Free A Map of Tulsa by Benjamin Lytal

was inside my eye, and I breathed and mutely talked to her. “I’m going to take a shower,” we heard Chase say. We heard the water from the adjoining bathroom. Adrienne pushed down my pants with her thumbs. She got back under the covers and I followed. She pulled the blankets over us. I thought she would look at me intensely; I thought she would still be deciding, while I was inside her, whether she wanted this. But it wasn’t like that at all. She edged her chin back, gasping. Her throat worked, and her teeth showed, eyes wide open and straining at the headboard. Like she was biting a stream of ice. Then she moaned, so Chase could hear. I could not believe how okay I was in this situation. Her eyes tilted into her forehead. With the blankets over us I felt that we had moved into a tent and were going to live in it together. When she finally looked at me I came. Her look was calm, accepting, betrothal-like. With her arm crooked over my head I didn’t have anything to give her, so Iworked both arms beneath her and squeezed, but that felt insincere. Chase was going to come out of the bathroom and see us—but Chase was not going to care, and that was the lesson. She slid her leg over me. She was hot. I worked myself up so that I could penetrate her again. This time was not so urgent, and it was not so honest, it was a little violent, it was in large part to cover for ourselves for when Chase came out, so that he could not interrupt us, so that he would have to shut up. But it was going even better mechanically than before. Adrienne was sweating. When I heard the bathroom door open I stopped, but she kept moving, and I felt like a hog. I glanced, looking for Chase. He was somewhere behind me, getting dressed. He didn’t hurry or anything. Adrienne had stopped too. My face was planted in the pillow. The only movement in the room was him getting dressed. Then he left and we resumed (nothing felt better); we could hear him jogging downstairs.
    We slept. A bit later, the sun already high, our bedroom—somebody’s bedroom, Albert’s guest bedroom—was warm. I plowed my hands into the empty regions of the sheets to feel their coolness. Adrienne turned over. We probably stank, we had already stunk of sleep when we started. We would be craving showers. I laid my nostrils on Adrienne’s arm, in the crook of her elbow. She smelled like a Band-Aid. The skin pressed the rims of my nostrils. I didn’t quite have rights to her body yet: she stirred, and I drew back. She opened her lazy eyes onto me, and didn’t move or avert them: it was the most intimate thing. I wanted to have some cynical remark, about layabouts,about exhaustion, but affection overwhelmed me. Her gaze persisted, staring, I shambled onto her, dazed, locked in this time, sweating.
    At noon, again, on purpose. With empty bellies, with an inexplicable hoarse feeling in our throats. In full color. Like an apology to the people downstairs. The cords of her throat straining red, like it wasn’t fun. But I did not let her get out into the clean air. I held her in the burning sheets. We fell asleep with all our skin touching, just to make the heat worse, to sweat more.
    Much later, Chase poked his head in. “Um, people are leaving.”
    Adrienne ripped off a sheet, flipped it in her arms once, and then drew it over her head, hunching like a crone. She was going to go home with Chase, of course. “I must cover zee head,” she said, “for modestee.”
    As I was loading Edith and Cam’s stuff back into my car, Chase came up and punched me in the gut. He was friendly, grinding his fist in my belly. “Okay,” he said, looking appraising, ironic: he approved. He waved goodbye as Edith and Cam and I drove off.
    “You should be nice to Chase,” said Edith. Our windows were still down; we had not yet left the property. The soft tinkle of tires on gravel was all our tired ears wanted to hear.
    “Why?”
    “You’re not in competition with him.”
    “How do you