Featured Story from Open City #10

Central Park Wet

Adrian Dannatt

The apartment belonged to Giorgio, a gregarious Florentine rock promoter famed for touring with Iggy Pop in the early seventies and acquiring commensurate habits. By now he had renounced it all and taken up being fat instead. He drank espresso shots all day, which gave him an excuse to get away from his computer and go downstairs, especially as concert deadlines arose. Despite being famed for making the best coffee in New York City, a ritual he would perform after dinner for guests, the promoter still preferred to go and buy a styrofoam cup of espresso downstairs and bring it back up, especially as B.B. King’s Bari dates approached. With luck he might meet someone he knew, they could have a "quick" coffee together. In consideration of the man’s manic yo-yo up and down the stairs, precious cup in hand, Sherban had offered to go for him. It was the least Sherban could do considering he had already been staying several weeks, unannounced. But Sherban had soon realized the journey itself was more important than the caffeine.

The advantage was that the fat Florentine was not only the all-time greatest living Café Roma customer and hence with unlimited credit, but houseguests, announced or not, were included.

"Giorgio?" asked the portly waiter in fond affinity with a fellow obese Tuscan. "Bene, he’s in Italia, actually."

Giorgio had returned for a family crisis, the looming and lingering death of a richest uncle, leaving Sherban to look after the apartment for a month. Well, he could always get a cleaning woman to come around the morning Giorgio flew back. Sherban took a couple of almond cookies, credit being credit after all, and sat pondering the clouds overhead, the metallic-electric atmosphere. It did not look festive.

It was like being alone in Paris on the first of August, the cobbles ringing with silence. Or solitary on Christmas Eve, wandering Trastevere amongst families heading home laden with gifts, the definitive crash of metal shutters slammed shut at every store. A sort of existential loneliness akin to when the airport carousel comes to a halt and your bag still has not appeared, the very last person in the hall and nothing on the automated serpent, just a single unclaimed pram from Zaire. There is no sound more desolate than the silence of that carousel as it jolts to a halt, empty. It was in the spirit of this emptiness, the universal fluorescent gloom of airport baggage claim, that Sherban finished his second espresso. He always ordered two, separated only by a minute. For there seemed something inherently vulgar in a doppio, a contravention of the very nature of espresso. A double was cheaper, but of course he was not paying.

He got up taking his copy of Gazetto dello Sport that the café owner bought for himself every morning and missed every afternoon. With a nod to the waiter Sherban headed into the streets. This was pleasure. Nothing to do, nowhere in particular to go and no pressures such as telephone calls, U.P.S. vans, postmen, or appointments, a horizon entirely clear of obligation. Sherban walked jauntily, whacking his leg with the altogether satisfying heft of a folded Gazetto dello Sport, its print leaving a faint salmon bruise on the trousers he had borrowed from Giorgio. He saw a corner bookstore. Just crossing the road, a rumble and single drop of rain forewarned the storm. By the time he had reached the awning of the shop there was a steady patter of raindrops. On reaching the poetry section, a miserable shelf of Latina Women’s anthologies, the downpour began. Panic broken out in the street, people running for cover as if in a Soviet movie, huddling under any available outcrop. The four people in the shop were all secretly relishing the sensation of being trapped by the storm, a couple stood by the open door watching the rain with great seriousness like a meteorological morality play. Sherban also went and stood by the door, under the awning which released a steady jet of water onto the pavement.

"Rain on our parade perhaps," said the woman next to him, addressed with sing-song sadness more to the rain itself and empty street. She was in her early thirties, dressed in silk blouse, a skirt, and penny loafers, her bare footage more darkly tanned than the rest, he assumed South American.

"Argentinean," she replied. "Yes, of course Buenos Aires. Where else is there?"

"Vast steppes, the pampas, cattle, herds, millions of empty miles . . ."

"You are a romantic?"

"A major storm on the evening of the Fourth of July in an empty city, taking shelter under the awning of a corner bookstore, am I a romantic?"

Naturally her hair was black and there were a few drops of rain on the loose strands. Sherban brushed them, felt the static of these hairs pulled to his fingers against their will by local electricity.

"Mosquitoes?" she asked.

"Rain."

Thunder clapped, and the rain which had been pattering to a close began again, this time in earnest, as if only playing previously. A taxi swished by, sending up a spray of water from the gutter, an arc agleam with oils.

"Thank you."

They stood next to each other in an intimacy that went unstated. Sherban smelled her scent in the wet air.

They tried one bar she claimed was a local favorite but it was shut for the holidays. A couple of blocks further they saw the door ajar at a supposedly modish bar Sherban had been to before because it was nearby and he might find someone who knew him. There was only one other couple in the place and it was darker than the street. Sherban pushed his hand through his soaking hair, smoothing it back and thinking how handsome this made him look. He also saw the wetness of her blouse and the weight of her breasts outlined by it.

She stood proud and self-conscious of their state, feeling the titillating dampness of cloth, enjoying the effect. Sherban led her to a booth, next to the window onto the street. They sat down in silence opposite each other, waiting.

"What’s your name?"

"Carmen."

He nodded. When she did not ask him his own name Sherban immediately understood which fantasy they were to play out. Her nipples, though she was wearing a bra, silk also he supposed, stood out through the cloth, hard and dark against her tan.

"Carmen, Carmen." The waiter was nowhere to be seen. Staring into her eyes, not blinking he reached across the table and slowly brushed the backs of his fingers, four fingers, across the surface of her nipples. They moved back and forth under the light, grazing backstroke of his fingers, he could feel the tenderness. Dizzy, short of breath, Sherban actually saw tiny white stars, pricks of light, as if he had performed a sudden, over-athletic act.

Her ears rang as now just the tips of his fingers caressed the extreme point of her nipples.

They could not grow harder nor larger, swollen. She was so conscious of them, her hard, ready nipples, his eyes on them, because that consciousness was desire itself.

The waiter came over, they kept their eyes locked a little longer then briefly looked up to order a Sea Breeze apiece. When he left Sherban swallowed hard and reached over the table again. She moved imperceptibly closer. Fingers slightly trembling he undid the pearl buttons at the top of her blouse, one after the other, a seeming eternity. Then he opened the blouse up, baring her. Carmen felt this, not just the unbuttoning in public but the deliberation, the certainty with which he opened her. She sighed and Sherban stared at her two large breasts high in their silk bra, the depth of her cleavage and freckles upon it. He did nothing but look, that was enough for both of them. Then he put his hands under the table and Carmen laughed, shifting her legs open automatically. He reached under the table to stroke her legs, from the knees slowly up along her inner thighs.

"Two Sea Breezes? Thank you." The waiter was bored, barely noticing his customers.

Sherban continued caressing the soft flesh of her innermost legs, stroking with the back of his hands. Carmen sighed, she had let her blouse fall open again, having covered it for the waiter. Now Sherban had reached the juncture of her legs, spread as wide as the banquette would allow. He stroked the edges of her panties, never the middle of them, caressing the limits of the tight cloth. She grabbed his hand under the table and with a tiny groan made to press his fingers against the very middle of her. He pulled his hand away. She whispered

"Bastard!" with pleasure.

They left the drinks on the table and caught a taxi. She gave an address up on Central Park West. On the back seat he whispered his command, voice thick. She should hold her skirt up, lift it up. She did so, her legs spread apart on the hot leather of the taxi seat. He began to stroke her inner thighs, higher and higher, till she thrust toward him, whereupon he put his hand back on her knee. She bit her lower lip. As soon as they entered the apartment she put her hand down and grasped his cock, thick and impossibly full. Holding it tightly she went down and kneeling before him unzipped his trousers. His cock was there high in the air, bobbing back and forth with its own mad energy, its tip already agleam with sperm.

"I want you to . . . I want you to come, please . . . Sir." She added that last word with a deliberate, delicious flush of embarrassment but by now they were well beyond embarrassment.

"Then wait, wait." She stood up and he fully unbuttoned her blouse, taking it off above her arms. She had the sweetest little stomach, also freckled brown.

"Kneel again."

She obeyed, her mouth already moving to the swollen, throbbing tip.

"Lift up your skirt on either side. Show me your panties." His voice trembled pathetically.

Hesitating for a second, she did as ordered, holding up her skirt so he could see her panties stretched tight where she knelt with legs apart. They were palest blue.

"Wait." He reached down as she maintained the position, legs spread. He touched her panties. They were wet, moist silk, sticky with desire. He pressed harder, feeling her lips wide open, wet. Sherban stood back up and immediately she put her mouth to his cock, licking just the tip, putting her lips over his head, tasting it. Then she began to take the whole cock, as much as she could, into her mouth. Sherban looked down at her kneeling, still obediently holding her skirt up on either side. Then she moved her hands to caress his balls, tight, retracting, pulling up into his scrotum. She was swaying, moving to some inner rhythm, crazy with the lust of the situation, the act.

Sherban could not hold himself, her hands cupping his balls, her mouth up and down his cock, the length of him within her mouth. He staggered, righted himself, as if drunk. His face was as white as if he were about to faint. She knelt there before him, eyes shut in private ecstasy and with a low single groan he came, shooting sperm down her breasts where it ran and gathered in her cleavage.

"I’m a girl who’s grateful to swallow," she said later as Sherban lay dazed on the white sheet sofa. He stiffened again as she said it, the outrageous, deliberately submissive small voice.

"Oh my God, how much I love pornographic sex," Sherban croaked ruefully, turning to her.

"So do I." She laughed, slapping him on the stomach. "Mmmh, oh yes."

"Somehow, doesn’t that make it less pornographic? I mean if both of us enjoy it equally?"

"You’re right, it’s the gnawing dissatisfaction at the heart of the perfect sadomasochistic relationship. If the masochist is enjoying it as much as the sadist it can never work," she said.

Sherban ran his fingers lightly down her back, skimming her skin. He could tell her any truth.

"When something turns on a woman and equally turns on a man then in theory it’s perfect, pure heterosexuality. Yet I can’t help but find it a disappointment. When I first realized a woman could be as aroused by kneeling in front of me sucking my cock, as I was aroused by watching her do it, well, it seemed a cheat somehow."

She snuggled closer on the albino prairie of the sheet-draped sofa, nibbling his neck. How much more pleasing to do all the snuggling and kissing, holding and loving after the sex itself. Both parts were equally important but usually performed in the wrong order. There was no tension, no doubt between them, arms around each other. She had proffered herself, a victory so delicious it could hardly continue. Sherban was paralyzed with that tingling certainty of pure maleness.

"It’s hard to tell how much sexual pleasure is just guilt," admitted Carmen, who had longed to enter a Latin American monastic order for years after her Confirmation. "If all guilt or shame were removed, how much desire would be left standing?"

Sherban nodded. Only sex he felt embarrassed about was worth having.

"Hence the tragedy of sex somewhere like Amsterdam or Oslo, all those northern democracies where they don’t believe in shame, all those damn guiltless au pairs who say, ‘Ooh, yah we must be open about our bodies and desires, it is so natural to have the sex, no?’ Really, who would ever want to have ‘natural’ sex?"

He felt that sudden, illogical urge to express love or entire contentment, but kept his mouth shut.

"Can I have a look around, a quick snoop?" But Sherban was already moving around the apartment, perusing the bookcase, running a finger over the CD collection as if looking for dust rather than taste, closely checking every picture for signature and date, size of the print edition, turning over small tables for identifying marks. There were several things here worth real money.

Sherban’s suspicion as to the wealth of his absent hosts was confirmed by the splendor of terrace. "Ye Gods, look at that!" He pulled back the curtains and stood at the French windows, staring in disbelief. Triplicate doors opened onto a marble terrace containing a garden table, pots of flowers, a balcony and a perfect view of Central Park, or rather its tree tops which blustered in the storm.

"The terrace is rather impressive. I wondered how long it would take you to find it."

He stood there with breath misting up the window. She came next to him and he thought she might be reaching for his cock again, currently rather less impressive, but in fact she was just opening the door. The fresh air was intoxicating, a green flurry of leaves blowing in the wind, rain lashing the terrace, sluicing the marble, thunder clouds still over the Park. The windows rattled in the tempest.

"Come on out, don’t be shy." Carmen led him as they walked across the cold wet tiles barefoot. "Nobody can see us here anyway, the only neighbor is an opera diva and she’s traveling the whole time." Water poured down like a cold shower. If Sherban shivered deeply it was because of the level of pleasure, the raw luxury of walking naked on such a balcony in such a storm. "We have tea out here during the summer, but I prefer it when it’s raining."

A few leaves were scudding around, blown this way and that, the branches of the trees in the park seemingly close enough to touch. Sherban realized that in fact they could be easily observed, should anyone be interested, from the surrounding high-rises. She was an exhibitionist to boot.

He admired her body again, less taut, less fetishistically constrained without garments but still fit, clearly worked on, her Spanish breasts holding their own proudly on a very adult frame. Carmen was a "real woman," whatever that meant, and naked in the misty downpour she could well have been a classical statue come to life, her body brown rather than marble white. Sherban looked down at his own shriveled seashell sex which had retracted in fear before the sleet. He felt again the embarrassment inherent to being male. Compared to her body, its wide energies, what could we males offer? Violence, of course.

"It’s like a penis only smaller," Carmen jested. They laughed, luckily it was one of his favorites.

She put out her arms and they embraced, teeth chattering. Her hands linked behind his back, pulling him close, pressing up against each other.

"Have you been out on this terrace like this before, totally naked I mean?"

"Ah, you are suspicious? How can you tell? Is it obvious I’ve done this before?"

Carmen seemed beyond guile, there was something in her lack of defensiveness that made him suspicious. She could well be slightly mad. The idea of her potential insanity, it would fit with the exhibitionism and oral fixation, stirred him. Pressed to her nakedness he felt himself getting bigger. Her hips moved to him in response, locking deeper.

"Oh, you find that exciting? You seem to be getting excited by the idea of me out here on the terrace naked, with someone else maybe? Mmm, I know your type."

It was true he found himself increasingly excited, the storm almost an aphrodisiac.

"You want to know all about me out on the terrace? Perhaps you’d like to hear about how I was out here in the middle of summer, a hot day. Maybe you’d like to know how I was bent right over that table there?" And she had done it, his poor little cock was back in action, returning unashamed for more, rubbing back and forth against her stomach. Carmen reached down and put her hand round it.

"With who?"

But she was already taking him back inside, like leading a horse slowly to stable.

"Come along then." And he was of course beyond protest, his hair streaming wet down his face.

Afterwards they were wrapped in robes but it was too late. Sherban had started to sneeze and snuffle. He couldn’t remember if the link between sneezing, orgasm, and death was medical fact or medieval superstition. He had definitely caught cold out on the wet terrace and didn’t know if several subsequent orgasms, dry, helped or not. Yet it was nice and warm indoors and the thick carpeting, bottle of Irish malt, the towels, and heavy gowns were nursing him. So was Carmen who rubbed his hair dry, gave his back a semi-professional massage, and led him to the master bedroom for clothes.

"Take whatever you want. He hardly wears them anyway, more of a golf type."

Though notoriously hard to please in matters sartorial Sherban could not refrain from being impressed. This was not the standard rich man’s wardrobe though there were a few expensive classics, cashmeres and brogues, obligatory basics. Instead there was a most unusual row of suits that hung in darkness like executed collaborators. Sherban checked each one individually, slowly. Something about their soft gray flannel perfection whispered: "Macedonian-Albanian." Sherban could recognize them immediately, this tailoring seemed to boast its national identity. So many displaced, exiled Macedonian-Albanians were beautifully dressed. That tailor who had dressed Proust’s chauffeur was a native Macedonian of Albanian descent, he had moved back to Skopje to be close to his family. Thus, improbably, even during Communism some of the best cutting and fitting in Europe came out of the small city of Skopje. President Tito himself would get his suits made over there, he had a whole wardrobe of Skopje three-piecers. In fact "Skopje Man" was slang in Central Europe for a dandy and flâneur, who prided himself on perfect attire.

"Who lives here?" It certainly wasn’t Carmen, who picked up strange men outside bookstores and loved to call them "Sir" whilst down on her knees.

"You don’t think it’s me then?" She pulled her black hair back coyly.

"I wish, believe me I wish it were you. You’d make a perfect châtelaine. But I don’t think you would own quite so unusually male a wardrobe. Who lives here?"

"You already asked me that when we were out on the terrace, just before coming back inside."

What had he asked her on the balcony? He remembered.

"Oh I see." Was she then the professional mistress of whoever owned this place? Or was she perhaps the unofficial lover,employed in another capacity? Carmen would make an ideal mistress but Sherban suspected that would be too easy, too obvious for her tastes, she would prefer the clandestine and forbidden.

Sherban suddenly tasted a tang of jealousy, like old coins in his mouth. Because he had to admit that living in this apartment with Carmen would not be unpleasant, an astonishing view, high ceilings, quietness, luxury, the occasional hot brutality. He had spent so long convincing himself the rich did not lead better lives and now he was seized with doubt like a teenager hungry for a car.

Now with his bare feet deep in the "master bedroom" shagpile and Carmen next to him waiting to treat him like just such a "master" he felt a pang of self-pity right through his middle like a skewer. Sherban would never own a woman like this, let alone anything approximating this penthouse.

"I don’t think I’ll wear any of these clothes. I’ll let my own dry instead." Sherban turned away from the closet in defeat. He had never been so low before as to refuse someone else’s clothes, especially those of such pedigree.

A bitterness seized him that felt metaphysical. And this was what he feared above all else, a bad mood that refused to shift like the weather. He could not afford permanent sadness. He did not have the constitution or cash to sustain it. Sherban knew exactly how much a nervous breakdown cost in this city. He had enough rich friends whose bills he had seen, he knew that it took cabs, champagne and holidays, analysts and spas and ski retreats, sun ray treatment and fresh flowers and very costly, very quiet rooms.

"Don’t look like that." Carmen took his arm. They stood at the window watching the rain and the rain and the rain. He would leave. Maybe he would take one tie after all, that fat Cifonelli masterpiece, but he would have to be out of here soon before he lost his only power, that of pride.