Play With Me
Until I find the energy to come in early one of these days and fix the chain on the sliding gate, I have to catch it as it comes crashing down. Overhead the flat bar of metal lands in my hands the same way a dumbbell would. I’m lucky this isn’t particularly heavy.
“Damn Ren”
Mai’s head tilts back as she swung the front door open and limbos under the mid-falling sheet metal “That things like a hundred pounds do you need help?”
“Fuck me I almost locked you inside! Is anyone else in there?”
“That’s too bad I could use the overtime but no I’m the last straggler, seriously though do you need help?”
“Nah just come on through”
“Alright Hercules” she poked my flexed bicep as I started to lower the gate to the concrete. I flushed to her amusement.
She passed by me as I squatted with the steel shutters, from below the shape of Mai’s body is hard to ignore. She’s a brilliant, funny kind hearted woman with thick shapely runners legs an ass hand-carved by God, and beautiful breast that that she refused to bind in a bra for wonderful, feminist reasons that I truly believed in. Still, I don’t feel like much of a feminist when she catches me peeking up at her. But she only laughs as I drop the gate the last few inches with a crash. She sets the combination lock for me.
Patiently I wait with her at the bus stop. People tell me Mai and I look alike, we had similarly brown skin though hers was offensively clearer than mine. Her twists were much longer than mine and she was inarguably shapelier. Mai’s body softened where mine firmed, curved where mine smoothed out. Then again, the “People” who say we look alike (call us twins actually) are the guys at work and what do they know.
In the reserved parking across the street most of the men from work crowd together, smoking cigarettes, drinking beers from their trunks, avoiding their spouses and debating where to get more liquor. Some eyed me in intervals mostly waiting for my wife to come around with nearly as much anticipation as myself. Except for Mitchell who was throwing angry glances in my direction because he’s being a big prissy baby about a schedule change happening a fucking month from now, and Derrick also throwing me angry little looks. Likely because being corrected seemed to actually break his poor little heart. Mitchell and his mouth we’re one thing, complaining from here till the ends of the earth about working on Saturday is enough but compiled with Derrick having a breakdown at me because he doesn’t understand why I needed to correct his behavior “in front of so many people!” before he burned my fucking shop to the ground (welding near grease rags because cleaning up isn’t his responsibility, I could’ve strangled him) he claimed to be humiliated. He should be grateful, I had grounds to fire him…
“-Ren?”
“Huh, sorry what did you say?” I hadn’t realized I was staring off, trying not to argue with myself. I should be harder on him not worrying about his feelings shake it away, just shake him and this whole work day away.
“I was saying don’t pay any mind to what Derrick was saying earlier, he’s a fucking baby. Most of them over there are. She gestured to the parking lot without looking. “They’re children licensed to play with fire”
I half laughed “You’re not wrong… oh except for max” Who was already loaded into his car John and Maurice in the backseat, waving everyone off, Max whose always kindhearted, levelheaded, made friends easily and was responsible enough to drink after the drive home.
She nodded “Except for Max. But I mean it, don’t pay them any mind”
“Yeah, Thanks Mai” distantly a familiar hum filled the air. Sophie used to ride a cute little Honda cub around town, until she showed me the Scrambler her grandmother left her. Its engine was worn to shit, it deserved new tires and a fresh paint job, it deserved to be buffed, polished and ridden. So, I spent month after month in our garage bringing it back to life to Sophies mystification. For her it was a relic, a family memorial too old to be enjoyed. Its revival was a joy in and of itself, but it wasn’t until she rode it that she finally understood all the effort.
Before her only purview for riding motorbikes up until that point was to make a strong impression and fly through the streets like a buttered bullet (In that order) But most any motorcycle seemed provided her that feeling. No one ever to expects her to ride one in the first place, so doing so at all tends to make an impression. And well, compared to the bus everything thing feels like flying. But rusting in her garage was a real machine. A sleek, subtly powerful, smooth ride. I wanted her to feel it for herself.
A few blocks down the hum of an “L” Twin sang her arrival. Until my own truck came out of the shop Sophie would be picking me up and dropping me off, and in her usual way making a little show of it.
When she pulled into view everyone stopped to witness it. This was always the case with Sophie, she was a little under five feet tall, long black hair that poured down her back, with small but pert and constantly braless breast revealed through the crop top under her half zipped armored jacket. When she took her helmet off a doe-ish face appeared. Wide brown eyes shiny, tinted with subtle streaks of copper and gold, round cheeks and pink bow lips that always seemed slightly parted.
“Hello, ladies” Sophie grinned and waved us to the curb “Hi Mai” She smiled at Mai in that way that showed all her teeth before pulling me in by the back of the collar for a kiss. She held my cheek with one hand and with her other we linked fingers. I could feel eyes from across the street. I could feel Mai’s on my back and I knew Sophie could too as she passed the tip of her tongue over my bottom lip teasingly. She knew and she loved it, the eyes, the frustration, their envy. We had this in common. For plenty of people the closest they’ve ever come to seeing black lesbians was Pornhub, why not take it in while you can.
She didn’t pull away until I was breathless. So, I could be flushed and embarrassed when I turned to tell Mai goodbye. I basically muttered “I’ll see you tomorrow” to the sidewalk. Regardless she waved goodbye with her usual cheer and pitch to me, and Sophie who responded with another sharp grin before twisting to hand me a helmet. The cheery blue one to match her serious black one. I wrapped my long arms around her little waist and felt our bodies lurch closer together as she accelerated away.
It was a smooth ride home. When we pulled up to the entry gate of the house Sophie slowed to a stop and let me off to go through the front door. I threw my coat on the door hook, dropped my tool bag at the front door and left my shoes on the mat.
Despite how I try thoughts from earlier still pop through my head. Justifying my decisions, Justifying not apologizing, justifying not changing my mind. I wiped my hands on my cargos a few times over to avoid putting any grease spots in or on the fridge as I rifled through it. While bent over searching for snacks a warm. slim pair of hands settle on my low back, then slowly work their way over my hips.
“I bought more grapes, they’re in the drawer”
“Awesome” In the bottom drawer I unearthed a plastic bag of bruise-purple grapes and took them with me turning to face Sophie who put her arms up on either side of me leaning against the fridge, her face inches from mine. Suddenly I became self-conscious about the workdays grime all over my body but she didn’t seem to notice, she never does. She digs a hand into the plastic bag and pulls out two grapes, placing one delicately on the center of her tongue, and the other up to my lips. When I opened my mouth, she placed the fruit and two fingers into the middle of my curled tongue and took them out slowly
“So…how are you feeling? How was your day?” Almost automatically I shrugged my shoulders I chewed on the grape thoughtfully before answering “It was good, I’m good”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow looking over my face in the silence that followed my answer but didn’t push it further. Instead, she placed her hand on my cheek. Palming my face and leaning in even closer
“…Do you want to play with me?”
With nearly the same breathless speed I replied “Yes, please”
Sophie grinned and softly brushed her lips against mine before pulling away completely and slapping her hand up between my legs gently smacking my already swelling clit through my pants. “Go get in the shower, I’ll be ready when you’re out.”
“Yes ma’am…”
