Rachel looked through her bedroom window to the street below and watched the storefront lights flicker on and then lifted her eyes to the first silhouettes of twilight spreading across the city, heralding the approaching night.
Tonight there would be hours of hot, sleepless dark, lying naked on her bed, and pacing the floor feeling a mixture of loneliness and want in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps Rachel would return to bed and lie on her stomach, squeeze a pillow between her legs and feel its pressure against her thighs, rocking to it, thinking of the man in the window across the street. Hassan. There was one other alternative. She could seduce him and have him in person. Did she dare?
She pictured his dark, hairy arms moving over her smooth white skin and imagined his mouth below the trim black moustache kissing her breasts, tasting her neck, licking her earlobes. She could almost sense the tip of his pink, hot tongue probing gently between her lips, tasting her, opening her, moving down her body, setting her belly on fire, awakening the flow of lava within.
Hassan worked at the small grocery store on the corner where Rachel shopped for odds and ends and conveniences: when she was out of coffee filters or a loaf of bread. He had appeared across the counter a few weeks ago in late spring, suddenly, as if a tower had been built in the neighborhood at a moment's notice. He was tall and wiry, eastern looking, with thick black shoulder-length hair which he kept in a ponytail. He wore a horizontal thin moustache, thick long sideburns, and had beautiful coffee-colored skin. She wanted to eat his skin, taste it as if it was molded from marzipan made from almonds grown in deep in the east, somewhere near the silk road, where men with cocks as thick as horses rode their women to wails of ecstatic anguish every night.
The first time Rachel saw him, Hassan had looked at her with a trace of a smile, as if he could see more than her face, her willowy figure, and her casual clothes. She felt like a mountain range under his gaze, her hills and valleys to be explored, her streams and rivers to be searched out. His eyes weren't lustful, but searching, mesmerizing, tantric in their insistence, as if Hassan could draw her soul to him with a look.
She noticed he had a habit with each customer of taking their right hand in his, and giving them their change with clasped hands. He exuded a dark warmth to everyone, a leisurely easiness, as if he wasn't working in a store in the west, but a market in the east where all the world gathered for stories, to drink in the scent of the stalls, to greet friends and strangers alike.
She felt his hand on her wrist that first time, and though she instinctively shrank from his exotic manly grasp, somehow his touch was a mixture of heat and electrical power, flowing from his body to hers. She felt the coins clink into her hand and heard his voice, as deep as a mountain lake, say thank you.
"I'm Hassan," he said, too, as she left, adding, "Please come again."
She looked back to see his brown eyes dancing in a face that didn't quite smile, and seemed to rivet her to the doorway where he would have his way with her if this was another time and place.
Walking home to her one-bedroom apartment after that first encounter, Rachel felt a sensation of floating, as if instead of using her feet she had levitated home, and felt with it an awakening hunger. She saw once again his fingers grasping her wrist; his long, strong fingers with fine black hair growing sparsely on the back of his hand, as if the testosterone within him bloomed in great manly flowers, emanating into his deep voice, his hairy body, and the unknown manhood within his clothes.
His eyes were penetrating and intelligent, not fleeting, but focused; not staring, but able to gain entry into her, to look through the gateway of her soul and to see the awakening curiosity and longing Rachel held for him. Where was he from? What were his stories? What did he look like naked? Did he have as big a cock as she imagined? What did it feel like to be held captive in his arms?
A week after Rachel met him she'd idly looked out the window late at night, and seen a man in a window across the street. Hassan's profile was unmistakable, his strong frame outlined by bright lights within as he stared up at the moon and stars, which glowed dimly through the city lights. Rachel's lights were off, so she knew he couldn't see her. She watched his lanky form, staring in spite of herself as he opened his window and sat astride it, half in and half out, a cigarette glowing where he held it against his thigh in between slow, deliberate drags.
She wished he would finish and go inside, turn out the lights of his apartment and cast his glance here, so that Rachel could turn on her lights and give him a show, stretching, stripping, bending and writhing, performing for him, luring him. But her hair stood on end thinking about it. Who knew what mysteries were locked within his tightly muscled body, inside his soul searching among the stars. Perhaps he was a wanderer, searching for the meaning of life, listening to the sound of each city, hearing its heartbeat and feeling its pulse, before moving on and seeking another throbbing city, his woman of the night. Rachel wanted to open her window and call out to him, to offer herself, but she resisted the urge.
Eventually he had finished the cigarette and gone inside, and the lights had gone out, but Rachel hadn't performed for him. Instead, she'd slipped off her clothes, sat back in her bed across a plethora of pillows, and stroked her body, feeling his eyes penetrate her, imagined him whispering erotic eastern fantasies to her, feeling his mouth sucking her nipples, feeling his strong hands open her, his long cock thrusting up into her, until finally, panting, she had come in a torrent of ecstasy, breathing so hard she felt as if she'd run for miles and exhausted herself.
Even so, Rachel didn't sleep. It wasn't enough; it wasn't satisfying. In the dark, the ceiling seemed to swim with long, hairy fingers, not scary, but intriguing, seeking to stroke and touch her body, to explore her texture, to knead the muscles under her skin and to awaken every sense within her, making her taut with desire without any further release.
After that night, Rachel vowed never to go into the store again, but to put Hassan from her mind and rid herself of the temptation; to seal up the passion. Instead, she resolved to go to the gym and work out. Perhaps that would relieve the tension, the ache as if she had found a mysterious new door in her apartment, but was resolved to paper it over with a poster and forget about it. After all, it was foolish to dream; she and Hassan were from different worlds. He had expressed no particular interest in her, other than the searching gaze each time she went into the store. He was nothing more than a fantasy, an unattainable masculine fire that would burn out soon enough if only she channeled her feelings into other pursuits.
At first it seemed to work, and the routine of exercise, work and friends loosened her from the grip of ferocious hunger. Although it was hot during the summer nights, she slept better and tried to think of movie stars whenever she masturbated, and not Hassan.
