by Tracy Quan
“Your cock’s so hard,” I murmured.
My hand reached backward and found the condom, which I opened and popped it into my mouth while he played with my hair. Then I rolled it onto the head of his cock with my lips. When it was securely anchored, I began sucking. My mouth moved up and down, while my right hand was bringing the condom firmly to the base. My left hand was pressed against my panties, feeling the outline of my lips.
For a second, I imagined Duncan, getting hard in the SUV at the thought of me using my mouth. I pressed harder against the outside of my panties.
I should take my hand away and do this later! I forced myself to stop, but my pussy was very swollen, twisting against my panties. As my mouth continued to work, an image from inside Duncan’s SUV flickered through my head—me sitting in the front seat, fully clothed, leaning over to unzip his pants, touching the fabric around the zipper.
“Baby!” Milt sighed. “You are so hot right now. I can tell.”
Well, I am, but he’s not supposed to be able to tell! I forced my mouth lower and found that I couldn’t stop myself from moaning a little. But I normally fake this. What’s going on? I can’t stop thinking about Duncan in the SUV, coolly contemplating my possibilities, trying to figure out whether he wants my mouth or—
“Get on your knees, and let me fuck you,” Milt said.
But not on the carpet! We’ll do that some other time. I turned around and climbed onto the armchair, allowing him to pull my panties down toward my knees. My bra was still on, a nice touch. I slid my finger against my lower lips and was shocked at how wet I was.
Where did I put the Astroglide? Oh God, it’s on the table—and though I know I should get up, for safety’s sake, just this once … I’m so wet, and this is sooooo unprofessional, everyone knows that condoms without lube are a major major no-no, but it’s annoying to have to get up when you’re already on your knees like this. And you don’t want your customer to feel distracted.
And nobody else is looking. And I’m that wet. Just this once.
I slipped his cock into me and breathed carefully, quietly. If Duncan returns, I don’t want him to hear me. Duncan … I really want Duncan to—
“Your pussy’s nice and wet,” Milt said, slamming into me. He was fucking me much too hard, and I was letting him. When I got really close, I pulled away suddenly. I can’t come like this, not with Milt.
“I want to ride on top of you,” I told him. He was more than happy to cooperate, and I moved the towel to the carpeted floor.
Now that Milt was lying on his back, I grabbed the bottle of Astroglide and massaged some lubricant onto his latex-covered erection—feeling guilty about that brief lubeless moment.
Will this do something weird to Milt’s lower back? Once, in my teens, I had sex on the floor, on my back—what agony the next morning! Maybe it’s different for guys? In any case, I didn’t want to break the spell. I bit my lip and said nothing. Now I was back in control, ready to get my customer off, and my mind had slipped away from Duncan. I still felt swollen and my nipples were tingling, but I was focusing on Milt. As I rode harder, though, I realized that I wasn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking about Duncan. I closed my eyes and imagined his hands doing what my hands were doing—touching my breasts. I managed to unhook my bra and remove it, without missing a beat. Milt was getting closer, and so was I.
After I dismounted, he said, “I should take you out of your natural habitat more often.”
I smiled mysteriously and mostly to myself. Thank God I didn’t actually come. I can’t let that happen with Milt. Not under his roof, when I have to see him every day. It would feel like a bizarre violation.
“I think I’ll take a shower,” I told him. “And a nap.”
“Me too,” he said. “I’ll meet you down here at seven. We’ll go to the convent for dinner. It’s Duncan’s night off.”
In my bedroom, I locked the door, started running a shower, and threw myself onto the bed. My fingers didn’t have to do very much. When I came, the sensation was so intense that I had to cover my mouth with a pillow. In the shower, I sprayed myself with warm water and found that my nerve endings were still tender.
OMG. Why Duncan? He’s cute, sure, but it’s so counter-intuitive. For one thing, I’m hardly a fag hag! I want to be desired.
Can we really be having dinner at … a convent? What should I wear?
Tuesday night
The Hôtellerie du Couvent Royal, just down the road from Milt’s house, turns out to be a converted Dominican monastery, owned by a hotel chain. There are no monks in evidence, but still, I’m glad I wore a long-sleeved, high-collared blouse and very loose pants. My only deviation: chunky revealing sandals and brightly painted toe nails.
We were seated in the outside gallery of the Cloister, sipping aperitifs under tall stone arches, and I couldn’t help feeling that the ghosts of absent monks were padding silently through the garden in their robes, checking out my red toe nails. At the table next to us were two couples closer to Milt’s age than my own, and it was impossible to avoid their curiosity. My outfit, at least, was blameless, might even (I hope) throw them off the scent. The last thing I want to do is make a spectacle of myself. Duncan’s poolside meals don’t generate gossip (or draw attention to Milt’s interlude with a younger woman), but he has to have some nights off—and the monastery, according to Milt, is “the best joint in town.”
I heard one of the silver-haired women laughing, speaking to the table in a Northern language—Swedish? I couldn’t tell—and began to relax. Tourists don’t gossip, not in any way that matters. When I heard my cellphone buzzing in my bag, I leaned forward and told Milt: “That might be Allison. She tried to call—” I paused coyly “—when we were getting busy. I don’t want her to think we’re ignoring her!”
I got up and looked for a discreet place to take the call, but soon discovered another kind of cloister, the modern electronic variety. A genteel but firm blocking mechanism that makes it impossible to use your phone outside the reception area.
“It’s the hand of God,” Milt said, when I returned to my Kir Royale. “We’ll have to call back later. I’m looking forward to whatever you’ve arranged,” he added. “But really, kiddo, you’re more than enough company for one man.”
With one raised eyebrow, I smiled discreetly, and picked up my menu. I can have two drinks max when I’m working. I need to be sober at all times. Thank God Milt likes to have sex before dinner, though! It would be a shame to order light from a menu like this.
“I’ll have the fois gras with figs,” I told him. “And … let’s see … the duck?”
“A woman who eats real food!” he said with an approving beam. “You could pass for a vegetarian, though.” In response to my quizzical look, he explained. “You’re so thin, kiddo. Slim, not thin,” he corrected himself. “There’s just enough curve on you …” His salt and pepper eyebrows wiggled briefly. “Based on your figure, I thought you’d be one of these health food nuts.”
“That would be Allison,” I said. “She’s very careful about what she eats.”
“We’ll have to warn Duncan! He’ll do French provincial Atkins, if you ask him nicely. Unfortunately, my doctor put the kibosh on all the good stuff. But I can experience your fois gras vicariously. He didn’t say anything about watching. Getting to know you … is a real treat.”
“Is that so?” For a second, I felt as uncomfortable as I did in the library, when I realized that he was staring, not at my body, but at my face while I played with myself.
“Very much so,” he replied.
A waitress approached with our bottle of Evian, saving us both from my awkwardness.
When I returned to my room, I discovered an excited voicemail from Allie, heavily compromised by some sort of background music. A live band perhaps? “I’m facilitating the flamenco rehearsal, then I’m going into a meeting with Roxana and Lai Pook but I’ll try to call you when we’re done. I might have to stay an extra day!”
/> Flamenco rehearsal? I wonder who Lai Pook is. One of Allison’s Cambodian sex worker friends?
While I was brushing my teeth, the phone began chiming. I threw my toothbrush into the sink and picked up immediately. To my surprise, it wasn’t Allie’s breathless hello but Etienne’s surreptitious purr.
“Ah, finally, finally, petite mignonne, I am finally here! Comment ça va, chérie?”
“Here?” I covered the mouthpiece and rinsed some excess toothpaste from my mouth. “Where … is here?”
“The Carlyle. Most eager to reconnect! I apologize for the short notice, cocotte, but since I return to Paris in two days, I was hoping that we might? Soon? Tonight is ideal.”
“But—” If he knows I’m in France, he might try to fly me to Paris when he returns! I would rather not go into explanations. “I wish I could but—” I searched for a place that would sound truly remote to Etienne. “I’m in Alberta!” I told him.
“Where?” He was horrified and mystified, as if I had gone to Siberia or Saturn. “When do you return?” he asked hopefully.
“Well, I might be back next week, but it’s hard to say. Family obligations. My mother …”
“I have all the luck,” he said. “I will not try to compete with anybody’s mother. Well, chérie, of course, you are not replaceable, and there is nobody quite as delectable as yourself, and the idea of visiting New York without a chance to undress your exquisite—”
“I think you have to meet Charmaine,” I said quickly. “Wait. I need to call her first!”
After we hung up, I dialed Charmaine’s cell and explained, “He’s an easy five. He doesn’t know I’m in France, though.”
“Where—” she coughed politely “—are you? In case he asks.”
“On vacation with my mother, of course! You have no idea where.” The less detail you (or your confederates) provide, the more convincing. “He ends with a simple piano lesson.” Our code for a hand job. But I hope she doesn’t rush him the first time he goes down on her: “First, he wants to listen to a very long opera,” I warned her.
Charmaine giggled. “Don’t they all. But I can’t see him until ten-thirty. Do you think I’ll have a problem with security?”
It’s almost ten-thirty here. Dark and cool, excruciatingly quiet. I’m very aware of not wanting to be overheard in this huge, silent house at this hour. Manhattan’s still sunny, probably quite sticky, and there’s that busy hum which doesn’t stop until four a.m., if then. How could I forget? But I did—for a moment.
“Just wear something simple,” I told her. “Put your heels in a bag. They won’t stop you at the Carlyle.”
Sometimes, I have doubts about Charmaine. Should I cut her some slack because she’s new? Or treat her as a worthy contender for my business, deserving no mercy? But now, I feel released from those choices.
It’s reassuring to know Etienne won’t be left to his own devices while he’s at the Carlyle, and strangely comforting to be connected, despite an ocean, to my business in Manhattan. To be in this remote private hideaway under a moonlit sky, away from my husband and his family, playing matchmaker with one of my oldest customers and one of the newest girls in town … on a sunny afternoon.
Oddly enough, this feels like home. Can you make a home out of familiar hotel rooms, long distance calls and sex acts in different time zones? If only.
Wednesday, July 10
This morning, when Duncan drove into town, I decided to sit in the back. When we’re alone, it seems natural to sit up front, but the fantasies I’ve been having make me want to keep my physical distance. I was carrying an out-of-print book, retrieved from Milt’s library because the 1930s jacket, so expertly preserved, was irresistible.
“Mont-Paon,” Duncan said. “Wonderful story. The previous owners knew the author. And I once met her niece.”
“Really?” I was studying the back of his neck. “The owners knew the author of Mount Peacock? Did you read it in French?”
“Well, I can, if I work at it, but I’m lazy. No, I read it in English I’m afraid.”
“So who did Milt buy the house from?”
“I’m not sure,” he said carefully. “That’s what her niece told me.” I keep trying to place Duncan’s accent, but his flat, evasive tone stopped me from asking such an obvious question.
I returned to Mount Peacock, or Progress in Provence and we were both silent—for about three minutes.
“The translator’s obviously infatuated with the medieval heretics,” he said. “The so-called Albigensians. Wonderful, isn’t it?”
“Who exactly were they?”
“Provençal heretics,” he told me. “A widespread rebellion against the Church. They converted entire towns. Eight hundred years ago, this region was a bit like Brazil—the locals had their own version of liberation theology, and the pope didn’t like it. That restaurant where you had dinner—the monastery was at the center of some violent Church politics. There was considerable bloodshed.” He looked at his side mirror. “How was the duck?”
“Just right,” I said, closing my book. “The monastery? Violent? It seems so calm.”
“Doesn’t it. And duck is one of the hardest birds to get right.”
“Yes, but chicken—” I mustn’t reveal that I know how to cook a chicken or any other bird, in case Duncan—and, by extension, Milt—should get the idea I’m married.
Aside from what cooking does to my image—doesn’t enhance my twenty-something look!—I worry that Milt will disappear if he finds out I’m a Wall Street wife. And what would Milt think of Matt? For some reason, that bothers me.
“Well,” I added. “You’re the expert. I can just barely boil an egg! And,” I lied, “whenever I try to, it comes out too hard or too soft.”
We were approaching the Avenue du 15eme Corps. “I’ll meet you in the cibercafé,” Duncan said, “I’ve got an appointment with the fishmonger.” A part of me wants to follow him to the market, check out the food stalls, but I don’t want my domestic self betraying me. Clearly, if Milt’s chatting to Duncan about what I ordered for dinner last night, I have reason to be concerned about how chatty Duncan might be in return!
If either of these men thought for a moment he was being indiscreet, he would instantly clam up. But that’s the problem with men—their idea of indiscreet isn’t ours. I’ll bet those two would never dream of discussing their sex lives, but food, far more than sex, is the not-so-innocent medium which could blow my cover.
When Duncan returned to the cibercafé, I was waiting outside—the only way to protect my hair from all the smoke! The back seat was surrounded by shopping bags. A perfect excuse for me to sit nearer to the driver. I reached for my seat belt, but Duncan beat me to it, and I felt like a captive in a love clinch with her prison guard. As he slid the belt tip into its buckle, the fabric brushed against my right breast. I made no effort to resist and he—oblivious, no doubt, to the susceptible qualities of a female nipple—made no apology.
As we turned onto the Boulevard Bonfils, I glanced out of the corner of my eye at his biceps and jaw line. I was thinking about my hands and his zipper. An insistent irrational tingle beneath my T-shirt, on the outside surface of each nipple, forced me to suppress a sharp breath. I looked resolutely out the window, and saw some dissolute men sitting around a table in the Cercle Philharmonique. Drinking, smoking, languishing, they weren’t very appealing, but that only made me realize how difficult it is to silence a real attraction. I can’t stop thinking about yesterday’s session, the thoughts that crossed my mind when my mouth was on another man—and the way I came when I finally had a chance to be alone.
How could something so inappropriate happen to a sensible girl like me?
Thursday, July 11
Today, while Duncan was in the kitchen, I tiptoed discreetly into Milt’s bedroom wearing a frilly pink bikini top, Daisy Duke shorts and large heart-shaped sunglasses. As I straddled Milt’s chest, I pulled my shades down so we could make eye contact.
&nb
sp; “Now, that’s different from what you had on this morning,” he commented.
My poolside look—loose white pants, gauzy tops, expensive straw hat—is designed to protect my legs from the sun, and my image from other kinds of exposure. But that’s what I relish about this job—in bed, I get to wear things that I won’t wear in public.
Milt unzipped my shorts slowly, as though unwrapping a candy bar. He reached up to tease my tiny triangle of hair with a fingertip. I leaned over his face to let him kiss it. My pussy, however, was out of range because my shorts could only be opened, not removed. Placing his hands on my hips, he said, “You’ll have to turn over, so I can get these off.”
“I know.”
“A born schemer. I like that,” he said, easing me onto my back. “You know all the moves.”
“Just some of them.” I removed my sunglasses and wriggled into position, feeling good about my size four tummy. Milt’s additional girth—he could lose fifteen pounds—makes me feel even lighter.
I prepared to reposition myself, so Milt could lie back, but he held my hips firmly in place and buried his tongue between my lower lips. Is this a new and worrying trend? When he sees me at Seventy-ninth Street, he stays on his back, even while eating my pussy. Is Milt doing something different because we’re on his turf? Because we’re alone too much? Is our relationship going to change, or will he revert to normal patterns in New York? I must keep an eye on this!
But his tongue wasn’t bothersome. It never has been, actually. Over the years, Milt has become my favorite because he never turns me on or off. It’s so much easier to deal with a customer who doesn’t arouse or disturb your nerve endings. My body can relax—and concentrate on him—because there’s never a moment when I’ll have to recoil. Still, I’ve always been able to tell that Milt has a good sex life at home. That COULD pose a problem, but I opened my legs wider to encourage him.
A faint sweet aroma was beginning to fill the entire house, the unmistakable fragrance of fresh red peppers roasting in olive oil. Duncan’s cooking was slowly but surely wafting toward the second floor. Inhaling happily, I allowed my body to follow its own advice. As the sensation between my legs grew stronger, I was focusing … on Duncan … in jeans and a crisp T-shirt, taking a break from his work.
