Satisfaction 20

There is something about upmarket hotels. The furnishings. The food. The service. The women. The list goes on.

When Max arrived that afternoon, people were drifting out along the broad corridor that led from where the banquet and conference rooms were. Some people were heading for the lifts. Others were heading for the front door. More than a few were heading for the highly-rated house bar, just off the lobby.

Max stood to one side, scanning the crowd. He spotted her almost immediately. She was wearing a red suit. Bright red. The man she was with was doing all the talking, waving his hands in a rolling motion as though he was making pasta. When they reached the entrance to the house bar, the man, still talking, placed his hand in the small of her back and steered her inside. The room was filling up, but there were still a couple of empty stools at the bar. The man helped her up onto one of the stools and then, after taking off his satchel and placing it on the floor, he eased himself onto the other stool. The barman placed a coaster in front of each of them and smiled as he took their drink orders.

Max hovered for a moment or two, and then he returned to the lobby where he sat down and took out his phone. He sat there for perhaps 20 minutes, watching the people coming and going, occasionally glancing at his phone, occasionally glancing towards the entrance to the bar. And then he stood up and returned his phone to his shirt pocket.

When he returned to the bar. The couple were still there. Her red suit stood out like a proverbial beacon from the sea of black and dull greys and blues.

The would-be pasta-making man was reaching for his satchel. He got down from his stool, kissed the woman on the cheek, and left. 'Timing,' Max thought as he approached the bar. 'You gotta have timing.' And he took pasta man's vacated stool.

'Your lover?' he said.

The woman just stared straight ahead and took a sip of her drink.

'That chap,' Max said, looking towards the woman.

The woman turned. 'What?'

'That chap. The one who just left. Is he your lover?'

'Who?'

'The chap who just left.'

The woman looked at Max and shook her head. 'Oh ... him? No. Just a bloke.'

The barman placed a coaster in front of Max. 'Sir?'

'Gin and tonic. Tanqueray. A slice of lime. Easy with the ice,' Max said. 'Thank you.'

The barman went off to get the Tanqueray.

'He seemed very ... friendly. For "just a bloke".'

'He's old school,' the woman said. 'But he's harmless. Trying to retrain him is probably not worth the effort.'

'Are you here for a conference?' Max asked.

'Perhaps,' the woman said.

'A day well spent?' Max asked.

'Umm ... not sure,' the woman said. 'The day is not yet over.'

The barman brought Max his drink. 'Thank you,' Max said. He swirled the ice and then raised the glass in the direction of the woman. 'Cheers,' he said.

The woman smiled. 'I take it that you weren't here for the conference.'

Max shook his head. 'Just passing.'

'Oh? And do you pass this way often?' the woman asked.

Max frowned. 'Define often.'

'Oh, I don't know. Once a week? Once a day? Several times a day?'

'Maybe once or twice a month,' Max said. 'I have some clients. They have offices just around on Curzon Street.'

The woman looked at Max. 'Let me guess. You don't look like an accountant.'

'Good,' Max said. 'Because I'm not.'

'A lawyer?'

Max shook his head.

'So what do you do?'

Max hesitated. 'I, umm ... I advise people.'

'Advise people. Advise people on what?'

'Primarily on the quality of the advice they have been given.'

The woman blinked. 'So ... people get advice, and then you advise them on whether or not the advice they have been given is any good.'

'Something like that.'

'Interesting.'

'It can be.'

'Why don't they just get your advice and be done with it?'

'Because the advice they are seeking often involves something about which I have little or no knowledge.'

'And yet, once they have received the advice, you can tell them if it's any good.'

'Usually.'

'Why can't they make their own call?'

'Perhaps because they have too much invested in the advice. They may have been ... well ... desperate for the advice. Or the advice may have been very expensive to acquire. Either way, my clients are probably not the best people to evaluate the quality of the advice once they have it.'

'And you are?'

'I'm independent. I have nothing to win, nothing to lose. Whether I decide that the advice is good advice or bad advice, my fee is still the same.'

'Do you ever get it wrong?'

'Umm ... no. Not really.'

The woman upended her glass.

'Another?' Max said.

The woman glanced at her wristwatch, an elegant Raymond Weil two-tone watch with a pale gold face and a two-tone band.

'Do you need to be somewhere?' Max asked.

'Umm ... no. Not really.'

Max signalled to the barman and pointed to the woman's empty glass. The barman smiled.

'Is your advice expensive?' the woman asked.

'Some might think so. But, of course, it needs to be,' Max said.

'Oh?'

'If my advice wasn't expensive, it would just make my clients feel silly. Your watch,' Max said, 'I imagine that cost you ... what ... close to a thousand pounds?'

'Something like that,' the woman said.

'And you like it?'

'I do. I like it very much.'

'And would you like it as much if it had only cost ten quid?'

The woman smiled.

'But enough about me,' Max said. 'How do you fill your days?'

'I ... umm ... give satisfaction,' the woman said.

'Satisfaction?'

The woman nodded.

'And are you good at giving satisfaction?' Max asked.

'It would seem so. I get very few complaints.'

'I take it that your satisfaction does not come cheaply.'

'I think you have just explained why it needs to be appropriately priced,' the woman said. 'I'm not sure that cheap satisfaction is quite so satisfying - for either party.'

Max smiled.

They chatted on for another 15 minutes or so, and then Max said that he would get them a cab.

'I probably need to powder my nose,' the woman said.

Max nodded. 'I'll meet you in the lobby.'

While the woman went off to 'powder her nose', Max paid the bar tab and then went and waited by the front doors. The woman in the red suit joined him a few minutes later. 'Are you sure you want to do this?' the woman said.

'I am,' Max replied.

The doorman hailed them a cab. And, while the doorman opened the cab door for the woman, Max leaned in from the passenger side and said something to the cabbie. Then they were away, back up Park Lane towards Marble Arch, and then along North Carriage Drive, and out onto Bayswater Road, heading west until they reached Notting Hill Gate, and then northwest until they came to a stop outside a smart terraced house. 'This is us,' Max said.

Inside, the house was neat, tidy, and pleasantly warm. 'This is nice,' the woman said.

'Sandu comes on Mondays and Thursdays,' Max said. 'You're seeing it at its best.'

The woman smiled.

'Would you like a drink?' Max asked.

The woman smiled and shook her head. 'No, thank you. Let's just ... do it, shall we?' she said.

Max led the way upstairs. 'This is nice,' the woman said - for a second time.

'Yes. This room gets the afternoon sun,' Max said.

The woman put down her black designer handbag and then took off her red suit jacket and looked around for somewhere to put it.

'Perhaps on the back of that chair,' Max suggested.

The woman carefully placed the jacket on the back of the chair. Then she unfastened something at the side of her skirt, lowered her zip, and stepped out of her skirt, carefully placing it on the chair along with her jacket.

When the woman had been sitting at the bar, she had appeared to have been wearing some sort of dressy T-shirt under her jacket. Black. And there was just a suggestion of lace. But now that she had removed her suit, it was evident that she was a wearing a one-piece body suit. The pattern of the lace trim of the body suit was a near match to the lace tops of her black stay-up stockings.

'Nice,' Max said. 'Very nice.'

Max approached the woman and made as if he was about to kiss her.

'Uh-uh,' the woman said.

'Oh, yes. Sorry. You did say no kissing, didn't you?'

The woman smiled.

Max reached between her warm upper thighs and then gently pulled his fingers back across the warm, slightly damp gusset of her body suit.

The woman smiled again.

Max moved the tips of his fingers around until he found what he was looking for: the slight indentation where the fabric of the woman's undergarment dipped between her warm outer labia. And then he gently worked at the indentation until it became rather more than slight. Then he decided that it was time to 'open the trapdoor' of her body suit. It turned out that it required two hands; but he got there in the end.

'Is there a trick?' he asked, after the event.

'Practice,' the woman said.

'I can see that I shall have to,' Max said.

Now with unrestricted access, Max let his fingers explore the woman's fur-fringed vulva. Emerging from between her slightly plumped up outer lips, her butterfly-like inner lips were already slick with juices.

'Mmm,' the woman murmured.

Max's fingers worked their way methodically along the woman's slick valley.

'Oh, yes,' the woman said, each time that Max's fingers reached her emerging clit. 'Oh yes.' And then she thrust her hips up and forward slightly so that Max's fingers slid back along her valley to her hot and waiting hole. Max took the cue. 'Oh, yes,' the woman said.

Max plunged in with one finger and then two.

'Mmm, yes,' the woman said.

And then Max withdrew his now slicked fingers and slid them on until they found her waiting rosebud.

'Mmm, yes,' the woman said. 'Yes.'

The tip of one of Max's fingers found its way into the opening flower bud, and the woman moaned softly.

The woman's breathing was becoming short and ragged and a rosy glow was developing across her throat and upper chest. Max turned her around and bent her over the edge of the bed. She knew what to do.

While the woman positioned herself, Max kicked off his shoes and then removed his trousers and his boxer shorts. And then he spread her buttocks and revisited her slippery slot.

'Oh, yes,' the woman said. 'But we agreed that you will need to use a condom.'

'Right.' Max briefly broke away and retrieved a small foil packet from the drawer in the bedside table. He carefully ripped it open and, after pinching the end, he rolled the pre-lubricated condom down over his erect cock. And then, little by little, he entered her.

'Mmm, yes,' the woman said. 'Oh, yes.'

Once he was balls deep, Max started to withdraw. And then he plunged in again. And again. And again. And with each thrust, he felt the woman sucking him deeper and deeper inside her. Satisfaction indeed. Max could see why she got few complaints.

People paid Max well to think about things, often things about which he knew very little; to consider options; to weigh relative values; to make judgement calls. What he knew about what was happening between the woman and him was that the more that he thought about it the more he would enjoy it. But, the more he enjoyed it, the sooner it would reach an explosive conclusion. Oh, fuck it! The woman was already yelping like a happy puppy.

Max abandoned all hope of spinning it out for another ten minutes. He was going for the line.

'Oh, yes,' the woman said. 'Oh, fuck, yes. Yes, yes, yes.'

Max agreed. 'Oh ... fuck ... yes,' he said.

And then they both collapsed onto the bed, their hearts beating out of their chests, their smiles as wide as the Thames where it passes Nore Light.

'Wow.'

'Yes, wow.'

For perhaps five minutes, neither of them said anything. And then the woman said: 'That was fun. We should do it more often.'

'Yes. We should,' Max said.

The woman glanced at her watch. 'Gosh. Look at the time. The girls will be home soon. I'd better get supper started.'

Max nodded. 'I'll just get changed and I'll come and give you a hand,' he said.