No Valentines
"Both alone on the most romantic night of the year, he and his voluptuous neighbor decide to be each other's date. Some holidays are better spent with strangers."
February 14th, 8:47 PM.
I'm standing in my kitchen in sweatpants and a t-shirt with a hole in the armpit, eating cold pizza over the sink like the sad cliché I am. The dating apps are closed. The TV is off. My phone hasn't buzzed in three hours, which is fine, because the only person who'd text me is my mother, and I don't need her asking if I've "found someone special yet, honey."
The knock on my door makes me choke on pepperoni.
I set down the pizza, wipe my hands on my sweats, and check the peephole.
Vivian Torres.
My neighbor. 4C to my 4D. We share a wall and occasionally a mailman who mixes up our packages. She's in her late forties—forty-eight, forty-nine, I've never asked—with curly dark hair, warm brown skin, and a body that stops traffic.
She's also holding a bottle of wine and wearing a red dress that looks like it was poured onto her curves.
I open the door.
"Hi." She smiles, but it's wobbly. "This is embarrassing, but—are you busy?"
I look down at my pizza-grease-stained sweatpants. "Clearly."
She laughs. It's a little desperate. "My date canceled. An hour ago. Via text. And I have this wine, and I have this dress, and I really, really don't want to spend Valentine's Day crying into a pint of ice cream alone." She takes a breath. "So I thought... maybe... if you're not doing anything..."
"You want to not do anything together?"
"Something like that."
I should say no. I barely know her beyond the occasional wave in the hallway. She's twenty years older than me. This is weird.
"Give me five minutes to put on real pants."
Her smile goes from wobbly to radiant.
Vivian's apartment is the mirror image of mine, but warmer. Plants in the windows. Art on the walls. A candle that smells like vanilla and something spicier.
"Sorry about the ambush," she says, pouring wine into mismatched glasses. "I know we don't really know each other. I just saw your light on, and I thought—she stops. "Actually, I don't know what I thought. That misery loves company, maybe."
"You don't look miserable."
"I'm a very good actress." She hands me a glass, drops onto the couch. "What's your excuse? Why is a good-looking twenty-whatever alone on Valentine's Day?"
"Twenty-six. And my excuse is that my ex dumped me in October and I've been too pathetic to get back out there."
"October?" She winces. "That's rough. What happened?"
"She said I was 'emotionally unavailable.' I said she was 'fucking her personal trainer.' We agreed to disagree."
Vivian nearly spits out her wine. "Oh my God."
"What about you? What kind of asshole cancels on Valentine's Day?"
"The kind who gets a better offer from his wife."
"His wife?"
"I didn't know." She stares into her glass. "Six weeks of dating. I thought he was separated. Turns out 'separated' meant 'she was visiting her mother for January.'" She takes a long drink. "So now I'm the other woman who ruined Valentine's Day for some poor woman in Connecticut, and I get to feel like garbage about it."
"You're not the garbage one. He is."
"I know. I know. But it still feels..." She gestures vaguely. "Like this. Alone on the romantic holiday, drinking with a stranger in a sad red dress."
"It's not a sad dress."
"It's a very sad dress. I bought it specifically to impress a man who's currently having make-up sex with his wife." She laughs, but there's no joy in it. "I'm forty-nine years old. I should know better by now."
"Know better than what?"
"Than to think someone would actually want this." She gestures at herself. At her body. "On a night like tonight."
I look at her.
Really look at her, for the first time since I moved in a year ago.
She's beautiful. Not in the airbrushed way, but in the real way—the way that matters. Her face has lines around the eyes, around the mouth, and they make her look like someone who's lived. Her body is soft everywhere: breasts straining against the red fabric of her dress, belly pressing against the seams, hips wide enough to fill the couch cushion. Her thighs are thick beneath the hem, and when she shifts, I can see the shadow of cellulite, the realness of her.
She's not what magazines would call beautiful.
She's what I would.
"Can I tell you something?" I say.
"At this point, sure."
"When I first moved in, I used to time my trips to the mailbox to coincide with yours."
She blinks. "What?"
"You always checked your mail around six-thirty. I noticed. And I would... wait. So I could see you." I take a drink to hide my embarrassment. "I thought you were the most gorgeous woman I'd ever seen. I still do."
"You're drunk."
"I've had half a glass of wine."
"Then you're crazy."
"Maybe." I set down my glass. "But I'm not lying. And I'm not saying it to make you feel better. I'm saying it because it's Valentine's Day, and we're both alone, and you should know that somebody wanted to see you tonight. Even if it's just your weird neighbor who stalked your mail schedule."
She stares at me. Her eyes are wet.
"You're not weird," she whispers. "You're... really sweet, actually."
"I have my moments."
She laughs—a real one this time—and wipes her eyes. "God. This is the strangest Valentine's Day I've ever had."
"Same. But maybe the best one too?"
"You have a low bar."
"I have a high bar for company."
The silence stretches between us. Electric. Charged.
"So," she says slowly. "If this is the best Valentine's Day... what would make it better?"
I close the distance between us on the couch. "I can think of a few things."
The first kiss is soft.
Tentative. She tastes like wine and hesitation. But when I cup her face in my hands, when I feel her lean into it, the hesitation burns away.
She kisses me back like she's starving.
"Wait—" She pulls back, breathing hard. "We shouldn't—I'm too old for you—"
"You're not."
"This is just loneliness talking—"
"It's not." I stroke her cheek with my thumb. "I've been thinking about this for a year. Dreaming about what it would feel like to touch you. This isn't a pity fuck, Vivian. This is me finally having an excuse."
"An excuse?"
"To tell you the truth." I lean in, press my lips to her jaw. "That I want you." Her neck. "That I've always wanted you." Her collarbone. "That every time I hear you through that wall, I imagine what you're doing. What you look like. What sounds you'd make if I was the one making you feel good."
She shivers. "What kinds of sounds?"
"Let me show you."
I unzip her dress.
Slowly. Letting the fabric part to reveal skin—brown, warm, impossibly soft. She's not wearing a bra. Just the dress, and now just panties, red lace that matches the fabric pooled at her waist.
"Vivian." I breathe her name like a prayer. "You're beautiful."
"You don't have to—"
"I'm not being nice. I'm being honest." I push the dress down over her hips, let it fall to the floor. She's left in just those red panties, and I can see the shadow of her through the lace. "Stand up."
She stands. And I kneel.
She's shaking when I hook my fingers in the lace.
"You really don't have to—"
"I want to." I look up at her. "More than anything I've ever wanted. Will you let me?"
She nods. Barely a movement. But it's enough.
I pull the panties down.
She's thick everywhere.
Her belly rounds above me. Her thighs are dimpled pillars on either side of my face. And between them—
She's wet. Glistening. Swollen with need.
I lean forward and taste.
"Fuck!" Her hands fly to my hair. "Oh God—oh God—"
She's sweet. Tangy. Perfect. I lick through her folds, learning her, mapping every inch with my tongue. When I find her clit and suck, her knees buckle.
"Bed—" she gasps. "I need—I can't stand—"
I stand. Scoop her up. She yelps—"You'll hurt your back!"—but I carry her anyway, two hundred and some pounds of woman in my arms, and deposit her on the bed like she weighs nothing.
"How—"
"I work out." I strip off my shirt. "Now let me work you."
I worship her.
There's no other word for it. I kiss my way down her body—her neck, her collarbone, her breasts (enormous, soft, nipples hard as pebbles under my tongue). I spend long minutes on her belly, tracing the stretch marks with my lips, showing her that every inch is wanted. And then I'm between her thighs again, and she's spreading for me, and I bury my face in her like I never want to come up for air.
"Right there—fuck—don't stop—"
I don't stop. I eat her until she's sobbing. Until she's pulling my hair so hard it hurts. Until she comes with a scream that I'm sure the neighbors can hear, and I don't care, I want them to hear, want them to know what she sounds like when she shatters.
"Inside me," she pants when the aftershocks fade. "Please—I need you inside me—"
I strip off the rest of my clothes. She watches, eyes wide, and when my cock springs free, she licks her lips.
"That's..."
"Yours." I climb over her. Position myself. "If you want it."
"I want it. God, I want it—"
I push inside.
She's tight.
Impossibly, wonderfully tight, and wet, and hot. I slide in slowly, inch by inch, and she takes all of me with a moan that sounds like it's being ripped from her soul.
"Okay?" I freeze, buried to the hilt.
"More than okay. Move."
I move.
Slow at first. Long strokes that make her gasp with each one. Her body shifts beneath me—all that softness, all that warmth, surrounding me. I feel her belly press against mine. Her breasts bounce with every thrust. I watch them, mesmerized, and lean down to catch one nipple in my mouth.
"Yes—fuck—harder—"
I give her harder. And faster. The bed slams against the wall—our wall, the one between our apartments, the one I've pressed my ear to imagining this exact moment—and she screams my name.
"I'm gonna—fuck—I'm gonna come—"
"Do it. Come for me, Vivian. Let me feel you—"
She comes.
Clenching around me so hard I see stars. I follow her over the edge, burying myself deep, filling her while she shakes and sobs and clings to me like I'm the only solid thing in the world.
We collapse together.
Sweat and heat and skin and her.
Afterward, we lie in the wreck of her sheets.
Her head on my chest. My arm around her. The candle still flickering on the dresser.
"So," she says eventually. "That happened."
"It did."
"Regrets?"
"Not even one." I kiss the top of her head. "You?"
"I'm trying to find some." She laughs softly. "I'm failing."
"Good."
Silence. Comfortable. Real.
"I don't know what this is," she admits. "If this is... a thing. Or just tonight."
"What do you want it to be?"
"I don't know. I've never done this before. Slept with my neighbor. Slept with someone younger than my son would be if I'd had one at twenty."
"Do you want to do it again?"
She's quiet for a long moment. Then:
"Yes."
"Then let's start there." I tilt her face up, kiss her softly. "One step at a time. One night at a time. And if we figure out what this is along the way... that's a bonus."
"You make it sound simple."
"Doesn't it feel simple?"
She considers. Smiles.
"Yeah. Actually. It does."
February 15th, 1:23 AM.
We're still in her bed. We've fucked twice more—once with her riding me, once with her bent over the headboard—and now we're sharing the leftover wine and a bag of chips she found in her pantry.
"Happy Valentine's Day," she says, raising her glass.
"Happy Valentine's Day." I clink mine against hers. "Same time next year?"
"How about same time next week?"
"Even better."
She kisses me. I pull her close.
And somewhere in the city, a married man is having make-up sex with a wife who doesn't know how close she came to losing him.
But I don't care about them.
I've got my own holiday to celebrate.
Right here.
Right now.
With her.