26 Nights

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

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said, I don’t think I want to write a book. Look, I get this all the time. I’m not a writer, I’m a businessman, and even that kind of reluctantly. My idea is to do as little work as possible, not give myself more. So as I said on the phone, I’m not really interested.”

  “I see,” she said. The waiter had brought drinks for us, and now she picked up her glass and took a sip. She was annoyed, but she didn’t want to show it. “In that case, Mr. Walling, why, may I ask, did you agree to meet me?”

  I shrugged. “Curiosity,” I said. “I wanted to see what you were like up close.”

  Her lips tightened. “I see,” she said again, putting the glass down very carefully. “Well then, I think we have nothing further to—”

  “You can’t blame me for that,” I said. “It’s natural. Famous lady like you, I wanted to see what all the fuss is about.”

  Her face was white. She was boiling, but she controlled it. “Now that you have seen,” she said, almost whispering, “I will not trouble you further.” And she started to get up.

  I didn’t move. “That’s it?” I said. “You’re not even going to try to talk me into it?”

  She stared at me as if I were a bug. “Into what?”

  “Writing a book, of course,” I said. “Did you have something else in mind?”

  She took a long breath. She had had a lot of practice controlling her emotions. “You,” she said after a moment, “are a very exasperating person.”

  “I bet you are too, sometimes,” I said. “Look,” I went on before she could start to leave again, “I didn’t mean to insult you or anything. I just meant that I wanted to see the person, the woman behind all the hoopla.”

  “Indeed,” she said shortly.

  “Indeed indeed,” I said. “I know there’s a real woman inside there someplace. I mean, sure you may be the most famous woman in the world, but you put your panties on one leg at a time just like everybody else, right?”

  Two little red spots appeared high on her cheeks. I thought she was going to leave for sure, but instead she took another sip of her drink. “Really,” she said. “You …” She took a breath. “People don’t talk to me that way!”

  “I bet there’s a lot of things people don’t say to you,” I said. “For instance, I’m sure everyone tells you you’re beautiful, but do they tell you you’re sexy too?”

  The red spots got larger. “Mr. Walling, I think—”

  “You are, you know,” I said. “You have a terrific body.” And I let my eyes fall to her bosom, small but shapely under the designer blouse, and rest there deliberately for a moment before returning to her face. She glared at me, but her eyes showed something more than anger.

  It was now or never. I leaned closer to her over the table, speaking softly but intensely. “I’d love to see it,” I said. “Your body. Naked, I mean. I’d love to touch it. Kiss it. I’d love to have it beneath me, I’d love to see you with—”

  “Stop it!” She didn’t shout, but she looked as if she wanted to. She was rigid and pale. “You can’t—what do you—who do you think—you must be—”

  “I must be what?” I asked. “Crazy? Why? Is it crazy to want to make love with you?”

  She gasped and started to leave. I took hold of her wrist, not very tightly, but neither did she pull it away. “That’s what I want to do, all right,” I said. “Fuck you, put my cock inside you, make you moan, make you crazy. Make you come. Over and over. I’d love to watch the great lady coming. I bet that’s really a sight to see!”

  I let go of her then. She didn’t move. She seemed paralyzed, hardly even breathing. I saw her swallow. It took a moment for her to speak.

  “This meeting is over,” she whispered emphatically.

  I sat back. “What about lunch?” I said.

  “Mr. Walling, you—” she began, but then stopped. She stood up. “Good-bye, Mr. Walling,” she said.

  I got up also. “Let me get you a taxi,” I said.

  “Thank you, I have my car.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Then maybe you can give me a ride back to my office.”

  She looked at me. Her face now was completely blank, devoid of any expression that I could fathom. For a moment she hesitated. Then she gave a very small shrug and walked toward the door. I followed.

  An impressive-looking limousine was at the curb and, as we emerged from the restaurant, a uniformed driver got out and opened the back door, touching his cap to her.

  “We’ll be dropping Mr. Walling at his office, Peter,” she said to him. I told him the address and then followed her into the car. The interior was quite roomy, and she sat as far from me as possible. But the partition was up between the front and back seats, isolating us from the driver, and the windows of course were opaque from the outside. My time was running out, but I couldn’t bring myself to give up yet.

  I slid closer to her. She glared at me. The anger and haughtiness in that glare almost stopped me. But there was also that other thing in her eyes.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Look,” I said, “it’s only about fifteen minutes to my office. Why don’t you tell your driver to drive around in the park for a little while?”

  Her anger turned to disbelief. “You are outrageous!” she breathed.

  “How long has it been since you made it in the back of a car?” I asked, moving closer. “A long time, I bet. Have you ever?”

  “If you touch me,” the lady said breathlessly, “I will scream.”

  “No you won’t,” I said, though I wasn’t so sure. But I didn’t touch her. I took a deep breath and said, “Please, pull up your skirt.”

  She only stared. If she was going to make a fuss, this was the time. But she only stared.

  “What?” she whispered finally.

  “Pull up your skirt,” I said. “I want to see your legs. I know you have nice legs. I’ve seen pictures.”

  “You—you—how would you—”

  I thought of reminding her of those nude pictures that had been published in the tabloids years ago, but I decided that was not a good idea. “I can tell,” I said. “Come on, I want to see all of them. I want to touch them. I want to be between them and feel them around me. Right here.”

  “I have … never … I …”

  “About time, then,” I said. “Pull it up.”

  “Oh!” she said.

  I waited.

  “I won’t,” she said. She said it very softly indeed.

  I waited.

  “No,” she said. “Oh, dear God,” she said. “Oh, I—” She looked at me. Then she looked away from me. Then she said, “God help me.” And she pulled up her skirt.

  Her legs were fine, covered with the sheerest of pantyhose. The front of the skirt was up to the top of her thighs, though she was sitting on the back of it. She still wasn’t looking at me.

  “I want to see them bare,” I said. “Take the hose off.”

  She shook her head slightly. Then she closed her eyes. She reached up beneath the skirt to her waist and pulled the pantyhose down, hitching herself up off the seat to do so. She pulled them off and dropped them.

  “Gorgeous,” I said. And I reached out a hand and put it on her thigh. She jumped, but didn’t protest or make a move to push it away.

  “Why am I doing this?” she whispered again softly.

  “Because,” I said, as steadily as I could, “you are a beautiful and elegant lady who is also sexy and passionate, and who should be able to act like an animal when she feels like it.”

  “An animal. Yes. Oh, God …”

  I moved my hand higher. She gasped, and stiffened slightly.

  “Tell him to go around the park,” I again suggested.

  “I—I don’t know if—”

  I moved my hand all the way up.

  She fumbled for the little phone that she used to communicate with the driver, and pushed the b
utton. “Peter,” she said, “drive around the park, please. For—for a while.” She dropped the phone. “Oh, God …” she said again.

  I pulled her panties down.

  She clutched at me then. She held me by the arms and looked straight into my eyes. I felt that she was about to make some fervent declaration.

  What she said was, “You must never … ever … say anything about this … to anyone!”

  “Okay,” I said.

  She gazed at me a moment longer, then released me and slumped back in the seat, naked from the waist down, her panties around her ankles. It was an interesting sight.

  I started to fumble at my trousers, but I couldn’t just pull it out and go at her with my clothes on. Not with this lady. So I undressed myself as swiftly and gracefully as I could, given the circumstances. She watched me, breathing rapidly but not moving or speaking.

  “Show me your breasts,” I said.

  Her eyes closed, then opened. Her hands moved. She unbuttoned her blouse, pulled it open and took it off. Then she reached around to unclasp her brassiere, and she took that off too. I gazed at the gently rounded, shapely bosoms, then bent to kiss them. The nipples, already firm, became still harder under my lips and tongue as I moved from one to the other. I heard her catch her breath, then moan softly, and then her hands came up to softly stroke my body.

  I stroked hers too, and kissed it, and played with it, until with a small, breathless cry she slid down onto her back on the roomy car seat, one leg bent up against the rear of the car, the other dangling to the floor. I pulled myself up over her and tried to kiss her mouth, but she turned her head away.

  “No,” she whispered. “Just do it. Please. Like an animal. Do it.”

  Whatever the lady wanted. I found her and moved slowly, but firmly into her. She groaned, and her body surged against me, her arms coming up to clutch at me. For a moment I almost lost it, as I had a sudden realization of where I was and who I was doing this with; but then I stopped thinking about it and became lost in the pulsing body underneath me. One leg curled around me as I moved, slowly at first, then faster, and I heard and felt her panting breath at my ear, louder and louder. Then the panting broke into a soft, husky shriek, and I felt her tense beneath me, felt her spasm and slowly relax.

  Now I could think about it all right, and the thought of it kept me going, drove me to make this something she would remember. She still wouldn’t let me kiss her, and she didn’t say a word, but we grappled there in the back of that car until she had cried out twice more in ecstasy. And, finally, I did too.

  Only then, as we lay there recovering our breath, did she kiss me—not lengthily or passionately, but a real kiss nonetheless. And then she gently but firmly pushed me away. We sat up and began to dress in silence. She told Peter to drive to my office, and from then until we arrived there she said only two more things to me.

  First she said, “We should not, I think, meet again, Mr. Walling.”

  “Whatever you say,” I said. And we never have.

  And just before she dropped me off she said again, “You must never, under any circumstances …”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I promise you I won’t.”

  And I never did. Except for Miss Greenglass, of course; but Miss Greenglass is the soul of discretion.

  And now you.

  Chapter 11

  KISS ME, MISS GREENGLASS,” I WARBLED, throwing myself carelessly into my chair and putting my feet up on my desk. “Anoint me with oils, shower me with accolades, proclaim my glory to the four winds, and make me a cup of coffee. Not necessarily in that order.”

  Miss Greenglass, as I had expected, did none of these things. She barely glanced up from the papers on her desk.

  “I take it,” she said dryly, “that you were successful.”

  “Did you ever doubt it?” I inquired, though I myself certainly had. “The bigger they are, Miss Greenglass, the harder they fall. And the harder they are, the—well, something or other …”

  “I will make you that coffee,” Miss Greenglass said. “You appear to be a little giddy, Mr. Walling.”

  “I’m just in a good mood,” I said. “And why not? I am one step closer to winning our wager. And not only that, but I already know just who the next step is going to be.”

  “Indeed,” she murmured. “And who is that fortunate lady, if I may ask?”

  “Ask away,” I said. “You remember me telling you about the girl on the plane, when I was coming back from my brief liaison with Bonnie in Monte Carlo? The stewardess who I thought was named Catherine, with a C, but who, alas, turned out to be Katharine, with not only a K but with two A’s, as in the redoubtable Miss Hepburn.”

  “Of course,” Miss Greenglass said.

  “I had to turn her down, poor thing,” I said. “But now she is in luck, for her proper time has arrived.”

  “If I were she—” Miss Greenglass began.

  “Ah, but you’re not,” I said. “But don’t worry, Miss Greenglass. Your turn will come too.”

  “We’ll see,” Miss Greenglass said.

  A couple of phone calls to the airline, a discreet application of charm and a couple of well-crafted falsehoods soon got me the information I wanted. Katharine, it seemed, was still flying the New York-Monte Carlo route, and was scheduled for a flight departing JFK that Thursday morning. I had Miss Greenglass book me a seat. First class, of course.

  I was looking forward with eager anticipation to meeting Katharine again, and in fact had been doing so ever since our abortive encounter in that tiny airplane lavatory. My blood warmed when I recalled the ample shapeliness of her figure in her blue stewardess’s uniform, and the frank, unrestrained ardor she had demonstrated before I had called a halt. I could still feel the sensation of that agile, passionate tongue thrusting halfway down my throat as we kissed. And the warm breath of her ardent mouth caressing my hard flesh as she had almost … damn … almost …

  But now nothing stood in the way of our delayed consummation. Nothing, that is, except Katharine.

  I thought she might not remember me at first, but as soon as she saw me at the plane entrance as we boarded, her body stiffened and her deep brown eyes became chips of dark ice. I saw immediately that this was going to be a bumpy flight.

  “Hello, Katharine,” I said, smiling as I handed her my boarding pass. “It’s great to see you again.”

  “Good morning, sir,” she said stiffly. “First aisle to the right. Have a pleasant flight.”

  I had no chance to talk to her then. I found my seat and waited until the plane had taken off and the first flutter of drink-serving and other initial activity was over. Katharine passed my seat several times, but didn’t even look at me. Finally I unhooked my seat belt and went in search of her.

  I had to bide my time until I could approach her while she was temporarily alone in the small stewardess’s cabin. “Katharine,” I began. “I wanted to—”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she said coldly. “Go back to your seat.”

  “I wanted to talk to you,” I said. “About what—”

  “I have nothing to say to you,” Katharine said, and tried to move past me. I blocked her way.

  “If you don’t move, I’ll call for help,” she said flatly.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Call everybody on the plane. I’ll tell them that I’m flying to Monte Carlo and back just so I could get to see you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “It’s true,” I said. “I want to apologize for what happened last time. And to explain.”

  She snorted. “It ought to be a pretty good explanation,” she said, and added—unnecessarily, I thought—“you son of a bitch.”

  Now came the crunch. I have asserted that I try to avoid lying to women whenever possible; but there are times when that principle must take a backseat to practicality. Since making my fatal wager with Miss Greenglass, I had several times been confronted with the decision as to whether a more or less straightforward explanation o
f that wager would further my cause, or hinder it, with a particular lady. With Abigail, for example, it had worked like a charm. But given Katharine’s present attitude, my intuition was that it would not have a salubrious effect.

  So I lied.

  “The thing is,” I said, sighing deeply, “at the time, I was very much involved with someone—someone I was trying to remain faithful to. Even then our relationship was in trouble, but I felt obligated to try to save it.” I gazed soulfully into her eyes. “I admit I was tempted—I wanted you so badly—I mean, who wouldn’t?—and I almost fell … but at the last minute, I—I just couldn’t be false to her.”

  Katharine showed no expression. “But now you’ve broken up, I suppose,” she said.

  “Yes,” I sighed. “It’s over. And I’ve found myself thinking about you. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

  At first she just looked at me, but then, slowly, she smiled. She looked at her watch. “I have a few minutes,” she said softly. “Want to share a bathroom again?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Come on.”

  Of course, I should have known it was too easy. But perhaps my last conquest had made me overconfident; and besides, Katharine’s alluring body tended to disrupt the thinking process. I followed her up the aisle, and waited while she slipped into an unoccupied lavatory. When I was sure no one was looking, I slipped in after her.

  As before, the tightness of the space virtually forced our bodies together; but Katharine helped too. In a moment she was plastered against me, smiling up at me, and the sweet, yielding pillows of her breasts were mashed against my chest, with her loins grinding against mine with a slow, incredibly erotic movement that had me hard and pulsing in seconds. I clasped her tightly and started to say something, but her eager lips were on mine, and then that wonderfully talented tongue was in my mouth and all was right with the world.

  She continued to grind against me as we kissed, and then I felt her hand moving down between our bodies, sliding caressingly across the throbbing bulge in my trousers, then finding my zipper and pulling it down. Her fingers searched and found and stroked, and all the time her tongue was playing with mine, as if in anticipation of greater joys to come.