so it’s 1:40am and we’re closing out the register on a wednesday which is dead, like actually dead, three tables all night and they all tipped in ones and i’m bleeding out a little watching the till count up to $47. the dishwasher left early, manager’s already gone (thank god), and it’s just me and tyler left. tyler the barback. tyler who’s been flirting all shift in that straight-guy way where he can take it back if he needs to, like it’s a joke. the way he leaned on the bar and said “those look good on you” about my black shorts and then laughed when he said it. like he didn’t mean it. like we’re just fucking around.
but his eyes meant it.
i tell him to go get limes from the walk-in. i word it a specific way. “we’re low. grab me the big carton from the back shelf.” and he nods and goes and i count to seven before i follow him in, pulling the heavy door shut behind me and leaving the kitchen quiet, just the hum of the cooler clicking on and the industrial whisper of cold air moving around.
it’s maybe 35 degrees in there. cold enough that you can see your breath start to cloud. cold enough that goosebumps come up on my forearms in like three seconds. the milk crates are stacked by the produce shelf, plastic crates with old fruit stickers, and tyler’s standing there with his back to the door and a carton of limes in his hands like a prop, something to hold onto so he doesn’t have to think about his hands being empty.
he hears the door shut and he turns and his eyes do this thing where they go from normal to about four shades darker in like half a second.
“so,” i say.
“we need limes,” he says, still holding them, like that’s a sentence. like that’s enough.
“no we don’t.”
“the well was—”
“we have like forty limes. i don’t need them. you know that.”
it’s cold enough that when he breathes out it’s fog, and when he nods it’s slow, like his brain is catching up to what his body already knows. he sets the carton down on the concrete next to a drain that smells like old lettuce and wet metal.
i get on my knees on the stack of empty milk crates, which is exactly as uncomfortable as it sounds, plastic edges digging into my kneecaps and the cold going right through my black tights, and i get my hands on his zipper.
he makes a sound. a small one.
“we have to be fast,” i say. “he could come back.”
“he left.”
“he could come back.”
“okay,” he says, and i pull his jeans down.
he’s hard already. like fully hard, pink and heavy and leaking a little at the tip. he tastes like the whiskey he had to taste-test something a customer insisted wasn’t right (it was) and like his deodorant, some kind of axe body spray that i’ll probably hate on any other guy and am apparently obsessed with on him. i take him into my mouth slow, let him feel it, let him feel the cold air hitting the wet parts and then my warm mouth again. his hand comes down and threads into my hair, careful, like he’s asking a question even though i already said yes about six months ago in a way he apparently never forgot.
i suck him like i mean it, like we’re not in a cooler that smells like celery and industrial cleaner, like the manager isn’t potentially three minutes away and his car isn’t currently pulling up to the back lot—but wait, actually—
the lights flicker. once. that fucking motion sensor on the back door.
“fuck,” he says, high and tight.
“he’s here,” i say, and i can feel him throbbing in my hand.
“we have to—”
but i’m already pulling him deeper into the cooler by his wrist, past the produce rack to the back corner where the kegs are stacked. the big ones, the empties they’ll pick up tomorrow. i pull him past the rack and shove him against the keg and get his jeans the rest of the way down because if we’re doing this it has to be now.
i’ve been hard in these tights since 11pm when he laughed at one of my jokes and held my eyes for a second too long. i tear a hole in the tights just enough and turn around and he gets it immediately, gets his hands on my hips and pulls me back onto him.
the stretch is immediate and he’s breathing loud and my breath is fogging in the cold and we have maybe three minutes, maybe two, before the manager opens the back door and sees a light on that shouldn’t be on, and the cooler door is there, right there, and anyone walking past would just see a closed door but—
his cock dragging inside me, hitting that spot on the way in so my vision goes a little white.
i’m bouncing on him and the air is so cold it hurts to breathe and my tits are bouncing under my work tank and his hands are digging into my hips hard enough to leave marks that are going to be a problem tomorrow, and the keg behind us is making a little creaking sound every time he pulls me back on him.
“you’re so tight,” he keeps saying. “jesus, you’re so tight.”
my cock is bouncing between my legs, hard and leaking, and the cold is making the head extra sensitive. i wrap my hand around myself and stroke, fast, because we do not have time for this to take long and i’m already close, already right there—
and then the back door opens.
i can hear it from inside the cooler. the door opening out into the kitchen. the ambient noise of the street outside, a car door slamming, which means it’s not the manager, it’s someone else’s car. which means the manager might actually be on his way in now. he parks behind the restaurant, right by that door.
we freeze.
tyler’s still inside me, still hard, and we’re both breathing like we just sprinted, and the condensation on the walk-in door is so heavy now you can’t see through it, which is good, but we’re also trapped in here if anyone checks.
“move,” i breathe. “keep going, we have to finish.”
he makes this broken sound and then he’s fucking me again, but it’s faster now, harder, his balls slapping against my ass, and i’m stroking myself with the same rhythm and the cold is making every sensation sharper, cleaner. his breath is fogging his glasses and he’s still wearing his work vest—that detail is doing something to me, the official restaurant vest with the logo on it, his name tag still clipped on—
someone’s footsteps. in the kitchen.
we go completely still.
“checking the coolers,” a muffled voice says. the manager. “then you can go.”
i think i make a sound. tyler’s hand covers my mouth, gentle, and we’re frozen like that, me backed onto him, his cock throbbing inside me, his other hand gripping my hip so hard i think the tips of his fingers are leaving bruises, and the manager is ten feet away from a door that would take him two seconds to open—
his breathing is in my ear. ragged. broken.
the footsteps move. the cooler humming. we’re still not moving and i think i’m going to come right now, actually, with his hand over my mouth and the cold and the knowledge that we could actually get caught in like thirty seconds—
“do it,” he whispers. “come on. now.”
and something about the command, something about being told, pushes me over. i come into my own fist, silent, just shaking on his cock, and he’s right behind me, fucking into me once, twice, and then he’s coming too, his whole body locking up, and i can feel it, feel him filling me, thick and hot against the cold.
the footsteps fade. back out to the kitchen. the back door closes.
we stand there for another minute, neither of us moving, both of us breathing like we just survived something. the keg creaks. the cooler hums.
“the limes,” he says finally, like a question.
“still by the door.”
