Yes, yes, fucking yes.
Before they married, her husband had a reputation as a party boy. But, God bless him, he gave it up—the cigars, the scotch, the partying—for her and Jesus. He was the perfect choice for a woman of her status, but not her needs. Back home, she had no problem finding discreet, accommodating men who understood, even appreciated, a woman like her. Here in Washington, under the media glare and given security considerations, it required more than discretion and accommodation to achieve a smoky tryst.
Those first few years, she lived on memories and fantasy. More recently, she’d found a way—strangers in hotel bars, men on the move in town for only a night or two.
Men who smoked.
She told him to meet her in the men’s room—Bob, or Jim, or Bill, or whatever the fuck his name was.
He was reluctant, but she assured him it would be worth it.
He grinned and shook his head. “You’re not some kind of freak, are you?”
“I’m a little freaky. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
“We’re adults. We could go upstairs to my room.”
She stood, flipped a fifty onto the bar, and pushed her barstool in. “Meet me in the bathroom first. And bring your cigarettes.”
She sat on the toilet and positioned him in front of her. She looked into his eyes and told him to light up. He licked his lips.
“Okay,” he said, a little breathy now.
“Nice and slow,” she told him while stroking his cock through his trousers.
He gave a flicker of a smile. “You like that? The smoke?”
She watched it trickle from between his lips, watched him draw it back in a flash. She pressed her thighs together, just like in Daddy’s car.
“What do you think? Yeah, I like it.”
She unzipped his pants, reached inside, and took his cock in her hand. She drizzled saliva over it, her eyes never leaving his. He dragged deeply, exhaling smoke through flared nostrils.
“Fuck, woman.”
He hardened and she took him into her mouth. They were always primed, these men, overworked and deprived of sex at home. That’s why she did this here, first—to take the edge off, but also to test them. To determine if they understood and were willing to comply before taking them upstairs and fucking them hard and true.
She peered up at him, tongue flicking, one hand stroking, the other inside her dress pinching a nipple.
“Suck it,” he whispered, spewing smoke.
The cigarette dangled at the corner of his mouth. She bobbed and jacked, nursing him between her soft, red lips. Suddenly, his hips bucked and he grunted. She withdrew and his semen squirted onto the bathroom floor and wall.
“Shit. Goddamn,” he said. “Motherfucker.”
She stood, took the cigarette from him, and inhaled deeply. He took the hint and kissed her, accepting the smoke as it passed between them. His hands slid down the back of her dress and cupped her ass.
She nibbled his ear. “You up for this, Jim Bob?”
“I think so.”
She dropped the butt onto the floor and ground it out with the toe of her shoe.
“Come on,” she said. “I’m in 308.”
She sat on his chest, her knees pinning his shoulders to the bed. Her pussy oozed nectar bare inches from his face.
“That’s it,” she directed him in the near darkness, “just like that.”
He dragged on the cigarette, then licked her slit and suckled her clit, the smoke engulfing her cunt. She reached low and rubbed herself while he blew deep inside her, the sweet man.
When he was hard, she squatted over him, fit the condom, then lowered herself. Their eyes locked and he French-inhaled. She milked her nipples with her hands as she bounced and moaned.
He lasted and lasted and lasted, smoking and looking up at her through the trails and wisps. It hit hard and fast, like a storm off the Gulf. She spasmed, belly clenching, thighs shuddering. As a courtesy, she allowed him to finish pumping and thrusting while she lay atop him.
Before she left, they shared a final smoke, standing naked, side by side, at the window. Snowflakes showed in the lights of passing cars.
He knew enough not to ask questions.
The young man from behind the bar awaited her at the elevator. He’d abandoned his bartender’s attire in favor of the standard-issue dark suit and tie. He nodded, but refused to look her in the eye. A barely noticeable wire escaped his ear and disappeared into his shirt collar.
Downstairs, one of the men who’d eyed her in the lounge held the limousine door open. The beefy fellow she and “Jim” had encountered as they exited the men’s room was now behind the wheel.
A middle-aged woman in the familiar dark suit sat across from her, legs crossed primly, a look of disgust playing across her face.
“You smell awful,” the woman said.
“Just get me back,” she answered.
The driver checked the traffic over his shoulder and pulled onto the snow-slick street. “I’m on my way,” he said into his microphone.
When they made the familiar turn onto Pennsylvania Avenue and the large white house surrounded by the wrought-iron fence loomed in front of them, the woman in the dark suit spoke up again. “At least use the employee entrance. You can clean up there.”
“Emily” pressed her nose against the window, her breath causing fog to form. “Mind your own damn business.”
It really wasn’t that difficult. At first, she’d thought they didn’t know. After a while, she’d decided they didn’t care. She supposed her husband and his cronies had enough on their plate.
The car pulled to a stop.
Life, or something like it, began anew.
ROYAL ORLEANS
Years before Katrina and the devastation it visited on New Orleans, I lived in that beautiful city’s embrace for a while. I rode its streetcars late at night and jogged in Audubon Park come morning. I ate its food—raw oysters and red beans and rice and crawfish etouffee—and washed it down with an ocean of beer. I sunbathed in its blistering heat and cooled myself in the shade of its great live oaks. I slept naked on damp and wrinkled sheets and awoke to the scent of gardenia and jasmine drifting through my window. I bared my breasts in exchange for Mardi Gras beads and allowed myself to be felt up by strangers on Bourbon Street.
And, for the better part of a semester, I engaged in a blistering affair with one of my professors.
I was a freshman law student at Tulane, anonymous except to a few friends, and struggling to decipher the difference between appellant and appellee, the meaning of res ipsa loquitur, and the consequence of res judicata. My professor taught Contracts and was self-assured and well-known throughout the legal community. I sat in the front row of his class, my face shining with all the intelligence I could muster, lips parted, brown eyes wide open. For his class, I even managed a little makeup and the occasional skirt, a major change from the usual worn jeans and flannel shirt.
One day, about halfway through the semester, I noticed him watching as I sauntered into the classroom. I noticed him smiling at me before and after class. And I caught him looking at my legs as I sat, knees primly pressed together, ankles interlocked.
He was in his mid-forties. He was well-dressed—dapper, even—in his linen trousers and silk sport coats. He was smart, articulate, and good-looking. And he was manly in a way the young men I’d already been with were not. He was broad-chested and thicker about the middle than I was accustomed to. He wore a goatee, had large, soft hands, and a boyish smile. I was a svelte twenty-three. My legs were strong and lean, my breasts sat up high without the aid of a bra, my stomach was flat and as rippled as a washboard, and my ass, so I was told, was to die for.
I paused after class to ask him a question one day. It was a genuine question about one of the cases we’d been asked to read, not a mere ploy to gain even more of his attention. At least, that’s what I told myself. He waited until the other students cleared the room before turning to me. He l
istened and studied me while I talked. When I was finished, he cocked his head and asked if we could discuss it over a cup of coffee.
You probably know how these things go. One cup of coffee leads to another. Over the first cup of coffee, the professor answers your question. He flatters your intelligence and explores the pros and cons of various arguments. He claims that you are one of his best students and that he appreciates your participation in class.
Over the second cup of coffee, he pauses, places his hands on the table, and looks you in the eye. He confesses that he’s attracted to you, even though he’s married and has teenage children. He realizes he’s older than you and acknowledges that you probably have a boyfriend. He admits that there may not be a future in this, but still, he needs to tell you how he feels. Is there any chance his attraction might be mutual, or has he misread the situation entirely?
And because you’re young and unattached and relatively inexperienced. And he’s attractive and worldly and there’s really no chance of attachment to him. God knows, attachment is the last thing you want, anyway. And maybe because you’re flattered that he thinks you’re smart enough to keep his company and pretty enough to arouse him. And maybe because he’s got power and money and offers to take you places you’ve only dreamed about going before, you tell him yes. Why, yes, you’re attracted to him too.
So, he walks you across campus, along a leafy street lined with old mansions and great live oaks with Spanish moss hanging from their branches. The air is still and warm. When you reach the entrance to the house where you’ve rented a room for the semester, he glances about to make sure no one is looking, takes your hand, and kisses you. And yes . . . yes, you’re sure you made the right decision, because his kiss is like falling into a well that you never wish to leave. You kiss him back—tongues swirl, nipples harden, and suddenly you’re floating, floating, and you’ve said yes, you want to see him again.
A few days later, he took me to Brennan’s for brunch. We ate eggs Benedict and drank expensive champagne. Afterwards, he led me by the hand to a grand old hotel that used to be called the Royal Orleans on Rue St. Louis and—at least, before Katrina—was owned and operated by the Omni Hotel chain. It was the middle of a weekday afternoon and, save for a few conventioneers, the place was deserted. He rented a room for the day, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He kissed me in the elevator and I nipped at his ear. He was dressed in a white linen suit and a bow tie. When I pressed against him, I could feel him harden and his hot breath on my neck. I was in a thin cotton dress with only a white thong underneath. I was sweaty and dewy and damp between my legs. I wanted him, and I really wanted him to want me.
Our suite on the fifth floor overlooked the street. It was well-appointed with a four-poster bed, a fireplace, and a soft, inviting sofa. It was sun-splashed and dappled with shade from the nearby trees and buildings. I rushed in and flung open the French doors that led to our balcony. I stood grasping the wrought iron railing, inhaling the scene beneath me—the people, the horse-drawn carriages, the scents of food and sweat and liquor and lust. He stood behind me, lifted my hair, and kissed me lightly on the nape of my neck. He pressed his pelvis against my rump, and I could feel him hard and thick and long. He reached around and felt my breasts through the thin fabric of my dress, gently at first, then squeezing, then milking, then pulling at the nipples until I thought I’d scream. I laid my head back against his shoulder, swooning, gasping, then kissing and kissing and kissing.
Standing there on the balcony with the people below looking up my dress, he pushed the straps off my shoulders, sucked gently on an earlobe, and bared my full breasts to the world. He laid his soft hands on their nakedness, pressing them together, pinching each nipple between his thumb and forefinger. I reached behind and squeezed him through his trousers and was rewarded with a groan of pleasure.
“I love your breasts,” he breathed, and it sounded like an explosion in my ear.
He took my hand and led me back into the room.
“Don’t close the doors,” I told him. I didn’t want to lose touch with the city, the sights and the sounds.
He backed me against the wall next to the bed, held my hands out flat, and kissed my breasts, burying his face between them. His beard chafed; his teeth nibbled. He drew my skirt over my hips and pressed a knee between my thighs. I humped against him like a bitch in heat. His hands slid down my back and cupped a buttock in each.
“Oh, your ass . . .”
I was hot and willing and ready to be fucked. I pushed his jacket off his shoulders, unbuckled his belt, and unzipped him. I reached inside his undershorts and held his cock—his beautiful, slick, hard cock—in my hand. And at the same time, he slipped a hand inside my thong and touched my pussy. He felt me swollen and wet and smooth, because I’d shaved for him just that morning. Then he stepped back and looked me in the eye, smiling.
“You’re wet already, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You want it, don’t you?”
“Yes, God yes.”
“Tell me what you want.”
“I want you to fuck me.”
“You want to be fucked hard, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You want me to make you come, don’t you?”
I ground my cunt against his hand, trying in vain to draw his fingers inside me. “Yes, yes, and yes.”
“Beg for it.”
“Please, please.”
“Say it.”
“Please fuck me, please fuck me hard.”
“And . . .”
“Fuck me until I come. Make me come, please . . .”
And then his pants were on the ground along with my thong, and he took me standing up, right there, because we both needed it at that instant. I hooked a leg around his waist and he put both hands under my ass and pushed inside me. I arched my back to meet him and took him deep. I ground my clit against his pelvic bone as he thrust in and out.
He pumped me hard, my ass thumping against the wall. I whimpered like a little girl, singing in rhythm to the slap of his cock and the suck of my cunt. The tension built in both of us like a wire drawn taut between two galaxies, until the wire snapped and I started to come—one of those crazy, indecent times when you start and just keep coming and coming. I was clawing him and humping and crying yes, yes, yes when the white-hot pleasure in my pussy got even hotter.
He thrust and grunted and filled me deep, gushing, emptying his pitcher into my vessel and gasping over and over, “You sweet bitch, you sweet bitch, you sweet bitch.”
I whispered, breathy in his ear, “Yes, I am. I am your bitch, your sweet, lovely bitch, Lanie.”
The professor’s name was Jonathan, but he went by Jack, and said that I could call him “J” if I wished. He called me Lanie, “sweetness,” or “love.” I teased and told him he could call me “L.”
He bought me jewelry, flowers, expensive champagne, and fine dinners in the best restaurants. Although I’d been fucked before, and fucked well and truly by college boyfriends and men I’d met on summer jobs, I’d never been worshipped like this. He’d kiss me for hours, tease my nipples to a tremulous tension, then bring me to the brink with his mouth on my pussy.
His lips were soft and warm, probing and sucking, and I loved how he talked to me while he ate me, telling me how beautiful I was, how wonderful I smelled and tasted, how much he loved it when I came on his face.
Then, in the end, when I’d already come once or twice, but needed that final hard release, he’d slide his beautiful cock inside. We’d rock for what seemed like hours on the expensive bed, bathed in the tawdry lights of The Quarter in our suite at the Royal Orleans. After I’d spasmed with him deep inside me, clawing at the sheets and his back, he’d take it out and show it to me. He’d rub it between my breasts, across my lips, on my sensitive and needy clit, until he shot, thick and white, both of us watching and gasping and thrashing about.
On the days we couldn’t meet, he’d le
ave me notes and tell me all the things he wanted to do to me. He’d describe the positions he wanted me in—hands and knees, on my side, riding him, facing away from him so he could watch his cock dip in and out of my sweetness. And, of course, I’d masturbate to his notes and write back to him, describing in detail how he’d driven me to madness in my bed, in the backseat of a deserted streetcar, among the carrels in the law library, standing shamelessly at my window looking out over my gardened street in the early morning, my hand in my panties, working, working, working.
The semester ground on—Torts, Civ Pro, Property Law, Criminal Law, and, of course, J’s Contracts. I learned the language of the law—negligence and proximate cause, jurisdiction and venue, life estates and springing interests, criminal intent and double jeopardy, consideration and quid pro quo.
One day, J told me he’d been offered a deanship at another university. It was a long shot, but he was going for the interview. It was a logical next step in his career. A week later, I had a short story accepted at a prestigious literary magazine and began to wonder why I ever wanted to be a lawyer.
My story was about a man who lives a double life, dividing his time between two wives, two jobs, and two sets of children until he’s forced to choose, only to discover he cannot, because his one life is these two lives. The evening I received word that my story had been accepted, I stood on the sidewalk outside of J’s elegant home. I stood in the street like a vagabond and watched him dine with his family.
Afterwards, I took the streetcar to the French Quarter, the smell of electricity all about me, the heavy autumn breeze in my hair. I got off at Canal and Bourbon Streets and walked the three blocks to the Desire Oyster Bar. I ordered a straight shot of Chivas, knocked it back, and then I ordered another.
A tall, angular man sat down beside me. His brown and gold hair was uncombed and he hadn’t shaved for several days. The bartender slid a Dixie in the man’s direction and accepted a five in return.
Tight Women in Hard Places Page 2