Mercy meandered along the empty sidewalk. It was early evening. She took the long way home from work. Cars rushed by. To Mercy it seemed like everyone had someplace to go but her. Instead she walked in the rain. But she loved the rain. Cool on her face, gentle on her skin, caressing her body gently as she walked, touching her in a way that no one had touched her in some time. Not paying attention, she bumped right into the stranger making his way slowly forward in the increasing torrent.

“Accha!” he said, a Hindi interjection Mercy recognized from the Bollywood films she loved.

He touched her pale blue raincoat and held her away from him but didn’t let go of her arms. A still frame shot in a movie. A brief tableau. Two strangers meeting in the grey day. When they would never have met otherwise.

His gaze thrilled her. He was taller than Mercy, but not by a lot. She let herself be immersed in the exotic scent of him. Did she detect mandarin? Possibly amber and musk. Perhaps it was his delightful aroma that made her dare to venture a look into his warm amused eyes. They both smiled.

“Pardon me,” he said.

“I wasn’t looking where I was going,” they both said in unison and laughed.

Neither one of them carried an umbrella. A car rushed by and drenched him with the water from a nearby puddle.

“Oh gosh,” Mercy said. “Your suit is ruined.”

The man wore an impeccable black suit, but no trench coat to cover him from the rain.

“This is likely going to make a bad impression on my business associates. I have a dinner meeting,” he said, but didn’t seem that ruffled.

“My apartment is nearby,” Mercy said, “perhaps we can try to mitigate some of the damage at least.”

She held out her hand and he took it. The heat of his fingers on the pulse of her wrist surprised her. A wave of pleasure traveled to her breasts, along her spine and between her legs. Her blue eyes widened as she looked him in the eye. Why did she feel like kissing him? He was a complete stranger to her, albeit a good-looking one, an East Indian in a dark suit, who smelled nice. His hair was thick and black, falling over his forehead. Her mother always said she was too naïve. But now she was alone. She had nobody and hadn’t for a long time. For once she wanted to do something good for herself.

The winter had been hard. But now the spring was here. The rain had washed away all the snow and her residual guilt for putting her mother in the rest home, for letting her die there, alone, in the final stages of Alzheimer’s. This was the first day she felt free. And in celebration, the gods or random chance had sent her a handsome stranger. A man who had nothing to do with her old life. Not a health administrator, nor a counselor, nor a financial advisor dealing with her mother’s estate.

They entered her building. Mercy’s hands trembled as she unlocked the door to her apartment. He put his hand over hers to steady it. His body brushed up against her. She didn’t want to move, she wanted to be pinned there by his cock, inhale the rich perfume of his musk. But she did want to go in. This was the craziest thing she’d ever done. She knew and he knew that they were going to fuck.

She opened the door. He helped her remove her coat. She lifted her mouth up to his for a kiss. His rain drenched lips slid over hers. His fingers tangled in her long blonde hair. She unbuttoned her dress and let it lie in a pool on the floor as she stepped out of it. He remained in his dark suit and gazed at her.

“You are beautiful,” he said.

“So are you,” she replied, her voice husky with want.

They both just stood there. Two statues about to become flesh and bone. The blood heat of her arousal warmed her skin as he took her hand and led her down the corridor. This was obviously the route to the bedroom. It was a small apartment.

She should have felt vulnerable in her matching blue lace bra and panty set, alone with a stranger in a dark suit. But instead she felt racy. En route to the bed where he would put his cock inside her. He rested his hand on her naked back for a moment. It seared her skin. His hand moved lower to caress the valley above her ass. His fingers burning her flesh with need.

“I love your skin,” he said, “it’s like porcelain.” She sighed as he lifted her hair and placed a kiss on the nape of her neck.

Finally the man unknotted his tie. He draped it lightly around her neck, then brought it forward to move her closer to him. His placed his large brown hands on her breasts, still covered by the bra. Mercy was wet, uncontrollably wet. She wanted him, this man whose name she didn’t even know with the accent that spoke of foreign places, of spice and heat and colour and incense, of sitars.

He whispered a string of words she did not understand but they sounded soft and urgent to her ear, like a prayer. She removed her bra and panties. He took off his jacket. She pressed her hand to his chest. His heart beat quickly. She undid each one of his buttons and kissed his bare skin all the way down to the light fuzz of black hair at the top of his belt. He undid his belt. She ran her fingers along the bulge in his dark suit pants.

He undid his fly and lowered his trousers. He pressed his hardness against her, cupped her warm cunt.

He lowered his briefs. His cock was hard, thick and cut, its slit slick with precum. She touched her finger to it, then brought it back to her mouth for a taste. He was sweet. She thought of patchouli, fennel, jacaranda blooms. She wanted more. He pushed her onto her back on the bed. She parted her legs.

The rain came down in sheets, a veil of grey. She heard it flinging itself hard against her window as he slowly entered her wet cunt with his thick languorous cock. Like a snake, charming her, winding its way inside her body, overcoming her. She languidly caressed his coffee-coloured skin. They pressed into one another. They devoured one another skin for skin, lips, tongue, the inside of their arms, thighs, calves, buttocks. He kneeled down and put his tongue between her toes. She cried out in ecstasy. Never had a man wanted to kiss her there. It was so intimate.

They rolled over . She straddled him, stared down into his darkening eyes as she lowered herself onto his hard cock. She humped him inside her. He clasped her body into him, crushed her breasts to his warm, bare chest. Their hearts beat together. They made love, their rhythm like the slow and steady beat of a tabla. The rain pelted down outside. He brushed a stray golden lock of hair out of her eyes. She found this surprisingly tender.

Afterward he was the first to speak.

“Reminds me of monsoon season,” he said. “After the rain fell my brother and I would collect pandan leaves.”

Mercy’s head was on his chest as he talked. The pitch of his words rose and fell melodically like a chant. His heart beat strongly. She knew she could easily fall asleep this way, lying on the naked chest of a strange man who had just made love to her. And she dozed off and on listening to the rain and the sound of his voice.

“In Bangalore where I live, we have many thunderstorms,” he said as she traced the fine black hairs on his arms. She knew full well he was just passing through, this stranger who somehow found himself in Eastern Ontario, in Canada, in a bustling city, but a much smaller city than where he was from.

His suit remained blotched with rain, but now it was also wrinkled, his immaculate suit. He said he didn’t mind, that it would be a good memory. One he would take back with him to India.

Mercy bought biryani whenever it rained. To smell the aroma of fragrant pandan permeating her apartment and to remember the stranger in the dark suit.

© 2013 Amanda Earl. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.