I do the window-dressing at the store where I work. I have to design large faux rooms, complete with wallpaper and trim. The point is to accent the wallpaper since that’s what we sell. In the winter, the windows are cold. In the summer, they’re blazing. But it’s always been fun to stop what I’m doing to see people watching me. Sometimes they wave or clap; sometimes they just watch. Sometimes it’s late enough that I have no audience, but I like to dream about being on display for someone special.

Last year, summer had just bled into fall, and I was redoing our window for the coming holidays. I looked up from dragging an oversized easy chair from the stockroom into the tiny space. Across the empty street, a man leaned in the narrow opening of an alleyway, smoking and watching me. By the way he held himself, it appeared that he thought I couldn’t see him—as if he assumed he was hidden from view in his carefully chosen shadows.

Something about the way he looked at me—his stance and the tilt of his head—made my skin tingle. There was a curious interest in his demeanor, and when Joshua popped his head in to see if I was ready to leave for the day, I jumped in surprise.
“Everyone’s gone but us, baby. You ready?”

Joshua worked in the stockroom, and it had been left to us to lock up the store. We’d only been dating a few months, but things were good and the sex was fabulous.

“Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’m ready.”
“You okay?”

I nodded, but he looked unsure. “Fine.” My throat was off, my body tense from excitement. I could still feel that gaze on me, watching, taking in the back and forth with Joshua.

“I don’t think you’re telling me the truth,” he said. ”What’s up?”

Joshua climbed into the deep show window. He wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed me on the back of my neck. My skin shivered with arousal and my nipples peaked. But a lot of it had more to do with the stranger’s eyes on me than the arms around me.

“You’re shivering,” Joshua said. He pressed closer to me, and I felt his growing erection. He was getting hard just holding me, and a rush of fluid between my thighs had me ready. Ready for him. Ready for sex. Ready to put on a show for the man across the street, perhaps?

“Fuck me,” I blurted.

“What?” He chuckled, but he drove his pelvis harder against me, bumping me against the back of the easy chair. “Here? What if someone sees?”

“Yes, yes,” I said, ignoring the second half of the question.

I pulled at the button on my jeans. I suddenly wanted him in me, fucking me right in front of our mysterious watcher. I didn’t even want to share the knowledge of the watcher with Joshua. How long had the man been there? How long had he been watching me? I trembled just thinking about his eyes on me. At the moment, the gaze of this stranger turned me on more than the cock of the man I’d been sleeping with. So why not have both?

The store lights were out, as were the window lights. I’d had to turn them out to work. A single streetlight cast a silvery glow on the show window, and it was enough light that I knew the man across the street could see me.

He lit another cigarette, the brief orange flare of the lighter showing me a face chiseled out of good bone structure and alleyway shadows.

Joshua was oblivious, which is how I liked him.

I shoved my jeans down as he yanked my concert tee up. He popped my bra open and let my breasts free. His hands cupped them briefly before pinching my nipples so hard that my cunt flexed in sympathy. I parted my legs, knowing the man across the way wouldn’t see most of me, but he’d see enough to know what was happening. He’d see the act itself if not the finer details.

Another rush of honey slipped free of me. I moaned. “Hurry.”

Joshua put his hand on the small of my back and forced me forward. He kicked my ankles a bit further apart, and I sighed at how good it felt that he’d taken control of the situation. My breasts spilled over the back of the chair, and I raised my head just enough to watch my watcher, but not enough to make it seem truly blatant. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to know I was aware of him yet.

His cigarette flared as he took a drag, and I grasped the chair hard with shaking fingers.

“God, you’re wet,” Joshua groaned, sliding the tip of his dick up and down my soaking-wet split until I thought I would weep from the pleasure.

“Joshua!” I hissed, seeing that cigarette flare again. I didn’t want my admirer to go, and I was afraid he would leave when his smoke was done.

Joshua gripped my ass in his hands. He entered me with maniacal slowness, torturing me on purpose, I was sure.
“Please,” I amended.

That did it. He slid into me with ease, rocking against me so that my body banged the ugly yellow chair and we inched across the wooden floor.

The cigarette was done and fear shot through me, accenting the pleasure in my cunt, my belly, my chest. Panic adds a lovely shade of pleasure to sex, sometimes. I sucked in a shivering breath when I realized the man was still standing there, just a shade darker than the shadows around him.

Joshua rammed into me harder, his cock slamming every needy place deep inside me. I managed to shove my hand between the chair and my body, and I rubbed my clit with trembling fingers.

I sighed out a small orgasm that only whetted my appetite. My cunt flickered around Joshua, and he groaned. “Good girl,” he said. “My slutty girl.” He laughed, deep and throaty.

He had no idea what the words did to me. How could he? But the combination of his words, the man across the street, my fingers on my clit and his hand that suddenly grabbed my hair, made me come again. The orgasm was much bigger this time, thanks to his fingers tugging my pony­tail and his shaft filling me so well. I cried out, my head tilted back to the ceiling, my throat bared to the stranger who was watching.

“Fuck,” Joshua said. He went rigid, coming deep inside me. I could tell he hadn’t wanted to; he’d wanted it to last longer.
He gave me one final driving thrust that lifted me off my feet and onto my toes, and then he was kissing the back of my neck with warm lips before moving slowly away from me.

“Hey, go get my bags and stuff?” I asked, my voice weak. I wanted a minute without him in the window, to gaze out at my sexy stranger.

“Sure thing,” Joshua said and gave my ass a playful smack. The impact of his hand sent an aftershock of extreme pleasure through my pussy.

I stayed frozen—shirt still hiked up, jeans still pushed down—waiting to see what would happen. Across the street the lighter flared again. Another hellish ember glowed when he took a drag. He gave me a brief nod, and I swore I saw him smile.

I began making excuses to pop in the window near dusk just to see if he’d be there. Some nights he was and I obliged him one way or another. Some nights no one awaited me. I still check regularly, though; there’s a lot more I’d like to show him.
Ms. Jessica H.,
Des Moines, Iowa