Hazy Nights and Central Park
by Jonathan Andrews - Printed in Issue 8 of In The Buff

    I like to sit in the park, Central Park that is, eating a lunch of salad sandwiches and rye bread, watching the world go by. On a hot summer's day it's the only place to be in Manhattan, away from the hustle of Broadway and 96th Street, the bustle of Wall Street and Exchange Place; even the pigeons know that they're onto a good thing,
     I hate the heat, the sweltering, uncomfortable, airless heat that oozes through the street vents like an oppressive hand clutching at your throat, driving out the wheezing breath. Unfortunately, like most New Yorkers, I can't quit the city for the peace of New Jersey, and then the Park becomes my only haven.
     This was the second time I had seen her, jogging past the fountain, across Bow Bridge, the white sneakers slapping the blistering tarmac, the tiny deep blue satin shorts riding up long, well trained legs, the cropped white top shaped against two perfectly formed breasts, nipples jutting tightly to the thin material. Tied back with a pink bow, her long hair shimmered brown in the directed sunlight, sparkling against the waters of The Lake. She was beautiful, gorgeous even. I imagined that behind those sunglasses there lurked a pair of brazen eyes, aware of my curiosity, hoping that they would steer her in this direction.
     I thought about her at my desk, when I ought to have been concentrating on the McDonald account, trying to imagine what I could do with a three million dollar campaign for cornchip cookies. Mmm... I would have liked to try her cookies, sliding my hand into those shorts... damn it!
     My apartment is on 80th, hidden behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art - right where it should be, and not far from the Park itself; one reason I spend nearly every spare moment either sitting or walking through a part of its enormous acreage. My office is nearby, too, and if they knocked down the Plaza Hotel I would be able to look out of my window directly over the street, and maybe I would be able to see her enter from East 60th.
     I talked to Karl. He's been my buddy ever since I got the job at Golding and Magrewder. I tell him everything, well, almost. I did tell him about the girl.
     "Talk to her."
     "How?" I asked, staring through the glass, for once disinterested in Mario's pastries.
     "I don't know. What the hell, just go up and say hello, somethin' like that." He shrugged his shoulders, pushed the slipping spectacles back into place. "What should I know, I'm married."
     "Great piece of advice, Karl - go up and say hi, how you doin'?" I looked to see if anyone was listening in to our conversation; maybe not.
     "You asked me, that's all I know. You eatin' that?" He gestured a hand toward the thickly creamed slice of gateaux and, as I shook my head, slipped it over onto his plate; no wonder he weighed twenty pounds more than me.
     I scoffed, but how else would I get to meet her? But then it hit me. I rang in, said I was taking the day off, said it was time owed. I felt nervous, definitely looked nervous. What did I know about sporting goods? One pair of sneakers looked the same as another pair. I slunk out of the elevator, aware of all the watching eyes, hoping that I wouldn't meet anyone who knew me. The things a guy has to do.
     It was still hot, still humid; the temperature had gone off the Richter Scale, and I could feel the perspiration trickling down my back beneath the grey lycra, the sweatband stopped it from filtering into my eyes as I jogged through Strawberry Fields, leading down to a gazebo alongside the rowing lake, resting my butt against the trellising and wiping my brow. I glanced at my wristwatch: 1.30. The Park was busy, getting busier.
     I drew a sharp intake of breath, puffing as I made my way up to Cherry Hill. I should have gone to the museum - that was more my scene; this was too much like hard work. Then I saw her - the slender shape, the glowing, flowing hair - a flitting figure through the trees. For a moment. Then she was gone, back again, gone. I sprinted across Bathesda Terrace, turning left in the direction of the boathouse. She was ahead of me. She stopped, bending forward, holding her knees, fingers splayed as they caressed the bone. She turned her sunglassed eyes in my direction, the flickering gleam of a smile. I stopped, wiped my hands on the side of my shorts, tried to return the smile; I was exhausted - hadn't done this much since college.
     "Do you always run so fast?" I gasped - too many cigarettes, I guess.
     "Do you always follow women you don't know?" She wasn't angry. I would have been. It was pretty stupid.
     "Only the attractive ones," I replied. If she had smacked me across the face, I would have deserved it.
     "Let me buy you a coffee." She removed the sunglasses; her eyes matched her smile. She told me her name - Tanora; her mother had been an original hippie, her father an architect. The hippie had won. She laughed at my jokes, even the bad ones, and didn't mind me touching her hand across the table.
     We sat on the terrace, gazing over the dry hazed Sheep Meadow, across the half-clad bodies sprawled out on the grass. Within thirty-five minutes I had learned her life history; she was twenty-two, a graphic designer by occupation, and a culture lover by inclination. Her parents were no longer living, but she had an older sister, Sky, living in New Haven with her doctor husband, and shared an apartment with a temperamental cat named Twidle.
     "Fair's fair," she said, twisting a strand of that luxurious hair. "You know about me."
     "Okay," I said, waiting until the waitress had refilled our cups before continuing.
     "It's an honest profession." I didn't know if she was joshing, or being serious.
"Come on," I laughed, "what's honest about advertising? We lie, beg and steal. I don't call that honesty."
     "Maybe yeah, maybe not." Then she checked the time: "Shit! It's been nice, fine, I mean great, but I gotta go."
     "Tonight," I blurted, stopping the coffee cup from tipping over; she was in a rush, obvious, almost knocking it off the table in her hurry to be up, but I did get her to agree to a date, a proper date. Then she was gone, and I was standing like a frozen statuette in the middle of the floor, watching after a fading ghost, and I still didn't know what she liked for breakfast.
     "You got to talk to her? That's great." Karl finger combed his hair backward, leaning backward in his leather chair and semi-swivelling. "A date? Man, I thought you never would."
     That's what I liked about Karl, he didn't bullshit, and he didn't like people who did. He was a son-of-a-bitch and knew it, and wasn't ashamed to be one. That's the reason we got on so well - I knew exactly where I stood with him.
     "Nice place." And it was, carefully and considerately furnished in early European from floor to ceiling. She lived on the twelfth, with the advantage of a balcony from where you could see as far as the Queensboro Bridge, the ant-snaking traffic moving backward and forward. It was starting to darken, with pinpoints of light punctuating the shadows and the far off wail of a police car's siren. Tanora leant over the railing, her wispy white dress swirling in the evening's indecisive current, hair released to curve around her shoulders; she was oblivious to my attention. She was beautiful, I told her, and she laughed, displaying pearled teeth. Her nipples showed through, dark brown against pure white; I wanted to suck them into my mouth, to roll my tongue around the solid nubbins, to make love to her, to hear her cries of pleasure fly over the night sky to drown in mingled street sounds - I didn't tell her that.
     I swear that her eyes shone brighter, opened wider; I moved behind her, my hand creeping under the folds of the skirt, touching the soft sweetness of her thigh, stroking the swell of her buttocks, her gasp imperceptible as my fingers creased the outline of her mound. Her panties, tiny white silk g-string, merely added to my appreciation of the moment, as my hand pushed aside the delicate fabric, my fingers stimulating the moistened cleft.
     "Please fuck me." She didn't even turn to look at me; her appeal was almost lost in the stillness; she parted her legs.
     In my haste, the elastic snapped, the g-string floated over the balcony, leafing its way to the street below. Tanora shuddered. She gripped the railing. I entered her with an expeditious plunge. I seized her breasts beneath the dress, jerked her nipples - Tanora leant her head backward, against my cheek. I took her with urgency, my nails digging into the fleshiness of her spheres, my member plunging in and out. She gave a scream as the orgasm thundered through her body, pressed into the railing as the come spurted. In a matter of moments it was over; I pulled down the hem of the dress, to cover her modesty, zipped my flies. We had needed it; next time it would be slower, sensual, with an exploration of one another's bodies - this had been an urgent screw.
     The water stung my naked flesh; she knelt at my feet, her knees submerged in soapy green, lathering the bushy hairs between my legs, cradling the wrinkled scrotum, paying special attention to the flaccid tool hanging dejectedly against my skin. She kissed the tip, a gentle, delicate touch of the lips. She rose to her feet, slowly working those lips up to my navel, up to my chest, sucking my nipples, guiding a hand between her thighs, making me masturbate her to climax, a shuddering explosion of passion and pleasure.
     We dried each other on a huge white fluffy towel; I concentrated on her pussy, sure that I wiped every droplet of water from the curled pubic hairs. She smelt a mixture of soap and private juices, she tasted the same, with the juices more pronounced.
     I licked the outer folds of her labia, the juice dribbling onto my tongue, searing my palate with the potency of its liquor. We slid to the tiles, my back to the door. She stretched out, her legs either side of my waist; I sucked her big toe, holding the foot to my face with my right hand, lapping the powdered crevices, hearing her giggles of sensitivity, ignoring the squirming as my tongue returned to its previous task and darted into her.
     Slowly, my cock at full erection, I entered her again. She wrapped her legs around my back, above the waist, pushing her bottom up from the floor, meeting my thrusts, hooking her hands over my shoulders; penetration was deep, vital - she rose to be with me, subsided when I did, clung, didn't want to let go. We made love.
     "I want you."
     She straddled me in the wicker chair, out on the balcony. Night was drawing into early morning. Far off, somewhere in the darkness, a ship's hooter broke the tranquillity, responding to Tanora's guttural cries for more. We were naked; her breasts bounced firmly, points extended toward my open mouth - I bit, chewed, she impaled herself on my member.
     I was glad of a new day. She was asleep, a corner of the covers thrown back to release a show of flesh. The digital red of the bedside clock told me it was early.
     "A good night?" Karl noticed my tired red eyes, the yawn as I filled a plastic cup with strong black coffee.
"You could say that." I guess my smile said enough; Karl got the message, he slapped me on the back.
     "You laid her! You..." He stopped, smiled, and perched on the edge of my desk; Karen walked by. Twenty-two, and Karl, and every red-blooded male within half a block, lusted after her. The blonde hair, the winsome smile, the legs - the legs, long, shapely, right up to the cutest rear. "Come on,' tell Uncle Karl all about it." At least he waited until she'd passed.
     "There's nothing to tell." The lie came naturally, I didn't have to force it. This was different - call it love, call it the hots. Whatever it was, it was mine and Tanora's. We were going to keep seeing each other, as long as my strength held out.
     If there was one thing I learned about her, it was her passionate nature. She thrived on sex, needed it as much as anyone needs food, maybe more. I was introduced to new pleasures, new positions, new situations. It didn't matter where we were - outside, inside, in a secluded spot in the Park, she had to do it. I discovered that I could adopt a natural pose while secretly fucking her, she liked to screw on a bench, sitting on my lap, her noises muffled with a kiss. She would wear a simple shift dress, no panties, easier to embed herself with my cock through opened flies.
     I had to go away for a week, to Boston. She made me promise to 'phone every day. Actually, I was glad of the opportunity to recharge my batteries; Tanora was draining. I needed the break, not just to recover, but to rethink the situation. The sex was wonderful, don't get me wrong, but the relationship wasn't getting anywhere, moving forward, and did I want a relationship based wholly on fantastic sex? Who was I kidding? Of course I did; Karl had told me how lucky I was. I had every guy's dream - a gorgeous girl who couldn't wait for me to have her.
     "Don't be ungrateful," he said.
     "I'm not... really, I'm not."
     The place was half empty. It was early. The round of meetings had induced us to seek out the nearest watering hole, and this was it - a back street establishment of imitation oak and plastic beer mats. We were the only ones sitting at the bar, drinking our ice cold beers.
     "If you can't handle her, pass her onto me." Karl swigged from the stubby brown bottle.
     It was late, and I had nearly forgotten.
     "I thought you weren't going to call." She sounded irate, as if she had been sitting by the telephone all night, waiting - maybe she had, but then we hadn't agreed a time.
     "Sorry, I've been busy all day, and we've only finished." I hope she wouldn't recognise the little white lie.
     "Make love to me," she purred, "over the line. Take me in your strong arms. Undress me. Fuck me. I need to feel you hard inside."
     Cock was stretching the front of my trousers, tentpoling the crotch; she was making me so horny.
     "I'm naked," she whispered, "lying on my bed. My hand's stroking my pussy, can you hear it?"
     Yes, I could.
     "Take off your clothes, everything."
     It was difficult to strip with one hand, the other clutching the receiver, but somehow I managed.
     "Oh, god, I want you!"
     I imagined her lying there, her breasts tingling, her pussy hot and wet; my cock reared up, I circled forefinger and thumb around the shaft, the swollen length.
     "Yes," I groaned, slowly masturbating, sliding the foreskin back and forth. Tanora kept up the conversation, driving me wild with vivid descriptions of how she wanted me to fuck her; I lay on my bed, in the nondescript hotel room, my imagination conjuring up pictures of her kneeling as I mounted her doggy fashion, my cock plunging her pussy as my hands gripped her breasts - sitting in the chair on her balcony as she straddled me - fucking against a tree in Central Park; everything happened at once, as well as a sudden rush of adrenaline. I dropped the receiver, but could still hear Tanora's animated portraits... as well as her screams as she orgasmed. Come spurted into my hand, onto the covers, everywhere, pools of white sticky liquid. I breathed in deeply... the line went dead.
     She wasn't at home; the answering machine: "Hi, I'm not able to take your call. If you'd like to leave a message, I'll get in touch as soon as I can. Speak after the tone."
     I took a shower, washing the journey out of my skin. I tried ringing again; the answer machine. I didn't speak. Karl 'phoned. Hoped he wasn't interrupting anything important. I said, "No, how about a drink?"
     "Thought you'd be doing somethin' else." He gave a low whistle; she was beautiful, but I could only think of Tanora. "You've got it bad."
     "She must be working late," I hoped.
     "She knew we were due back today." Yes, she did. I knew she did. Expected her to be waiting for my call. I got drunk, blind, stinking drunk. I didn't care. I even made a pass at the waitress. I don't think she noticed. Karl helped me into a taxi, directing the driver to take me home. I was still hung over when I woke next morning. My head ached, and my mouth tasted like something indescribable. Needless to say, I didn't go to work.
     "Hi, I'm not able to take your call." I slammed the receiver down. Four times I had called, four times I had listened to her goddamn machine.
     I waited by the fountain. Joggers came and went. A couple of times I thought I saw that familiar figure among the trees, but it wasn't her. It was starting to get dark, and as I made my way past the Sheep Meadow I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I would never see her again.
     "Yes, yes, oh God yes, yes..."
     "Oh baby, baby, do it to me." Karl's voice. I saw the park bench, the familiar white dress, the one that opened easily.
     "You're the best, the best." I recognised the cry, the movement, and I knew that I had been a momentary pleasure, as would my former buddy.