by Mia Wolf
“Let’s talk,” she finally says.
“About what?”
“Anything,” she replies sadly. “I’m not doing too good right now, and it’s unfortunate that you have to see me like this, but I could really use a friend right about now.”
“Alright, we can talk about how you’ve been this whole time,” I suggest. “You seem to be doing good for yourself.” I absent mindedly gesture towards her outfit.
“Can’t say the same about you,” she looks at me from the corner of her eye with an expression of scathing judgment like she’s somehow wary of me. “Where have you been?”
“Around,” I reply. “Shouldn’t we talk about you instead?”
“No, I’d much prefer we talk about you,” she fires back in a bit of anger.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“Don’t you always, Warren?” For a moment I think she’s back to her old self again, the girl I first met, and I find some solace in that. If she somehow went back to being that way, we could perhaps pick things up where we left. But the way she is now, she is too far ahead for me to be able to catch up. She shines too brightly, and I will only bring her anger or contempt.
“Shall I call you a cab?” I ask instead of answering her question. There’s nothing I could say that would make her feel better anyway. I’m not like I used to be before. Back then, I could care. Now I just run away from things.
“So since you can’t run you want to send me away? Is that the best you can do, Warren Maibach?”
“Why are you trying to provoke me?” I ask her, my voice low.
“Why are you trying to pretend like we don’t know each other?” Her temper is flaring as she throws the blanket half on the bed, half on the floor.
“We don’t know each other,” I say with zero doubt. “We never did.”
She stands in anger and turns to face me, but she trips on the blanket and crashes on top of me for the second time tonight. Her attempt to get up is not working as the blanket twists around her legs.
“Let go of me,” she yells, even though I’m doing nothing to prevent her from getting away from me.
“Or else?” I ask, feeling a little angry myself.
Chapter 12 – Ashley
Fuck. I’m lying on top of Warren on a hotel bed and the worst part of all this is that I don’t want to pull away. I’m sitting very close to his junk and my body is acutely aware of that fact. I can tell that Warren’s focus too is on my boobs pressing into him. It’s so obvious in his eyes that if I keel over this edge, he will gladly follow me. I’m pinned against him, and I don’t know how to get out of it. More accurately, if I want to get out of it.
I open my mouth to speak but before I can, his mouth is on me and his tongue is already exploring mine. Instead of feeling angry at him, I’m lost in the sensation of his soft lips on mine, and it makes me blush when he sucks on me as if he’s eating candy. I’m still wriggling because I’m caught in the blanket, but I’m sitting on a precarious spot, unable to move either.
“Fuck, you taste like bubblegum, Ashley,” Warren says once we’re both out of breath from kissing so hard. He licks my lower lip with his tongue, preparing to dive in again, but I turn my head so his lips touch my neck. The contact doesn’t rattle me any less, neither does it deter Warren because he’s licking my neck now, and I can’t help but hold him to steady myself.
“We shouldn’t,” I gasp, “don’t you think?” My words are so weak that they don’t even convince myself. The thing is, I don’t really want him to stop.
“Tell me to stop,” Warren whispers, nibbling at my neck. “Just tell me, and I’ll stop.”
I trust his word which is why I turn my head back again and start kissing him, hungry for his touch, his taste, his everything. It’s been so long and now that he’s so close, I don’t want to stop.
Warren’s hand reaches for my hips, and I have to lift myself up a little to give him space. He squeezes my butt so achingly slow that I clench from the glorious sensation. His hand travels down further and stops at the hem of my dress. We’re still exchanging hot kisses, feeling thirsty for each other like it’s our last day on earth.
Warren slides his hand up my butt from under my dress this time, and the soft brush of his fingers makes me gasp. I’m so out of breath that I pull away from our kiss and he victoriously passes me a devilish grin, his hand still traveling up and up. He locks his eyes onto me when he finds the fabric of my panties. There is a declaration in his gaze, he’s commanding me to surrender. I roll my eyes at him and shift a little as he slides my underwear down. I’m already wet. I sit back down on his thick jeans and we make out some more while Warren’s squeezing my bare bottom.
When our kisses slow down, Warren pulls away and stares down at my chest just like he had been doing before we entered the hotel room. There is a focus in his eye. The deep cut of my dress has a knot right above my breasts, Warren pulls the string slowly, peeling the dress away until he can see my nude bra underneath. He doesn’t unhook it, but simply pulls out one of the breasts and takes it into his mouth fully without warning. I can’t help but hold onto his head as his warm, wet mouth encloses on my left boob. He caresses the nipple with his tongue slowly and then suddenly presses it between his teeth, sending signals straight down to my core. I pull at his hair as he continues to rub and lick and suck my breasts, making me moan uncontrollably until I can’t take it any longer.
“Stop having so much fun and get it over with,” I choke out. He nibbles at my breast in response then looks up at me.
“Are you in a hurry?” he asks, but I’m already unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning his jeans.
“Yeah,” I challenge him but he only smirks at me. Just after I’ve unzipped his jeans, he grabs my hand and holds it, kissing me on the mouth.
I’m distracted by his hot kisses but continue to try to wriggle free out of his grip. I rub myself on top of him so he can’t wait any longer.
“Warren, come on,” I tell him through our kisses.
“As you wish, baby,” he replies. The way he calls me ‘baby’ makes my heartbeat quicken and I end up biting his lip. It bleeds a little, and I suck on it in a manner of apologizing.
I’m still gently sucking onto his lip to make the bleeding stop when Warren pulls me up and stands up. I instinctively wrap my legs around his waist until he pins me against the wall and lowers his jeans to free his hard erection. My mouth is almost watering at the sight, and Warren smirks again. He lifts my skirt up and places his dick on my wet folds. When we’re both in position, I hold onto his shoulder again, and he puts an arm around my waist to pull me to himself. He starts moving a little and the feeling is too unreal. My eyes roll back into their sockets as he continues the slow rhythm, his dick brushing against my folds. I can feel him harden, becoming stiffer and stiffer. I don’t know what he’s waiting for but since he doesn’t seem to want to put it in yet, I start kissing him again.
Warren’s tongue suddenly leaves my mouth deep into the kiss, and I’m hanging onto the empty space after him, longing for more. He reaches for his wallet in his pocket and pulls out an aluminum foil packet, tearing it open then slipping it on. He returns for the kiss, and I feel happy again as we curl and swirl our tongues around.
Out of nowhere, he inserts himself with a single thrust and I pull back from the kiss as the pain hits me. Then, as my walls adjust to his size, the hurt slowly turns into pleasure. It takes me some time to get used to his size and to the feeling of his rock hard member inside of me again. It takes me some time, but the feeling is too familiar to forget. I’ve been waiting for exactly this.
Warren pulls himself out ever so slightly then slides himself back again, loosening my insides. When he’s sufficiently lubricated, he pulls out and pushes in, going in and out so gently as if he could break me. I enjoy the slow, deliberate motion until he picks up his pace, thrusting harder and deeper. His dick is so hard and thick that I feel every inch of it. My walls are nearly convulsing from hi
s quick thrusts and my entire backside is numb from being against the wall. We’re so close to the edge that I forget everything else and keep holding onto Warren. He slows down for harder thrusts, his dick hitting the end inside. He thrusts hard for one last time and we both climax at the same time.
He pulls out and lowers me to the ground, then places his head on my shoulder. I let down my skirt and Warren pulls up his jeans. We’re both still gasping for air as if we just ran a marathon. But we kind of did, and the thought makes me smile. All of it can be attributed to the fact that I just had the best sex I’ve had in a long, long time.
“That was too fucking good,” Warren whispers, burying his face in my hair which has been freed in the process of making love.
“So good,” I reply, feeling pleased in the post-coital bliss.
We both crash onto the bed afterward and go right to sleep.
Chapter 13 - Warren
I wake up in the morning with Ashley next to me. She’s still naked. It reminds me of our time in New York together, the long drunk nights and even longer midnight chats. We could talk about anything under the sun; the food, the weather, the churn of our lifestyle. Or our feelings. I was the one who made Ashley open up to me but what she doesn’t know is that she did the same for me. I fell for her like a feather from the sky, drifting downward, slowly but inevitably with nowhere else to go. It’s surprising that she never saw that. Well, I never showed her.
This is where Plato comes in. The man has successfully pulled me out of the depths of despair many times in my life. In moments I was ready to give up, surrender, let go. But by the sheer virtue of immersing myself in Plato’s world, I was doomed to be plagued by the thoughts that plagued him. But more importantly, the thoughts he couldn’t have known exist in the clockwork of the 21st century. What would Plato think about long distance relationships and anti-depressants? I would love to hear his thoughts. But it’s not what he didn’t say that has brought me to the crossroads in life, it’s what he said. He probably didn’t expect people to create a bastardization of his ideas to justify their behavior yet I find it alluring and comforting at the same time.
Plato’s allegory of the cave has me stymied in life. How would one explain to people who have only ever seen shadows in life what the “real thing” is? The object casting the shadow? The idea of the shadows is what keeps me up at night. I am the shadow, and if I keep casting it, no one will ever see the real thing. No one has ever come close except…
I look at Ashley’s sleeping face peeking through the sheets. She has a faint, careless smile on her face. Her lipstick has mere smudges left here and there. Her cheeks are full and her hair is falling around her like beams of light. She is poetry. From the day I first saw her, she has been the rhyme, the rhythm, and a world of meaning.
“Good morning, sunshine,” I say to her as her heavy eyelids struggle to open. She pushes her hair out of her face, her arms expanding into a morning stretch. I chuckle at her ease of being—is she that comfortable around me?
“What’s the time?” she asks.
“10 am.”
I’m too caught up with her right now to be able to look away. I’m a shadow, but sometimes the way she looks at me makes me feel like she sees through the silhouette, piercing deep into my soul. I wonder what she sees. I wonder if she likes what she sees.
“What’s the plan for the day?” she asks, springing out of bed. Her lackadaisical demeanor from seconds ago has somehow dissolved into the air, and she’s unadulterated vital energy now. It’s weird, I don’t recognize her. There are glimpses of the girl I used to know, but there’s so much that’s new. Should we be sharing such an intimate space right now if we’re almost strangers?
I check my phone to find a new message from Rose waiting for me. She proposes having dinner again together tonight.
“No particular plans except dinner tonight,” I reply. “It’s Saturday. What’s your plan for the day? Don’t you have to go to Regal?”
“Well, I recently finished a project that was pretty high intensity and I was working inhumane hours.” She pauses and looks at me. “I suppose I could take today off.” She makes a ponytail and it dances after her as she walks out of the bedroom and into the bathroom.
When she comes out, I’ve mustered enough courage to ask her if she wants to spend the day together.
“We could go to Times Square,” I suggest. “Like old times.”
She glares at me with eyes reduced to slits as if she’s evaluating the truth of a confession. I shrug my shoulders in innocence.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asks with her freshly blow-dried hair curling around her face as she drops the wet towel in her hand to the floor. There is so much grace in her movements. She’s not called the queen for nothing.
I’m too mesmerized to know what she’s talking about. “Sure about what?”
There is hurt in her eyes that she fights by looking away, and I know I must’ve said something wrong.
“Sorry, I wasn’t listening,” I confess. “You’re too distracting.”
“We’re not getting involved with each other,” she says. “That’s not what’s on your mind, right?”
The way she says it, there can only be one right answer. “Of course not. But we can hang out for a day like friends, can’t we?”
“Well, friends don’t have sex with each other.”
I don’t know what she wants from me, and I seem to be losing the argument.
“Warren, can you look at me when we’re talking?”
“Sorry, I just don’t understand where any of this is coming from. You don’t want to hang out with me?”
Again, that look of disappointment and contempt. Can I say the right thing just once?
“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, Ashley. Everything about you is serious for me. It’s just that we’ve been apart for so long, it’s like we don’t even speak the same tongue anymore. I’ve missed you in more ways than just what we did last night.” I pause because Ashley’s face turns red. It makes me smile. “I want to know how you’ve been. If you can give that to me as a gift, I’ll take it.”
Chapter 14 – Ashley
I want to know how you’ve been. If you can give that to me as a gift, I’ll take it. The words seem to belong to that boy from my past who shook my world when I met him. I don’t tell Warren that because the interesting thing about love is that so much of it happens in your own head. He doesn’t know the thoughts I used to have about him, and he won’t know now. It’s not for him to know, anyway. It’s for me to feel and right now what I’m feeling can be dangerous. Right now, I’ll gladly accept anything Warren will say.
While he takes a shower, I get dressed. I only have my royal blue dress with me, and a single pair of footwear which are four-inch tall stilettos. The good thing is that Warren is over six feet tall so wearing heels doesn’t make me feel guilty.
Warren walks out of the bathroom in a plain white t-shirt which is sticking to his torso because his body is still wet. His jeans barely manage to hang onto his waist and I can see the band of his boxer shorts on top. It makes me chuckle.
“Please tell me this is not how you still dress up,” I tell Warren, glaring at the outfit from top to bottom because he looks like a college student when we’ve been a decade out of college.
He shrugs his shoulders, and I shake my head in response. He needs another makeover, doesn’t he?
“Let’s pick up your car from the Hilton,” Warren says. “This day would be incomplete without driving around New York.”
We leave the hotel room right around the time the summer sun starts to reach its peak in the sky. The warm breeze makes a thin line of sweat cover my body, something I don’t usually let happen anymore. But there was a time when it didn’t bother me in the slightest. Back when living was the only thing that mattered. That’s what Warren gave me, a love for life that has quite frankly been the reason why I’ve lasted so long. So yeah, I couldn’t refuse him what
he asked for even if I wanted to.
We take a cab to the Hilton and pick up my Audi A4. We drive down Brooklyn and I let him behind the steering wheel. I had forgotten just how crazy Warren is with cars, but it comes back to me with the first press of the accelerate. It’s an hour-long drive and don’t get me wrong, Warren’s the best driver I’ve seen, it’s just that I’m not in college anymore and driving too fast for street traffic gives me both anxiety and annoyance.
“Some things never change,” I say as he takes a sharp right just in time before the traffic light turns red. “How have you managed to stay alive this whole time?”
He laughs but his laughter quickly melts back into the deadly focus he always has when he’s driving. It’s almost like he’s meditating.
When we arrive at Times Square, we disappear into the crowd of people running from everywhere to everywhere. The lights that I’ve seen so often now don’t appear as glamorous anymore. But when I look at Warren, I see a glint in his eyes. And when I see the look on his face, of seeing the lights the way we saw them when we were young, I suddenly see them that way, too. The fluorescence, the intensity, the promise of greatness. Funny that I have it all and still manage to feel empty from time to time.
“Why do you look so sad suddenly?” Warren says over the impossible noise and slips a hand into mine, entwining his fingers and holding on tight.
“This just doesn’t feel as good as it used to,” I tell him.
Back then we could barely afford to eat street food or buy cheap liquor, and now half the designer stores around here have clothes that I’ve designed. It’s oddly melancholic.
I ask Warren to take me home within an hour because the noise is starting to give me a headache.
“I’m just not the same person, anymore,” I explain while we drive back to his hotel.
