Lost in Hotels (16 page)

A cloak of privacy masked in clattering plates, busied waiters, and a crowd captivated by the piano singer allows me to continue as she repeatedly leans into my hand. I steal glances into her face that struggles to remain calm, intact, and normal. Inside she’s anything but as my movement becomes more specific, ebbing the spot that sends her over the edge; her knees buckle and for a moment, I think she might fall to the ground in ecstasy.

Catherine takes me by the hand to the door, and we slip out from the terrace and make our way to the staircase. She grips my hand as she raises it in the air to make the tighter corners between floors. We arrive on my floor, although I was hoping she would take me back to her room and avoid the guilty discomfort of having such a woman as her in a space that Jamila was in just a day ago.

My familiar hotel room door embarrasses me in this instant as regrets of the previous day fill my head. Life is so different with Catherine near, so much more complete, and yet, I would risk everything for the momentary distraction. I have shamed her, even if unknown to her, a feeling I don’t ever wish to feel again. There’s virtue in being with her. Holding her hand is as comforting as kissing her soft lips; the prospect of entering her is as enticing as imagining waking up softly by her side to smell her morning scent and see her eyes struggling with the day’s early light.

There’s a harmony between us, like a familiar couple who knows the rhythm of the other even after this short amount of time between us. While some women would have lingered in the doorway of an unknown room, Catherine makes herself comfortable. She roams the space and takes in the neon-lit terrace from a spot at the window that couldn’t have been framed any better by the best of artists. I approach her from behind and wrap my hands around her waist, softly kissing the back of her neck and nibbling ever so slightly down the shoulder.

“You know, it was modeled after the royal Château d’Amboise in the Loire Valley where da Vinci died,” she says.

“What’s that, you mean Sunset Boulevard?”

“No, this hotel, the Chateau, it’s really just a knockoff of some palace in France. It’s so weird that despite its aristocratic ambitions it became this icon of pop culture and rock and roll.”

“That famous comedy guy died here, right?” I say.

“Yes, but even more than that, it’s always been a sanctuary for artists who made it to mainstream success, and yet crave this reclusion that looms in these dark and mysterious rooms that you can run away to in the middle of LA.”

“So it’s kind of an irony, right?” I whisper in Catherine’s ear as my hands make it to the front of her still well zippered dress.

Catherine walks to the console and places her slight black bag on it. She opens the bejeweled top to pull out an iPhone that she carefully places in the docking station. She plays an unexpectedly folksy song as she hovers over the stereo a moment to adjust the sound to a perfect 1:00 a.m. volume that’s neither too loud nor too soft as her hips sway seductively back and forth to the music.

“In the sixties, this hotel, actually, I think this very room was packed with the most famous rockers who ever lived.”

“This one?” I respond in surprise.

“I think Led Zeppelin took a famous picture for their album cover just outside your window. The Mamas and the Papas did a famous magazine cover in your bathtub because they were too high to leave the room.”

“And in between, you have people like us who would check in and out, getting to know each other more and more,” I add.

“They’d also bring their groupies back to the room and have wild nights, at least until they found the one they liked the most. They all eventually pair off, at least for a little while.”

“How do you keep all this information in your pretty little head?” I ask slyly.

“It’s just so romantic; it makes you feel like you’re part of their story, even after all these years. And then you had the Rolling Stones and the Beatles who would come and go in between weekends, where Jim Morrison would fall in and out of love, while Janis Joplin would wander the halls under a halo of pot smoke.”

Catherine slowly unzips her corset-like dress down the side; the black fabric falls to the sides and reveals the blush of her pink skin. The dress cascades to the floor as she steps out from inside its capture. She walks to me in just her creamy pink garter and underwear that raises high on her waist with a lacy bra that attempts to constrain her breasts that erupt over the top. She’s more playful than I have seen—part show and part innocent—as she moves to the instrumental sound that rolls across the room.

“Do you know who this is?” she says as she gazes into my eyes looking almost irresistible.

I remain silent and shrug.

“Oh my god, you’ve got to be kidding.” She slaps my rear end.

“I’m sorry, I’m more of the hip-hop generation, I guess.”

“That’s simply unacceptable, Mr. Summers,” she says playfully. “This is one of the greatest love stories ever told in music. When I looked into your eyes, those steely grayish-blue eyes, this song popped into my mind.”

“These eyes?” I respond as I peer like an owl closer to her own perfect eyes wide-awake amid her story.

“‘Judy Blue Eyes.’ Actually, I think it’s called ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.’ It’s the very reason the band Crosby, Stills, and Nash came to be in the first place. I think they lived in one of the bungalows for a while.”

“Did they all love the same American woman?” I say, duplicating her back-and-forth dance as she slowly unbuttons my shirt down the front and caresses my skin as she progresses to my waist.

“Actually, the main singer was in love with this songwriter named Judy Collins. She has this impossibly angelic voice and intense blue eyes. The two of them had this hopelessly tumultuous relationship during a period of two or three years. And then, like so many other passionate relationships, they broke up, but not before he wrote this song and sang it to her.”

“And now just the song remains?”

“‘For all of us to feel and love and anguish with through hard times as we partake in the love that was and will always be as long as the song is played.’”

Then the song is interrupted by an incoming-text sound that halts the moment. Catherine seems shocked, concerned even, as she rushes over to her phone. I can see that a dark photo has popped up on her phone screen as she rushes it away with an almost frantic fingering.

“Boyfriend checking in on us, love?” I say in jest with an element of sarcasm.

“No, no, just work, my love,” she dismisses.

“Work texting you at three a.m.?”

“I think it was from earlier today. It must have been delayed or something.”

The music returns as I let the topic fade. Catherine grabs me by the waist and inserts both her hands into the brim of my trousers.

“Do I sense some jealousy, Mr. Summers?”

“Not at all; I just wanted the music to come back.”

“So you like ‘Judy Blue Eyes?’” she says slyly, pulling off my belt and unbuttoning my pants, which fall to the floor and leave me standing there naked in front of her.

“The only music I can hear is you, Catherine,” I say as my erection rises.

She tries to lead, but this is where I take control. I grab her from behind and pull her in closer, thrusting my dick against her body as our mouths collide to the strum of love-struck rockers singing their wholehearted anthems in a mix of Spanish and English lyrics.

I unhook her bra from the back as it drops to the floor, massaging her delicate shoulders that frame her back and down her spine, working my way to the inside of her skirt that clings to her waist. She pulls me tighter as I scour the garment for its zipper. Her hand reaches back to help mine, and she pulls it loose from her torso, leaving her there in just her stockings. She tries to touch me, but I pull her hands away and place them on her body as she caresses herself. My actions become more aggressive as I lead her into the bedroom, holding her from behind at the waist as I push her down on all fours atop the bed. Her angelic hips round the edges of her garter. I pull it off in slow motion along with her stockings as she arches her back.

“Tell me what you want,” I say again, pulling her tight and close into my dick, which intersects her pink flesh.

“I want you as close to me as possible.”

She tries to rise to her knees, but I push her down again, dropping to my own knees on the side of the bed and caressing her calves as I make my way up her legs with my tongue. My hands trace the inside of her legs and pelvis. I can feel the heat from inside her against my hand, as I intentionally pass over her perfect pinkness again and again. She’s the quick-sex kind of lover, as I try to strip her of years of bad habits that will ultimately have her dripping before I’m even inside her.

She struggles to get out of position, and I push her down again. My face makes its way to her ass, licking it on the outside, wetting it with my tongue before working my thumb up and down, and then penetrating just barely and then again. I want her to say something; I want her wild and begging, uttering words I’d never expect from those polite lips that remain lost in subtle, pleasurable moans. I hear her breath becoming long for what she wants most. I work her deeper and deeper from behind with my hands, as my tongue follows and enters her amid a personal scent that intoxicates me almost to the point of erupting.

“I want you inside me. I want you now!” she screams, squirming to get up as I push her back down and rise to my feet. I pull her up onto her knees and massage her breasts. Her back leans up against me and her head contorts back as our lips violently lock. She rocks harder and harder against me as my hands work their way down her stomach and inside to find her fully wet. I grab her with both of my hands and tip myself inside her ever so gently the first time. She arches back and takes me inside as deep as she can manage in an exhaustive breath, alas quenched as I thrust harder and harder to get deeper and deeper inside her. She exalts a sound so euphoric, so complete that I erupt fully within her and our bodies collapse atop one another.

A potent mix of pink Dom, jet lag, and sex that takes every ounce of you kept me in a deep sleep through morning. My eyes open to do a once-over of the room to recognize where I am. Although the location was unknown, I was thoroughly aware Catherine was no longer by my side. I rubbed my hand across the sheets that had turned cold and the pillow that looked as if it hadn’t even been slept on. My thoughts churn as I wonder if perhaps she went back to her own room once I had fallen asleep, or perhaps she had other plans and failed to mention them to me. She’s so hot and cold, consumed in the moments we’re together and then she whisks away to her work-filled life. I’ve never had a woman whom I’ve had to chase, and quite honestly, it’s refreshing.

Rain beats on a metal drain that drops onto the terrace just outside the bedroom window. It patters like loose change at the bottom of a rusty tin bowl, and it gives me a clue of what LA has in store for me today. Then a scent seems to arrive in my room out of nowhere, a mix of crispy toast and bacon that must be from a passing room service trolley, but as I listen beyond the sound of the rain, I hear the rattling of pots and pans and wonder if perhaps Catherine is still here.

I throw on my white boxers and wander the wooden planks of the hallway into the living room engulfed in a scent to a sizzling sound. I look through to the little kitchen that until now just seemed an unnecessary architectural addendum to this hotel’s history. I see Catherine standing in a fluffy white robe, her hair pulled up over her spectacled morning face studying a frying pan in front of her.

I’ve never had a woman make breakfast for me aside from my mother, and that was so long ago. I cower and then step back to watch just a minute more. I see her delicate wrist maneuvering the plastic spatula, her elbow in the air, and a concentrated stare. The gas flame glows yellow and blue underneath a metal pan that appears as if it’s been around since the hotel opened.

A surge of guilt drives through me as I watch her turn this anonymous hotel room into a home, if only for a moment, that’s so contrary to what I allowed to happen with Jamila. My soul shrinks to face such a woman as Catherine with such a memory so fresh in my mind.

“Are you making me breakfast? Do I believe my own eyes?” I peek out from behind the wall; I startle her and she drops the spatula on the floor. She quickly picks it up and rushes to me with a tender, slow kiss.

“You know, it seemed like such a good idea until I actually had to cook it.”

I wrap my hand inside her robe and around her back. I feel her gray-flannel sweats and white tank top that’s even sexy on her.

“It smells extraordinary. I was lying in bed wondering where you might be, and then it was just this smell.”

“I woke up early and got some work done and thought it might be nice to actually cook breakfast. I mean, how often is it that you have an actual kitchen in your hotel room?”

“I’d always just looked at it as a really large minibar.” I laugh. “So, let’s see what you have here … there’s bacon and fancy eggs and some sort of fruit concoction.”

“I know it’s not much, but that’s all I could bribe room service to bring me. They couldn’t really understand why I would want to cook when they could just bring it already made.”

“Well, I get it, and I love it. Is this a perk I can expect in the future?” I ask as I kiss her again on the back of the neck, pulling back her hair that smells of summer berries and cream.