Page 8 of View From the Bottom
“Cool.”
There it was again. That letdown I wasn’t sure how to address, to counteract. Luis turned, taking a step toward the door, then swiveled and paused before approaching me. He pressed his lips against mine. It was a gentle sort of kiss, one that was simultaneously depleted and hopeful. A final goodbye. A goodbye that saidthanks… even though I’ll probably never see you again… even though I really want to.
When his lips parted from mine, my lips smiled a shy grin. I didn’t want to give my hand away but a sparkler had been ignited in my stomach. Trembling heat worked its way up myframe, blushing my cheeks when it finally found my face. I was all nervous energy, swirling and singing.
Luis grabbed my briefs from the wad of clothing in my hand and held them up with one finger. A name brand traced its way around the white waistband in navy blue. The seams were damp with sweat, and a one-inch-long hole had been ripped just under the elastic band on the side. It must have happened when Luis was tearing them off my frame.
I laughed as I tossed the rest of my clothes onto the couch. “I should probably throw those away.”
Luis used them to wipe the sweat from his forehead and under his arms. He then pulled me close and kissed me again, with more force and desperation than the last time. Intensity radiated from his full lips, his magic finding its way to me. When he finally pulled away, he brought my briefs to his face and inhaled. “Maybe I’ll hang on to ’em. That way, I’ll have something to remember you by. A piece of you—to get me off later.”
It was a joke, but it made my dick twitch with arousal, and I wondered to myself how much truth traced the edges of that joke. I’d heard that half of what people say when they’re joking is actually true—that sometimes people joke about things they’re too nervous to talk about. I was certainly guilty of that. I licked my lips. “You have your phone?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Put this number in.”
He pulled his phone from the pocket of his jeans and I proceeded to give him my number.
“That’s something better to remember me by. But you can keep those anyway.” I nodded toward my briefs now clenched in his fist.
A wide smile drew across his face, coloring his expression with subdued excitement, a sort of joy that wasn’t meant to beseen by anyone. The sort that people kept bottled up inside for fear of embarrassing themselves. For fear of showing their true colors.
“Cool.”
The word was drenched in hope that time, swimming in incitement. It was delivered with the sort of carefree exhilaration captured by the first warm day of spring, or the anticipation of the first drop on a roller coaster, or diving into a lake on a hot day, not knowing whether the water will be frigid or not, laughing all the way.
“And next time,” he continued, the confidence returning to his voice, “maybe you’ll fuck me silly.”
“You bottom?”
“I’m versatile… for the right person. You?”
“For the right person.”
Luis grinned, and I laughed through my smile. He leaned in and kissed me again, a kiss that was almost as sweet as our fuck had been desperate. His free hand gently brushed the back of my neck, causing the hair to stand on end. My thumb looped into the back of his jeans, tickling the hairs in the cleft of his ass, which made him giggle into our kiss. I found myself not only enthralled but proud that I could draw such a playful reaction from him.
“I’ll text you,” he confirmed as he exited my front door and stumbled down the hallway to the stairwell. He turned to get another look at me leaning naked against my doorframe while he shoved my briefs into his back pocket.
“You better.”
I couldn’t wait.
TWO
your secret
Sun-kissed cheeksand a dewy sheen of sweat veiled the normally even tone of my skin, glistening on my forehead as I turned the key to unlock the front door to Enzo’s house, a craftsmen painted a deep, muted shade of blue with light gray trim. I was perched on a small, elevated slab of concrete and red brick that composed the front porch, not much room for anything other than a doormat and a potted plant. Houses in the neighborhood stacked and nestled themselves amongst other residential structures and beneath leafy old-growth tree canopies.
The unforgiving oppression of September days had finally given way to wavering temperatures more suited to October, offering welcome breaks of comfortable, moderate warmth between days-long stretches of unrelenting sultriness, the sunbeams belting down from afternoon skies as a heavy blanket of humidity hung cruelly in the air. But this week had given Atlanta another one of those sultry stretches. The thick, moist air had been hanging around since Tuesday, when the temperature again spiked to nearly ninety degrees, only resigning in the black of night when the neighborhood had grown quiet.
Thank God it was Friday; the sweet end to another grueling week of working outside. And I had no weekend jobs lined up.
The thin gray fabric of my T-shirt clung to my chest, beads of salty perspiration faintly dampening the front of it in an odd sort of Rorschach pattern. I was grateful for the central air that hit me like a brick in Enzo’s entryway, instantly cooling my flesh, providing me with a satisfying respite from the outdoors: the thickness, the heat, the density of the city in which I’d been trapped for hours, for years. I loved the heat but I was ready for a break.
I drew a strange enjoyment from entering Enzo’s space, a muted excitement that bubbled underneath my flesh and tingled my fingers and toes, subtly vibrating in my stomach. And even further down below. It made no sense. It was a nice home but a lot of my clients had nice homes—well-decorated, upscale, expensive homes. Most of them were one- and two-bedroom condos in high-rise towers a couple of blocks away. Those towers furnished the neighborhood with activity, with interest, and decorated the skyline with shiny, glimmering, looming beacons of glass and steel that buzzed with life. But Enzo’s place was older, a small single-family home with cedar-shake accents and a giant evergreen in the front yard. It was nice. It was comfortable.
The setup inside was neat and tidy, everything in its place. The smell was clean but woodsy, like bergamot and cedar and new furniture. A candle on the coffee table looked recently burned. Maybe that was the source of the aromatic ambiance that seemed to float through that entire space. Or maybe it was Enzo’s cologne still lingering in the air. There was something serene about the house. Structured but easy. Modern but cozy. Pristine but lived in.