26 Nights

by 26 Nights (Memoirs of a Contemporary Gentleman) [MF] (retail) (epub)

  Chapter 2

  BECAUSE MY DELICIOUS (IF UNUSUAL) WAGER with Miss Greenglass, which I was determined to win at all costs, stipulated that I limit myself to the alphabetical succession, thus prohibiting me from pursuing my normal habit of finding pleasure with any agreeable female who crossed my path, my search for the next lady in line (or as I humorously thought of her, my B-girl) was to my mind quite urgent; not because I had only an average time of one week per woman if I were to fulfill the terms within the allotted six months, but because I was accustomed to experiencing the joys of copulation nearly every day of my life. To me it was as necessary as the drink to the alcoholic, the drug to the heroin addict—with the difference that my addiction did no harm to my body, but on the contrary was most beneficial, perhaps even essential, to my physical and spiritual well-being.

  Thus, as I said, even as I was donning my clothing in the Brooks Brothers dressing room after my pleasant encounter with the winsome Abigail, I was searching my mental Rolodex for ladies I knew whose first names started with B. I had a quite fond and not too distant memory of Belinda Reynolds, the socialite and former editor of one of the high-fashion magazines (I can never keep them straight); but alas, she had recently gone with her husband to live in Monte Carlo. I could, of course, simply have hopped on a plane, but surely there were more convenient alternatives. I thought of Bonnie Packard, a slender and pleasingly passionate gallery owner with whom I had spent a night six months ago; but though I had enjoyed her pliant and eager body, her incessant chatter before, during and after our lovemaking had gotten on my nerves to the point of giving me a headache. No … I would think of someone else—or even better, find someone new, as a fresh experience is always more intriguing and stimulating for me than a repetition of past pleasures.

  As it turned out, my need was resolved (or so I thought) in a very simple and unexpected way. As I emerged from the dressing room and was making my way to the front door, Abigail came up to me, blushing quite noticeably, but smiling in a way that did wonderful things for my ego. “Mr. Walling,” she whispered. “I was just—”

  “My dear Abigail,” I said. “Surely after the past hour you might call me Steven, don’t you think?”

  She blushed harder. “Steven … I was thinking … about your bet … and how I might help, maybe …”

  “You already have, Abigail,” I said. “And most enjoyably, too.”

  “Well …” she said, looking away from me. “I—I have this friend …”

  “Oh?” I said. “Have you indeed?”

  “She—she’s very pretty,” Abigail murmured. “And she likes … well … she likes men …”

  “Excellent qualifications,” I said. “And her name is …”

  “Her name is Betty,” Abigail said.

  “Betty!” My luck was holding. “What a fine, sweet lady you are, Abigail. And how can I get in touch with this Betty?”

  Abigail handed me a slip of paper. “This is her number. I just talked to her. She’s expecting your call.”

  What a girl!

  “Not that she—” Abigail said hastily. “I mean, she didn’t say she’d—I mean, I don’t know if—”

  I smiled benignly. “I understand,” I said. “Don’t you worry, Abigail. You just leave that to me.”

  As it turned out, what had caused Betty—who was not, as she told me, generally fond of blind dates—to be receptive to the idea of meeting me was Abigail’s mention of the lunch she and I had had at Lutèce. During our phone conversation she mentioned it twice, making it quite obvious that she would not be averse to beginning our proposed evening together by dining on those elegant premises. I, however, avoided making a definite commitment on that score, as I find eating at the same restaurant twice in a row to be an even less exciting prospect than sleeping with the same woman on successive nights.

  Thus, despite the fact that Lutèce might have had the same salubrious effect on Betty as it had had on Abigail, I decided to take a chance and surprise her with the unexpected. Accordingly, I showed up at her door that evening attired in impeccable evening dress—and bearing a large brown paper sack filled with cartons from a local Chinese take-out establishment.

  Betty turned out to be an attractive redhead, perhaps a few years older than Abigail, with a friendly smile and a pleasingly voluptuous figure. If she was a bit taken aback at first by the unorthodoxy of my dinner plans, she was also, as I had hoped, at least as intrigued as she was disappointed. Soon we were sitting side by side on her sofa, the little white boxes scattered before us on her coffee table.

  Romancing a woman is second nature to me, and while I will not go so far as to say that my charm is invariably successful, long experience, steady application and beneficent gifts of nature have given me a certain confidence not unwarranted by my track record, as it were. It was not long before Betty and I were feeding each other tidbits with the cheap wooden chopsticks that had come with the meal; and it was but a short step from there to the nibbling of choice morsels from each other’s lips. This type of gourmandizing being conducive to a certain amount of dripping and spilling, we naturally found it expedient to remove our clothing.

  I am always open to new experiences, and there on Betty’s sofa I discovered some quite pleasant ones. Never before, for example, had I had my erect phallus wrapped tightly in Chinese sesame noodles, which were then eaten away by soft lips, sweetly nibbling teeth and hungrily slurping tongue. I also discovered how spicy a woman’s nipples taste under a thin coating of hot Oriental mustard, as well as the tangy flavor imparted to female flesh by a bit of soy sauce on the torso as one licks one’s way down. I needed no condiments, however, to enhance the essence of the lady when my mouth reached the juncture of her beautiful thighs. Nothing on earth can improve the taste of woman herself … nothing on earth or, I am certain, in heaven either. After some time we repaired to Betty’s bedroom, where without further benefit of Oriental viands we spent a long delicious night feasting only on each other’s flesh …

  Miss Greenglass was already hard at work when I arrived home the following morning. As I looked into the office with a cheerful (if somewhat sleepy) greeting, she regarded me with faint disapproval in her fine, dark eyes. Those eyes may also have held a tiny glint of amusement, but with Miss Greenglass it was difficult to tell.

  “Good morning, Mr. Walling,” she replied, and in her voice there was no trace of amusement at all. But she could not refrain from referring to our wager, in which, after all, she was both a party and a part of the pot, so to speak. “I take it,” she said, noting my attire and my unshaven condition, “that your pursuit of Abigail has been a successful one.”

  I smiled broadly at her. “Ah, Miss Greenglass,” I said expansively. “As usual, you underestimate me.” Sitting down at my desk, I leaned back and put my feet up, feeling quite smug indeed. “My dear lady, you do not—literally—know the half of it. Not only did I spend a most pleasant—and yes, successful—afternoon with sweet Abigail, but not being one to waste time, I used the evening to complete the second step in our most interesting wager. I have taken care not only of A, but of B as well.”

  Miss Greenglass’s eyebrows rose, the only sign of surprise visible upon her placid, but lovely, countenance. “Really, Mr. Walling?” she said. “That seems quite enterprising, even for you.”

  I looked at her sharply. “You aren’t doubting me, are you? I hope you know that I would never stoop to lying, even to win such a wager as this one. I suppose I could bring some kind of proof of each success, but …”

  “You misunderstand me, Mr. Walling,” Miss Greenglass protested. “Of course I have absolute confidence in your word. You do have many failings, but untruthfulness is not among them. I will trust to your honor in this matter.”

  “Good,” I said. “Because I assure you that I intend to go all out, and accomplish superhuman feats in order to win access to that splendid body of yours. Not to mention to avoid tripling your salary. Now that Abigail and Betty are behind me, I sh
all start this very day to search for a C. Why, at this rate, I could accomplish the whole thing in less than two weeks!”

  “I beg your pardon,” Miss Greenglass said, raising those eyebrows again, “Did you say ‘Betty’?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Beautiful Betty. But you don’t know her, Miss Greenglass. She is a friend of Abigail’s, and—”

  “But Mr. Walling,” Miss Greenglass broke in, “Betty is not a B name.”

  I stared at her blankly. “What?”

  “Betty,” Miss Greenglass said slowly, as if explaining something to a small child, “is not a real name, Mr. Walling. It is generally a diminutive for Elizabeth. So if indeed the lady’s name, as seems likely, is Elizabeth, you have already abrogated the terms of the wager by violating the alphabetical succession. I shall expect my raise as of the first of the month.”

  “Now wait a minute,” I said. “Wait just a minute here. This is crazy. Betty is the woman’s name. She calls herself Betty, everybody else calls her Betty, that’s the name she uses. Betty. It’s a legitimate name, and it’s a legitimate B. The bet is still on!”

  “I’m afraid not,” Miss Greenglass murmured. “Nicknames or diminutives are too easily come by, Mr. Walling. We were referring to true proper names, and I must insist on those terms.”

  “It’s a damned technicality!” I protested hotly.

  “A technical knockout,” Miss Greenglass said, “is still a knockout.”

  I reached for the phone. “First let’s find out if this is true.” Quickly I dialed Betty’s number, but received no answer. Then I called Abigail. Oh yes, Abigail told me, her friend’s actual name was indeed Elizabeth, but she hated it, so … With a sinking heart, I thanked her and hung up.

  “Look,” I said, somewhat desperately. “This is really not fair, Miss Greenglass, is it? We didn’t really set the rules about names that firmly, and I had no idea whatever that Betty would not count as a B. I’m sure if we put this to an objective arbiter, it would be seen as a case of—”

  “I hardly think that doing so is either necessary or desirable,” Miss Greenglass said. She paused a moment, deliberating, though her face showed nothing of her thoughts. At last she sighed gently. “Very well,” she said. “Perhaps there is reason for compromise here. Let us consider the wager still in force. However—” she added swiftly, “I must insist that Betty does not count, and that a legitimate B is still to be accomplished.”

  “But—” I began, but I could see that Miss Greenglass was not about to compromise further. I was relieved that our bet was still on, but nevertheless disgruntled at the invalidation of my two-in-one-day triumph. In my frustration, I felt that I had to get that pesky B out of the way as quickly as possible. Accordingly, I again thought of Belinda the social butterfly and of the lovely, but loquacious, Bonnie. As Monte Carlo was less convenient than the West Side, I immediately picked up the phone to call Miss Packard.

  “Steven!” Bonnie said. “How wonderful to hear from you. You know I was thinking about you only this morning, wondering when you were going to call me. You know, we had such a good time together, when was it, not that long ago, and I would just love to see you again. Oh, do you remember that night when we went to Mortimer’s and we ran into those awful people who invited us to their party, and then we went back to my place, oh Steven, wasn’t it wonderful, you are such a wonderful man. I was saying just the other day to Sheila, you remember Sheila don’t you? Well she’s getting divorced again if you can believe that, but anyway I said to her—”

  “Bonnie,” I said, “I’ll call you back.” I hung up. “Miss Greenglass,” I said, “book me on the first plane to Monte Carlo.”

  “What in the world brings you here, Steven?” Belinda asked when I called her from the airport.

  “I came to gamble, of course,” I said, which in a sense was true. “And I can’t wait to see you, Belinda. I can be there in—”

  “Oh, but I’m giving a dinner party this evening,” Belinda said. “Perhaps we could get together tomorrow night instead?”

  “I have to go back tomorrow.”

  “What? But—”

  “But I’m dying to see you, Belinda,” I said. “I’m longing to see you. To touch you, to kiss you, to—”

  “Steven! Really! Just because we once … well …”

  “And it was lovely. Wasn’t it?”

  “Oh … yes … yes, it was …”

  “I can be there in half an hour,” I said.

  “But my guests will … Oh dear … Well … I’ll leave instructions for you to be taken upstairs, and I’ll slip away when I can. But it will have to be quick, Steven. You understand …”

  “Even a moment with you, my sweet, is worth crossing an ocean for,” I said. “See you soon.”

  Sure enough, when I gave my name at the door of Belinda’s imposing residence, I was immediately taken upstairs to a bedroom and asked to wait. Within fifteen minutes Belinda came in. Though somewhere close to forty, Belinda was still a remarkably attractive woman, with an ample but well-kept body now shown to advantage in her formal dinner gown. Her blond hair was not, I knew, completely natural, but it complemented her still-youthful face, with cool blue eyes that could warm up very quickly under the right circumstances. Those eyes had a certain sparkle as they regarded me lying comfortably on the bed where I had been waiting.

  “It’s so good to see you, Steven,” she said. “But I’ve just managed to slip away for a moment. Even a hostess must go to the bathroom … but I can’t leave my guests for long.”

  “Then let’s not waste time,” I replied, and pulled down my zipper.

  “You are so wicked!” Belinda murmured. “But you’re right.” Lifting her dress, she reached beneath it to pull off her panties. “This will have to do,” she said; then, “Oh, Steven!” as I released my already stiff, but still growing, penis. “God, I hope Geoffrey doesn’t come looking for me!” Pulling the dress high over her shapely legs, she climbed onto the bed and onto me. “How is Geoffrey these days?” I asked somewhat hoarsely, as Belinda lowered herself slowly, taking me into her. “He’s fine,” she gasped. “Now be quiet, Steven.”

  I was happy to obey. After all, it could have been Bonnie …

  Chapter 3

  COMING BACK ON THE PLANE FROM MONTE CARLO, I must confess that I was feeling rather pleased with myself. In spite of the false step I had taken with Betty, and how close I had come to losing my wager with the lovely Miss Greenglass before I had fairly gotten started, I had managed to extricate myself from that danger, and to accomplish the first two stages of my progress within an equal number of days. If I continued to be so fortunate I would be able to conclude the whole thing in less than one month, rather than the allotted six; and with this pleasant idea in mind I allowed myself to envision, as I had so often before, just how that Greenglassian body would look when those severely proper garments were removed, and how that coldly forbidding exterior—which to my mind held the promise of such inner heat—would melt, and then burn, under my hands, my lips, the ardent passion of my lovemaking …

  This stimulating reverie soon produced a familiar stiffening in my trousers, which in turn brought me back to the business at hand—the necessity of locating the next lucky lady to act as the instrument of my advancement toward the prize. Viewing the situation in the light of reality, I admitted to myself that it was unlikely that this initial rate of progress would continue, and that I must make what hay I could against leaner times. So once again I began leafing through my mental card file, this time for females of the C persuasion, at the same time keeping myself alert, as always, to the presence of whatever comely companions might come my way.

  Naturally I was flying first class. I do this not only for reasons of comfort and convenience, but because it is in that section that the youngest and prettiest of the available stewardesses—pardon me, flight attendants—are to be found. The airlines, of course, will not admit to this, indeed will deny it strenuously; but facts are facts, and one has
only to use one’s eyes.

  I used mine to single out two particularly attractive prospects among the several attendants as they performed their various duties. I did this out of habit, but whereas ordinarily such attractiveness would have been my first priority, now the primary consideration must be first names; and so I set about exerting myself to learn them.

  Why was it, I wondered with some irritation, that flight attendants no longer wore name tags? Was this another supposedly praiseworthy result of the feminist movement? One would have thought that the absence of such identification would increase rather than mitigate the objectification of these women. In any case, I missed them. Not only was it easier to get acquainted when you already knew the name of the lady fluffing your pillow or serving you lunch, but they also provided a good excuse for examining the shape of her bosom while pretending to peer nearsightedly at the little pin on her chest.

  This was not, however, an insuperable difficulty; all the ladies were gracious, and though some responded more obviously than others to my easy charm (I have explained that said charm was a combination of natural endowment and long practice, and at the risk of appearing boastful, I shall, for purposes of truth, abandon any further attempt to be modest about it) I had no difficulty in obtaining the necessary information. There was Patricia, Samantha and Meredith (the latter, alas, one of the two I had picked out for their particular comeliness), and there was a brief appearance by a lady co-pilot named Bridget. There was one other, the second of my two initial choices, whose duties kept me from engaging her in conversation for some time.

  Nor did I neglect my fellow passengers. Gazing around the cabin, I spied several young women who piqued my interest—but unfortunately they weren’t wearing name tags either. I solved this problem rather cleverly, however. In the course of a trip to the bathroom I stopped by the stewardess’ lounge, where Meredith was attending to something or other, and while engaging her in further conversation I managed to get a glance at the passenger manifest on a clipboard hanging from the wall. A quick perusal yielded just one female name beginning with C—Carolyn McGrath, seat L-13. On my way back I checked it out—but alas, Carolyn turned out to be a plump, silver-haired lady of at least sixty-five. I decided to continue the search.