Meeting Liz

"No need to pay, I like you enough to give a free night," Liz said to me.

I was sure that it was not her real name. But living in New York, a middle aged man and with delicious spring in the air, it was impossible not to be out seeking a woman. Just off my cab duty, it was pretty late at night. I spotted her standing beneath the light post in front of my apartment. It seemed to be a sign, that there was no need to search for a date on Internet or to hit the bar. When I approached her, she dropped her cigarette on the ground. Before I can be by her side, she walked up and in a husky voice said, "So, let's go. You can lead."

"Sure, but hmm… I don't have…" I mumbled a while, wondering if I should tell her something of myself before we proceed. I preferred honesty. My divorce was still fresh, and the embers were burning in the ashes of a failed marriage. Besides, I was not the master of physical intimacies with sex workers. It would only be right to let her what she was getting into before committing her time. But before I could think or say anything, Liz put her hands into mine and said,

"Come on, you look like a kind guy, I really could use some good times you know!" Her lightness of mood made it seem like we had been doing our thing for a while, and were perfectly familiar with our physical beings.

As I led her on to the stairway of my apartment a few feet away, she encircled my waist and I could already feel the warmth of her body seeping to mine beneath my shirt. Words I wanted to speak out remained unsaid. And in no time we stood in front of my door. As I fumbled for the key in my trouser pocket, Liz had already started unbuttoning my shirt.

Inside my apartment, as I put the lights on, I just had a glimpse of her scarlet pouting lips, flushed face and the dark eyes, the beauty of a Spanish belle. For a second I wondered if my brown skin and Asian handsomeness had excited her in some way, a change from white males perhaps? Or maybe there was a manly aura that had her on heat. All my thoughts got lost as both of us dived into my rumpled bed. I had the most untidy room in my neighborhood perhaps, but that moment called for blindness to our surroundings.

And that was true, for desire came like lightning. On the moment of union, positive and negative particles surely drove into our flesh till we sparked dazzling lights of pleasure. Our hearts pounded like thunders, minds raced like tornados, seeking that final landfall. And then, afterwards, like the calmness after the storm, we lay exhausted. Liz's curved, tall frame lay under the bed cover with my manly muscled self. Both were quietly reflecting on the sudden game passion had played on us.

I must have dozed off for a nudge from Liz made me open my eyes. She had an I-pad in her hand and paused from whatever she was doing.

"You know what? Now tell me what it was you meant to ask." She looked deep into my eyes, as if trying to see beyond them.

"I don't have anything with me; we are supposed to be using the thing you know," I mumbled. I was smiling, something wonderful had happened, and I was dying to tell her that too.

"Um…?" She seemed to fall out of the sky and looked long and hard at me, her face serious. "This is my first time you know and last too. I did not remember all that either. I am a writer…" She held out an i-Pad in her hand, evidently she had been writing something. I could see the screen of the i-Pad lighted.

I bolted upright. "What do you mean? It doesn't make sense…"

She gave a smile and had two dimples on both cheeks, and looked so cute that I leaned to kiss her lips. Liz moved away saying,

"Sorry, I don't want it any more. I got what I wanted. I was writing my experiences while they are fresh on my mind. "

"But it was all so wonderful…" I stammered.

Bu Liz was already heading to the bathroom and as I continued to stare at her. Liz said, "I am working on a sizzling fiction that has love scenes and I needed practical experience for my character who is a sex worker and hence I did what she is doing in my novel. You are the first and last of my experimental hooking up…' She paused a while, unbuttoning her robe and I got a view of her shapely legs. Before locking the bathroom door she said, "Hope you don't have AIDS or STD ?" She was a bit worried, it seemed.

"Uh?" I said. "Don't know, I met two women before you. If they had anything…." I paused, envisioning myself dying with something horrible and at the same time hoping it would not be so.

A door to happiness that had been opened by chance only to be banged shut.

Tulip Chowdhury writes from Massachusetts, USA.