M. Nason

"Let me look at you," I said.

 

"Oh, just fuck me," she hissed. "There's no time to look at me."

 

On first laying eyes on her I had not foreseen such things. We met in a coffee shop prone to tourists, a few blocks from the river. I had suggested it, in my 17th email. Her response had been, Why not? Online, she was direct and glib, careless about punctuation, somewhat rambling in her sentences though I could never shake the feeling she labored over each message. That was my dark suspicion of her, something I hadn't shared by the time we'd scattered our clothes across my living room floor. She was backing toward the bedroom, nothing on but unbuttoned jeans, tiger-striped panties and Raybans. I grinned at her, but her expression didn't change. She backed into my bedroom without showing the slightest curiosity about what she might find there, just glanced once over her shoulder so she could steer herself toward the bed. By the time she pressed her legs against the mattress she had pushed off her jeans. She lay on her back, reaching for me in the same movement. I fell toward her, praying I would never be heard from again.

​

***

 

"Why 'Rayban'?" I had asked her early on. I liked the name. It struck me as creative, and certainly more creative than mine - NJMAN571.

 

"Because Raybans are cool," she answered. "Silly."

 

"Do you mean Raybans or just shades in general?"

 

"I mean Raybans," she typed. "Anyone can wear sunglasses. Girls wear sunglasses."

 

"Oh, so you're not a girl," I said. "Then what are you?"

 

"Isn't that what you're trying to find out?"

 

***

​

I knew so little about her. That struck me as she pulled me into a kiss, there on the bed, such a 
close kiss my eyelashes fluttered against the silver of my own reflection. Her hair was brown and shoulder-length, straight and full. I pressed against her with such force I felt her heat flooding 
through my skin. I had this impulse I didn't understand, to stop and breathe, pull away, but my 
desire was as absolute as gravity. "We're a long way from coffee," I whispered, but she didn't smile. She just rolled me onto my back.

 

***

​

I don't know what it is about type on a computer screen that one can find attractive, but even before I saw her that first afternoon I was concocting scenarios. She slipped into the coffee shop with no eyes and no expression, and all through our conversation she never allowed her features to grow more animated than a vague upturn of her mouth. We talked about art, we talked about the deer population in New Jersey, we talked about George Bush. To every point I made she responded with a nod. I remember sitting there, wondering what this woman was hiding. Then she looked away from  me and toward the window, watched people stroll by on the street. The corner of her lips curled upward. 

"You chose a nice place," she said.

​

"I like it around here. But I like anything to do with the water. Put anything within a quarter-mile of a  river or the coast and it seems to take on a whole new personality."

 

For a moment she considered that. "You like the definition," she decided. "You like the boundary. Water gives everything a defined beginning and end. You like that."

 

"I don't know if that's true," I answered in an even voice. In the pit of my stomach I was vaguely 
offended. "I think I like the rhythm of the water, more than anything else - the way you can just sit and watch it move. It makes me think of exploring, of going to new places."

 

"Oh," said Rayban. "Do you travel a lot? Do you go to many new places?"

 

"Not as many as I'd like."

 

"Where do you go, when you travel?"

 

"I go to Massachusetts," I told her. "I was born there."

 

"So you go home," she said, nodding. "That's your adventure. You go home."

 

***

 

She pulled away my clothes with force enough to hurt, put her hand between my legs and squeezed. "Does this scare you?" she whispered. "Do I scare you?"

 

"No," I breathed. "Just a little."

 

"You shouldn't be afraid of people you fuck."

 

"I'm not afraid of you."

 

"I might be a crazy woman," she hissed, sing-song. "I might be a cra-zy girl."

 

I laughed but she ignored it. "Later you'll lick me," she said. "But first you have to fuck me, so you won't be afraid anymore."

 

"You don't believe in taking time, do you?"

 

She stroked me, her rough gestures easing to a feather touch. "When we're out of time, I'll tell you," she said. "When we're out of time, you'll know it."

 

***

 

"You're married," I had observed in the coffee shop. "What do you want a boyfriend for?"

 

She shrugged. "How do you know I'm married?"

 

"Your profile says you are."

 

"And you believe it. Just because I typed it, you assume it's true."

 

"Are you really like that? Would you really type something like that just to see what happens?"

 

"No," she said. "I'd type something like that to throw the losers off the scent. So I could watch their eyes when I told them I'm single, no attachments, maybe crazy. You wouldn't believe how scared guys get when they think you're going to rock their world."

 

***

 

She wouldn't take me to bed the first time we met. She took me the second time, after our second meeting for coffee. She drained her cup and pointed her Raybans at me. "What's my name?" she asked.

​

"All I know is Rayban."

​

"Would you fuck me if that's all you knew?"

​

"Well, it would be nice to know your name," I told her. "It would be nice to know what people call you."

 

"You didn't answer my question."

 

I frowned at the table. "Yes," I said, after what I thought was a suitable pause. "Yes, I would."

 

She nodded. "I figured you would," she said. "That's no surprise at all."

 

***

 

The whole time she kept her eyes toward me, but for one moment. When finally we were both 
naked and she had swung her leg over to straddle me, she took my cock in her hand and glanced down as she guided it inside of her. I watched the way she wrapped her fingers around me, held my breath as she hesitated above me. As she lowered herself, she looked down at me again, her eyes still hidden, her face still set, and when I reached for her glasses she pushed my hand away. "You have to let me see your eyes," I breathed.

 

"I'm fucking you," she said. "I don't have to do anything else."

 

"Let me look at you."

 

"Oh, just fuck me," she hissed. "There's no time to look at me."

 

***

 

All of a sudden I had this thought that I shouldn't have even been there. By then it was too late. 
Rayban was all around me, and if I tried to look anywhere all I saw were her silver eyes and my own self underneath her. I am not a handsome man and the agitations of sex aren't anything like a 
dance with me. They aren't possessed of anything like grace or rhythm, they are simply maneuvers of my body, dictated by the mechanics of my spine and my nerves and my desire. Until that moment I had thought otherwise but there on Rayban's face was sheer reality, tinted in silver. I watched horrified as I thrust beneath her. I reached again for her shades. Behind them her eyes would be glittering, amused.