Page 20 of In Love With a Master (Interview With a Master 2)

I paced passed the window, reached the study door and then turned back. Leticia and I were standing on opposite sides of the room, and the passage of time into late afternoon had veiled the study in gloom. I went to the fireplace and kicked at the logs – they sparked into renewed life and cast just enough orange glow so that I could see Leticia’s features. I crossed to the desk and flicked on the lamp. A pool of yellow light spilled across the sofa.

“Once the man has his luxury sports car running smoothly, and once he has mastered the gears so that he can accelerate and decelerate instinctively, he then needs to learn how to control and steer his sports car,” I carried the thought through as I continued to pace around the room. “It is most important that the man has a gentle but firm touch on the wheel. In the hands of a skilled driver, a sports car will respond beautifully, but if the man has no destination in mind – if he has no idea where he is going, then the car can’t possibly join him on the journey. Driving a luxury sports car is not something that should be taken for granted. To be a good driver you need experience and patience and you need to know how your car will respond in any given situation.”

Leticia looked up and started to smile.

“And a man should never jerk the wheel. Women like some direction, but keep your grip confident and assured – not like you’re trying to strangle them. A man should know where he is going before he gets behind the wheel – women like to be with a man who knows what he wants.”

I looked up at Leticia – she was watching me. “Did you get all that?”

Leticia nodded. “Every word,” she smiled.

“Is that enough for your article?”

Leticia looked unsure. She nodded her head slowly. “Unless you have anything else you can add…?”

“There is one final thing I would offer as a precaution,” I said. “For a man to truly enjoy his luxury car he should remember that they need regular maintenance. Sometimes it’s a good idea just to let their engine idle… let them warm up. You don’t have to have a purpose every time you get behind the wheel. Sometimes it’s fine just to sit in the garage and let the engine idle for an hour. Women will appreciate that you just want to spend time with them – that you don’t only go near them when you want to get yourself somewhere in a hurry. If a man cares for his car, and lavished it with attention, then the car will take care of the man.”

Leticia jotted down the last of my comments with a flourish and set her notebook down on the sofa beside her. “You had me worried,” she smiled. “When you started with that story I really thought you were making a mistake.” She shook her head in a gesture of small wonder. “I should have learned by now that you don’t make mistakes, do you, Jonah?”

I grunted. “Leticia, for every success I have had with women, there has been a dozen mistakes made along the way. That’s how you learn. Men learn from their errors – if they’re smart enough to realize the errors they make. Some men never learn – they have a limited repertoire in the bedroom and it’s all they ever know, because they don’t care about their mistakes, and nor do they care about pleasuring the woman they are with. The few methods they have are all designed with one objective in mind, and that is their own pleasure.”

Leticia looked intrigued. “You made mistakes with women? You mean to tell me that the great Jonah Noble wasn’t always a master in the bedroom?” she mocked me lightheartedly.

I nodded. “I certainly made my share of errors along the way – some of them large and some of them insignificant. But for me they weren’t mistakes, they were learning experiences. Every time I walked away from a woman, I learned something in the process so that I never made the same mistake twice.”

“These learning experiences… I presume they were when you were younger, right?”

I nodded. “Most of my younger adult years were spent learning and loving women’s bodies, but I never truly understood the subtle complexities of a woman’s mind until I was involved in one of my first threesomes.”

Leticia sat suddenly forward, and there was a glitter of intense curiosity in her eyes. “Really? With two other women, I presume?”

I nodded, and then lapsed into tantalizing silence, until I could see the torture on Leticia’s face. She had her feet pressed to the floor, her legs squeezed together and her elbows resting on her knees with her chin cupped in her hands, perched on the edge of the sofa as if willing me to continue.

I smiled to myself and then drew out the moment for long, agonizing seconds by going to the side table and refilling the crystal tumbler on the edge of the desk with another half measure of whisky. I picked up the glass and stared down into it like a fortuneteller trying to conjure some mystic vision.

“It happened when I was running the newspaper,” I began.

Leticia interrupted. “At the same time you and Sherry were exploring BDSM together?”

I nodded. “That’s right,” I said. “I went to a sports bar one evening. It had been a long day at work and I just wanted to unwind. The bar was crowded with other businessmen and office staff who had stopped in for a drink before spilling out of the city. The bar was smoky, and there was a row of monitors set high up on one wall that showed highlights and score updates from the ball games. There was a jukebox in one corner and young waitresses were winding their way between tables with food and drink orders.”

Again, Leticia interrupted. “You picked up these women in a bar?”

I shook my head. “They actually propositioned me,” I said. I took a sip of the whisky. “A young waitress came over to me. She was eighteen or nineteen. She had dirty blonde hair, wearing a skimpy pair of black pants that looked like they had been painted on, and a short black t-shirt that was cut off just below the press of her breasts so that I could see plenty of tanned midriff. The t-shirt had the name of the sports bar in white letters across it. She wasn’t wearing a bra – every time she swayed between the clusters of tables, her breasts moved and changed shaped. In truth, her features didn’t make her beautiful, but there was a predatory glimmer in her eyes – and a sense of wanton sexiness that glowed on her skin like a summer tan. She leaned over my table to take my order and saw the direction of my gaze. She smiled, confident in her own body, and then gave me a playful wink.”

‘“What would you like?’ the girl asked me. She had a Southern accent and the wicked smile on her lips was a silent invitation. I ordered a whisky and as the waitress spun away, I felt the brush of her hip deliberate against my arm.

“She came back with my drink balanced on a tray. She leaned close over me and set in on the table, and I felt her hand on my shoulder. She whispered in my ear that a woman sitting at a table across from me had paid for the drink.”

Leticia had a sudden thought. “Jonah… can I write this down? Is this something I could use in the articles?”

I frowned at that. “You can write it down if you wish,” I shrugged. “But I don’t know that the incident will have any relevance to your readers.”

Leticia snatched up the notebook and started writing.

I took another sip of the whisky, set the glass down on the windowsill. It was night outside now – and the evening traffic was beginning to spark in a winding string of lights through the mountain road.

“When I crossed the bar and thanked the woman for the drink, she clutched at my arm and insisted I sit. She was in her early thirties. She had long blonde hair down passed her shoulders, and was wearing one of those open-neck blouses with the top button undone so that I could see the silky sheen of her cleavage pressed tight together around the lace of her bra. The woman was heavily made up – layers of color and cosmetics, but for all that it was skillfully done. Her smile was more than friendly. She licked her lips and I sank into the chair beside her. After two or three whiskies, the woman invited me back to her place, and I accepted. It was getting late. They had just called last drinks at the bar. I walked outside with the woman into a warm summer’s night.

“She said her apartment was jus

t two blocks away and we walked there in silence, the only sound was the noise of her high heels on the sidewalk, and as we walked she kept brushing herself against me and pressing her body close to mine. When we got to her apartment she tore at my clothes the moment the front door was shut behind us. She was desperate – there was a frantic hunger in her eyes and she pressed me up against the apartment wall so that I could feel the firm shape of her breasts and the grind of her hips. There was a growl in the back of her throat as we kissed and I felt the smear of her lipstick across my lips and face.

“I had been with older women before – women such as Claire – but this lady was overcome with a frantic passion that I wasn’t experienced enough to handle. I closed my eyes and felt her desperate fingers at my belt, and then she dropped to her knees before me and took me in both her hands. The woman devoured me with her mouth as though she had been starved of sex for too long. She was panting and gasping. I felt my fingers wrap themselves into her hair and then just when I felt my body beginning to thrill, there was the sudden sound of a key in the door lock and a moment later the young waitress from the bar was standing in the threshold to the apartment.”

Leticia gasped. “You mean the waitress lived there too?”

I nodded. “They were flat mates, but at that instant I had no idea. The girl let herself into the apartment and started to undress.”

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