Please (10 page)

She reached down under the duvet and gingerly touched her knees. They were tender and raw, as were certain other parts of her body.

Never in her life
had she had so much sex in a twenty-four hour period. Come to think of it, she hadn’t had sex as many times in the last six months as she had in the last twenty-four hours. Sebastian was insatiable and seemed to need very little recovery time before he was ready to perform again. And perform he did, making the men on the pay-per-view porn channel that they watched while they weren’t eating or fucking look like prematurely ejaculating amateurs. It wasn’t all about penetration. Sebastian was a master of foreplay. Elizabeth recalled with a shiver of pleasure how he had spent over an hour teasing her to climax with his fingers and his tongue and a small missile-shaped vibrator that he happened to have in his duffel bag. Elizabeth tried not to think about where else it had been, joking about it with him instead.

“
What do you tell airport security when they find that in your bags?” she asked as she lay on her back on the bed, Sebastian kneeling between her legs, displaying the vibrator to her like a waiter proffering a fine bottle of wine.

“
I offer to give a demonstration,” he said with a wink and depressed the “on” button, bringing the device humming to life.

Elizabeth dragged herself out of bed, wondering where Sebastian was. She wasn
’t particularly upset that he wasn’t there when she awoke. Her body needed a rest from his ceaseless attention, for one thing. And for another, she realized, inhaling deeply as she stretched her arms above her head, she needed a shower.

Grabbing the leftover crust of a sandwich from one of an untidy pile of plates on the desk, Elizabeth walked, naked, into the bathroom. The bra had come off, eventually, despite Elizabeth
’s protestations, but Sebastian hadn’t seemed disappointed by what was underneath. Well, she mused, biting into the cold toast, he was an actor. But, she thought, if the teaser she had seen for
AWOL
was anything to go by, not a particularly great one.

Elizabeth started to close the bathroom door behind her, stopping when she recognized the timbre of Sebastian
’s voice in the hall. He was talking to a woman. Tuning in to the voices, she realized that they were a little way down the hall as she couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying. She caught the tone of the conversation, though. Flirtatious.

Elizabeth left the bathroom and pressed her ear against the door, straining to hear. Her stomach squirmed with an uncomfortable mix of feelings – jealousy and curiosity among them, but
she wasn’t able to make out more than the odd word. After listening for a few moments, she became sure of one thing. The woman that Sebastian was talking to was
not
Naomi.

Feeling somewhat relieved, Elizabeth went back into the bathroom and turned on the shower, stepping into the steamy enclave.

When she emerged from the bathroom, dressed in jeans and V-neck sweater, her hair still damp despite having spent fifteen minutes under the blow dryer, Sebastian was waiting for her. The dishes had been cleared away and the bed had been made with the crisp efficiency that only hotel staff seemed able to master. Sebastian was lounging on it, absorbed in
Madame Bovary
, Elizabeth noted with pleasure. She was dying to ask him what he thought of her favorite book. He was dressed and, as Elizabeth saw when she came closer, freshly shaven. She trailed the back of her fingers over his smooth cheek, and he looked up at her, smiling.

“
Hey,” he said, folding down the corner of the page he was reading to mark his place. He patted the bed beside him. “Sit.”

She did.
“You shaved,” she said.

“
Yeah, and showered. While you were sleeping,” he answered, pulling her down on top of him. “I thought it would be safer for you if I did.” He nuzzled her, rubbing his newly smooth cheek against her neck.

“
Mm, good idea,” she smiled, her hand unconsciously straying to the raw, red patches she had noticed on her inner thighs in the shower.

Sebastian started kissing her neck and reached for her hand, directing it to the fly of his jeans. He was hard. Again.

“Oh, God, Sebastian,” she groaned, aroused and exasperated in equal measure. “I don’t think I can.” She tried to pull away, but he held her to him. “I mean, we’re both dressed. Shouldn’t we take advantage of this,” she continued, as he slid his hand up her shirt, his palm warm on her stomach, “and you know, go out. Eat. Talk.”

“
Oh, I get it,” he said, flipping her onto her back and straddling her hips, “delayed gratification, right?”

“
Sure,” she said. He had pinned her hands on either side of her head, and was looking into her eyes, his face inches from hers.

“
Okay,” he said, his voice low and seductive. “I can do that.” He kissed her lips, slowly, softly. He pushed her hands up over her head, grasping both wrists with one hand. With the other hand, he began to unfasten the button of her jeans.

Elizabeth arched her back, trying to pull herself out of his grasp.
“Sebastian,” she said, “I don’t think you understand the concept of delayed gratification. The point is to, um, delay the gratification.”

“
Oh, I get it,” he said, unzipping her jeans. He tugged them down below her hipbones. Then, holding each of her wrists at her sides, he began inching his way down her legs. He kissed her navel, looking up at her. “I just want to give you something to think about, you know,” he circled it with his tongue, “while we’re out.” He traced his tongue over her lower abdomen. “Eating.” He slipped it under the elastic of her panties and then out again. “Talking.” He kissed her through the thin silk of her underwear, his tongue hot and wet against her. She moaned.

Then he stopped and, releasing her wrists, bounded off the bed.

“I know a great sushi place over on 8
th
,” he said over his shoulder as he walked toward the bathroom with the springy energy of a golden retriever. “Just give me a minute, and we’ll go. They make the best futomaki. You’ll love it.”

Elizabeth lay exactly as he had left her, a puddle of desire.

He peeked back around the corner at her, a cheeky grin on his face. “Come on. Let’s go, let’s go, Elizabeth. Is sex all you think about?”

*

After a short subway ride uptown and a brisk walk in the long shadows of the setting sun over to 8
th
, Elizabeth and Sebastian were seated at the bar of the tiniest restaurant she had ever been in. Behind its smoked glass door there were just two small pine tables, both occupied by serious looking Asian men in suits, and the sushi bar with four stools. There was no menu, only the glass counter with its rainbow of fish and an enormous wooden vat of rice.

“
Arigato,” Sebastian said as the lone waitress brought them a white porcelain carafe and two cups not much larger than thimbles. She bowed her head with a shy smile and scurried back behind the counter.

“
His wife,” Sebastian whispered, nodding at the man whose nimble fingers were slicing fish, rolling rice and assembling them into miniature works of art.

She is pretty, Elizabeth thought, watching the ageless Japanese woman picking up a plate of freshly crafted sushi, each movement careful and considered, like a ballet dancer. Elizabeth wondered if she was on Sebastian
’s long list of conquests. As if he had read her thoughts, he whispered in her ear.

“
Never. I respect Kenji-san too much. Besides, she’s not my type.”

“
What is your type?” Elizabeth asked.

Sebastian filled both of their cups with clear liquid from the carafe.
“You,” he said, a smile playing on his lips.

“
Right. Not Naomi?” Elizabeth ran her finger around the rim of her cup, following it with her eyes.

Sebastian lifted his cup.
“Gambai,” he said, waiting for her to do the same.

“
Gambai,” she said and took a sip. The sake trickled down her throat, igniting a pleasing glow inside her.

“
Naomi was just a, I don’t know. A toy. A way to pass the time. And I meant what I wrote. I was thinking about you the whole time.” He put his cup down and nudged her knee with his, looking at her intently. He leaned in and lowered his voice, his hand on her thigh. “When I was kissing her, I was thinking of you. And when I was sucking on her tit with my fingers inside her, I was thinking of you. And when she was down on all fours and I was fucking her from behind, sliding my cock in and out of her, I was thinking of you, picturing you moaning and thrashing under me, imagining what you’d look like when you came.”

Elizabeth uncrossed and
recrossed her legs, aroused despite the fact that he was describing having sex with another woman, or maybe because of it.

“
Wow. Well, I hope the reality wasn’t a let-down,” she said, dryly.

Sebastian laughed.
“Far from it.

“
I wonder what Naomi would think of hearing herself described as a toy,” she said, not looking up.

“
Oh, don’t think I wasn’t the same to her, Elizabeth. She has as much feeling for me as she does for the latest ‘it bag.’ Less, probably.” His tone was matter-of-fact. “You know who she’s like?” he continued, toying idly with a strand of Elizabeth’s hair.

“
Who?” she asked.

“
She’s like your Madame Bovary. She’s bored by her life. She tries to distract herself from the pointlessness of it all by shopping or partying or fucking. She says to herself, ‘Oh, I’ll be happy when I get this role or when I fuck this boy or when I get that pair of shoes.’ Right? But then she never is.”

“
I don’t know,” Elizabeth said. “I mean, Madame Bovary was trapped by the parameters of her very proscribed middle class life. Naomi can do anything she wants. Opportunity, talent, looks, money. She has it all.”

“
Exactly,” Sebastian said tapping the counter hard with his index finger. “When you have it all, there’s only one thing left to get.”

Elizabeth looked at him quizzically.
“What’s that?”

“
More.”

*

“Now, this is going to hurt,” the bearded man in the kerchief said. “But not too bad.” The way he was holding the tattoo gun reminded Elizabeth of either a surgeon with a scalpel or a sculptor with a chisel, she couldn’t decide which. “Scar tissue doesn’t have any nerve endings, of course, but the nerves in the skin around this,” he ran a calloused finger lightly over her scar, “well, it’s like they try to make up for their dead buddies or something. They’re extra sensitive.” He smiled at her, flashing a set of teeth too even and white to be real for a man of his age. With his steel-colored beard and road map of wrinkles, Elizabeth had him pegged between sixty and seventy-five.

“
By the way, the name’s Thor,” he added, extending his hand.

“
Elizabeth.”

“
We’re about to get real intimate, Elizabeth,” Thor said, pulling a pair of wire-rimmed glasses out of his t-shirt pocket and putting them on. “I don’t know about you, but I like to be on a first name basis with people I’m intimate with. Seems the boy here,” he winked at Sebastian, who was leaning against the wall watching intently, “forgot his manners and didn’t introduce us.”

“
My bad,” Sebastian said.

“
Indeed.” Thor was fitting a needle into the gun, looking down his slightly crooked nose at the gleaming tool that resembled a torture device or a dentist’s drill, which in Elizabeth’s experience were one and the same.

They were in a sign-less, windowless tattoo parlor on the edge of Harlem. Visits to Thor were, according to Sebastian, by appointment only.

“He’s my New York guy,” Sebastian had said, after he made the call to confirm the appointment that afternoon. “He’s the best. I got a guy in LA, too. He’s good too, but Thor’s a true artist.”

Though they had just gotten dressed, Sebastian unzipped his jeans to show her.
“See,” he said, pointing to a delicate blue-black curlicue at the base of his penis. Elizabeth squinted. It looked like a J and a D intertwined. “That’s Thor’s work.”

He put his finger on another curl of ink. Two K
’s this time. “That’s Rico’s. The LA guy.”

Elizabeth compared the two tattoos. She had to admit that Sebastian was
right. The second tattoo just didn’t have the delicacy of the first. She pointed to another one, near the crease of his inner thigh. “Who did this one?” she asked. It was clearly an A and an S, but it looked like something a high school student would have scrawled on a notebook or a bathroom wall.”

Sebastian shook his head, frowning.
“Some hack in Topeka. Never again. Now I save all my tats for Thor or Rico.”

“
Should we do you first, Seb?” Thor asked now, gesturing with the needle. “So that Elizabeth here can see what it’s like and maybe wipe that terrified look of her face?”