The Dolphin

She pushed herself away, pulling him out of her and he realized that he was only halfway hard, though he was sober and found her attractive. She was short and seemed stout when she wore her tight tops and high-waisted jeans, but when she was naked, she did not look thick, only solid. She had large breasts and a butt that was firm when he grabbed it, and her belly was soft, and he wanted to nuzzle his nose deep into it.

Perhaps I'm getting old, he thought, though he was only twenty-eight.

He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

"What do you like?" he asked and moved his hands to her midsection to feel the give there. She shook her head.

"I don't know. I just—we were never good at this, you know?"

She had been dry, and despite his efforts she had never moistened. Thinking back, he always remembered her dry.

"We don't have to continue," he said.

"I'm sorry, I'm—"

"Don't be sorry—you're perfect."

"Okay." She said, and they looked at each other for several moments. The only light in the room came from the "Bebe, Come, Baila" sign on the shuttered window of the club across the street. It cast her in an orange light that made the dolphin tattoo on her hip look black when he knew it was blue. It was almost three in the morning, and he could hear the thump, thump, thump of the club.

"I feel bad," she said.

"Don't, I'm fine. I feel bad. Do you want me to go down?"

"No ... Do you want me—"

"No, thank you though," he said. "It's really fine."

"Okay ..."

"Snuggle?"

She nodded and he lay back with his arm out to the side so she could rest her head on his chest and so he could wrap his arm around her and hold her close.

"I feel bad," she said.

"Don't."

"It's just that ... I love you—"

"I love you too," he said, but he didn't know why he said it. They had dated for a long time several years ago, and enough time had passed that he didn't really know why they had broken up. He could remember the specific reasons and events that had led to it, but with all those years in the way the reasons seemed less important.

They broke their embrace several minutes later. She rolled to her side, and he did the same because he didn't want to snore. He didn't want to be the type of man who snored. They did not touch, and he still wanted to press up against her but he did not move. When she rolled onto her back and fell asleep, her leg fell across his and she was warm and her skin was soft and he felt himself stiffen.

He considered it. He didn't want sex, but he didn't know why. He wanted to be in her, to dive in and revel in the warmth of her. Her body would feel so good against the winter air that drifted through the cracked window. It wasn't sex but it was sexual. He thought about pulling her to him, but he didn't. She had said she was done, and he wasn't going to be that kind of guy.

But why hadn't it worked?

She was right. They hadn’t been good at that before, but they had just been kids then, and now they were different people who'd both presumably had good sex with other people. He certainly had.

So why was this so ... not good?

He'd gone hard, choking her with one hand and holding her hands behind her back when they fucked from behind, but she had seemed to want those things. She had crossed her arms behind her, and when he'd placed his hand on her neck, she had pulled it hard against her.

Hadn't she?

She'd given no indication that she didn't want it, but maybe ... maybe he was out of touch.

Her leg moved off his, and he wondered how long he'd been lying there trying not to breath too loudly. The bed was soft and warm and he felt he couldn't sleep, but he must have a little because when she rolled out of the bed it was almost six and he knew he couldn't have been staring at the back of her head for three hours.

She left the room, and he saw the dolphin tattoo again, flexing as she walked like it was swimming. It seemed pasted on. She was not the kind of person who got tattoos, but he must not know her anymore because the dolphin was not the only one.

The toilet flushed, and the water in the sink ran, and then she was back stepping over the discarded clothing. He thought he should get up then, before she got back into bed. He'd had to pee since they'd lain down, and he didn't want to stay into the morning. He didn't want to see her roommates when they'd heard their attempts the night before, but he didn't get out of the bed. She climbed in next to him and he hoped she'd press her ass against him in the way that girls sometimes did, but she did not.

He held his pee for another thirty minutes before he sat up. His side of her bed was against the wall, and he had to stand up on the bed to awkwardly step over her.

He went into the hallway, just as naked as she had been, and went to the bathroom. He washed his hands and then drank water from the faucet, holding each mouthful for several seconds before he swallowed to give the air bubbles time to settle out. The morning light was starting to shine through the window, and he could see himself in the bathroom mirror. He stood up straight and examined himself, trying to suss out if he was attractive still, but the monolith that stared back at him gave no answers.

What did she want?

"Be a man," he whispered and then slammed his fist into one pec and then the other, and then against his stomach.

"Fuck," he whispered and then went back to her bedroom at the end of the hall.

Her eyes were open, and as he sifted through his clothes on the floor, she held his underwear out to him from beneath the bed sheets, hanging it delicately from one outstretched finger.

"Thank you," he said, and she smiled, and he wished fleetingly to step in front of a train.

He dressed and turned to her. She was watching him with a lazy smile, and he suddenly hoped she would ask him to try again, because he wanted to dive into her and forget himself there, because he wanted a second chance to do it right.

This was the second chance, he thought, and she said nothing.

"Thank you," he repeated, "for hanging out. This was fun."

"Yeah," she said. "I had fun." She still wore the lazy smile. "This bed is so comfortable."

He didn't know what that meant.

"I guess I'll see you in ..." he started, but he didn't know when he'd see her again, or even if he would. He wasn't the type to stay in touch. He was a shit about social media, and he lived very far away. "... later," he finished, and she giggled.

He wanted her to ask him to stay, or to stay in touch or to ask him to do any number of things that he wouldn't ever actually do. Her face was a mask.

Had she wanted him to go hard? Had she wanted him to do it at all? Would there be bruises on her neck when she went to work, and would she have to cover them up with a scarf, and would she lie to her coworkers about it being good?

"Bye," he repeated and hoped that she could read his mind and know what he was feeling and reassure them without him having to ask. That everything was alright. But of course, she only gave him that lazy smile. That lazy, unreadable smile that seemed to say everything, if only he could understand it.

He turned and left, walking down from her landing, and he noticed the condition of the stairwell now that daylight streaked in through the little windows with crisscrossing wire in the glass. The corners and edges of the floor were all dirty, and the tiny tile gave the impression of an old high school bathroom floor.

The February air hit him like a physical force, and he buttoned up his flannel and zipped his jacket as he walked to the subway, wanting to stop for a coffee. He walked past two shops where he could have bought one.

He felt the long night behind his eyes and on his chest like he was coming down with a cold, and he considered the long day of sightseeing he had before him. He needed a nap. He needed to sleep for a year. He needed to die for a while.

The exhaustion settled more fully on his shoulders as he sat on the train, traveling down the length of Manhattan. He stared at his phone's screen, and even though he needed his phone to get back to where he was going and that little red battery icon was showing, he kept the screen on, staring at her texts.

-I'm here—the last of his texts had said. His whole body ached, and he thought about leaning against the window and closing his eyes. He didn't of course.

-thanks for hanging out—he typed. —thanks for meeting up and—

And what. And what?

He held down the backspace until the message was gone, but he couldn't bring himself to put the phone in his pocket, even when the train went underground and he had no signal. When service came back, there were no new texts, and he watched his battery go from low to critical. He cursed under his breath and shoved the phone into his pocket.

"Be a man," he whispered, loud enough for only him to hear, and he tapped himself on each pec and once against his stomach. "Be a man."

William Zimmerman is an actor and playwright by training. He's had two plays produced in Seattle, WA, where he lives with his wife and his cat. "The Dolphin" is his first published short story.