Sleeping With Dogs and Other Lovers Read online

  Suddenly she was forced to stop short at the end of a long line of cars. She slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt just in time. Considering how fast she’d gotten there——risking life, limb, and moving violation——this was an ironic spot for a traffic jam. She craned her neck, looking for a valet, but none were to be found. What was going on here, some kind of cock-block convention?

  “Fuck,” she said in a loud whisper, and then instantly laughed to herself that she wished she were doing it instead of saying it, and that made her laugh out loud. And then she noticed a young valet parker——he looked too young to drive, much less park——leaning down toward the window, about two inches from her face.

  “Hello, ma’am,” he said with a smile. “Are you checking in?”

  “No,” Cynthia said, “I’m just visiting someone…my cousin.” Why on Earth was she lying? What was this, the 50s? This guy could care less who she was seeing or what they’d be doing.

  “So,” he continued, “you’ll just be here for an hour or two?”

  “Yes, I mean no,” she said, sliding off the seat and handing her keys to the valet. “It might be longer. You know, probably have some dinner…and drinks. Maybe sleep over…slumber party kind of thing. My cousin and I are very close.” Yeah, right…Cousin-Cousine close.

  “Very good, ma’am,” he said, smiling a knowing smile. “Thank you and enjoy your stay…however long it turns out to be.”

  “Thanks,” she said, slightly irritated. She wound her way through the maze of luxury automobiles. She entered the lobby and almost stopped at the courtesy phone, but then thought better of it and turned down a familiar hallway instead. She rounded a couple of corners and came to the home stretch.

  The door to the room was ajar. This was just like Max. He was waiting for her. She peeked inside. It was dark in there. The curtains were drawn. She could barely make out his silhouette…he was on his side, under the covers. Was he asleep?

  “Max,” she whispered. Nothing. “Max?” Oh, god, he was asleep. So unlike him, he never took naps. He was hyper-alive, squeezing more life into more hours of the day than anyone she knew, and he hated the idea of sleeping during daylight. He must have been exhausted, poor guy.

  Cynthia entered and silently closed the door behind her. She moved across the darkened room, the room she had known long ago.

  This was going to be good. She placed her phone on a chair and shimmied off her skirt, top, shoes, then everything else…her panties last to go. She slid under the covers. Being naked under great sheets in a great hotel with a great man was heaven on Earth.

  She heard his breathing and found it incredibly exciting. She was trembling with anticipation, like the thrill a thief must get, she thought. She didn’t want to wake him, but she absolutely, positively could not resist touching Max. She rotated onto her side and slid toward him. She would spoon him gently, but firmly. She’d fall asleep and they’d wake up gradually and happily in each other’s arms and segue seamlessly into lovemaking.

  She inched closer and pulled her knees up toward her belly, mimicking his position. One more tiny scooch and there——bodies perfectly parallel, neatly nestled, the sweet thrill of secret contact. Maximum spoonage achieved. She reached over his side and placed her hand on his chest.

  Wait. This was odd. Oddly hairless. Max was waxing now? Shaving? She felt here and there, looking for evidence of the coarse hair she knew so well. Wait. What? His pectorals seemed larger…and softer? He had gained weight?

  Max jolted. “AHHHHHHH!” screamed a voice, far too high-pitched for the man of Cynthia’s dreams. That’s when she realized that what she was cupping in her hand was a breast. As in a woman’s breast. What on Earth?

  “AHHHHH?!” screamed Cynthia. They both were screaming now.

  Cynthia leaped out of bed. A light came on.

  There stood a young African American woman, stark naked, probably in her late twenties. She was absolutely beautiful, despite the look of utter horror on her face.

  “AHHHHHHH!” they both screamed again.

  “WHO ARE YOU?!” gasped the woman.

  “Oh my god!” shrieked Cynthia, covering her mouth with her hands and her breasts with her elbows. “Room fourteen! This is room fourteen! What are you doing here? This is Max’s room!”

  “No it’s not!” screamed the mystery woman, pulling the sheet in front of her. “Who the hell is Max? This is room twenty-four! What the hell?! Get out! Get out! Who are you? What the hell is wrong with you? Get out of here!”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Cynthia, the awfulness of the situation finally sinking in. She had entered this poor woman’s room, gotten naked and basically molested her. People go to jail for this kind of thing. She was lucky she hadn’t snuggled up to a trigger-happy gun owner. “Please believe me,” she explained, “this was all a huge mistake. I’m so sorry, really sorry. Oh my god, this is horrible, I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this.” She looked around the room, trying to locate her far-flung garments. She got down on her hands and knees, gathering them up…one shoe…two, blouse, bra, skirt. Where was her underwear? “I’m sorry,” she said, “I can’t seem to find my…”

  She looked up at the woman, who seemed a lot calmer. She was holding Cynthia’s purple panties in front of her breasts like a bikini top.

  “Oh, thanks,” said Cynthia, climbing back to her feet and reaching for the runaway undergarment. But the woman didn’t fork the panties over. Instead she looped the waistband around an index finger and pulled back like a slingshot with the other hand. She took aim at Cynthia. What was she doing?

  “I know you,” she said with a smile.

  “What?” asked Cynthia, totally mystified. What on Earth is she talking about?

  “I was a marketing intern at the studio you worked at when I was still in college,” said the woman.

  Okay, this was just too weird. “You’re kidding,” said Cynthia, incredulous. “Paramount?”

  “Yup,” said the woman, snapping the underwear…a direct hit to Cynthia’s face.

  Cynthia caught them on the rebound.

  She finally got a good look at the young woman. She vaguely remembered her, but she must have gone through an amazing transformation. This was one ravishing creature. They looked each other over, both drinking in the others’ loveliness. Neither was making much of an attempt at modesty now.

  “I do remember you,” said Cynthia. “You were one of the good ones. I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

  “Madeline,” she said, smiling again. “I was much more aware of you than you were of me. You were one of my bosses…but…” Her voice trailed off.

  “But what?”

  “Well,” murmured Madeline, raising her eyebrows, “it was during that time that I was first figuring out that I liked girls.”

  “Oh,” said Cynthia, startled and wondering why this was relevant information at this point in time.

  “And, well,” continued Madeline, “I had a major crush on you.”

  “Oh,” said Cynthia. She could feel herself blushing in places she’d never blushed. This was getting odder by the minute.

  Madeline stepped toward her.

  “I don’t normally believe in kismet or fate or any of that stupid crap,” she said, reaching out and touching Cynthia’s shoulder. “But this is just too bizarre.”

  She placed her hand on Cynthia’s face, her fingertips caressing her cheek, burning red now, revealing so much. Cynthia reached up to stop her. “Madeline, please,” she said.

  But Madeline pressed her fingers gently against Cynthia’s mouth.

  “Shhh,” she whispered, tracing the contours of Cynthia’s upper, then lower lip in a circular motion, around once, then twice. Suddenly she was holding Cynthia’s head in her hands. She moved very close. It occurred to Cynthia that Madeline’s face was perhaps the most exquisite she had ever seen. Her lips were full, moist, and unbelievably kissable. Cynthia had kissed a girl once before, but it had been a joke. This was no joke.
Cynthia had absolutely no interest in going down this road.

  BZZZZZ. Saved by the bzzzz. “Sorry,” said Cynthia, turning away and reaching into her purse. “I’ve really gotta take this.” Max was obviously growing impatient. BZZZZZ.

  “Hello, Max?”

  “Max? Good god, you have got to be kidding,” said Margie Amas, mother of all mothers. “Please don’t tell me you are seeing Max again.”

  “No Mom, I’m not,” Cynthia lied, “It’s a different Max, a business thing. But listen, I’ve really gotta go. I’m in a meeting.” Cynthia looked up at Madeline who raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, good, Cindy, honey,” said Margie, “because you know how I hate that Max.”

  “Mom, you barely even met Max.”

  “It was long enough to know that he nearly destroyed my darling daughter’s life. Plus, I have someone you simply must meet. What are you doing next Friday night?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, killing myself?”

  “Don’t even say that as a joke!” said her mother.

  “I’m sorry, you’re right,” said Cynthia, rolling her eyes at Madeline, “Friday is the night I’m killing my mother.”

  Madeline nodded. Everyone has mother issues.

  “Cindy!” said Margie, “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Okay, so I was thinking, you’ll come to my doctor’s appointment on Thursday…”

  Doctor’s appointment? What plot was percolating inside her mother’s lamebrain now?

  Bzzzz. This time it was Max.

  “Okie-doke, Mom,” said Cynthia, beyond impatient. “I have a business call. Goodbye.”

  “But honey!”

  Beep.

  “Hi,” said Cynthia. “Sorry, I’ve been delayed a bit.”

  “You’d better get here fast, Sin,” said Max, “I have a meeting in fifteen minutes. I’m putting on my shoes.”

  Good god, no. “Don’t move,” said Cynthia, hanging up and starting to panic a little. She looked around, scooping up the rest of her clothing and dropping her phone.

  “Listen, Madeline, I really do have to go. I’m so sorry about this whole thing. If I were interested in women, you would be first on my list. It was good to see you again.” She picked up her phone and dropped her bra.

  “Good to see you too,” smiled Madeline. “No need to apologize.”

  Cynthia could not bear the idea of getting dressed in front of her. She lifted her clothes, shoes, purse, and phone to cover up a bit and walked backwards to the door, opened it, and backed into the corridor.

  “Beep, beep, beep…” whispered Madeline, imitating the sound of a truck backing up. Madeline was incredibly cute.

  Cynthia laughed nervously, clutching her panties in one hand and waving goodbye to Madeline with two fingers. She scooted the hand down to reestablish partial lower-frontal modesty. She looked both ways and took off running down the hallway. She moved like a commando, a stark-naked commando, hyperalert, head swiveling, eyes scanning for signs of guests and employees. She reached a three-way intersection and peeked around the corner…this was it. She could see room fourteen down at the end. The layout was exactly the same as the other hallway…it had been an easy mistake. Thank god, she was almost there. Thirty feet to go. This was insane. Her heart was pounding. She giggled to herself about what this day had turned into. She would get back to the dating service tomorrow. But today belonged to her…and Max.

  Small noise…what? A door opened and out stepped a six-or-seven-year-old boy, rolling a huge Tumi with a carry-on stacked on top. One wheel caught the doorframe and the whole thing tumbled over, boy included, completely blocking the hallway. Cynthia stopped. The boy turned his head and looked straight up at Cynthia, his eyes popping wide.

  “Hi,” said Cynthia, tip-toeing around him, futilely trying to cover up more. “How are you?”

  “Better now,” said the kid, smiling a way-too lascivious smile for a pre-pubescent child. What was happening with today’s youth? Hollywood? Growth hormones?

  “What’s going on out there?” screeched a woman’s voice from deep inside the room, obviously the mother. Then, “Hey!” shouted the father, booming and angry.

  Cynthia sprinted to room fourteen and knocked frantically on the door. She looked over her shoulder and realized that she had again dropped her panties, but this time she would not be going back to retrieve them.

  Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. C’mon, Max, open up.

  Finally the door swung open and there stood Max…no shirt, no shoes, no nothing…and utterly prepared for service. It was obvious that there had been no business meeting. This was the meeting. The only agenda. There was no awkwardness, no small talk, no time had passed. It was as if they had never left, like their binge could not be contained by the normal constraints of time. It was now then and it was now now. The land of now where Max resided. Primal. Instinctual. The jungle, the savannah, the Serengeti. No thinking, no foreplay, no civilized preliminaries. Two organisms perfectly evolved for all-consuming, unbridled union. This was Wild Kingdom, baby.

  Max reached out toward her. Please touch me now, she thought. Her heart pounded in her chest, her head, her entirety.

  Max reached past her face, slammed the door, and gazed deeply into her eyes. “I love what you’ve done with that outfit,” he said, finally touching her, caressing the small of her waist, moving his hand slowly downward, his thumb gliding along her hip.

  “Likewise,” she smiled, throwing said outfit onto the floor and herself into his arms.

  Oh, god, he smelled good. She wrapped her legs around him as he lifted her, and with a seamless blend of effortlessness and heavenly resistance, he penetrated her body and soul. She buried her face deep in his neck, crying out slightly, inhaling his essence…suddenly more essential than air itself. They turned slowly across the room, he nearly dancing, she floating on air. They kissed hard, soft, deep, shallow, up, down, everywhere—his lips, his tongue, his skin answering the yearning that had been building exponentially all day, from virtual Max to Max himself…daydream made manifest, fantasy made flesh.

  Max whispered into her ear, reciting the words to a familiar song. He was prone to waxing musical on occasion, almost always on unusual occasion. Already overwhelmed, deeply immersed in sensory overload, Cynthia closed her eyes and tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help it…she giggled and shuddered slightly between rhythmic gasps of ecstasy.

  If you ever…change your mind,

  About leaving me behind,

  Why don’t you bring it,

  Bring your sweet loving,

  Bring it on home to me.

  Yeah.

  Max rocked Cynthia for another exquisite stanza of intensely pleasurable anticipation. His face buried between her breasts, he arched his back, stretching high onto his toes, and then, tipping into a devastating tumble from dizzying heights, he drove her hard onto the bed, truly bringing it on home…Cynthia laughing, squealing, then screaming loudly and desperately enough to warrant a call to the police from any responsible citizen within that particular zip code.

  Chapter 6

  Some hours later, Cynthia gazed into the bathroom mirror. Her cheekbones always looked their best after sex——flushed, vital, more defined. It was times like this that she truly recalled the first time she’d made love. She only had to conjure a minimal degree of self-delusion to imagine her teenaged face peering back at her. Panting, screaming, mind-blowing orgasm was the fountain of youth…the best possible beauty regime. If I could just do this every morning, she thought. And every afternoon. Middle of the night would not be too bad.

  The hair framing her face was wet, clinging to her temples and neck. A bead of sweat trickled over the rim of her collarbone, down her breast, tickling her slightly. She noticed a bright red spot on her shoulder—the tiniest hint of blood breaking the surface. She remembered when it happened and what it was: first-degree carpet burn. But it hadn’t hurt. You barely feel that kind of flesh wound when the rest of your being is pulsing with pleasur
e. At one point, Max had decided to “dine” on every square inch of her in excruciating slow motion, but he didn’t get very far——inching from ankle to calf, to knee, to thigh, to inner thigh, to upper inner thigh, to inner inner thigh, to where the thigh is born, gently biting and kissing, describing each morsel in absurd international culinary terms…Cynthia tom gha kai, orange-glazed tenderloin ala you-baby-baby, and then, the kicker, today’s special… tupelo-honey-glazed-sweet-and-spicy-hot-jalepeno oysters, smothered in a delectable poontang sauce…so idiotic, but so very effective——before she shrieked and broke down and pleaded with him to pick up the pace and get back to the business of balls-to-the-wall ravaging.

  Later, slowly riding on top, she lost whatever control she was tenuously clinging to when geothermal tremors from deep below her own private continental shelf rocked her off the Richter-scale and she burst into deep, quaking sobs——not from sadness, but overwhelming joy. It wasn’t love exactly——at least she didn’t think so——but it wasn’t mere lust either. It was more like an otherworldly love of lust. It was transcendent, like a dangerous drug. Cynthia had a vague memory of sucking on her thumb, or his thumb, or possibly his earlobe for what might have been a very long time, forgetting where she was, what day it was, what year it was.

  She threw water in her face, letting it fall down her front. She massaged herself Atlantic City style, sans lemons. She felt more alive, more attuned to her body and senses than she’d felt in a long time.

  “You know what, Max?” she asked, still studying herself in the mirror.

  “What, Sin?”

  “This works.”

  “What works? The sink?”

  “No, idiot…this. This whole thing. I think if we work up a simple agreement, this could have real longevity. Neither one of us wants monogamy.”

  Of course, in her heart of hearts, she did want a forever monogamous relationship. Just not here, not now. She was pitching something else at the moment.

  “Max, we both know that jealousy is a dish best not served at all. We both have jealous streaks that turn us into psychotic adolescent schoolgirls.”