September

I drove terribly slowly, less than ten miles per hour, watching the blocks of American flags punctuated intermittently by quiet retail streets. Our radio was on, but it was quiet too. Nothing was loud anymore. Even the whine and whoosh of airplanes passing had disappeared. People stayed inside and watched the news. That’s all anyone did. It was the only thing that felt right anymore.

When I stopped the car, the bubbles would catch up to us if the wind was right. If the wind was very right, the bubbles would blow anyway, even though we were stopped. I would cheer them on silently, watch the little bulge appear in the thick part of the wand and think “Go! Go! Go!” Most of the time, it would retreat, snap back to flat inaudibly. I would move again when the superfluous traffic lights would turn, letting a stream of bubbles loose behind me, and dip again for more, watching them fly in the rearview, scared and curious in their new home.

Gina’s eyes were closed and her hand was down her pants. Though the weather was quickly turning cold, she insisted on leaving the heat off. She said it was better this way. I think she meant that it was easier to stay wet without the blower on her, but I felt at the time that going without heat was part of our sacrifice, that being comfortable and having an orgasm was too much. Gina’s hand was on my thigh. I unzipped and pulled myself out for when she would be ready. I dipped the bubble wand and let some of the bubble-goo drip onto the tip of my cock. Just the smell of the bubble-goo gave me a hard-on those days.

Gina rolled her window down a little, feeling that removing any of the barrier between her joy and the void-sadness of the houses couldn’t hurt. I scanned the skies. I think we all did. We just looked up all the time back then. I’d seen some F-15s, but nothing else, the previous week. I didn’t think about it anymore, didn’t really know what it was that I was looking for.

Both of us were scared. We were scared of another attack just like anyone else was, but we were also scared of what everyone was going to do with all their anger, all their obsession and blind adrenaline. People were afraid to go to the mall, go into subways, say the wrong thing. Arabs were being screamed at on the streets. Indians were also being screamed at for looking like them. Zoos were empty. Museums were empty. People were calling the police over abandoned guacamole. Throngs of tourists on Michigan Avenue had left, no longer blocking the sidewalks. No one was shopping either, for that matter. Gina and I did what we used to do when we were sad. We blew bubbles and fucked. We decided it was time to take it outside.

Gina turned the bottle in my hand and let more of the bubble-goo drip onto my cock. It was time. I waited for her to finish, stretching my neck, waiting for the soft warmth of her fingers. When they arrived, always a welcome shock, I calmed myself and dipped the wand in the bottle again, controlling the pressure on the gas pedal. It was time for me to feel good, and my thoughts switched to the joy of being alive over the fear of death.

She lowered her sweatpants so I could see her, opened her knees wide. I risked one glance. Her fingers moved tighter on my cock, a lull, then a few quick swipes near the tip, then a lull again when she felt my back get tight. The bubbles were harder to control. Too often, I held my arm out and lost it all in one great pop. I brought the wand back to the bottle and was ready for another go when Gina let go of me and gently touched my hand, stopping me. She took the wand, dipped it herself and ringed the tip of my cock with it. I tried to just touch the brake, but found myself slamming us to a stop. She gently rubbed just the tip in the layer of soapy goo. It was like rubbing the base tickle of sex itself. Then she dropped the wand back into the bottle itself, my hand twisting on the steering wheel, and return to her normal duties on my cock, her hand like silk on me after the wand.

We were in the Arab part of town now, strangely just north of the Jewish one, and the houses and apartment blocks had just as many, if not more, American flags. The wind was light tonight, so the flags stirred slightly and swayed arrhythmically according to weight, the spooky humanity of material hanging in nature. I was as careful as I could be with the bubbles, my foot fighting its resistance at the pedal. Gina too began to go arrhythmic, was losing her footing on my cock and I began to concentrate, trying to get us both to come at the same time. I glanced at her hand in her pussy, the fingers sweetly pulling out love and felt it, the beginning of it, just behind my balls. I parked us on a residential street, right in the middle, and kissed her cheek. My foot pressed hard on the brake, but I pushed us in park anyway. Her head bent back suddenly, my hand now clutching her neck, and the two of us whimpered slightly, smiles on our faces, a dose of happy into the atmosphere.