Night Owl
"He can't sleep. Neither can she. Every night at 2 AM, they meet in the kitchen. Every night, the conversation goes a little further. Every night, they get a little closer to something they can't take back."
The first night is an accident.
I come downstairs at 2 AM for water, and she's there. Sitting at the kitchen island in a silk robe, nursing a glass of wine, staring at nothing.
"Oh." I stop in the doorway. "Sorry, I didn't—"
"It's fine." She waves me in. "I can't sleep either."
My father's wife. Monica. Forty-eight, Cuban, soft in all the ways my mother wasn't. She's been living here for six months, and I've spent most of that time avoiding her.
Not because I don't like her. Because I like her too much.
She's big—probably two-eighty, maybe more—with hips that sway when she walks and breasts that strain against everything she wears. Her face is beautiful: high cheekbones, full lips, dark eyes that see too much. And her voice is low and warm, like honey over gravel.
I get my water. Sit across from her. The kitchen is dark except for the light over the stove.
"Bad dreams?" she asks.
"Just can't shut my brain off."
"Me too." She sips her wine. "Your father snores. Did you know that?"
"I did, actually."
She laughs, quiet so she doesn't wake him. "He falls asleep at nine-thirty and snores until five-thirty. Every night. Like clockwork." She shakes her head. "I've never been able to sleep before midnight. So I come down here."
"Every night?"
"Every night."
We sit in silence for a while. It's not uncomfortable. It's actually... nice.
"Well." I stand. "Goodnight, Monica."
"Goodnight, Jason."
The second night, I come down on purpose.
She's there again. Same spot. Same wine. This time she's reading a book—something in Spanish, a romance novel with a shirtless man on the cover.
"Couldn't sleep again?" she asks without looking up.
"Something like that."
I get my water. Sit across from her. She finishes a page, marks her place, sets the book down.
"Twenty-three years old," she says. "You should be out. Clubs. Girls. Whatever it is young people do."
"It's a Tuesday."
"So?"
"And I don't really... do clubs."
She tilts her head. Studies me. "Too busy studying?"
"Too busy being awkward."
She laughs—genuine this time, loud enough that she covers her mouth. "You're not awkward. You're..." She searches for the word. "Careful. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"Mm." She picks up her wine, swirls it. "Awkward is not knowing what to do. Careful is knowing exactly what to do and choosing not to."
I don't know what to say to that. So I say nothing.
"Goodnight, Jason."
"Goodnight, Monica."
Night three. Night four. Night five.
We talk. About everything. About nothing. She tells me about Cuba, about coming to Miami at twenty, about her first husband who died young and her second husband who died old and now my father, who isn't dying but isn't quite living either.
"He works," she says one night. "He eats. He sleeps. He provides." She looks at me over her wine glass. "But he doesn't see me. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah."
"When was the last time someone really saw you, Jason?"
I think about it. Can't come up with an answer.
"That long?" She reaches across the island, touches my hand. Her skin is warm. "That's too long."
She pulls back. We finish our drinks in silence.
But her touch stays with me all the way to bed.
Night seven. She's wearing less.
Not a robe—a nightgown. Thin cotton, white, coming down to mid-thigh. I can see the dark shadow of her nipples through it. The round swell of her belly. The thickness of her thighs.
I try not to stare.
"Something wrong?" she asks. She knows exactly what she's wearing. What she's showing.
"No. Nothing."
"You seem distracted."
"I'm fine."
She stands. Walks to the fridge. Bends over to get the wine bottle from the bottom shelf.
The nightgown rides up. I see everything—the vast curves of her ass, the dimpled backs of her thighs, the white cotton of her underwear stretched tight across her hips.
She takes her time.
When she turns back, I'm hard. Visibly, obviously hard, tenting my sweatpants. There's no hiding it.
She looks. Doesn't pretend not to.
"Goodnight, Jason."
"Goodnight, Monica."
I go to my room and jerk off for an hour.
Night ten. She asks me to sit next to her.
"I want to show you something." She has her phone out. Photos from Cuba, from her childhood, from a life I can barely imagine. She leans into me to scroll through them, and her breast presses against my arm—soft and heavy and burning through the thin cotton of her nightgown.
"This was my grandmother's house," she says. "And this is the beach where I learned to swim. And this—"
"Monica."
"Yes?"
"I can't concentrate."
She doesn't move away. "Why not?"
"You know why."
She sets the phone down. Turns to face me. We're inches apart now, her thigh pressed against mine, her breast still touching my arm.
"Say it."
"I can't."
"Say it, Jason." Her hand finds my thigh. Rests there. "Tell me what you're feeling."
"I want you." It comes out like a confession. "I've wanted you since the day you moved in. I think about you constantly. I dream about you. And every night, sitting here, it gets harder to—"
She kisses me.
Her lips are soft. She tastes like wine and something sweeter. Her hand slides up my thigh, finds my cock through the sweatpants, and I groan into her mouth.
"Finally," she whispers. "Do you know how long I've been waiting for you to say that?"
"Monica—Dad—"
"Is asleep." She strokes me through the fabric. "Will be asleep for hours. Has no idea what happens in this kitchen at 2 AM."
She stands, takes my hand, pulls me up.
"Sit on the stool."
I sit. She steps between my legs, reaches down, pulls my cock free. It's hard and aching and dripping, and she looks at it like she's starving.
"So big," she murmurs. "I knew you would be."
She lifts her nightgown. No underwear this time—just her, bare and wet, her soft belly and thick thighs and the dark patch of hair between her legs.
"Are we really—"
"We've been building to this for ten nights." She straddles the stool, straddles me, positions my cock at her entrance. "You think I wore this nightgown by accident?"
She sinks down.
We both moan.
She rides me on the stool while my father sleeps two floors above us.
Her body is overwhelming—her weight on my lap, her breasts in my face, her cunt hot and tight around my cock. I grip her ass, pull her down harder, and she gasps.
"Quiet," she hisses. "We have to be quiet."
I can't be quiet. Not with her bouncing on me like this, her flesh jiggling, her breath hot on my neck. I bury my face in her breasts to muffle my groans—soft pillows of flesh, nipples hard against my tongue—and she holds my head there.
"That's it. Suck on them. God, your father hasn't touched them in months—"
I suck harder. Thrust harder. The stool creaks beneath us, and I don't care. She's grinding her clit against me with every stroke, and I can feel her getting tighter, feel her breath getting shorter—
"I'm close," she whispers. "Make me come. Make me come on your cock—"
I reach down, find her clit, rub it while she bounces. Three strokes, four, and she bites my shoulder to keep from screaming as she comes. Her cunt clenches so hard it's almost painful.
"Inside," she gasps. "Give it to me—"
I give it to her. I hold her hips and thrust up and fill her while she shakes through the aftershocks.
Afterward, we clean up in silence. She fixes her nightgown. I fix my sweatpants. The kitchen looks exactly as it did before.
"Same time tomorrow?" I ask.
She smiles. Kisses me softly.
"And the night after that. And the night after that." She heads for the stairs. "Get some sleep, Jason. You'll need your energy."
I don't sleep.
But not because of insomnia anymore.