Bob and Giselle are waiting for the elevator. It seems to be taking a long time.

“Were you ever scared of elevators?” Giselle asks.

“You mean like afraid they were going to fall or something?” Bob says.

“Not so much that,” Giselle says.

“Then what? That you might get stuck?”

Giselle bites her lip. “Sometimes I was afraid of who would be on them. Who or what. Like the doors would open and it would be full of big dogs.”

“Big dogs, eh?”

“Yeah, big black dogs. Fucking.”

Then the elevator doors slide open. The elevator is empty. Bob and Giselle step inside.

Fun with Hydraulics

The elevator is going down. It’s after Karen and Ted’s party, and Bob and Giselle are both flushed. Giselle is nuzzling Bob’s chest. Her fingers toy with the top button. “Honey,” she whispers, “I can’t wait to get home.”

“Maybe we don’t have to wait,” Bob says. “There’s always the emergency stop button.”

“Won’t that set off alarms?”

“We could always say it was an accident.”

Giselle gives Bob a somewhat hopeful look. “So you’ve never done it in an elevator?”

“Not really.”

“‘Not really.’ What does that mean?”

“It means I’ve never done it.”

“But?”

“But I’ve thought about it.”

Giselle bites her lip. “Thought about it with me?”

“I’m thinking about it right now.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking we ought to push the button.”

“Yeah, do it.”

It’s Giselle who pushes the button.

Between Floors

“Is it stopped?” Giselle asks. “Where are we?”

“Between floors, I guess,” Bob says.

“What if it won’t start up again?”

“I don’t know. We scream?”

“I’m not screaming.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll start up again,” Bob assures her. “Hydraulics.”

“It better. Kiss me. Kiss me before I lose my courage.”

Poolside

“More wine?” Ellen asks.

“I think we finished it,” Giselle says.

“I could always go in and get another bottle,” Ellen says.

The two women are sitting under the umbrella at the side of Ellen’s pool. It is late afternoon, but the sun is still strong.

“I shouldn’t,” Giselle says.

“Why not?”

“Wine makes me naughty.”

“Really?” Ellen says.

“A little naughty.”

“What’s the naughtiest thing you’ve ever done?”

“I shouldn’t say.”

“Come on, tell.”

“Okay,” Giselle says. “You forced it out of me. The other night we were at a party at some friends’. They live in a high-rise downtown. A Y2K party.”

“Uh-huh,” Ellen says. “That was kind of a bust, wasn’t it? Y2K I mean, not the party.”

“Right,” Giselle says. “I really shouldn’t tell you this.”

“Sure you should.”

“Okay. Okay. I’d had a lot of wine, a lot more than usual, and after the party we were both really hot, you know? All that wine and the world hadn’t blown up or anything, so far as we knew. And the elevator...”

“Yes, the elevator.”

“The elevator was so slow. It seemed to take forever to come.”

“Probably a residual Y2K thing, ha ha.”

“Ha. Right.”

“And?”

“And finally it did come, and we got in, and ... and we kind of did it in the elevator.”

A faint smile crosses Ellen’s lips. “You did? You and Bob had sex in the elevator?”

“Not sex, exactly. I sucked him off.”

“While the elevator was going down? What if...?”

“We stopped it first.”

“That is pretty naughty. Was it fun?”

“It was exciting. I did things I don’t normally do.”

“Such as?”

“For one thing I had him out of his pants, just his cock, you know? But his balls, too, and I sucked on them. I took them all in my mouth one after the other. Like big floppy eggs. I’d never done that. It felt a little funny, a little ticklish, and I had these funny thoughts. I thought, I have his ballisters in my mouth. Is there such a word as ballister? I almost started giggling.”

“Mm.”

“And then I swallowed. Not his balls—I mean when I made him come. Usually I don’t, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Ah.”

“Yes, but that wasn’t the naughtiest thing.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No. The naughtiest thing was that while I was unzipping him, he was standing in the corner kind of leaning back, and I looked up, and in the corner was this surveillance camera.”

“Really? And you still did it?”

“I know. But if anything it just made me hotter. The idea that ... you know? And while I was sucking him, while I was swallowing, I just kept thinking, someone is watching this. And I’d almost never felt that hot. That slutty. I was probably a little drunk. But oh.”

“Did Bob know? Did you tell Bob?”

“No. I’m a little afraid to now.”

“He’d be mad?”

“I don’t know. I’ll probably tell him sometime. He won’t believe it. He’ll think I’m teasing.”

“Wow,” Ellen says.

“Yeah.” Giselle shrugs and shakes her head. “So you and Tom—you’ve never done anything like that?”

Ellen chuckles. “Oh no. Nothing like that.” She sets her wine glass on the hot cement.

Giselle pushes up her floppy sun hat. “Actually you have.”

“Huh?”

Giselle points towards her house next door. “See up there? Between the firs. The window to our back bedroom?”

“Yeah?”

“From up there you can see down here to the pool. One night last summer...”

“Wait,” Ellen says. “Wait. I’m not sure I want to hear this.”

“Okay,” Giselle says, “but I thought you guys were really beautiful.”

“You did?”

“Incredibly beautiful. And it made me really hot, watching you. I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help it. I’d never really seen other people doing it before. Not in real life.”

Ellen picks up the empty glass. “Did Bob see?”

“No, but a couple of days later I told him about it. He pretended not to be too interested, but I know he was. Sure enough a few minutes later we started fooling around. I teased him that he was...”

“That he was what?”

“That he was so hot and frisky because of you.”

“And you only watched the one time?”

“No. A couple of other times. But that was the only time I saw anything.”

Ellen runs her finger around the rim of the empty glass. “Maybe you should try tonight.”

“Tonight? Really?”

“Yeah, maybe you and Bob both.”

“Bob’s out of town.”

“Well then, just you.”

1011

Giselle has taken the cordless phone over to the window. It’s twilight, and the neighbors, Tom and Ellen, are swimming in their pool. So far they still have their suits on, Ellen in the same orange two piece she wore this afternoon, Tom in black or navy or some dark color trunks. The phone rings. It’s Bob, just as Giselle expected.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi.”

“Whatcha doin?”

“Nothing much. I just checked in. I haven’t unpacked yet.”

“Oh. Did you eat?”

“Something on the plane,” Bob says. “A bag of nuts. What about you?”

“A sandwich. An orange.”

“So what are you doing?”

“Nothing much.” Giselle glances at the window. “Talking to you. Staring out the window.”

“Oh? What at? Isn’t it dark?”

“Yeah. Getting there. Is it dark there?”

“Just about.”