I see Carissa every Thursday night. We met on a Thursday, so I guess that\u2019s why. It was happy hour at the bar near my office, you know, and my bud Chuck had just been \u201cdownsized.\u201d Well, we\u2019re not friends exactly. He\u2019s just a good guy at work, know what I mean? Anyway, Chuck was miserable, and I felt sorry for him, so I bought him a few drinks.<\/p>\n
Carissa was there with some women who looked like her coworkers. They wore business suits and sweater sets and carried attach\u00e9 cases along with their purse. Carissa was dressed like them but different somehow. Her skirt was shorter, her sweater was tighter, her blouse open one button more. She looked better than them, like her clothes were made for her body and not for a featureless mannequin.
\nI wasn\u2019t dressed like an office drone. Maybe that\u2019s why Carissa noticed me. I had left my jacket and tie behind in the car and traded my slacks for jeans. I hated wearing suits and ties and all the corporate garb day in and day out.
\n\u201cYou gotta dress the part,\u201d Chuck always said. \u201cYou Gen-Xers don\u2019t know what\u2019s good for you.\u201d
\nHe was jealous, coming up on forty and me just turning twenty-five and bucking the system. Fat lot of good it did him to \u201cdress the part.\u201d He got the ax even though he\u2019d invested a good sum on his corporate wardrobe.
\nBut I had to thank Chuck. If it weren\u2019t for him, I wouldn\u2019t have been at the bar on that night at that time. Chuck was too busy getting blitzed to notice the table full of women not far from us. But me, I surveyed each and every one of them while we sat there drowning Chuck\u2019s sorrows. When I got around to Carissa, she was staring right at me, watching me watching them.
\nI was hooked right away. I stopped comforting Chuck. I put down my drink without looking and nearly missed the table.
\nA waiter stepped up to Carissa\u2019s table and blocked my line of sight. When he left, Carissa was gone. Her girlfriends were chatting as though she\u2019d never been there, without skipping a beat.
\nI panicked. I looked wildly around, along the bar, at other tables, down the hall toward the bathrooms.
\n\u201cWho are you looking for?\u201d Chuck asked.
\nI turned to answer him, but the words died on my lips.
\nShe was there, standing right behind Chuck. She held her purse and briefcase and coat.
\nI was caught in her gaze again. Then I saw her lips move, spread, and crinkle. And slowly, very slowly, the most lascivious smile overtook her face and she winked oh so very slowly, methodically. Then she turned and walked toward the door.
\nI bolted out of my seat, knocking the chair over.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s got into you?\u201d Chuck demanded.
\n\u201cI \u2026I got \u2026I gotta go Chuck.\u201d I stammered reaching for my wallet.
\n\u201cNow? You\u2019re gonna abandon me now. Nice friend you are?\u201d
\n\u201cI \u2026I just remembered something I gotta do,\u201d I lied as I tossed some bills onto the table. \u201cI\u2019m sorry man. Let\u2019s get together tomorrow.\u201d
\nI barely heard him answer, \u201cYeah, whatever,\u201d as I grabbed my coat and headed for the door.
\nThe wind threw icy daggers of sleet at me when I opened the door. I was swinging my coat around to put it on when I saw her.
\nShe was standing at the open door of a black convertible. She got in and started the engine. Only after I raced to my car, dived in, and turned the key did she pull away from the curb.
\nI crept behind her as she wound through downtown streets, running a few red lights. I sped along after her for miles on the expressway. I exited with her at a breakneck right angle exit ramp. I trailed her through two or three streets in an east side neighborhood I wasn\u2019t familiar with and parked next to her in a small lot next to a four-story walk up.
\nWe stood for a moment, each outside our car, measuring each other up. Again, she broke our stare. She leaned over and reached into her car for her things. When she emerged, she didn\u2019t look in my direction.
\nI followed Carissa to the entry of her apartment building. I held the door for her after she unlocked it and waited as she emptied mailbox number 404. I followed her up the stairs to the fourth floor and down the hall to the last door. And when she unlocked the door, stepped in the apartment, and left the door ajar, I went in too.
\nI took a step or two into the dark apartment, swung the door closed behind me, and looked around waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The streetlights cast yellow strips of light through the windows into the room, but not other light was visible.
\nI didn\u2019t see Carissa anywhere. And nothing in the room was disturbed. It was like she hadn\u2019t just been there. No coat swung from the hook behind the door. No mail was scattered on a table. No purse swayed from a door handle.
\nI took another step and prepared to speak. To say what, I don\u2019t know. I honestly don\u2019t know. What could I say to this woman who let me follow her home? It was a strange situation. You only see that kind of thing in the movies, you know. I should have been cautious or worried or something. But I wasn\u2019t. I should have gotten the hell out of there. But I didn\u2019t.
\nThen suddenly she was there, in the doorway to another room; a doorway I hadn\u2019t even noticed until that very second. Carissa stood comfortably naked, covered and revealed by the play of the darkness and the light in front and behind her. She raised her hand and with one long finger signaled for me to follow.
\nI went, leaving my coat hanging over the back of a chair.
\nCarissa was waiting for me in the bedroom.
\nI resisted the urge to pull her to me and kiss her lips hard, forcefully, though it was what I wanted most to do.
\nShe reached for me when I stepped in and began to unbutton my shirt. She swung it off my shoulders and tugged the buttoned cuffs over my wrists before dropping the shirt on the floor. She unbuckled my belt and pulled it out of the loops with one swift sweep of her arm. She reached into my left pocket and pulled out coins, keys, a handkerchief, and some business cards. She plucked my wallet from my right pocket and slid my driver\u2019s license out of the plastic slip. I hoped she didn\u2019t notice my birth date on there. I was only halfway through my twenties. Mischievously, she glanced from the photo to me several times, and then read my name carefully.
\n\u201cSylvester.\u201d
\nMy name never sounded so good before.
\nShe replaced the photo in its compartment then rummaged through the rest of my wallet. Finally, she plucked from its hiding place the lonely condom I always kept \u201cjust in case.\u201d
\nI guess this is the case, I thought as she let my pants and briefs drop as one to the floor.
\nI stepped out of my shoes and left them all behind as I stepped toward Carissa. She waited for me to reach her.
\nI took her in my arms and pressed my lips against hers and her body against mine. After a moment, I parted our lips only far enough and long enough to ask breathlessly, \u201cWho are you?\u201d
\n\u201cCarissa,\u201d she whispered in my ear.
\nWe didn\u2019t speak again until much later, when she rode me vigorously, and I cried out, \u201cOh, Carissa!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carissa was dressed like them but different somehow. Her skirt was shorter, her sweater was tighter, her blouse open one button more. She looked better than them, like her clothes were made for her body and not for a featureless mannequin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oh-carissa","tag-carissa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210,"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}