Completely (New York 3)

Four martinis and a sort of line dance, perhaps an hour ago, to make her feel expansively human, part of the crowd, a community of sweating, ecstatic bodies. Rosemary felt limber. Buzzed. Competent.

Sexy.

Her feet didn’t hurt, not even a little bit. Kal spun her, and she lost her balance and tipped forward into his arms, but he caught her easily, guided her back into the steps, laughing.

He was a good dancer. He’d told her the Latina girls would have parties here in high school, quinceañeras. He’d been to a lot of parties, and later, hung out at clubs on the weekends, salsa nights with a two-dollar cover charge, trying to cadge a drink underage, trying to catch the right girl’s eyes with his moves.

She loved to watch him move. His shirt stretched tight over the lean muscles of his arms, his thighs moving under denim, his feet sure of where to go. Everything felt carnal, every touch a memory of their night in Lukla, sex she could barely remember that her body couldn’t forget.

“Let’s try the dip.” He guided her closer, his thigh between her legs. He put his hand along her spine and she lay back on it, unafraid, loose everywhere.

Her hair brushed the floor, the strength in Kal’s arms all that kept her from falling.

How many moments in her life had been like this one? Completely present, completely ecstatic in her body, completely trusting.

Not since she was very young.

She thought of Everest, cold and hard and horrible. Rosemary didn’t know what she’d been chasing there, but it wasn’t life.

She took Kal’s hand. Drew him to her. “I love this.”

“It’s what you wanted?”

“It’s exactly what I wanted.”

“I like giving you exactly what you want.” He said it so earnestly, looking right at her, he might as well have taken her nipple in his mouth and sucked. The effect was the same.

“Do you? Because I have this fantasy…”

“The bathroom thing?”

They were no longer dancing. They stood entangled on the dance floor, breathing hard. “Would you?”

“If you want me to.”

Rosemary almost chickened out. If she wanted him to, he would, and she was thirty-nine years old, decades past old enough to know better.

She’d known better. She’d spent so many years knowing better, and all it had done was cut her off from life so utterly that she couldn’t recall the last time she’d learned a new dance step, flirted with a bartender, let herself do something stupid and dangerous that felt good.

“Come with me.” She took his hand and led him off the dance floor. Past the bar, toward the restroom, a quick look around to ensure no one was paying attention, and then they ducked into the loo. It was the sort with a beige stall around each toilet, bright overhead fluorescent lights, but Kal’s hand was warm in hers, his tiny smile when she pushed him into the largest stall and locked the door just for her, just enough to make her back him into the wall and put her mouth on his.

Yes.

Yes to the hot sweep of his tongue, to the deep pulse of heat between her legs, the pounding lazy drowsy arousal that made her close her eyes and inhale the smell of his neck, made her lick his salty skin and test how hard she could bite before his hands tightened on her hips. His knee came up, his foot braced against the wall, and she rode his thigh, kissed him again, the glide of his hands up her bare back everything she’d wanted, his fingers digging in, pulling her closer, tighter.

Yes.

He turned her around, pressing her into the wall, cool tile at her back, the music vibrating through her body, Kal hard between her hitched leg, his grip behind her knee, the hard muscles of his upper arms against her palms, his tongue moving in rhythm with every pulse against her, matched, gorgeous, perfect lust.

His hands found the button of her trousers, fumbled with it, lowered the zipper, and then his fingers discovered where she was unbearably hot and slick and made her hotter, sliding down to move inside her, hard and deep.

Yes, yes, y—

The outside lavatory door opened, the music louder, and Kal went still. Rosemary opened her eyes. He was watching her, his eyes laughing, not alarmed.

“There’s somebody in there,” a voice said in a dramatic whisper, and another voice, a girl, “Two someones.” Then they were giggling, running water, and Rosemary exhaled.

Her feet hurt.