I turn and walk deliberately to the bathroom, swinging my hips slightly in case he’s looking. Once inside with the door locked, I rub my clit and come again.

Nope, definitely not normal.

Chapter 2

Dammit, I had it all planned. Where did he go?

The airline napkin is still scrunched in my hand, my name and number scribbled on it with motley ink from a pen I found in my purse.

But he’s gone.

He’s just fucking gone.

Where the fuck did he go?

I didn’t even see him get up because the lady across the aisle caused a ruckus after one of her earrings fell off when the plane landed somewhat roughly. She enlisted everyone around her to help find it, which she did.

I shouldn’t have helped because I hate her, but I’m not that evil a person.

Then I looked up and he was gone!

So I grabbed my carry-on and raced into the airport, a blast of heat hitting me in the face on the jetway unlike anything I’ve ever known.

In the terminal, I looked everywhere for that flowing white shirt, black jeans, and black shoes.

But nothing.

Gone. Just gone.

Whatever. He probably would have laughed at me anyway. He’s older, probably twenty-eight, maybe even thirty. I’ll be twenty-two in January. That’s probably why he didn’t push it any further. Probably why he found it so amusing, too. Stupid little girl sits on his leg for one goddamned second and gets off like a female two-pump chump. God, I’m going to be the laughingstock of his next party.

“Abigail!” calls a pseudo-female voice.

I turn to see Karissa for the first time in person.

“Karissa!”

I run to her, drop my carry-on, and give her a big hug.

Karissa is the only person I know in Miami. We became Facebook friends a year ago and have had a million fun conversations ever since. I feel like I know her even though I’ve never met her in person. In many ways, she’s become my best friend.

She’s even better looking in person. She wears a tight coral dress that highlights her stunning and silky-smooth dark skin, a unique shade between light mocha and dark amber. Thick lips, dimpled cheeks, giant gorgeous brown eyes, barely-there breasts, and a big round ass under a tight waist complete the picture. I’m instantly jealous. She’s a male-to-female transgender, but she’s just curvy enough . . . even though she has boy shoulders and straight collar bones. She likes to call herself a “well-hung, hot bitch.”

She’s been egging me on for months, telling me about how much happier I’ll be down here.

“You are so gorgeous!” she says in a practiced girly voice that betrays her genetic gender.

“You too!”

“Carousel is downstairs to get your case.”

“Oh, I don’t have one. This is it.”

“That little carry-on?”

I pat my purse with its secret debit card. “I . . . uh . . . plan on buying some new stuff here.”

“Okay, let’s go then.”

She leads me to the parking garage. The heat is un-fucking-believable. I feel like I’m in a saucepan simmering on low. We reach her red 1997 VW Jetta. Well, it’s kinda red, anyway. There are splotches of orange here and there . . . and one door that’s solid black. Two tires are missing hubcaps.

“Don’t look at my car!” she says. “I’m saving up for a new one. This one only cost me one night of tips.”

“Okay.” I get in.

“AC doesn’t work, but I don’t live too far away. Besides, you got to get tempered.”

“Oh, I’m already tempered, thanks. I think my sweat is sweating.”

“Welcome to South Florida in July, babycakes.”

We get on I-95, the same I-95 that passes by Concord, Massachusetts but totally unlike that I-95. This one is several hundred lanes wide with more cars than I’ve ever seen in one place, all nearly stopped except for the ones way over to the left in the Express Lanes.

“This will clear up soon,” says Karissa.

“Okay.” Not holding my breath, though.

“How was your flight?”

I feel a tug inside my white pants as my clit remembers the firm friction of Mr. Ray-Ban’s thigh. “Um . . . interesting. There was this guy . . .”

“Oh, girl! Don’t tell me you’ve joined the Mile-High Club!”

Oh wow, I hadn’t thought about that. Does it count? “Not really.”

“What did he look like?” A gray, low-slung Acura pounding out bass beats cuts us off. Karissa honks the horn and shoves her middle finger out the window. “Maldito cabron! Mamame la Ñema!” The driver flips her off and shouts back something in Spanish. She turns back to me like nothing happened. “So?”

I realize I’m holding my breath. “So?”

“So what did this man you fucked on the plane look like?”

“I didn’t fuck him. Well, not really. I sort of fell on him and in doing so I, uh . . . came.”

“You came? What, did he at least finger you?”

“Not even. I just fell on his thigh and pffft!”

Karissa smiles a big smile at me. “Girl, you been stuck up in that cold hell zone for too long. You got some fire in you to let out.”

“Yeah, you may be right.”

Five hundred years and ten gallons of sweat later, we pull up to Karissa’s building. She gets out. I’m not sure if it’s me or my clothes that have chemically bonded with the old leather seat. I peel myself out carefully. There isn’t a part of me that’s not soaked.

“What’s that smell?” I say.

“What smell?”

“I don’t know. It’s everywhere. At the airport. Here. It’s kind of like mildew or jasmine. Jasmine-y mildew.”

Karissa sniffs. “I don’t smell anything.”

“Huh.”

Carissa lives in a second-floor apartment a few blocks west of US-1 in an old cinderblock complex made up of two, two-story, rectangular, gray buildings with a courtyard in the center. It looks like in better days, it was a rundown motel. The name stenciled on the rotting, second floor, outdoor walkway connecting the two buildings reads Clarion Towers.

Towers? Since when does two stories make a tower? Kids’ toys and rusting barbecue grills are scattered in the courtyard, which is filled with spotty grass.

Hm.

This is where I’m going to be staying, huh? Shit, I should have done a Street View on Google Maps before agreeing to stay here.

I make a mental note to find another place fast, even though Karissa said I could stay as long as I want.

“Don’t worry,” she says, “it’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Yeah, you also said the traffic would clear up fast.”

“And I was right!”

“Oh.”

The heat hits me again as we walk to the stairs. It’s like a steamy whack in the face that never stops slapping you. Wow. I can’t wait for it to cool down once the sun sets.

“Does it cool down when the sun sets?” I say.

“No, honey. It cools down in December.”

“Oh.”

Karissa’s place is on the second floor toward the back. An old man with a white beard and a big stomach over what looks like a towel stares up at me from his cheap plastic white chair.

“Don’t mind him,” says Karissa. “He never moves. Be there all day. You could go up and poke him and he wouldn’t get up. Swear he doesn’t even eat.”

Once inside in the air conditioning, I take a deep breath. Oh God, that feels good. But the smell is still thick. It’s not unpleasant, just different. What the fuck is it? And why can’t Karissa smell it?

Karissa’s place is surprisingly neat and clean, thank God. If I saw stuff strewn all over, I think I may have run to a hotel.

The countertop and cabinets in the kitchen are cheap, but new. A round, white plastic table with two matching chairs graces the dining spot. The couch is a black fold-out that I expect my lower back to hate. There is a black, plastic coffee table and a flat-screen TV on a black, plastic stand.

Hm.

“I know it’s small,” she continues. “And I know it ain’t Palm Beach, but I’m working on it, honey. I’m going to be rich, you know. This ass of mine is going to make me money.”