Everyone Else in This Building Is a Returnee novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Blackout

In the dark basement panel room Dara kisses him first, and his hands bring her apart. She asks how he knew, and he says practice.

The dark in a six-floor building is a different kind of dark.

Doors opened all the way up the stairwell, and the tenants called to each other.

For them it probably had.

"Panel room," Stan shouted from the first floor. "Basement, past the laundry. Dara, take a flashlight!"

I took the one from my belt and went down.

Perry caught up with me on the second flight, with a headlamp already on his forehead.

"You don't have to come," I said.

"The main breaker sticks," he said. "It needs two people."

"Convenient."

"It's true, though."

I did not answer, because it was true.

The panel room was a concrete closet behind the laundry, with a steel box on the wall and a mop bucket in the corner.

Water crept across the floor from somewhere, and the air smelled like wet pennies.

The breaker handle was the size of my forearm and it didn't want to move.

"Hold the light," I said.

He lifted the headlamp, and I put both hands on the handle.

"Lower," Perry said. "Pull toward your hip. It likes a twist."

I pulled toward my hip with a twist, and the box clunked.

Every light in the building came on with a hum, and a cheer went up through the ceiling.

I should have walked out right then.

Instead I stood there with my hands on the handle and my heart going.

Perry had not moved.

The light on his forehead pointed at the wall.

I could see only the edge of his face and the grey at his temple.

"You said I'd leave on March third," I said.

"Yes."

"You said you wanted me to stay."

"Yes."

"Do you say that to every girl who moves in?"

"Only the one," Perry said.

I turned around.

The room was small enough that my shoulder touched his chest.

He didn't touch me back, and I understood that he wouldn't.

He had stood in this room eleven times, or something like it, and he was holding perfectly still.

It was the stillness that did it.

I took hold of the front of his flannel shirt and pulled him down.

I kissed him first, hard, with a kind of anger I did not recognize.

His breath left him in one rough sound.

Then his mouth opened under mine, and he kissed me back.

He kissed.

My back met the cold steel of the panel box.

His hand found my face, and then the back of my neck, and he said my name against my mouth.

"Dara."

"Don't talk," I said.

"All right."

"Touch me."

He did.

His hands went under my jacket and under my shirt, warm and slow and not at all hurried.

He held my waist.

Then his thumb crossed my ribs, and I made a noise I had never made in a basement.

I pulled his headlamp off and set it on the shelf, so the room went dim and gold.

I could see his eyes now.

They were brown and wet and very steady.

"Tell me what you want," he said.

"Your hands."

"Where?"

I took his wrist and put it where I wanted it, on the button of my jeans.

His fingers undid the button and zipper without a fumble, and I breathed out.

He slid his hand inside my panties, straight into my wet folds, and I leaned my forehead on his shoulder.

He stroked my pussy slowly at first, spreading my slick, and then not slowly at all.

His thumb found my swollen clit right away.

His fingers slipped inside my pussy at the exact pace I needed, and his forearm held me up when my knees went weak.

"There," I gasped, grinding down against his hand. "God, right on my clit."

"I've got you."

He didn't ask if it was right.

He just curled his fingers deeper inside my wet pussy and circled my clit a little firmer.

I held on to his shirt and shook.

The heat built fast, from low in my back and out through my trembling thighs.

I bit down on his shoulder through the flannel.

I came hard against his hand in a rush, my pussy clamping tight around his fingers.

My whole weight was on his arm and the cold box was at my back.

He kept his fingers moving through every pulse until I was done.

Then he kissed my hair and my temple and the corner of my mouth, his fingers slick with my wetness.

He did not say anything clever.

My breath was loud in the little room.

I looked at his belt, and then at his face.

"Your turn," I said.

"Dara."

"I want my hand on your cock."

I unbuckled his belt and unzipped his jeans myself, and my hand closed around his hard cock, heavy and hot in my palm.

His head fell back against the wall, and the groan he made as I stroked him from root to tip went straight through me.

I watched his face the whole time I worked my fist up and down his shaft.

I smeared the bead of pre-cum over the broad head with my thumb.

His eyes closed, then opened, then closed as his hips jerked into my grip.

"Dara," he said again, rough. "Dara, please."

"Look at me while you come."

He looked straight into my eyes.

He came hard over my fist with his forehead pressed against mine, hot ropes of cum spilling across my fingers.

His other hand locked on my hip.

He said my name like a prayer he had said many times.

Afterward we stood together, breathing, with water ankle-deep at the door.

The light on the shelf painted us both gold.

I buttoned my jeans.

The thought that arrived was clear and cold and not a bit romantic.

He had asked what I wanted, and then he hadn't needed the answer.

He had known where to put his hands.

He had known the pace, and the pressure, and the second I wanted more.

Nobody is that good on a first try.

"How did you know to do that?" I said.

Perry opened his eyes, and he looked sad and caught and very tender.

"Practice," he said.

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