Rain on the Fire Escape

The fire escape was a bad idea even before the rain. We had stepped out for a cigarette after his roommate's party got loud. He was thirty-four, a wall of a man, shirt already darkening at the shoulders. I was thirty. The sky opened like it had been waiting for an excuse.

We could have gone back in. We did not. He laughed, soaked, and said, “If we stay out here I am going to do something stupid.”

“Define stupid.”

He kissed me against the brick. Rain ran into my mouth. His body was heat through wet cotton. We fumbled the window, fell inside his dark bedroom, and left a trail that would annoy him in the morning.

Clothes hit the floor with a sound like surrender. He was thick everywhere I put my hands. I told him I wanted him in me before politeness could draft a speech. He found lube, opened me with blunt patience, and pushed in while thunder did the soundtrack. I held his shoulders and took the size of him in increments. Then he moved, deep, unhurried, rain still ticking the glass.

I came first, wrecked. He followed soon after, forehead to mine, swearing like a prayer he did not believe in except right then.

We left the window cracked. The storm moved on. He did not. In the morning the fire escape was just metal again. He made coffee and said, “Next time we check the weather. Or we don't.”