I walked into her bar the next day knowing it was a bad idea. 

After a night like that, it’s best to let memories do all the hard work while leaving the thinking and talking out of it, but I couldn’t help myself.  I wanted to know what it felt like to see her again, and I wanted to know if we could slip back into friendship or if it was simply over.

She smiled when I walked in and I couldn’t read a thing.  She didn’t even ask what I wanted, and I cringed as I took the first sip of bourbon.  I had almost forgotten what we drank, but memories flooded back at the first sip.

Without thinking I looked around the bar, but I knew he wasn’t there.  I remembered the look in his eye when she first kissed me, and I still didn’t know if was mostly lust or fear. He had fully encouraged her and he even pulled her hair away from her eyes as she knelt in front of us, but in the end it was her idea.  She wanted to be shared, and she wanted to be used and no matter how much it might turn him on, he was no longer in control.

I felt like an idiot asking him if it was ok when her eyes glossed over with want and desire.  He laughed and told me to fuck her.  He smiled and cringed, and I slid inside her like I had been waiting years for the chance. 

There was nothing earth shattering about the sex.  Hell, at three am there rarely is, but they looked at each other while we fucked, and I can’t even imagine what was going on in their heads. She moaned and kissed me, and I barely thought anything at all as she moved beneath me on the darkened bar. 

Neither of us realized anything had happened until I came and she opened her eyes.  She called out his name and I sat up quickly, but he was nowhere to be seen.  She pulled her skirt down and buttoned her shirt as we stumbled to the bathrooms, but the lights were out and there wasn’t a sound. 

We didn’t talk much as she tried his phone, but I could see on her face that she didn’t expect him to answer.  When she finally locked the door behind us we went our separate ways.  There wasn’t going to be any hand holding or tears.  There wasn’t going to be late night coffee to bask in what we had just done.  She went one way and I went the other, and the next day I sipped my bourbon without asking a thing.

—Guy New York