okay so first of all i have been in that building for three years and i have never once been stuck in the elevator, which is a thing i said out loud, to him, about four seconds before the lights went.
i was coming home from the late shift at the clinic, still in scrubs, still smelling like hand sanitizer and somebody’s vending machine coffee, and i hit the lobby button for the sixth floor and the doors were closing and a hand came in and stopped them. dan. from 4B, two floors under me, him and his wife priya, the ones who leave a note on my door every time i drop something heavy. nice notes. they have smiley faces on them. that’s how bad it is.
“sorry,” he said. “long day?”
“i have never once been stuck in this thing,” i said, because i am an idiot, “so that’s something.”
and the whole box shuddered, and the light flickered, and went out, and came back, and went out, and then there was just the little red glow of the emergency strip over the buttons and a sound like the building clearing its throat. we stopped. you can feel it when you stop between floors, your stomach just keeps going without you.
“huh,” dan said.
“don’t say huh.”
“i’m not saying anything.” he pushed the alarm. it made a noise somewhere far away that sounded like nobody was home to hear it. he pushed it again. “it’s the whole block, probably. the whole grid. the guy at the desk will call somebody.”
“the guy at the desk is a kid named tyler who plays on his phone.”
“then tyler will call somebody.”
we stood there. that’s the thing nobody tells you, about being stuck, that for the first five minutes it’s funny and then you run out of things to say and it’s just you and another person’s breathing. he leaned on the back rail. i leaned on the side one. there’s maybe four feet between you in there if you’re being polite, and we were being so polite.
i should say i had thought about him. not like, a lot. not a situation. but he runs, and the walls in that building are paper, and some mornings i’d hear the shower start under me and i’d think, huh, there’s a man down there. and then i’d go make toast and feel weird about it for no reason.
“it’s hot,” i said.
“it’s the fan. the fan’s off.” he unbuttoned his collar. he was still in his work shirt, sleeves rolled, forearms with that dusting of dark hair, and i looked at them, and then i looked at the floor numbers, which weren’t lit.
“how’s priya?”
“she’s at her sister’s till sunday.”
he said it like it was nothing. like weather. but i heard it, i swear i heard it land in the little metal room, and i didn’t say anything and neither did he, and the emergency light hummed.
“that’s, um. that’s long,” i said.
“yeah.”
“you must get lonely.”
“i get a lot of quiet,” he said, and looked at me, and i felt it in my knees. just from that. like twenty minutes earlier i’d been fully a person with a plan to eat cereal.
and i don’t know who moved. i keep going over it. i think i did. i think i took one step, to adjust my bag, a totally innocent bag step, and then the bag was on the floor and i was standing right in front of him with my back not touching anything and he had his hands in his pockets like he was holding them there on purpose.
“dan,” i said.
“yeah.”
“i’m going to do something stupid.”
“okay.”
“you’re gonna have to tell me if it’s stupid in a bad way.”
“i’ll let you know,” he said, and his voice went kind of rough on the last word, and that was it, that was all it took, i went up on my toes and kissed him.
he didn’t kiss back for one second. one. i felt the whole surprise of him, the stillness, and i thought oh god, i’ve misread this, i’m going to have to live under this man’s feet for the rest of my lease—and then his hands came out of his pockets and he had my face, both hands, and he kissed me like he’d been holding his breath since the doors closed. like since before. his mouth was warm and tasted like mint gum and a little like the beer he’d had with dinner, and he made this low sound in his throat that went straight to the front of my scrubs.
“god,” he said against my mouth. “i’ve been—”
“don’t talk.”
“i’ve been such a—”
“dan. don’t talk.”
he laughed, one breath of it, and then he turned us and my back hit the wall and the cold of the metal came through my top and i gasped, and he took that, took my mouth again, deeper, his tongue slow and sure. his hand dropped to my waist, found the hem of my scrub top, hesitated—
“yes,” i said. “yes, go on, it’s just cotton.”
his palm went flat on my stomach, under, hot, and slid up. i hadn’t worn anything nice. i’d worn the gray cotton one, the one with the stretched strap, and he didn’t care, he pushed it up and over and made another sound, a real one, almost a groan, when he got his mouth on my nipple through the thin fabric first and then without it. i had my hand in his hair. i was breathing like i’d run the stairs. every time he sucked i felt it low, clenching, wet, and i was so aware that this was somebody’s husband. that his wife folded his laundry. that she had a hairbrush in his bathroom that i could probably picture. and it didn’t stop me. god help me, it made it worse. it made my thighs shake.
“you’re sure,” he said, mouth against my collarbone.
“if you stop i’ll push the alarm button myself and tell tyler i’m being held hostage.”
“okay,” he said into my skin, grinning, “okay,” and he went to his knees.
in an elevator. in my scrubs. i want that on the record.
he got my pants down to my knees in one go, drawstring and all, and i said “oh my god, there’s a camera,” and he said “it’s off, it’s all off, look,” and pointed, and the little dome in the corner was dead as a stone, and then he put his mouth on me over my underwear and i stopped caring if it was a nuclear reactor.
he was good. i wasn’t expecting good. i was expecting like, married-guy, polite, a little tongue and hope. no. he pulled my underwear aside with one finger and went at me like he’d been thinking about it, like he’d rehearsed, long flat licks and then tight little circles right where i needed, then the point of his tongue, then back to long. my hand was clamped on the rail. my other one was in his hair, pulling, and i couldn’t tell if i was saying words or just noise, and he slid a finger in, and then two, curling, finding the spot on the first try like a man who’d been given a map.
“dan, dan—oh my god—”
“shh,” he said, “shh, tyler’ll hear you,” and i laughed, and the laugh turned into a moan halfway, and he did something with his tongue that made my knees actually give, and he caught my thigh and put it over his shoulder and held me up.
i didn’t come. i almost did. i was right there, up on the lip of it, and i grabbed his hair and said “stop, stop, i want you, i want you inside me, i’m not doing this part alone.”
he stood up so fast. his mouth was shiny. he looked wrecked, honestly, hair a mess where my fingers had been, collar open, and i went for his belt like it owed me money. the buckle fought me. he helped. the zipper, and then there he was, in my hand, thick and hot and heavier than i expected, a drop already beading at the tip, and i ran my thumb through it and he swore, the quiet kind, the kind you do through your teeth.
“i don’t have anything,” he said. “i mean, i wasn’t—”
“i’m on the pill. just. it’s fine. get over here.”
“you’re sure.”
“you ask me that again,” i said, “and i swear to god.”
he picked me up. he actually picked me up, hands under my thighs, my pants still tangled around one ankle, and put my back to the wall, and i wrapped my legs around him and reached down between us and guided him. the head pressed against me. we both held still, for like a second, a stupid reverent second, breathing into each other’s mouths.
and then he pushed in.
oh my god. slow. so slow, an inch at a time, stretching me, and i was so wet it didn’t hurt but it was full, it was so full, i felt every ridge of him, and i dug my nails into his shoulders through the work shirt and made this high wobbling sound i’d never made with anyone.
“fuck,” he said. “fuck, you’re—you feel—”
“i know. i know, move.”
he moved. long pulls out and slow pushes in at first, his forehead against mine, both of us staring down between our bodies at where he was going into me, and then faster, as the wall took it. the whole car swayed a tiny bit on its cables with every thrust and i thought, wildly, what if we fall, what if the cable snaps, they find us like this, and that thought alone nearly took me over. the wet sound of it. the slap of his hips. his belt buckle jingling, hanging off one side. my scrub top bunched up under my chin and my breasts bouncing and his mouth finding them whenever he could manage it.
“you’re so tight,” he said, “god, you’re tight, i can’t—i’m not going to last—”
“you’re going to last,” i said, “you’re going to, because i’m not there yet, you owe me—”
“i owe you.”
“you owe me so much, you started this, you held the door—”
“i held the door—” and he laughed again, helpless, shaking, and the laugh made his cock shift inside me in some new way and i groaned at the roof of the elevator.
he got a hand between us. his thumb found my clit, still slick from his mouth, and he pressed in small tight circles, matching the rhythm, and everything that had been slowly winding up in me since the lights went out just. pulled. i was babbling. i was saying his name, his actual name, dan, dan, dan, over and over, like the world’s worst prayer, and some far-off part of me noted that i was saying a married man’s name to the ceiling of a stuck elevator and i did not care at all.
“look at me,” he said. “look at me, let me see.”
i looked at him. his eyes were black in the red light. and he drove up into me once, deep, hard, and held there, grinding his thumb, and i came.
i came so hard my vision whited. my whole body locked, thighs strangling his hips, cunt pulsing around him in these huge helpless waves, and i heard myself, a long cracked cry, and my head hit the wall and i didn’t feel it. he kept going through it. he kept moving. “that’s it,” he said, “that’s it, god, i can feel you,” and the way he said it, the awe in it, made it go on longer.
he came right after. i felt it happen, the hitch in his breath, his hips losing time, and then he shoved deep and groaned into my neck, long and low and broken, and i felt him throb inside me, hot, pulse after pulse, filling me while he shook, his fingers digging bruises into the backs of my thighs. he said something. i think it was my name. i’ve decided it was.
we stayed there. i don’t know how long. his weight against me, the wall at my back, my legs slowly losing feeling around him, both of us sweating, panting, the metal ticking as it cooled. he pressed his mouth to my shoulder. i stroked the back of his neck. neither of us said a single word.
then with a clunk that shook the whole box, the lights came on.
all at once. blinding white. the fan whirred up. the little display over the doors blinked, found itself, and said 3, and we were moving again, upward, steady, like nothing had happened, like it had been a nap.
he set me down. my legs barely worked. i hauled my pants up, yanked my top down, found my bag on the floor, and he tucked himself away and did his belt with hands that weren’t quite steady, and we didn’t look at each other, we looked at the numbers. i could feel him on my thighs. i could feel the wet of it soaking into my underwear and i stood very straight and tried to look like a woman who had just finished a long shift.
4 came. the doors opened on his floor. i think i said it was his floor, and he said “i know,” and for one second his hand brushed the back of mine, just the knuckles, not even a hold.
“goodnight,” he said. to the carpet.
“night, dan.”
the doors closed on him. i rode the last two floors alone, with my pulse in my ears, and the elevator hummed, and the smell of him was all over me.
in the morning there was a note on my door. smiley face. so sorry about the power! hope you got home okay! in dan’s handwriting, signed with both their names, the way he always did, like she was standing right there.
i stood in the hallway for a long time holding it.
