Christine might have once believed that the proper place to fuck was the space between her comforter and her sheets, with the ceiling light dimmed, and a condom at the ready on the nightstand, next to a framed picture of her family. She might have once been less focused on work and shelter than she was now, with her child sleeping several dozen feet away in a comfortable bed, in a third floor apartment. She might have even believed in love and the fluttery lightheadedness of kissing a man for the first time, every time, back when firsts were of great importance.
Little Mike is his name. His father is Michael, I met him. A short, round man with light wisps of hair along his jaw and chin. She hasn’t told me much about him other than he’s a good father and an electrician.
When all those things cease to matter and when she has the need, she calls me, or finds me after class and asks if I’ll stop by tonight with the heavy implication that I know what she wants.
“You’re wearing the jeans,” she says, the tighter than usual ones, that ones that don’t sag so much. She places her hand on my arm and I feel uncomfortable, there, in the hallway as everyone is leaving their evening classes, seeing us.
“You better believe. I can’t wait,” I say, and she nods and smiles as she heads to the white stairs that exit out into the parking lot. Christine says hello to someone else, another man, before she exits, and for a moment, a regrettable lifelong moment, I am jealous, and angry. I am the man who is going to fuck her, not him, and this memory remains lodged among the rest.
When I leave school twenty minutes after the hallway I no longer consider or think about the reason why. I think about the smell of her perfume, I don’t know the name because I don’t ask, and the softness of her plump hips, her pooch, her full red lips, always red and never dull, and the sheer maddening scent when I kneel before her. The outlines of her eyes accentuate the dark, nearly black irises that she insists are meaningless despite my poetic utterances.
The frequency of our relationship has caused her to tune in to the sight of me, the smell of my aftershave, and the sound of my truck passing below her window on the way to the empty car port next to her Astrovan. By the time I finish backing in so that the truck bed is concealed by the van and the wall on other side, she is there. She tells me Little Mike is asleep and she seems anxious, eager, reaching up to place her arms around my neck and allowing me to reach down and place mine on the small of her back, where I start. I press myself close and kiss her forehead.
“I’ve missed this,” she says, and I smile before our lips meet, mine as eager as hers, the quickness of our breath increasing, tasting each other’s mouths. She brushed her teeth and I forgot to buy a pack of gum. We retreat to the space between her van and my truck, and when she begins to slide the door open I stop her.
“Wait, no. Come here.”
I pull her toward the truck and in the faint light of the car port see her confused eyes look ahead to where I lead her. When I pull down the tail gate she laughs, almost too loudly, and I smile again.
“What? Come on.”
She hesitates, surprisingly, but still gives me her hand and sits down before me. She expresses admiration for the jeans and begins to undo my belt while I stand on the curb of the parking space and look out above the truck cab, into an empty parking lot and soft evening lights. The traffic of the street hums in my ears and when she takes me into her mouth I listen to the cars and the swish of their swift passing. My hands reach for her short, dark hair and I do what I can to show appreciation for her enthusiasm but remain conscious, still, of our existence.
For this to be possible we must cease to exist, and so I say, “God, I want to fuck you. Lie down.”
I do not concern myself when Christine lies back on the dusty bedliner of my pickup truck. I do not consider what she might have once believed, or who she might have been, before. I hurriedly part her legs and grasp her hips, the plump hips, and drag her body towards mine, leaving her dress behind. I tell her they might see us and she opens her blouse in response. I ask her if she loves it, and she says she does, she does, and only now can I finally forget who I am.