Michael Hemmingson - Seven Women - An Erotic Private Investigation

“Tasha and I will be working in the study,” Slater called after his wife.

Now she was finally alone with him. He took her to the study. He had an electric typewriter on an old oak desk. There were shelves and shelves of books; hundreds, maybe thousands. Tasha had never seen so many in one room, except in a library. She wondered how many of these books Slater had edited; many bore the imprint of the conglomerate he worked for. She envied him, she wanted to be him. She also wanted to suck him again. She giggled when she thought this, but knew it was true.

Slater sat at his desk. He opened a drawer, produced a bottle of scotch and two glasses; he poured some of the scotch into both.

“Why am I here?” she asked.

“To show you what a great wife I have,” he said, “how happily married I am.”

“Then why did you fuck me the other day?”

“I needed it. I gather you needed it, too.”

“Do you like playing with people’s feelings?”

“Look, dear — look, hear, listen, I speaketh,” he said. “We both got laid and it was fun. You must leave it at that. I know you’re pristine to the city, it’s not like that mountain place you come from. But I imagine things are pretty much the same everywhere. If you’re going to go into the book business, you must know that this sort of thing happens all the time. You’re going to have to get used to it.”

“Sleeping around?”

“It’s inevitable when people are constantly intermingling. The writers, those darn ruffians, live secluded lives. They write about people, but go without seeing them for weeks at a time. But those of us behind the books are always around people, as you shall see.”

“A lot of young women come into this field,” Tasha said. “Young women like me. I bet you have quite the pick.”

“Here.” He held out a glass of scotch.

“I don’t usually don’t drink hard booze.”

“You do tonight, dear.”

She was elbowing the seducer again. She took the glass, poured the alcohol down her throat, not thinking. She gagged, coughed.

“Not so fast,” Slater laughed, and drank from his own glass.

The effect hit her like a numb slap. Her body tingled, and so did her face. She thought how she would like Slater to take her on his desk, enter her all over, even hurt her if he wanted to.

“I’m too sensitive for my own good,” she said.

“What’s that?” He took her glass, poured her some more.

“I can’t be distant and have sex just for the sake of doing it and nothing more,” she told him. “I want meaning.”

“Meaning is a good thing to have.”

“You’ve been my first lover in over a year.”

“A year?” He looked as if he didn’t believe her.

“Yes.”

“Are you telling me that in the past year you have had no desire to sleep with any men? I doubt a beautiful woman like yourself would be lacking in opportunities or suitors.”

“I had no desire for anything, really,” she said. “Except for books. I love books. I was completely unaware of my physical needs.” She crouched before him, her hands on his legs. “Until now,” she said.

“Drink this,” he said.

“I’m already drunk.”

“Drink it,” Frederick said.

She snatched the glass and this time the scotch went down smoother. She put the glass on the floor. She ran her hands up and down Slater’s legs. He didn’t object. She purred. She rested her head in his lap. She could feel the hardness of his erection.

Slater touched her hair gently, but his voice was brash. “Tasha, I want you to suck me off.”

She quickly unzipped his pants, tugged at them, then at his underwear, released his cock. It looked bigger than she recalled, but this could have been the alcohol.

What was it with this man? He gets her drunk and talking and then he demands a blowjob like some — scalawag, to use one of his words?

She took him in her mouth. She did, after all, want to eat him. He had a strong smell and taste. She reached under her skirt to touch herself.

Slater was quick. His semen gushed forth like a preacher’s sermon, loud and strong. Some of it flowed out of her mouth.

Slater grabbed her head. “Tasha, dear, don’t swallow it. Don’t ingest my seed. I want you to keep it in your mouth. I want you to keep it in your mouth as long as you can, all night if you can. I want you to swish me around and taste me in your mouth for hours. It means a lot to me. Can you do that for Freddy?”

She had swallowed some, but she nodded.

He pulled her to her feet, his eyes intent and small. “Open your mouth.”

She did, showing him she was keeping his essence there.

“I want it there forever,” he whispered.

She swished the semen around, got most of it under her tongue; it was easier to manage that way.

“Don’t talk,” Slater said, and snapped his pants. “Don’t say anything. You have to go now.”

She frowned.

“You have to go. Go home and go to bed, and keep me in your mouth all night long.”

*****

“He showed me to the door,” Tasha told me, staring at her feet. “But I saw Adrienne standing in the hall, in a nightgown, looking at us. There was a quick exchange between us and I shivered. She knew. She knew very well what had happened; she knew about all the young women he’d had. I felt dirty, and that’s what he wanted: he wanted me to feel dirty, like something bad, like maybe a whore, that was his way of getting rid of me, so I wouldn’t come back, so I wouldn’t be dirty again. He helped me with my coat and scarf and told me good night, good-bye. He was blasé about it, as if I didn’t have his goddamn come in my mouth.

“Outside, it was cold. He hadn’t even called me a cab, the asshole. I had to wave one down. When I got into the cab I knew I couldn’t do it and didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to hold his come in my mouth all night, so I swallowed and told the driver my address and looked out the window. I could still taste him when I got home and the taste didn’t entice me any longer because now I knew the truth. I wanted to wash my mouth out a dozen times. I think I even hated him.”

“But you went to him again,” I said, “and slept with him.”

“Not until three days ago.”

“And we’re married.”

“I’m screwed in the head,” she told me. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t know what I’m doing even now.”

I felt angry, finally. I had been waiting for that feeling. I asked, “Was the sex dirty? Did you do those things with him?”

“It wasn’t dirty,” she said. “It was — regular, normal, stupid. I felt stupid, and I think he did as well. I wasn’t a fresh conquest, I wasn’t as young as before; he was treading old ground and I wanted to do something crazy, because everything seems to be falling apart. You know what I mean, Leonard, but I don’t think you understand.”

“Are you going to fuck him again?” I asked.

She said, “How do I know who I’m going to fuck anymore?”

I jumped at her and slapped her. There was blood at her mouth. I wanted to taste her blood. I wanted to do something horrible, to remind myself I was real.

“I used to be a bouncy twenty-two-year-old,” Amelia says, “but now I’m not so bouncy.”

“Resiliency is the first thing we lose,” Sheila says.

“I was twenty-two when I met The Astronaut,” Amelia says.

“Astronaut?” Holly says.

Tasha turns, looking at the entrance. I know she’s wondering if Slater might come back, and I’m wondering the same thing. “Listen,” Tasha says, “we’ve been here for a long time.”

“We’re always here,” Cara says.

“I know, but do we always have to sit in the same place and same bar?” she says. “Why don’t we move about? It’s a big city. Since we’re being different and have Leonard on our hands, we might as well be different and go somewhere else, maybe several other places.”