Steve Martini - The Rule of Nine

“You look exhausted,” she says.

“Yeah, well, you should be tired too.”

“I got a little rest. Why don’t you sit down?” she says.

I step around my bags and settle down on the side of the bed.

“Take a deep breath,” Joselyn says. She approaches and puts her hands on the shoulders of my polo shirt and starts to massage.

I roll my head back, move my shoulders. “That feels great.” Then she pushes my upper body back until I’m lying flat on the bed with my feet on the floor.

“What are you doing?”

“Never mind, just relax.” She reaches down, grabs my ankles, and swivels my body until I am lying with my head on one of the pillows, my feet up on the bottom of the bed. Joselyn unties my shoes and pulls them off, tossing them on the floor. The release of tension and stress is palpable as she rubs my feet.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know. Focus on your mantra.”

“My what?”

“Relax. Don’t tell me you’ve never done any meditation?”

“Sorry,” I tell her.

“Your mantra can be anything, an image, a word. It can be a tone, like this: Aommmmmmmmmmm.”

She does it two or three times, holding the tone until, like a bellows, the air goes from her lungs. The gentle, low tone of her voice is something strange, almost intoxicating. But I’m afraid it’s not meditation that I’m thinking about.

“If you do it repeatedly and focus your consciousness, you can reach a transcendental point where monks believe the mind and the soul meld,” she tells me. “Practiced regularly it can lower blood pressure and reduce stress. And stress kills, in case you haven’t heard.”

“I know.”

“Trial lawyers don’t like it,” she says. “They believe meditation dilutes their aggression. And, of course, they’re right. It’s the fight or flight thing. When you don’t want to do either, resort to your mantra.”

“I will.”

“There’s a time to talk and a time to be quiet.” She puts a finger to her lips. “This is the time for silence. Just lie there and relax.”

She rubs my feet, and then my lower legs, and I begin to drift off.

“There is no restaurant or bar in the hotel, but there are some good restaurants a few doors away. We can order out later if you want. They’ll deliver. I’ve got a menu.”

“I’m trying to be quiet,” I tell her.

“Good.”

“Are you hungry?” I ask.

“Um, no. I have an appetite but not for food.”

I open one eye and look at her. She fixes me with a winsome smile, stops massaging, and gazes at me from the foot of the bed with almond-shaped eyes.

“That was very nice. Thank you.”

“We’re not done yet,” she says.

At the moment she looks like the spider about to attack the fly. I watch her as she moves gracefully, almost floating on air, around toward the other side of the bed. Halfway there she drops her hands to her sides and gently thrusts her shoulders back. The robe slides from her body and disappears like a silk puddle, past her thighs and onto the floor.

As she walks through it, the body-hugging red chemise clings to her form, set off by two thin straps over her shoulders and a filigree of lace at the tawny satin smoothness of her thighs.

“I really didn’t want to stay in my room alone tonight,” she says. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“No. Why should I mind?” I think to myself, I love being raped by beautiful women.

“Missing Herman, are you?” she says.

“Umm, no. Not exactly.”

“Good. That makes two of us.”

“You don’t like Herman?”

“He’s a very nice guy,” she says. “But that makes two of you, and when I’m added to the mix, three is a crowd.”

“I see. He speaks highly of you.”

“Thank him for me.” As she reaches the other side of the bed she raises a tanned, shapely knee and plants it deep in the soft muslin bedcovers. Then in a flowing feline motion she traverses the width of the bed on her hands and knees. When I look up I see her face hovering just over my left shoulder, pursed sensuous lips and oval eyes.

“Don’t look so frightened,” she says.

“Do I look scared?”

“I won’t bite,” says Joselyn. “I promise. Not unless you ask me to, and then you may have to beg.”

“That sounds kinky.”

“Silence, remember?” Joselyn has bathed and washed her hair. I can smell the perfumed soap and the scent of strawberries floating in the ether above me.

“Pick a mantra, anything, and focus on it. It will help break the fear.”

“Really?”

“Aom, aom.”

I look at her eyes, her pursed lips, almost pouting, as she stalks me on her hands and knees, staring down at me. “Before I settle in, would you like something to drink? Something from the minibar, perhaps?”

“Sweetheart, if you think I’m going to allow the moment to slip away and let you slide off the hook by bringing me a cocktail, you’re out of your mind.”

She laughs. “What do you think is going to happen?”

“I don’t know, but I’m dying to find out. At the moment I’m feeling just fine.” In fact, looking up at her face, her body encased in the tight chemise, kneeling above me like a tigress, I am feeling almost euphoric, as if someone has shot me up with heroin.

She settles down with the sweet fragrance of her hair dulling my senses and her head on my shoulder. “Do you mind?”

“Oh, yeah. I hate it.” As I lay sprawled on my back, Joselyn snuggles up against me, displacing every void of air between our bodies. Lying on her side, she raises a bent knee and rests it gently on top of my thigh. The tension causes me to stir in that place down below. She knows exactly what she’s doing. She smiles and rhythmically rolls her knee gently across my groin.

I take a deep breath and arch my back.

“Relax,” she says. “Focus on your mantra.”

“I’m trying to, but they’re pressing into the side of my chest at the moment.”

Her breasts planted in my side, her back gently arched, she starts to laugh as her body stretches out and sculpts the perfect form of sensual desire.

I lift my right arm over her head so that I can cradle her. She stops laughing and snuggles in tighter.

Like a schoolboy, my heart pounding, I slowly move my hand down the smooth, silken finish of her chemise until my fingers reach the small of her back. They come to rest in that heaven above the arch of her buttocks as my fingers start to dance. Lazily they skim across the satin finish, feeling only the bump of a single chord, the waistband of her thong under the smooth, red-silken sea of the chemise.

“I’m glad that Herman found another room tonight.” The warm, moist breath of her words in my ear ignites a sexual tingle of electricity that traverses my spine.

“Herman says I snore.”

“I wouldn’t call it snoring,” she says. “They’re actually just cute little occasional snorts.”

“How do you know?”

“I heard it every once in a while between Herman’s foghorn.”

“When?”

“When I was outside your door at night.”

“What were you doing outside the door?”

“I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to come to my room. Obviously not,” she says.

“I didn’t…I mean I wasn’t sure…”

She puts her finger over my lips. “Now is one of those moments when silence is best,” she says. Her lips seal over my ear, her pointed, wet tongue penetrating to its inner depth as she quickly slides her hand from my lips down my chest and stomach under the open bottom of my shirt. Her nails, like talons, rake my stomach and chest. Passion seizes my lungs. I arch my back as her knee presses into the hardness at my groin. I listen and feel her hot, moist breath in my ear until her lips move, grazing my cheek.