"Freon and Foreplay"

By Dustin Triplett

Copyright ©2025

The AC’s dead,

and sweat clings like guilt.

Humidity sags on the ceiling fan

like a drunk uncle at a wedding.

Enter:

The Repair Guy—

clipboard tucked like a sidearm,

muttering diagnostics to no one,

half plumber, half prophet

sent to resurrect cold air from a rooftop tomb.

He fiddles

A cough of tools.

Then: “Gonna check the unit.”

He vanishes through the door like God on his lunch break.

And that’s when we start—

again.

Your thigh finds mine

like we’re back in high school,

dry heat be damned,

sweat-slick and giddy,

lips hungry with the kind of urgency

that makes morality feel

like an optional upgrade.

The couch groans louder than us.

A breathless pause—

Was that the stairs?

No? Good.

Your shirt halfway to nowhere,

my belt an afterthought.

We’re trying to undress time

before the next knock.

He returns.

Wipes brow.

Mumbles about coolant pressure.

I nod like I understand anything

but the phantom taste of you

still on my tongue.

“Gonna try something else.”

Gone again.

And we’re at it—

faster now,

like foreplay is a relay race

and God’s holding the stopwatch.

Our moans muffled

by the distant hum of rooftop suffering.

It’s hot enough to boil regret,

but all I feel is

yes.

More.

Now.

The door rattles.

We scramble.

Your suppressed laugh tastes like ozone.

When he comes back the third time,

Pillow sitting on my throne.

You’re flushed like a slot machine on a lucky pull.

He doesn’t ask.

Doesn’t care.

Just says, “gonna be a few more days”

And suddenly,

we don’t care.

Our shame has a mint aftertaste.

We’re already ruined.

Our bodies charged with heat

no Freon can fix.

One day the apartment will get cooler.

We won’t.

About Dustin Triplett:

Dustin Triplett is a St. Louis-based creative Swiss Army Knife with a heart full of half-finished poems and a head wired for emotional detours. He specializes in writing that lives in the in-between—those raw, reflective, and often uncomfortable spaces we occupy when life refuses to offer closure. His work leans into the messy, the liminal, and the moments we usually try to skip over.