It was a short drive between the restaurant and my place, but a quiet one. I think Veronique still doubted me, but she was too curious to walk away. For my part, I was still trying to figure out what I was going to tell her. I didn’t even know where to start.

She’d already told me that dinner was my last chance to explain myself. Agreeing to come back to my place felt like a small extension of that. I knew this was it. I had to get it right.

Once we got to my apartment, we settled down in my living room. Veronique sat on my couch, backing herself into the corner and lifting her legs across the section next to her. The message was clear. She didn’t want me sitting close.

“I hope you have some wine. If I’m going to hear you out, I’m going to need some.”

I took that as a good sign, at least she was planning to stay for a bit. I brought us each a glass and put the rest of the bottle on the table between us.

“So, go on. Let’s hear it,” she said.

“Alright,” I stood up. I didn’t have much room to pace, but I had to do something to shake out the nervous energy.

“I haven’t told many people this. My best friends don’t even know, so I’m trusting you with a lot here.”

“Jesus, Grey, you’re not an axe murderer, are you?”

“No axes,” I said. “Just exes. Two of them.”

“Everyone has exes.”

“Not like this.” I took a deep breath. “My girlfriends, they uh, they had guys they fucked. Black ones, usually. Almost always. And it wasn’t behind my back. It was, um, a lifestyle thing.”

“Really?”

“Yup.”

“Both of them?”

“Alyssa and Autumn.”

“How long were you with them?”

“Alyssa was a little over two years. Almost five with Autumn.”

“So, it didn’t just happen. You were into it?”

“It’s complicated, but I wasn’t forced. Not really.”

“And you didn’t fuck around on them?”

“I wouldn’t have even dreamt of it,” I said, almost laughing.

“That’s a lot to take in.”

“Tell me about it.”

“The joke then…” She was working it through in her head. “You weren’t—”

“Nope. It’s just that it made me realize what you’d said earlier, and it hit me all at once.”

“Ice cream and Star Trek?”

“You were hinting at something.”

“Yeah, because the last guy I went out with around here turned out to be a racist. I didn’t know I was throwing your past in your face.”

“How could you know? It’s just that I came here to put that behind me, and suddenly I thought I’d run right into it again.”

“Well,” she said. “You did, actually.”

“I know.”

“It’s more than just Carolina. What I said at the restaurant, all the time, it’s true.”

Veronique stood up. She didn’t pace. She walked to the window and looked out. Her back was to me when she started speaking.

“How do I put this?” She looked around, maybe hoping the answer was somewhere outside. “My job makes relationships hard. I usually work three weeks straight, no days off. When I get my time in for the month, if I’m in Europe, I stay there.”

“I would too.”

She turned to face me, took a few steps, then sat on the arm of the couch.

“And I know some guys,” she said it slowly, watching me closely. “Black guys. In different cities. Nothing serious, no feelings or romance. It’s just fucking.” She gave it a few seconds, then added something like she was trying to spell it out for me. “I don’t kiss them.”

I thought back to the first night we met, when we were in bed. She let me fuck her, but kissing was off limits. Today she told me that I ‘fit right,’ then invited me to kiss her. I took that to mean that I was something more than just some guy she was fucking around with. So I did what most guys do when they’re confronted with emotional vulnerability. I pretended I didn’t hear it and changed the subject.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked.

“Yeah, but only because I have a shit ton of questions for you.”

“That’s fair. It’s not my business, but… what happened with Karl?”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “He’s racist.”

“I’m not doubting you, but I haven’t seen that in him.”

“You’d never told him that you don’t want a relationship because you love fucking black guys. He went off.”

“Right. And…” I couldn’t leave it alone. I had to know. “You don’t want a relationship?”

“I didn’t. Not then.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s my turn to ask you questions,” she said. I wasn’t the only one changing the subject.

We spent the next few hours talking things over, sharing stories, just being open with each other about everything. The wine kept flowing. We finished a bottle, then another one. I told her the craziest story from my last relationship, and to this day, I’m still not sure if she believes it’s true. It is.

“Wait,” she said. “Let me get this straight. Autumn and her friend went to Jamaica to get gangbanged—”

“Yup. Two girls, five guys. The other girl hooked up with one of the guys on day one, love at first sight or something. So the two of them backed out of the group thing. They just watched as Autumn took on the other four.”

“That sounds like a whole other story.”

“Trust me, it is.”

“Ok, but back to your girlfriend. She lied to her parents and said that she was going there with you, not the other girl?”

“That’s right.”

“Then she realized that she had a family event that was planned a few days after she came back, and she’d have a sun tan, and you wouldn’t.”

“Yup. So she made me go up north for two weeks so no one in Toronto would see me, and while I was up there, I went to a tanning salon every second day.”

She was almost on the floor laughing before I finished the sentence.

“That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” 

“You’re not wrong.”

“Did it work?”

“No! Of course it didn’t. She came back with this perfect Jamaican tan. I was a weird brown colour.”

“So what happened?”

“I didn’t go. We told her parents I was sick, which is all we had to do in the first place!”

The two of us were laughing so hard we could barely breathe. Veronique was wiping tears from her eyes. It took a few minutes before we could even talk again.

“Okay, okay, okay. That didn’t happen.”

“On my life. I swear. It did.”

“No.”

“God’s honest truth.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“It happened.”

We kept laughing, and I saw the change in Veronique’s body language. She looked more relaxed, and her face softened. One of the good and bad things about her was how easy she was to read. Her eyes almost always betrayed how she was feeling. All night, I’d been seeing doubt. Now I was seeing warmth.

“What’s your best story?” I asked her.

“Uh-uh, no way.”

“C’mon, you’ve got to tell me now.”

“Not going to happen. You’ll think I’m a slut.”

Maybe I would have, but I don’t think she realized I’d put that in the plus column.

“If you’re not going to tell me your best story, then at least tell me something,” I said. “You’re in the air all the time. Any mile high club stories?”

“Oh god,” she said, putting her face in her hands while leaning over laughing.

“That sounds like a yes to me.”

“You’re not going to judge me?”

“I just told you about how my girlfriend planned a trip to Jamaica to get gangbanged while I hid up north getting a fake tan, and you’re worried about me judging you?”

“Fair,” she said, laughing. “Ok. The whole mile high club thing is real. It happens a lot. Usually between travellers. We see all sorts of stuff, and when it comes to first or executive class, they basically tell us to look the other way.”

“Usually between travellers?” I caught on to what she was saying.

“Usually. This time, a guy up in first class had been flirting hard with one of the girls named Marcy. He was an actor, no one famous, but had been in a few things. He had the looks, though, really cute.”

“Sounds interesting…”

“Well,” she said. “It was a long flight. Vancouver to Sydney, 16 hours, and his intentions were clear. He was looking to join the mile high club. A few hours in, I saw them slip into one of the private cabins.”

“They fucked?”

“No. Twenty minutes later, she came out looking mortified and ran right over to me.”

“What happened?”

“She told me his cock was too big. She couldn’t take it.” Veronique burst out laughing. “Poor guy was left with blue balls. She didn’t even suck him off, no hand job or anything. She just panicked.”

“Oh, my God!”

“So I had to know, right? Was it really that big or just ‘never fucked a black guy big’?”

“You didn’t!”

“I did. I made sure I wasn’t stepping on Marcy’s toes, then went and found out for myself.”

“And?”

“It was pretty impressive for a white boy.”

“You fucked him?”

“Twice. Once, then and there, then a quickie before landing,” she said, looking proud of herself. “I let Marcy have a peek the second time. She couldn’t believe someone could actually take his cock.”

“That big, eh?”

“Nice, but not in my top 10.”

The time flew by after that, and although we never mentioned it, at some point, it became obvious she was going to spend the night. It was around midnight, Montreal was hours away, and she’d been drinking.

I noticed her looking at her watch.

“Getting tired?”

“Sort of, but I’m good for now.”

Veronique finished her last glass of wine before I did and cuddled up to me on the couch. She lifted my arm, put it around her, then rested her head on my chest.

“We’re both fucked up. You know that, right?”

“I guess so,” I laughed.

“It’s true. I lie to myself and say that I can’t have a relationship because of my work, but most of the other girls are married or coupled up. They manage it.”

“And me?” I already knew. I just wanted to hear her take on it.

“All of those things you said before, about your girlfriends, the guys they were with, the mind games. You talk about it like it was something that was done to you, but you let it slip before. No one forced you.”

She nailed it.

“Can I tell you something?” I’d had enough to drink to say what I couldn’t say earlier.

“After tonight? Literally anything.”

“When we had sex, the thing that made me come was picturing you with those two black guys. I did everything I could to push that image out of my head, but it wouldn’t leave.”

“If that’s what gets you off, why are you trying to get away from it?”

“I don’t know.”

“C’mon,” she said, taking the wine glass from my hand and setting it down on the table.

She stood up and pulled on my arm, as if she could lift me up from the couch. We walked to the bedroom together. “I’m not just doing this for you,” she said. “I like the idea of not having to hide what I like too.”

Veronique walked to one side of the bed and began undressing. I caught myself staring at her. She just had her shorts and top to take off and was almost naked before I even had my shirt off.

“Hurry up,” she said, as she climbed into bed and lay down in the middle, propping herself up with some pillows. She opened her legs and moved her hand between them.

My shirt was off, and I was working on my pants.

“I want to see if you actually know what you’re doing,” she said. “Or if last time was just a fluke.”

She watched as I stripped down, lightly rubbing herself, grinning the whole time.

“Good. Now crawl up here and get your face between my legs.” She pulled her hand away and licked her fingers, then spread her legs wider.

I started with her feet and kissed my way up her legs until I got to her thighs. She pushed herself down into the bed and gasped when I ran the flat of my tongue up the length of her slit.

“Mmm…that’s a start.”

I kissed and licked her folds, purposely ignoring her clit to build anticipation.

Three weeks ago was a sprint. I wanted to surprise her and prove that I could make her come. Tonight, I wanted to take my time and let her imagine what having me around more often might feel like.

“You like eating my pussy?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I groaned between licks.

“Putting your mouth where all those black cocks have been.”

I stopped for a split second. I wasn’t bothered by what she said. I just hadn’t heard anything like that in over a year, and it took me a moment to remember what it felt like.

Her eyes shot down at me with a quick glance. I gave her a nod, letting her know it was ok.

“Now that you know I’m a black cock slut, I don’t have to pretend that I want anything else.” She was breathing harder, but still in control.

Her hand came down to the top of my head. “All those guys… in all those cities… I fuck them all, Grey. As often as I can. As much black dick as my pussy can take.”

She pushed my hair back, and my head went with it. “I’m not going to stop,” she said. “Not for anyone.” She was staring into my eyes when she said it. I knew she meant it. The thing is, it didn’t scare me. Something about it felt right.

I tongued her harder, and I saw a smile grow across her face. She put her hands up around her head and let me lick her until she came.

I pulled back, not expecting anything else that night.

“Get on your back.” She surprised me, then climbed on top. She dragged her pussy up and down the length of my cock.

“You’re lucky you’re good with your tongue, because this doesn’t compare to the other guys I fuck. I don’t even know if I want it in me.”

“Please…” I said, barely getting it out. “I need it.”

I could feel myself falling back into an old pattern.

“I know you do,” she said. “But I don’t.”

She kept grinding, teasing me slowly. Her warmth and wetness kept me throbbing.

“What do I like?”

“You,” I started, while trying to push myself up into her. “You like black cocks.”

“That’s right,” she said. “And yours isn’t, is it?”

“No.”

“So maybe you shouldn’t be trying to put it where it doesn’t belong?” Her words were crushing, but made me harder than I can ever remember being. “Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

“Today at the beach… the blowjob.”

“No, you’re not.”

I shook my head. “Don’t—”

“Tell me.”

I took in a deep breath. “You.”

“What about me?”

Everything was coming at me in slow motion, but I couldn’t step aside.

“You with... them”

She smiled. “Me too. That’s what I’m always thinking about.” Her hips kept working against me. “What are they doing to me?”

I didn’t even get a chance to answer. The image, Veronique, on her hands and knees with the two men. It hit me even harder than it did the first time. My cock exploded. I came all over my stomach. She looked down in amazement.

“That’s what I thought,” she said.

When I woke up in the morning, the bed was empty. This time, the Post-it note was still on my forehead.

I didn’t run off. I went to Tim Hortons.

I heard her in the kitchen and threw on my boxer shorts. She’d already come back from the coffee shop.

“I got you tea. I remember you saying you liked it more than coffee.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that.”

 “I wasn’t sure how you take it. There’s milk and sugar,” she said, pointing to a plain brown bag. “Muffins and bagels too.”

“You thought of everything.”

It wasn’t until then that I noticed that Veronique was wearing one of my t-shirts. She sat on the couch with her legs curled up, as she sipped her coffee and picked at a croissant.

“I have to work tonight, and get the car back to my friend before then. I’ll be gone for a week.”

She looked a little worried when she said it.

Veronique had already told me how her schedule worked. Flight attendants could only be in the air for a certain number of hours a month. If they timed it right, they could hit their limit while they were in a city like Rome, and the airline would put them up in a hotel until their hours reset.

“I’ll be over my max hours when we land in Paris. I’ll be there until the first of next month.”

We knew what being in Europe meant for her, but I don’t think either of us had any idea what it would look like for us.

“Last night, the things I said. That was, ok?” she asked.

“I had sex with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

She blushed, looked away, then looked back at me. “That’s not the question I asked, but thank you.”

“It was great. Especially if it did something for you.”

“Fuck yeah, it did,” she said, almost sounding too enthusiastic. “Being so honest, and knowing that it was getting you off too? Yeah, that did something for me.”

“We’re good then.”

“So more of that next time?”

“I like the promise of a next time.”

“Grey,” she gave me a playful slap on the arm. “I just don’t want to go too far and hurt your feelings or something.”

“You won’t. I’m good with whatever. We’re both fucked up. Remember?”

“And you mean that? You’re good with anything?”

“Yeah, anything.”

“Careful. I’ve been to sex shops in Germany.”

“Alright,” I laughed. “Maybe we’ll have to discuss some boundaries. Nothing sharp.”

I was hoping she’d laugh. Instead, Veronique looked away for a second and bit her lip. I knew something was coming.

“Grey? What…what is this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Whatever we have, whatever this is.”

“We don’t have to name it.”

“Maybe not, but it’s something, right? Like, we’re going to keep doing this?”

“I’m in as long as you are.”

“That’s quite an arrangement.”

“Then I guess that’s what it is, an arrangement.”

We looked at each other, both of us knowing how fucked up it was. But neither one of us took a step back.

“And when I’m in Paris?”

“You said it yourself. You’re not going to stop for anyone.”