Dryer 14 had forty minutes on it and he’d put the quarters in himself, which I should have known meant something.
The place was empty. Fluorescent hum, the TV on the wall stuck on a mattress ad, somebody’s sneakers thumping in a washer like a heartbeat. I was folding his shirts on the long table by the window because I’m a good boyfriend, actually, and he came up behind me and pushed my face down into the warm pile.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. My shorts were the gray ones with no drawstring and they went to my knees in one pull.
The table is the perfect height. I hate that I know that now.
He spat, worked two fingers in while I bit his t-shirt to stay quiet, and then he was in me, slow first and then not slow at all, the table legs scraping every time he bottomed out. The window was right there. The street was right there. Anyone walking to the gas station could have looked in and seen me bent over a pile of his laundry with my mouth open.
Nobody did. I kind of wanted them to.
He came deep with his hand flat on my back, holding me down in the clean towels like he was pressing a flower. Then he pulled out, pulled my shorts up over the mess, and patted my ass twice.
“Fold the rest,” he said.
I did. Dryer 14 buzzed while I was still shaking. Everything smelled like dryer sheets and him, and I walked home with it running down my thigh.
Best laundry night of my life. Doing it again Sunday.
