La Petite Mort

I was at the bar fixing myself a gin drink when I heard you. “That whole thing was a setup,” you said to me.

When I looked up, you were in front of me, all of your attention focused on me as I tightened the cap to the soda water. There weren’t more than thirty people at the party but I somehow hadn’t noticed you, not until now.

I was dazzled by how attractive you were—momentarily speechless. You were taller than me, maybe six foot. The black from your t-shirt matched the black of your hair, it was short but not too short—it was well kept but messy, casual—it was an expensive haircut. Your facial hair was the perfect amount of scruff, not so much so that I couldn’t make out jawline, but just enough, I would come to find out, to be soft against the delicate skin of my inner thighs. As our eyes focused on one another, I knew that you were the reason I came here tonight.

I giggled and told you, “I knew it!” I knew that every word of his bit was garbage. We had just finished watching a “Dirty Mind Reading” show (or so they called it)—basically just a tricky trickster trying to get the audience to say the word cunt. But it had been entertaining nonetheless. We were in the basement of an old building in Manhattan—I was told the space was previously used as an escape room —you know the ones, a puzzle house you have to solve your way out of. This made sense as the rooms seemed to spill into another without any apparent rhyme or reason. Many of the rooms seemed too small and oddly shaped to be used for any logical reason, but it really made for the perfect venue to host a sex party.

I had come to the party with some co-workers from Emojibator—we had just finished a weekend working a trade show at the Brooklyn SexExpo and an associate of our CEO got us guest-listed for this particular event afterward.

You took a step towards me—our eyes locked on one another. You smiled and held out your hand. “My name is Jack.” You were so confident. I took your hand and I introduced myself as Gabriella. That’s when I caught your accent. You told me you were from Paris but lived in New York now. I melted forgot about everyone else in the world.

After we exchanged a few more minutes of conversation, I was finding myself intoxicated by your gaze. Another show let out of the meeting room. The bar filled in and the noise picked up; you took my hand and led me to a room off the hallway. It was less of a room and more of a nook—the entire floor was taken up by a large mattress and furry pillows. There wasn’t a door, or even a wall for that matter, to separate it from the hall. The space was dimly red-lit and had a jungle vibe. There were large green plants on the ledge above the bed.

We reclined onto the mattress facing one another, propped up by elbows. The conversation flowed forward effortlessly and I watched as your fingers began to trace the seams of my jeans. You followed my gaze and asked if it was okay for you to touch me there, I smiled and nodded my head yes. The other people at the party passed by us in the hallway. Were they looking in, watching us? I never took my eyes off of you to notice—or to care.

Then you asked if you could kiss me. When you took my face into your hands, I felt it melt through the spaces in between your fingers. My body pressed up against yours. Your hands slid up my sides causing my blouse to dematerialize. I kicked off my boots and climbed on top of you, pushing you onto your back. I ran my tongue up your neck, stopping to breathe into your ear. You grabbed my hips and flipped me on to my back. Strong. Your lips moved from my neck, down my breasts to the top of my panties—black like the clothes you were still wearing. You slid my jeans onto the floor and then you placed your hand on my panties and paused, feeling the warmth beneath them. After a moment of thought, you asked me if I had ever tried the MotorBunny—they were sponsoring the party after all.

The MotorBunny is a roller coaster ride of a sex toy. It’s practically a saddle with different attachments, anything from little nodular texture pads to double pronged dildos—I’d seen it at the Expo.

I told you I hadn’t tried it and when you asked if I wanted to, I blushed. Of course I wanted to. You took me again by the hand—there was something about holding your hand that made me feel completely comfortable being naked in front of a bunch of strangers. You led me further down the hallway and we passed differently themed rooms. In one, a man with a leather mask and harness pounded a loud blonde woman in stiletto heels from behind, against what looked like a metal hospital table. In a neon-lit room, a woman with pigtails was playing with a toy made out of fluffy pink feathers.

When we got to the room with the MotorBunny, the host of the party was sitting on a couch with a beautiful woman, engaged in conversation. We all greeted one another and I knelt down as you changed the intimidatingly large dildo attachment to a smaller, more innocent-looking textured one.

Again you took my hand as you positioned me. I was getting drunk off your touch. I balanced myself on my knees. You took a step back and sat down on the floor and grabbed what looked like a Nintendo controller, never taking your eyes off of me.

You began to manipulate the controller and the world beneath me started to rumble. I closed my eyes to relax into what was now my reality. You watched me as I took in a deep breath. When I exhaled a moan, the people on the couch stopped their conversation and redirected their attention to me.

You intensified the vibrations—stronger and faster. My body writhed against the saddle. As my breathing intensified and my moaning grew louder, I felt the pressure building between my legs—it was getting hot and squishy and I was having trouble controlling the movement of my body.

RIGHT, LEFT, DOWN, UP, A, B, START!

Beneath me, the earth was quaking, white hot and ready to erupt. I couldn’t hold myself up anymore and my knees scrambled on the ground to regain balance. That’s when you dropped the controller and wrapped your arms around me, pressing me down onto the saddle with your body weight. I couldn’t escape the storm. I cried out loudly as my world dissolved, exploding into heat and bright light. Waves of a deathly pleasure rippled through my body, each with more intensity until I disappeared completely. Gone.

You reached down with one arm and turned the toy off but quickly brought it back to hold me—I was paralyzed. Literally paralyzed. I couldn’t move my body and you knew it. The world was fuzzy now. Pieces slowly falling back into the places they had once been. You held me until I knew who I was again. A smile crept onto my face and I started to breathe. When the feeling returned to my fingers, I raised my hands to run them through your hair, giggling into your ear red-faced, “Holy shit.”

We went back to the jungle room and picked up where we had left off there—my friends long gone now. As the party came to a close you asked me back to your place. I thought hard about it but decided I wouldn’t—it was my last night in NYC. You walked me out and kissed me sweetly, thanking me for a wonderful evening. I hopped in an Uber and sped off to meet my friends for tacos. We danced until the sky turned pink in the city that never sleeps and it occurred to me that it ain’t a bad way to start the night, with a little death.