“I’m trying to be quiet,” I tell her.

“Good.”

“Are you hungry?” I ask.

“Um, no. I have an appetite but not for food.”

I open one eye and look at her. She fixes me with a winsome smile, stops massaging, and gazes at me from the foot of the bed with almond-shaped eyes.

“That was very nice. Thank you.”

“We’re not done yet,” she says.

At the moment she looks like the spider about to attack the fly. I watch her as she moves gracefully, almost floating on air, around toward the other side of the bed. Halfway there she drops her hands to her sides and gently thrusts her shoulders back. The robe slides from her body and disappears like a silk puddle, past her thighs and onto the floor.

As she walks through it, the body-hugging red chemise clings to her form, set off by two thin straps over her shoulders and a filigree of lace at the tawny satin smoothness of her thighs.

“I really didn’t want to stay in my room alone tonight,” she says. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“No. Why should I mind?” I think to myself, I love being raped by beautiful women.

“Missing Herman, are you?” she says.

“Umm, no. Not exactly.”

“Good. That makes two of us.”

“You don’t like Herman?”

“He’s a very nice guy,” she says. “But that makes two of you, and when I’m added to the mix, three is a crowd.”

“I see. He speaks highly of you.”

“Thank him for me.” As she reaches the other side of the bed she raises a tanned, shapely knee and plants it deep in the soft muslin bedcovers. Then in a flowing feline motion she traverses the width of the bed on her hands and knees. When I look up I see her face hovering just over my left shoulder, pursed sensuous lips and oval eyes.

“Don’t look so frightened,” she says.

“Do I look scared?”

“I won’t bite,” says Joselyn. “I promise. Not unless you ask me to, and then you may have to beg.”

“That sounds kinky.”

“Silence, remember?” Joselyn has bathed and washed her hair. I can smell the perfumed soap and the scent of strawberries floating in the ether above me.

“Pick a mantra, anything, and focus on it. It will help break the fear.”

“Really?”

“Aom, aom.”

I look at her eyes, her pursed lips, almost pouting, as she stalks me on her hands and knees, staring down at me. “Before I settle in, would you like something to drink? Something from the minibar, perhaps?”

“Sweetheart, if you think I’m going to allow the moment to slip away and let you slide off the hook by bringing me a cocktail, you’re out of your mind.”

She laughs. “What do you think is going to happen?”

“I don’t know, but I’m dying to find out. At the moment I’m feeling just fine.” In fact, looking up at her face, her body encased in the tight chemise, kneeling above me like a tigress, I am feeling almost euphoric, as if someone has shot me up with heroin.

She settles down with the sweet fragrance of her hair dulling my senses and her head on my shoulder. “Do you mind?”

“Oh, yeah. I hate it.” As I lay sprawled on my back, Joselyn snuggles up against me, displacing every void of air between our bodies. Lying on her side, she raises a bent knee and rests it gently on top of my thigh. The tension causes me to stir in that place down below. She knows exactly what she’s doing. She smiles and rhythmically rolls her knee gently across my groin.

I take a deep breath and arch my back.

“Relax,” she says. “Focus on your mantra.”

“I’m trying to, but they’re pressing into the side of my chest at the moment.”

Her breasts planted in my side, her back gently arched, she starts to laugh as her body stretches out and sculpts the perfect form of sensual desire.

I lift my right arm over her head so that I can cradle her. She stops laughing and snuggles in tighter.

Like a schoolboy, my heart pounding, I slowly move my hand down the smooth, silken finish of her chemise until my fingers reach the small of her back. They come to rest in that heaven above the arch of her buttocks as my fingers start to dance. Lazily they skim across the satin finish, feeling only the bump of a single chord, the waistband of her thong under the smooth, red-silken sea of the chemise.

“I’m glad that Herman found another room tonight.” The warm, moist breath of her words in my ear ignites a sexual tingle of electricity that traverses my spine.

“Herman says I snore.”

“I wouldn’t call it snoring,” she says. “They’re actually just cute little occasional snorts.”

“How do you know?”

“I heard it every once in a while between Herman’s foghorn.”

“When?”

“When I was outside your door at night.”

“What were you doing outside the door?”

“I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to come to my room. Obviously not,” she says.

“I didn’t…I mean I wasn’t sure…”

She puts her finger over my lips. “Now is one of those moments when silence is best,” she says. Her lips seal over my ear, her pointed, wet tongue penetrating to its inner depth as she quickly slides her hand from my lips down my chest and stomach under the open bottom of my shirt. Her nails, like talons, rake my stomach and chest. Passion seizes my lungs. I arch my back as her knee presses into the hardness at my groin. I listen and feel her hot, moist breath in my ear until her lips move, grazing my cheek.

Like a magnet, I turn my head, finding her lips with my own, rolling up onto my side as I grab her in my arms, pressing her body to my own, our legs intertwined, our tongues doing a dance.

Suddenly she pushes with her hands. I don’t want to let go. It feels so good to hold her, as if nature itself had reached a point of equilibrium, a tender balance of two human souls.

Suddenly she disengages. She’s back up on her knees. I lay there wanton, baffled and befuddled. Then I realize her need and she starts to pull the shirt over my head. While I’m finishing with the shirt, her frenzied hands go to work feverishly at my belt.

“Maybe I should take a shower,” I tell her.

“Later,” she says. “Unless you want me to leave, in which case you better make it a cold one.”

“Later would be best,” I tell her. Before the words clear my lips, she smothers them with an openmouthed kiss as she pulls my pants down. Together we finally shed them over the edge of the bed, where the red chemise and Joselyn’s thong join them.

She is back in my arms, the warm, tawny glow of her nakedness against my flesh. Her lips press to my ear in a husky, sensuous voice: “If Herman calls now, he won’t have to worry about Thorn. I will beat him to death with his own phone.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

What they say about hell and good intentions is true. I had intended to call Herman by ten o’clock.

When the phone rings, somewhere muffled and distant, I gaze over and the clock on the nightstand reads 9:10. I rouse from a deep sleep to the feel of her warm body against me. Joselyn’s tousled hair covers her face as it nuzzles into the cranny of my neck, her limp arm and sharp nails draped across my chest. Each time I move she sticks her claws in me like a cat.

When I see the sliver of bright light breaching the blackout curtains, I panic. “Oh, shit.” The phone is still ringing. But it’s not night, it’s the morning after.

I struggle to get up.

“Emmmmm!” Joselyn stirs and digs a fingernail into my nipple. “What time is it?”

“Morning,” I tell her. I free myself from the claw.

“Where are you going?” She yawns, covers her mouth, and stretches under the covers.

“Looking for my phone.” It’s not on the nightstand. When it rings again I realize it’s still strapped to the belt on my pants, down on the floor under the tangle of garments.

I lean over and fish my way through the red sexy thong and the chemise, trying to focus my eyes. I find my pants and feel for the phone, slide it out of the holster, and check the screen. It’s Herman. I push the green button. “Hello!”