Ben woke up in a strange bed. But it was the wrong strange bed. At least it wasn’t the strange bed he’d been hoping to wake up in this morning. Last night after their bath he’d dallied in Beatriz’s room, talking until she started yawning in the hopes she’d invite him to sleep with her. He was on West Coast time so her midnight was only his nine o’clock. Still, he would have willed himself to sleep at such an ungodly early hour for the privilege of waking up next to Beatriz. After one last kiss she’d shooed him out of her room, claiming she’d never stop molesting him and get to sleep if he didn’t go, scoot and vamoose.
“This is supposed to convince me to leave?” he’d asked.
The pillow she threw at him convinced him to leave.
Now that morning had come and Ben lay alone in his hotel room bed he could do nothing but stare up at the ceiling. Stare and wonder…
“This is a bad idea,” he said aloud to the empty room. “Isn’t it?” he asked and waited for an answer. “She’s in D.C. now. I’m in L.A. That’s a good sign, right? That we both live in towns known by their initials?”
Ben exhaled heavily.
“I’m an idiot. And this is a terrible idea, Ben,” he told himself. He felt that by speaking the words out loud there might be a shot at him taking his own advice. “You didn’t want this, remember? You didn’t want to get serious with someone so soon. You have a great job and a great life. You’re not a broke college kid anymore. Things are good. Why complicate things with some kind of long-distance relationship?”
A good question. A great question. One Ben made the mistake of answering.
“Because Bea is beautiful, and she’s smart, and she’s sexy as hell and funny and amazing…And you’re not a broke college kid anymore. You have a real job now. You can afford a long-distance relationship. And complicated? What the fuck is complicated about being with an amazing woman like Bea? Nothing. You just did it. Right?” Ben asked himself.
Right.
Ben started to get up. He paused, looked at the clock and rolled back down again.
“She said it was just work,” he reminded himself. “Did she mean that or is she doing the ‘I don’t want to get hurt again by you, you asshole’ thing? Which I deserve.”
Ben did deserve it. He’d been so single-minded about getting a good job after college that he didn’t even let himself consider having a serious relationship back then. Nothing was going to get in the way of him and his ticket to freedom. Not even Beatriz.
But things were different now. He had the career, had the freedom. Now maybe if he played his cards right, he could have Beatriz, too.
“When I said I was done with all women for at least a year,” he addressed himself, “I meant all women but Beatriz. I just didn’t specify that at the time.”
At that moment his phone buzzed. He picked it up and smiled at the text message from Beatriz. It read, What are you wearing?
Ben, as usual, had slept naked.
Leather chaps, he wrote back. And a clown nose. Don’t ask.
What are you doing? Beatriz texted.
Soliloquizing, which Autocorrect tried to change to “solo quizzing.” Ben changed it back.
Is that what they’re calling it now? We used to call it masturbating.
I masturbate with a Shakespearean accent, Ben replied. I have no idea what that means.
Me neither. Want a blow job in the shower?
Business or pleasure? Ben wrote back before adding a vital caveat. Never mind. My cock just told me it doesn’t care why. Coming.
Yes. Yes you are, Beatriz responded.
Ben pulled on yesterday’s pants and yesterday’s shirt and didn’t bother with yesterday’s underwear, yesterday’s shoes or yesterday’s socks. He did brush his teeth, which was as much for his benefit as Beatriz’s. In five minutes he was pounding on her door.
“That was fast,” she said, holding the door open for him. She had nothing on but a towel.
“I didn’t want to miss you blowing me in the shower. I’m not late, am I?” He started unbuttoning his shirt.
“I’m not even in the shower yet.”
“Then hurry up,” he said, throwing his shirt off. “You’re late.”
Ben stepped into the shower and Beatriz joined him. He wrapped Beatriz in his wet arms and kissed her hard and deep. She tasted like toothpaste and heat. He pushed her under the shower, soaking them both as he drank the water off her lips and neck.
“I didn’t get to read the blow job chapter in the book,” he said.
“Don’t worry. I read it,” she said, wrapping her hand around him and stroking. He breathed deep as he grew even harder in her hand.
“What did it tell you to do?” Ben asked, slightly panting as she stroked him from base to tip and back again.
“This,” she said, and went down on her knees in front of him. She held him by the base while her lips focused their attention on the tip of his penis first, licking and teasing it while her hand gave it gentle squeezes. The blood started pounding and he grew thicker as she took him deeper into her mouth. Had he ever seen anything sexier in the world than her full lips surrounding him? No. No, he hadn’t.
She took every inch of him into her mouth and he nudged the back of her throat. He started to pull back, not wanting to choke her, but she grabbed him by the hips and held him in place as she sucked him deep before letting him go to lick him again and again. He reached down to touch her face and Beatriz grabbed his hand and placed it on the back of her neck. He took the hint and started to move his hips in small undulations, fucking her mouth with careful, controlled thrusts.
A breathy “yes” escaped his lips along with a few more grunts and gasps of pleasure. He never recalled being this vocal during sex before. Then again, he never recalled having this much fun during sex before.
Beatriz took his full length into her mouth again and cupped his testicles. Within a matter of seconds he teetered on the edge of coming. He held back, though, took a few deep breaths. He wanted to enjoy this moment as long as he could. As long as he could was about thirty seconds more. Beatriz’s hands on him, her mouth all over him, the heat of her tongue, the wetness of her lips…It all felt so good he couldn’t hold on anymore.
“Bea,” he gasped as a warning. Gentlemen always warned.
Beatriz ignored the warning. He came hard in her mouth and she swallowed every drop of him.
She turned her face up and let the water cascade over her skin. He pulled her back to her feet.
“That was…” he began. “No. I’m done. I don’t have the words. You sucked my vocabulary out with my cum.”
“You don’t need to talk anyway. I’ve got better plans for your mouth.” She kissed him again, kissed him as if she meant it—the best kind of kiss.
After they finally broke off the kiss, Beatriz turned around and handed him the shampoo. He had way too much fun washing her long, thick hair. The back scrub turned into a massage. As the water poured down on them, they kissed and touched and licked and held each other until Beatriz pulled back and kicked him out of the shower. He apparently took up too much room for her to shave her legs. Outside the bathroom, he dried off and dressed in yesterday’s clothes again. As soon as Beatriz emerged wearing nothing but a towel in her hair, he kissed her goodbye.
“I have to go back to my room and change,” he said.
“I’ll see you at the lunch.”
“We can go in together,” he offered. “You know, like a date.”
“A date? Us? Together?”
“Is that weird?”
“Incredibly,” she said, but he saw the twinkle of amusement in her eyes.
“So no?” Ben asked.
“We’re not dating. We’re not a couple. I don’t want people to think something’s going on that isn’t,” she said.
Ben stared at her.
“I just came in your mouth.”
Beatriz glared at him.
“Okay, good point,” she said, smiling. “Lunch it is then. Come back here when you’re ready?”
“Absofuckinglutely.” He kissed her again and left her naked and wet in her hotel room. Why was he always doing that? Walking away from her when she was naked? He considered this habit a personal failing, on par with heroin addiction or serial killing and something to be overcome as soon as possible. He’d get medical attention if necessary.
He changed clothes in his room. He gave himself a once- and then twice-over in the mirror. Lunch was a casual affair today. He’d put on khaki shorts and a fitted T-shirt, which was his usual day-off uniform. July in upstate New York. He had every right to wear shorts, right? And he did have good calves or so his ex-girlfriend always told him. But was this outfit too casual? Would Beatriz like it? Would she think he looked too casual? Or would she think he looked cool and confident?
“Oh, my God,” he said to himself. “I’m a man. Men don’t worry about their outfits.”
He changed clothes twice more before leaving the room and knocked on Beatriz’s door wearing slacks and an Oxford shirt.
Beatriz answered the door wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
“Dammit,” Ben said after one glance at her.
“Hello to you, too, stranger,” she said, letting him in the room.
“Sorry. I had shorts on and then I thought it was too casual.”
“It’s just lunch. And it’s July. And you have great calves.”
“I told myself all of that.”
“Start listening to yourself,” she said and kissed him. “Here. How about this?” Beatriz pulled off her shirt and shorts, took off her bra, and changed quickly into a strappy sundress. “Feel better now?”
“I just saw your boobs.”
“So…?”
“I feel much better now.”
They walked into the hotel restaurant together. Ben wanted to walk in holding Beatriz’s hand but she’d been slightly hesitant to even go to lunch with him. He decided not to push it. He hadn’t told anyone he and Beatriz were having sex this week. No one knew and apparently Beatriz wanted to keep it that way.
“Hi, kiddos,” Henry said as they took their places at the table. “You all find something fun to do last night? Movie? Evening stroll?”
“No, we just fucked a lot,” Beatriz said after putting in an order for tea and water.
Ben nearly choked on his water. Henry and Claudia laughed. Apparently they both were well-aware of what they’d been up to.
“Sorry,” Ben swallowed his water without further incident. “I tried to talk her into the movie, but she would have nothing of it. She used me and abused me instead.”
“Poor dear,” Claudia said, patting his cheek. “You can stay with me and Henry. We won’t let the big bad Bea hurt you anymore.”
“Thank you, Claudia. I appreciate that. Your sister’s an animal,” Ben said and Beatriz put an ice cube down the back of his shirt.
Lunch was a festive affair, everyone talking and laughing at once. Ben gorged on lunch. He usually never ate this much, but he figured he’d lost about two pounds just in semen in the past twenty-four hours. Might as well dive in. The rest of lunch he spent talking with the other groomsmen, friends of Henry’s from his work. He already knew Mark, Henry’s brother. They all promised Mark they would not allow the wedding planner to oust him as best man just because he was shorter than the rest of them. Mark thanked them profusely. He said that it was only fair that Henry got the height gene as he took the brains gene. Henry agreed.
Even as they talked and joked, Ben kept glancing over at Beatriz. The sun had come out and cast a golden light through the windows. He couldn’t stop staring at this beautiful woman and remembering how she’d looked naked underneath him, her skin flushed with desire, her nipples hard and her breasts pert, her flat stomach quivering from the orgasm as her clitoris pulsed against his fingers.
And then Ben had an erection.
Dammit.
He willed it away by concentrating on his drink, on his conversation, on the faces of the other groomsmen. He looked at Henry making an obscene gesture with a French fry. That helped. Erection gone. He kept his eyes off Beatriz. This was lunch, a wedding lunch. He needed to focus on his groomsman duties and not think about Beatriz or sex or anything of the sort.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning around he saw Beatriz standing behind him. She handed him a note written on a paper napkin and left the restaurant.
He opened the note.
Come fuck me, it read. Chapter four is waiting for us.
Far be it from him to disobey the direct order of a napkin.
“Gotta go, guys,” he said. “Duty calls.”