It was already noon on Sunday when the phone rang.  It was Ben, calling from his new tropical fish store.  
 "Ella went to Jamaica with Chuck yesterday on Wednesday, left me with her apartment keys.  Wanted you to feed her fish."  
I groaned, let out a deep sigh, and scratched myself.
 "You know, her and I just broke up - what does she think I am: a complete fool?"
 "I know, but they put me in this position, too..."
He seemed embarrassed.   It was out of his hands.
 "Alright, I'll come by there in a couple of hours to pick up the keys - but I'm doing it for her fish, okay?"

I went to the toilet, pissed and flushed.  I threw water at my face and over my head, combing back my hair with my fingers.  Naked with damp hair, I went into the kitchen and fetched a beer.  I screwed off the cap and took a big swig.  Back into the bedroom I went, scanning the clean clothes pile in the middle of the floor for fresh underwear and socks.  Found them, and then pulled my brown cords and blue longsleeve shirt out of the dirty clothes pile.  I put the underwear on and then the pants and shirt, and then sat on the edge of the bed.  I turned my head and looked at my own aquariums, one containing a dense jumble of green plants and duckweed and the other a dozen fat, young convict cichlids and a few tattered, plastic plants.  At least my fish were well fed.

I took another couple of swigs off the bottle and then put on my shoes.  I finished off the beer and felt better.  I then got my wallet and keys, putting them in the front pockets of my pants.  I walked out of my apartment, locked the door and deadbolt behind me, and went down the stairs and out the hall into the lighted, warm, outside world.  I got into my little Honda. I put the key in and waited for the engine to turn over.  Once I had ignition I headed north up 17th Avenue in the general direction of my destination.

Ben's fish store was only ten minutes away.  I knew where that was.  However, I didn't know where Ella's place was.  Once I got up to Ben's I pulled up to the curb next to the shop in a fifteen-minute zone and got out.  I didn't bother locking my door.  I wouldn't be there long.  I went inside.  

Ben came out from behind the front counter wearing a long face and handed me Ella's apartment keys.
 "Here you go.  You know where she lives now, right?"  He pretended that I knew.  
 "She never told me.  I guess it wasn't a priority."
 "You don't know?"
 "No.  Probably didn't want me peering through her windows and jerking off."
He chuckled and gave me a slight smirk.
 "I'll write it down."
He got out a yellow sticky pad and a pen and proceeded to scribble down the address.  He then handed me the note.  I read the address - Christ!  She lived clear out in Rockwood: across the river, beyond the stretch of the city...clear out in the east county!  At least a forty-minute drive.
 "Shit!  There goes my day!"
 "Sorry about that..."
 "Don't worry about it.  After all, I'm only doing it for her fish."

I said goodbye to Ben, went back outside, got back into the car, and started up.  I headed east on a side street that I knew would eventually hook me up with Halsey going east.  From there I could hit the interstate that would lead me into Ella's neighborhood. It was as if I could see the whole day going down the toilet.  Get it over with as soon as possible.  Feed the fish once.  Ella would be back in four more days.  If the fish had made it this long, one feeding would be enough to stretch them out until that big, black bitch got back into town - if she remembered that she was back here to feed them herself.

So I took the soon-to-be demolished Lovejoy ramp and went across the river on the Broadway Bridge.  I followed Broadway through inner northeast Portland into the snarl known as the Hollywood district.  Once there I looped around until I found Halsey, which made for a pretty smooth drive except for all the busses.  Closing in on Gateway got out off Halsey Street and hit the freeway, heading east.  Lots of trucks.  From I-84 I took the 181st exit and went south to Burnside.  I took a left, running parallel to the trolley line and headlong into Rockwood.  Almost right away I found the apartment court where Ella had recently moved, according to the handwritten note of Ben's.  I read the apartment number on the note and pulled into Ella's assigned spot.  Her car must have been over at Chuck's.  I wondered how long since she had returned to the apartment since moving her junk into it.  I saw the apartment number on the door through the windshield.  I turned off the engine, set the brake, got out, locked the door, and went up the stairs.  I saw the deadbolt and the doorknob, both with locks.  I turned the knob and found it was locked.  I pounded the door above the deadbolt and found that the deadbolt was secured, too.  I pushed the key into the deadbolt lock and it turned stiffly, unlocking the latch.  Then, not thinking too hard, I tried the same key on the doorknob lock.  It went in fine.  I turned the knob and smiled to myself.  Real safe apartment this was.  I opened the door, pocketed the keys and went in.

The apartment was dark and cluttered.  I found a light switch and turned it on.  It was a mess. What furniture there was there lay shoved against the sliding glass balcony door.  Everything small sat stuffed in boxes: piles of clothes on hangers lay draped over them.  Someone went to work putting things away in the kitchen: a few dirty glasses and utensils lay in the sink with some other utensils being sorted in the drawer.  From an adjoining room I heard a faint hum and figured it was the air pump for her one remaining aquarium.  Ella apparently kept her fish in her bedroom.

I went into the bedroom and was surprised to find the bed there, the spread rustled and crumpled, as if someone had actually spent the night there.  Maybe Chuck had boned her in there, in exchange for helping her move.  Most of the time she didn't need an excuse to do her, though.  Hey, Ella takes it when she gets it.  

Along the wall stood one of her tanks - the only one set up with fish in it - a crusty, 70s-era O'Dell 29-gallon show tank on top of a two-by-four stud and cinderblock stand.  Light from an overhead shop light set corner-to-corner over the rim.  A small group of Butterfly Rams swam about in the putrid water, their bodies skinny not from a recent fast but a lifelong famine.  She was never home to feed the fish!  Sinewy strands of bubbly green alga grew aimlessly out from the rocks and gravel, threatening tentacle-like to reach out and draw a hapless passerby fish into its gooey mass.  Where there weren't algae or bare patches of sand there were dust-bunny-like gatherings of fish feces, ropy turds, and crumbling craps collecting on the calm, currentless surfaces about.  

I found a small can of Tetra Min flake food on the floor next to the tank.  I unscrewed the lid, finding a couple of pinches of flakes to pitch into the tank with my prodding fingers.  I put the lid back on the can and set it back down on the floor.  I then sat down on the edge of the bed to watch the fish peck greedily at the substance as it drifted downward through the water column.  They seemed hungry but were weakened by their involuntary starvation.  A few of them that went over the flakes were able to get them down.  The others couldn't get it down: they either picked at the food or chewed on it spit it back out.

Sitting at the edge of the bed I glanced about the room.  I leaned back, arms supporting my shoulders.  Yes, it was real.  This was her real spread beneath my fingers.  More boxes and clothes lay about but not so much as the rest of the apartment: this room she used.  I sat there awhile, thinking about how it used to be.  I looked out toward the curtain-covered windows to my left, at the light filtering through, and there, on the floor between the bed and the outside world lay a pair of women's panties.  I leaned over on my side for a closer look.  They were satin-shiny and red - a bright red like I hadn't seen before.  They were Ella's panties!  I picked them up for a closer, more thorough examination.

Thong-like and spandex-stretchy, I rubbed the fabric between my fingers.  These must be a recent addition, I thought.  She never wore these for me.  I smiled and thought how happy these must make her latest beau.  I held them before my face and couldn't resist.  Holding them there, I turned them inside out, exposing the whitish fabric underneath and rolling the crotch part between my fingers.  Then, with my index and forefingers behind the shiny red outside fabric I brought the garment up close and sniffed at the part which would have sat tightly pressed against Ella's small and warm, black box.

The response was swift and immediate.  Blood began flowing up into my soft tissue.  My cock began to rise.  Hmmm...it smelled nice.  The aromas rising from the cloth: a gunnysack carrying the catch of the day hauled in direct from the man in the boat himself.  I pressed the fabric into my face and against my lips.  My Ella, my dear sweet little Ella.  Hmmm.  That poor, dear sweet little thing she is.

I knew I was all alone in the apartment as I laid back on the bed, pressing the panties against my face, rubbing and tasting their essence with one hand and unzipping my pants with the other.  I reached down and pulled my underwear down so that the waistband pressed up against the bottom of my balls, introducing my hardening member to Ella's newly acquired domain.  "Oh Ella, you worthless creature, you selfish bitch!  You are going to get what you deserve, you horrible cunt!"  I began to stroke myself, pulling at my meat a few times while lying back on her bed.  "You merciless little monster!"  I envisioned her bringing herself over the top of me, lying against my chest as she force-fed herself on my throbbing purple-redness, her lovely breasts pressed up against my stomach.

I was getting there fast.  Too fast.  A sweat broke out from my brow and ran down the sides of face.  I felt the surging of certain viscous fluids pump through my vessels.  I stroked and stroked as a small beadlet of lubricating goo emerged from my purpuescent head: a bit of oil to prime the pump and clean the tubes, something to slicken the friction of my hand stroking my firm flesh.  

"Oh Ella...you bitch, bitch, BITCH, BITCH!"

I was going to come at any second.

I didn't want stains on my pants so I took Ella's panties off my face and shoved them into my lap, holding them over my parts with my left hand while still pounding my meat with my right.  And then I went.

"Oh, Christ!  Christ!  Ella!  Ella!  Ella!"

I closed my eyes as I thrusted myself into the satiny garment, a series of jerking spasms met with warm flashes running through my body and my sloppy goo impregnating the magenta textile of her left-behind ways. I twitched and flinched and then lay there silent, dank musk running from my head in tiny rivulets and wheezing for air.  Instinctively I used her panties to wipe up any goo that managed to trickle down my shaft in the hazy aftermath, still massaging my penis for the last few dribbles of orgasmic fluid.  I let the underwear lay there for awhile, holding myself and them together, my eyes closed and myself savoring the hot energy that rushed and swirled through my pipes.  It was higher than any high I had with her while she was with me: I smiled with deep satisfaction.

I fell asleep on her bed; my hands still occupied with her traces or myself.  I woke up after awhile.  It was dark outside.  I looked down at my groin.  My hands held clutched my now-softened dork and Ella's extra-soiled underwear.  I sat up and pulled the underwear off myself.  Folds of the fabric clung together with my gluey spoo.  I threw the panties to the floor, right where they were when I found them earlier, looking at them for a minute or two.  I then zipped up my pants.  I wondered if she would ever notice the change.

I looked back at the fish.  They were still thin and weak.  Deciding that I gave them my best, I stood up, turned, and walked out.