The piercing shriek of the smoke alarm fills the apartment as I swat at it with a broom, sending the cover clattering to the wooden floor. Another swipe silences it.

“Fuck,” I spit into the smoke scented air. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

I had followed the cake recipe to the letter, but the thin, blackened crust at the base of the cake pan was a charcoal testament to my unfamiliarity with electric ovens. Cursing, I dashed the pan into the sink where it hissed balefully.

I stood in the open plan kitchenette breathing heavily, shoulders rising and falling as I fought down the rising tide of anxiety. It had been a terrible day at work, stacked on a terrible week and I was worn thin, fraying at the edges. Baking a birthday cake for my flatmate seemed a straightforward task, but even that seemed beyond my reach. As my breathing settled, I resigned to settling for a store-bought cake.

At least no-one was around to see the mess I had made. H was away at his girlfriends all weekend, while S was heading out for early birthday drinks with her work friends and wouldn’t be back until the early hours. I moved about the apartment, opening windows to let out the smoke, the evening breeze slipping inside.

The apartment was a cavernous open plan warehouse conversion — an actual warehouse, not one of those faux-industrial new-builds — the sloped ceilings lined with skylights, the wooden floorboards worn down to splinters in places. It was the kind of place that would have been thoroughly out of my reach, were it not for the grimy East London location, the dubious credentials of the landlord and the motley collection of neighbours, all of which kept the rent down to a painful but attainable level. We had viewed it in the spring, and instantly fell in Love with the abundance of space and light, not reckoning on how it would become oppressively, sweltering Hot in summer and in winter cold enough to see my own breath. But for now, it was home.

There was a sharp rap on the door, no doubt one of the Italian neighbours from next door who seemed daily to come borrow various items of kitchen equipment. I sucked in a deep breath, ready to berate them at length for not buying their own damned utensils. I yanked the door near off its hinges, to find you standing there.

“Oh,” I blurted, letting out all my breath into that one word. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I remember you said your flatmates were out this evening, and I was nearby and…” You let the words trail off suggestively, a bashful look on your face. But I knew that ploy, and like a fable I knew that behind that sheepish smile was something more lupine, a wolfish grin that was predatory. And like another fable, I invited you in wordlessly, for I was also predatory, and I hungered, aching to be devoured.

Heartbeat thrumming in my ears, I pulled you against me, and you swept me towards the kitchen island, scattering containers and casting up a plume of flour that hung in the air. We kissed in that way that demanded a name less delicate, less elegant than “kiss”; urgent, primal, a clashing of lips and teeth and tongues. On your mouth I tasted coffee and gum, and on mine you tasted wine and lust.

You gripped my hips and lifted me onto the counter, and I wrapped my legs around your waist and pulled you closer to me. Your finger tips skip across my bare thighs, towards the hem of my skirt, and I purr into your ear.

You hesitate for a moment, your hands hovering uncertainly over my hips. We had only been dating a few weeks, and while you knew from the outset that I wasn’t born a girl, I had kept you at arms length, limiting our trysts to pleasuring you with just my mouth or hands.

“Elle, I — “

I cut off your sentence, sliding my thumb into your mouth. I shove you back, enough to slip off the counter and drop to my knees in front of you. You say nothing, placing your hands on the counter behind and above me as I tug open your jeans urgently. I stare at you cooly; not the look of passion, but of something else, something that longs to consume you, the fierce stare of the hawk that spies its prey. I keep staring, intently, as I take you into my mouth, and you tremble, knees threatening to buckle.

I suck and stroke you until I am satisfied at how slick and hard you are. In one motion I slide off my panties as I stand, and turn towards the counter, lifting my skirt to expose my Ass to you. I look over my shoulder at you as I take you into my hand, and guide you to my tight knot, gasping as your head brushes against me. I move you in small circles, teasing myself open, before I slowly push back and down onto you. As you slide into me I let out a long moan, surprisingly loud in the large space. Pushed over the counter, face down in a pile of spilt flower, I let you thrust into me, each slow, lurching motion driving a gasp out of me.

We manoeuvre wordlessly, with no need to communicate our desires. We simply take what we want from each other. We shed clothes, my skin goose bumping in the cool air, nipples hard and proud as you tease them between your fingers and beneath your tongue. We rearrange ourselves; against the wall, on the floor, limbs tangled into each other, faces buried in each other’s necks. Your fingers in my hair, damp with sweat and stuck to my skin. All the while you drive in and out of me — no — *I* take you, pull you in and out of me, as if I would devour you, consume you. As if we would consume each other, as if we wanted to be consumed, like a forest that longs to burn to cinders.

You have me on all fours on the living room coffee table when we hear the key rattle in the lock. S’s voice ringing out before the door has even swung all the way open.

“So there was a mistake with the booking and –“

She stops in the doorway as she catches glimpse of us; me clutching onto the table, hair and skin slick with sweat, you behind me, fingers clasped around my hip bones as you plow in and out of me. We make no move to cover ourselves, to scramble for clothes. In those brief heartbeats we merely stop and and stare at her, like two urban coyotes caught rutting in the street, our gaze brazen, fearless. Shameless: we see you. And you see us, all of us.

Her hand comes up to her face, covering her eyes as she scurries into the apartment.

“Don’t mind me! I didn’t see anything! I’m just heading to my room!” She trips over her words as she trots past, and we turn our heads to watch her as she peeks through the side of her eye at me. I see her. And she sees me, all of me. And I bite my lip at her as she takes one last fleeting glance before she closes the door to her room.

Soon music emanates from our room, and as we resume fucking we find ourselves falling into its rhythm. You pick me up, still inside me as you carry me across to the sofa that leans against the wall of S’s room. Your cock slides in and out of me as I pull myself up the sofa, resting my face against the coolness of the wall. Your tempo quickens, and I tighten around you as I feel you begin to stiffen and twitch, your fingers pressed hard enough in my waist to bruise. And as your breathes rise to a crescendo, my moans rise with them, louder and faster, and I press my hands and chest and face against the wall as you push further and further into me. And in that very moment, I imagine S on the other side of the very same wall, mere inches away from me as the Orgasm rises in me and shakes me to my very bones. And I imagine her pressing her ear against the same wall, hands raised as if they were clasped against mine, as if she could feel me tremble and shake, as if she were holding me upright.

We collapse on the sofa, our bodies exhausted and spent, chests still heaving as our limbs drift around aimlessly. The sweat on our skin cools in the evening breeze blowing in through the open windows. I rest my head on your chest, your cum slowly trickling out and cooling on my thighs as the tide of sleep rises to swallow us both.

—