My Neighbor Fucked Me After the Museum

The side door of the city museum clicked shut, and the lobby went quiet the way only a closed building can: no sneakers, no audio guides, just climate-control hum and the lemon smell of whatever the night crew used on the marble. Beatrice hooked her thumbs in the straps of the canvas tote still slung over her coffee-stained apron and tried not to grin like a woman who had spent her entire closing shift rehearsing dirty jokes.

She was twenty-two, three weeks out of college, and employed as the kind of barista who remembered orders and, unfortunately, jawlines. Alastair lived in the narrow brick house beside her garden apartment. He was forty-eight, a museum curator, and sarcastic in a way that made her want to climb him like a badly supervised exhibit. Gray threaded his beard and the hair at his temples. He wore a jacket that had opinions. He had been pretending not to notice her flirting since the start of summer, which was generous, because she had not been subtle.

"If you drip cold brew on the new floor, I will have you labeled and stored," he said, locking the door. His voice did that dry thing it did when he was amused and refusing to admit it.

"You invited me," Beatrice said. "After hours. Alone. To the erotic-art wing. If this is a trap, it's a very flattering one."

"It's a private tour. The wing opens Friday, and I would like one witness who will not write the board about nudity." He glanced at her apron. "You could have changed."

"I came straight from work. You said eight. I said I'd be here with foam in my hair and bad intentions." She fell into step beside him. Their arms brushed, and the contact went straight down her spine and settled, warm and stupid, between her legs. "Months of me leaning on your fence in short skirts, and all I got was commentary about my recycling."

"Your recycling is chaotic. Your skirts are a public service." He did not look at her when he said it, which was how she knew he meant it. "This way. Try not to propose to the first phallus you see. Some of them are on loan."

The gallery lights were low and honey-colored. Glass cases ran down the room, and in them sat what Beatrice could only, delightedly, call ancient dildos: stone, bronze, bone, some ridiculous, some unsettlingly practical. Alastair stopped at the first case and folded his hands behind his back like a man delivering a eulogy.

"Hellenistic. Later stone copy of an olive-wood original. Note the ridge. Someone was committed to the bit."

She laughed so hard she had to brace a hand on the glass. "You did not just give me a docent voice for a two-thousand-year-old dildo."

"I give everyone a docent voice. You are simply the first visitor in months who looks like she might take notes for personal use." His eyes cut sideways, bright and mean in the best way. "You've been very clear about your academic interests. Older guys. Men who, and I quote the speech you gave Mrs. Pell over the hedge, know what they're doing."

Heat climbed her throat. "I knew you could hear that."

"The tomatoes could hear that." He moved to the next case, a bronze piece with a curve that made her bite her lip. "For the record, knowledge is not the same as willingness. I am forty-eight. You are twenty-two and a grown woman with a job and a lease. You wink at me when you take out the trash. I invited you because you asked, repeatedly, with your entire face. If you want to keep trading one-liners about antiquities, we can. If you want to stop pretending this is about art history, say so before the paintings. I am sarcastic, not psychic, and I would rather not guess wrong about a neighbor I have to see at the mailbox."

Her pulse kicked. Consent, offered dry as a cracker, and hotter for it. She stepped closer, close enough to smell cedar and the coffee she had made him that morning when he came in for his usual and tipped like a man apologizing for wanting something.

"I want the tour," she said. "And I want you to keep talking like that. And when you're done being responsible, I want you to do something about the crush I've been carrying around like a tray of lattes. Older guys who know what they're doing. That's the thesis. You're the fieldwork."

His mouth twitched. "God help the peer review."

They did not make it through the bronzes with their dignity intact. He kept up the commentary, and she kept ruining it. A double-ended ceramic piece earned a solemn speech about trade routes and her observation that somebody in antiquity had clearly refused to choose. A marble fragment shaped like a very optimistic hand got her whispering that she hoped the original owner had strong wrists. Alastair's ears went pink, which she filed under personal victories. Every time she drifted close, he did not step back. His knuckles brushed her hip when he reached past her to indicate a label. She let her breast graze his arm and watched his throat work.

"You're doing that on purpose," he said.

"You're the curator. Curate it."

"I am attempting to remain employed."

"You're off the clock, and I'm not a donor. Worst I can do is tell the tomatoes." She tipped her face up. The age gap sat between them like a third person with excellent timing: his gray, her bare shoulders, the way he looked at her mouth and then, carefully, at her eyes, checking. She nodded, small and sure. "Keep going. I like the part where you pretend you're not hard in a museum."

"I am a professional," he said, voice rougher. "Professionals do not get hard in museums. They get professionally inconvenienced."

She was still laughing when they turned the corner into the painting gallery and stopped.

The canvas was huge, lit from above, and absolutely uninterested in subtlety. A young woman with her skirt rucked to her waist rode an older satyr on a riverbank, head thrown back, hands braced on his chest, his horns shadowed in the leaves. The satyr's face was lined, intent, one broad hand spread over her hip like he had invented the idea of holding someone still and fucking up into her. Beatrice felt the laugh die into something hotter. Her panties were already a situation. Now they were a thesis statement.

Alastair stood beside her, not touching, close enough that she could hear him breathe.

"Eighteenth century," he said, almost mild. "The painter was apparently in favor of clear communication."

"She's having the time of her life."

"She appears committed." A pause. His voice dropped, dry and deadly. "You've been eye-fucking me since you turned eighteen. Four years of it. You moved in next door the week after your birthday, already legal, already trouble, and you have not stopped looking at me like I am an exhibit you intend to handle without gloves. I noticed. I waited. You were a college freshman with a bike lock and opinions. Now you are twenty-two, graduated, paying your own rent, and still doing it in an apron. I thought you should know I was not confused about the timeline."

Beatrice laughed, bright and a little wild, because of course he would deliver that like a wall text. Heat flooded her face and her cunt in the same rush. Nothing about that history had started before she was grown; he had been meticulous even in the accusation, and it made her want him worse. She stepped closer until her sneakers bumped his shoes and her breasts pressed his jacket.

"Good," she said. "Then you also know I've wanted you to bend me over since the day we met. The mailbox. You were sorting coupons like they had personally offended you, and I thought, that man is going to ruin me and then make a joke about it. I was eighteen and brand new to the block and already sure. I am still sure. I am not confused either."

His hands found her waist. Big, warm, careful for one more second. "Say it plainly."

"I want you to fuck me," Beatrice said. "Tonight. Hard. I want the sarcastic neighbor experience, full curriculum. Yes. Enthusiastically yes. If you want the same, stop giving me a catalog entry and kiss me."

He kissed her like a man who had been holding a door shut with his shoulder. His mouth was firm, his beard a soft scrape, his tongue sliding against hers when she opened for him with a hungry sound she would have been embarrassed by if she had possessed any shame left. She fisted his jacket and hauled him in. He made a low noise, half laugh, half groan, and walked her backward until her shoulders met the cool wall beside the painting. One of his hands cupped the back of her neck. The other slid down, gripped her ass through her work pants, and squeezed like he was confirming a theory.

"Jesus," he muttered against her mouth. "You taste like the espresso you stole from the bar."

"Occupational hazard." She bit his lower lip, then soothed it, then stopped soothing anything. Her hands got under his jacket, palms skating over his stomach, the solid give of a man who was not twenty-two and did not need to be. She ground against his thigh and felt him, thick and unmistakable, pressed to her hip. "Oh. Hi. Professional inconvenience, I presume."

"Shut up," he said, fond and wrecked, and kissed her again, deeper, until her knees went unreliable. His hand left her ass, popped the button of her pants with insulting competence, and slid inside, over cotton panties already damp. He stroked her through the fabric once, twice, and she jerked and laughed into his mouth because it was absurd, because they were in a museum, because his fingers knew exactly where she was swollen and did not waste time pretending otherwise.

"Alastair."

"Still yes?"

"Still yes. God, yes. Don't stop, just— we can't actually—" She broke off on a whimper when he nudged the panties aside and slicked one finger through her, not pushing in, just learning her. "Okay, we can do a little of that. We cannot get arrested under a satyr. I have a shift tomorrow. I refuse to explain this to my manager."

He huffed a laugh against her throat, kissed the pulse there, and withdrew his hand with visible regret. His fingers shone. He looked at them, then at her, and the sarcasm cracked into something openly hungry.

"My apartment is four minutes if we do not get detained by a guard who likes his job," he said. "I am not finishing this next to a painting the board already thinks is a lawsuit. Come home with me. Let me take these ridiculous pants off you properly. If you change your mind in the car, say so and I will walk you to your door and die politely."

"I am not changing my mind." She grabbed his wrist, brought his wet fingers to her mouth, and sucked one clean while he stared like she had set off an alarm. She released him with a pop. "Drive. Or walk. I don't care. If you make me wait, I will narrate it for Mrs. Pell."

"Menace," he said, and took her hand.

They made it to his place in a blur of night air and bad decisions that were, in fact, extremely good decisions. His living room was all books and a couch that had seen better decades and a lamp he switched on with his elbow because his mouth was on hers again before the door finished closing. She kicked off her sneakers. He locked the deadbolt. She shoved his jacket off his shoulders and went for his belt like it had insulted her personally.

"Eager," he said, breathing hard, smiling.

"You have no idea." Beatrice dropped to her knees on the rug, the apron still absurdly tied at her waist, and looked up at him while she opened his pants. He was thick, flushed, already wet at the tip, and the sight made her mouth water in a way that had nothing to do with irony. She wrapped a hand around him, stroked once, slow, and glanced up. "Still yes on your end, curator?"

"Christ, yes." His hand settled in her hair, not pushing, just there. "Look at you. On your knees in my living room like you've been planning the route. My eager little age-gap slut. Say it if you hate it. I'll find another sentence."

Heat punched through her so hard she clenched around nothing. "I don't hate it. Say it again while I suck your cock, and if you come before I get you in me, I will be so annoyed and also extremely smug."

She took him in. Not delicate, not coy. Sloppy on purpose, wet, enthusiastic, the kind of blowjob that made a mess of her chin and his stomach and her pride, which had clocked out somewhere around the satyr. She hollowed her cheeks and sank until her eyes watered, pulled off to spit and stroke and laugh breathlessly at the sound he made, then went back down with her tongue working the underside. Alastair's sarcasm survived about ninety seconds.

"Fuck. Beatrice. That mouth." His hips twitched, and he caught himself, fingers tightening in her hair in a question. She moaned around him and nodded, taking him deeper, letting him rock. "Good girl. Eager little age-gap slut, dripping on my rug before I've even bent you over. You wanted an older man who knows what he's doing. Open wider. There. Just like that. Messy. I can hear how wet you are and I haven't even gotten your panties off."

She pulled off with a filthy string of spit, grinning, lips swollen. "Then fix it. I didn't kneel here for a lecture, although the lecture is working, don't stop talking." She licked him from base to tip, sucked the head, and stroked him hard and slick. "I want you to fuck me. Bend me over that tragic couch and stop being polite."

He hauled her up by the elbows, kissed her filthy mouth like he liked the taste of himself on her, and turned her toward the couch. Her pants and panties hit her ankles in one impatient shove. The apron strings got laughed at and yanked loose. Her shirt went somewhere. She braced her hands on the cushion, ass out, and looked back over her shoulder, bare and shining and absolutely sure.

"Hard," she said. "Deep. I've wanted this since the mailbox, and I am done waiting. Fuck me."

He lined up, the broad head nudging her entrance, and paused one last time with his hand spread over her lower back. She pushed onto him herself, a greedy inch, and swore. He laughed, low and broken, and sank in the rest of the way in one long thrust that knocked a sound out of her she did not recognize as polite.

"Oh my God."

"Too much?"

"Perfect. Don't you dare go gentle now." She dropped her forehead to the cushion and shoved back. "Harder. I can take it. I want to feel it tomorrow when I'm steaming milk and trying to have a personality."

He gave it to her. Hard, deep thrusts that slapped skin to skin and shoved the couch an inch across the floor with a ridiculous scrape. One hand gripped her hip. The other reached under and found her clit, rubbing in tight circles that did not match the pace, mean and accurate. Beatrice moaned, laughed, moaned again. The humor did not leave; it just got filthy, tangled up with the stretch and the heat and the way he filled her like he had been taking measurements for months.

"Listen to you," he said, breath punching out of him. "Neighbor. Barista. Twenty-two and taking my cock like you trained for it. You feel— fuck— so tight. So wet. This what you wanted when you eye-fucked me over the tomatoes?"

"Yes. Harder. Right there, don't stop, don't you dare get clever and change the angle— okay, that angle, that one, oh my God." She reached back, grabbed his wrist, and held him where the thrusts landed deepest. "Smack my ass. I want it. I want to be your eager little age-gap slut on this couch until the legs give out."

His palm cracked against her ass, sharp and bright, and she clenched so hard he groaned. Another smack, then a soothing rub, then he fucked her through it, relentless, the wet sound of them obscene in the quiet apartment. She came the first time with her face in the cushion and his name shredded in her throat, shaking, pushing back for more even while she pulsed around him. He did not stop. He slowed just enough to let her breathe, kissed her spine, and laughed when she immediately started demanding motion again.

"Greedy."

"Educated. Keep going. I want another one on the floor. I want to ride you. I want to see your face when you realize the HOA can probably hear this."

"The HOA can draft a memo," he said, and pulled out. She whined at the loss. He toed off his pants the rest of the way, sat on the rug with his back against the couch, cock shining and flushed and still very much a situation, and crooked a finger. "Come here, then. Reverse. I want that ass in my hands while you do the work and talk yourself through it. If you need me to stop, you say stop. Otherwise I am going to smack you every time you say something that would get us banned from the museum."

"We're already banned in spirit." Beatrice straddled him facing away, reached down, and sank onto him in one greedy slide that made them both curse. Full. Deeper this way, or maybe just meaner. She braced her hands on his knees and started to move, rolling her hips, grinding back, finding the angle where the head dragged right where she needed it. "Oh, that's— yeah. Stay right there. God, you feel huge. Forty-eight and still this hard for the girl next door. I'm going to be insufferable about it."

"You were already insufferable." His hands clamped her hips, guiding, then one cracked across her ass again. She yelped and laughed and fucked down harder. "There she is. Grind. Use me. Filthy little thing. Look at you taking it, apron on the floor, pants around one ankle like you couldn't wait ten more seconds. Tell me."

"I wanted you to rail me after that tour before we even got to the satyr," she said, breathless, bouncing now, the slap of her ass against his stomach ridiculous and perfect. "Ancient dildos. You and your docent voice. I was wet in the lobby. Harder— meet me, don't just sit there being historically significant."

He thrust up as she dropped, and the impact punched a moan out of both of them. He smacked her again, then again, palm hot on already stinging skin, and she ground back with a filthy little encouragement that dissolved into laughter when the couch creaked in protest above them.

"This is absurd," she gasped, grinning even as her thighs shook. "We are on your rug. I made you a latte nine hours ago. You are spanking me and I am thanking you. Harder. Yes. Like that. Call me your slut again, I liked it, I like all of it, I like how gray your beard is going to feel on my thighs later."

"My eager little age-gap slut," he said, voice wrecked and fond and mean in the way she had ordered. "Riding me on the living-room floor because a painting gave you ideas. You feel incredible. So wet I can hear it. Bounce. There. Take it deep. You wanted older and sure. This is me sure. I'm not coming until you do it again. Work for it."

She worked for it. One hand between her legs, fingers frantic on her clit, the other braced on his knee, hips rolling and slamming, ass stinging, his cock stroking her from the inside until thought got stupid. They laughed, actually laughed, when her knee slipped and she had to resettle, and the laugh broke into a moan when he grabbed her and fucked up into the new angle like he had been waiting for the excuse. Sweat slicked her spine. His hands were everywhere: hip, ass, a rough squeeze, a softer stroke over the marks he had made, then back to guiding her down onto him.

"Close," she warned, voice climbing. "Alastair, I'm close, don't stop, don't get polite, fuck me through it—"

"I've got you." He sat up enough to wrap an arm around her waist and pound up into her, short hard thrusts, his mouth at her shoulder. "Come on my cock. Let the whole building know the curator finally put his hands on you. That's it. Good. Loud. I want it."

She came hard, clenching, crying out, grinding back in messy circles while the orgasm rolled through her and kept rolling because he did not let up. He swore, rhythm breaking, and followed her with a groan that sounded ripped out of him, burying deep and pulsing, holding her down on him while he spilled inside her in hot throbs that made her whimper and laugh and whimper again. They shook through it together, breathless, ridiculous, his forehead pressed to her back, her hand covering his on her stomach.

For a minute the only sounds were their breathing and the tick of a clock she had not noticed and the faint, traitorous creak of the couch recovering its dignity.

Alastair shifted, still inside her, and turned her carefully in his lap until she faced him, thighs spread over his, his cock softening but not gone, a wet warm claim between them. He pulled her against his chest. She went, boneless and grinning, and kissed his graying beard because it was right there and she had earned it.

"The HOA is definitely going to complain about the noise," he deadpanned, one hand stroking her spine like he had not just fucked the sarcasm out of both of them and found it again immediately.

Beatrice laughed into his mouth, kissed him slow, and settled more firmly in his lap, unwilling to let him slip free just yet. Her ass stung in the best way. Her thighs ached. She felt wrung out and already, traitorously, interested in whatever came next, as long as it involved this man and a bed that was not a rug.

"Good," she said. "Let them draft a strongly worded letter. I'm staying the night so you can give the younger generation a proper education in round two. I want the bedroom, your mouth, and at least one more position you can narrate like a wall label."

He snorted, stood with her still wrapped around him, and started toward the hall, both of them chuckling, her arms around his neck, his hands sure under her thighs.

"Bossy," he said.

She nipped his ear. "Accurate."

He shouldered the bedroom door open, and his voice went low and amused against her hair. "If I bend you over the dresser and make you read the imaginary plaque out loud, are you going to come again or file a complaint?"