Plaza Erotica

by Gia Sola

  Luke watches Maya nibble at the pretzel and then lick her lips again. He leans over to kiss her salty mouth but then changes his mind, stopping abruptly - and noticeably, he hopes. “I’ll restrain myself, but that bartender poses no threat.”

  “Do you” - Wendy touches his arm--“come here often?”

  “Do you” - Luke turns and smiles at her - “always interrupt?” He lays practiced fingers on each of their knees. And then understanding that his hands are welcome to stay just where he’s placed them, Luke says, “How fortunate to be free to do whatever pleases us. Don’t you think?”

  “We were just talking about that,” Maya says.

  “Talking about what?”

  “About fantasies,” Wendy says.

  The atmosphere in the booth is heavy with pheromones. Luke is enjoying the aroma. “Ladies, shall we dance?”

  “There’s no music, is there?” Maya says.

  “Are you not paying attention to what we have right here?”

  “Oh, you mean that kind of dancing? The cha-cha.” Maya nods at Wendy.

  Wendy nods back. “What do you think, Maya? Shall we invite Luke to join us for a drink at my place?”

  “There’s no need to go out into the cold, ladies. I’d rather cha-cha with you girls right here at the Plaza,” Luke says. He turns from one to the other, puts both of his hands back on the table. “My rooms are right upstairs. Why don’t you come home with me?”

  Maya avoids Wendy’s glance and turns to Luke, “Did you call me at home yesterday?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You - your voice - is familiar. Actually, a lot about you is familiar...but for now I’m wondering about your voice.”

  “You like my voice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, if you were that interested in who was calling, why didn’t you answer?”

  “I was in the bathtub.”

  “She was in the bathtub fondling herself,” Wendy says.

  “A-ha.”

  Maya frowns at her, turns to address him again. “I didn’t get the call...for whatever reason. It was muted, but I heard the voice and I think he had a voice like yours.”

  “Next time, keep the phone near the tub, my dear...so you can pick it up and if you’re lucky maybe you won’t have to stop what you’re doing. Perhaps you’ll enjoy it even more.”

  “Oh? Are we talking about whispers in my ear?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Too much seems familiar.” Maya says. “And I really don’t like being called ‘dear’, my dear.”

  “Pardon me, I should’ve remembered. But what is life, if not a dream? And if something seems familiar, that’s good. There’s even a school of thought that says we’re comfortable with the familiar. Certainly, you’ve heard of that before.”

  “You’re uncanny, Luke...with excellent timing.”

  “Don’t think about the phone call; think about the moment, about the time, about where we are right now.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then we’ll see what happens next.”

  “Dare I ask what you’ve got in mind?”

  “I have in mind a grand seduction.”

  iv.

  The city is still half asleep with the rise of the sun, and the streets are empty. Their cab ride is silent. Last night’s unseasonable snowfall further muffles the stillness.

  As always, Wendy initiates the dialogue. “So, you like this guy.”

  “Is that a question or a statement?”

  “A statement. It was almost as if you’d had some history together, the way you fell into each other’s arms, the way you each seemed to know just what pleased the other, the way you squeezed me out of the picture every so often so you could be alone.”

  “Yes.”

  “It was very sexy, though, wasn’t it?” Wendy says. “What a man. What a cock. He’s got a gorgeous cock, doesn’t he? Very exotic.”

  “Very.”

  Wendy moves closer to Maya and brushes her hair away from her ear, as she puts her mouth up against it to whisper. “I’ve never seen a white man with a bronze-colored dick - God! And he is like a god, isn’t he? I mean, he sure has staying power. Damn! How many times did he drive that rod home? First you, then me, then you, then me. All night long! He didn’t need a devil’s dick to fuck us.”

  Maya turns her head and Wendy moves over to stretch an arm across the back of the seat. “It’s interesting that you choose that word, exotic,” Maya says. “It’s what I was thinking about us - about you and me.”

  “I wish I could’ve had some omnipotent perspective,” Wendy says. She’s still stretched out across the seat, her head back. “I mean, I would’ve liked to have been up in a corner somewhere, watching. Like the way he was watching us when we were playing without him. It was almost exactly like we talked about.”

  “Yes...quite a perspective,” Maya says, looking wide-eyed at Wendy.

  Wendy rolls her head away. “So...are we ever gonna do it again?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think not. Unless a lot of time passes, maybe.”

  The women stare out their respective windows, silent again. Two inches of snow have begun to crystallize on the empty streets; it crunches beneath the tires of the taxi as they ride across Park Avenue.

  Now Maya is the first to speak. “This is a hard thing for me to handle. Because you’re right, I like the guy. And I was right; it’s dangerous trying to live out all of our fantasies.”

  “Just one of Darwin’s cruel facts of nature, huh?”

  Maya rubs her cold hands together. “Yes,” she says.

  “I’m going to visit my family tomorrow.”

  “Across the morning sky, all the birds are leaving.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. It’s song lyrics, Sweetie. Have a good flight tomorrow. And a good time visiting with your ex, if you do. If you let me know your schedule, maybe I’ll take a cab out to the airport to meet you when you come back.”

  “Have a good time yourself...even if you can’t curb your appetite.”

  Maya smiles. “That shouldn’t be so easy for you to say, what with how you keep - ”

  “Shhh. Don’t say it. I’m in control of my behavior - and my appetite.”

  “Control. That’s an interesting concept. And appetite, yes. I’m almost a little frightened by it...by my own appetite for this man, I mean...afraid I could become a slave to him.”

  “From what I’ve seen, my guess is that he could like it too. So watch out...”

  “I’ll watch out. But I wonder which of us will try to run first. And how long it’ll take me to then forget him.”

  v.

  The Russian samovar was what did it. It very near filled her with remembrance.

  She’d once had one just like it she told him.

  He said this was it, that they’d knocked it over their first night together as they’d stumbled their way through her apartment, each succumbing to the other in a form of temporary insanity. She’d later brought it to his place and left it, as a gift, he said. He said he was very happy to have her back.

  How could she have lost the memory of him? Had their parting been that painful? Or had it been something else? She wanted to know. And yet, she was willing to start over, willing to forget. It was as if the universe was waiting.

  vi.

  Over the ensuing days and weeks the lovers meet, giving up all inhibition, restraint, and good judgment. Whether locking limbs or locking horns, each succumbs to an erotic grandeur; to a splendor that threatens to sweep away all their imagined misgivings.

  One morning after the hotel wake-up call, their heads next to each other on the same pillow, Maya says to L
uke, “Don’t count the time, my love.”

  “I don’t count the time,” he says. “You’re my planet Venus...my morning star.” He wraps her up in his arms and pulls her closer. “You bring out the best in me. And for once, I have no thoughts of leaving.”

  “But to inhabit time could mean you’ll change.”

  “That’s the sting.”

  Blondie

  It seemed a lifetime ago, the weekend in Paris when she’d gone to witness a marriage made in Heaven. Or was it Hell? She wasn’t sure. Either way, it was hot. She’d been there at the beginning, or so it seemed. But she couldn’t be certain of anything when it came to those two, who’d generated so much heat between them they were bound to burn themselves up. Although not yet.

  Ten years later, they’re still sizzling and living in France, and Wendy is still envious. Go, and be happy, she’d told Maya, but remember whom you leave shackled by love. She’d quoted Sappho more than once over the course of their brief erotic relationship. She’d felt so much power in those days. But with so much having either fallen away or fallen apart over the decade - the collapsed friendships, the misdirected career path, the love affairs that either ran out of steam or, worse, time, and now the fading beauty that comes with the loss of youth - she’s feeling powerless, alone, and invisible.

  She sometimes thinks about her pillow talk with Maya, whose goal had been to achieve something larger than herself. She wonders why she’d never felt that same sense of purpose, why sex had loomed so large in her life, and why today she had a heart full of love but nowhere to put it. They were questions she didn’t want to ponder - as if it were too late. And yet, the questions were always on her mind.

  She’s staring into the mirror behind the bar, thinking about her perceived invisibility, when she hears someone say her name.

  “Wendy, darling, the couple over there wants to buy you a drink.” The bartender rolls his eyes as he picks up her empty glass. “You want another dirty martini to help you finish that club sandwich?”

  She turns to see a businessman buried in his Blackberry; then looks across the way to locate the couple. They’re sitting against each other at the end of the bar. The man puts his forefinger to his temple and salutes her. He’s wearing a tuxedo. The red-haired woman is caressing the back of his neck. She nods at Wendy.

  It’s two o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday. Tourists, Wendy thinks, still all dressed up from their first night on the town in the big city, looking for something in a neighborhood bar. She wonders what that is.

  “Sure,” she says, smiling at the handsome twosome.

  They were in their late 30’s, jewelers from Chicago combining a business trip with pleasure, and they were staying across town at the Plaza. They stay at Plaza hotels all over the world, they told her, after she moved to sit beside them. They engaged in a lively (and somewhat lascivious) conversation, taking Wendy out of her serious, introspective mood. After an hour, she had them figured out. And they must’ve figured her too, because when she mentioned her friends in France, they told her if she wanted to play and was a good enough bad girl, they’d take her to the Plaza in Paris with them sometime, and then they said they’d like to interview her right now, right here, in New York.

  Wendy drank another martini before accepting their offer, getting into a cab with Betsy and Barry who invited her for a private cocktail at their hotel. She hadn’t ventured back to the Plaza in years.

  Barry had the kind of body she liked, lean and mean. Betsy had a pretty face, but like Barry, she was a gym rat, which gave her a body that wasn’t soft enough. The way they liked to play was fun, though. And so, once she was sure they wouldn’t be abusive, Wendy joined the game.

  Handcuffed to the bedpost for the next two nights and kept naked in their rooms during the day, she became, in effect, Betsy and Barry’s sex slave. But can a slut be a slave if she enjoys the role? They kept her clit swollen, her slit agape, kept her wanting, waiting, welcoming in a heart-pounding state of continual desire. She and Maya had talked about the idea of power plays but she’d never gone this far.

  She’d followed Betsy and Barry up to their suite that first afternoon and let them both kiss her. Then she’d watched as Barry attached a velvet harness to his naked woman and led her around on a leash attached to a diamond dog collar. When he told Betsy to sit up and beg, she’d crouched in a way that made her glistening pink bits open up like a rose, reminding Wendy of something Maya had said about her own fleshy petals. It was a heady experience to witness Barry and Betsy, but the memory of her interlude with Maya and her man Luke is what made her so wet. Thus, when B and B asked if she’d like to stay overnight, she seemed to have no choice.

  Except for the preview they’d offered, the first night with B and B gave Wendy no hint that she’d be so deeply drawn into their rolling, controlling love nest. By Saturday, she knew better. The couple’s roles would change with the phases of the moon - or so it seemed. It was a new moon on that first weekend when Barry had played the dom, keeping her and Betsy each on a leash. Betsy wore her diamond dog collar. Barry fashioned one for Wendy out of a rope of pearls that wrapped six times around her neck. The first direction he gave Betsy was to get on her knees and give Wendy a licking. After that, Betsy had leave to lick whenever she wanted. And it would be often because Betsy liked licking.

  If Wendy would’ve had a choice, she would not have objected, because ever since that night with Maya, she liked it too. She preferred men, but there was something especially erotic about the soft, scented curves of a woman.

  On Sunday morning, B and B ordered room service and when the tray was delivered, the women were in bed naked, except for their collars. Barry ushered the young waiter in, asking him to set the tray on the nightstand and pour the coffee. It was another scene reminding Wendy of that afternoon at the Plaza all those years ago when she and Maya had met Luke in the Oak Bar and then teased the waiter. It seemed as if the universe was trying to tell her it was time to reconnect.

  After the couple checked out on Monday, Wendy went home and placed a call to France. She and Maya hadn’t talked in months, hadn’t seen each other in years, but time and distance would never diminish their friendship, nor their fondness and attraction for each other. Maya was home alone when Wendy called and said she was surprised and happy to hear from her.

  “Oh, Blondie, I’ve missed you so much,” she said. She said her marriage to Luke was a good one and provided a sense of fulfillment; that he’d changed in some ways and so had she, and that besides Wendy, he was still her favorite fantasy. She said Luke now had a hand in the game of global economics, but they still shared a desire to engage in a different kind of exchange, that sexual power exchange she’d gotten a taste for back in New York. When Maya mentioned power exchange, their conversation moved to a different level and Wendy told her about her weekend with B and B.

  “I’m envious,” Maya said. “Luke and I would like to play with you too. It’s so long since we’ve seen you, and I don’t know when we’ll next get back to the States. Why don’t you come here for a visit when we go up to Paris? Luke sits in on meetings with the IMF, and I enjoy the singing nuns at the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. We’re finding good purpose in this life. Take a week off and meet us. Please.”

  The line went quiet but Wendy could hear Maya breathing, and when she spoke again, her voice was trembling. “We’ll do all the dirty things you like done to you - we’ll even make you give us a golden shower if you beg. Remember how we begged each other that first night? It was exciting, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve just teased me by telling me about the excitement you felt with that new couple, Blondie. Come to Paris and we’ll make you our slave. We’re a couple of Devils, you know.” Her laugh was high-pitched, nervous. “We take the notion of power seriously.”

  Wendy smiled at the mental image of Maya on her knees
, panties soaked with cum, corset undone, breasts heaving with desire. It brought up a visceral memory of the desire she’d felt herself that night. There was something about first times that stayed with a girl forever. Now Maya’s invitation stoked the still smoldering fire of that memory, and Wendy was nearly delirious with delight. Nevertheless, she told Maya she’d have to think about a visit, that she’d need time to think about it. She was exerting a power play of her own.

  When B and B came back, the moon was full and they said they were ready to howl. Refusing them wasn’t an option. Barry had wrapped and clasped the pearl collar in such a way that she couldn’t take it off without breaking it, and so she’d worn it the entire two weeks they were gone. The pearls, so cool around her neck and so smooth to the touch, had become a part of her, in a way. And even as they’d choked her, in a way, they served to remind her how vulnerable she was and how much she’d liked being controlled.

  She met B and B at the bar at the Plaza on the evening of their return and then they went upstairs, to a smaller room this time. “We don’t need a lot of space if we aren’t going to get out of bed,” Betsy laughed. But when she leaned toward Wendy for a kiss, again it brought up thoughts of Luke and Maya, and although she was turned on by the games she played with B and B, it’s what was waiting for her in Paris that made Wendy wet. So how could she resist?

  A week later, her nipples were a little sore and she was nursing the skin around her wrists and ankles where the chains had rubbed her, but she had the pearl choker off and in her jewelry box as a souvenir, and she was calling Maya back to schedule a visit.

  There’s a song about Paris sizzling in the summer. Wendy found herself singing it while she packed her bags. She wasn’t traveling with Betsy and Barry, but she would be staying at the Plaza Athenee.

  Her thoughts drifted back to the day when Maya and Luke had left for Maya’s conference in Paris all those years ago. It was their first trip together and when they got home, they made plans to move there. A year later, they did and Wendy had thrown them a bon voyage party, inviting all of their friends, including Maya’s ex and his new wife, who’d once wanted to engage Maya in a threesome but never had the pleasure. Now it would be her turn again.