---

It began with a chance meeting. My local tattoo shop. Me under the needle. A girl. Morphine’s ‘Cure for Pain’ playing, loud and low and ominous.Her black t-shirt said ‘Yes It Hurts’; Her arms were tattooed to the wrist. She was with a couple of other women, older, dressed in leathers like bikers. I watched her as she browsed the shop, looked at tattoo flash, talked to the owner.

She knew I was watching her, I could tell.

Eventually, she came over. Stood behind me and admired the work on my back; complimented the artist. She told me I had some decent work. “Decent” was the word she used, and stressed “some”. She talked like another tattooist.

I go off somewhere when I’m getting tattooed. Tattooing is a combination of pain and discomfort; when you’re first tattooed, this is exciting. After a while, it’s not. So I try to go away, mentally, to escape the boredom and pain. She stopped me though, pulled me back, made me painfully aware of myself, my body, my pain.

I can’t recall what I said to her; I think it was strange. I know I tried to flirt with her. She told me not to try ‘that shit’ on her, and laughed. She said it like she sort of wanted me to keep trying.

I wanted to talk to her. But I was fading in and out, and she was gone, and it was too late. I hadn’t gotten her name.

Johnny, my tattooist, didn’t know her. He thought she seemed like a ‘pretentious bitch’, said something rude about ‘her dyke friends’ as he shrugged his big shoulders. Still, from then, she was in my head. She’s there still. Blood-red hair cut short, big eyes some strange color I could never put a name to. Full lips in a perpetual sneer. Her teeth were a little bit crooked. Young, twentyish, but with something in the eyes that seemed much older.

I can’t honestly say if she was pretty. In my memory, she’s almost impossibly beautiful.

I dreamed about her that night. We were in a fast car. She was driving. I’m not sure what we were doing, where we were going, but everything was red. After the dream, I walked around thinking of her for days.

---

Weeks later, we met again, by chance. A bookstore, a signing by a tattoo artist trying to sell a book of flash as fine art. I felt silly buying the glossy coffee-table book, waiting in line to get it signed. I liked the artist though, for all his pretensions.

I heard her laugh as I stood in line. Deep, a little rough; a voice like wet velvet. Pure phone sex. I shivered when I heard her.

She seemed to know the author; she was standing in the corner behind his table, poking fun at him and the fools who’d pay too much for his ‘big books of bad flash.’

Then it was my turn in line. I put the big coffee-table book onto the author’s card table. “Sign it”, I said, “To Matteo, ‘the fool who likes bad flash'”.

She laughed. The author looked at me, Then at her. “Fuck Off”, he said. Directed it generally at the both of us, signed my book as requested, and chuckled as he handed it back to me.

Then she and I were face to face, the line still moving along behind me. Standing in the shadowy corner at the back of the store.

“Matteo?” She said my name like she was sampling some unappealing food. She looked me up and down. “I know you. The big guy – Johnny – he was working on your back.”

“He’s a friend of mine,” I said. I felt tongue-tied. Her gaze left me feeling naked.

“The work on your back is good. Some of it.”

“Thanks. I – I remember you” I stammered. “Y-Your shirt said ‘Yes It Hurts.'” I was babbling. “It was worth coming down here, standing in line…”

She looked at me. Bemused. I wanted to vanish.

“Just to – to meet you?”

She laughed. Waved to someone behind me. Lost focus on me completely for a moment, eyes tracking over my shoulder, miming ‘call me’ to someone I couldn’t see. Then her eyes were back to me. I felt my face go hot.

“And why did you want to meet me?” she asked.

I swallowed. Unable to speak.

“Did you want to get tattooed? Or are you just in love with me?”

“I…” This was not how I wanted the conversation to be going. I usually wasn’t this lame with women. “I dreamed about you,” I blurted.

“And how was I?” she asked me, sneering as she said it.

Two friends had come up behind her; the same women she’d been with on our first meeting. They loomed, almost like parents eyeing an errant child talking to a stranger. A distinctly threatening vibe. The girl looked at them, looked at me, then waved them off. They retreated, but kept a line of site, still watching me.

“I don’t know.” Somehow I felt bolder with her friends watching – l was performing for an audience now. It was almost like a dare.

“Want to find out?” Like she was taunting.

“Yes. Yes I do.”

She stepped closer. She was taller than I realized – almost as tall as I am. She reached out with a finger, traced the edge of a tattoo that shows above my open shirt collar. Her breath smelled of cinnamon. She had a tiny gold ring in her left nostril.

I was afraid to touch her. She knew it. Counted on it.

She leaned closer – breathed on my neck, my ear. Slipped an arm around me. Her breasts were small; I could feel one against my shoulder. I felt a pierced nipple press through her t-shirt.

I could feel myself hardening already.

She pressed her hip against mine, laid her head on my shoulder. “You like?” she whispered.

I think I gurgled. I couldn’t speak.

She slipped both arms around my waist, started to rub herself against my hip. I could feel the crotch seam on her jeans. She nibbled my neck.

“Was it like this?” A breathy murmur against my neck.

I put my left arm around her, stopped her rubbing. She raised her head, leaned back a little and looked me in the eye. She was waiting for me to back off, or for me to tell her to. There was sweat on her upper lip, and I could hear her breathing.

She touched my face. I noticed a tattoo on her hand, two female symbols, linked.

I shifted, put a hand on her waist; touched skin where her shirt and jeans didn’t meet. I moved her, pressed myself against her, my hard cock now pressing against her hip.

I heard a soft intake of breath, then a soft chuckle. “Oh, you do like me”, she whispered into my ear. Her hips began to rock against me, a slow, circular grind.

I became aware of her two friends. They were moving closer, looking less amused as this went on.

I had both arms around her now, my hips starting to move with her. I closed my eyes.

“Fuck.” She stopped grinding. My eyes opened. She pushed away from me, looked me in the eye, her hands on my chest. Still whispering, barely audible; “You made me wet. That wasn’t supposed to happen.” For the first time, she looked almost vulnerable.

She looked over her shoulder; he friends were gesturing, saying something, indicating time to go.

She turned back to me, winked, let go and walked away.

She didn’t look back.

I felt faint. I couldn’t breathe. It was several minutes before I could walk.

The book signing was ending; I asked the author if he knew her, knew who she was. He gestured at a pile of tattoo shop cards people had left on the corner of his table, picked one out and tossed it to me. “That’s her,” he said. “But you should watch out”.

The card was black, shiny, lettering in red. “Tattoos by Wanton” it said. Red lips imprinted behind the name, a pattern of female symbols forming a border around the card. The name and address of a tattoo shop on the back, across the bay, outside my usual range. A shop I knew by reputation, but had never visited.

I stared at the card. Thought about throwing it away. Didn’t.

I Wondered what the the remark meant, about watching out, as I jammed the card into my wallet.

---

The shiny black card stayed in my wallet. I knew it was there, but avoided looking it.

I had the feeling I should leave the whole thing alone. I told myself to drop it, just stay away. Only, I hate being told what to do. I could not stop thinking about her. Wanton. She had a name now, of sorts, and that just made it worse. I was enthralled by her. I wondered what her real name was, though in a way I preferred not to know.

The shop where she worked had a hipster reputation, and did as much business as a piercing place as a tattoo shop. It was in a shitty part of town; one of those neighborhoods they tell you to avoid at night. Though they sometimes seem even worse by day, when you can see exactly how decrepit and broken down the streets (and everyone in them) really are.

The block was a mixture of clapped-out tenements and seedy bars, with a couple of obvious crack houses and shooting galleries. The tattoo shop took up most of the top floor in what looked like it had been a warehouse, but was now occupied mostly by squatters. It was easy to spot from big neon signs in the window, “Tattoo,” “Body Piercing”. The front door was reached by a large iron external staircase, freshly painted and surprisingly well lit.

The first time I’d gone by, it had been afternoon, just turning to evening. The early hookers were drifting out, looking for a john on his way home from work, or a score to start the business day off easy. I’d found the shop, stood in the lobby looking at an impressive collection of flash, but when I’d finally worked up my courage to ask for her (feeling a little sheepish asking for the odd name), the boy at the counter had mumbled around several tongue and lip piercings that she worked other days, and then grudgingly wrote down her schedule for me. He warned I should make an appointment if I wanted to get her.

I didn’t make an appointment. What would I say? I don’t want a tattoo, but I’m infatuated with her. It made me feel foolish to even think it.

A couple of times I’d thought about going, after work, or on a Sunday when I knew she was working. When I finally went, it was a whim; on my way home, after watching a ball game in a bar after work, drinking a couple too many beers. I found myself getting onto the cross-bay bridge without ever making a clear choice to go.

I parked down the street from the shop – gave a homeless kid ten bucks to watch my van, with an offer of ten more if it was intact when I came back – and wandered into the shop.

Wanton was tattooing when I walked in, in a back corner. Her station was under a set of stairs that went into some sort of loft. Her back was toward the lobby, but the blood-red hair was unmistakable.

The shop was surprisingly quiet, old blues playing rather then the usual thundering hip-hop or speed metal. Only a couple of artists working, no customers in the lobby, and no one working the front desk. I could see that she was finishing work, cleaning a tattoo on a woman’s shoulder, taping it up, giving the usual after-care spiel. I noticed she was left-handed.

I waited.

The customer, a fourtyish woman with the look and build of a lady cop, dropped money on the desk, used the restroom, bid Wanton goodbye (they hugged), and walked through the lobby. She looked at the tattoos on my arms as she passed, never getting her eyes above neck level or looking at my face.

Wanton was cleaning her station when she noticed me. She looked around, then gave an indifferent beckon, inviting me into the working area of the shop. She met me half way.

“You have an appointment…?” trailing off, gesturing vaguely at the two other artists, one tattooing, the other absorbed in something he was drawing at a big drafting board in the corner. She looked wary, suspicious. Her shoulders hunched.

“No. I wanted to see you, actually.”

“I don’t generally tattoo men.”

It began to realize I had no idea what to say, what I was there for. I had thought as far as finding her, of seeing her, but my mental image had not included any actual talking.

“I – ah – I…”

“If you want a tattoo, you should make an appointment. If not – what?”

She was sensing my discomfiture; the sneer was coming back, the body language changing. Her shoulders were back. She was not wearing a bra, her nipples pressing the fabric of her wife-beater tank top.

“You’re looking at my tits,” she said. She was correct, of course, I was.

I smiled – relaxed a little. This was territory I could manage.

“Yes I am.”

She looked at me, waited.

“It’s what I came for,” I said. “To look at you.”

“Just look?”

“Look – at least.”

“You should leave.” I wasn’t sure if she meant that, or was just fucking with me.

“Are you done working for the evening?” I asked. She shook her head, turned, walked back to her station, started to tidy things up.

She ignored me for a minute. I stood, arms crossed, watching her. Her ass looked great in a pair of worn and faded jeans.

She pretended to notice me, as if she’d thought I was gone. Pretended to be annoyed. I thought she was pretending, anyway.

“You still here?” she asked me.

“Still looking,” I said.

She rolled her eyes, shrugged, stretched for my benefit. Popped a shiny red candy into her mouth and went back to cleaning her station, though it was clear she was mostly done.

I crossed the room, stood behind her.

“Hey, Want’, you ‘k?” The artist who’d been drawing when I walked in was coming toward us; young, small, obviously gay, and charmingly protective of a woman who did not look like she needed much protecting.

She looked at him, and back at me. “I don’t know, am I? Am I ok?” She directed the question at me, but it seemed rhetorical. I answered anyway.

“No.” I said. “Not really.”

The small man looked at a loss, but she gestured him away. “I’m fine, Patrick – get outta here, go home”.

Patrick looked me over, then turned back to Wanton, looking for any unspoken signal. She waved him off, and, reluctantly, he returned to his drawing board and began to collect his things.

“So” she said. “Am I in danger?”

I smiled at her. She didn’t smile back. I stepped closer, touching range.

“I want to kiss you.” I said.

“What if I say no?”

“What if you say yes?”

She looked past me, waved to Patrick as he left. Looked over at the other artist on the far side of the room, who was now at the bandaging stage of his tattoo.

She turned back to me.

“You should leave now.”

“What if I don’t?”

Her face turned very serious. Her eyes would not meet mine.

“That might be a bad choice.”

She sounded like she was threatening me. And she sounded like she might be dangerously serious. For some reason, I didn’t care.

“I’ll take that risk.” I said.

The sneer was back. She reached out, grabbed a handful of my shirt. Pulled me closer.

“You’re a stupid, stupid boy,” she said, breathing cinnamon in my face. “Go upstairs and wait for me.”

She pushed me toward the stairs and walked toward the other tattooist.

I went up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs was a loft, divided into two rooms; the first was a storeroom, open but with a steel door and several heavy locks, clearly where they kept the valuable equipment. There was also a locked rack of guns in the back of the room.

The other looked like a living room, with a coffee table, a large couch and a couple of chairs. The room smelled of pot, cigarette smoke and spilled beer.

I sat down, waited for what seemed like an hour‚ wondering what the fuck I was getting myself into.

Eventually, the music went off, I heard good-nights in the silence downstairs, the sound of locks being locked, then the music again, hard rock, female vocals.

I didn’t hear her come up the stair, the music was loud. She startled me when she stepped in the door. She was barefoot.

I stood. She came toward me, stood facing me. I reached to embrace her, tried to kiss her.

She turned her head. “No – no kissing.” she said.

“What?”

“No talking. Take off your clothes.”

I started to ask her if she was serious, but she covered mouth with her hand, shook her head. “Don’t make me get the duct tape,” she said.

I started to laugh. Then stopped.

She stepped back, gestured for me to get on with it.

My hands shook as I unbuttoned my shirt. I turned, laid my shirt on a chair ‚ sat, pulled off my boots. Then I stood.

“All of it.” she said.

I undid my jeans; let them drop, stood in my boxers with my jeans around my ankles.

“Your turn,” I said.

She shook her head and gestured toward my crotch. “Shut up,” she said.

I slipped out of my boxers, finally, tossed them on top of my shirt, added my jeans to the pile of clothes, stood in front of her. I could feel my body beginning to react.

“Turn around” she said.

I did. She moved close, touched the tattoos that covered my back and shoulders, stroked my back.

She took her hands away then stopped me with a touch when I tried to turn. I heard her belt, then her jeans buttons, being un-done. She tossed her pants on top of mine.

I felt something touch my shoulder; soft, silky. Her panties.

I took them from her, felt them, then sniffed – they were wet, musky.

I turned around. She didn’t stop me. She took the panties out of my hand, tossed them onto the pile of clothes.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now,” she said, “You make me come.”

“And then?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, boy,” she said. She flipped off the light switch, leaving us in semi darkness from the room lights outside.

I touched her, my palm on her belly. I backed her toward the couch, pushed her down. I knelt before her, tried again to kiss her.

She turned her head, pushed me away.

I slipped my hand between her thighs. She was wet. She opened her legs, lifted herself. I found her clit with my thumb, slipped two fingers inside her. There were small rings in her labia. Her pubic hair was sandy gold, soft as silk.

She pushed my head down.

Everything else went away when I tasted her. I don’t think I’ve ever been as intensely focused on a single sense in my life. I’d been thinking of this, of her cunt, her taste, since that moment in the bookstore, weeks before.

I licked her cunt, her clit, sucking wetness from her and swallowing, unable to get enough, get it fast enough. I bit her, and she screamed.

“Don’t stop,” She hissed.

She clawed at my shaved scalp, scratched my shoulders, her heels kicking into my back, her thighs clenched around my head.

My cock was so hard I thought the skin might tear – dripping, almost coming without any contact.

I pulled my face away from her, ready to climb her, enter her. She stopped me, pushed me back. “No!” she screamed, pushing my head down again. “Finish it!” I lowered my face, began again, slipped my tongue back into her cunt, then up to her clit, sucking it, fingers pushing inside her. Her nails dug into me, drew blood.

Then she was coming, back arched, breath drawing in, moans turning to screams, then rasping, growling, panting; juices running from her, dripping from my chin. Her feet kicking me, nails raking, the stroking.

Finally, she stopped me, pushed me away, closed her legs, moaned, softly. Her eyes were closed.

“Get out of here,” she whispered.

“What?”

“We’re done. Go.”

“But…” I stood, my cock straining toward her.

She stood, shoved me, pushed me into a chair.

“Fine ‚ jerk off then. Be quick!” She switched on the light.

I’m not sure why I obeyed her. But I did. Jerking, my cock so swollen it hurt, left hand kneading my balls. I watched her, her face slick with sweat, her hands busy in her own crotch. When I came, she stopped, watched me, watched my come spatter my chest, my face.

She threw clothes in my direction, pulled on her own jeans, panties forgotten. “Get dressed,” she said. “Now – don’t stop, don’t clean up. Go home like that”.

She walked out.

I was stunned. I dressed, come drying on my skin as I pulled on jeans, boots, dragged on my shirt without doing the buttons.

What the fuck had happened here?

I stepped out the door. The music had stopped. I wobbled down the stairs, my bootlaces trailing behind me.

“Out. Now.” She stood at the door, held it open.

“Wait ‚ I – ”

“Go. Now,” she snarled at me. “Don’t come back. Don’t call. This won’t happen again.”

“But…”

She looked away, slapped my hand away when I reached for her, pushed me out the door.

I didn’t hear the door close behind me ‚ my boots clattered on the stairs. At the bottom, in the pool of light from the building’s outdoor spots, I stopped, trying to grasp where I was, what I was doing. I looked up, maybe drawn by some faint sound.

Something black fluttered down, landed near my boots. Her panties. I picked them up, started at them, slipped them into my pocket.

I heard the door lock. The lights went out.

I found my van. The homeless boy accepted his tip, offered to suck me off for ten more. “Not tonight, thanks,” I mumbled.

I drove home, lost and confused.

---

The black panties hung from my bedpost. I tried to pretend they got there accidentally, flung in a moment of passion.

The smell of her was gone, mostly. I think I’d breathed it all out of them, trying to draw her into me. In a particularly depraved moment, I’d thought of eating them, swallowing, making then part of me. I think it was the image of where they’d wind up that stopped me, not any notion I might choke.

I carried them in my pocket for a week before I could stand to part with them.

The marks on my shoulders were no longer visible, though I could still feel a rough spot; the tattoos concealed anything else. The scratches on my scalp, though, I could still see, when I shaved my head. The one above my ear had looked a little infected at first, and I hoped it would leave a scar. I liked the idea of a permanent mark from her.

Three weeks. I still had not called her.

Each day, I had to resist the urge, car-keys or the phone in my hand. I’d memorized the shop’s number. I’d driven halfway there a couple of times, but turned away.

I knew I’d give in.

I’d thrown myself into work, into exercise. I’d gotten tattooed twice, hoping the pain would help me move on. But it hadn’t worked; I wound up hard, trying to hide my condition from the tattoo artist, trying not to think of her while the needle buzzed. I swore to myself I’d never get another tattoo after the first time it happened, then went back a week later for another.

At first, I could not stop jerking off. I was sore, cracked, bleeding, dehydrated. I jerked off in my van, in the bathroom at work, even in my office.

But now, I couldn’t, not without seeing her, wanting her. It only made me want to cry.

When I wasn’t working or exercising, I was drinking. That helped a little.

I was losing it. Darkness was calling. I kept thinking about answering.

[center]
* * *
[/center]

The tattoo convention was a long day’s drive away. I wasn’t going; I swore to myself as I booked a room and then canceled it. I wasn’t going. Her shop had a booth; she was listed in the program. I knew she’d be there.

I didn’t decide to go. I just started driving. I’d been headed for work, and then I wasn’t; I was driving south.

Every mile, I’d resolve to turn around — every hour, every stop for gas. This time, I swore, I’ll turn around and go home. But I kept on driving, and having that same conversation with myself. And then I was there — in the basement parking garage — in the elevator — at the doors to the convention hall, numbly paying my money to get in.

“Show’s almost over, son, you sure you wanna come in? Shoulda been here yesterday, we had contests. Most of the action’s done and the artists are booked up, mostly.”

Yeah, I wanted to come in, just take my money, geezer.

I went to the bar. A last chance to stop and think, to pretend I was about to leave, that good judgment would intercede. That I had good judgment. I drank one and then one more. I don’t know how many ones, but I told myself I wasn’t drunk. In between drinks, I stared at the convention program, the booth map. She was in the last booth down, far end of the building.

Fuck it, now or never.

She was on break when I found the booth. Patrick, the little guy from the shop, looked at me funny, like maybe he knew something.

“She might not be back,” he said.

“Where is she then?” I was standing too close to him.

“I don’t really think she wants to see you,” he was starting to look nervous. Maybe I was scaring him. It’s possible I looked a little crazy.

“And I think she’s booked up, if you want a tattoo.”

I smiled at him. He meant well. He was her friend, so I wanted to like him. My smile seemed to scare him more.

I walked away ‚Äì thought about the bar, thought about leaving, then stopped thinking and just walked. There were people I knew, but I tried to avoid eye contact. There were tattooists I’d worked with, or had wanted to meet. Today, I had nothing to say, didn’t care. I just circled the convention, prowling.

When my third circuit was complete, she was back in the booth, starting a tattoo. She pretended not to see me. I waited.

The tattoo took an hour; still I waited.

She finished it, took a moment after cleaning up. Looked at me, held my eye. I stepped to the edge of the booth.

“No,” she said. “Not now. Not here.”

I just looked at her.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” She said.

“Why not?” I asked, finally.

She looked at me, the sneer gone. She was gorgeous, that deep red hair freshly cut, shaved short on the back of her neck. She wore a black shop tee shirt with the sleeves slashed off, a dark plaid schoolgirl skirt, mesh stockings. I imagined a garter belt under her skirt, but dragged my mind away from that.

“No ‚Äì not here, not now.” It was half snarl, half plead.

“Later?”

“No. I’m working. Tattooing.”

“Tattoo me, then.”

“I…” she looked around, looked at me. She had a funny look in her eye, something that scared me a little.

“Fuck. Alright. Later. Closing time. I’ll do you last.”

“Thank you.” I said.

“Fuck off,” she shot at my back as I walked away, but it didn’t sound like she meant it.

I killed three hours, borrowed a hotel room from my friend Johnny, who was working a booth. I showered, helped myself to a little bottle or two from the mini-bar.

Closing time. I’d cadged a staff badge so I didn’t get kicked out. Most of the booths were empty, some broken down, a few people still working. She was alone on her shop’s booth, the other artists already packed and gone, off to the post-show party or getting laid with someone they’d just met.

She didn’t say hello. Didn’t ask me what tattoo I wanted. She looked at me, seemed to be trying to decide something. I expected her to send me away, was wondering how much of a scene I’d make and if security was close. I didn’t think I would leave, no matter what she decided.

She told me, finally, to sit on a chair, facing away, straddle it cowboy style.

“I missed…” I began.

“Shut up.” she said. “No talk until I’m ready.”

I could hear her putting a needle together. “Take off your shirt.” she said.

The needle buzzed. For people who love tattoos, the sound is like Pavlov’s bell. It makes you itch; it makes you crave the ink. With her behind me, touching me, the sound made me hard.

I felt the needle dig in the small of my back. Deep, like she wanted to hurt me.

I could see her knee from the corner of my eye. Astride me like a cello player. I could see garters clipped to the stockings when I turned my head.

“Sit. Still.” she said. Dug in again with the needle.

I tried to talk to her again. “I missed you.”

She said nothing. The needle buzzed. Pain flared. I heard her skirt rustle as she twisted, inking the needle.

“I stayed away. Like you asked”. The needle buzzed. “I wanted to call, to come by, I wanted to see you again.” Stab of pain, then rustle as she dipped.

“Why?” she asked. It wasn’t a question I expected or was ready for. “Why do you want to see me?”

“I…” I was at a loss. “Last time – was – incredible.”

“I treated you like crap. I used you. I hurt you.”

“I liked it”.

She stopped. Stopped tattooing me. Stopped moving.

“Fuck.” Under her breath.

She reached around, felt in my crotch. “You’re hard, aren’t you?” she asked me. She had her hand on my cock. I didn’t need to answer.

“And you’re wet, aren’t you?” I asked her, knowing the answer.

“Fuck” she said again. And then the rustle, and the buzz, and the pain, and I got harder.

“What are you doing to me?” I asked. She dug.

“Marking you.”

“What?”

She stopped. Rustled. Held the tattoo needle under my nose.

“Me” she said. The needle smelled of her cunt. She wasn’t using ink. My mouth watered at her smell.

She started again. Buzz. Pain. She kissed my back, now, when she dipped the needle. I could hear her breathing.

She was touching herself, playing with herself, between bites of the needle.

“I’ve written my name on you” she said, finally.

“Are you done?”

“Yes.” She whispered it. I stood. Faced her. She handed me my shirt.

She let me kiss her, kissed back. Then stopped me. “I have to clean up now. And you should get out of here.”

I helped her, dumped needles into red biohazard bottles, picked up trash. She packed her gear, washed her hands.

She told me, again, that I should leave. Brushed past me. I grabbed her arm, barely slipped the punch she threw at me in return.

“I’m not done with you,” I said.

She sneered. “I’m done with you, though.” She shook me off. Walked away.

For five seconds, I was going to let her go. Then I wasn’t.

I caught her, spun her around. Took a slap, and another, then we were kissing again. She tried to pull away, once. She was strong, but I was stronger. She bit my lip. Drew blood, kissed harder.

“Let’s go to your room,” I whispered, as she bit into my neck hard enough to bruise

“No.” She said it through clenched teeth as she ground herself against my thigh.

I slid a hand between her legs, felt the remembered slickness.

“You’re in me, now. I need to be in you”.

“Hey you two!” Someone shouted. “Get a fucking room, wouldja?” The old geezer from the door. He gave me a thumbs up and a wave as we hustled out.

She slipped away from me in the lobby, made for the elevator. She tried to get the doors closed before I could get in, but I jammed a steel-toe boot into the door, got it open.

I was on her before the doors had closed again, biting her neck, forcing her legs apart with a knee, pulling her skirt up. I pushed the button for the top floor.

She screamed at me, told me to get the fuck away, to stop. She pounded her fists into my chest, dropping her case full of tattoo gear. And spread her legs, opened herself to me as I pulled out my cock.

I pulled her leg up, lifted her, pressed her back into the wall. My cock pressing against her as the elevator began to move. Everything in slow motion suddenly; sweat running down the side of her face, the vibrations of the elevator, her ragged breathing. The wetness of her cunt, my cock sliding up, tip against her clit.

“I hate you,” she whispered, biting my neck, then moaned as I entered her.

Her legs were around my waist; I supported her weight. Her arms snaked around my neck, pulling me tight to her, gasping and wordlessly vocalizing with each thrust. Our mouths came together, kissing, biting. I drank in her breath, sucked it from her, licked sweat from her face and neck. I drove myself into her, deep, long strokes, lifting her in my arms and then pulling her down onto me.

30 stories to the top – we came together as the elevator slowed and stopped. Her eyes were closed, her head thrown back; she gasped, drawing air between clenched teeth, then sound built in her. Muscles clenching, her entire body seeming to stiffen. Sound burst from her, low and guttural, building, rising in pitch ’til a shriek filled the tiny cage of the elevator. I came as she clenched around me, spurting, stopping, and spurting as her muscles pulsed with her orgasm. The doors opened behind us on a dark and empty hallway.

I fell back against the far wall, her legs coming down, catching herself, helping to support our combined weight. She hit the lowest button, ‘P’ for parking garage, and the doors began to close.

I pulled out, still hard, kissed her, then turned her around, pulling her hips toward me, pushing her shoulders away. She resisted, a little, then gave in, let me bend her over.

I entered her from behind, pounding in this time, no longer in slow motion. I feared, at any second, the elevator would stop, the doors would open. I needed to fill her, drive into her, as deep and hard and fast as I could.

My hand was in her hair, pulling, her head back. Her neck, her back, arched up. Her hands were against the wall, trying to stop her face slamming into the side of the car. I groped her with my other hand, squeezing her breast, grabbing her belly, her hip, trying to get my fingers on her clit as I slammed into her. Her face was pounding into the wall, her cries and sobs muffled.

I don’t know what good luck got us all the way up and all the way down without interruption, but we came again as the doors opened to a dark basement. She reared up against me, her head against my chest. My cock slipped out of her, my fingers still on her clit. My come was firing between her legs as I continued to thrust, her legs so wet it felt like I was still inside. My fingers rammed into her cunt, two, three, trying to shove my whole hand in. She thrust her legs against the wall, almost knocking me over, pushing me into the open door of the elevator. She was silent this time, shivering, breath ragged, her entire body jerking with her orgasm.

The doors tried to close around us, slammed into us; I forced them open, once, twice, a warning alarm starting on the third shove. I held her, our breath slowing, my cock going limp between her legs.

She turned against me, finally. We kissed. Her face was bloody, nose bleeding.

Then she let me go. Stepped back into the elevator. Pushed me out.

I didn’t resist.

“Please stay away from me. Please.”

“I can’t,” I said as the elevator door closed. She was gone.

“I CAN’T!” I screamed at the closed doors, screamed it to the empty basement.

– End of Chapter One –