The roar woke me up. I blinked, confused, dazed by the freight train tumult that raged on every side. When I finally realized what was happening, I grasped at my phone on the nightstand. No! It was supposed to turn! It was supposed to turn! But the angry-red, swirling radar image didn’t lie. The hurricane was right on top of me.

I jumped out of bed and went to the window, but couldn’t see anything. Just water splashing- pressed into millions of tiny droplets over and over again. Hours earlier, I had looked out that same window and seen the angry band of black clouds to the southeast, but I hadn’t been worried. The forecast had predicted a swing out to sea. So, with a chuckle at the tens of thousands of silly people who had evacuated, I went to bed and thought nothing more of it. I had made a huge mistake.

I should have left, dammit! Should’ve left!

I quickly headed downstairs, feeling my late mother’s two hundred year old house shudder against the wind. I flipped on the lights in the front room. Windows intact, no water coming in from the door. Under the light of the streetlights, I could see just as far as the street. It was a racing torrent of water, a river splashing up against the curbs, threatening to overflow its banks.

Should’ve boarded up, should’ve stacked sandbags.

I strode down the hallway toward the kitchen, flipping on lights as I went. Everything seemed fine, so far. I turned on the floodlight on the back porch and gasped. Water was streaking sideways in sheets, and the huge trees that dotted the tiny network of downtown backyards were swaying madly, limbs bobbing perilously up and down, threatening to crack off at any moment. And always that incessant roar as gust after gust buffeted the house, rattling the windows and bowing the sliding glass door. This wasn’t just a storm, I realized. There was no thunder, no lightning- there was only chaos.

As I stood, mesmerized by the roiling trees, the lights flickered once, and then again. Oh, shit. Off in the distance, I saw a bright flash, followed immediately by a loud bang and a shower of sparks. Every light in my house went out. Shit, shit! I fumbled in a nearby kitchen drawer for a flashlight.

Should’ve bought a generator! Should’ve bought some canned goods! Should’ve packed coolers full of food!

My sole and insincere act of preparation had been to purchase one medium sized cooler, which I had cavalierly filled only with beer. “So, a really big storm, huh?” I had chided co-workers and friends. “Yeah, I think I’ll be alright.”

Flashlight in hand, I felt my way back to the front room and considered what to do. I sat down on the couch and checked my phone again. The hurricane was just starting to hit- there were hours left to go. Should probably save the battery. I switched off the radar and cursed. When we first learned that “Oscar” was heading up the coast, friends and neighbors assured me time and time again that hurricanes almost never hit here. They’d lose steam over Florida or boomerang back out to sea. Where were those friends now? Evacuated. Miles away. With electricity and refrigerated food and little doubt about the security of the roof over their heads.

I found a large cardboard box in the closet with old winter clothes. I dumped out the clothes and tore the box open. I spread the flimsy sheet of cardboard awkwardly over myself as I laid down on the couch to wait out the storm. At least if there’s flying shards of broken glass…

***

I must have dozed off. When I opened my eyes again, it was to muted sunlight streaming through my (still intact) front window. Dazed, I swung my feet around, letting my makeshift cardboard blanket fall to the floor. The ceiling fan was still- no power, of course. Everything was eerily quiet.

With a sense of relief, I stood and walked to the window, which was plastered with bits of leaves and vegetation. The rain had stopped, though the dripping trees made it seem like a light shower was still falling. The street was clear of running water, but still spotted with large puddles and littered with snarls of leafy branches, clumps of Spanish moss, and tree limbs the thickness of my forearm.

Overjoyed, I went to the door and opened it to cool, breezy, thin air. Through the thick Southern live oak canopy, I could just make out low-hanging, light gray clouds sweeping fast overhead- the rippling wake of the giant storm. I had made it; I was alive, I was dry. I stepped out on the porch and breathed deep, inhaling the pungent, mossy scent of soil and vegetation. It was as if the storm had scraped away a layer of earth, exposing the raw, primal roots of the land.

After witnessing the wind and rain of the previous night, being outside felt like a novelty, so I stepped off my porch and onto the sidewalk, caring not at all that I was only wearing a pair of old boxers. To my left, I saw a number of small trees that had been toppled, as well as a large palm tree that had snapped in half and been swept halfway down the block, finally getting wedged under a small car parked by the side of the road.

To my right- Shit! I almost jumped. I wasn’t alone. There was a woman standing on the sidewalk, her back to me, three doors down. I knew her- a neighbor, barely an acquaintance… Marie? Mary? She was wearing only a threadbare t-shirt that couldn’t quite cover her blue and white striped panties. I couldn’t help but stare at her slight figure as the light shined through the t-shirt. She had a husband and a child- why would they not have evacuated?

I should say something so she doesn’t think I’m just standing here staring at her. No, I should duck back inside before she realizes I’m here!

And with that thought, she turned. “Oh, hey! Another survivor!” She said, smiling warmly, She showed no signs of caring that I was standing in front of her in just a pair of boxer shorts. Nor did she seem to care that she was in her underwear herself, or that her nipples were clearly visible through the t-shirt. I guess when you’ve just dodged a disaster, it doesn’t matter so much what you’re not wearing.

I walked towards her, trying to play it cool, willing myself to not get an erection. “Yeah, looks like we made it.”

“Close call, though.” She pointed to my roof. A large sycamore was leaning precariously against a terrifyingly thin oak limb just over my house.

“Shit! Wow, yeah, that’s about as close as it comes. Guess I should be feeling pretty lucky right now, huh?

“Hey, any hurricane you wake up from makes you lucky. I’m Marci, by the way.” she said, extending her hand. “We’ve seen each other around, I think.”

“Yeah, sure. I’m Josh.” Her round face was pretty in an old-fashioned kind of way, framed by a dishwater bob, and highlighted by the kind of lips that seemed permanently ready to kiss- plump, parted, naturally red. It was hard not to stare, but I glanced behind her at her front door, wondering when her husband and child would emerge.

“So, why’d you stay in town?” She asked.

“Because I’m a fucking idiot, apparently. No, I thought it would miss us. It was supposed to miss us, wasn’t it?”

She laughed at that. “First hurricane, I take it? They’re not always as easy to predict as we’d like.”

“Yeah. Probably my last, too. Wait, why’d you stay? Don’t you have a family here?”

“Jacob took little Jack up to stay with friends in Atlanta. I work in IT for the hospital, so they asked me to stay in case something went wrong with the servers.”

“I hadn’t thought about that. Hospitals don’t evacuate.”

“Nope.”

“So, I’m guessing this wasn’t your first time.”

“Third. But this one was by far the worst.”

“Yeah, I dunno what I was expecting. Some wind, sure, but not…” I gestured at the eight foot tree limb that had fallen on the roof of our neighbor’s porch, “...certainly not this.”

“We should walk around. You want to explore? Like, walk around and look at all the damage? You’ll definitely be feeling lucky, then.”

“Can we? I mean, are we allowed?”

“Who’s around to stop us? It’s like we’re the last two people on earth! C’mon!”

“Well, okay,” I said, as if my arm needed twisting. “But maybe we should both put on some pants, at least?”

Her red lips scrunched to a pout. “Oh, you’re no fun! But have it your way. Five minutes?” And with that, she turned and bounded up her front steps. I watched her cute, little, blue and white striped ass as she bounced.

***

As we walked closer to downtown, it was obvious that our block had been spared the worst of the destruction. Gigantic, 200 year old live oaks had been brought down, sprawling limbs shattered against the brick streets, roots wrenched upward, exploding the brick sidewalks and making them virtually impassible. More than once, we had to clamber over a trunk that was more than half Marci’s height.

Most of the larger trees had been trained for centuries to angle toward the streets, so major damage to houses was minimal. But they weren’t spared entirely. The regal, wrought-iron clad old dames of the town were plastered with leaves and moss, formerly perfect landscaping ripped up and scattered across the porches and down the street. In a town that prides itself on its beauty, it was just as well that so many of its citizens weren’t there to see it like that.

We didn’t see another soul. The older houses with shutters were closed up tight, as they had for a hundred storms before. Newer houses and small business were boarded up with plywood, often painted with messages for the incoming storm or for would-be looters. “GO AWAY, OSCAR!!” Or my favorite: “I’m still here drinking whiskey with a gun pointed at the door.” Whether or not he actually was, who would chance it?

Marci and I walked together down the middle of Bull street, stepping over branches and around a beat up motor scooter that had been swept up by the rushing water. It could have come from blocks away. We made it to the main intersection in the downtown shopping district. There were fewer trees here, but there was garbage and newspapers strewn everywhere, and half of the green awning from the corner Starbucks was in the middle of the street.

In the middle of the intersection, Marci stopped in her tracks. “Wait!” She held her arms out to her sides, her eyes darting all around. “Listen!”

I did, and we smiled at each other as we realized the same thing. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. There was no clatter and roar of trucks and cars; no incessant whine of leaf-blowers and air conditioners; no gaggles of over-exuberant tourists in their trolley-shaped busses; no troops of singing Girl Scouts in clomping horse-drawn carriages. Even the birds and bugs were utterly, eerily silent. We laughed together into the weird void in the busiest part of town.

“Like I said, we’re the last people on earth!” Marci smiled up at me like an excited girl. We walked casually down the middle of the street.

“I used to fantasize about this when I was a kid, you know,” I said easily. It was amazing how quickly we felt comfortable with each other.

“About what?”

“About being the last kid on earth.”

She laughed. “Why?”

“Because then I could do anything I wanted: ride my bike down any street whenever I wanted; throw rocks at windows; break into the candy store and eat all the chocolates- well, except the ones with coconut! I could do anything because there were no rules.”

“So, you fantasized about being a pre-teen looter?”

It was my turn to laugh. “Yeah, I guess so.”

With a laugh, she spun away from me, arms stretched out. “Well, here we are, the last people on earth!” She stopped spinning and looked right at me. “We can do anything we want. What do you want to do?”

Something about the way she said that last part made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Was she flirting? Was that an invitation? I decided to take a risk. “Well, you know, at some point, we’re going to have to talk about re-populating the earth.”

She laughed hard and covered her mouth with both hands. She blushed easily. “I guess we are!” Her eyes sparkled at me. “... at some point.”

There was a certain kind of delectable tension between us now. A spark of reckless possibility that hadn’t been there before.

“Wait, that gives me an idea!” She looked all around us as she walked up to me. She dropped to her knees in the street and reached for my waistband. Instinctually, I pulled away.

“Wh-what are you doing?!”

She looked up at me with large dark brown eyes. “We’re the last people on earth, remember? No rules.” Again she reached for my waistband, and this time, I let her pull them down and over my rock-hard cock. She glanced around once more, clearly relishing the idea of exposing me in the middle of the shopping district. She ran her tongue tentatively up the length of me, stopping to flick her tongue at the tip.

I looked around, sure that spying eyes were watching us from the upper-story lofts above the shops. But as her pretty red lips wrapped around my shaft and slid downward, I no longer cared. I looked down at Marci’s face as she bobbed up and down on my cock, those big brown eyes smiling back up at me. The warmth and tightness of her mouth felt incredible, and the thrill of being exposed so close to the corner Starbucks was an extra thrill.

I closed my eyes, reveling in the pleasure sweeping up my body, feeling the cool breeze on my face. But when I opened my eyes again, the pleasure slammed to a stop. “Wait, wait, wait!” I reached down and eased my cock from Marci’s mouth before quickly pulling up my shorts. “We gotta go!”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“That!” I pointed down the street to where a police car had just turned about three blocks away going the other direction.

“Oh shit!” Marci stood and brushed the grit and leaves from her knees. We both walked nonchalantly back down Bull. “Do you think they saw?”

“No, I don’t think so. I wonder what they’re doing?”

“Obviously looking for candy store looters!” We both laughed. “Act casual!”

“Yeah, you try acting casual with this thing between your legs.”

“That’s not my fault!”

“It is exactly your fault!”

She began laughing uncontrollably, teetering off to one side and then crashing back into me. I wrapped one arm around her and laughed back.

“C’mon. The one thing I did to prepare was stock a huge cooler full of beer. Let’s go have some breakfast,” I said.

“Beer for breakfast! Now you’re gettin’ it!”

We may not actually have been the last people on earth, but we sure were going to pretend. For as long as it lasted.

***

Whatever breezy coolness had followed the storm blew away with the fast-flying clouds, replaced by the burning summer sun and usual humidity. I recalled what a well-meaning co-worker had said when trying to convince me to evacuate: “The storm’s not the worst part of a hurricane- the week after with no electricity or air conditioning is.” I was beginning to see what he meant.

The cicadas had returned, their high-pitched, whining drone swelling from the nearby trees to an almost deafening buzz, only to fade and be picked up by other cicadas blocks away. Without the human sounds of leaf-blowers and roaring cars to disrupt it, the interminable rise and fall was hypnotic, intoxicating in its own right. It was the jungle’s wheezing breath.

Woozy with breakfast beer and propane-grilled sausages snatched from my fridge, Marci and I lazed on a pair of chaise lounges I had dragged from my backyard to the front porch. We took in our debris covered street, fanned ourselves, sipped more beer, moved as little as possible.

Neither of us had so much as hinted at the interrupted sex act that had so nearly taken place in the city’s busiest intersection. I was hesitant to bring it up. After all, this woman had a husband and a child. It could’ve been a lapse, a momentary indiscretion that she had no intention of repeating.

So I contented myself with staring side-long at her body, following her red-painted toes up her tanned legs to where her already-short cut-offs had been further hiked to allow maximum exposure and coolness. Her thin t-shirt clung to her skin in the humidity, accentuating her small breasts. I watched as her lips puckered around her beer bottle, and then lingered, licking the last few drops from the rim. My cock twitched at the memory of those same lips doing the same thing to my cock.

Her gaze was far away, drunk on breakfast beer and cicada-song.

“It’s kind of like being in college, isn’t it?” Her voice was languid, faraway.

“How on earth is this like college?”

“I dunno. I mean, we didn’t know it at the time, but we had so few responsibilities. We could just lay around, not caring what anyone thought about us. We could drink when we wanted, fuck who we wanted. No daycares to coordinate, snacks to pack, dinners to plan, bills to pay.”

“In college, I worked two jobs, studied my ass off to get B’s, and got laid… well, very, very rarely.”

“Okay, okay!” She chuckled. “So it’s not like college. Point is, that’s the last time I felt anything close to this feeling. The feeling that I could do what I want.”

“Autonomy.”

“Autonomy, yes!” She sighed. “I miss that.”

She drifted away again, eyes glassy, looking out at nothing in particular. I couldn’t help staring at her breasts, trying to work out the exact shape of her nipples as they poked up through the sheer fabric. I wondered how she would react if I went over to her, took her in my arms, and kissed her. Something told me she would let me, yet I still hesitated.

“I’m not sure I like the way you’re looking at me, mister,” she said without turning her head. “It’s giving me ideas.”

My feet shifted, but something stopped me from standing. Something was wrong- not wrong, but different. It took me a second to figure it out- the cicadas had fallen suddenly and completely silent. I was so lost in studying Marci’s body that I hadn’t noticed that the sky had clouded over again, and when the wall of rain fell, we both sat up in surprise.

“Whoa!” Marci laughed. “Where did that come from?”

“Must be one of the trailing bands of the hurricane.” There was a slight breeze, but the rain, while thick, was nothing like the heart of the hurricane. It could’ve been any summer afternoon rainstorm.

Marci stood up. Without looking at me, she pulled her t-shirt over her head and unbuttoned her shorts. She pushed them and her blue and white striped panties to the porch floor, and, with a shriek and a peal of girlish laughter, ran down the steps and out to the middle of the street. The rain drenched her immediately, but she laughed and spun and danced around, hands and face reaching up to the sky.

I laughed at her sudden shamelessness. I tried to burn the image of her tiny, perfect naked body, rain spraying from it, strands of dishwater hair plastered to her face and neck. I wanted that image with me forever.

“C’mon!” She shouted from the middle of the street.

“No fuckin’ way!”

She came marching back up towards the porch, bare feet slapping against the wet pavement. At the top of the steps, she stopped and looked at me. She was a tangled, dripping mess, with leaves stuck to her feet and shins. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I followed the curves of her body up to her eyes, my erection growing. She took two steps and and climbed on top of me.

Her kiss was instant- no gentle build-up, none of the tentative explorations of a first kiss. It was as if we had been kissing for hours, our tongues wrapping around each other, lips opening and closing with perfect timing. I wrapped my arms around her naked body, feeling the cold rain soak into my clothes. I ran my hands down the center of her back, one after the other, fingers slipping between her ass and around and underneath her. I pulled her up and onto my straining erection, and she moaned into my mouth.

She scrambled off of me and pulled at my shorts. As she pulled them from my ankles, I pulled my soaked t-shirt off and she pushed me back down. She took my cock and pressed it against her pussy lips, letting out a deep-throated moan as it slipped inside.

The rain clattered down on the tin porch roof as she rode me frantically, water droplets spraying from her hair. I pushed up into her, arching my back and pulling her hips down onto me. She moaned loudly and dug her nails into my shoulders. It didn’t matter that we were on the front porch, essentially exposed to the neighborhood. It didn’t matter that the home she shared with her husband was three doors down. Those thing didn’t exist right now, right here, in the space between chaos and civilization. This was primal, careless, mindless sex.

Our bodies had taken over. Without thinking, my body reacted to her rocking hips as they pressed forward to consume my cock, easing backward to release it again. She took my head in both her hands, looked hard into my eyes and kissed me, before throwing back her head and letting out a punctuated scream. I felt her cumming on my cock, and the squeezing triggered my own orgasm. We screamed together as I tried to claw her back down on to me so I could push as deeply inside her as I could.

After, we laid on the chaise, breathing hard against each other, my cock still inside her, glued in place. The rain had stopped. It was sunny again, and the cicadas were already beginning their lazy drone again. I briefly wondered if anyone had heard us, and I smiled when I realized I no longer cared. I looked down at Marci, her cheek pressed against my chest. She let out a long, contented sigh. “Please tell me you have a shower big enough for two.”

“It’ll be cold.”

“I’m counting on it.”

***

We laughed and splashed each other, rinsing away our sweat from each other’s bodies. We teased and kissed and played under the cool stream in the darkened bathroom. We were strangers no longer. Our bodies held no more secrets. We had met a few hours ago, but we had been together forever. We were familiar, intimate even. And when we pressed together again and kissed, it was no longer the reckless lust-infused desperation that it was an hour ago. It was soft and intimate, probing, sensual and penetrating.

And when she reached down and caressed me, my cock responded slow and sure, growing into her hand. Without a word, she slid down my body to her knees, and took me in her mouth, easing me deeper into her. With one hand cupping my balls and the other flat against the side of my cock, she slid her lips up the shaft and down again. She was slow, teasing, methodical, plunging down on me for a moment, then off, licking up the underside of my cock, flicking her tongue at the tip.

I looked down at her- her eyes were closed the entire time. She was gone, lost in hypnosis or meditation. She was bobbing back and forth now, taking me in as far she could, backing off before plunging down a little further. She had both hands on my ass, squeezing hard, pulling me toward her as she plunged forward. I put both hands on the shower walls to brace myself as I began to cum. Searing pleasure arced through my body, sweeping up and racing back down before exploding out to my limbs. I let out a yell as I released spasm after spasm into her mouth. She moaned as she struggled to swallow, pulling off a moment too soon. One last strand of cum shot over her lips and up her cheek.

I was gasping for air. My knees were weak. I looked down at her cum-strung face, red and shell-shocked, stunned, like she was coming out of a trance. I pulled her to her feet and kissed her deep and soft.

The desperation was gone; the desire was not.

***

We didn’t bother to dress again, wandering about my darkened house and lounging on the front porch in the nude. We grilled every last steak and chicken breast and strip of bacon in my fridge and packed them down into the dwindling ice in my beer cooler. Marci commented that we couldn’t just live on beer, so she strolled happily naked down the sidewalk to her place, returning moments later with two bottles of wine clutched to her breasts and a fifth of bourbon in her hand.

We talked little, but looked at each other often, enjoying the static charge that our nakedness, our new-found intimacy, and our complete lack of responsibility had created between us. We floated around each other, communicating in gazes, smiles, and gentle grazes that invariably led to our bodies being pressed together for what seemed like hours at a time, lips nipping napes, hands chasing each other around curves and into valleys and over peaks.

We drank, napped naked on the porch, chaises pushed together, fingers lightly intertwined. Not once did we speak of the outside world- the world of rules and laws and customs and expectations- that world was gone now. We both knew, somehow, deep down, that it would return, perhaps in only a matter of hours. But for now, in this rarified space between where that world had been obliterated by a hurricane and when that world would once again reassert itself, we lived without cares, without jobs, or husbands or children. For now.

For now, the sun blazed down, the cicadas droned their intoxicating song, and Marci and I were in love. Or lust. Or something altogether different that didn’t have a name- maybe it once did. Maybe it will again.

Eventually, the sun and the cicadas faded. I found and lit every candle I owned- not really all that many- on the porch, and we snuggled closer on our chaises, finally free from the sun’s oppressive heat. I couldn’t keep my eyes- or my hands- off her body, and she seemed to drink in my gaze, to soak up my touch. I swallowed hard to keep from asking about the future. No, I told myself. Live here. Be here for as long as you can.

As night finally fell, and, in the double-darkness of a town with no electricity and a canopy of trees that shielded it from even the stars, a new sound filled the air. It was a warbling, guttural, repeating bleet, echoing a million times from every direction. Where the cicada-sound rose and fell and changed direction, this was a wall of sound coming from every direction at once. I propped up on one elbow, fascinated.

“What the hell is that?” I asked.

“Tree frogs.”

“Why haven’t I heard them before?”

“It’s because of the lights. They only sing in the darkness, so when all the lights of the town are on, you never hear them. But now, with the power out, they can finally be who they are.”

Marci’s words hung in the air. I have no idea what her thoughts were about our current situation, but I think we both felt the weight of her words. Soon, perhaps within a matter of days or even hours, the lights in the town would be coming back on. The tree frogs would no longer sing. Our time would be done.

I stood up and looked at Marci, barely able to make out her beautiful sinuous curves in the faint candlelight. She stood and we kissed, pressing our bodies together, slowly, languorously. I picked up two candles, handed her one, and took her by the hand.

We stepped our way cautiously through the thick darkness of my house, climbing the stairs to my bedroom. I pulled off all of the bedding and blew out the candles. The darkness was intense, disorienting, but our fingers found each other- our lips found each other. We explored each other completely, hands wandering unashamed between thighs, around breasts, fingers pressing, probing, tongues tasting, teasing. I could see her perfectly.

We led each other to the bed, our bodies linked together, entwined, legs wrapped, arms clutching, lips locked. My cock found its own way to her cunt, slipping in with perfect ease, but I didn’t thrust. It wasn’t about fucking- it was about being connected, me a part of her, her a part of me.

The darkness was a kind of drunkenness- a free-floating, empty space for us to fill and be filled by. We were everything and nothing. We pushed into the emptiness and were swallowed up. We broke off from each other and twisted in bed, always groping, always grasping. My lips found her wet pussy and kissed it passionately, my tongue pushing into it, probing it. I licked up the sides and grazed her clit as I licked back down. Marci moaned and I felt her back arch in the darkness. I could feel her arms reaching down for my legs, curling back around to me. I felt her hands push up my thighs to grasp my balls and felt my cock slip between her lips and into her mouth. Pinned beneath her now, I continued to suck and lick at her pussy while my cock muffled her moans.

I pulled down on her hips, willing my tongue deeper inside her. I was filled with the scent of her, the taste of her, as her wetness streamed down my cheeks and down my throat. We were lost in the darkness, one with it, as we tried to press ourselves whole again. My tongue- my whole body- was out of my control now, acting instinctively, touching automatically. My tongue lapped up and up again, long slow licks that made her squeal, until my tongue slipped up and over the edge, sliding over her taint and against her asshole.

With a gasp, she let go of my cock and made a sound I had never heard before- a half-surprised, half-ecstatic yelp. I licked again, flattening my tongue between her ass before returning with the tip of my tongue to press into her. She screamed and thrashed on top of me, almost out of control. But I held her hips hard and continued to lick, flicking quickly with my tongue at the tiny opening before circling again.

Marci wailed and kicked, and before long, I felt the first spasm. I pushed into her hard and felt her asshole squeeze and release, clench and let go. Her screams turned to ragged gasps as I pulled out, desperate for air myself. She panted for a moment in the darkness, before I felt her body shift, limbs knocking against me as she spun around in the bed. I felt her hands grip my hair hard and the next thing I knew, her lips were pressed hard against mine.

“Do it, fucker!” Her voice was raspy, like a person possessed. “Fuck my ass.”

I grabbed her shoulders and shoved her off. I couldn’t see her, but I knew exactly where she was, on her hands and knees, ass in my direction. I gripped her hips and pulled her towards me. I reached for her cunt, which was sopping wet. I wiped her wetness on my cock and around her asshole, sliding my middle finger easily in and slowly out.

“Ohhhh, fuck,” I heard her voice muffled, pressed against the mattress.

Leaning in, my cock had no difficulty finding the tiny opening. With a gentle, steady push, I inched my way inside. Marci screamed and moaned, slapped at the mattress with her hands. But I couldn’t stop at this point. I wanted as much of her as I could possibly contain- more. I wanted more than I could handle.

I pushed inside her until there was no more no push. Easing out, Marci screamed again. As we slowly found our rhythm, she raised her face off the mattress and rocked back in time with my thrusts, shrieking and screaming. She was so tight on my cock, so firm and unforgiving. I was only being allowed what she was giving, and when she squeezed once- intentional or not- I completely lost it.

My body seized up and I lost all control of my muscles. I stopped thrusting as the all-encompassing pleasure exploded from my crotch in every direction, filling me up and shaking me to my core. I erupted into her ass, spasm after spasm. She shrieked as I came, her moans stuttering into something more akin to weeping.

When I was spent, I was stunned. I couldn’t move. My breath was short, almost painful. When I finally regained control of my limbs, I tried to ease out of her as gently as possible. We both collapsed on the bed, exhausted, filled and emptied, still clutching each other.

***

We were awakened by the sound of distant chainsaws. Light flooded through my bedroom window. Marci turned and smiled at me, gave me a tentative good morning kiss.

“Well, I guess the real world’s back,” she said. I smiled, but didn’t reply. Our day of in-between was over, and though I didn’t want to acknowledge it, our window of complete carelessness was painfully short.

We showered together that morning, the water even colder this time. It was congenial, familial even. We still cared for each other, but that layer of burning lust was dissolved.

We let ourselves dry on the front porch with cold chicken breast and bottled water for breakfast. There were multiple chainsaws now, wood chippers, engines roaring, and the backup beeping of service trucks. The real world was fast approaching, reclaiming the territory it had temporarily ceded to chaos. It wouldn’t be long until my front porch belonged to society again- a society which demanded clothing and propriety and fidelity.

Marci called in to the hospital; they needed her to try to come in, so we exchanged a plaintive off-to-work kiss and a promise to meet up again for dinner. It was an odd feeling to watch her walk naked down the street to her house and emerge, fifteen minutes later, clothed.

I busied myself sweeping up debris from the sidewalk in front of my house. And then in front of her house. And then in front of the two houses in between, lest anyone wonder at the connection. I was just being a good neighbor.

Later in the day, we did reconnect. We ate, we drank more beers, we fucked. But it was clear what was happening. The magic bubble we had inhabited for a day was shrinking. Soon, her husband and child would return, all of the town would return, and life would go on as it had before.

***

Two weeks later, you would never have guessed that there had been a near-catastrophic storm in town. Little by little, the army of emergency electricians, fence rebuilders, brick re-layers, and stump grinders dwindled and life, as we had known it, was completely back to normal.

I stepped off my front porch, shaved, hot-water showered, and headed for a cafe. But two doors down, I stopped. On the sidewalk ahead was Marci, holding her infant child. Her husband, oblivious to me, was bent over trying to unfold an overly complicated stroller. It was Sunday and she was wearing a very pretty floral dress, but I only saw her naked. As I walked by, Marci looked at me, eyes wide and knowing, smile cocked wickedly to one side. I smiled back as I passed, knowing who she was when all the lights were off.