The ring of my cellphone yanked me from my sleep. It was only 11:30 p.m., but I'd been up since 7 a.m. and had spent the day walking around the city visiting museums until my feet ached so much that when I made it back to my hotel at 9 p.m. I had only enough energy to soak in the bathtub for an hour. It had been a chore just to get out of the tub to drag my tired body into the clean hotel sheets.
"Hello?" I said groggily. I didn't feel motivated enough to open my eyes to see the caller ID. I figured it was a simple situation: Someone in my home state of California didn't know that I was vacationing in D.C. and, therefore, had no idea I was in a different time zone.
"Where are you?" was the response my sleepy greeting had received. The question was direct with a strong sense of urgency and frustration behind it. My eyes squinted in response. I knew that voice, and I was immediately annoyed.
"I'm in bed," I said calmly. "I was asleep."
"Where are you?" he asked again not relenting. It was Adam. Adam and I had been a couple up until three weeks earlier when we had both decided to go our separate ways. He was interviewing from North Carolina to Boston trying to move back to an uptight, east coast existence. I wanted nothing to do with it. Visiting the east coast was one thing, but there was no way I was leaving the ease of Santa Cruz and the beauty of the Pacific Coastline. It was my home. Just like he felt New Jersey was his home. And to me, the only people in the world who I knew loved Jersey were people who grew up in Jersey.
It had been a mutually messy break up. He cried. I hadn't. I shouted. He didn't. And then he started packing boxes, and he issued me the ultimatum. A proposal. Come with me and let's get married or stay here and be by yourself.
No person in her right mind takes an ultimatum proposal. We had come to an impasse. And five years of love and commitment and monogamy had gone straight down the drain, along with our talk of family, buying a house and all the other domestic fairytale crap. Now we were just two single people still completely wild about each other, but not so wild about the other's life plans.
It was the reason I had decided to take a vacation. There was a summer fare sale from San Jose to Dulles. School was out for the summer. So, I booked my trip and took off for a week in Washington, D.C. I planned on getting lost in cherry trees, the National Zoo, and the Smithsonian. I had no idea Adam was also in town.
"I'm in Arlington," I said quietly.
"Where?"
"The Hyatt in Rosslyn by the Key Bridge on Wilson Boulevard. Room 412."
"I'll be there in 15 minutes," he said hanging up.
I knew this was a mistake. It would lead to nothing good.
I got up and went to the bathroom. I washed my face and turned on the desk light in the corner of the room. It wasn't the nicest of hotels, particularly since it was completely renovating but due to the construction noise it had a reduced nightly rate that a public school teacher on a budget could afford.
For the first time in five years, Adam was true to his word and on time. The knock at my door was at the 15-minute mark exactly. I sighed and walked to the door and opened it wide enough so my right hip leaned on the doorway and my left hand kept the doorknob at my hip.
"Hi," I said looking into his eyes. He looked tired. His dark green eyes irises were set off by redness in the whites of his eyes. He stood in front of me like some kind of jedi in mourning. His red knit shirt and khaki shorts were wrinkled. And his 5'10" frame was bent over slightly at the shoulders. He looked almost sheepish, like in the car he'd had a mission and now that I was standing before him, he didn't know what to say.
"Are you going to invite me in, Chloe?" he asked.
I closed my eyes and thought about it. "Why don't we go down to the bar and get a drink?" I asked.
"Scared of what will happen if we're alone together?" he asked quietly.
If he walked through that door we were going to have sex. There was no question about it. I could feel the heat radiating off of us. It felt wrong, and I knew sex wouldn't make any difference in the long run.
"Are you still moving out east?" I asked.
"Yes. Are you still staying in California?"
"Yes."
Silence.
"Then why would I invite you into my room? How would that help anything?" I asked plainly.
"Because I've missed you," he whispered.
I eyed him cautiously. "What does that mean?" I asked.
"Christ, Chloe, it means that I missed you. I've missed us. I'm not sure that this thing we have between us is ever going to be done. It's always going to be hanging there. We'll be that-stupid-thing-that-could-have-been-that-never-was."
He was right. We'd be 65 and meet up at some senior citizen bus trip to a casino in Florida, and we'd probably still remember being 29 on the verge of being together forever and then watching it all fall apart. We'd feel the happiness, the sexual tension, the flirtation, the sadness and the disappointment. That whole mess was always going to be attached to any thought we had about each other until we were dead. It sucked, and it pissed me off. Life just wasn't long enough.
I pushed open the door and stood to the side. He walked into the room slowly. When he passed me, I closed the door and followed him. He walked toward the window over looking the concrete parking deck of the building behind the hotel. I stood next to the king-sized bed waiting to see how this was going to play out.
"I still had you up on my instant messenger account and saw that your status said you were on your way to the Smithsonian," he said. "I tried to stay away all day, but all it got me was heartache. My heart literally ached to see you. The next thing I knew it was 10 p.m. and I was driving around the Virginia suburbs aimlessly while debating whether or not to call you."
Great, so we could both be miserable, I thought. Break ups weren't supposed to be easy. They were horrifying. Suddenly, someone who was in your life every day was dead to you, but still existing in the world even though you were still madly in love with them.
And I realized that this was how the break up sex was going to happen. Our bodies and our minds were living in denial, and we were going to let them because we were still in love.
I sighed and turned my head to look at the bed. Then I looked back at Adam. He'd called, driven over here, come up to the room and gotten inside. But now, he wanted me to give him something.
"Come here," I commanded gently.
He walked to me and stood six inches in front of me. I stood up on the bed so that my five foot three frame brought his eyes right underneath where my breasts sat on my chest. I made eye contact with him and then I pulled my UCSC banana slug t-shirt over my head exposing my breasts to him. The air conditioning in the room had been on high due to the 90-degree-plus heat and my nipples went hard as soon as they were exposed.
Adam put his hands to my hips and pulled my pajama pants down to my feet. I stepped out of them and stood before him naked. He lifted his hand and ran the back of his fingers from the rear of my jaw, down my long neck, over my right breast and rib cage, past my hips, behind my thigh and ended at a ticklish spot at the back of my knee. I jumped at the contact and laughed. He smiled quickly remembering how many times he'd touched that place before.
Then his face turned sad as he realized it's probably the last time he'd ever get to tickle me there. He pulled his shirt off and threw off his shoes, socks, shorts and underwear in a rush. He looked angry, flustered, like at any minute I was going to be taken from him.
He pulled me to him and I hopped forward so that my legs wrapped around his back and my arms hung onto his shoulders. He turned around and pushed me up against the wall kissing my lips and then my neck. His erect cock was pushing up against the back of my ass as he held me there. I loved the way we kissed. It was never pedestrian. I never got used to it. His kisses always made me feel desired, wanted. I got drunk on those kisses. I pulled back and pushed my head against the wall before I got too lost in our lips. He stopped kissing me and just stared.
It was like his eyes were shouting, "Mine! Mine! Mine!" And then he couldn't hold off any longer. His hands moved under my arms at my side. He lowered me down and his penis pushed into my vagina as his hands moved to support me by grabbing my ass.
We slammed together several times in the heat of the moment before he turned suddenly, shuffled to the bed and dropped me onto the firm mattress. I lay on my back with my legs spread. He was breathing hard from the effort it took to hold me against the wall for so long.
"Turn over please and crawl up further onto the bed," he requested catching his breath.
I nodded and followed his direction. He climbed up behind me and pulled my hips back so that his dick reentered my pussy. I leaned forward on my elbows and felt him deep inside of me. He withdrew and inserted his fingers, soaking them. Then he withdrew and spit into his hand several times. I knew what was coming.
I was 50/50 with clitoral/vaginal orgasms, and it always bothered Adam when we had sex and I didn't cum. We had great sex. Both of us were particularly giving people when it came to sex. But he had a certain surefire way of getting off when I pulled on his balls during a blow job. I figured that out the first time we slept together, but it took us three years to figure out my surefire path to orgasm. And, as our last sexual act, he obviously wanted me to remember what he knew about my body.
