Sundays Marcus smokes inside. He cracks the window two inches and sets the ashtray on the arm of the couch. Then he lights one before kickoff. By the second quarter the apartment smells like smoke and the cheap vanilla I buy. By then I’m in the slip dress.
Week three is the only part I can date. The first two Sundays I stayed in my room with the door shut. I listened to him yell at the screen through the wall. The third Sunday I came out for water in the black slip I’d bought for a party I skipped. He looked up, then back at the game. “You good?” he said, like I was a lamp he’d noticed. I said yes and crouched by the coffee table for something on the bottom shelf. When I stood up I was on my knees.
His hand dropped to the back of the couch. The crowd got louder and his knees opened a little, like he’d been waiting for the question to answer itself. He turned the volume down two notches and kept his eyes on the screen. We haven’t talked about it since.
The next Sunday I came out at kickoff. He moved the ashtray over to make room on the arm of the couch, and the whole conversation was that, and it was enough.
His name is Marcus. Thirty-two, Black, works in logistics. He tells me he’s straight, and I believe him. Straight is what he does on Fridays with his girlfriend. Sundays he does this, and this he does with me. He talks about the arrangement the way he talks about the thermostat: it’s set, it’s fine, moving on.
His type, per him: “feminine girls, don’t care what’s underneath.” He said it like he was reading off a coffee order. The girlfriend knows the way you know about a standing order at a restaurant. It’s on the books. Nobody’s surprised. Darius from my Econ section introduced us. That’s the only Darius sentence you get.
It’s a standing Sunday blowjob by now. He unbuckles during the first quarter and lets me do the work. One hand on the cushion. The other on his thigh, loose, like this happens to everybody on a Sunday. He’s half hard before I get him out. Thick and warm and heavier in my hand than I’m ready for, even after all these weeks. I’ve learned the shape of him by now, the weight and the vein along the left side and the second where his breath changes.
I start slow, tongue flat along the underside, the way he likes the first minute of any game. Then I take the head in my mouth, a few inches, back off, a few more. My jaw is still learning the stretch.
Then I go down. All the way, until my nose is in the hair at his base, my throat full, my eyes already watering. I hold it a beat too long, pull back, gag once. Spit runs down my chin and onto the slip. I go back down before I’ve finished catching my breath.
Down, hold, off, breathe, down. That’s the rhythm he likes. His hand stays on his thigh. The whole thing lives in the gap between that hand and the next crowd roar, and I know every beat of it. By the fourth pass my jaw aches in a way that means I’ll feel it tomorrow, and I won’t care. I’ve started flossing more. That’s a real sentence about a real life.
On the screen somebody’s driving down the field, and Marcus leans forward with his elbows on his knees. His hand comes down into my hair. Loose at first, thumb moving against my scalp.
“my pretty little roommate,” he says, half to the room. “look at you.”
I start to pull back for air. His hand tightens.
“Stay there.”
I stay. His words land on me the same way they land on the game. They’re both his. He hands them out while he watches, and I keep my mouth full and take them.
The play dies and the announcers go quiet.
“good girl,” he says, low. Something in my chest goes warm and stupid. I’ve got his spit on my chin and his hand in my hair and a football game talking over both of us. I’d kneel there through the fourth quarter for one more good girl.
“you always dress up for football,” he says. It comes out flat, a statement. His thumb moves along the strap of the slip, checking the quality of something he owns. “huh. you do.”
“for you.”
“yeah.” That’s all he does with it. He files it somewhere behind his eyes and goes back to the screen. His hand stays in my hair like he forgot it there. Being filed. Being kept. Being furniture in his Sunday. That does more for me than any sentence a man ever gave me while he was trying.
Then his team scores. A real touchdown, the stadium roar coming through the speakers, his hips lifting off the cushion.
“Yes,” he says. He means the touchdown. He means my mouth. Both, probably. He pushes me down another half inch, past where I thought I had room, and holds me while I feel him swell against my tongue.
“look at my pale girl,” he says to the room. “kneeling on the rug like that.”
His hand in my hair is dark against the pale of my neck, the most obvious fact in the apartment. My knees are on the thin spot in the rug, the one worn down by every Sunday. He starts to move. Short thrusts, controlled, into my mouth. The crowd swells and drops and swells again. I ride it with my mouth full and my eyes shut, listening for the play to break.
My eyes are streaming and my hands are flat on his thighs for balance. I hold on and take it.
“don’t stop,” he says.
I don’t. He watches the game over my head the whole time. He genuinely watches it, calls out the next play to a room with two people in it and one of them listening. I’m sucking his cock while he does the play-by-play. Being used by a man who is fully committed to what’s on television.
My own cock has been leaking against the slip since the second quarter. It stays untouched. That’s the term. That’s the price. I quit hoping for a hand on it somewhere in the third. It’s cleaner this way. Best hour of my week, every week, and I’d sign the same terms tomorrow.
He comes in three hard pulses with his fist wound in my hair, holding me through all of it. I stay and swallow around him, throat working, until his grip finally eases.
I sit back on my heels and clean my chin with the back of my hand. Somebody’s punting on TV. He turns the volume up one notch, back to where it started. That’s the signal every time: we’re done. My jaw is throbbing. There’s a wet patch on the slip and rug burn coming up on both knees.
I go wash my face in cold water, and my hands shake a little at the tap, the way they do after. I stand at the sink until it passes.
Monday morning he’s in the hallway with his keys. “good game,” he says, like we discussed nothing.
“it was,” I say.
He nods once. Next Sunday the window will be open two inches again. The navy slip is clean and hanging on the back of my door like a uniform. The rug will still be thin where my knees go.
Monday night I’m at my desk and I catch it. Smoke, vanilla, and something underneath both. It’s still in my mouth when I swallow, and my jaw aches when I do.
