*Explicit*

 When they got to the hotel, she thought they would go right to the room. They had been talking about it since they left Connecticut. Hell, they had been talking about it for six months.

Now it was about to happen.

But he gave the bellhop a $20 bill and asked him to take the bags up to the room and beckoned her to the bar. Stunned, she followed.

The bar was beautiful. A big dark cherry affair as one might expect to find in an old Western hotel. It had to be forty feet long, with the mirrors giving the illusion that it was just as deep.

He ordered a beer before she even got herself seated. And at that moment, she decided she might need a drink more than she needed him. While a glass of wine would usually suffice, she gravitated to the Martini menu in the napkin holder and in an instant decided on the Wet Classic. As she ordered, he added, “Make it a double.”

She raised one eyebrow. It was not lost on him, even though she was not certain he caught it.

When their drinks came, he drank half his beer in one swig, as she stirred hers. Neither spoke. As she took the first sip of her martini, he waved to the bartender and asked for a shot of Jack.

Again, one of her eyebrows raised, this time involuntarily, and neither one of them noticed.

She nibbled the olives off the fancy cocktail stirrer with some frustration. This he noticed.

He drank the Jack in one shot as soon as it came. “Come on olive girl, drink up,” was the first thing he said to her since they arrived at the hotel. For the third time her eyebrow crept higher.

He summoned the bar tender and asked for the check before she had hardly tasted her drink.

“I’m just getting started,” she protested.

“I’ll start you,” he said matter-of-factly, as the check arrived.

She finished her martini in three measured gulps. He left most of his beer, and whisked her to the elevator.

In the elevator he put his arm around her waist. But at the last minute before the door closed, a sweaty man in running shorts stepped on and pressed four. Their room was on seven.

The jogger barely stepped off before he pulled her close and kissed her. Gently at first. And then with more lip. She was hungry for his tongue, but he didn’t offer it. An enigma, she thought. An enigma.

The elevator bell rang, the doors opened, and they got off. She couldn’t remember if they turned left or right, or if they walked far down the hallway, but they were in the room. He flipped on the light and shut the door. The room was nicely furnished, but she did not notice. Her heart was beating so fast and hard, it was all she could hear.

He maneuvered her past the bed and up against the wall. This was not forward on his part. She had alluded her desire for this in an earlier conversation. He could not remember if that was in the car, or on the phone, or in an email, or last week, or six months ago.

She sighed loudly, and took a deep breath. He kissed her on the lips, again gently, and then with more passion. More lips, and finally the tongue she was craving. He kissed her neck and then her collarbone.

She thought – hoped – he was going to pull away her blouse and undo her bra.

She reached between his legs, but he moved her hand away. “We are going to do this my way,” he whispered in her ear, while taking a bite.

The wetness welling inside of her moved, and she could feel it on her inner thigh. Her nipples were hard with expectation. And then he surprised her by releasing the clasp on her skirt instead, and having her pinned against the wall with the weight of his body, he slipped off her panties and dropped between her legs.

The blood rushed to her head and she thought she was going to pass out.

In an instant he pulled the desk chair around and hoisted her black-stockinged legs onto the impromptu platform. She slid her butt down to the back of the chair, opening herself to his face.

He tasted her.

She wrapped one of her legs around his shoulder and stuck a heel in between his shoulder blades. This made him shudder and he had an unexpected release. Well, that’s out of the way, he thought.

He tasted her again and kissed her lips. And his tongue found a spot she liked and she moaned. He put a finger inside of her and she came too.

He stood up and slowly unbuttoned her blouse and unhooked her bra and helped her out of her clothes, except her stockings and heels. She was still half standing on the chair when she lost her balance and nearly crashed into a floor lamp, but he caught her fall against the wall.

She was ready to go again. He led her to the bed and kissed her breasts.

She wanted him inside of her.

“Can I touch you now?” she whispered. He nodded affirmatively, still kissing her hard nipples. She felt her way to his crotch and squeezed his balls. They both felt him re-harden. She wiggled toward him and he moved to her. He could feel the small patch of neatly manicured hair against his head, pointing the way toward her readiness.

He slipped half inside of her and she was about to come again, when he changed his mind and pulled out. She gasped in disappointment, which he took as a sign of satisfaction and he smiled unwittingly to himself. He grabbed her by the hips and rolling her over, pulled her to the edge of the bed, exposing her bottom to him.

Again he slipped his finger inside of her.

“That’s not going to do it this time, sailor,” she said as a matter of fact.

He removed his finger and inserted himself.

“How’s that?”

“Better.”

She arched her back and rolled her hips. He did her thoroughly and she was satisfied again. When she was finished, she stood up, leveraging him out of her. He thought that was all, but she turned around and grabbed him and pulled him toward her as she dropped down to take him in her mouth. “She stopped long enough to say, “Mmmm, I taste good, don’t I?”

In a moment of his weakness, she was able to knock him over on his back on the bed. She took the opportunity to climb on him. He relaxed and this time, she fucked him. She was satisfied again, and again, in short succession, mostly of her own doing.

He met her on the second time. And they were done.

***

The next time they saw each other was on the platform at Stamford, more than a year later. They were both waiting for the 8:08 and while there were plenty of other passengers, they were as obvious to each other, as if they were there all alone.

He wished he had something stronger in his cup than coffee, and considered walking away, when their gazes collided. In a defining moment he walked over to her. She pretended to look for something in her bag.

He offered, “Hey, how have you been?”

She looked up with an expression of confusion, which masked panic. “OK?” she replied in query, as if he were a total stranger making the vague but personal inquiry.

“I thought you would have called me back.”

She stared at her feet.

“Especially after Richmond.”

Her toes curled.

She looked up, making brief eye contact, and started to form an explanation, an excuse really…

The public address system interrupted her, “The next train to New York arriving on track four. Please watch the gap!”

She had only gazed away for a moment, but by the time she collected her thoughts, he was gone.

###

Author’s Notes: 

I was traveling on Amtrak one morning, returning to Washington from business in New York. When the train burst out of the North River tubes into the daylight of the Jersey Meadows, I realized that the attractive thirty-something woman with dark hair sitting next to me was distraught, and her eyes welled with tears. Out of sympathy I asked her where she was going, but instead, she told me where she had been.

Earlier in the morning she came down on Metro North from Stamford, after a chance encounter on the platform with a former lover. In pieces, she shared an entire story and was not shy about including even the most intimate details.

She got off in Wilmington, and by the time the train arrived in Washington, I was able to condense her story into words, also trying to include her lover’s perspective. When I stepped off the AmCoach at Union Station and the conductor warned, “Please watch the gap,” I knew I had a title reflecting the disparity.

2015 Kirt Van Buren