Word of Mouth

The telephone rang so suddenly in the empty hotel room that my heart cracked against my ribs and my arms ached with adrenaline.

With shaking hands I lifted the receiver as the bell echoed against the cream-colored walls.

“Hello?”

“Mia.” His velvety, weathered voice. That voice I’d loved from the first moment I heard it. A voice you could wrap up in, like a favorite coat.

“Jack. Where are you?”

“I’m so sorry. Look, I’m not going to make it to the hotel tonight.”

I thought back to the small, white card his messenger had delivered to my office that morning. I had opened it like an artifact. Inside was a note in his own spidery handwriting, drawn from fine black ink. “Mia — meet me tonight at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay. Eight o’clock, room 117. Finally.”

After a long drive on winding coastal roads, I had arrived at precisely eight, more than an hour ago. After the concierge had given me the key, I had briefly considered sedating the wild butterflies in my stomach with a drink at the bar. Instead, I had headed straight to the room, hoping Jack would already be there and waiting. But I had opened the door to an impeccably made bed in an empty room, one that had been my sole companion until the ring of the phone.

“Oh, no.” I twined my fingers into the spirals of the telephone cord, and willed tears away. “What happened?”

“I had to hop on a plane to Arizona this afternoon to do some last-minute shoots for the next episode of the show,” said Jack. He was a co-star on a popular children’s television program. “I’m filming some kind of scene with one of the pueblo communities, but the producers could only get permission to do it early tomorrow morning.”

I could hear him breathing softly into the receiver. For a moment, I could almost feel it warming the fine hairs of my ear.

“What’s your hotel room like?” I asked.

Jack laughed, warm and sensual. “Oh, you don’t want to know. The shower’s too small and there’s this weird drain in the middle of the bathroom floor. The whole thing smells like mildew. Nothing like the room you’re in.”

“You know it?”

“I stay there any time I need a little solo getaway,” he said. “I’m picturing it now – and wishing I could be there. We’ve waited so long for this. I’m going to make it up to you.”

“When?” The question came out more sharply than I intended.

“Now.”

I swear his voice dropped half an octave. Its tones traced along my scalp and spine like pulling a silk scarf from my neck. I shivered.

For a moment, I forgot how forbidden this was. In addition to his TV job, Jack was the mayor for a small town north of San Francisco — one of those towns with nuclear families, perfect hedges, and too many soccer teams. We met because I am one of the co-founders of Pets for Life, a small non-profit animal shelter getting ready to set up shop in his town.

I secretly fostered a crush on him, no matter how ill-advised it was. For the past year, I had been submitting drawings, applications, and fees to his city’s planning department and patiently awaiting the city council’s approval so we could move in. His approval.

During those months, he had reviewed the plans and phoned me several times to ask questions. Whenever he called, the warmth and texture of his voice buoyed me for days afterward. I wondered, many times, whether he was flirting with me, but always chalked it up to his irresistible charm.

I had never dreamed that those long, often bureaucratic phone conversations had somehow bewitched him, too. Even after the Pets for Life proposal was unanimously approved, it was still a conflict of interest for us to meet privately. So it was no small surprise when his note arrived, asking me to meet him.

“Do you remember the day we met?” Jack asked on the other end of the line.

“You were in your office at City Hall, and I had come in to deliver some new drawings for the shelter.”

“And I overheard you talking to the planning department secretary. When I looked up, there was this stunning, black-haired woman standing outside my door.”

“And you –” I started to laugh. “You looked nothing like I thought you would, after hearing your voice on the phone.”

“What did you expect?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think I imagined you would be taller.”

“And less bald?” I could hear the smile in his voice.

“No, no, no,” I protested. “Okay. Maybe. But you have no idea the effect you had on me right then.”

“Tell me.”

“You stepped out from behind your desk, and you came over and shook my hand. You put both hands around mine, and you looked right into my eyes, do you remember?” Jack made an affirmative sound, little more than a whisper. “You introduced yourself. Not like you’re the mayor or some television actor, but like you’re, I don’t know, the welcoming committee. Right away you reminded me of someone.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. But someone familiar. Someone fond.”

“Do you remember what I asked you?” Jack’s hushed tone quickened with excitement.

“You asked me if I liked red wine.”

“And do you remember why I asked you that?”

“You told me that you collect it. And you promised me that once the Pets for Life project was decided, you would share a bottle with me. But after you told me about some of the vintages you have, I thought there was no way you could be serious.”

“Think again.”

There was a knock at the hotel-room door.

“There’s someone — ”

“Go answer it,” Jack said. “I’ll wait.”

I kicked off my shoes and padded to the door in stockinged feet, smoothing my hair and blouse. Even though I was alone, I somehow felt guilty. I opened the door slowly. Outside stood a tall, young-looking bellhop with dark skin. He held a tray with a bottle of wine, a corkscrew, and a single wine glass, its bowl as big as a grapefruit.

Once inside, the man brought the tray to the small table by the window. Gracefully he cut the metal wrapping from the top of the bottle and uncorked it, pouring a little of the ruby wine into the glass. I pulled a $10 bill from my purse and handed it to him as he slipped out the door.

As I picked up the telephone and pulled it over to the table, I studied the bottle.

“Silver Oak Cabernet, Alexander Valley,” I read aloud into the receiver. Jack chuckled softly on the other end. Silver Oak was made in small batches, and you could only buy it from the winery, making it a collectors’ wine. “1995. Holy shit. I can’t accept this, Jack. It must be worth a fortune.”

“Is it already open?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s too late. You’ve got to drink it.”

I lifted the glass, swirled the wine in the bowl, and lifted it to my nose. A cascade of aromas hit me — fruit, spice, deep woods. “Ohhh, Jack. This is incredible.”

“Isn’t it? Now taste.”

With the first sip, I let the wine pour across my tongue slowly and closed my eyes. “Mmmm.”

“What do you taste, Mia?”

“Cherries.”

“Yes.”

“Violets.”

“Yes.”

“Oh my God. Chocolate.”

“Yes. And.”

“Leather. It’s like — it’s like dancing with a man who wears leather and smokes clove cigarettes.”

“Have you ever done that?” Jack asked. I heard him swallow, and guessed he was drinking the same vintage.

“Once upon a time, it was pretty much all I did.”

“Once upon a time? Just how old are you?”

“Thirty-five. I’ll be thirty-six this month.” For some reason, telling him made my face flush. I knew he was forty-nine.

“Happy birthday.” Jack drew the words out, tasting them. The wine’s rich warmth swirled on my tongue. Droplets settled on my lips and I licked them away, savoring each tiny drink. It was the rarest vintage I’d ever had.

“Hold on.” I crossed the room and flicked the lights off. Then I went back to the window and opened it wide, letting the sound of the ocean waves wash in from the beach down below. I settled into the long window seat and took another drink of the Silver Oak — this time a big one. My senses were awake and hungry.

“Can you hear the ocean?” I asked.

“No, but I wish I could. That’s really a great room, isn’t it? I’m so glad I could share it with you.”

“But you aren’t.”

“Mia.”

“I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right.”

“Yes, it did, and you’re being honest. That’s all right. I’m disappointed, too.”

“If you were here –”

“Yes?” Jack interrupted me.

“If you were here, I would turn all the lights off and make you talk to me.”

“About what?”

I took another deep drink and poured more wine into my glass. “It doesn’t matter. Your work. The crab fleets in Half Moon Bay. The rise and fall of the stock market this afternoon. You could read to me from that environmental impact report you’ve been slogging through. That’s what I loved about you first — your voice.”

“This voice?” Jack purred. This time, his delivery sounded more deliberate. My spine melted, just a fraction.

“That voice.”

“Well. You don’t need me in the room with you to hear this voice,” Jack said. “Why don’t we see what it can do?”

“Okay.” My hands began to tremble slightly. I took another long sip — cherries and chocolate and spice — and set the wine glass back onto the table before it slipped from my fingers. Slowly I lay down onto the window seat, leaving the pillows as the maids had arranged them.

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine,” Jack said. I recognized the lines from the Song of Solomon immediately. I smiled; it was just too perfect.

“Let him kiss me,” Jack repeated. This time, behind the sand-swept warmth of his voice, I could imagine faint lips pressing against my own.

“Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee. I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots. Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.”

“You’re skipping around, Jack.”

“Mia, sweetheart. Just listen.”

He repeated the lines. This time I sensed the thunder of the horses’ hooves, the riches on my skin. Imagined him admiring me — both from afar and from a place near me by the window. I remembered that first time he shook my hand and held it, and now could almost sense the weight of his hands over mine once more.

“Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; for I am sick of love,” I replied, letting my voice turn wry.

“His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.” Jack’s voice, undeterred by my humor, was so potent now that I swear I could feel him touching me. With one hand he cradled the back of my head. The other cupped the place between my legs.

I unbuttoned my blouse and pulled it off, letting it slide to the floor. I pulled the cups of my bra down, exposing my nipples to the ocean breeze blowing in through the window. They stiffened quickly.

“I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vine flourished and the pomegranates budded,” Jack said.

I flushed again, believing somehow that he could see me undressing in this dark hotel room miles away from his home. But I went on, removing my stockings and then, slowly, inching my skirt off my hips before kicking it to the foot of the window seat.

“How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter. The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman.” Jack’s voice grew hoarser. His breath rasped against the telephone. I could hear him swallow hard. “Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies.”

As he read, his voice stroked the high arches of my feet — whose curve drew a telegraph line to my cunt – and traveled up my thighs to the place where they gave way to the soft folds of my cunt. His touch strayed to my belly, and daubed my navel with wine, which he sipped from me in prayerful, bowing motions of his head. The imagined touch of his tongue flooded me with juices. I pulled my panties off.

Could words really do this? I wondered, but not for long. His voice was more potent than my doubt.

“My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door.” As Jack whispered to me, I felt his fingers stroke into my open cleft. “I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved … ”

I moaned and spread my legs wide. His fingers dipped deeply into me, thrusting slowly in and out of my cunt. With his other hand he feathered my clitoris, summoning heat. I didn’t dare open my eyes and risk knowing I was alone. Jack felt so close now I could smell him, feel his weight pressing against me on the bed.

“They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night.”

I felt Jack’s cock in my hand, silky, stiff, hot to touch. I stroked him long enough to urge a low sound from his throat, then sat up and lowered myself onto him. Lock and key. Sword and –

“Mia, do you feel it, too?” His voice came crackling along the telephone wire. He was breathing hard, much too hard.

“Please, don’t stop — ”

Jack grasped my hips and plunged up into me. Everything now was heat and liquor and the sound of his voice. He kept reading, though his voice threatened to come undone. Each word sunk fingertips into my flesh, tangled into my hair and tugged so hard it brought tears to my eyes.

It was enough to make me come. I shuddered and fought it, not ready to wake up. But Jack’s words pinned me, thrust themselves into every part of me, relentless as a stampede. His hips bucked against me and he groaned, and for one moment he was wordless. I let go in that silence, my body wracked with pleasure and sudden sorrow. My cunt opened and closed on emptiness, like a dying fish desperate for water.

I opened my eyes. In one hand I held the phone to my ear. The other remained, limp and slick, between my legs. He was gone; he was never here. A sob forced its way under my throat and I swallowed hard, so Jack wouldn’t hear.

After several quiet, breath-filled minutes, he spoke.

“Mia?”

“Jack.”

“What … what was that?”

“Something in the wine?” ”

“Maybe.”

“This hasn’t happened to you before?” I asked.

“Never. You?”

“I’m not even sure it happened now.”

“Mia.”

“I love it when you say my name.”

“Mia. Mia. Mia. It doesn’t matter what happened. I want it again. I want you again. Can we try to meet at the hotel sometime soon? I can bring you more wine — something even older than the Silver Oak.”

I pictured him standing in the doorway with a ceramic jug of liquor, so old nobody remembered when it was made. It would taste of apples, nuts and pomegranates. As it warmed between our hands, it would smell of sweet myrrh. Jack would let me in the door and shut it behind me, and he would sing the song for me again, this time with his lips against the shell of my ear and his fingers between my thighs.

But I’d had enough of conjuring, enough of miracles. Ever since I’d met him I’d done nothing but dream of him. From now on, I wanted his simple flesh beneath mine, wide awake, sober, and spoken plainly.

“Don’t bring me anything, Jack,” I said finally. Just bring me your voice.”

© 2009 Frances Jones

Erotica author Frances Jones was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her short fiction straddles the line between fantasy and reality, from the wild trysts between two competing journalists in “Backstory” to the earthy, erotic creature her narrator encounters in “The Wood.” Jones’ stories, borne by experience and imagination, are inspired by everyday people and their not-so-everyday fantasies. Frances is a regular contributing member of the Erotica Readers and Writers Association. Her stories have been published in Honey Flava, Five Minute Fantasies 2 and In Moments of Madness. Online, her stories have been published at Clean Sheets and The Erotic Woman.

She lives in San Francisco with her geeky partner and their four-legged, gray-furred housemate who thinks dead birds are gourmet cuisine. For more information and stories, visit her website.

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