Secret Sex

A non-autobiographical short story

Photo by Monika Kozub on Unsplash

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Secret Sex

Jacob sat back in the metal foldable chair, a man on each side of him—thinking about the woman he was going to secretly see right after the meeting ended—talking about how the 12 steps had saved his life, about his Higher Power, about how “letting go and letting God” had changed his life forever, and how it “still worked.”  

He was back home, in Oakland, California, at his favorite men’s AA meeting. The Wednesday, 7:00-8:00 PM, the oldest in Oakland supposedly, though he’d never had confirmation of that legend. The room was packed, 40 men in a circle sitting in those metallic gray chairs, arms folded across chests, bodies leaning back, eyes half closed, mugs of coffee and tea in hand—sipping and slurping—and each man speaking in turn.

“I just know that when I’m reading the Big Book, when I’m on my knees praying, when I’m working with new guys, then I’m doing God’s will and I’m going to stay sober,” Jacob said, finishing his share. He nodded and said, “That’s all I got.” The man next to him began speaking.

Jacob pictured the woman, who he’d found on Craigslist. Blond, apple cheeked, big blue eyes, delicious neck, legs for miles. Then he’d messaged her and she’d told him to meet her at 10:15 PM Wednesday night at 315 Ellis Street at the corner of Jones in the Tenderloin. There was no money involved. A thrill had jumped up his spine at their messaging. His fiancé, Loni, was “cool” with it. They’d had an arrangement, for as long as they’d been together, over four years now. He was allowed to sleep with random women if it was only for one night. She was allowed to sleep with men but never took the opportunity. The question always assaulted his consciousness: Was he a bastard? Was this wrong?

As the men kept sharing, one by one, about their idea of God or Higher Power or about how to stay sober a day at a time or about their personal trials and tribulations, Jacob thought of many things. The jazz gig he’d played a few nights prior, at Bird and Beckett in San Francisco. The darkness and low red light, the books in shadowed shelves, his three AA friends who’d driven out from the East Bay to see him play. For the past two years he’d lived in New York City—Inwood, North Manhattan—and during that time he’d created enough songs to establish his own quartet. He played tenor saxophone. There’d been something that night, at Bird and Beckett, about the old couples in the front row, about the darkness surrounding all those books, about the Coltrane poster in the bathroom on the wall, the taped-up French newspaper with an article about Albert Camus.

Dennis, a writer buddy of his, part of AA, glanced over and caught eyes with Jacob. He grinned, and Jacob thought of a line from White Noise by Don DeLillo, a novel he’d recently read: An Advertisement for death. Was that an omen for tonight? A portent? Should he not go to the city? Should he tell Dennis about his impending plans? Should he tell Aaron, his other sober buddy? He gazed at Aaron, from behind, seeing his friend’s shiny bald dome, his arched back. Aaron was 38, a 6th grade English teacher, had been with his partner for 12 years, and had three kids under five in a one-bedroom apartment in a fancy part of Oakland. Rent control. Good schools.

“I think for me,” Will was saying, a dark-haired, handsome, early forties actor, across from Jacob in the circle now, “It’s always about my spiritual condition. If I’m not working a program, actually doing steps, if I’m not praying and meditating every single day, if I’m not asking my Higher Power for help, if I’m not writing down my faults, doing amends, being grateful for what I have…then there’s no way I’m going to stay sober.”

Jacob had recently returned from 10 days in Amsterdam. He had a hundred and seventy dollars cash in his wallet, almost all in twenties, and almost a hundred Euros. He hadn’t had time to clear his wallet out. Too busy. He’d gone to Europe for a jazz workshop, played music with several masters, explored the city, including getting some flesh in the Red Light District, spent far too much dough, returned to New York, rested one day, and then flew to Oakland to stay with his folks for three weeks while he hit AA meetings, met up with old buddies, played jazz gigs, and made potentially poor choices like meeting the woman, Carolyn.

The meeting ended with everyone, as usual, standing around in the circle, hands at their sides or in their pockets, the post-Serenity-Prayer explosion of noise and clapping and yelling chaotic, like some sonic jungle. Jacob took air into his lungs, prepared to book it without issue, and started walking. Not ten feet from the door, he felt a cold hand on his shoulder. It was Dennis, the writer. They were the same height, 5’7, the same age, 34, had been with their partners the same amount of time, four-plus years, and were both artists but on different sides of the fence. He liked this. No competition. He played sax, Dennis wrote.

“What’s going on, man?” Dennis said, that gleam in his pale green eyes, like he wanted to catch up.

Jacob shrugged. “Not much. I have to jet, man.”

“What you up to this late on a Wednesday?”

Jacob thought, Fuck. Again, that unabashed shame, that annoying, cloying guilt surged through him. “Just tired. Going home.”

“Hey man,” Aaron said, breaking into the ring. He reached his hand out. Jacob, irritated shook the hand. “What’s up?”

“Jacob says he’s tired. He’s going home,” Dennis said.

Aaron arrowed his eyes at Jacob like laser beams. He jutted his chin. “Home? Fuck that. Stay out a while and talk, brother.”

Jacob felt that coiling, insipient rage beginning to percolate like coffee from the pit of his stomach. His heart, very faintly, started to beat one note harder, as if the organ were investigating, seeing what it would have to do in order to break free from the prison bars of his ribcage.

“I’m tired,” Jacob said. “Long day. Meeting someone tomorrow morning, early.” The lies were piling up so fast he was already losing count. He hated doing this, going to an AA meeting, acting like he had everything so “together,” and then lying to his friends. Not to mention what he was heading to.

Dennis rested his hand on Jacob’s shoulder. Jacob, aggressively, wanted to shake the meat off but didn’t.

“I’ll be back,” Jacob said. “Bathroom.”

He felt four eyes burrowing into his back as he turned and walked away, down the hall. He stopped after a while, flipped around, retreated, spied the two men talking, not paying attention, smiled to himself, and jetted out the front door.

###

He parked his 2004 Saturn Ion, royal blue, along the curb on Ellis Street. It had taken him about twenty-five minutes to get from the meeting, onto I-80, over the Bay Bridge, past the shining city lights—blue and red and yellow and gold—and into the Tenderloin, to 315 Ellis.

The apartment complex, as he’d expected, was a shithole. It was The Loin. He’d been born and raised in Oakland so he knew the city well. It had changed drastically over the past three decades, sure, but The Loin had in many ways remained the same. Dope-sick junkies wandering the streets looking for a fix. Homeless winos. Whores. Pimps. Hustlers. He’d never fallen far enough to be on the streets—especially not in The Loin—but he’d been pretty close. Stealing cars, breaking and entering, dealing cocaine, blackout alcoholism. Even in the “good” times, when he’d been a jazz musician touring the world on luxury cruise ships, even then he’d snorted so much blow off so many customers’ flabby tits, had drunk so much hard liquor, had woken up in so many strange beds in foreign countries, had felt like a young white James Baldwin in Another Country.

With his pointer finger he flicked the hanging crucified Christ which hung from his rearview mirror. He was Jewish, yes, but he had this thing because it seemed to keep him safe somehow, if only emotionally. Or maybe it was spiritually. He gazed at Christ’s body attached to the cross, the bent head crowned with thorns, the nailed wrists and ankles, the blood trailing down his face. He felt crucified sometimes, by the jazz industry, by Julliard, where he’d been rejected three times over the past two years, by his fiancé, by his parents, by New York, Oakland, AA, society, the culture, the world. He couldn’t help it. Another one of those “things.”

Jacob swung his door open, locked the car, dropped his keys into his front pocket.

He glanced skyward and saw stars, bright and white, in the smog-filled, darkened dome. When he faced the apartment building a black man wheeling a shopping cart, the wheels ruggedly scraping on asphalt, almost crashed into him.

“Shit, bitch,” the man said. He scowled at Jacob. Bared his mangled, yellowed teeth, zigzagging and chipped. He wore black and gray torn rags, ancient basketball shoes ripped up and beaten, no laces, the tongues popping out, and had sores all over his legs, puss slowly oozing. Disgusted, Jacob marched past the man. Behind him he heard the man mutter, “Sucka ass bitch.”

Jacob walked up the granite steps, scrolled, found the number, and pressed the buzzer.

“Yeah?” Then static buzzing.

He hesitated. “It’s me. Jacob.”

No response. Just the sound of the door latch releasing. He shoved his arm straight at the door, held it open, turned, looked around behind him, didn’t see the raggedy man or anyone else, heard only a random car’s tire running over a loose manhole cover, heard his heart pumping abnormally, as it always did in these secret situations, and let the door drop, with him inside. He heard the door latch. He was in. In. No one knew about this. Not one soul. Just him. Not his folks. Not his friends. Not his sponsor. Not Loni. No one. Not a goddamn soul.

Jacob trudged up the creaky wooden stairs, one by one, each one seeming to be creakier than the previous. Four floors up—she was on the fourth floor, apartment 4D—he suddenly stopped and felt as if he’d pass out. He realized, with virgin clarity, that he had no weapon. No knife. What if she had a gun? What if some sketchy dude was up there, waiting for him? No, he scoffed, smiling to himself. Why would she do that? No money was involved. Just two people mutually interested in anonymous, secret sex.

He looked up and saw the staircase, twisting and rising, floor upon floor upon floor.

Soon he arrived on the fourth floor. He passed apartment A, the gold letter old and faded bronze against the equally faded door. Apartment B. The “C” on the next one was tilted halfway, falling. Every B Hollywood film he’d ever seen with a junkie hotel flashed into his mind. No sounds. Dust motes swirled. There was a distinct smell which seemed to be some mixture of stale piss, alcohol and rancid body odor.

He stood in front of apartment 4D. He raised his balled hand, breathed slow, and brought it down on the wood. Knock, knock, knock.

He heard padded bare feet clomping along a hardwood floor. A latch being released. Knob turned. Throat cleared. And then there she was. Just like the pictures online: Sharp-cheeked, big-blue-eyed, sexy neck, and big-breasted Her blouse was bright white—almost blinding—and very tight. Too tight, intended to make Jacob stupid and unthinking. It was working. Her skirt was incredibly snug, too, and was pale blue and just barely covering her butt. She was shaped like an hourglass. Barefoot. Long, blond curls. Her lips were full and maddening.

She said nothing, snatched his wrist and pulled him inside. Her fingers were long and skinny and tender and she had white-pink nails. He stood in the center of the small studio. There was an exposed radiator pipe, hissing lightly. A long, wide window, open, thin red curtains pulled back. A queen-sized, ratty bed with clean covers pulled over it beneath the window. At the end of the bed was a huge dresser, two drawers pulled out an inch or two, one with a white piece of panty just barely exposed. There were no posters, solely bare white plaster walls. John Coltrane’s “Blue Train” album spun bumpily on the record player in the corner, the song “Moment’s Notice.” He’d told her he played jazz sax. Cute, he thought. Or obnoxious. He couldn’t decide which.

She padded across the warped hardwood floor, closed the door, latched it, walked to the record player, turned it down, but not all the way, then sat on the edge of the bed, bouncing. They stared at each other, feral animals, wanting each other in some vapid, horrendous way.

“Come here,” she said. She patted the bed next to her. As he stood there, unmoving, she pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes, extracted a red Bic from inside the pack, lit one, and inhaled. It was as if she were acting in some 1970s French flick. She blew smoke right at him, five feet away, the translucent cloud billowing. The whole space couldn’t have been more than twenty-by-twenty-five feet. A shoebox. How much did she pay for this monstrosity? Then again, how much did he and Loni pay for their own shoebox in Upper Manhattan?

“Turn the light down a bit,” she said as he started towards her. Her eyes gazed at a switch on the wall to his right. He nodded and flipped it down. The room grew darker. He liked this. He wished he could drink. But he’d been clean and sober over six years and he wouldn’t jeopardize his sobriety. Not for anything.

He sat on the bed next to her. It felt soft and bouncy. He smelled the acrid stench of her Lucky Strike, and of her strong feminine body odor. She had not showered and he liked this. Primitive. Woman. Hear me roar. This nearly made him laugh. Instead, he reached a hand out and planted it on her naked knee. She glanced at him, her big blue eyes absorbing and limitless. She blew smoke into his face, a gray cloud scudding through him. He grinned, white teeth through the haze. Jacob massaged her knee, then slowly began running his hand, like a spider, creepy-crawling down her creamy, soft thigh, closer and closer to the hem of that skirt.

“Here,” she said. She handed him the cigarette. He took it, placed it between his lips, inhaled, handed it back. She sucked on it and then reached across to a desk by the bed, dropping it into a coke bottle with an inch of black fizzy liquid; it fizzled: sssssss.

When she faced him he rushed her, grabbing at her breasts awkwardly, playing with them as if they were fleshy toys. He lifted her blouse up over her head, her arms rising to allow it. He reached behind the blood-red bra, located the hook, unlatched it, like another door into something mysterious, and it fell almost with an audible thud. Jacob sucked on her pink taut nipples, and her head arched back. She closed her eyes and moaned and she said, “Do you love me?” And he mumbled that, yes, he did love her, that he wanted her, needed her, had to have her.

###

Afterwards, both of them lying naked on her sheets—not as clean as he’d first thought—sweat beading their bodies, the purple ribbed Trojan condom still wrapped around his dick, he shot his arms out behind his head and thought, Yes. That was good. That was worth it.

She gazed over at him and smiled, ran her thin hand along his hard abs, crawled close to his used dick. He didn’t try to stop her. But then she bent and sat up and swung her legs off the bed and padded across the floor to the tiny bathroom. She closed the door behind her and all he heard was the slight buzzing of the light and some movement and muffled coughing and finally a toilet flushing, water racing through pipes underneath the whole room. As if the entire apartment were clearing its throat.

When she returned she hurriedly threw on her blood-red bra, then her white tight blouse, her tight skirt, then the panties underneath. Complete. All new again, as if reborn. An odd, unexpected tension began seeping into the cracks of his awareness. He felt that she wanted him gone. Sex, period. Jesus. Most women, even this kind, wanted to cuddle a while, or talk a bit. Something. But he got the point. What would they talk about anyway?

He swung his legs off the bed. Holding onto the condom so it wouldn’t slip, he waddled to the bathroom and opened the door, slipped inside. Closing it, he flicked the light switch on. That buzzing sound. The light was loud and too bright. He gazed at himself in the filthy, streaked mirror: Haggard, unkempt beard, patches of random hair around his upper neck; his tired, beaten eyes; that restless, angsty energy; his hard stomach and hairy chest.

He took the condom off, eyed it, shivered in grotesque glee, dropped it into the toilet, and flushed. He watched the thing swirl and swirl and swirl, before disappearing at the end, the loud cough and thromp of the growling, dissolving toilet water. He washed his hands with a chipped bar of turquoise soap, splashed cold water on his face, flipped the light off, killing the buzz sound, and walked out.

She leaned against the wall across the room. Arms crossed. Serious expression.

“You have to go,” she said.

“Everything alright?”

She appeared nervous. “Yeah. But you have to go.”

Throwing his jeans on, one leg and then another, something felt off. What was it? He zipped up, put his shoes on, dropped his T-shirt over his head, checked his pocket for his keys, and then said, “Ok. Nice to meet you, Carolyn, or whoever you are.”

He expected a smile or a kiss or for her to push him back onto the bed. Instead, she snatched his wrist, like before, and lugged him across the room to the door. She unlatched it, opened the thing, pushed him out from behind, said, “bye bye now,” and, before he was ready, closed the door behind him. Correction: slammed the door.

He laughed, shook his head, and started to walk across the landing towards the stairs. He felt his back pocket. There was his wallet. He pulled it out, a habit, and opened it. He froze. His heart started pounding. There was no cash. Not one single dollar. He’d had a hundred and seventy bucks, plus almost a hundred Euros. He checked again, flapped it all the way open, like exposing a gash. Empty. A single dime was wedged way at the bottom. That’s why she’d pushed him out so fast, why she’d looked guilty and nervous.

He retraced his steps. He placed his ear to the door and listened. He heard nothing. Scanning around him, he was alone.

“Hey,” he said, knocking on the door. “Carolyn.”

Nothing. He tried again.

“Hey,” he said louder, hitting the door hard with his fist. “Let me in, Carolyn. I know you took my money. I won’t hurt you. But give me the cash back.”

Nothing.

He stepped back and kicked the door. Pow. She screeched. She yelled, “Go away!”

He stepped back and kicked again, harder. “Let me in and give me my money!”

“No,” she yelled, sounding scared. “Go away! A dude is coming right now with a gun!”

He stepped back, took a breath, then lunged forward and kicked the door using all his force. Incredibly, the door opened with a crash sound, a slice of wood splintering.

He walked inside. Distantly, out the window he heard a siren slicing through the night. It wasn’t for him. Couldn’t be. Focus, he told himself. Focus. She cowered in a corner of the room. He ripped the bed sheets off. Looked under the bed. Pulled drawers out from the dresser. Checked the bathroom, the buzzing light sound again. He scanned the hardwood floor, looked around the window, on the desk, inside the pillow cases.

“Where is it?”

She said nothing, scared and wild in the corner. In that second he realized he wouldn’t find the money. She probably had it wrapped in her panties or in her bra.

He trudged out of the apartment, fast, and started down the stairs. Half a flight down, his eyes glued to each approaching step, he looked up when he heard boots clomping up towards him. A few feet away a woman stopped. She was a tad older, wore black leather bondage clothing, had serious eyes, thin lips clamped tight.

“Fucker,” she screeched. Before he knew what happened she took a black mace can out of her purse slung over her shoulder, aimed it at his face, and pressed a button. He didn’t have time to react. The spray shot out in a harsh blaze, hazing into his face and eyes. He used his elbow to shield himself, closed his eyes but it was too late. The woman rushed forward, shoved him hard, and angled past him. He heard her boot clomps up the creaky stairs.

Jacob panicked. He could barely see. His eyes burned. His face burned. It felt like scalding hot water had been hurled into his face. His vision was getting more and more blurry. He raced down the stairs, half falling, and finally, after what seemed like forever, landed at the bottom of the stairs. He stumbled towards the door of the apartment complex. Someone opened it right as he approached. He shoved them out of the way, jutted through the open space, and half tripped down the granite steps to the street.

The reek of hot pavement assaulted his nostrils, once more the stench of body odor, homelessness, junkie stink, stale alcohol. The streets of The Loin. He fell onto his car, three-quarters blind. He couldn’t call anyone because he basically couldn’t see. Sure, 911 but what would he tell the police? He certainly couldn’t drive. Opening the door, he plopped into the seat. He closed his door and locked it. Leaning the seat all the way back, he felt the incredible, almost unbelievable pain shooting through his eyes. He’d rather have been beat over the head with a tire iron. What the fuck was that? Sex and a set-up. He’d been played, conned, used. He could wait until it wore off, go back up there, find the cash. No. No. Bad idea. Better to let these things go. Better to learn. What was he thinking? What would Dennis and Aaron think of this? What about Loni? He shuddered at the thought.

He rubbed his eyes, burning hell holes, almost crying, angry at himself, and he thought about being at the meeting earlier, sitting in that metallic foldable chair, sharing around the circle, talking about the 12 steps and about God and Higher Power. And now he was here, wounded, emptied of his cash, his dignity, his manhood. God damn it. He reached over mechanically and, like a rabbit’s foot, touched the crucified hanging Christ. It swung lightly, back and forth. Right now, more than ever, he could relate to that sacred motherfucker.

###

Twenty minutes later, after calming down and wiping his red, raw eyes, and cleaning his contact lenses out, he could at last begin to see. He rolled his window down, tugged his seatbelt across his chest, started the engine, then jammed the car into Drive. He pushed the Saturn down Ellis Street, hardly able to contain his joy that he was getting the hell out of The Loin, and that he could see and that he was alive and safe. Soon, he’d be back in Oakland.

“Hey,” he told himself, steering. “At least I got laid.”