I had been going out with Val for a few months. We had fun together and enjoyed each other’s company. We hadn’t discussed whether we were dating each other exclusively. We hadn’t said “I love you,” the charmed words that mark the boundary waters of a serious relationship. We saw each other most weekends, and occasionally during the week. Our sex was electric, and at the time the primary glue of our relationship. She was in many ways still a stranger to me, and I to her.

We were sitting at a table at a fairly ritzy downtown bar on a Friday night. Val noticed I kept staring at the woman behind her, and I was. She had arresting, firecracker red hair. She was dressed in a short skirt and a sparkling silver halter top, and showing a significant amount of cleavage and leg. It was hard not to look, and I was getting a little hard as I talked to Val, imagining bending her over the table and getting under her skirt. I tried very carefully to conceal my darting eye from Val. I was unsuccessful.

“You keep looking at something behind me.”

“No, I’m not,” I stammered, realizing it was an inexcusably lame response even as I said it. She turned to see the redhead sitting behind her.

She turned back to me. “She’s hot.”

“Yes she is.” A loaded moment passed, and I wondered if she would be angry at me. It was admittedly rude to be looking at other women while out on a date. I wasn’t sure of her reaction. I waited.

“Would you make a pass at her if I weren't here?”

I still couldn’t tell how she was feeling. I didn’t know what to say. I decided to test the waters.

“Yeah, I might buy her a drink.”

“Would you fuck her?” She emphasized the word “fuck,” so that it came out hard and harsh and fricative.

“I might,” I said, not sure if I should be venturing into this arena or not. Val got the oddest expression on her face. I was utterly unable to read what it meant. It was like the face of someone I didn’t know.

Val said, “She’s kind of slutty,” wearing a cat and canary smile as she said it.

“Yes.”

“Does that turn you on?”

“Does what turn me on?”

“Slutty girls in bars. Picking up slutty girls in bars and fucking them.” It was the kind of thing that might have sounded angry, if said in a different tone, but a new note in her voice made it sound very sexy. I got instantly hard as I wondered where the conversation was going, my body was more aware than my mind of where this may be leading.

“It turns me on. Yes.” Then, venturing further, I added, “It’s turning me on to hear you talk about it.”

“It’s hot to imagine you picking up a strange woman and fucking her.”

I went a little deeper. “Do you want a threesome with her?”

She laughed loudly. “No.” Then she added, “I’m saying, if we weren’t together. I mean, if I was here by myself, and you were a stranger, and I was watching you. It would be fun to watch you pick up some hot stranger.”

“Do you want me to do that?”

“Don’t you wish,” she said, pairing her words with that intoxicating smile. “No, I’m just fantasizing. I’d be too jealous.” Her response was a tiny clue as to how she felt about me. All we had were clues.

She leaned in and said, “But I have the next best thing.” I asked her to tell me what, but she wouldn’t tell me, choosing to tease me instead by withholding details. My cock was hard and throbbing, imagining the possibilities. I begged for a hint.

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

I threw her against the wall of her apartment as soon as we got there, and we were fucking on the floor within minutes. No foreplay. The foreplay had been our conversation at the bar.

As she rode my cock and caressed her tits she hissed, ”You’re imaging fucking that little slut, aren’t you?”

I thrust into her harder and harder. “You’re my little slut.”

“You’re imagining ripping her clothes off and sticking your cock inside her.” She was meeting my thrusts, pinching her nipples, her pussy squeezing my cock. She was close to cumming.

“I’d fuck her right in front of you.” I was fucking her even harder now, my cock throbbing with cum.

“Would you cum on her tits?” Would you jerk off on her tits?”

“Oh God yes,” I cried, so close to cumming.

She rolled off my cock and started jerking me off with one hand while she slid two fingers of her other hand deep in her pussy.

“Cum on her tits” she snarled. “Cum on her slutty little tits.” As I groaned and shot out hot ribbons of cum all over her tits, she pressed her fingers deep into her pussy, grinding against them as she came. She lay back on the bed, her body still quivering. She rubbed my cum into her tits, playing with it, lingering on her nipples, her fingers circled them.

It was the hottest sex we had ever had. I had never seen her like this before. Perhaps I didn’t know her as well as I thought.

Perhaps I didn’t know her at all.

***

She called me at work the next Friday and told me her to meet her at the same bar. It wasn’t an unusual request.

“I might look a little different.”

“Okay,” I said, unsure, drawing the word out. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“Can’t tell you,” she said, clearly amused.

“Okay.”

“ And my name’s not Val”

I was confused. “What’s your name?”

“You’ll need to ask me.” She giggled. “I’ll be at the bar.” She hung up abruptly. I tried to concentrate on work but was unable to do so for the rest of the day, imagining what might happen that night.

As I walked in I scanned the bar for her but didn’t see her. I walked up, ordered myself a beer. Waiting, I scoped the room using the mirror behind the bar.

A redhead caught my eye in the mirror. At first I thought it might be the redhead I had been caught staring at last night.

I looked closer. It wasn’t her. It was Val.

She was dressed to fuck. No subtlety about it. She wore stiletto heels, a short red dress with black thigh highs you could see the edges of if she stood just right. She wasn't wearing a bra, so her small, pert breasts were in full view. While her nipples weren’t visible yet, they would be soon. Her nipples got very hard and thick when she was aroused. And she would be soon, I was sure. I know I already was.

The most arousing change of all was the color of her hair. It was a much brighter red than the redhead we had seen last night, more exaggerated, certainly not a color found in nature. It was a costume. It was a disguise. It was a mystery.

I got my beer, walked over and sat next to her at the bar. I ignored her. While I nursed my beer two guys hit on her, one right after the other. She brushed them of effortlessly.

“It must be annoying to have guys trying to pick you up all night,” I said.

“Depends on the guy.” She didn’t even look at me as she said it. She sounded bored.

“How about me?”

She turned to look for the first time. “We’ll have to find out.” Her voice gave nothing away, but I noticed her nipples beginning to harden.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“Sure.

Why not?” Said as if she took pity on me, throwing a dog a bone.

“What’s your name?”

“Joy.” She smiled for the first time, just a hint. I could see Val hiding behind the smile, as if she was composed of more than one person, at once both Val and this new woman, Joy.

“Nice name. Appropriate.”

“Yes it is.” Again, she shot me that small inscrutable smile.

I asked her, “Would you like to move to a table? It’s quieter.” She sighed and acted annoyed, but half-heartedly said yes, and as she slipped off the barstool she let her dress catch on the edge so that it slid up to reveal the tops of her thigh highs. I caught her stealing a look at me, to see if I had noticed.

We got a table in the corner. We made small talk. She had an elaborate fictional history of Joy’s life. She used to live in NYC, but moved to Denver, where she lived with her sister now. They lived only a few blocks away from me. There were stories of ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, a marriage that lasted 3 tumultuous months. She hinted at having been a cam girl or a stripper at one time, but she kept the details vague.

I kept to the truth for the most part. My life sounded rather boring compared to Joy’s. Out of the blue she asked me if I had a girlfriend, her eyes dancing brightly.

“Yes.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Yes she is. Effortlessly.”

“Is she sexy?”

“Oh, yeah. Very much so.”

“Do you love her?”

A long pause commenced. I had never said those words to her before. I love you. Did I? Should I tell her? Did she love me? Our game had taken a sharp turn into an entirely new direction. The moment before I spoke seemed to last forever.

I opted for honesty. I said, “I don’t know.” I didn’t know.

She looked at me, eye to eye, for a very long time, giving nothing away. Finally she said, “Well when you do know you should tell her. Either way. She deserves to know.”

Her serious gaze turned playful. “But in the meantime….” I felt her hand on my leg, under the table. She placed it on top of mine, then moved my hand to her knee. She leaned in closely and whispered, “In the meantime let me be your little slut.” She licked my ear.

The evening had taken another sharp turn, this one much more enjoyable, if equally unpredictable. I had never heard her talk like this before last night. I had never seen her dress like this, or act so blatantly sexual in public.

Who was this woman?

Whoever she was, I wanted her badly. I slid my hand under her dress, until I reached the edge of her stocking. I slipped my finger inside and played with the elastic edge. Then I pulled it back and let it snap suddenly into place with a little slap. She moaned.

“I love thigh high stockings, you know.”

“All men love thigh high stockings. Just like all men like blow jobs. And shaved pussy. You all think you are so complex. Men are all much more predictable than they think they are.” It could have sounded jaded in another context, but here it sounded like foreplay.

“And are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Shaved?” She hadn’t been last night, but I knew even before she answered that she was now.

“Why don’t you find out for yourself?”

My hand travelled up her leg. I had expected to feel the wet cloth of her panties, and play with the edges as I had with her stockings, teasing her. Instead my fingers slid directly between the wet folds of her pussy. She responded with a sharp intake of breath. Her cheeks burned, and the skin between her breasts reddened. I saw her tongue peek out from between her lips.

I had never been so turned on in my life. I had never felt her so instantly wet before.

I began to slowly run my fingers up and down her pussy lips, teasing her, never touching her clit, never putting them inside her. My cock throbbed as I watched her give into pure pleasure, closing her eyes, biting her lip. After a time she opened her eyes and leaned into me and kissed me deeply. Our tongues and lips and teeth wrestled and licked and bit, oblivious to the Friday night crowd around us. I began to slide my fingers inside her. When they were fully buried inside she pulled away and moved to my ear, bit the edge of it, and stuck her tongue deep. She pulled it out and whispered, “I need you to fuck me as soon as humanly possible.”

My eyes shot to the bathrooms, but there were lines at both doors. I didn’t want to wait until we got into bed. This had to happen now.

I spied a back door, grasped her hand and led her there, not caring about her disheveled dress and glazed fuck-me-now look, or the obvious erection I was showing the world.

We went out into the alley. There were passersby at either end, but we ignored them as I threw her against the dumpster and bent her over.

“Now,” she moaned.

I pulled up her dress. I took out my cock and slid into her soaked pussy with one slow stroke until I was all the way inside her.

“Who are you, baby?” I pushed in harder, pinning her against the metal.

“I’m your slut.”

“Say it again. Tell me.”

“I’m your slut. Fuck me like a slut.” Before the words were even fully out of her mouth I began to fuck her hard, slamming her against the metal. I’m sure we made a great deal of noise, clanging and moaning, and no doubt were heard by the people on the street, as well as the drinkers near the door inside the bar, but neither of us cared. She threw one of her legs over the top of the dumpster to give me full access to her pussy while I pulled her tits out of her dress and began to pinch her nipples.

She began to whimper, “I’m gonna cum baby, make me cum, fuck me ‘til I cum,” and all thrust together in one numinous moment her pussy began to squeeze my cock tight and her hands gripped my hands as I squeezed her tits and she began to cum, letting out a long low animal moan. My orgasm was seconds after hers, pounding my spasming cock into her as I shot load after load of cum deep inside her.

We collapsed against the dumpster, catching our breath, regaining our composure. After a moment I pulled out of her and stepped back, zipped my still quivering cock inside my pants, and turned to face her.

She stood before me, backlit by the streetlights behind her. Her bright red hair lay tousled against her face and shoulders. Her mouth was open, her lips red and full. Her eyes were like crescent moons, caught in the sidelight of the bar door. She watched me watch her as she tucked her breasts back into her dress, and pulled the dress back down into place. She was the sexiest woman I had ever met. I knew at some point she would change her clothes, wash the color from her hair, answer to her real name again. I was no longer sure which look was the true disguise, what actions were genuinely her own.

It occurred to me that none of us really knew each other. We are strangers. We talk, we text, we make love, we share meals. We tell of our childhoods, describe our dreams to each other. But we never know the truth, are never fully inside another person’s head, instead stubbornly locked inside our own.

A kiss is a leap of faith. Sex and love are forever flawed attempts to get as close as possible to someone else, to fully be inside their body, their life, their mind. They are acts of trust, as pure as any religion.

I took her hand. She leaned into my shoulder. We reentered the dim light of the bar, composing ourselves, each of us finding a face with which to greet the gathering crowd.