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Another Room with a View

By: SamScribble



Houseman sloshed some more of the vibrant red Côtes du Rhône-Villages into his glass. 'Another small splash?' he asked his wife.

Linda Houseman, propped up in bed, book in hand, shook her head. 'No thanks, Charlie. Nice as it is, it doesn't go very well with toothpaste. I've just cleaned my teeth.'

Houseman nodded and dragged his chair closer to the open window -- not that the air outside was much cooler than the air inside. 'You know, we should see if we could buy this place. I don't imagine it would cost that much. Not when you consider what we normally end up spending on hotels when we're in London. I'm sure that the agents would not have any trouble letting it out when we're not using it. Probably pay for itself. Great location. Shops. Bars. Restaurants. Two parks. Two Tube stations. Three if you count Bond Street.'

Houseman was no longer looking at his wife, but he knew from the tone of her voice that she would be peering over her tortoiseshell-framed spectacles and smiling in the way that a mother smiles at an incorrigible child.

'With three flights of stairs and your dodgy heart! Be different if there was a lift.'

'Mmm. Perhaps. Pretty damn nice when you get up here though.'

'It is,' she said.

And it was. The bedroom was spacious and airy. At some stage it would have been two bedrooms. The living room was also a knock-through. At some stage it would have been a sitting room, a dining room, and a kitchen. Now it was just one big open space with a modern if rather compact kitchen at one end. The bathroom, too, had been recently updated.

Linda Houseman carefully closed her book and placed it on the bedside table. She then took off her glasses, folded them, and placed them carefully on top of the book. 'I'm going to put the light out, Charlie. OK?'

Houseman nodded. 'Yeah. Won't be long. I'll just finish this.'

'Remember you agreed to meet Henry in the morning. Nine o'clock, you said.'

'It's only a five minute walk. Ten at the most.'

Even though the flat was only a street or so away from busy Baker Street, surprisingly little noise made its way up to the open third-floor window. A few cabs rumbled past the end of the street and, at one point, a chorus of slightly tipsy goodnights drifted up from somewhere near the garden square end. But that was about it. It was hard to believe that they were in the heart of one of the world's great cities.

Houseman peered at his watch. In the half-light it looked to be about eleven. He couldn't be sure. But it hardly mattered anyway. Houseman took another sip of his wine.

And then there was the sound of another cab -- except this time it turned into the street and came to a stop immediately below Houseman's window. Houseman leaned out and watched as a well-dressed man in his mid-20s and two slightly older women got out of the cab. The women waited, talking quietly, on the pavement. For a moment or two, Houseman lost sight of the man. Presumably he was paying the cabbie. A minute or so later the cab pulled away and the three late-night passengers entered the front door of the small hotel across the street. Another few minutes and a light came on in the room immediately opposite Houseman.

Houseman watched as the man walked towards the window. Houseman expected him to draw the drapes or close the shutters, but instead he just raised the sash window a little further and then turned to say something to one of the women.

Houseman took another sip and then glanced across at the wine bottle. There were only a few drops left. It was hardly worth keeping it. And Linda was now asleep. (It always amazed him how quickly she could drop off.) He got up from his chair and quietly poured the remaining wine into his glass.

When Houseman returned to his chair by the window, one of the women was undoing the young man's belt and lowering his trousers. Houseman smiled to himself. It took him back to another hotel room on another warm night 30-something years ago.

Houseman was only a couple of years out of university and, after a brief spell on one of the provincial newspapers, he had just started working as a staff writer for The Restoration Report. Over a pizza and some indifferent Valpolicella at Pizza Express he had managed to convince his editor that they should do a piece on the Art Deco hotels of Miami Beach. It was late February, the London winter was dragging on, and Houseman's real objective had been to blag a trip to the Floridian sunshine.

On his second night in Miami, Houseman had been having supper in one of the many eating establishments on Ocean Drive, just across from South Beach. At the table next to him there had been a couple of women in their late 30s, maybe early 40s.

'You British?' one of the women had asked when Houseman called the server over to request another cold beer.

'Guilty as charged,' Houseman had replied.

'Cute,' the woman had said. 'I'm Lucille by the way. And this is Marilyn.'

'Charlie,' Houseman had said.

'Pleased to meet ya, Charlie. You here for the convention?'

'Researching a story. On the local Art Deco architecture.' From the expression on Lucille's face Houseman could see that she had no idea what he was talking about. 'Hotels mainly.'

Lucille shook her head. It seemed that his explanation had clarified nothing. 'We're here for the HealthWorld Pharma Convention.'

Houseman had nodded. 'You pharmacists?'

'Medical detailers,' Lucille had said. 'Sort of like sales associates. But classier.'

Houseman remembered Marilyn laughing. 'You like tequila, Charlie?'

'Tequila? Don't know. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure that I've ever tried it.'

'I've got a bottle of the good stuff back in my room,' Marilyn had said. 'Maybe we should all go back there and, you know, do a few shots. What do you say, Charlie? Are you up for that?'

'Well ....'

'Of course you are,' Lucille had said, and she had called the server over, and asked for the check.

The women had been staying in one of the hotels on Collins Avenue. It was one of the hotels that Houseman had visited earlier in the day.

'You want to fool around a bit, Charlie?' Marilyn had asked as she handed him a shot glass full of tequila.

'Fool around?'

Marilyn had grinned. 'You know ... fool around. You know. Or do you Brits call it something else?'

Housman remembered his first sip of the tequila.

Lucille had laughed. 'No, no, no. Tequila's not for sipping, Charlie. Tequila's for down the hatch in one.' And she had thrown her head back and showed him how it was done. 'There. That's the way you drink tequila, Charlie.'

Houseman had smiled and shrugged his shoulders. 'OK. You're the experts. I'm just the new boy.'

The first cautious sip had hit Houseman's tongue with a slightly bitter herbal flavour -- strange but not altogether unpleasant. But a whole mouthful made his tongue start to tingle and the back of his throat start to heat up like a small furnace.

While Marilyn refilled their glasses, Lucille had taken off her skirt. 'You like my new panties, Charlie? Victoria's Secret. I wore them specially for you. Of course, if you don't like them I can always take them off.' And then both women had laughed.

'They're very ... umm ... nice,' Houseman had said. 'Very, umm, sexy.' When you're still in your early 20s, all female undergarments have a certain allure.

Thirty-something years later, some of the details of that night in Miami Beach were a little sketchy. As much as he liked to think that the haziness was down to the tequila, Houseman also knew that the passing years had played a part. Nevertheless, he could still recall enough to cause his cock to stir. Or was the slight stirring down to the scene that was playing out across the street?

One of the women, the shorter of the two, with glossy red hair styled in a fashionable bob, was down on her knees with her lips around the young man's half-hard cock. The other woman, a blonde, was sitting on the end of the bed having stripped down to matching multi-coloured bra and knickers. 'Do you like my new panties, Charlie?' a voice from a long time ago asked.

'Yes. Very nice,' Houseman said to himself. 'Although probably not Victoria's Secret. More likely Marks & Sparks. Or perhaps Agent Provocateur.'

Houseman took another sip of his wine and absent-mindedly rearranged his cock in his pyjamas.

Since that first expedition to Miami Beach more than 30 years ago, Houseman had become something of a global go-to guy on Art Deco architecture. As well as writing about the architectural gems of Miami Beach, Houseman had also written extensively about the masterpieces and near-misses of London, Edinburgh, Paris, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Barcelona, and Bombay. He had even travelled halfway around the world to research a major piece on Napier, a small city on the east coast of New Zealand that had had the misfortune to be devastated by an earthquake in 1931, and then the good fortune to be rebuilt largely in the Art Deco style.

Funny how these things work out, Houseman thought. All I really wanted was for The Restoration Report to pick up the tab for me to have a few days in the Miami sunshine. And look what it led to.

In the hotel room across the street, the woman in the multi-coloured bra and knickers had taken over the cock-sucking duties, and the redhead was undressing: unzipping and stepping out of her little black dress; adjusting her skimpy black knickers; straightening her black lace-topped stay-up stockings. Had Lucille and Marilyn worn stockings? Houseman couldn't remember. Although he did remember that they had drizzled tequila over his erect cock and then taken turns to lick it clean again.

With nothing more pressing on his mind, Houseman began to speculate on the people across the street. Were they old friends? New friends? Conventioneers (as Lucille and Marilyn had been)? Or were they three people who had just met by chance? In a restaurant perhaps?

Or maybe, Houseman thought, he was witnessing a couple who had brought in a third party to spice up their sex life. Late one night, while cruising on the Internet, Houseman had stumbled across some sort of forum where couples advertised for others -- mainly single women with a bi tendency or 'well endowed' men -- to join them in the bedroom. Houseman remembered that the photographs of the advertising couples had generally not been great. Badly lit. Out of focus. Looking a bit like a copy of a copy of a copy. And the spelling and grammar in their brief profiles and fantasy requests had, as a rule, been even worse.

Across the street, the blonde was getting to her feet and leading the man to the side of the bed. When they got there, she sat on the edge of the bed, and then lay back and raised her bum slightly to make it easier for the man to remove her knickers. 'Do you like my new panties, Charlie?'

When the man had removed the blonde's knickers completely, he bunched them up in his hand and held them to his face. Houseman heard the faint tinkle of girlish laughter. And then the man got down between the blonde's spread thighs and presumably began to lick and suck and nibble in the general region of her pussy. It was only a narrow street, but Houseman wasn't close enough to see exactly what was going on.

Houseman remembered the first time he had gone down on Linda. It was after a drinks party to launch his first book, 'Ziggurat!' Henry had arranged for Linda to handle the publicity for the new book. After more than ten years of asking the questions, Houseman suddenly found himself on the other side of the desk. It wasn't an experience for which he was naturally suited or one that he had much enjoyed.

'You downplay the influence of Louis Sullivan, Mies van der Rhoe, and several other major figures of the early 20th century,' one of the journalists had said.

'Well, I think they were perhaps more influential in Modernism and Bauhaus,' Houseman had replied, referring specifically to Sullivan and Mies.

'Really?'

Houseman could tell from the 'really' that the journo didn't 'really' agree, and he had started to wonder if he had made the right call. Happily, Linda had seamlessly intervened and massaged Houseman's answer into something that sounded more than credible. 'And I'm afraid that we will have to leave it there, ladies and gentlemen,' Linda had said. 'But you have my number and my email address ....'

Later, after Houseman had consumed considerably more wine than a new author ought to consume, he had confessed to Linda that he was probably 'just a little bit pissed'.

'So what are we going to do about it?' Linda had asked.

'Well, a swim sometimes works,' Houseman had said. 'Or sex.'

Linda had looked at him, smiled, and shook her head. 'Far too cold for swimming, Charlie. We don't want you drowning. I need you for the book tour next week.' And so, 15 or so minutes later, they had ended up back at Linda's flat.

'Well, come on, Charlie,' Linda had said, perching on the padded arm of the couch and pushing her lacy navy and pink knickers down to her ankles. 'It's not going to lick itself.'

Across the street, the man was getting to his feet and stroking his cock. The blonde woman shimmied slightly and shuffled her bum closer to the edge of the bed. Then she spread her legs again and raised them so that her knees were almost level with her bra-clad breasts. Houseman put down his wine glass and gently stroked his own cock through the thin cotton fabric of his pyjama pants. As the man in the hotel room guided his cock into the blonde's wet and waiting cunt, Houseman could feel the warm slipperiness against the tip of his own cock. 'Oh yes,' Houseman murmured quietly. But the man across the street was too tall. Or perhaps the bed was too low. After just four or five thrusts the man withdrew, and the woman hastily rolled over and then knelt on the bed with her elegant arse held high. 'Yes. Much better.' And Houseman set his own half-hard cock free of its cotton confinement.

As the man across the street re-entered the blonde woman, this time from behind, the red-headed woman positioned herself with her pussy less than a tongue's length away from the blonde's mouth. Houseman nodded approvingly. 'Perfect. Now you can all play.'

For several satisfying minutes, Houseman watched as the three companions pleasured each other while he quietly stroked his own cock. And then ... and then it was as though someone had turned off the street lights. A few at a time. Or perhaps there had been a moon and it had slid silently behind a dense bank of cloud. Gradually, the street outside grew darker and darker. And the light in the hotel room opposite went from bright white with patches of golden yellow to an overall egg-yolk yellow, and then to amber, and then to a rich, grainy golden brown.

Houseman briefly wondered if the electricity had gone off. Perhaps there had been some sort of massive short circuit somewhere -- although there was still light coming from the living room. As he wondered, Housemen found himself studying the cover of a book that was sitting in the middle of the dining table. The book was bathed by the light from a 1930s-style Anglepoise lamp. The book was Ziggurat! Houseman's first book; the book that had started him on the road to fame and, eventually, to fortune.

But when Houseman looked more closely, the title on the glossy dust cover was not Ziggurat but Ziggerzag! Ziggerzag? What on earth was Ziggerzag? And there was something about the cover photograph that was not quite right either. It should have been a digitally-posterised photograph of New York's Chrysler Building in the late afternoon sunlight. But the more that Houseman looked, the more it appeared to be a stack of Heinz baked beans tins.

And then there was the knock on the door.

Houseman opened the door expecting to see the concierge. Or perhaps a courier. But, instead, he was greeted by a good-looking woman in her late 30s.

'That's a lot of stairs, Charlie. Not good for my heart. You need an elevator, a lift, whatever you Brits call it.'

At first, Houseman thought that it was one of the women from the hotel room across the street. She was wearing a different dress, but there was no mistaking the glossy red bob. Or was there? As the woman rose on tiptoes, leaned forward, and kissed Houseman lightly on the cheek, Houseman suddenly realised that it was Lucille from the HealthWorld Pharma Convention. He hadn't remembered Lucille as being a redhead. Perhaps the colour came from a bottle.

'The liquor store was closed, Charlie. I had to go to the gas station.' Lucille held up a shopping bag. It didn't look like the sort of bag that would be found at a petrol station. It looked like the sort of bag that one might expect from an upmarket designer clothing store. 'You got some cups for this, Charlie?'

Cups? Glasses, surely. 'I think so.' Houseman opened one of the kitchen cupboards, but it was full of antiquarian books and what he guessed were bicycle parts. He tried a second cupboard; but that was full of seashells. A third cupboard contained a pineapple, a mango, and a few walnuts. 'I think there are some glasses in the bathroom,' Houseman said.

'Do you like my new panties, Charlie? Victoria's Secret. I wore them specially for you.' Lucille lifted the skirt of her summery dress. Her knickers were black, tight fitting, accentuating her prominent pubic mound. When Houseman looked again, he noticed that the black fabric was covered with little pink and orange and pale blue butterflies. It was probably just a trick of the light, but the butterflies appeared to be fluttering.

'They're very ... umm ....'

'Don't forget, I can always take them off if you don't like them, Charlie.' And Lucille laughed. It was a soft, gentle laugh. A warm and caring laugh. 'Oh, Charlie. You bad boy. You've done it again.' Houseman looked up. It wasn't Lucille. It wasn't the woman from across the street. It was Linda. 

'It's nearly three o'clock,' Linda said.

'Really? I must have dozed off.'

Linda shook her head in that way that Houseman had come to love. It was the same way in which she had shaken her head the night that she had said: 'Far too cold for swimming, Charlie. We don't want you drowning.' And they had ended up back at Linda's flat where Houseman had slightly sobered up while exploring Linda's warm and waiting pussy. 

'Come on,' Linda said. Let's get you into bed, Charlie.'

As Linda helped him to his feet and guided him towards the bed, Houseman glanced back across the street. The sash window was still wide open. But the room was now in complete darkness.

'And perhaps we should tuck your cock away,' Linda said. 'We can get it out again later if you like. Maybe in the morning. But, for the moment ...'