How many times can a drunk man come? The answer of late had been none.
I turned the corner of Swanson Street and Ferris Road just before the latter curved down the hill and met the river. Even in the downpour, she stood leaning against her lamppost. Her weariness was palpable, more so than it had been for the two years our business venture had lasted.
The street, slick and shining under the glow of streetlights, curved gracefully, its path marked by the sheen of wet asphalt. The lamps cast a pale, yellow light, their reflections dancing in the steady stream that had gathered along the road’s edges.
The giant willow trees of Ferris Park loomed over the fence, their branches heavy with rainwater. The long, slender leaves, darkened by the moisture, drooped low, some nearly brushing the ground. The trees stood as silent sentinels, their presence a stark contrast between the urban streetscape and the lush, natural world within the park. Rainwater collected on the leaves and fell in sporadic drops, adding to the already rapid stream of water cascading down the street, looking for the outlet at the bottom of the slope, where it would join the river and start its journey towards some distant ocean I would likely never see.
Charlotte, her name was, and she had been working the streets since her late teens, and it was starting to show. At thirty-six, she waited longer and longer into the night to find work. Her red hair clung to her scalp, plastered down by the persistent rain. The tired strands now darkened and slick with moisture, contrasted starkly against her pale skin. The deep plunge of her neckline still showcased her most significant asset: her ample, milky white bosom. However, they need more push and support these days than they used to.
Upon seeing my car, she scanned the street, perhaps hoping for a better option or ensuring the cruisers that frequently patrolled her street remained at a safe distance. I could see the sigh on her body before she cast one more look down the street and approached my car.
I made decent money in my menial job and interacted better with computers than people. I was in my basement office at 8 AM and rarely left later than 4 PM, giving me ample time to pick up dinner at Wang’s and make sure my fridge was stocked with enough beer to last me through the evening.
My tiny apartment was big enough for me; it had a kitchenette that provided the essentials: the coffee maker, a microwave, and the fridge to keep my beers chilled. In all my years living there, no meal had ever been prepared. I had a three-seater couch that ironically would pull out and make an extra bed as if that was ever needed. My entertainment unit, four cinder blocks and a few planks of wood, housed a TV I didn’t know if worked any longer.
Empty beer bottles, although neatly stacked and not scattered, seemed to occupy every shelf and table surface. I had a clear intention to do something about that; I just hadn’t come around to actually doing it yet. Then there was the bedroom, which also housed my computer desk, where I spent most of my time between 5 pm and whatever time I crashed in bed. There was also a small, joined bathroom, and at precisely 7 AM every morning, I would shave and shower before work.
I miscalculated the beer in the fridge’s stock today, so I had to wash down what little was left with whiskey.
As Charlotte approached the car, I pushed the button and let the window down. Her moves were so imprinted in her that they were no longer conscious acts. She leaned in the car window, giving me the usual view down her top, and at the same time strutted her ass provocatively to the willows who cared not.
“What are you doing here, Andrew?” she said in a tired voice.
“You know why I’m here,” I replied.
“Do I?” she said with resignment in her voice, “For the past three months, every Thursday night, you’ve driven me down to the river and parked under the bridge; I’ve watched you drink beer while I take your flaccid cock in my mouth. Your twenty bucks isn’t worth my time, Andrew.”
“It’ll get you out of the rain,” I said, “There isn’t exactly a lineup waiting for you.”
She sighed and took another look down the street, then opened the door and sat in.
“Look,” I said, “If it’s about the money, just name your price.”
Her weary eyes found mine. She was drenched, water dripping from her hair and clothes, pooling on the car seat beneath her. Her hair clung to her face in wet strands, and rivulets of rain traced paths down her cheeks, mingling with the faint remnants of mascara.
“The time I spend with you,” she sighed, “I could easily handle two or three clients, full intercourse. Two hundred.”
I laughed at her proposal, “That was in your prime, Charlotte. What? Ten, fifteen years ago? Intercourse? Are you trying to tell me you can fetch more than fifty for a quickie with your twat? A hundred, and it keeps you out of the rain.”
She looked at me with contempt but knew she’d be hard-pressed on a night like this to make that kind of money anyway.
She hadn’t always worked down by the river; in her glory days, she had occupied the hot spots downtown, but younger and riskier girls with far more expensive habits and muscle behind them had pushed her out. The way things were going, she’d soon have to set up shop at the off-ramp on the other side of the city, where abandoned warehouses and cheap motels, with no questions asked, would be her final destination until retirement. She would indeed be lucky to fetch a fifty for a quickie with her snatch, and her retirement funds weren’t where she had envisioned them at this point in her life.
“Fine,” she said.
I put the car in drive, and slowly, we made it down the slope and around the bend towards the river.
“How much did you drink today, Andrew?” she asked with genuine concern, but if it was for me or just the idea of being stopped by a cruiser with a drunk driver and the nature of our business together startling her, I didn’t care to know.
“Enough to come see you, but not enough not to.”
Down by the river, a narrow gravel road veers sharply to the right, winding down and beneath the bridge. I was familiar with the locals only by sight: an elderly black man who mumbled incoherent, biblical-sounding phrases that seemed to hold no clear meaning. Nearby was a woman whose age was indeterminate; her face was deeply scarred, and her hair was matted and greasy, tangled in a cluttered mess. The last resident was a much younger girl—Charlotte had finally recognized her as one of the newcomers who had taken her place in the city’s hot spots a decade ago.
That night, the trio huddled around a makeshift fire in a metal barrel. Its flickering flames cast a dim, uneven light on their faces, offering a brief respite from the cold and darkness.
They left us alone, allowing us to use their backyard without interference. I pulled the car to a stop and turned off the lights. The only sounds were the relentless roar of the river, the howling wind, and the persistent drumming of rain, still soaking the city with its unyielding downpour.
I grabbed the beer bottle from the cupholder, the last one from my fridge. I twisted the cap off and took a greedy gulp, then undid my trousers. I had to tweak my cock out, flaccid and useless like it had been the past few months, but it was a routine I had grown accustomed to. At least, Charlotte represented a form of intimacy, a brief sensation of skin upon skin, something I could not achieve with anyone else.
Her cold and wet hand found my crotch, and she gently rubbed and fondled me to no avail; I hadn’t had a hard-on for months, and it wasn’t going to, by some magic, reappear now.
“Do you still want me to…” she started.
“Yes,” I abrupted, and she leaned in between my legs and took me in her mouth. She let me swirl inside her mouth, she sucked and licked.
I watched the people by the fire and took another gulp from the bottle before my gaze shifted to the dark river. Only the frothy white tops of the waves, illuminated by the dim light from the street above, testified to the river’s rapid rush toward its unknown destination.
I finished the bottle with a final gulp and listened to Charlotte’s muffled slurps between my legs. Her hand on my thigh felt rougher and more worn than when I first knew her, but I still found comfort in her touch.
A flash of lightning split the sky, momentarily illuminating the scene with a blinding light. Almost immediately, the rumbling thunder shook the car. The rain intensified, transforming the downpour into a relentless, steady waterfall.
Charlotte remained unfazed, at least by the world outside. It dawned on me that amidst my need to feel some sort of intimacy, to her, my inability to get an erection could seem like a direct critique of her ability to perform her job.
“You can stop now,” I said.
She sat up, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then turned away and gazed through the window.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
She turned to me, and there was genuine sadness in her eyes.
“It’s ok, it’s your money.”
“Do you want me to take you back?”
She glanced at the pouring rain and then at her watch. It was nearing 1 AM, and her chances of finding more work were diminishing.
“You still have some time left on your money,” she said. “You might as well spend it all.”
We sat there, listening to the sounds of the storm outside. In the dim light, it was evident that she had once been beautiful; glimpses of her former allure still shone through. When she looked at me again, I noticed that her eyes were green for the first time—a detail I had never fully observed in the two years I’d known her.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked.
I didn’t mind. She tried to open the window on her side, but it was stuck. I pushed the button on my side and lowered her window instead. She fished out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her handbag. The flame cast a warm glow on her face as she lit her cigarette.
Leaning back, she inhaled deeply and exhaled a large puff of smoke through the open window.
“Can you put your hand on me again?” I asked.
“Your money covers anything up to anal, so just tell me what you want.”
“Put your hand on me,” I said.
Her hand found my crotch again, and she began to rub me.
“No, just on my thigh,” I corrected.
She withdrew her hand from my groin and placed it on my thigh.
At last, she glanced at her watch. “Time’s up.”
She pulled her hand away, and I zipped up my pants. Discarding her second cigarette butt out the window, she watched as I closed it. The car’s engine roared to life, startling the group by the fire. I navigated the narrow road to the street above, now a steady river cascading down the hill. I stopped under a streetlight and looked at her.
“Where do you live? I don’t want to send you back out there.”
“You can’t know that,” she said, making it clear that there was a line between her professional life and her private one.
“Do you want to come to my place?”
“I don’t make house calls, Andrew, you know this.”
“Not like that. I have a pull-out couch in the living room. You can stay there until morning. I leave for work at seven-thirty.”
She glanced at the downpour, and for the first time in her professional career, her weariness seemed to overwhelm her. Reluctantly, she decided to go home with a client.
“Can I trust you, Andrew?” she asked.
“If I had intentions to harm you, I’d have had plenty of opportunities by now. I want to see you safe.”
“Okay, take me to your place,” she murmured. It saved her a forty-five-minute walk in the rain. “But you’re still on the meter; it will be another hundred.”
“You’re charging me to sleep on my couch?”
“That’s my rate for watching me sleep,” she said, a faint smile touching her lips and a glint of something like amusement in her eyes.
“Sounds fair,” I replied, mesmerized by how even a simple smile could make her seem beautiful.
We cruised through the near-empty streets. She twitched slightly at the sight of a police car; undoubtedly, she’d had enough encounters with law enforcement throughout her years and was worried my slight intoxicated wavering would have us pulled over. We arrived safely at my building, and I maneuvered the car into the snug underground parking. As I opened the door, she was still hesitant, but slowly she joined me. I always took the stairs; elevators didn’t sit well with me, and she complained slightly that had she known she would have to climb five flights of stairs, she would have added another fifty to her rate.
I stood at my front door, fiddling with the keys, when it dawned upon me that she would be the first person to visit my apartment since I moved in. I also realized that the state of my place was far from presentable for any guests.
As I opened the door, her slight gasp confirmed my thoughts. She beheld the sparsely furnished living room and took objection to the piled-up beer bottles. Why wouldn’t she? It was an abomination.
“I…sorry,” I said.
She entered, picked up one of the empty bottles, studied it, and put it back down with a gentle hand.
“What happened to you, Andrew?” she said, “Two years ago, you stopped at my streetlight, paid me my hundred, and fucked me under the bridge. Now you can’t even get a hard-on?”
“Nothing,” I said, wandering off to my bedroom to see if I had a fresh set of sheets.
Standing before the dresser, I realized that was exactly what had happened to me. Nothing. Ten long years of nothing. The same job, the same apartment, the same habits and patterns. Work, eat, drink, and sleep. The one unique thought I had in those years was five or six years ago, when I had stopped and picked up the light brown girl. She offered me a blowjob for a fifty and would let me fuck her for a hundred more. I opted for the blowjob, and she was the first woman to have me orgasm. The only non-habitual part of my Thursday nights was that there would be a different girl each time.
Until I picked up Charlotte.
She was the first one I had intercourse with and, by nature, the only one. By habit, she had become routine, like everything else in my life, and I suppose that had finally snapped something inside me. I hadn’t made one decision in two years; I hadn’t felt gratification or joy. I hadn’t felt.
I returned to the living room, pulled out the couch, and made her bed.
“Will you be ok like this?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, “May I use your shower?”
“You’ll have to be quick. The neighbors might complain to the landlord. It’s an old building, and the pipes are noisy; there’s a strict policy on showering at night.”
I guided her to the bathroom, then sat and waited for her in the living room. She was indeed quick; she had years of experience freshening up between clients.
When she returned, she somehow seemed more vibrant and less stressed, and a few lines on her face seemed to have vanished. Her no longer wearing makeup only added to the sense of vibrancy. She was just in her underwear, panties, and bra; it was no big deal; we both knew she had revealed more of herself to me in the past.
I got up and started for my bedroom.
“No,” she said, “Sit for a while; you’re paying to watch me sleep, remember?”
Again, there was the smile, and again, my infatuation for her rose.
“I don’t believe you, Andrew,” she started, “I don’t buy into ‘nothing’ doing this to you. You were a decent fuck, if I knew how to, you might even have made me cum. You’re the first, if not only, man that has ever had me thinking of such a possibility.”
“I…I don’t know, Charlotte. Perhaps the endlessly mundane life just broke me.”
“Yes, you are broken,” she agreed.
I watched as she lay down and pulled the covers over herself, then rolled over to face away from me. I observed her body rise and fall with each breath, but she never settled into the deep, steady rhythm of sleep.
I sat there for about half an hour before she turned her head and looked at me.
“Do you… want to watch me masturbate?” she whispered.
At forty-five, I still believed that female masturbation was mostly a fantasy created by porn. Watching masturbation scenes had quickly lost its appeal, as had porn in general, but the thought of watching a real, in-the-flesh woman masturbate stirred something inside me—a sensation I hadn’t felt in a long time.
“I would,” I replied.
She pulled the covers off herself, then slid her panties down her surprisingly long legs, another feature I hadn’t noticed before. She spread her legs slightly as her hand found her mound and began to rub softly.
Her pussy was beautiful, neatly hairless except for a small red tuft of hair crowning it. With two fingers separating her labia, her thumb found her clit, gently caressing it with the knuckle of her thumb, moving in slow circles.
Her breath deepened, and her legs spread wider as the intensity of her movements increased, now rubbing furiously at her button. She let out a slight whimper, arching her back as her fingers slid inside her, curling within.
“Oh, fuck!” she moaned, now fingering herself hard, bringing her closer and closer to breaking.
Finally, she did break; her trembling thighs squeezed her hand shut between her legs as she clawed at the bedding with her free hand. As the spasms subsided, her legs slowly settled onto the mattress, freeing her hand, which she then rubbed up her tummy across her chest and neck, finally bringing it to her mouth. She sucked her fingers into her mouth and released a big sigh.
I watched her recovering body; her deep breath caused her chest to rise and fall. Her surprisingly firm tummy flexed with each breath, the subtle outline of her abdominal muscles visible beneath her skin. Her legs were slightly spread as if exposing her swollen sex to me was the most natural thing in the world to her.
Shortly after, I heard soft whimpers escaping her, and when she looked at me, I saw tears trailing down her face.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Sorry,” she sobbed softly, “I… I can’t remember my last orgasm. I didn’t believe I was capable.”
She stood from the bed and unclasped her bra, letting it fall to the floor. Her orgasm seemed to have lifted a veil from her eyes, and she now stood vibrant, beautiful, and naked before me. She invited me to stand with her.
As I stood, she leaned in; her breath captivated my skin, and the hairs on my neck stood on end.
“I want to try something,” she whispered.
She stood on the tip of her toes, her nose brushing against mine as she circled it slowly. The anticipation built with every inch closer until, finally, her lips met mine. The kiss was electrifying, a sudden rush of warmth and intensity that released years of unspent longing. Her lips were soft but insistent, pressing against mine with a fervor that revealed newfound curiosity and perhaps even desire. Her breath mingled with mine, each touch and caress igniting a fire within me. It was as though every repressed emotion and unfulfilled craving surged to the surface, and I was alive.
“I can’t recall the last time I kissed someone,” she panted.
To me, it was my first, and I would never forget.
I took her, or perhaps she took me, on the makeshift bed and believed her when she said she came again.
We slept there for the few hours that remained of the night until morning. I showered as she dressed, and ten twenty-dollar bills changed hands. Holding the door for her, she turned around.
“See you Thursday?” she said with a smile and kissed me.
“Thursday it is,” I confirmed.
I turned the corner of Swanson Street and Ferris Road again the following week, sober for a week. She stood bent through a car window but waved as she saw me. She scuttled over and leaned in.
“Can you wait for a while? It’s just a quick blowjob, and this guy usually blows before I touch him. It’ll save you forty bucks.”
“Forty?” I baffled.
“Yep, this bitch is in demand.”
I sat and watched her get in the car, which rocked slightly back and forth moments later before the door opened, and she skipped towards me.
As she sat in, I noticed she had cum running out of her nostrils.
“Got a tissue?” she laughed, “There’s an unbelievable force in that tiny cock of his.”
I handed her a tissue, and she wiped and blew.
“Take me to your place,” she said.
“How much?” I asked.
She looked at me, pushed her stray lock back from her eye, and smiled sly.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, “This one’s free.”
Two weeks later, she moved in, and we cleaned my apartment. She works mostly from her apartment now but still works her street some nights. Many of her clients favor meeting her at her streetlight.
Thursdays are still our night, but now we go out and mingle with people, which is still hard for me. Then, we return to our love nest. To break the routine, we sometimes head down under the bridge, where she still charges me two hundred for anal.
Thank you for reading. I value each like and comment, so if you’re intrigued by Andrew and Charlotte’s story, please share your thoughts.
Don’t drink and drive. Just don’t.
