City of Singles

by Jason Bryan

  I jerk my dick hard and fast and put the head into the top of her ass crack. My other hand grabs her hip as I ask her how bad she wants to feel me cum all over her ass and pussy. She leans forward and re-positions her bottom in the air so that her pussy is practically staring me in the face. That beautiful, soaking wet looking tight rosebud sits under a perfect little asshole, marking a couple of bullseyes. My breathing continues to rise while contractions shoot through my iron-hard shaft, calling out to her through a new plateau of sheer pleasure as she is rubbing her clit. My right leg swings up onto the bed. My right hand has a firm hold of her hip and I’m rubbing myself with my left hand. She has her face buried in the bed with her back arched up as high as possible. Her finger darts across her clit and her pussy is a bright moist pink. A trail of wetness leaks out of her and her lips glisten in the bedroom light. Both of us are breathing hard in the moment that seems to go on and on.

  In her most demanding tone she growls, “Put it in… now…”

  The bed is rocking against the wall as a chorus to gasps and moans, pleasured claws are dragging the blanket half off the bed as she screams that she’s cumming. Her body shakes and spasms, a warm blast hits my leg as she squirts and shakes all over. Savage hands are holding tight on her hips when a tortured roar slips out of me. The surprised intensity of my orgasm pulses when I pull out to cum, a shot hitting her halfway up her back, the next I aim perfectly for her asshole. The third and fourth hit home, a fifth crowns the hot mess I just made between her legs.

  Her body stops shaking as my right leg gives up. Falling onto my right knee, it’s barely supported by the edge of the bed. A mixture of our cum flows down her ass crack, onto her well-exercised, engorged woman parts, and on both sides of her inner thighs. Her face is red and makeup smeared, hair matted wet. Laying onto my side, I notice my body is sweat sheen’ed. We stare into each other’s eyes briefly while breathing hard.

  With twitchy motions aspiring to addiction, I shout “More cocaine!” and slap her ass, leaving a stain with my cum-soaked hand.

  After that, we both put a patchwork of random floor clothes on, and headed back to the kitchen for more blow. She could barely walk in my PJ bottoms.

  Fuck that night was so hot. She passed out for 24 hours, crashing hard once all the liquor and drugs had been sifted through our souls. After finally waking up, she cooked me Chinese food before heading home. Today you’d never guess she loved to get high and fuck, her profession strictly white collar, her friends and family all upper crust.

  She’s such a good person, I still don’t know who used who more.

  I sometimes want to give her a call and catch up, but I leave what we had in the past.

  We have no connection now other than the time machine I call a hard drive.

  Laying down, drunk and spent; having jerked off to my own amateur porn. Doubt my attendance to any art show would happen even if they paid me to go tonight. Don’t even have the drive to be getting up off this couch. A half-hearted effort to clean myself up is made and it’s time to grab a blanket and pillow. It’s like 7:30 PM on a Thursday night and I’m ready to pack it in, lame. Whatever, it’s hard to go out and socialize once my sexual needs are taken care of.

  13 Huggles

  Another Friday’s here and I don’t care. Lacking serotonin puts me in that purgatory headspace where resting won’t satisfy me and the idea of partying is just a drag. Anxiety to produce something fills my mind, morning throws open the gate and waits for me to charge out of it. Life is a long Monday. Somehow the energy to get out of bed comes to me, teeth get brushed but a shower fails to manifest. I pick the least wrinkled shirt to wear as the coffee machine makes fun of me. Each sputter from Hamilton Beach a reminder that at least it has a purpose.

  Morning at 9 AM is too early. My day kick-started as artists trickle through the door, lighting up the studio with productivity. Painting, songs, talking, and one artist’s home baked cheese bread. She’s getting better at this, still too much salt. I find my Zen and manage to get a canvas piece of my own started. Last night’s reminiscing fuels today’s flurry of activity. Friday’s work hours fly by in a daze and soon I’m in the middle of a few joints being passed around during the end-of-week meeting, smiles all around. The studio clears out of the artists I’ve been working with, my staff goes home, I’m all alone and it’s 6 PM again. Sighing as I look for a place to sit, fucking finally with some time to myself.

  The couch beckons me to take a deserved break, I sit down and the first shoe comes off easily, the other refuses to kick off. My frustration level ramps up, the back of my heel finds the edge of the couch frame to pry the other one off. One arm extends behind the couch grabbing at a fleece blanket stashed there. Laying down and wrapping myself with it, soon cocooned and peacefully relaxing, alone. A friendly reminder goes off on my phone, shit. Guess those cocktails Misha wanted this Friday night aren’t happening. Misha will take the hint without needing to call her. A rock bottom libido makes masturbation seem boring. I couldn’t even be bothered to use Misha as a human fleshlight tonight, and certainly not while having to leave my house to entertain her first. I doubt she’s waiting for me anyways. My mind clears and my world goes quiet.

  Blue grey steel, the crush of stale air, it’s my turn on duty, and I get up off my bunk. Cramped spaces, metal pipes, dials and gauges are telling me about the world outside. Diesel engines roar and clatter from some unseen source. It’s impossible to tell which direction all this noise is coming from. Aesthetics don’t matter, utility and function do. Everything is lit in red. A maze of corridors and passageways lead to the bridge of this empty vessel. The periscope is ice cold on my face, and its pitch black outside. I’m all alone. Solitary, I’m underwater hunting for something, even in my dreams. An alarm goes off.

  My phone is ringing. I sit up and fumble around for my coat on the ottoman. The ring continues screaming in my tired ears, someone must really want to talk. Maybe it’s a bill collector.

  “Hello,” the word a grumble from my throat.

  Her warm familiar voice on the line, she’s off work, bored, and looking for a friend. She sounds unhappy in the way happy flowers can remind you of funerals. Karen invites herself over before my offer to hang out leaves my lips. She’ll be here in 10. Hanging up the phone, a whiff of stench hits me. A quick sniff of my armpits reminds me of garbage. I smell of stale farts, sweat and trash.

  Peeling my ass off the couch wasn’t easy. Frustrated, minutes wasted finding my razor, slayer of neckbeards. After a quick shower and being meadow-fresh, some new grey hair makes me feel old. I’m glad all the younger women around keep me feeling youthful. Its dark out, the solitary bathroom light throws shadows around the loft. Crypts and closed coffins have less isolation and better lighting at night, maybe a couple of switches flipped on will fix the atmosphere. Some bums are yelling in my alley. Usually it’s “Fuck-something” or something indecipherable mixed in with the crashing sound of shopping cart metal, not this time. Today it’s “Charlie, you know you’re gonna get it!” Whoever Charlie is, or what he’s going to get, doesn’t sound good. Being glad I’m not Charlie causes my skull to break out in smile hives. My phone cuts through Charlie’s bullshit problems and alerts me to my friend’s arrival. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Karen, my curiosity bites on how she’s been doing.

  Pressing 9 to buzz her up, a minute or so later my door beeps to greet a visitor. Her steps down the hallway are silent, she must be dressed down. Karen turns the corner of my foyer hallway and isn’t smiling.

  “Hey,” I say. Not exactly my best at an enthusiastic greeting.

  I did miss her, even though I’m poor at maintaining friendships. I have a hard time showing people I care, or knowing when someone cares about me.

  “Hey,” she whimpers.

  She puts down a liquor store bag and her purse on my couch.

  “I need a smoke,” she mumbles.

  “Why so glum, chum?” My voice, so keen.

  A no
nchalant elbow rests on my desk, Digital Photo Professional up on the screen. She normally checks out my latest photos when she visits, this time she’s agitated and ignoring them.

  “I’m DONE with men, done.”

  Her hands find her smokes and she walks past me towards the window. She probably needs me to be an ear.

  Anxiety is laying down, back unnaturally twisted and arched, finding her fingernails in wood.

  While listening to other people’s problems, nerves dart my eyes around the room. Daymares spawned by broken emotions, lamenting my own torments that might someday unlock their own cell doors.

  Fresh dirt patted down with a shovel, hidden rocks clang on metal. A thunderclap follows the crescendo of rain and the finality of burying your past.

  Cliché.

  I don’t want these memories sitting around in a sunny park sipping wine, I want them to know exactly where they belong.

  I pick up my pipe, baggie, and lighter and join her by the window.

  The cherry burns a pumpkin orange, a dot of fire reflecting in her wet eyes. She turns her head and exhales out the window. “I am not kidding, I wish I were a lesbian,” she says, her voice jagged with sadness.

  Her modest clothes fit a little tight on her, a red sweater, blue jeans. The instinct to hug her hits me, but I don’t.

  “Do you have any idea how many guys have lied to me about what they want? I’ll be in someone’s arms for an hour, cuddling, and if I stop them from getting any, I’m the bitch, really?” Another drag of my pipe, I can only nod.

  I know exactly what she’s talking about, as a teenager my hormones raged, emptying me of my ball juice and tact. It took me a decade to awaken to the idea that sex could mean anything. I don’t even remember if I lost that principal, or if any belief in it existed in the first place.

  This is Karen’s latest visit, and I’m her best male friend. That seems odd to say, considering I haven’t been that great of a friend to her. We used to have sex and talk music, a relationship based on convenience for me. I lived blocks from her workplace and she saved an hour and a half worth of commute by staying over. I guess at the time she was more into hookup sex, and I was certainly happy to oblige. Now she’s been explaining her empty love life after watching her younger sister have a kid before her. I try and remind her that her sister’s relationship is rocky and probably not going to last. So what if she’s had a child, her sister will be worse off when the guy eventually fucks off, but it doesn’t make a difference to her. She sees herself as unattractive to men for anything other than fucking.

  “Dylen do you know what it’s like to be told one thing and consistently witness completely different actions?”

  I want to tell her I have, but I’m usually so caught up in my own bullshit that I forget.

  “I had a guy that took me out for drinks a few times. He works on the floor above me. He was a real genuine guy who even remembered my birthday when YOU didn’t.”

  My small glass pipe is packed with some dank, fresh bud. She smokes her skinny menthols.

  “I knew about his dog and how it had cancer, his mom’s business and how it got robbed. He drove me to get a battery for my car. Do you know how this made me feel? Wanted. Respected. Valued.”

  She flicks her ash out of my window.

  Sparkling lights of the Vancouver waterfront burn deep yellow. In the distance a port crane is lifting a container, no doubt full of cheap Chinese shit.

  “What do you think happened next Dylen?” She says my name almost with a sigh.

  Her eyes drop to her burning smoke. Flick.

  “Nothing good,” my sardonic reply lingers in my mind, what a downer.

  Getting high isn’t to feel a buzz anymore, but instead to forget her problems. Caring hurts.

  “I get a text from his wife, asking me who the fuck I am. Yes, his wife. THEN you know what happens Dylen? He ignores me. He won’t even acknowledge I exist. I’ve passed him at work and he won’t even make eye contact with me. Do you know what this has done to my heart Dylen? Do you?”

  My nose tingles as empathy takes its toll to weigh down my eyelids. I put the glass pipe to my lips, light, toke, and exhale. Numbed reality in bite sized pieces is easier to forget.

  In a time gone by, showing up at her work and busting his fucking head would be a good idea. I’d take the time to beat a man until he’s bloodied, then kicking him when he’s down. Laughing as his head flops around and hearing that guttural breathing when someone is unconscious, then stomping him in the balls until his testicles are full of hemorrhage gravy.

  World-Star! World-Star!

  Teach him a real lesson for insulting her honor and hurting my pride. Maybe he just gamed her for a little action on the side. Maybe somewhere on a PUA forum he’s explaining how he first gained her trust at work, in the elevator. Whatever, she’s not my sister, no skin off my back. I’ve probably done similarly heartless things that I’ve forgotten about.

  Karen crosses her arms on the window sill and puts her chin down. She flutters her eyes and swallows while her head drops to rest on her forearms.

  “I’ve been raised to believe that men are inherently good and that I’ll someday be wanted, and I’ve refused to believe you’re all fucking like this Dylen.” The anger in her voice cuts into my tranquility.

  She briefly lifts her head for a drag, and rests it again on crossed arms.

  “I just don’t know anymore, not anymore.”

  Her eyes close, blue smoke curls from her nose and into little vortices before drifting away. I move a little closer to her and put my arm around her. A wannabe caring hand rubs along her shoulder and pulls her in, I wish I could tell her to hold on to hope, but I can’t. Lies are lies, even when told to make someone smile. Many words can describe the type of dickhead I am, but a liar isn’t one of them.

  Her sweater is warm to the touch. The soft fabric feels very gentle and feminine in my palm. Menthol and perfume surf the breeze and this smell will be forever burned into my mind as a sad one.

  “Whatever,” she says, her arms uncrossing.

  She flicks her smoke into the alley below.

  “Do you want a beer? I brought a cold six!”

  She stands up and steps over some of the pillows that lay scattered by the window. Last year I built a thickly carpeted wood platform, about a foot off the ground, triangle shaped and pushed into the corner. It serves as a relaxation area that keeps turning into a confessional.

  “Yeah,” I reply.

  My place is in a warehouse converted to a loft with 20 foot ceilings, the fifth floor is higher than a normal five-story height. Directly under the window is an alley, a two-story warehouse across from it. I can see the next street over and a trendy club sits facing my building along that street. Bad bitches in near painted-on dresses, loud, drunk men puff up their chests. Tonight, like every Saturday night, there are fights and bullshit spilling into the night air.

  Karen returns with a Corona. It’s ice cold, what a good girl.

  “Come on, I have some new music to show you,” she smiles, turns, and walks over to my computer.

  It’s at a stand station behind a curtain that currently separates the photo studio from the art gallery and business portion of the studio. A THC filled haze floats through the air from another relaxing glass pipe toke, the showoff in me blows a smoke ring out the window for style. A blonde girl outside of the nightclub screams and wraps her arms around a fat brunette. Thirsty lips command a long drink of my Corona, my subdued attention leading me to my computer. Karen’s a little short with a Brazilian like body. Plump, round bottom, thick legs, and a large double d-cup chest. Her figure is very well proportioned and her face is Adele pretty, if a little girl-next-door plain. In make-up she’s a fox, but it’s about as much of her style as a four door Mercedes would be in yellow. Her arms barely reach over the top of the desk, which is designed not for sitting at, but for standing. Feels good to see her relaxed and smiling, she’s able to let down her guard and ju
st be herself around me.

  “Ok Dylen, this is an old track but I just discovered it, and I think you’ll like the video!”

  A heavy guitar riff pumps out of the speakers and my eyes look at the clock. Its midnight, should be good for another hour at this volume.

  Karen and I alternate our musical choices and lose track of who’s Corona is who’s, multiple times. Several cigarettes and bong tokes over the next hour, light hearted conversation, and dancing lift the spirit. It could be the booze, but my heart warms knowing she is happy, even if any of this sexual tension won’t go anywhere. We sit by the window and watch people file out of the nightclub at closing, people falling down like dominoes. The club’s bouncer gets between two guys scrapping. A stretch Hummer limo pulls up with pink hoverlights.

  “Oh Dylen, look!” Karen says with excitement “It’s like the automotive version of The Jersey Shore!”

  I laugh, “Does it have truck nuts?” I question out loud, she probably doesn’t even know what truck nuts are.

  Karen finishes the last sip of our last Corona.

  “Wait, I take that back, it’s white and has pink lights, that’s kind of cool. It looks like ice cream floating on bubble gum, or a vanilla ice cream float over cream soda!”

  Being so stoned, my tongue flickers in excitement with what that would taste like right now.

  “Mmmmm,” I almost drool on the desk.

  Karen looks at me funny.

  “Dylen, you’re the only guy who makes porn noises when you think about food.”

  Three AM. The nightclub is finally silent and the window entertainment is no more. Karen and I love to people watch. We collapse together on my couch and I cover her in a blanket, spooning until she falls asleep in my arms. Laid down next to her, I get pretty hard out of instinct, but I don’t try anything. Besides, I’ve already filled her up many times in the past, and fucking her would feel like I’m going backwards. I hate the idea that she would think I’m just another guy who hangs out with her to get my dick inside her. Don’t ask why it bothers me so much. My only thought about that is she reminds me of what a traditional woman was like. Demure, submissive, kind.