A MAN COULD GET LOST IN NEW YORK CITY

It had been some night at Rudy’s bar when Jack and Carla were finally asked to leave.  Jack had wandered in several hours before and made himself comfortable at the bar.  He was alone, but then wasn’t everyone in New York City, and was beginning a trip travelling around a country that had long fascinated him.  He’d only arrived a couple of days previously but already felt a kinship with the city and the people he’d met who lived there.  Carla was another in a growing list and she’d made it clear from the off that she simply loved men with English accents.  He gladly let her sit next to him and as the night grew later the conversation hadn’t diminished, they talked about music, books, films and booze.  She told him of all the other great bars she’d visited in the city but none, she said, none could come close to the pure degeneracy of Rudy’s. 

Leaving the bar Jack suddenly realised that he wasn’t just drunk, he was completely drunk out of his mind.  It had, he suddenly realised, been some session.  Carla stumbled on her high red heels as they feel through the door in to the great New York morning.  Jack breathed in and the New York City air filled his lungs and it made him feel quite purple.  It was a dense, smog-ridden air and Jack wasn’t used to it.  Not even in London would he have to endure such horrible street odour but this morning it didn’t matter, this morning he was with a beautiful woman and she had just suggested that they go to her place to recover.

There was no time for recovery as the minute they were through the door to her apartment Jack was on her.  He was kissing her lips, sliding his tongue deep into her mouth.  She reciprocated his moves and within minutes they were fucking wildly on her bed; it was to last a while and finally when they came back up for air they were completely exhausted.  They lay in each others’ arms, translucent in their coital after-glow, dozing off to sleep occasionally only to wake back up to check that what they’d just experienced had actually happened.  Eventually Jack came too and he noticed, according to Carla’s clock-radio, that it was 7pm.  He rolled over and looked at her before moving in to kiss her back; even that tasted good, like a golden sun being dropped on your tongue.  She rolled over to rest on her back and her eyes opened and upon seeing Jack a gorgeous smile appeared across her face.

“Evening lover,” he stated matter-of-factly.

“Well hi there my English man,” she purred, releasing her body from the confines of the silk sheets that covered her bed.  She leant in and kissed him and he melted.  His heart, he had thought, was hard, found it impossible to love but here he was, could he be falling for an impossible woman?

A few hours later and their lust finally exhausted Carla climbed from the bed and headed off to the kitchen after pulling a clean t-shirt, bra and panties from a drawer.   Returning with 2 large mugs of coffee there was no need to talk about where they could go.

An hour later and they were outside again, out in to the full-on glare of city-life at midnight on a Tuesday.  In New York that meant things were about as normal as things got, there were still lots of people around, a lot of them working deep into the night, some were going home after a shift at work or a drink in a bar, some were just going out, the young kids hitting the clubs.  It was just another New York City night.

When they arrived at Rudy’s that morning the bar-tender greeted them like long-lost family, remembering their fondly from the night before.

“Good to see the pair of you again, that was some shift you put in last night.  These first two are on the house, now what’ll ya have?”

The night deteriorated from there and by 7am they were again, drunk, drunk so much they had no idea what to do when they left.  Carla wanted to carry on drinking, sad that Jack had told her he couldn’t get serious, not here, not now, he was only at the start of his trip and that wasn’t something he was going to give up, not for anything. 

Finally, after being ushered on to the street, Jack knew what he needed to do.  He ran to a nearby waste-bin and proceeded to empty the contents of his stomach into it and for some bizarre reason felt a whole lot worse.  Carla sat on the curb between 2 parked cars, holding her hair back and doing like-wise down a drain.  Several minutes later and the worst of the storm had been weathered when suddenly Jack was hit by an epiphany. 

“Hey, you live here, you ever been to the top of the Empire State?”

“No, no I aint...”

He needed no other prompt and a couple of minutes later they were stood at the bottom, looking up.  Minutes later and they were flying up to the top of the earth in an elevator and as soon as they walked out Jack knew just then that everything would be alright.  Taking in the view of the New Jersey shoreline and the huge urban spread of the cities’ 5 boroughs Jack realised just how vast his adventure was going to be.

“A man could get lost in New York City,” he said, pulling Carla in tight, “let’s get out of here.”

With their respective heads sorted and the 2 hour change-over at Rudy’s running out it was clear where they were going.  They were going to get lost...

BRADFORD MIDDLETON