Page 1 of Night Fever
Taylor (Her)
It isthe hottest night on record so far this summer, and I’m thankful for a moment of respite when I wake up from my fitful sleep to grab an ice cube to suckon.
The freezer moans and rattles, and I’m careful to tuck the soft plastic tubing around the door back into place as I shut the thing. I don’t want my ice pops and veggie burgers to defrost and become puddles in theirwrappers.
I pad back to my room and slip under the covers, flip the pillow over to the cool side, and spit the ice cube into my hand. My doctor suggested sucking on ice cubes when thirst hits me at night, and assured me that the side effect of incessantly getting up to pee in the middle of the night would dissipate intime.
In the meantime, though, sucking on ice cubes is a way to quench my thirst atnight.
There’s another thirst tonight, though, one that can’t be quenched by merely sucking on an ice cube. If my shrink knew about these desires, though, he’d probably laugh at me. It’s a little embarrassing. I know there is doctor-patient confidentiality, of course, but as long as my father is sending me to his friend and insisting that he be my lead doctor, I’ll never feel quite at ease spilling my guts to thedoc.
I kick the blankets from my body, shaking my head because I’d pulled them up around me in the first place. The air conditioner in my little first-floor apartment sucks, and even though it sucks, I liked to have it on to drown out the sound of people hanging out the window on the second floor and smoking cigarettes everynight.
I moved here about four months ago, for the summer session, and it’s far enough from home that there is no way I’d run into my parents by mutual accident or by what they’d say was a coincidence but which I’d know was onpurpose.
“Accidentally on purpose,” my mom might callit.
“It’s not a crime to worry about my daughter,” my dad mightsay.
As I kick the blankets down to my feet, I revel in the breeze coming through the window and the hum of the crappy, barely-working air conditioner. It competes with the little moan I hear coming from my throat as I sit up, pop the ice cube back into my mouth, and pull my tank-top over my head. I take the ice cube again and lay back down, already knowing what I’m going to do withit.
Maybe I’d seen it in a movie once. I must have, or maybe read it in a book, because I knew I’d never be able to think something up like this on myown.
I lay back, forcing a smile because that’s what I think my lips should be doing. But it doesn’t last, because as the ice cube starts at my neck and melts slowly against my warm skin, I feel my lips open softly and another moan come out ofthem.
Snaking the ice cube down my body, I stop between my breasts. The ache between my legs is already approaching a fever pitch, and I don’t know if I can take very much longer. But I want it, and as I move the ice cube across the modest swell of my breast, I stopped at one pointed, engorged nipple, running the cold frost against the hot, pebbledskin.
“Oh god,” I moan out loud, no one hearing me amidst the gentle thrum of the air conditioner and the people shrieking far away in the din of the hot, slick, wet summernight.
I thrust my other hand down the front of my shorts, finding my hot, shaved slit between my thighs, keeping them squeezed tight together as a trickle of wetness forces itself between the flesh of my legs. Finding my clit, I run a gentle finger up and down, finding the wetness deep inside me as I hook and slip a finger inside before bringing that sweet wetness up to my hotnub.
And I break quietly, the last of the icecube on my breasts melting away and becoming part of my hot skin, my clit pulsing fast and easily as I cum, the soft moans filling the empty room, no emotion behind them, no real desire for anything or anyone, just a vacant, pure, innocent pleasure against the walls of my tiny studioapartment.
My eyes slip closed easily, and I opened them up again after some time has passed, though I don’t know howlong.
The thirst is back, and it isn’t just the dryness inside my mouth, on my acrid tongue. There is still a dull ache against my clit, inside me, in my empty belly. I am still hungry - but it’s for something I can’t givemyself.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and put my feet on the floor and my head in my hands. I’ve never liked my birthday, and tonight is no exception. Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, because technicallytomorrowis mybirthday.
Today is still today. And it isn’t my birthday - yet. I am stilltwenty.
I push the last corner of the blanket off my thighs and get up to pad over to my refrigerator again. I regard the postcard pinned to the side of the fridge with distant skepticism. For my birthday, my dad has given me a mystery gift, with just the address of a business printed in a script font along with a birthday sentiment from dad telling me to come to the address at ten-thirty on the morning of my twenty-first birthday for fun consisting of an hour’s worth of time, and to wear sneakers and somethingcomfortable.
Diet and exercise, though I’m skeptical they’d improve my condition, couldn’thurt.
I was a dancer some time ago, but other things got in the way. Namely, school, or should I say my schooling. Some time, when I wasn’t paying attention, school became an all-encompassing activity from which I couldn’t pull myself. So not school, but schooling, a never-endingactivity.
I want to get out of theapartment.
I am still thirsty. I still want more. And what do you do when you’rethirsty?
I glance at the clock over my kitchen sink. It’s almost midnight, and even though I have to get up relatively early, I decide I don’t care abouttomorrow.
I need adrink.
* * *
Being under twenty-one,I have no idea where to go. I want a drink, an adult beverage to enjoy responsibly, but I do not feel responsible and I do not feel like an adult. Maybe once the clock strikes midnight and it’s my birthday I’ll feel like anadult.
