There is a naked man in bed next to me.

And it's not that I don't know how he got there and how he ended up naked, next to me. And I do know his name, thank you, because I am not that kind of woman who just doesn't get a man's name before we wind up naked, next to each other, in bed or on the floor.

Wait. Are we, in fact, on the floor?

No.

It's a bed under me. Under us.

There's a sheet around here somewhere.

But, now that I think on it, there was a time last night when we were on the floor. He actually somehow managed to roll so that it was him who hit first and his body that cushioned mine.

That was pretty cool of him.

But now I've come to that un-cool time. When I wake up and realize we are about to go our separate ways and it's still dark out. It's warm here, next to him, partly on top of him. Guess neither of us wanted the wet spot ... but I digress.

I'm the first to stir after this night of pretty nice times. He will soon wake; it's an instinct with men. He'll realize I'm awake and he'll figure he's got to get going before I expect him to stick around and share breakfast.

Oh. Wait.

He's not in my bed.

I'm in his.

Mmmokay then. That makes it easier.

That means I just have to slide off him, slink off the mattress quietly enough that he can pretend to still be asleep. Then find all my clothes, purse, anything I might have dropped between the front door and the bed. Get myself presentable and clean enough to tiptoe from the room, to the door, and out to where my car is parked.

Or, rather, to where I'll ask the front desk to call a taxi.

I now remember, as my eyes open and I stare sideways at the creamy peach walls, that I am in a hotel room. An okay one. His.

And my car is still at the gallery where I picked him up and where he suggested dinner, late, and then I suggested a nightcap, later. And even later we got lost on the way back to his car and decided we needed a bit of the blues before another moment passed.

He danced so nicely with me. The song was melancholy. I couldn't talk. He asked and I nodded that I would love to dance with him. And I felt the song in every step he moved us in, every pause when his arm around my back would tighten, bringing me in closer. The song was deep inside my soul, and I felt like I could not carry the weight of it. And before I knew it, my arms were wrapped around his neck and I was crying.

I need to leave. It's that time of morning. 

Except just then he stretches and grunts with the ache of it, the delicious ache of unbending your body from where it's not used to holding someone else you've just met that night.

I'll just wait until he settles into slumber again before I leave.

He turns after the stretch; now he faces away from me.

Perfect.

I make my move but I have moved too soon, for he is in that half-slumber state they talk about and he feels me escaping. His hand clamps on my wrist and pulls me in against his back. He keeps going and soon he has my hand shoved near his crotch, to where he obviously wants my fingers wrapped around his morning glory of an erection.

Jesus.

It's sticky. I like it. Evidence of what we did. I feel an echo of the evidence in my own body: the soreness between my legs. From the whisker burns along my inner thighs to the tender heat I can feel at the juncture of my thighs from when I press my legs together. We fucked a lot more vigorously than I should have with a man as healthy as this. It's not just the size of him, which is nice, but it was his style. The way he eased in so slowly that I thought, oh my lord, but he's going to be too gentle. But then he chuckled when I whispered, all hoarse and needy, that I wanted to be rode hard. I wanted to know he'd been there. I wanted to sweat and swear and come so hard on him that he'd feel it right to his toes and way up in that brain of his.

He said, "I like the way you talk, little girl. You keep telling me what you want - I'll keep taking what I need."

I said, "I want it down and very dirty."

"No, you don't." He said that filthy with a man's knowledge of what dirty really could be - like he knew women well enough to know I didn't have a clue about what another man might have done with me giving him that invitation. "This is how you want it..."

Like he wanted me to know that he had finally figured out why it had been him I'd picked up in that gallery. Why I'd asked him what he saw in that one painting, the one with those clots of crimson almost hidden among the fields of glorious blue and gold.

Why his answer, eerie in how it mirrored mine, made me look in his eyes. I got closer, close enough to see the flecks of gold in his teal green eyes. An intelligence, a knowing there. Confidence.

And then that moment when we were there in bed, him on top of me, my thighs spread, my knees bent, his face looming over mine. Our mouths open, close enough to kiss but holding back because we both knew the next one was going to be a devouring of tongues. And he seemed okay with knowing that I may say one thing but that I wasn't always sure until I was into it what I really might have wanted even if I was willing to try something different.

So I said I wanted it down and very dirty but the truth was, I just wanted it to not be tender or sweet - not like it would be when you're lovers meeting up again after one of you goes off to Vietnam.

And what if you don't return, the one who goes to Nam? What then? How does the one left behind feel the first time she needs something so physical she will not deny herself? Does she feel dirty? Or just wiser? Maybe it's why I picked this guy up - because he was older, and seemed wiser to the world than me.

His name is Richie, this dude who has my hand wrapped around his cock and is now breathing roughly next to me.

He said he was in D.C. just for the weekend, just wrapping something up from work and then he was heading back to New York on Monday.

I hate living in D.C. I really do. Sometimes I know I'm leaving. Except I get too freaked to even think about going. You never know; they could have been wrong and maybe someone will come home from Nam and not find me, not understand they said he was dead. And that I mourned, still do, but I feel the draw of life again.

"Mmmhmm. G'mornin'." His mumble is almost lost inside the deep tone of his morning voice.

"I should go." I squeeze him, massaging, feeling the heat.

"Can't leave me yet - not like this."

"It's almost light out."

"Who gives a shit about that? We said we'd give this hotel a real workout. You know you don't wanna pass up this chance for a dirty weekend with a clean guy."

"You're a clean guy?"

He chuckles then coughs. I wonder if his idea of heaven in bed would be for him to lean back, light up his first ciggie of the day, and smoke it down to its nub while I've got my lips wrapped round his cock?

"Course I'm clean. Where you been?"

"Clean as in not needing a bath? Or clean as in no one's going to make any charges stick against you? Or clean as in your suitcase is packed so neat I'd swear there was a woman in your life who packed it for you?"

"Clean as in no complications."

"I let you get away with that one?"

"Yeah, well, you were kinda floating at the time." He turns now, a big man wrestling his body over. "We both were."

He's not fat. He's got a lot of muscle, a lot of brawn. But he's not anything like a lean, mean, fighting machine in combat fatigues. He's got the beginnings of a paunch and just the best sort of manly softness over his ribs. He may be converting me to older men. He was just different, that's all, last night. He was more interested in me, in making it really good for me, before he dove in to get his own rocks off. He took time, in a way that made me look at him, touch him, really feel I got to know what he liked. He was sure making positive he knew exactly how to move to get me right up there, smashing over to the other side, breathless and eyes squeezed tight against the exertion of coming around his cock with his mouth pressed in over mine, so it was like I was coming there, too.

When he faces me, I find myself just cradling his cock in one hand, his balls in the other. He smoothes the knuckles of one hand over my face, moving hair out of my eyes. I am not prepared for the sweetness of his morning kiss, the way it comes in slowly and then builds as I get over the shock of him wanting to do this even knowing he'll taste my morning breath.

He still tastes somewhat of the brandy he had here in this room. 

I had liked how he smiled when he offered me some in a snifter last night and I admitted that I'd never tried the stuff. My first taste of it was directly from his mouth, inside a kiss as he backed me up until I was trapped against the back of the couch. He bent me over it, kissing my neck. And then he paused, took this long, slow sip of the brandy, his eyes on mine as he did. When he kissed me, spreading my lips open with an urgent tongue, he waited until we'd formed a seal before he let the brandy drift into my mouth, sliding down my taste buds, forcing me to swallow it. And when I did, I felt like I wanted to swallow his tongue, too, because it just felt good to do that.

"You've been with a lot of women, haven't you?" I ask as his fingertips run lightly down my throat, making my nipples peak and my back arch just with the promise of him wanting to explore me again. I am suddenly wondering how I'll ever go back to boys now that I am beginning to be convinced that older men are better because they've learned tricks and techniques about a woman's body that even she doesn't know about yet.

He looks away, scowling.

"That was a compliment," I say, my fingers sliding along his tip to find drops of moisture that I play in.

"You shoulda kept it to yourself," he says, now cupping and kneading one of my breasts. "Let's cut any talk about past lovers, eh? I don't want to know yours anymore than I want you to know mine."

I swallow down the snap of his rebuke and it feels painful as it travels along my insides. As if I'd tell him about a past lover? Share that? That's not even in my head to do that.

My hands slide away from his erection. This moment shames me. I am unsure what to do, how to reclaim the lightness of the fraction of time before I brought in the past to him. Intimacy between us has melted away. I remember he is a stranger.

That this is just sex.

Which is what I wanted.

And is what I had.

With him. Last night.

"How many men?" he asks.

And our eyes meet with me wondering if I'm not the only one in this bed who'll say one thing but really want another.

"Let me think." I move my lips, like I'm silently counting my bed partners but really I'm counting the six points of the gold Star of David pendant hanging from a gold chain around his neck.

"Liar."

"But I never said anything!"

"Once you counted past three, I knew whatever you said, you'd be lying. Why do girls do that?"

"Why would you think I only had three before you?"

"Three counting me, sugar."

"What?" I push away from him. "Are you trying to say I was bad? Last night? You pig!"

"Calm down," he murmurs, not letting me go, rolling over on top of me as I struggle.

He pins my wrists to the mattress and I glare up at him even as he lowers his face and nibbles on my lower lip.

"You're not bad. How could you be? Besides, takes two to make it happen so if one of us had a bad time, the other's just as much to blame."

"You're saying you had a bad time with me?"

"No. I'm saying, and listen carefully this time, I'm saying that you're a bit too fresh to be picking up strange men like you did me. Next one's liable to not be quite so nice to you, quite so..."

"Who said you were nice?"

"You did."

Now he presses in, his hardness grinding in below, his chest flattening my breasts, his mouth bruising mine. When I try to reach for him, he tightens his hold on my wrists, making me feel vulnerable to this stranger.

Maybe he's not so nice.

Then again, I didn't want a nice guy last night. Have I woken up with one anyway?

His head rises and our lips pull reluctantly away from each other. We are both panting.

"Why would you think I was so inexperienced?"

"Am I right?"

"Will it count against me?"

"Has it so far?"

"I think so."

"Because I took it into account in how I treated you? That's what a man should do. Right?"

"What did I do ... or not do that made you..."

He sits up and pulls me with him, just yanks on my wrists as if I weigh nothing and he can pull me up to where I am straddling his lap while he leans back against the headboard.

"Tell me."

"First, you tell me why you figured I had so many women before you."

"Because..." I feel myself blush with the steady gaze of him on me and my body displayed before him as he holds my wrists out. "Because you just seemed to know things. You were pretty smooth or something. I don't know..."

"Yes, you do know. It's because you could tell I'd been there, that I knew what we wanted, that I had experience. That it wouldn't be good for me if it wasn't good for you."

"I guess."

"And that's how I knew about you. You can just tell."

"So there's things I don't know yet?"

"If you learned everything at once, wouldn't be as nice, would it?"

"What would you teach me? What would make me better?"

"I'd teach you whatever you want to know. But it won't make you better - it'll just make you more experienced."

"I think it will make me better because you're better."

"Am I?" He narrows his eyes. His chin rises.

"Will your ego get too big now if I say you're the best I've had?"

"Nah. But it may make my cock bigger."

I laugh. He grins. I say, let's see if that's true, just as I raise myself over him and together, using no hands, we get his tip right at the entry to me. He is still holding my wrists out but he still manages to bring me closer, close enough for a deep kiss. And then I am sliding down on him, damp with my own desire but struggling with the friction I'm meeting until - at last - I have captured him inside me again.

He shoves my wrists behind my lower back and keeps them there as I ride him and he pumps up into me. I want all of him. Everything. Insatiable. Crude. I fall back, just enough to get leverage. His mouth is now on my breasts, taking each nipple in turn. When I come, he doesn't stop pumping. He rides out my orgasm, whispering crudely against my ear about how I'm squeezing his cock inside me, how tight I am, how good it feels to him, how he wants more. His thumb on my clit gives me something I've never experienced - a coming that lasts so long that it leaves me wanting to do nothing more than fuck for the rest of my life.

"This is how you old guys do it?" We are inside a restaurant with linens on the tables and fake wood on the walls. I make a show of sipping from my wine glass with my pinkie cocked.

"Have some respect for your elders or I just may teach you a lesson you'll regret."

"You wearing dentures yet?"

"Very funny. Come here."

"No way, man."

"Sit over here next to me."

"Why?"

"So you can cut my steak for me. Little tiny pieces so I can gum 'em good enough to swallow."

"You can be funny when you try."

"Here...try just a little taste of this."

"What is it?"

"Brie."

"It smells funny and not in a ha-ha way."

"Then hold your nose and just take a bite - yeah, like that. Swallow. Hey - it's not ladylike, making that face."

"Yuck. Must be an acquired taste."

"Someone has to take a girl like you in hand and teach her there's more to life than pot roast and cheese sandwiches."

"What are you doing with your hand?"

"Showing you the advantage of sitting next to me in this booth."

"Someone's going to see."

"Not if you sit very still."

"Richie..."

"Take another bite of the brie. Silky on your tongue, isn't it?"

"Don't do that with your voice... you make me feel so funny when you talk to me like that."

"Like what? Just saying... feels good, doesn't it? You know what you look like, sitting there, trying to pretend I haven't got my hand in your crotch?"

"We'll get caught..."

"No, we won't. Shhh. Look at me. Let me watch."

"I'm gonna..."

"Yeah, you are. Go on... that's right."

"You..."

"Who's the old geezer now, Janis?"

"Not you."

"That's right."

He's sleeping again. The evening light from the window is harsh on his face, chest. I see shadows under his eyes that I never noticed before. I wipe moisture from his forehead, from his neck.

I lean over his chest and blow air over his skin until he shivers lightly and reaches to pull the sheet up over him.

It's been a day and a half, just about.

I could leave him in the morning but I know if I wait that long, he'll ask me for my number and promise he'll call me. And I know he won't. He's not into that and I can dig it.

So now that he's slumbering with a mouth that's soft and a big manly arm flung over his eyes to block the light, I am free to go.

Inside the bathroom, I stand under a frenzied shower, water as hot as I can stand it. I am not scrubbing evidence of him off of me; I just don't want to stink when I leave. I don't want everyone I meet between this hotel and my apartment to know what I've been doing this weekend.

All weekend.

I suddenly have a fit of the giggles.

God damn.

I got me some this weekend. And it was good. And I feel new and like I am not still trapped in a casket that has been buried in his hometown of Cheyenne.

Man, it really was good. It still feels good, like I didn't expect. I needed this. I will remember it.

When I am ready to leave, I don't look back at him at first. But when I pick up my bag, I glance back and he is now stretched out over the entire mattress. God. He looks so without any care.

It suddenly feels all wrong to not at least leave a note, to say how good this was for me. To thank him. I reach into my purse for something to write on. But there is nothing. Not even a tissue. Well, some rolling papers but they aren't really good to write on. So I go to the desk and open the drawer, knowing there will be hotel stationary there.

There is more than stationary in there.

There is a gun.

A black one in a snug leather holster.

And a badge.

A gold one.

I stand there, just looking in this desk drawer, like something will change if I stand staring long enough.

He's a cop.

My purse is open, sprawled on the desk top. I'm carrying. What if he'd looked inside?

Damn. I almost suggested we share a few joints last night but I'm cautious about things like that since I have a security clearance and you never know who's a NARC. It's like something they can't wave: I get popped for a drug charge, I'd lose my clearance then I'd get bagged from my job at the Pentagon.

But I came close with Richie, close to forgetting he's a stranger, close to just saying, I got some weed, how about I roll us some joints and we get high? I almost screwed up royally because he felt like maybe someone I could trust like that. Like he was cool. But now I find out he's basically the NARCiest NARC there could ever be. He's a New York cop, for God's sake.

"Janis?"

"Huh?"

"Whatcha doing over there?"

"Go back to sleep."

"You going somewhere?"

"You're a cop."

He is sitting up. The setting sun cuts across his face, a spear of rusty light.

"Y'say that like it's a problem for you."

"No, it's just..."

"Just?"

"Not what I expected."

"Come away from the gun, Janis."

"What? Now you think I'm gonna shoot you? That what you think? Man."

Now he's on his feet. And he's nude. And walking toward me, crossing the distance in maybe three or four steps. And he looks tough, like this is something true and real about him, deep inside him.

He pulls his badge from where I'm gripping it. As he puts it away, he's studying me. He closes the desk drawer, takes my hand, pulls me in toward him. But even as he's doing it, he's looking down into my open purse. With his other hand, he fingers open the purse a bit more. Touches the baggie, like he wants me to know he'd already seen it, already knew I was carrying.

"It's not what you think it is."

"I suppose it's parsley?"

"Uh, sure."

"Because it's like you might need an emergency jolt of parsley so you gotta carry it everywhere you go, just in case?"

"Richie..."

"I'm not gonna bust you. Did you think I would?"

"Aren't you supposed to?"

He shakes his head; his chuckle sounds tired, spent. Then he leads me back to the bed, backing up and pulling me along with him. "I'm not a dickhead."

"Then..."

"We gonna see each other again?"

"I don't know. Are we?"

"I'd like to."

"I would, too."

"I'm not into commitment."

"I've had enough to last me a lifetime."

"So I can call you next time I'm down here."

"We'll hook up."

"Sure."

"Do you want me to spend the night?"

"Would I be dragging your jeans off if I didn't?"

"You can be funny. You know I was scared when I saw the badge."

"Yeah? That why your nipples are so hard?"

"Never been with a cop before."

"There're bennies ... like, I got cuffs. Talk nice to me and I may show you."

"So we're cool?"

"Just don't be carrying around me anymore, okay? Then we're cool. Promise me?"

I nod my head, solemn, understanding he's looking the other way but he has standards, expectations, even if he's not always committed to them. "Have you ever killed anyone? Shot them, I mean?"

He scowls. It's like a déjà vu moment - a flashback to when I asked him about whether or not he'd had a lot of women before me. And I can feel the steel of his resistance to me being a person who'd ask him this. He must have been asked this before, maybe too often.

In the exposure between us, I decide to fill the space with something that may make him see I'm not such a kid as he thinks. So I tell him about a certain member of the 1st Airborne who got shipped home from Cambodia. And he says there's not any troops in Cambodia. But he is looking in my eyes when I say it so he knows there's a reason I know where he died.

I look away as I say that I don't like guns. The world needs to get rid of them all, I tell him. And I am against violence. It never solves anything, I say to him, to use guns.

Richie says it's not the same thing, what cops like him do if they have to shoot someone and what happens in war when you're shooting at the enemy.

We stay up all night, debating the war. Talking about people we know over there.

I never thought I'd have gone in this direction. That I'd spend this night talking to this cop and discovering that what I've been running from is the war that has taken my boyfriend from me. And that I want the war over. That I want to be a protester, take a stand, save another boy who never wanted to be there in the first place but had no other choice in the end.

And isn't coming home.

There's another war going on, Richie tells me. We are stretched out together on the mattress, both staring up at the ceiling that is lit only with the neon and bouncing city lights. A war on the streets, he says to me. I turn over and look at him staring up at the ceiling. He is a million miles away from me until he turns to search my eyes in the gloom of this room.

Drugs.

Same old story my parents might tell me - warning me of the evils of drugs. But from Richie, it is authentic. And before dawn breaks, he has laid out what he is in up to his hips - a recitation he says he has inside his head at all times - the reasons why the war he's fighting is the one thing he can commit to with everything he has and is.

When I leave in the morning, he is sitting at the desk, looking at me as I draw away from his grasp.

He says he'll call me when he's in town.

But if I had to guess, I'd say that I can't totally count on that call ever coming.

Not that he's lying. Just that he's not committed to anything but his own way of living life. So calling me will slip away from him unless some night, he's back in D.C. with time on his hands and he starts to wonder if I'd fill the dark hours. If I'm still around, still not with anyone, still fresh enough to take it all away from him for just a little while.