Grey By Caitlin Hoffman

“This is the last time,” I insist, and yet even as I speak, I don’t believe the words. Our skin is inches from brushing too close, our mouths seconds away from crossing that line, and neither of us care.

“Isn’t that what you said the night before?” you whisper, trying not to smile. The thrum from my fingertips is holding you hostage, making you ready to pounce.

“I have to go. Right now.”

“The same with me. We have to walk away from this.”

We fall into a kiss instead, a kiss that slaughters all of the finer parts of ourselves. I love the way you destroy all my sensibilities and always leave me craving more. Your hands are travelling too far already, and I have to shove you off.

“No, none of that. Kissing… kissing is enough. It’s not too much. Anything more than that…”

We don’t listen to my words. We tumble in again. The air, once so cold, is already hot enough to make our hair sweat. Your hands go in my ponytail, toying with the band that keeps it all together. Soon it’s falling loose on my shoulder, and then your fingers are playing with the rim of my shirt, daring to go further. I push back against you, clawing onto your hips, hoping to hurt you and scare you away. All it does is make you kiss deeper, make you hold harder, make you moan louder. It’s so dangerous, what we’re doing here. We can’t help ourselves.

A light from a passing car causes us to shirk in terror. I cover my face and as much of my skin as I can with my coat, hoping the light won’t reveal me for what I am. The car passes, the threat subsides, and we find our way into a dim-lit kiss once more, this time completely out of sight and off the road.

“We need to be more careful.” you hiss between breaths, fingers teasing the edge of my skirt. I lurch forward and pull you into me, sure to gyrate my hips against your own.

“Isn’t that what you said before?” I whisper back, finding that the crook of your neck is the perfect place for my tongue. I can feel those nerves of yours screaming underneath, throbbing right into your organs below. The release will come soon, but I want to linger as long as possible. The danger works as an aphrodisiac, making each kiss that much more inflamed. We are engulfed by our desire; it doesn’t matter what society says.

Not for now, at least.

“I should go.” these words come to me in a rush as I suddenly remember what street we’re on and what neighbourhood we’re in, and how much trouble would come to the both of us if we were caught here together. You shush me hurriedly, guiding my hand to the bulge in your pants, trying so hard to ignore the fact that we are so wrong together.

“Stay, just long enough for me to feel you.”

“We can’t…”

“We have to.”

“You have a wife at home. A wife that isn’t coloured.”

“Don’t talk about her, please.”

“But…”

You stop me with another kiss and a hand that presses directly against my mound. At the sudden breach of intimacy I gasp, every nerve paying far too much attention to where you’re going to put your fingers. My wetness is not secret anymore; it’s smothered on your palm. You rub, first slow, then fast enough to weaken my knees. Intoxicated by every grip we hold on each other, I let myself give in. After all, forgiveness is no good if you don’t sin first.

I grab back and rub on your jeans, feeling you harden underneath. You’re so thick, so sturdy, so potent in your want for me. There’s no hiding from each other anymore. Then comes the lurch of your zipper, and the spring of your erection now free in the palm of my hand. The slap makes us both ache, longing to cut out all the cold in our world and leave nothing but this sizzling eruption of our love. Is this love? We don’t care. All we know is we need each other, despite the world.

I slam you against the wall, unleashing the rawness in me you always say you adore. You always used to tell me that no women in your own circles was so honest about wants and needs. You always said I was the only person you felt comfortable around. Despite my colour. Despite my race. Despite the rules that choke our society.

I’d be lynched if they found me kissing you. And you’d be disgraced.

“Oh, harder, tighter…” you instruct, your thick, creamy accent melting me more between the legs. I’m numb now, deranged and trickling, mewing like a cat for you to slam into me. For now, you only give me your fingers, slipping a few in even though your penis is inches away from my entrance and its throbbing, soaked juices. Everything is clenched, tight, ripe for the picking, but you don’t yet dare to cross that line. We’re in arrest, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for the forbidden fruit to slip off the vine and smother us in delicious, sticky sweetness.

I can only imagine how beautiful we look, surrendered to the dark and the motion in our arms, our tongues entwined with a delicate, translucent force, our bodies moving to the same indecipherable rhythm that has haunted humans since the beginning of time. I always thought the meeting of flesh to be a beautiful thing. Sacred, sanctioned, a gateway to serenity. Ever since my lust crossed the train tracks, however, I have thought of it as nothing but sordid. We do not exchange poetry, but sin. And neither of us care.

“Please, come into me. Before I have to leave.”

You obey, instantly, slipping in while I guide you with my hand. Despite my arousal, I’m still tight, and you force your way in with a lustful precision that makes my head swoon. I love the way you jerk your hips to get it all the way in, to explore me with every inch you’ve been given. I clench tighter and move myself against the wall for support, wrapping one leg around your waist so you can hold on and dive deep. Your moans are too much for me. I slap both hands onto your neck, putting us nose to nose, daring you to keep staring. You can’t meet my eyes for too long, afraid of the intensity within, so instead you put your lips on me, accentuating the wetness below. We rock, and my back is scratching against the brick but I don’t care. I can’t care about anything but the fact that you’re in me. So deep in me, deeper than any other man has been. Do you understand what you do to me in these moments, when we’re rocking back and forth tasting each other’s skin? Do you know that in the nights we can’t meet I rock against my hand, trying to reinvent the cataclysmic bliss in your touch? Do you have any idea that no matter how many men of my own neighbourhood I use to pass the time, not one of them compare to your bright, blonde hair and steamy, blue eyes? Yours is a soul whose colours do not compare. Nothing and no one can distract me from the fact that every minute without you is a minute closer to hell.

“I want this to last forever.” you say.

The quickening in your thrusts and trembling in your abdomen show me that you’re trying to slow your own orgasmic climb down, for the sake of us staying together as long as possible. Despite myself, I take one hand and put it around the base of your cock, squeezing just a little to tempt you with more pressure. You knock your head back, cursing. Your balls tighten up and you spasm, lurching, spraying, fucking me with such intensity as you come that my clit begins to scream in need of its own separate release. That little bulb above my vulva is so sensitive that as you pull out and spill your remaining milk against my skin, the shot of you almost makes me fall into my own peak. Just almost.

You collapse on me, and even though you weigh at least forty pounds more, with your thick farmer arms and runner’s legs, I still manage to hold you up. In my arms, you feel so very much like a child, a child fearsome of his own wants, dreams and insecurities. I know then that you’ll never be as free as me. For, no matter how many times we meet, it’s always in your neighbourhood, not mine.

“This should be the last time.” you say suddenly, as you get a grip on reality again.

I readjust my skirt, not caring about the fact that the stain won’t wash out this time.

“Is that so, my love?”

“We’re kidding ourselves, aren’t we?”

I stick my tongue onto the back of my teeth, not wanting to admit the truth. My mouth betrays me.

“Yes, we are.”

“We’ll never live in a world where this is okay. You and me, together. White and black.”

I blush, but thankfully it’s still dark enough outside so that you won’t notice. My hair is tangled and soppy from our sex, and I curl it about my fingers.

“You’re off then, Mr. Madison?”

It breaks me, the way you fix your tie and zip up your jeans, all without looking at me.

“Indeed I am, Margaret-May.”

The heat from my legs is fading now. The swell itself has receded. All that is left is a tingle in my lips, and the determined pulse of my clitoris.

“Same time tomorrow?” I say, a wry smile played upon my lips.

You don’t answer as you skulk away, and I know that means yes.