Twenty minutes after the cafe closes, they are finally kicked out. All the lights are still on. She props open the door with her ballet flat, and tucks her arms into her arms, and looks over her shoulder. The street is gray and patient. When it doesn't get up and walk away before her eyes, she looks back inside.He is taking his time: he stretches. Cracks his knuckles. Drags his feet, lets his sneakers chirp against the tile. He gathers their things over one arm, and as he walks to the door, he flips the bird from under the jackets. It's not hidden very well. The two cafe girls give them looks that could bleach clothing, and now the two cafe girls are flipping the chairs up on the tables.
She smiles at them. She smiles at them, and keeps the door propped open with her ballet flat, and he helps her into her jacket. All the lights are still on. 60 watt vanilla and cream is pouring out of the windows, out onto the sidewalk, and heat is pouring out of the door like Christmas cider. She keeps the door propped open with her ballet flat and they are greedily soaking it up.
When the door slams and locks from inside, she stops smiling. Their breaths are coming out as a cold cotton fog. All the lights are still on. The two cafe girls are still flipping chairs, leaving their legs sprawled-up and still, turning the tables into dead bugs.
I should've bought you another one, she says.
What?
Shit.
He straightens her jacket at the shoulders. Smooths the material down. It is a deep and anxious habit.
I should've bought another coffee, she says. To go.
You don't even like coffee.
For you. For your hands.
Oh, he says, and laughs. His hands are fine. It would be a waste of three dollars, he thinks.
She is still standing there, staring into the cookiejar windows of the honeypot cafe, until he loops his arm around her shoulders and starts walking.
You could sleep on the couch again tonight, she says. You need to. I mean it.
He says nothing and shakes his head.
I mean it. It's too cold out. The backdoor's new, so it doesn't make any noise.
Not worth it.
They just got back from some business trip. They're sleeping like corpses. I mean it.
He shakes his head and kisses her hair, and that seals the subject.
You want me to walk you home?
She doesn't answer for a moment. She is feeling around for his hand. When she finds it, she rubs it fast with her own, like she's starting a cavewoman's fire. She is trying to warm it. He doesn't have the heart to say that her hands are actually colder than his.
In a bit, she says. Let's walk some.
The street is grey and patient. And idle, and paved, and jaundiced with the hum of the matchhead streetlights. They are ugly but they are there. On the left they are passing by the park, and she tugs him towards it.
Let's stop here for a minute.
In the park?
Yeah. She is rubbing her hands again, slowly, and looking at him sideways. Her face is suspiciously still. She tells lies like eight-year-olds do.
Okay, he says. He was thinking of sleeping here anyway. It's nice for a park. The benches are comfortable and almost clean. At night, there's not much to worry about unless you have a purse to be snatched, and there are some trees.
She is still tugging him along. Still rubbing his hand between hers. When they come to a bench she turns and cups his face, and pulls him down to kiss.
Your lips are freezing, he says, teasing, once she lets him.
She doesn't respond. Instead she pulls him down again. And then further, until he is sitting on the bench and she is straddling his legs. She crosses her arms around the back of his neck, and moves to kiss the brassy shelf of his jaw. His stubble scrapes her cheek like candied sandpaper and she makes a small and happy sound. And now sweet magnetic heat is rushing to his groin.
But uh. But people...
His hands somehow find her hips and pulls them down. It is effortless and wonderful. She is warm potter's clay, shaping under his hands, around his erection. She is trapping the shell of his ear in her hardcandy teeth and lemon taffy lips.
His lungs have shrunk in the last minute, he thinks. They must have, he thinks.
... here. People, I mean.
He is breathing heavier, and it leaves precious patches of heat in her hair. She hates how quickly they disappear. She half-bites his ear, pressing downward with her teeth and upward with her tongue. The mineshaft rumble in his throat is exquisite. She tastes salt and dim sting of old cologne, from a week ago, maybe, and after a moment she pulls back.
Mhm, she says.
People can see.
She doesn't want to argue. She bends to kiss him but he won't.
People can see us.
No one's gonna see us.
People walk by here all the time.
She doesn't want to argue.
Yeah, they do.
She bends to kiss him again and this time he lets her. She's glad. There is electric icewater brewing in the belly of her belly, and it wants her closer to him, and it makes her hips shift. Very gently at first. Back and forth. After a moment he dips a thumb into the rim of her skirt, and strokes the skin of her hip, and she makes a small and happy sound at that. At feeling his hands.
She loves his hands. She would never say so, but she likes to think of them as cowboy hands. They look like cowboy hands would look, she thinks. They are calloused from a summer of mowing lawns and trimming hedges. They are knotted and rough and big, and powerful, and whenever the bus is late and he curls them into fists, the tendons pop and flare like Molotovs. She loves that. Loves how big and threatening they seem. She loves feeling them against the back of her neck, loves wondering if they are big and powerful enough to snap it. They could but they couldn't. She is sure of that. She loves feeling threatened by harmless things.
((Hello! Contrary to glaringly present evidence, I am not a basement-dwelling porn-writing voyeur! Pinky swearsies!
I'd love for a Freudian to explain why I associate sensuality with candy and celestial bodies.))
