#238 — DEAD OR ALIVE

Faith, Trope, and Clarity

He’s Rod Keenly, and I would so let him live up to that name

He introduced himself after the elevator stopped suddenly and it became clear we’d be stuck there for a while.

He’s Rod Keenly, and I would so let him live up to that name. He’s my fantasy made flesh: shaved head, broad shoulders, tribal tattoos wrapped around massive biceps, and pecs bigger than my boobs filling out his tight t-shirt.

He’s an odd one, though. I told him my nom de plume, not my real name, and he didn’t even smirk. What kind of man doesn’t react when a woman tells him she’s called Faith L’Estarte?

I’m not much for small talk, so we settled into bored silence while we waited for an engineer to rescue us.

I’ve been trying to play a game on my phone, but my eyes have a mind of their own. They keep darting to the bulge in his jeans. He is huge.

I have to talk to him. “This situation is like something from one of my stories.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I write erotic fiction. Well… smut, I suppose. Unlikely sex between two or more barely believable characters in the context of a contrived and unnecessary plot.”

“What, and you’d write a sex scene set in a stuck elevator?”

“Sure. Probably two strangers who are trapped together get it on because they’re bored, or — I’m thinking about book covers now — it’s a woman on her own who’s rescued by a sexy firefighter.”

He nods. “Yeah, that might work, for a book. I’ve rescued grateful women from all sorts of unlikely scenarios — bondage gone wrong, big toes stuck in bath taps, hair caught in a drier — but never from a stuck lift.”

“Oh! You are a firefighter?”

“Sometimes. The thing is, this lift would be no good for angles: it’d be too tight with a cameraman inside as well, plus shooting in front of mirrors is always tricky. Sorry, I should have said, I’m an actor. In, um… adult entertainment.”

“You mean porn?”

“Yeah, sorry. It’s not high art, or even good sex, but it is a living.”

Well, that explains his name. I’m stuck in a lift with a male porn star, and I’ve been playing Candy Crush.

I put my phone back in my bag. “So, if this was a film set, you’d be in my panties by now?”

“You probably wouldn’t have any on, if I’m honest. The director would have found some reason for you to be nearly naked in a lift.”

“Like, the fire alarm went while I was in the bath?”

“Yeah, that could work! You ran out of your apartment with only a towel wrapped round you. You should have taken the stairs, but the director doesn’t care about safe sex, never mind fire safety procedures, so you took the elevator. Now you’re stuck between floors. I have to pull you up and out through a tiny gap, which is when your towel falls off. I throw you over my shoulder so the camera can get a good ass shot, then we fuck in the stairwell because you’re so grateful and nothing makes you hornier than panic and claustrophobia, apparently. It’s all bullshit, but people get off on it, and it pays my rent.”

I can picture that scenario. Quite vividly, actually.

“It might make a good video, Rod, but it’s not a great story. Sorry. There’s no erotic tension. If it was me, I’d write more dialogue before there’s any action. So you could still be a firefighter, but either I’d get your number for later, or you’d need to be off-duty and we’d be trapped together.

“I prefer ‘trapped together’ because it cuts to the action, which keeps the story down to five or six pages. We wouldn’t be stuck for long before it got so warm in our little metal box you’d have to take your shirt off to cool down. I’d notice how good your muscles look with a slight sheen of sweat. Then there could be some flirty banter about me going topless too.”

“Would you?”

“Of course! I’d have perfect breasts and I’d like showing them off. I’d enjoy you looking at me so much, I’d tell you where else I was getting hot, and you’d say, ‘Then why not take your skirt and panties off as well?’”

He’s getting into the spirit of it. “And when you did, maybe I could say, ‘You look like you need to be hosed down, miss. It’s lucky for you I’m an off-duty firefighter.’”

“Nice! Your dialog could be tighter, but this is a first draft. Anyway, I’d have a need so overpowering I wouldn’t stop to consider tedious foreplay, let alone a condom. You’d just show me your helmet, then pick me up. I’d wrap my legs around you, and slide down your pole.

“And it would be great sex: I wouldn’t feel awkward, my cervix wouldn’t be battered by your absurdly large penis, and neither of us would get a cramp. Or fart.

“Eventually, after I’d had multiple orgasms, you’d set me down so that seconds before we were rescued you could finish in my mouth. I wouldn’t swallow, but only because I’d want to feel deliciously wicked when I smiled at the engineer.”

He grins. “I like your version better.”

“Thanks, but mine’s bullshit too, and most months it doesn’t even pay the rent.”

That’s when the lift started moving.

As the doors opened to release us, I patted one rock-hard bicep and told him, “Thanks for rescuing me from boredom with an entertaining conversation, Rod. I really am very grateful.”

But that’s a whole other story.

This is a reworking of a shorter piece I wrote for one of Marie A. Rebelle’s wonderfully inspiring writing competitions.

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