Lost in Hotels

by Martin, M.

  “This is my roommate, Amber,” Jamila says as Amber tightens the grip she holds on some dude seated next to her who looks like a mix of an indie rocker and an American farm boy. “And her boyfriend, Alex.”

  Alex stands and extends his hand with a firm shake, younger looking in the direct overhead light that reveals blond freckles and an uneven smile with bottom teeth arranged like an enamel labyrinth.

  “Nice to meet you, man, I’ve heard great things.”

  I wonder how he can speak such pleasantries when I essentially planned to take his girlfriend. This isn’t at all what I signed up for but it’s probably for the best. I tepidly resign myself into my seat ready to call it a night and chock the whole thing up to Jamila playing one of her mind games.

  “Alex and Amber wanted to join us for a drink, and I thought it could be fun,” Jamila eases into the conversation.

  Amber reaches for the stem of her white wine glass with the hold of a truck driver, and Alex avoids almost all eye contact with me.

  “Lovely to meet both of you really, but I have to say I’m a bit more tired than I thought tonight,” I confess.

  “Don’t get all girly on us, David. We cleared a weekend night for you, and you’re not going to douche bag on us.”

  Jamila doesn’t mince words. Amber and Alex look on in growing discomfort.

  “The fact is I know you’re a total pervert, but you’re also a hot pervert, and with the actor’s strike, things are a little tight for us this month. We could both use the help.”

  “Jamila, I’m more than happy to help you out without this.”

  “Save it, and the fact is Amber and Alex are in a relationship, so Alex will just hang out in the lobby to make sure everything is okay.”

  Alex motions a sheepish, boyish nod, and then looks away to show a silhouette of a guy who can’t be any older than twenty-one or twenty-two. This ruthless city pillages these kids for their only worthy commodity. My stare returns to Jamila who has spread her legs to show off a hint of fresh hair that I once begged her to grow back.

  “So you guys are a couple?” I look away but feel my desire growing to see Jamila have her way with Amber.

  “Yeah, Amber and I met in Iowa and came here together,” Alex says as he sips his tall, malt-colored drink with bubbles running up and away from the under part of the glass.

  “Did you meet in college?” I politely oblige the conversation.

  “Didn’t go to college, just high school, and after that we came here to LA.”

  “And how long ago was that?” I quickly ask.

  “It was about two years ago, sir.”

  The word sir sits in the air and astounds me. The calculator in my head equates the age difference around eleven years, which makes it a lot, but not enough to make it wrong.

  “Do you know why Jamila brought you here today?” I look into Amber’s eyes with a questioning stare.

  “David, don’t be a dick,” Jamila says.

  “No,” I say. “I want Alex to know why he’s here, and what was going to happen. The last time I fucked with Jamila—” I begin somewhat agitated that she would stage such a spectacle.

  “You ate me out; you didn’t fuck me, darling,” Jamila interrupts.

  “I told her whenever I’m in town next, let’s do a little experimentation, and get an extra girl to play along.”

  “Yeah, I kind of gathered that,” Alex says with less hesitation than I expected.

  “But that extra would have been your girlfriend, just your girlfriend,” I say with as much humility as possible, but the cut is obvious.

  “Yeah, dude, don’t make this harder than it is already.” Alex leans forward and sets his malty whiskey-coke-looking drink on the table.

  “So, what I’m confused by is why you’re here exactly, because I don’t play around with other guys, and it just makes it all feel very awkward.”

  Alex abruptly stands up. I stake my ground and make it apparent that there will be no group experimentation happening for me this night or any night.

  “David, I told him he could come and wait outside. I didn’t think you were going to come to the lobby, and it all got sort of confusing. He couldn’t stay in the car because we valet parked it.”

  “So you make me see the girl’s boyfriend who you want me to fuck,” I erupt with a mix of irritability from the time difference that when I look at my watch means about six o’clock in the morning London time.

  “Fine, so you don’t want it to happen now?” Jamila continues, “You want me to starve and have to work at the mall or go live with my parents or something?”

  A motionless stare between us is interrupted as Amber coughs ever so slightly, and I see Alex wrap his hand around her upper thigh. The innocence of his touch returns me to a more sexual feeling as her posture relaxes with the comfort of his hand gripping her soft white skin. A mix of jasmine in the garden lends a virginal aroma to the warm breeze that wobbles the giant white umbrellas and shakes the hanging foliage in an abrupt gust.

  “So let’s all go back to your room, and we can either say our good-byes with no hard feelings or figure something out. You’re making too much of a scene here for me, baby. I live in this town.”

  My thoughts return to Catherine, scheduled to be here in just twenty-four hours, and what could explode from this minefield of desperate people who could turn unmanageable in an instant. A scene in the Chateau would immediately result in my being banned, meaning that tomorrow I would have to explain why I wasn’t allowed in her hotel to visit.

  “Okay, one drink and then I’ll see you all off.”

  Amber and Jamila rise from the table but Alex remains seated.

  “Come on, mate, nothing is going to happen now anyway so no sense in just sitting here. We’re good, right?” I say, hoping to neutralize the night and end it on a positive note for this guy who must truly be having a tough time in life.

  Alex rises from the table and pulls up his saggy jeans. “Totally boss, all is cool.”

  The unlikely quartet makes their way back through the lobby as a flurry of eyes gravitate toward the two women as they pass. Alex isn’t as refined as Amber is; his jeans and shirt seem as if they have seen their fair shares of cycles in a public Laundromat, most likely with his trendy sport shoes worn out on the heels. He has an athletic build, one that would be hard to take down should things get messy, but I figure Jamila isn’t entirely insane, or at least I hope.

  With a turn of the key, we pile into my room. Jamila heads toward the stereo and turns off my Jay-Z remix and connects her iPod without hesitation. I busy myself with a bottle of wine that I open and pour without asking anyone else if they wanted a glass. I am still feeling heavy by the earlier conversation and somewhat hoping this will simply turn into a quiet evening alone.

  Jamila puts on some vintage Rolling Stones, one of her personality’s more positive but unexpected surprises. Like when I found out her family fled Afghanistan and lived in a refugee camp until she was six before they finally found their way to the states, thanks to an aunt in Florida.

  Jamila pulls the drapes and returns to the console. She opens her bag and pulls out a baggie of cocaine that she handles with a chemist’s caution while pouring it out over the glossy surface. She then licks her index finger as if it were white chocolate or the final bit of cake batter on a spoon. She cuts the cocaine with an American debit card she has ready, and then divides it in five hulky lines as she snorts the longest of them before saying a word.

  Alex and Amber approach Jamila, but with a distance between each other as if knowing what is to come between them. Alex inches in and takes the second line in two snorts, rising a minute, and showing the novice’s hesitation of taking the whole line.

  “Thank you, that’s a rush,” Alex mutters before making his way onto the terrace.

  “Who’s next? This whole nig
ht is all going to be a whole lot better with a little blow, babies,” she says.

  “Wait a minute.” I see Amber stop in front of the console. “Come here.” I gesture for Amber as she turns to Alex and then walks my way and takes a seat next to me on the sofa.

  I look into her pupils and see a color of blue so similar to mine, her hair like summer wheat, and skin marked with a permanent blush that’s either from the heat in the room or the intensity of the moment. All I can think about is kissing her just one time, just once, and then I’ll stop.

  I lean in and begin to kiss her soft lips in a forgiving, gentle rhythm that loosens her jaws and opens her tense mouth. We stand and kiss deeper and deeper. I glide my tongue around the slick edges of her perfect white teeth as she timidly enters my mouth with her own. Jamila joins us on the couch, grabbing me from behind to remove my jacket, and Alex vanishes from my eye line.

  My hands work across Amber’s face, firmly grabbing her mouth and lip with my fingers. Jamila rushes the moment by pulling off my belt.

  “No, leave my pants alone,” I say.

  I can feel my erection swell as Jamila gropes me like an adolescent girl in a movie theater or school dance. I push her hands away and move closer to Amber.

  My lips make it onto Jamila’s face; she duels for alpha position sexually, but realizes the desire for the unknown leaves me disinterested in her in this contest she cannot win.

  “Kiss her,” I say to Jamila in a command.

  Jamila looks at me with a mix of desire and surprise.

  “Kiss her,” I say again.

  Amber is faster than Jamila. She takes her lips and plants her hands on Jamila’s breasts with an adolescent stumble. Amber pulls off Jamila’s top as she stands there in that hot black skirt and her bare breasts that capture the light coming in from an adjacent billboard that also illuminates Alex’s eyes watching her through the glass that separates the terrace. I thought he would be watching what happens to his girlfriend, but a voyeur’s lust wins as he watches Jamila’s every move.

  “Take off your clothes, Amber.” I step back at a safe distance to watch.

  Jamila helps her with each piece down to her pink lace panties, which come off one slender leg after another. Amber stands there perfectly naked, her hips wider than I imagine under a narrow waist. Her nipples are framed in pinkish flesh and rising just toward the end with a silhouette that would humble any woman. The mirror on the wall reflects Alex still watching through the glass behind her.

  “Take off the rest of your clothes, Jamila,” I insist as she removes her pouf of a skirt with a stripper’s flirtation. She next removes her stockings and then her earrings that she carefully places on the table before returning next to Amber. Both women are standing completely naked. Amber is much taller than Jamila, a model’s figure next to a woman who gets by with so much in life with her perfectly pretty face and body that doesn’t nearly compare with its shorter portions.

  Alex doesn’t attempt to hide his presence on the balcony, he watches attentively with both women fully revealed to him. Despite Amber being the perfect form—the shape of an elongated pear that’s meaty on the sides and contours down to two perfect long legs—it’s Jamila that he concentrates on.

  “Get down on your knees, Jamila,” I say from my seated position. Jamila drops to the ground behind her.

  I get up, move closer to the couch, approach Jamila, and guide her head between Amber’s thighs. Jamila hesitates as I resist joining Jamila’s tongue with my own. She falls onto the couch and I back away again. She spreads her legs in an exotic invite as her eyes open to look at me, and then at Alex, who remains clearly in her eye line. Jamila jumps up, grabs me from behind, and rips open my YSL shirt. A button snaps off, flies across the room, and lands next to the door. I push her away again. I must stop.

  I didn’t want to be here as I near Amber and straddle from above with my body fully on the precipice. Jamila rises above Amber, forcing her to eat her out in a position of dominance that she took when I positioned myself to enter Amber and not her. I want to stop, but all I can think about is being inside Amber. She squirms in desire moaning for me to take her. She grabs her hair and body as if on stage or performing for an audience.

  As Amber begs me to enter her, I push Jamila out of the way. The thing about threesomes, with a third unknown partner, someone is left out in the lust of a couple who wants to be left alone.

  Jamila is fully naked and moves across the room and onto the terrace. I stare into Amber’s eyes, fully ready to be inside of her. Alas, this must stop before it is too late. An awkward and abrupt halt shivers through my body, and I collapse next to her in a sweated retreat. I stopped. I actually managed to stop. Her breath withdraws from exhaustion as a forgiving stillness engulfs the room, and I immediately know I made the right decision, regardless of how late and the fact that I’m still very much erect.

  Neither one of us said a word; both of us are probably relieved this didn’t go any farther. My hand reaches to Amber’s in a humble, excusing motion in hopes she won’t feel rejected or confused that I chose not to go any farther. But before she can gesture in return, the silence is interrupted. Jamila is on the terrace atop Alex and moaning in exaltation, both hidden behind the curtains and the very dark night. As I look at Amber, her peaceful spirit fades to emotion as her hand pulls away and eyes retreat from mine. I take my cue.

  There’s an echo with the slam of the bathroom door; a cold tiled heaven away from all that remains in the next room. What was I thinking? How did I let this happen? I begin to masturbate voraciously, wanting to rid myself of the poisons that make me ruin every good relationship I’ve ever known, even when it’s not my own. I pull harder and harder, and I finally erupt catapulting me away from that moment and into a solitary place where all I desire is to take back those last two hours. My dick falls limp as my inner regret cyclones. I pull back the shower curtain and pretend for a moment that none of that just happened, that no one still lingered in my room, and these wildly different paths hadn’t crossed in the whirlwind of a Chateau night.

  The hot water hisses as it labors through the old pipes of the building, and I stand under a cold spray that doesn’t have a massager or a rain head, just a simple chrome spout that sprays frigid water that envelops my body. Slowly, the water turns warmer and then almost too hot as the cold moves down my body. A warm, tingling sensation relaxes me to the point of urinating on the perfect white tiles.

  To the rear of the bathtub, a long mirror antagonizes me as I look at my bare body with legs beginning to show their oldness around the knees and my chest and shoulders that aren’t near as bulky as they were a few years ago. And my face, that face with my anybody eyes that are too spread apart with black circles above my big nose and lines leading down around the mouth that are far too deep for my age. Then there is this, this endless carnage of relationships that gets more and more complicated as my desire becomes ravenous for the unknown pleasure that leaves me here hiding and once again alone.

  The following morning I awaken to a city covered in a misty fog that leaves a slick residue on the patio even at the late hour of noon. Its wet cushions and consistent drip fall from the Chateau’s roofline, down its rusted gutters, and to the pavement along my terrace. I have a few hours to awaken fully before Catherine arrives from New York. I walk into the living room where the phantoms of last night linger through tossed pillows, ruffled furniture, and smudges on the credenza literally licked clean with not a grain of coke left by Jamila.

  “Hello, this is David Summers,” I say into the chunky old-fashioned cordless phone.

  “Yes, sir, how may we help you this day?” the perky receptionist responds.

  “Might I request my maid service as soon as possible?”

  “Absolutely, we will send someone straight up.”

  “And would you mind forwarding my request for a double espresso and dry wheat
toast to room service?”

  “Right away, sir. It shouldn’t be more than ten minutes.”

  My mix of jet lag and hangover haze has me retreating into bed where I lose myself in the plaster ceiling with its handful of cracks and faint smell of paint that comes across the uninterrupted morning. I imagine all the people before me lying in this very spot, some in the company of the one they love and others like me isolated and wondering if I would have even noticed the intricacies of the ceiling if in the presence of another. I also imagine what it would be like lying here with Catherine with no memories of last night resting heavy on my mind.

  A hefty knock on the door has me thinking espresso and not the ungainly Guatemalan housekeeper dressed in white with a smile dotted in metal-capped filling who waits on the other side in the company of her vacuum and cleaning bucket. I, standing there in just my white cotton sleeping shorts, leave me a little embarrassed when her eye line is more to my waist than my head.

  “You request housekeeping?”

  “Yes, come right in. I’ll just stay in the bedroom and out of your way until you’re done.”

  She enters directly into the messy living room and sweeps her gaze before going about the process of reassembling what was the visuals and memories of the previous night fade with each pillow in place, every pull of the drapes back to their check-in position, and moving the couch from where I thrust it while inside that young girl. As I withdraw to the bedroom, the door rings. I swivel back and open it to see a dapper twenty-something room service attendant who stands in a crisp white shirt that perfectly opposes the black espresso in the transparent cup.

  “Good morning, we have your espresso for you.”

  My near-nakedness is overlooked in lieu of direct eye contact with the guy who is likely a model or actor cast with his angular jaw line and James Dean looks that would likely emasculate lesser men in a single glance, especially when standing there in their underwear. He lingers in the doorway as I attempt to grab the tray from him with both hands.