Chapter 16 At the Conference
At the Conference
I’m at a conference when my new paramour calls. Or rather, I am on my bed naked in the hotel room and she sends me a FaceTime
request. I am marginally annoyed, as I was busy. But I sign out of the website I was in and take the call.
“Hello, jellybean,” I say. “Where are you?”
A superfluous question, as it is immediately evident Simone is on the Acela. The seat behind her, the triple chime as the
train approaches a new stop, the sun and shadows playing over her pretty face as the movement propels her forward. Toward
New York. Toward our publisher, although today Simone is not going to Hercules House but to the Southampton Authors’ Luncheon
in Long Island, where she is tomorrow’s speaker, a sort of vestigial post-tour event. We’re such a literary power couple.
A new experience for me. The reception is sporadic: Simone freezes, unfreezes. Freezes, unfreezes. By my estimation, this
means she is somewhere in Connecticut. I have made that trip many times. With my battered brown briefcase on the seat next
to me, containing my next bestseller. Whether it’s the satchel or its contents, I have been unbelievably lucky thus far. It
has never failed.
“I’m somewhere in Connecticut,” Simone says, pixelating and unpixelating.
“I thought as much,” I say. Again I try to quash my irritation.
Why would she wait to call me until this part of the journey, when the reception is spotty?
How inconsiderate. Simone might have called me from Massachusetts.
Or better, from her hotel in the Hamptons—although I might not be available to answer then.
Regardless, somewhere where she is stable.
“Would you like to see where I am?” I ask, and pan the camera down over my body. I am nude as the day I was born, and my previous
activity, the one Simone interrupted, has left me half turgid. My penis rests against my left thigh, still engorged, slightly
purple.
“Holy God,” Simone says, fanning herself. “That’s so unfair.”
“Quid pro quo,” I say.
“I’m on a train, William.”
“Just the girls then?”
Simone hunches forward and furtively lifts her blouse so I can see her breasts, attractively packaged in a black bra. I am
not much of a tit man, I must confess. I prefer asses. Something I can smack with my hand. And if I were left to gravitate
to my own tastes, which unfortunately I can’t always do, I would choose very slender women. Who knows why—some crush on a
little gymnast on the back of a cereal box when I was a child, perhaps, some girl buried in the sands of time. Whatever the
reason, I like them taut and tight, muscle and bone, no cleavage to speak of so their nipples protrude like pebbles on a flat
expanse, growing when I tug on them.
Simone has more flesh on her than I’d prefer. Admittedly, she is most men’s ideal, small but rounded, with the 36-24-36 curves
Playboy trained us to love. I have to admit she is prettily made. I can work with it. I have many times before. And our chemistry,
I was relieved and astonished to discover, is startlingly electric, perhaps the best I’ve ever known. Imagine my surprise:
There I was, steeling myself to go through the movements, and instead in her mouth, in her hands, in her hottest tightest
wettest space, I found nirvana. It’s as though I’d gone through my whole life having a mild distaste for chocolate and suddenly
could eat nothing else.
“There you are,” I say, smiling at Simone’s breasts before she lets her shirt drop. “Hello, ladies.” I keep my camera pointed down so she can see me stroke myself.
“William, stop,” she says. “This is cataclysmically unfair.”
“I will on one condition,” I say, not stopping. “Tonight, when you’re in your hotel room, after you’ve eaten your room service
cheeseburger and removed your red dress and Spanx, when you’re getting ready for bed, I want you to stand for a few minutes
naked. Touch yourself. Wherever you please—your choice. Imagine it’s me. Then take a photo and send it to me.”
“Deal,” she says. The color has risen in her cheeks. “Even better, do you want me to FaceTime you?”
“There’s nothing I’d like more, but I’ll likely be tied up,” I say. This is true. “You know how these things are. The real
work isn’t done at the podium but at the parties.”
“True. How’s the conference so far?”
“Fine,” I say. “Typical. I’m being hit on every thirty seconds.” I laugh. This is also true. Our profession is not known for
being full of hetero men, or at least not virile ones with hair, teeth, and a sturdy erection. The odds are in my favor.
Simone does not laugh, although she offers a pained smile. “I hope you tell all those hos you’re spoken for,” she says, and
I can hear her straining to say it lightly.
“I tell them my lover is a literary powerhouse with the body of an odalisque,” I say, and now she does laugh, and then I see
her recalculating as she realizes I didn’t answer her question. Wait a second is practically emblazoned on her forehead.
“I’ve got to jump soon, sugarpants,” I say. “I’m on a panel about defining genre in fiction.”
“Of course you are, Virtuoso,” she says. “Though don’t you mean defying genre in fiction?”
“I like what the word Virtuoso makes your mouth do,” I say. Simone has wickedly pillowy lips, especially the lower one. I feel myself harden again. “And I suppose I’m on the panel to provide the exception to the rule.”
“Because you are exceptional.”
“As are you, honeybun.” I am growing impatient with all this cooing. “How’s our favorite rumrunner? Are you getting work done
on the train? My favorite place to write—no interruptions.” Unless you’re procrastinating by calling a hardworking man at
a conference, I do not add.
“He’s fine,” says Simone, and I’m disturbed to see a secretive expression flit over her face. My current beloved is a pretty
one, with her strawberry-blond hair and green eyes and spray of freckles, rather like a pornographic Nancy Drew. She also
wears her thoughts on her face, which is handy for me. I do not care for the looks of this one.
“The rumrunner’s still drunk,” she adds, trying to play it off. I do not smile.
“How’s the outline going ? Last we spoke, you were breaking the historical section into chapters?”
“It’s a little balky,” she admits. “Lots of question marks where the scenes should be. Especially in the murky middle.”
“I’m looking forward to getting back and helping,” I say. “Ever your obedient Muse.”
“Same,” she says, as I carry the phone into the bathroom and prop it up on a stack of towels. “I miss—” She dissolves and
reassembles.
“What’s that?” I say. “You’re breaking up.”
Simone garbles something, freezing with her mouth open. What I wouldn’t do to be able to stick my erection through the screen.
“Don’t forget your promise,” I say on the off chance she can hear me, “the naked photo, and also I’ll expect that outline
by the time we’re both back. Wait’ll you see what I’ve planned for your reward.” I bend tenderly toward the screen. “Adorations,”
I say, blowing her a kiss.
“Can’t hear—” she says, and then she is gone.
I shower and shave, trying not to dwell on that shadow I saw pass over Simone’s face—an expression that looked, for all her womanly face paint, like a little girl caught doing something wrong.
Or trying to hide it. But perhaps I am being too suspicious.
It has happened before. Simone may be beavering obediently away on our idea even now, as I dry off and pat my bespoke cologne on my face, my chest, my balls.
The throes of a new idea is always an uncertain place.
Our historical blockbuster is gelling in that bright mind of hers; she just needs a helping hand.
Which I will happily provide when we next meet. I’m a giver that way.
Meanwhile, I have other contributions to make here at this literary conference. I dress in my post–Labor Day tour clothes—blue
button-down Oxford, khakis, suit jacket, tie; I cannot abide my fellow male writers who present themselves for literary events
in burrito-stained T-shirts. Such disrespect for the readers. But I fibbed to Simone. I already had my panel today. The event
this evening is a cocktail party, and as I descend in the elevator to the hotel lobby, I can already feel it, the tingle that
accompanies a hunt. This is nothing serious, of course, just a little sportfucking. Merely a maneuver to keep limber. But
I feel great satisfaction when I spot my quarry before I even reach the revolving door at the hotel entrance. It makes everything
so easy.
She is at the bar, a pallid young woman with long, unbound sandy hair, in an ill-fitting navy dress she probably hopes looks
sophisticated, poor dear, and a name tag that proclaims her to be part of the conference. There she is, my evening project.
I will help her with her confidence by tending to her, by making her feel she’s the most beautiful creature in the world.
What woman would not want that? She’ll be walking differently tomorrow because of me.
I stroll to the bar to stand next to her, take out my phone, swipe away a text from Simone, shake my head sadly, and turn
to the young woman, who is eyeing me. Ava Hallam, Debut Author, her name tag says. I incline toward her as I almost always have to, as I am tall and she is petite. She has dark freckles
that I know form constellations beneath her clothes, and I look forward to making alternate patterns on her skin.
“Hello,” I say. “You’re here for the writing conference as well? I have no signal in here. Can you remind me where the cocktail
party is, please?”