said that. Charlotte decoded it for herself.
James stopped and looked at the giggling woman with her eyes peeking out from the fluff.
“Hey”
“Hey…Everything work out down there?”
“I think so. I think it did.”
Charlotte pulls up the comforter on the opposite side, James’s side.
“You getting in?”
“Definitely…Yes.”
-J. ANDERTON