She had a black eye. She was the lesser attractive of the two, blonde, but her shiner looked a few days old. No eye swelling, but the blend of purple and black surrounded her left eye so I figured she took a right hook. Maybe she got in a few throws too. I don’t know. I didn’t care. I didn’t ask. I was only there to have sex. Her friend, the brunette, did all the talking. I called when I was on the way to the address buried deep in St. Paul. They said they had to run to the store to buy condoms. I waited in my car in front of the house. It wasn’t late. Snow piled on both sides of the street. Dark and cold. The Craigslist ad didn’t have a photo; only a few sentences advertising sex for an unstated dollar amount. So when they got out of their car and started towards my car, I didn’t know which one would be my companion for cash.
They were both young. Undergraduate age but probably vo-tech or trade school. One of those two year scams out there in Robbinsdale or Cottage Grove. The brunette was nice enough. I got out of my car and followed them toward the old two story house with an old covered front porch. It was a fixer upper that had never been fixed upp’d. I half-expected to see squatters huddled around an open fire in the middle of the living room. No one else was there. And I thought it weird that these two lived here by themselves but then again it looked like a place that two vo-techers could barely afford. I wondered if this was just a one-off thing for them. A let’s run a Craigslist ad for sex otherwise we won’t make rent this month thing. Although I had the dough in a plain envelope, they were yet to ask for it.
The one with the shiner didn’t say a word and it was still unclear as to which one I was about to be inside of as we entered the living room. It was dark and sparsely furnished with mis-matched furniture that looked like things that people leave at their curb marked with a “free” sign. An old television flickered in the corner as it sat on the floor. The Law and Order episode provided the only light for the entire first floor. I followed them up the stairs. From behind, their asses looked alike. Not petite. Not large either.
At the top of the stairs there was a short hallway. A small walk-in closet on the left and a room at the end. The one with the shiner stopped in front of the closet. The one that I wanted to fuck only a slight bit more continued walking towards the room. She reached the room and turned around and said, “No rush. You two take your time.” I tried giving her a look that said, “Can’t I fuck you instead?” She shut the door, leaving me and Shiner in the hallway next to the walk-in.
The closet floor was carpeted with old shag that was probably once soft and clean. It was now mashed, stained, and discolored far beyond whatever its original color once was. We took a few steps to the left and it didn’t strike me as strange, not even for a second, that I was about to fuck a girl with a black eye, on the floor of an old house in St. Paul on a freezing cold night. In a closet. We made small talk as we undressed. Me flat on my back. Her mouth immediately around my rod. I told her no sex necessary because the blow job felt really nice. I changed my mind. She rolled on the condom and climbed aboard. I was wondering if her friend could hear us at the end of the hall. The creaking floor boards underneath us. The skin-on-skin slapping. Her moans. My heavy breathing. I wanted her to hear us. We switched and she was underneath me. I came.
We quickly stood up and began picking our clothes up off the floor. More small talk between two strangers who just met. And fucked. Her friend heard the awkward, “Do you believe this cold spell we’re having,” and she re-appeared from the bedroom. I looked at her friend as I was buckling my belt and still wished that she was the one that I fucked. Still no request or mention of money from either of them. The three of us began walking down the stairs. Shiner stopped at the front door. Her friend walked me to my car. They never told me their names. I told them mine.
Her friend reminded me of the dollar amount from their ad as I reached for my car door. I handed her the envelope as the whoosh of heat hit me from my car’s dashboard vents. She took the cash-heavy envelope and turned to walk towards the house. I said, “Hey.” I held two extra twenty dollar bills out the car window. No envelope. I don’t know why. I just did. She took them. “Thanks,” she said.
I drove back to Minneapolis. I parked my car at my apartment then walked to C.C. Club and drank a lot of scotch and waters. This happened in 2005.
Parker's Hootenanny 