Dirty

Dan’s hand squeezed my sides gently before he pulled out. My skirt fell back around my thighs, and I reached to pull up my panties from their place around my knees. He flushed the condom, tucked himself away, zipped up his pants, every movement businesslike and efficient like he’d done this dozens of times before. For all I knew, he had.

“I took care of the check,” he said, his voice suddenly too loud for the small space, and then he walked out.

What had I expected? I chided myself. The same face looked at me from the mirror, but this time the fading flush on my throat and cheeks were a sign of a woman not about to be fucked, but one who has already been. I searched my eyes for some sign of change, something inside me to indicate how this should make me feel. Remorse? Guilt? Smug satisfaction? I saw no evidence of them in my gaze, couldn’t feel it. All I could think of was the way I’d laughed and climaxed simultaneously.

Even so, I lingered at the sink to wash my hands and pat a dampened paper towel across my face. I fixed my hair, freshened my makeup, sprayed cologne to mask the scent of sex.

The parking lot had emptied, the lunchtime crowds gone. I came out into late-afternoon sunshine that had me pulling my sunglasses from my bag. A spring breeze plucked at the hem of my raincoat.

“Hey.”

I turned to see him standing just outside the front doors. He flicked a just-finished cigarette onto the pavement and took two strides to catch up to me.

“You took a long time,” he said. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming out.”

I took a second to answer. “I didn’t know you were waiting for me.”

Something flickered in his eyes I couldn’t decipher. “No?”

I shook my head slowly.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you were finished. I figured you needed to get back to work.”

I’d taken a cab to the restaurant, but the bus stop was only a block away. I started walking. He let me go four steps before he followed me.

“So…you think I just left you there?”

I nodded again, keeping my eyes straight ahead. It was true. I hadn’t expected him to wait for me, had believed he’d gone. I hadn’t been ashamed of what we’d done until I found him waiting for me. When it became clear he expected not just a quick lunchtime fuck, but conversation after.

“That’s the sort of guy you think I am.” He had a way of phrasing questions in such a way he answered them himself.

I glanced at him. “Well, Dan, I don’t know what sort of guy you are, other than you’re careful, which I appreciate.”

Darkness passed over his features and he reached to grab my arm when I made to move forward again. “Elle—”

I extricated myself from his grip with firmness that could not be misconstrued. “Thanks very much for lunch, Dan.”

He let me get six steps this time before he followed. “Is that all you think I wanted? Is that what you expected?”

How could I explain to him, who seemed so affronted, that it was not only what I had expected, but all I wanted. Twenty minutes of oblivion to make me stop thinking.

He took two more quick steps to end up in front of me, walking backward to keep us face-to-face. “Elle.”

“That’s my bus.” I pointed at the one pulling up to the stop. I could be there in another minute, get on, go back to work.

“You’re not getting on that bus.”

“No? I think I am.”

He stood in front of me so I had to step around him to keep moving. He matched my move with one of his own, graceful, as though we were dancing. He wasn’t smiling, but then, neither was I.

“Elle,” he said warningly. “Don’t walk away from me.”

I might have liked it when he was leading me unerringly toward sex, but I didn’t like his assumptions now. “I’ll walk wherever I want.”

Again he stepped in front of me. The bus, its driver apparently taking Dan’s side, pulled away. I glared. This time he let me move forward.

“Now you have to talk to me,” he said.

“No,” I retorted. “I don’t.”

“But you want to.”

“Look,” I said, whirling on him. “Just because I let you fuck me doesn’t give you the right to tell me what to do!”

“I didn’t say it did!” He frowned. “I think it at least gives me the right to have you not think I’m an asshole.”

“I don’t think you’re an asshole.”

He moved closer. “Then what do you think I am?”

“I think you’re a man,” I replied, not caring if that offended him.

Dan didn’t look offended. He grinned. “Glad you noticed.”

I wanted to be angry with him. I wanted to feel disdain. Yet as I’d waited for shame or remorse in the bathroom, anger and disdain eluded me, too.

“Look,” I said finally. “We had a nice lunch—”

“We did.”

“And what happened, after—”

“Also nice. We forgot dessert.”

I paused. “But let’s not kid ourselves it was anything more than what it was. All right?”

“Elle,” Dan said seriously. “Why not?”

The bus stop was ten steps away, but I kept walking past it. He followed. I walked faster.

“Why not?” He asked again, softer this time, and reached to grab my elbow.

I didn’t pull away this time. I let him turn me. He put both hands on my elbows, holding me in place.

“Why not?