When Jack calls and tells me to meet him at the hotel bar, I know two things: he wants to sleep with me, and I will let him.

That’s the rule. If I meet him, I do what he asks, when he asks. I’m free to decline his invitation, but if I accept, I’ll do what I’m told.

I always accept.

What She Needs
Anne Calhoun

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What She Needs

When Jack calls at 6:00 p.m. on a Saturday and tells me to meet him in the bar at the Embassy Suites, I know two things: he wants to fuck me, and I will let him.

But because he knows my answer even before he calls, I make him wait. A little. I shower, locate my sexy underwear at the back of my drawer, put some effort into my makeup and hair. When I get in my car and drive downtown, the knowledge of what I’ll soon be doing, and with whom, sharpens the colors visible through the windshield, the verdant leaves vivid against black-shingled roofs and a Wedgwood-blue sky.

As I walk through the lobby my stride must project a confidence I don’t feel; either bravado or my sheath skirt and tight sleeveless blouse have drawn attention from a cluster of loosened-ties-no-jackets businessmen waiting by the front desk. I ignore their appraising looks, pretending engrossment in the brass railings, plush patterned carpet and abundant plants working to create a tasteful atmosphere. What I’m about to do could easily take place in a rundown motel next to the interstate. Jack, however, likes comfort and couldn’t care less about the two-hundred-dollar room rate. The bar is at the back of the large atrium and the waterfall doesn’t quite mask the click of my fuck-me heels against the tile floor. He knows making this walk by myself heightens my nerves and leaves me to do it anyway.

There is always that moment, standing in the doorway to the bar and looking for him, when I torment myself with the impossible. I imagine he’s found someone equally willing and right at hand, that he’s disappeared upstairs in the time it took me to prepare myself and come to him. But then I see him, a half-full glass of beer next to the Heineken bottle. Tonight he is wearing dark navy jeans and an olive cotton sweater, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

The sight of his forearms, tanned and dusted with blond hair, sends a shock of lust straight to my pussy.

The rest of him is nothing special. Muscles don’t strain the seams of his sweater. Despite the absence of a ring, the other women in the bar don’t eye him with obvious interest. He’s of average height and build for a man, with sandy-blond hair. He doesn’t look like a man who can make a woman lose her mind.

But he is. With a woman, on a bed stripped to the bottom sheet, when there is nothing else to do and nowhere else to be, he is gifted. That’s why I’m here.

I stand next to him. He acknowledges my presence with a slow once-over, the kind that stays just this side of insolent. A nod indicates his approval.

“You want a drink first?” His voice, unlike his eyes, is smooth, calm. His eyes, however, are melting, dark chocolate.

I consider his offer, then indicate acceptance by boosting myself onto the seat next to his. When the bartender comes around he asks what he can get me.

“White wine,” I say as he openly eyes me. I’m not wearing a ring, either, and I know from experience that despite Jack’s presence, I am fair game. Jack doesn’t stake his claim in front of the bartender, but when he leaves to pour my wine, Jack leans to whisper in my ear.

“Nice blouse.”

I tip my head slightly to indicate interest, but keep my eyes on the condensation sliding down the green beer bottle. I never use that color in my work. It’s too recognizable.

“Undo one more button.”

My breath stops in my throat at his command, but I lift one hand to the front of my blouse and flick open the button just above the swell of my breasts. This button keeps me from being slutty. Jack wants it undone. I obey him.

That’s the rule. If I meet him, I do what he asks, when he asks. I’m free to decline his invitation. If I accept, I’ll do what I’m told.

I always accept.

The bartender returns with my glass of white wine and a flirtatious smile on his face. I don’t smile back. When he left my collarbone was visible, my appearance demure but appealing. Now he can see cleavage and the edge of the red lacy cups of my bra. His eyes flash to my chest, then over to Jack, who rests one arm on the back of my chair.

I don’t need to look at Jack to know what his expression is. A grin too hard to be pleasant will tell the bartender he should look elsewhere for his night’s entertainment. That doesn’t stop the bartender from taking one last, long look before he moves away.

I drink my wine, the slow pound of my heart making me lightheaded long before the alcohol enters my bloodstream. We sit in silence as Jack finishes his beer. Small talk is not part of this ritual. I once asked him what he was thinking about while we sipped our drinks before going upstairs.

“Fucking you,” he’d said.

He didn’t ask what I was thinking about.

I replayed those two words, the tone of his voice when he said them, every day until he called me again. The next time I met him I shook my head when he asked if I wanted a drink. He escorted me to a room on the seventh floor and within five minutes of entering the hotel I was naked and under him. I wanted him badly that night. Tonight I want a glass of wine first, and Jack humors me.

I stretch it out, because the Chardonnay is decent. The cotton of his sweater almost but not quite touches the bare skin of my shoulder, his body heat evoking the possibility of his skin in contact with mine. Without meaning to I shift ever so slightly on my stool. The movement makes the edges of my blouse gap open, revealing my breast all the way to the front clasp of my bra.

Jack doesn’t miss this little drama playing out mere inches from him. With two long swallows he finishes the rest of his beer, pulls a bill from his pocket and tosses it on the bar, then stands. He holds out one hand to me, palm up, a command, not an invitation.

“You’re done.”

With those words, I am. I slide my hand into his, the tips of his fingers cold and a little damp from the condensation on his glass. In my heels I’m an inch shorter than he is. My skirt clings to my curves from hips to knees, shortening my stride. He matches my pace as we leave the bar. There’s no need to hurry.

Because we are not boyfriend and girlfriend, as we walk through the lobby his warm palm leaves mine to slide under my hair at the nape of my neck. As I walk I focus on the brass doors to the nearest elevator but feel strangers’ stares pressing against my skin. Neither Jack nor I usually garner stares, but his hand under my hair, guiding me, broadcasts his primal intentions. People look, then glance away. I move docilely, my hands holding my dark brown clutch purse at my waist. The heat of his palm radiates through the tender skin at my nape, slipping down my spine to gather in my pussy. My panties are wet before the elevator door closes behind us.

He pushes the button for the third floor. Once, when our room was on the top floor he fucked me in this elevator, up against the doors, just eight measured strokes before the bell dinged and he stepped away. I felt each purposeful thrust from tip to base and back again. They left me soft and aching, unable to walk steadily without his hand at my waist. That night was all about little tastes, teasing me with a few thrusts, then pulling out to lick or suckle or caress, again and again, until I shamelessly begged him to fuck me.

Tonight, though, he simply leans back against the wall, arms folded across his chest, and looks at me. Opposite him and a little to his left, I see myself in the mirrored doors, my dark brown hair shoulder length and tousled, my eyes more vivid than usual, bright with excitement and longing. My eyes are the same color as his sweater, my lips parted above the dark rose of my blouse, my legs long and enticing in the tight brown skirt and high heels.

While he looks his fill, I think about all the different kinds of sex I’ve had. New love sex, when it lasts for hours and every movement is imbued with meaning and emotion. Relationship sex, that later stage when fucking is as much maintenance as it is pleasure. “Getting an oil change,” while crude, is an apt analogy: it has to be done on a regular basis or the engine of your relationship breaks down.

Sex with Jack at the Embassy Suites is an adrenaline rush, one that peels away layer after layer of the film clouding my vision and turns me on to the point where my skin feels too tight, when I am quite literally out of my mind, awash on pulsing waves of pleasure.

I don’t know what these nights mean to him. I’ve never asked. Although well acquainted with it, he’s not here for my sparkling conversation.

The elevator doors open and with an expressionless face he indicates I should precede him. I put a little extra into my hips as I walk, knowing he is watching. After a moment I feel the heat of his body behind me and his large hand cups my bottom, part copping a feel and part guiding me to the right room.

He backs into the door as it’s closing behind us, pulling me to him for the kiss I’ve been thinking about since he called. The first kiss of the night is always slow, intense, aching and, when his lips slide over mine, his mouth open, I let out a little gasp of longing. He doesn’t kiss like a man desperate to fuck. He kisses like a man who knows I am his for the taking.

In these heels I don’t have to tilt my head back to kiss him, nor does he have to bend all that far to capture my lower lip in his teeth. He has one arm wrapped around my waist, the other hand back on the nape of my neck. I palm his butt through the back pockets of his jeans, and while I wait to feel his tongue, I push against the erection straining at his zipper.

My reward for my eagerness is the slow slide of his tongue over mine. He likes me eager, but my willingness doesn’t guarantee immediate response, let alone satisfaction. This knowledge makes me soft, pliant and so very, very hot. Without conscious thought I grind against him in time to the flickering licks. His fingers flex, then release, against the nape of my neck, and heat surges through me at this evidence of his desire.

Whatever loss of control I’ve wrested from him is momentary. His hands smooth down my back, over my bottom to my hips, where he tugs the tight fabric of my skirt up just enough to expose the lower curve of my ass. His fingernails scratch gently, once, twice. I shudder at the rough sensation, then he shimmies my lacy high-cut panties down to my upper thighs. One hand stays on my bottom while the other trails over my hip, through my trimmed curls, and into my cleft.

“Oh, Jesus,” he whispers against my mouth.

I feel not one ounce of shame at how wet and swollen I am for him. My pussy lips spread easily and his fingers glide through my slick heat, up into my vagina. I muffle my cry against his neck, lick at the faintly salty skin just above his collar, feel his pulse pounding against my lips. He smells like Jack—like Heineken and summer sun, clean sweat and some indefinable male musk that is his alone.

His nose bumps my cheek as he turns his head; I open my eyes to see our reflection in the full-length mirror so thoughtfully placed by the door. I watch his hand move, slight shifts I feel inside me as well, as he presses the base of his thumb against my clit. My knees wobble in reaction to the sensation streaking through me. I am heat and light, wetness and aching desire, and right now the only thing keeping me on my feet is his firm hand on my bared ass.

He’s going to get me off right here, in front of this mirror, against the hotel room door. Pulses of sharp heat zing ever faster from my clit to my nipples and back again, making my hips rock as I push, push, push against his hand. It’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen, my red lacy panties stretched taut around my thighs, my skirt hiked up just above my mound, his tanned hand moving between my legs.

I brace my hands against his chest and let out a whimper at the sight, but he gentles me with a “shhhh” and then closes his teeth around my earlobe. A gasp huffs out of me at the pressure, the pain, so he bends his head and does it again, this time on the spot between my neck and shoulder. The fierce sting sends lightning arcing through my body, every nerve alive with electricity, and I come.

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