The Room

A new ick

June 2022.

Trigger Warning – reference to past sexual violence

Listening notes

Nostalgia – The Long Blondes

“Thirsty?”
“Very,” she responded.

Her, yesterday

The story

The phone pinged, unexpectedly. My head responded with a throb. I rolled over on the bed and fumbled for the phone. I was not feeling the morning, less so when I saw that the time was a little after 6AM. The notification had left the screen so I tried the various messengers on the phone. Eventually I found it in Telegram.

“I have late check-out and you don’t fly until 3. Get up here. Room 1612.”

I put the phone back on the bed and stretched. I was in a lot of physical distress. My head was sore and my mouth was filled with the taste of the whiskey with which I had finished the night, which was a good sign – it meant I had avoided the late night delights of Wardour Street. It was also a bad sign – it meant I had lacked the good sense to drink the water in the minibar. Obviously fucking not. Idiot. I rolled in the sheets again. Hotel bedsheets. This is why we stay the extra night.

Back to the phone. Room. Late check out. Nine hours until the flight. Fasttrack at the airport, not a busy flight. 

Hotel bedsheets. Dry, whiskey mouth. Tired. Fuck it. I was not going.

The phone pinged again.

“Wasn’t a request. Get down here.”

This was just rude. I sat up in the bed and typed in a message. “Who is this?” I didn’t send it, but instead looked at the phone in mild disbelief. I had no idea who it was. It didn’t matter. As it stood, I wasn’t going anywhere. I stood up and shambled out to the bathroom, luxuriating for a moment on the heated tiles. I reached around the door frame and turned on the light for maximum morning regret. I recoiled a little as I saw myself in the mirror; as out of shape as I had ever been, mildly grey in the face, covered in a gently pearlescent night sweat. No time like the present to run the shower. In my experience, the earlier the dragon is played, the earlier a coffee doesn’t threaten to nauseate, and God knew I would need a coffee later.

I showered hot, allowing the hotel shower gel and shampoo to do their best, then applied the conditioner and simply stood, allowing the hot water to do the things hot water does for hangovers. When I was done, I stepped out, draped a towel around my shoulders and interrogated myself.

“Who the fuck is it?” I asked, out loud, to my steam-obscured mirror image.

“Why would I do this?”

His phone pinged again; a photo of half a naked body, cut off by the edge of the mirror, and an ice bucket with an unopened bottle of champagne. The lighting was low, but I think I recognised the shape of the woman, even if I could not instantly put a name to the curve. I nodded.

One last ping.

“I’m not waiting forever. There are other numbers I could dial.”

I didn’t know exactly how to feel about this. There have been times in my life when alarm bells have rung when I’ve taken a risky or exciting decision, allowing me to at least consider caution, but at this moment, standing in a hotel in London, with a raging headache and a blood-alcohol level which would have brought down a bison, no klaxon sounded, not even the ‘you have a wife’ klaxon, which, to be fair, I found relatively easy to mute when I was on business.

I worked out how I felt about it. I brushed my teeth and returned to the main bedroom. My suit from the night before was folded, incorrectly, on the back of the desk chair, and my shirt, still in reasonably good condition, hung on a lamp which I must have taken for a coat rack when I got in after the awards ceremony.

I opened the leather overnight bag and pulled out the black polo shirt I had intended to fly home in and a pair of black pants – nothing says ‘leave me alone’ at an airport than being dressed like a bodyguard’s executive assistant. I deodorised and deployed the electric razor with which I had treated myself at the airport, then splashed on whatever aftershave I had in the travel bag.

That’s a lie.

I splashed on a good half-handful of Dior Homme Cologne, which smelled of fresh juniper and orange zest, and freshness. I stood for a moment just enjoying the scent. There is something so entirely cathartic about the application of a good scent which transports me to a different dimension of happiness. In my worst moments, I have sought out the company of something which smells incredible to fill my senses and give me to another reality.  Nonetheless, I opened my eyes, and it was still me, looking at myself, which was disappointing. I put my glasses on and tried to emote, to see just how drunk I still was.

I was pretty drunk.

I took my keycards and phone, then ambled out of the room towards the lift and the upper floors.

Something in the text message at 6am bemused me. ‘Get up here’ indicated either that she knew my room number or, more likely, she assumed I would be on the lower floors. This hotel is known for its views which command a premium – she assumed I was in the cheap seats, or rather the cheap sheets, and she was right. There was a lot to be annoyed about.

I got to 1612 and I knocked once; I could hear her walk slowly to the door, which she opened and immediately retired from. “Come in and close the door”, she said, and, as in so much else so far this morning, I complied.

The room was in darkness, with only one bedside reading light giving any illumination to the scene, but the place was a mess. Pillows were everywhere, clothes were strewn across every piece of furniture.

“Place is a mess,” she said, indifferently, as she sat on the chaise longue. I could just pick out the shape of her in the soft dim illumination, her shoulder-length brown hair parted to cover more of the left side of her face. She wore what seemed to me a silk, dark floral dressing gown, fastened with the belt but betraying no obvious underwear.

“It’s a bit of a bombsite, but it’s okay.”

“Can you open the Champagne? I got another bottle sent up for us,” she said, this time with t a little less indifference. She needed a drink.

“Thirsty?”

“Very,” she responded.

“What it it anyway?” I asked.

“I think it’s Lanson. I’m normally a Verve Cliquot girl, but you take what they have.”

“Lanson is very good,” I ventured. It even survives being a little warmer, but I don’t think I have to worry about that this morning.”

I extracted the bottle from the ice bucket. It was icy cold, perfect for the chaser I needed and she seemed to crave. I freed the cork from its cage and cuffed the pop; I poured two glasses and handed one to her; I sat on the bed, facing her.

“I think you ought to know, I have no idea of your name,” she said.

“That’s fair enough. I think we spoke last night after the ceremony.”

“We did. We spoke for a long time. We discussed radio and art and for some reason you told me about your wife, which is either a very clever move or an incredibly stupid move.”

“Did I? Well, I suppose she does come up in conversation a bit.”

There was silence up on this floor. By six thirty one knows London is a noisy, seething place, full of people simultaneously smug about being early risers and resentful of Prêt’s opening hours. Here, there was stillness. Calm, which is, in retrospect, ironic, given the chaos of the situation. There was silence in the room.

“Discussing your wife over whiskey with a beautiful woman in a hotel bar is either diversionary or diversionary.”

“How so?”

“Well, either you’re trying to put me off, making it plain that you’re a family man who’s not interested, or you’re establishing the basis of the disclaimer.”

“Well, we parted and we each went to our respective bedrooms alone. So I suppose that answers your question.”

I sipped my champagne. 

“It answers one question. But you’re a fool if you thought I was going to bed alone.”

“You did take your time.”

“I didn’t. You know Oliver Brooks?”

“The CEO of that new publishing house?”

“That one. The very same.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Well, he was here earlier.”

I prepared to finish my drink, make my excuses and leave; this wasn’t a conversation I needed to be part of.

“Well, well done you. Now if that’ll be all, I’m going to go.”

“I was going to say, he did this to me.”

She turned her head and pushed the hair back from her face. She had a small but distinct bruise on her cheekbone, and her eye looked like it might be developing bloodshot.

“Fucking hell,” I said. I know I seethed with anger for a moment.

“Yes. He’s adept with a fist, which is at least something.”

Her voice was calm, exacting, precise. She could see my concern; she wasn’t as concerned as I was.

“Don’t worry about that. Oliver has problems. He’s about to have a lot more serious problems when the police raid his house and he finds out his major investor is my cousin. Or rather, his former major investor. In any case, don’t worry. He didn’t do anything. He couldn’t do anything. Poor Oliver can’t handle his drink and he certainly can’t handle his cocaine. But the one thing he can’t handle is being laughed at by the woman he’s trying unsuccessfully to fuck. So he hits.”

I shouldn’t have drunk the champagne. I was swirling again.

“Now,” she said. “Tell me my name.”

I snorted a little and she laughed again.

“You can call me Jessica. After the Rabbit. And I will call you whatever you like. It seems like both our realities have been fucked about with this morning, right? What would you like me to call you.”

“You can call me Ben,” I said, “Which will make it easier, since it’s my name.”

“Ben it is. Ben, I’m pleased to meet you, I am Jessica.”

I nodded, and went to the desk to refill my glass and to top hers up.

She raise her glass appreciatively. 

“It’s sore,” she said, gesturing to her face. “Or rather, it’s hot. I’m embarrassed.”

I sat down on the bed again.

“So, why did you call me up?”

She looked away from me.

“I think I wanted company. And to work out what to do. You seemed very resourceful, you seemed interesting. And you seemed nice, and trustworthy. Is that you, Ben? Is that what you are? Is that who you are?”

I wasn’t sure.

“I can be, if you need me to be. Of course. I’m whatever you need me to be.”

“I see. But your natural inclination?”

“My natural inclination is to say yes to adventure. It’s not every day someone sends me a nude and demands my presence in her bedroom at six in the morning.”

“I see. You came upstairs to fuck me?”

“Well, I don’t think it was an unreasonable response to your messages, although, obviously, it’s not what I’m thinking of right now.”

More silence.

“How bad is the bruise?”

I took her face, as gently as I could, in my hands and inspected it in the dim light.

“It’s visible. It’s not big but it’s certainly there.”

“Okay. That’s okay. You can still see my face normally from the other side?”

“Yeah. If you have big sunglasses you’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Thank you. Ben, I want to lie down on the bed with you, if you don’t mind.”

In this moment, there was practically nothing I wouldn’t do; but my mind had sailed away long since with working out how to find a balcony high enough to throw Oliver Brooks from. I had a seething deep desire to break my hand on his right cheek; she stood up and walked past me to the other side of the bed, then climbed up, pulled the bedsheet over herself and took my by the hand, pulling me onto the mattress. 

“Just lay with me,” she said. “Just be here with me.”

I did as she asked; she smelled of lilac and some faint trace of spice and citrus; certainly not from the hotel toiletries. She took my arm and draped it over herself, then shifted her position until I, classically, became the big spoon. I’ve done this before. Soon, she had drifted off to sleep and I joined her.

It wasn’t the eight o’clock alarm which woke me, but a gentle kiss on my lips just before. I opened up my eyes and she was facing me, her gown draped and gaping, exposing her breasts; or rather, the kiss was one of the things waking me. It became clear that she had her hand inside my trousers, cupping my crotch.

“Good morning again”, she whispered. “I decided I’ve other uses for you.”

I lay there for a moment, thinking, wanting, but partially wanting my sense of scruple to take control. I put my head back and intoned a weary ‘No.” I shifted back away from her, extricating myself from her hand and rolled away on the enormous bed. Reluctancy, thy proof is this.

She sighed.

“What now?” She demanded.

“Well, I don’t feel right about it.”

“You felt right about it when I summoned you at six this morning.”

“Yes. I felt pretty up for whatever you wanted to do then, but…”

“But what? You found out that some fucker decided to hit me, and now I’m damaged goods?” This enraged me, at least partially because, interrogating myself, I could not discount the possibility that this was part of my thinking.

“Damaged goods? Don’t put that on me. I don’t think anything of the sort. I’m just worried that…”

“You’re worried that I can’t be trusted to act on my own emotions because some big bad man did something to me and it’d feel wrong to fuck me in case I get all upset about it?”

It was my turn to sigh. “No, it’s just that I don’t know how I should feel about the conflict I have where I spoke to you last night for twenty minutes, I get called to your room by a naked woman with a bottle of champagne and when I get here all I want to do is protect you. And I’m old fashioned enough to think that fucking a stranger isn’t great care-giving behaviour.”

“Okay. Okay. So, I brought two men to my bedroom to play with; one couldn’t get it up and punched me for finding that funny, and one guy who’s appalled that I had the audacity to still want to get laid despite having had a bad experience earlier. Way to go, guys. You can fucking leave. Go.”

She looked calmly defiant, unmoving. There was fury in her voice, but in her eyes there was only disappointment.

I stood, zipped up my pants and walked towards the door. She sat on the edge of the bed, her face full of raging anger. 

“I’m going back to my room. I’m checking out at one. If you want or need anything else, please just ask me. I’ll help whatever way I can.”

She responded with a yawn; I dodged the bullet and walked out into the relatively bright hotel corridor and descended in the lift to the third floor; tapped in to the room and collapsed on the bed.

The phone pinged, unexpectedly. I found it in my pocket.

“I’m coming down the stairs. Please open your room so I don’t have to wait in the corridor.”

There are some things there’s no point in opposing; I opened the door and put my suit on a hanger; otherwise the room was tidy and only mildly lived-in. I waited, but not for long. She silently swept into the room, back in her dress from the night, placing the ice bucket and champagne on the desk. 

“We have unfinished business,” she said, as she sat on the edge of the unmade bed. 

“I suppose we have,” I said. “How’s the cheek?”

“It’s stinging. Think of something to take the sting away?”

I am, as has been well documented, an idiot. I moved as if towards the bathroom, probably to get some cold water or a cloth to make a cold compress. Happily, she was content to know I was flustered rather than have me embarrassingly prove it in front of her. She put her leg out to block my passage. 

“No. I’ve had plenty of time in my own room with ice. If it’s to bruise, it’s to bruise. I asked you to think of something to take the sting away. Now, think.”

She leaned back on the bed, propping herself up with her arms.

“Have you thought of something yet?”

I carefully approached the side of the bed.

“I can probably take your mind off it. Would that do?”

“Yes. That would do. Let’s.”

I knelt in front of her, and placed my hands on her knees, then ran them up the navy silk of her dress. She hitched up the fabric to help me out and I’m sure she watched me as I kissed first the fabric and then, when the hem rose to meet me, her long pale legs. There was something about which suggested worship as a reasonable response, so I did. I ran my hands slowly down her calves and kissed the pale smooth flesh above her knees, alternating between them. She shifted on the bed and pulled the dress further up; I could hear her breathing gently intensify as I kissed, carefully, slowly, along the outside of her thighs and ran my hands with searching fingers up her lower leg to the knee; she took my lead as I spread her knees a little, dropping kisses over the arc of her thigh, towards the inside.

Whether she was watching or not at this point I cannot tell, but as she moaned soft and low, I knew she was feeling close to what I was hoping she would; I tasted the flesh as I kissed it; she took my hands and squeezed them as I more certainly took the soft flesh of her inner thighs. I knew I could take all the time I wanted; I knew I could lose myself in that yielding, pliant flesh, and she would let me; she placed my hands with some urgency on her breasts, and I knew that she felt time would be better spent elsewhere.

As I eased my hands inside her dress, I moved my mouth along, she reached around herself and released her bra, then threw it on the floor; it became clear she had removed the dress from her shoulders entirely; it was tantalisingly certain that, if I looked up now, I would be…

I would be off course. I would be distracted. Both she and I seemed to understand that at this moment there was a vital mission; if she didn’t feel it quite as a need, I absolutely did. I would not be distracted. She shimmied on the bed and slipped the dress off; I knew then that she was entirely naked. It’s a strange, indeed ridiculous thing to relate, but in that moment, I felt a significant sense of honour, and then I felt something else entirely more important; her hands gripping my hair.

Almost as if she was worried that I hadn’t gotten the message, or perhaps because she sought even more control, she moved herself forward on the bed, and pulled me towards her; I was already approaching the softest flesh of her inner thigh, and though I felt a little corralled, I responded to her movements how I imagined she wanted me; I gave a little resistance but essentially yielded; I placed kisses on her pale soft skin and ascended.

I have no particular view on the shaving or waxing preferences of women; I can find joy in however she has decided to be; never more so than now. As my forehead reached her mons and the trunk of her body, I knew she was perfectly and smoothly hair-free; I skipped the last inch of her thigh and kissed her vulva the way I might dive into a perfectly ripened peach; anticipating the soft, juicy flesh, I found her exactly how I might have dreamt of her; fresh, moist and now, suddenly, yielding. 

She had laid back on the bed and spread her legs wide for me; her hands were gone from my head now; one was on her crotch, pulling the skin taut and exposing her clit for me; I looked up to see her perfectly manicured fingernails holding, presenting herself to me; I fell upon it and lapped, with some firmness, in uncomplicated sweeps, enveloping her as warmly and gently as I could with my whole mouth as I licked. It’s easy to get swept away in the midst of simple, repetitive tasks; I lost myself there, on her stretched, smooth flesh, bearing down with what I hoped, and she indicated with her moans, to be the right amount of pressure, the right cadence, the right place.

I have no idea where her other hand went; I was concentrating on the intense responsibility occupying my mouth; I can fantasise, though, and this redoubled my attention. I know she noticed, because she told me so.

“Fuck yes, that’s the way,” she said; she was approaching breathlessness. I was glad. I’d been breathless for half an hour.

My own hands felt strangely idle at this moment; can’t have that. I stroked her inner thighs with my fingers as I began to place tiny searching kisses on her labia; as much for a rest as for the sake of variety; she relaxed, perhaps luxuriated. “We have the whole morning,” she whispered, and stroked her fingers through my hair.

“We do,” I agreed, “but I want to feel you.”

“You want to feel me cum,” she said. “You will.” She gripped my hair and pulled me into her again. I resisted.

“Open yourself,” I demanded.

She pushed both her hands between me and herself and spread them apart; I licked and kissed her even more exposed clit and, as far as I possibly could, I eased my tongue inside her; I strained every muscle I had in my upper body, and pressed with my legs on the wall facing the bed; the tightness in my neck and my whole body, to drive my straightened, pointed tongue as deep inside her as our physiologies allowed. 

“Oooh,” she intoned, in a low growl, as I dipped in and out of her tight but yielding slit; i used to wonder whether there was any value in this manoeuvre; I needn’t have been so self conscious with her.

“Jesus, you really want to be inside me, don’t you?” She laughed. I responded the only way I really could in the moment; a terribly wet, muffled ‘Mmm hmm’ as I again entered her with my tongue.”

She had extended her thumb to rub at her clit as I went on with what, for some reason, I really needed to do; she encouraged me, matching her movements to mine to maximise my reach; good luck finding better encouragement than that.

I put my arms around her legs and put them right on my shoulders, then shifted forward, bringing a distinct rocking motion to what I must say was at by the standards of the moment a magically depraved and unhinged tongue-fucking. I was pretty proud of that, but now I needed her attention; I kissed her hands and licked her thumb as it rubbed her clit; I wanted to feel the interface as she targeted her own release; this is an unnecessarily complex way to justify it after the event; the reality is that, at that moment, I would have done anything I could think of to give her pleasure. I think she understood that; I think she understood that, between her legs, with her thighs wrapped around my head, I was whatever the fuck she wanted me to be.

How do I know this? There were hints in how she now released her clit and gripped my head like a vice; for the next five minutes or so, she entirely, without any hint of mercy or scruple, she utterly completely simply used me; she found some value in grinding my nose right against her clitoris, knowing as she did that I was completely committed to lapping and licking and kissing and soaking and whatever the fuck else I was doing in that moment. She bucked and mashed her smooth, soaked, beautiful cunt all over my mouth and face; she pressed down with her thighs on my shoulders for maximum leverage and put every undulation she could find on my face to what was, in retrospect, an entirely brutal and utterly intoxicating, breathtaking face-fucking. And this was noisy stuff. Even with my ears covered by her legs, I know she was issuing a cacophony of ragged breathing and obloquies; there was a release of more than tension in her loudness.

I’m pretty convinced that she had no idea or particular concern if I was alive or dead at this point; but I have never felt so alive; at every conceivable moment, I found a way to taste and feel her giving reality to her own unabashed sybaritic release. I was being fucked and I needed her to finish on me.

How painful is a broken neck? Happily, I didn’t get to find out at this point; she slightly relented, lying still, her breathing ragged and her legs wrapped around my neck. She looked at me; soaked, slightly shocked, but, I hope, facially expressing my awe and, well, fulfilment.

“Just kiss me,” she said. 

I leaned forward and kissed her left thigh; she placed her hands on her knees and breathed; I placed my lips on her clit and kissed it in as careful and sweet a way as I possibly could; caressing it with my tongue, I felt her whole body convulse; I felt her wet body quiver, and heard her breathe a sharp and deep breath.

She sighed, and slapped the bedsheets, and unwrapped her legs from my neck.

“Now get up here and kiss me.”

I did as I was told. I lay beside her and she turned to me; we lay, and she took my head in her hand and kissed me; she kissed deeply and passionately, and I knew she could taste herself on my lips and in my mouth.

“I’ll be honest,” she said. “I kinda came when I was fucking your nose.”

I nodded.

“I know. It was good of you to keep trying to break my neck, though. Romantic.”

“Glad you think so,” she giggled. “I did a little one at the end, though. For you.”

I kissed the still-developing bruise on her cheek.

“I know. That was very genial of you too. You felt gorgeous.”

She looked at the ceiling.

“I loved that. I loved it,” she said.

“I don’t think you have any idea how much I did too. You’re quite something.”

“I am. Remember that. Let’s have a drink.”