Lost in Hotels

by Martin, M.

  I continue licking the inside of her legs, which she tries desperately to hold together. I push them apart with my arms and reposition myself above her. I attempt to prop her backward onto the seat while I take her fully from behind, shallow at first and then deeper and then so deep the warmness of her deepest desires are not beyond my touch. I continue harder and harder and the boat rocks back and forth. She gasps between sighs and moans that blur with the sounds of the surf and sea.

  “Tell me what it feels like,” she says. “Tell me what you feel inside.”

  “It’s sweet and sticky to the tongue and feels like perfection as I enter you and push harder and harder trying to get deeper and deeper inside. I can see you watching me when I open my eyes, and I pound harder and harder like this grabbing your mouth and sticking my thumb inside imagining it was my dick that I roll around your lips and make you beg for more.”

  “And then,” I say in breathlessness, “I listen as your voice edges over climax as I bring myself almost to the point of erupting before slowing almost to a stop, only to start it all over again.”

  Time slips away from us as we collapse in exhaustion cocooned in a blue picnic blanket laid along the interior of the boat. Catherine lulls into a soft sleep, and I lay wide-awake staring at the afternoon sky and attempting to keep our boat from washing into the rocks. Although exhausted, I don’t want to close my eyes for fear of missing a single second of this perfect moment in time. I lean my head back as far as I can, staring at distant Stromboli as the piercing sun dips slowly behind the island leaving my bare body in a slight chill. I cover Catherine gently with our one last dry towel, careful not to wake her and interrupt this idyllic moment where she is fully mine, and I can pretend she’ll never leave my side. The boat sways ever so slightly with each wave, like the even motion of a mother’s lullaby. I gaze at her perfect face and imagine a day where our other worlds fade away and there is only us.

  CHAPTER 9

  NEW YORK

  IT IS THE season of my redemption, or atonement, depending on the time of day. I linger at a point of no return between two men. In one realm, there is a life I no longer desire, and the other, a life that couldn’t possibly exist outside the confines of hotel suites. I am paralyzed in a perpetual state of inaction while compulsively looking for the next opportunity to run away to my other life. In the dark harrows of the months since Italy, I managed to distance myself fully from the man I so love without any explanation other than a busy life.

  That’s how I end up in a crosstown cab from my offices in Midtown to Gramercy Park, where I’ve booked a room for David during the weekend before Christmas. It’s an almost unbearable time of year for the deviant heart. Even unhappy couples pass by the window of my cab radiating a certain holiday satisfaction as they maintain held hands amid the pushing crowd of Grand Central and down Lexington and Park Avenues, where every condo and tower seems adorned with a human-size wreath or bold-red bow. My treachery only seems to reach new lows; defying my husband and child this time in our own city when I should be shopping for toys and manly gifts with which to surprise Matt. Instead, I lie about a work trip to Miami that will supposedly save me from having to work between Christmas and New Year’s, just to meet him one last time.

  In the meantime, David still fills my every dream, occupies almost every thought, and has made daily life excruciating to endure when I know somewhere in the world my hand could touch his, our bodies could once more meet, and this other lifetime that blossoms whenever he is near can begin again. But then there is my real life, the ever-anemic existence that I endure day after day in order to live up to my promise as a mother, even if inadequately, as I fade away as a person and from my own marriage that I don’t know how to quit.

  I didn’t want to repeat Italy, having slept with Matt immediately before the trip and then arriving to David raring to go. I had to face the wretched truth, having two men within such a short period and yet, only one truly possesses all of my heart. I tried to be unresponsive to David’s texts; I didn’t return e-mails sometimes for a week or even two at a time, and I allowed my voice-mail to go full in order to avoid listening to his repeated messages. Yet, David would still get through somehow, and to me, like a drug, I simply could not resist. During the weeks, my loneliness and despair would only worsen as his scent, the touch of his hand, and the taste of his lips would all but fade from my immediate memory.

  This part of the city has always seemed a sanctuary for me with its elegant apartment blocks that have weathered the far worse of world wars and fickle temperament of time with a stoic confidence reflected in their proud stone-carved facades and well-tended doors. Pin oak trees line either side of Twenty-Second Street, the insignificant trunks not big enough for signs or decoration under sensitive branches that flail in light wind and wither in the snow. Street level of the Gramercy Park Hotel is deceptively inconsequential with its modern squares of iron windows trimmed in super-sculpted topiary and cantilevered marquee trimmed in hundreds of bulbs that look as if they should blink or flash in lieu of their constant yellow light.

  I exit the cab as my eyes rise to the hotel’s upper-brick facade wondering which one is his of the windows hugged in masonry detail and decorative balconies briefly silencing my regrets of passing through this revolving door of deceit yet again.

  The lobby’s black and white checkerboard floor contrasts against imperial red carpets and equally red drapes with gold embroidery that interrupt stacked-timber columns and a mythical beam ceiling that rises above me and into a heaven of Murano chandeliers. Spare, exquisite pieces of original furniture picked through by designer John Pawson are placed like sculpture about a grand fireplace roaring for the season with walls festooned in ethereal artwork that transitions from Julian Schnabel’s biblically allegorical pieces to Damien Hirst’s kaleidoscopic butterflies, and Cy Twombly’s painted optimism. With the world outside consumed in its December stupor, the deserted lobby keeps my secret safe as I make my way to the front desk where a key should be waiting for me.

  “Can I help you?” says the timid clerk with her black and white Narciso Rodriguez uniform that’s too big in the waist.

  “Yes, I’m checking in. Actually, I’m with someone who has already checked into the hotel this morning.”

  “Guest’s name, please?”

  “Catherine, oh, I mean David Summers would be the room name.”

  “Catherine Summers?”

  “No, Catherine Klein,” I reply.

  “For security purposes, could I see a driver’s license to add your name to the room.”

  “Yes, of course,” I comply as she types with the frantic index fingers of a serial texter as she returns my ID by placing it back on the wooden reception counter.

  Under other circumstances, I would have been far better dressed for seeing David, instead of leaving from work in my boots and jeans and chunky winter coat that justified my quick trip to the airport and onto sunny Miami instead of this room-bound weekend that I hope is before me. Luckily, Matt didn’t question my hefty luggage loaded with winter clothes in lieu of a weekender bag I would usually take to South Beach. But Matt doesn’t really do questions, his mind never wandering farther than what’s right in front of him with a sunny spin he puts on anything that isn’t rosy. I can’t even imagine how he would handle jealousy or another man; he’s the type who’s always gotten what he wants with little deviation.

  I worry how David will react to me, whether he’ll want to see where I live or meet friends or coworkers during his weekend that seems awkwardly timed right before the holidays. However, any trepidation is immediately wiped away by the thought of seeing him if even for an instant as I’m but steps away from that breath of life that lays a press-of-a-button away up the wood-lined elevator with its industrial lightbulb ceiling. The doors open to a dark hallway lined in red carpeting with gothic numbers marking each door. I reach his room where just a thin piece of woode
n door separates me from that perfect physical world that exists just beyond.

  I stand in the doorway for more than a minute, turning off my phone and adjusting my jeans a little lower on my hips, ready for him to open the door. As I listen, I hear his voice on the other side, but not so loud that I can make out the words that become louder with my knock. A series of footsteps are like a drumroll for a swing of the door opens, and his elongated torso stands in front of me in a soft-striped, gray-flannel suit that frames his eyes hidden behind black reading glasses perched at the end of his nose, his hair slicked back a bit different than I have seen it before.

  “One second.” He says in a whisper as he leans in for a perfunctory kiss and then turns around in the small foyer and returns to the desk cluttered with a shiny computer and stacked folders that bring a real worldliness to this otherworldly place.

  He’s the modern juxtaposition to this space that feels rooted in memories long ago when Edmund Wilson lived here with novelist Mary McCarthy whose experiences around Gramercy Park resulted in The Company She Keeps. I picture myself working where she did, snuggled in the corner of the mohair sofa pulled carefully close to the long-working desk with leather-bound top that David leans into with two hands.

  An English bar cabinet draws the eyes with its backlit top that makes all the heavy crystal barware and stemmed wine glasses sparkle against the mirrored shelf. David is in mid-conversation discussing some sort of German bank that I remember him being involved with months ago. His face is serious and tense, his eyes more narrow than when we engage in conversations. His thick fingers grip a weighted ballpoint pen that he taps unknowingly on the overhead lamp that hangs awkwardly over the desk from a long arm that reaches from the corner of the room. Glass doors concealed behind thick red velvet curtains divide the living room and bedroom. I wheel my overstuffed carry-on bag on the thick floral rugs and past the bed to a walk-in closet where just two perfectly pressed white shirts hang next to a pair of jeans with a pair of track pants lying on the floor next to his running shoes.

  Then two hands sneak up behind me as I hang my new Lanvin black cocktail dress between his pants and shirts.

  “I can’t believe you actually came through,” he says.

  “What do you mean? I told you I’d be here,” I reply as I turn and freefall into his scent. His eyes engulf my own and make me lose track of what he’s saying.

  “I know, but there seemed to be so much going on in your life. Yet, so many conversations were mostly silent or me trying to coax something out of you that you weren’t ready to talk about or interested in discussing.”

  “Let’s just be here now for a moment. I want to enjoy this minute that I’ve thought about for so long.”

  “And yet you make yourself so off-limits to me.”

  He says this with a tighter grip around my waist as I lay my face on his shoulder. I wish I could capture this moment and carry it with me all my life, feeling the heat of his breath on the back of my neck and knowing he is only inches away. I look up and our lips meet again as I dreamed. The passion is too much for either of us to fight. His hands reach down the back of my pants and make their way to my most intimate parts as I fall deeper and deeper into him without our lips parting. Then he pushes me away.

  “Wait, let’s wait a second and settle in a bit before this all happens again,” he says.

  He can tell I need him inside me to start where we left off, but he hesitates and pulls me back in the living room where the skyline behind Gramercy Park shines with twinkling office towers and the illuminated crown of a nearby clock tower.

  “So what are you working on here in New York?” I ask in a tone that’s disconnected and off.

  “Actually, nothing. I’m still working mostly in Berlin.”

  “Wait, so this isn’t a work trip?”

  “No, it’s not. I needed to see you any way I could get you, and this is the only weekend that seemed to work.”

  “I can’t believe you did this just for me,” I say in somewhat disbelief that he cares so much for me and with an increased sense of obligation to make the most of this weekend in New York.

  “But what about you?” he asks. “You leave for your parents’ on Christmas Eve, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right, and through the New Year.”

  “So no talking you into Saint Barth or Courchevel, I take it?”

  “No, my parents are older, so I try to make sure I spend those moments with them while I have them.”

  “I respect that. I would do the same if my own parents were still around.”

  “I wish I could have met them. So what will you be doing?”

  “The Dale-Evanses invited me back to Somerset for the holiday, and then I’ll be in Verbier for New Year’s.”

  “That sounds fabulous. I’m so jealous.”

  “Yes, but you’re not into me enough to dare giving this whole situation a proper go, are you? Or at least that’s what you have me believe.”

  “David, it’s not that at all. I adore you. It’s just we have incredibly incompatible lives.”

  There’s something different about David. He looks away from me and out the window, avoiding our usual eye contact and his fluid conversation for a more distracted and distant tone. He’s seated farther away than he would usually be, his hands held tight in his lap.

  “But there’s something else, too, isn’t there Catherine?” he says, looking me dead in the eyes, his glazed as if just about to be engulfed in emotion.

  “Something else, what do you mean?” I ask attempting to mask the inner feeling of doom I feel.

  “You tell me, Catherine. If that’s even your real name.”

  “David, please don’t. Don’t make this harder for me than it is already.”

  “Harder for you? Harder for you? What about your husband? Your husband, who is a kind and decent man who sits at home right now watching your child while you go fuck your way around the world?”

  David says this in a soft monotone ache of words that my ears barely recognize upon hearing. My face struggles not to collapse, my hands tingle, and my feet feel as though they’ve fallen out from under me. There’s the awkward, silent noise of the accused as all of me searches in peril for some word, some explanation before attempting to rise from the sofa and leave the room.

  “No, you don’t.” He grabs my arm and pushes my body back down on the sofa with an intensity I have never before felt from a man.

  “You will not leave until you explain yourself to me,” he says.

  “David, please don’t make this any worse than it has to be,” I say as tears gush from my soul, and I lean back on the sofa.

  The pause of judgment and fear of the conversation that is about to come leaves my mind scrambling for what to say, how to fix, or save this from the very worst.

  “You are an abysmal human being. I’d call you a whore, but in fact you’re something far worse,” he says. “A whore is at least upfront and honest with the men they use.”

  “Stop, David. David, I don’t even know what to say to you.”

  “Then say something, Catherine. Please, just say something!” he yells across the room, throwing his folders to the ground as papers fly in the air.

  I want to run away, seeing the other side of his love and adoration, he feels like a stranger I don’t know. I see the pain in his eyes, more than I ever imagined he felt for me or was capable of feeling for anyone. He looks at me with the bewildered stare of someone who does not know me and me him, keeping his distance while still hovering without letting me move from the situation.

  “Speak already, please Catherine. I need to understand!” he yells.

  I want him to understand, even if I haven’t comprehended my own decisions. I want to know how he found out, what he said to Matt, and how this all happened. I feel at the expiration of life, and on this precipice, I was al
ways aware I would come to the end of this road, but with a far steeper cliff than even I had feared as all that I know and love now lays in ruins. There is no point of lying anymore; this is the end as these boundless secrets weigh heavy on my mind and have become too difficult to keep.

  “What do you want to know? Where do you want me to begin?”

  “Start from the beginning and tell me everything; I want complete honesty or at least as close to it as you are morally capable,” he says.

  With those words, my mind revisits that flight to Rio when I first saw him three rows in front of me on the plane. I watched him look at everyone else around him as some movie rolled on the screen, but he had no interest in allowing his incredible eyes to follow. I lingered behind him in the customs line and followed him to the coffee stand without saying a word or offering the least bit of notice. When you’re married, there are people you see all the time and your mind will follow sometimes for years. Certain ones linger in your cognizance, and you fantasize what if or being with them when under the touch of a scripted lover who no longer craves or connects with you or you to him. They are never more than a fantasy, they pass from your thoughts, and you’re thankful it was never more than a fantasy.

  “Then why were you such a cold bitch to me at first in Rio?” he says with no more courteous regard for cursing or kindness.

  “I could tell you were a guy who always got any girl you wanted, and I didn’t want to simply be one more, even if merely with my eyes.”

  “Were you even attracted to me?” he asks.

  “How could I not be attracted to you? Look at you; you’re quite possibly the most beautiful man I have ever seen.”

  “But that’s all you felt?” he says with a hint of tenderness.

  I think of our afternoon in Rio as the rain poured and the vibration of thunderstorms seemed to force us closer and closer together as if beckoned from God. The more I learned of him the more I waited for that distasteful comment or inappropriate sentence that would inevitably repel me. Yet, his words and intelligence only made him more endearing as the thoughts of my own life faded farther away, and the enticement of what could be lay before my hands and became too much to fight.