Fornikate

It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was sprawled across my bed staring out the window at the Boston dishwater-gray sky. I was moping. It felt right to do so. I was mourning yet another failed relationship and had resigned myself to bed rest and staring dramatically into the distance.

I watched as people passed by on the esplanade—university students clumped together sipping their iced coffees, runners cutting across the pavement, and the occasional couple with their hands interlaced. To think, not too long ago, I thought that might’ve been me. Meandering aimlessly with my beau. No destination, just time spent.

My thoughts were interrupted by a call. I let out a tentative “Hello,” and was greeted with a voice that was all smoke and sex, that had a Spanish lilt to it, and that launched my feet to the bathroom to start the shower I knew I’d be taking once we hung up.

I peered over the top of my martini glass in what I hoped looked like a sultry smirk. There I was, simultaneously confident but apprehensive, infinitely indifferent and endlessly restless. I took a sip of my cosmo. I always ordered a cosmo first—something I picked up from binge-watching Sex and the City. There was something that was classy about it, that screamed I’m an adult, take me seriously. Never mind that I wasn’t even 21 and had no business drinking anything that wasn’t a virgin Shirley Temple.

When Murder Man finally did decide to join me, I knew immediately. It was like a weight fell on my shoulders and then took its time sliding deliciously down my back. I turned in my chair and tilted my head back to look over my shoulder, and our gazes connected. His lips fell into a lazy smile, and he sauntered over.

I wish I could say what we talked about, but the reality is I don’t remember. I do remember laughing a lot. I remember that he whispered in my ear what I’d be like in bed, what he’d do to me, how he’d have me. I remember by the end of the night we had scooted our chairs so close together their backs touched. I remember that his hand slid up the length of my thigh and, soon after, we had left the bar—hands intertwined, drinks untouched and lonely on the marbled counter.

We walked back to his car—me giggling at nothing, him planting little kisses on my cheek and down my shoulder—and I came face to face with a white U-Haul van. Now, a smart woman would have said her goodbyes and called an Uber. A smart woman wouldn’t have gotten in the white I murder people in the back van. I am not such a woman, at least not that night. I wanted to cling to that high of what it was to be so intensely desired. To feel the sexual tension that went taut between us every time our gazes met.

I climbed into the front seat of that van and let him drive me home.

Pulled over on the dark end of a side street, I straddled him in the front seat. He planted kisses down my neck and trailed his fingers up my back in a heated path. I arched my spine into his grip, and my body turned languid and lazy underneath his touch. I was out of my element.

This man knew exactly what buttons to press, knew exactly what I liked, had read me like the palm of his hand. I was turned on, I was on fire, and I was barreling toward a certain doom if I let him continue. My body was practically vibrating with need, yet I hesitated. I couldn’t help but feel like this was wrong. But why was it wrong? I knew that I wanted and wanted and wanted, so what was holding me back?

I was brought back to a conversation with an aunt of mine after another man, another time, had disappointed me. I had liked him too quickly—maybe, to some, slept with him too soon—and then the pretty picture I painted of our future had shattered swiftly after. Though in this conversation with her, I remembered explicitly what she told me:

“I think you’re trying to do, trying to be someone you’re not. Some women can sleep with a man and not spare them a second thought. You can’t. You’re too emotional, too sensitive.”

In this moment, all I could hear ringing in my ears was you can’t, you can’t, you can’t. But why couldn’t I? I had done things by the book before. Wrapped myself in Catholic shame and abided by the laws of propriety. That if I acted good enough, my prince charming was a sure promise. And yet it had not happened for me.

In reality, I think my aunt might’ve been right in some ways. It wasn’t the casual sex that bothered me, really. It was the idea of not mattering, of being deemed unimportant, unremarkable, unlovable. I had felt like that most of my childhood, and once again that feeling reared its ugly head.

That was the crux of what grated me as I was stretched out across Murder Man’s torso. That to him I would be just another girl. That he knew from the moment he saw me that he could have me. I chafed against that certainty. That I, as interesting and remarkable as I believed myself to be, could be so predictable. But also that when he saw me, he saw a girl who he’d love to fuck, but a girl that he’d never love.

What snapped me out of my reverie, I wish I could say, was a romantic gesture or the beginnings of pleasure so great my thoughts scattered to the outer recesses of my mind. It was actually a smack that brought me back to attention. I reached up and placed my hand on top of the warm skin on my cheek and, in rapid succession, with a speed I can only describe as biological instincts, I swung my hand up and smacked him back.

I knew as soon as I made contact I went too far. This was not your average man. This was a man entrenched in all of the Dominican Republic’s history of macho, domineering men. With the speed of a viper, he had my neck in his grip and jacked my body across the passenger seat. He tilted my head up and applied pressure to my windpipe—not to elicit pain, but in a warning—then pressed a slow, heated kiss against my lips.

He wasn’t pleased, but the hardness that pressed against my thigh indicated otherwise. In that subtle pressure against my throat, I could feel the strength that coursed through the muscle that corded his forearms. We made eye contact. He had full control of the situation and knew it. His eyes were bright, and he looked at me with a predatory curiosity. A warm feeling curled in my stomach and then swirled lower. He was waiting for my next move, but what would I do?

Part of me liked the idea of relinquishing control. There was a freedom in giving into want. That I could fuck and be fucked. That I could explore the darkest corners of pleasure and let go of what that might mean for tomorrow. I wanted to live in that small window of euphoria and let it carry me away. But I couldn’t help but wonder if, like Icarus, I was flying too close to the sun. Would I burn bright, or would I burn and burn and burn for a man who had every intention of snuffing me out after?

I buttoned my pants, removed his hand from my throat, and whispered, “Take me home.”