Red-Letter Day

After Yom Kippur, Abraham met up with his other "suffering Jews" for dinner. As he was driving home, he saw a car with my alma mater's flags flying. He thought of me. We had been texting that afternoon and he knew my team was playing and that I was hopeful for a win. My team had indeed won. He knew I'd be happy.

As he got closer, he noticed that the car was a shocking blue: the same shocking blue as my car.

He saw a husky's head happily hang out the window. The dog looked similar to the SMS picture he received the same afternoon.

As he approached the red light, he saw the bumper sticker. The one that I have on my car. He looked through the windows at me.

***

I was in a great mood. Harvey threw a party to watch our alma mater play and we had won. They had switched the TV to a horror film, but I decided to call it a night. It had been a long day for the Femme Fatale and me.

As I was driving home, a song came on my Shuffle that had my name in it. I turned up the music on full blast and began to sing loudly.

Behind me, the Femme Fatale's tail wagged. She was looking at something. I didn't pay much attention. She's a beautiful dog and often receives attention at red lights.

My hair stood up. I had the feeling I was being watched. I looked over my shoulder and jumped. I was being stared at. Hard.

"Who is that creepy-- Oh."

My phone began ringing. It was Abraham.

"I was wondering when you were going to look at me."

"You scared the ever-living shit out of me! I feel like you caught me with my pants down."

"Yeah, you seemed into your... song."

I blushed. The light turned green. We began driving down the road together.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Home. What about you?"

"Home."

"Want to go home together?"

"Sure. Let me drop off my dog and I'll head over."

"Drop off your dog where?" he asked.

"My apartment?" I was confused. Where else would she go?

"Why don't we just head to your apartment then?"

"Yeah. Okay."

Abraham followed me home. I said my prayers because not only was I wearing a dress for the football game (despite being teased for continuing to dress up for game day), but also I had actually cleaned my apartment. Not only were things put away, the toothpaste marks had been scrubbed off the counter.

I have a really nice apartment, but it's small. That's City Life. Abraham's condo is twice the size of my apartment. Every time I step foot in his, I marvel at the sheer size. "Look at all this space you have!" I gasp. What I have not told Abraham is that despite my small-ish apartment, it's the largest one I've inhabited. This is me living large.

Abraham smirked upon seeing it. He finally understood why I continually make such a big deal of his place.

I saw his smirk. "What? I have a foyer! Where's yours?" I knocked on my counter top. "This is marble!"

"No! It's nice!" he recovered. "It's you."

Then he saw my TV and doubled over laughing. This was the playful Abraham. The one that teases me with a fake name.

"I don't like buying new electronics when the old one works just fine. It's wasteful." I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

"How much does your TV weigh?" he sputtered.

"About 300 pounds," I cracked a smile. "It is kind of bulky, isn't it?"

Then he saw my shitty desktop computer I've had since college sitting on a small desk in the corner of the room. He bit his lip and shuddered.

I made eye contact. We broke out into laughter.

"Okay, let me see this view you've been telling me about," he said. "I don't have a view."

I grabbed two bottles of beer from the fridge and took him to the roof. We were surrounded by skyscrapers lit up in the clear night.

"That's uptown, this is midtown and that's downtown," I pointed.

"And that's the strip club," we both said in unison as we pointed to building directly across the street from me. We laughed.

"It's chilly up here. You'll have to keep me warm," he said as he swigged from his bottle.

"You? The Yankee?" I jeered.

I wrapped my arm around him and rubbed his back. He wasn't shivering; there was nary a goose bump to be found. It took me several minutes to realize that maybe he said it so we would be close. We hadn't had any contact since he came over.

Absentmindedly, I leaned in and kissed his temple. I learned from Valdosta to be sloppy with affection. To be an affection slut and give away pointless kisses. I loved how I felt when Valdosta was instantly comfortable with me. I felt instantly comfortable with Abraham. If the worst thing I put into the Universe was giving away too many kisses...

Back inside the apartment, Abraham was affectionate in a way I had yet to experience with him. We’ve always left the bar and fallen into his bed laughing. Now he was sitting on my couch with his arm around me and his head pressed into mine. Affection inside and outside of the bedroom are very different. Outside the bedroom it feels more genuine. It's like saying, "I’m touching you because I simply want to."

He flipped through my cable and settled on some American Pie marathon of the straight-to-DVD movies. He decided that the movies were better on mute, so we watched the silent films and guessed what was happening. It gave us time to talk. We were both surprised with how much we had in common. For example, there is a local musician that I’ve been a fanatic of for years. When he brought up the singer, he was dismissive saying I wouldn’t know him. Wordlessly, I got up and provided him eight autographed CDs and countless ticket stubs. I pulled up my interview with him that was published in the newspaper. Abraham sat there stunned. I beamed.

We stayed up all night, basking in the pleasant newness of him and me alone together. At 4 a.m. when the house party next to me died down and college kids screamed across the lawn who was driving (oh god, I was glad to be home), we too decided to call it a night and settle in the sleepy slumber of my bed.

He asked which was my side of the bed and crawled in the adjoining spot, having stripped down to his boxers and t-shirt. I stood on the other side of my bed in the darkness. I was wearing a dress with a hoodie zipped up for warmth. I wasn’t going to crawl in my own bed wearing a dress. It seemed silly to change. I removed my clothes and slipped inside the sheets.

I snuggled up to his shoulder and he wrapped his arm around me. He was startled at my nakedness.

“I wasn’t expecting that at all,” he stuttered. He sat up and removed his t-shirt.

He commented on the darkness of my bedroom. I used my hands to find his newly bearded face. Abraham took advantage of the lack of sight and teased me with playful kisses. Forgetting it was early morning and that I had thin walls, I tilted my head back with shrieking laughter as he licked my face.

We would remain this way for 11 hours: naked in my bed laughing. His body would be my playground. Not having someone in my bed for so long made me opportunistic, loving every lump and bump in front of me. Abraham recognized this and commented on it.

“I like you exploring my body,” he said as I prodded his hip bone.

We shared stories and kisses until early Sunday evening, when he finally left my bed. We had done it: spent an entire lazy Sunday in bed together. We set new records together.

I dressed and leashed up the Femme Fatale. The three of us walked into the parking garage and stood in front of his car.

“I had a good time,” I smiled.

“Meh,” he shrugged, pursing his lips to keep from cracking.

I laughed and patted his cheek. Despite having known each other for three months, we were both astounded with how good of a time we had together. I kissed him and sent him on his way. We both had football to watch.

I shook my head and chuckled to myself as I walked the Femme Fatale down the street. That night wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for a single red light.