Chapter 8: Dryer Cycle

The quilt had to be washed, and that was the only reason we went to the basement.

That's what I told myself on the stairs, with the blue quilt in my arms and Randy behind me with a bag of quarters.

It was ten o'clock on Sunday night.

The nurse had left for her shift, the students had gone to bed on their air mattresses.

The apartment had finally gone quiet enough to hear the radiator tick.

The laundry room lay at the bottom of the back stairs, past the bike racks.

It was a low white room with a concrete floor, a folding table, two washers and four industrial dryers lined up against the far wall.

It smelled of hot lint and cheap soap.

I shoved the quilt into a washer, and Randy fed in quarters, and the machine shuddered and began to fill.

"Forty minutes," he said.

"We could go back up."

"We could."

Neither of us moved.

The last dryer in the row was already running, someone's towels thumping around in the hot dark.

The whole machine hummed.

I leaned my hips against it and felt the vibration travel up through my spine.

"Come here," I said.

"I'm here."

"Closer."

He came.

He put both hands on the dryer on either side of me and boxed me in, and I tipped my face up.

"I've been thinking about you since the stew," he said.

"That was eight hours ago."

"I've been thinking about you very slowly."

I laughed into his mouth.

He kissed me hard, with his whole body pressing me back against the warm metal.

The hum of the dryer rolled up through me and into the kiss.

My hands went under his shirt.

His skin was hot, and I dragged my nails down his back and felt him jerk.

"Lift me," I said.

He took me by the waist and set me on top of the dryer.

The steel was warm under my thighs and shivering, and I let out a little gasp that echoed off the cinderblock.

"Oh, that's," I said. "That's a lot."

"A lot good?"

"A lot very good."

He pushed my skirt up around my waist and went still.

I'd put on a skirt for the first time all week, and I'd put it on for exactly this.