Our Private Eden: A Memphis Miracle

She finished brushing and met me in the kitchen where my comments about drinking reminded me to fetch a bottle of Jack Daniel's from the cupboard for our trip. "Might as well drink what we already own, right?"

Now with her mouth newly minty fresh, she pecked me on the lips and grabbed me by the arm and started tugging me toward the rear door.

"C'mon, slowpoke. Ready to get my vacation on," she said.

The Mustang was gassed up, washed and gleaming, pointed out the driveway toward the road - and toward Memphis and the Alabama Gulf Coast beyond. Ray-Bans and KU baseball cap on, I turned the key, the Ford V-8 roared to life, and the gravel crackled beneath the tires as we set off on the first real vacation either of us had taken in years - and the first we had taken with each other. Soon as we were on the blacktop, I asked Holly to push the tape into the player and the Allmans' carefree classic began pouring from the speakers.

The longest part of the drive was along narrow backroads and the sleepy little Missouri towns like Poplar Bluff, Sikeston and Gideon. When we finally hit I-55 at Hayti in the Bootheel not far from the Arkansas line, it was almost noon. We covered the rest of the way much faster than I imagined possible and were rolling across the Interstate 40 bridge over the Mississippi into the heart of the Memphis skyline by 2 o'clock. Check-in wasn't supposed to be until 3 but it couldn't hurt to go to the front desk and see if maybe the room was ready and we could check in early. A noncommittal desk clerk with "Nathan" on the brass medallion pinned to his vest turned to check a sheet behind him became a lot more helpful when he returned to face me and saw a fresh $20 bill on the counter.

"Why, yes, Mr. and Mrs. Vaught, I believe your suite is ready," he said with a theatrical flourish.

Suite? Holly mouthed silently to me as Benjamin scurried about behind the counter to assemble a guest portfolio containing the keys, cards good for complimentary cocktails at the rooftop lounge and instructions for how to directly dial for custom concierge and room service.

I shrugged in response to Holly's pantomimed questions as Nathan pounded the bell on the desk summoning the bell captain.

"Henry, Mr. and Mrs. Vaught will be in 701. Mr. Vaught, if you can give Henry your car key, he will bring your luggage right up and valet park your car," Nathan gushed. "And on behalf of the Rivermont, please accept our congratulations."

Holly smiled stiffly and nodded.

"This is Liz. She will guide you to your room and show you how to use your keys to access the seventh floor," Nathan said, handing her our room key.

Holly's eyes darted back and forth from Nathan to me to Liz, who looked for all the world as though she could not possibly have reached her 15th birthday.

"Yes, if you'll please follow me," Liz said, turning and walking toward the elevators.

Holly clung to my arm and we hung back a couple of steps.

"Mister and Missus? Did I miss something on the drive down here?" she whispered through her teeth? Again, I shrugged.

"I just booked a room for two and asked for one of their nicest rooms. They said that would be the honeymoon suite and asked if that would be acceptable. I guess they just assumed the rest," I said. "I had no idea it was on a private-access floor."

Liz showed us how to insert the key into the small slot beside the elevator button for the 7th floor, turn it to the left and leave it that way, then press the button for that floor. It turns the elevator into an express car that won't stop on any other floor.

"And don't forget to take the key out when you get out on that floor," Liz said. "The elevator will just stay there with the door open and be out of service to every other floor til you do."

She took us to 701 and opened the door for us. Holly gasped.

One entire wall was ceiling-to-floor glass, affording a perfect vista northward with the Mississippi to the left and the spires of downtown Memphis to the right. Rose petals had been left on the king-sized bed, already turned down for our convenience. To one side, near the window, was a hot tub and a full bathroom beyond it with a massive shower for two. A console on each bedside nightstand allowed for blinds to be raised or lowered from the comfort of the bed. It also offered a dial with the option of curated classical, romantic, light rock or jazz music to play on stereo speakers imbedded in the ceiling throughout the room. There was a slot for cassette tapes for those like me who have a collection of their own music. A U-shaped leather sofa sat on a turntable built into the floor and a button on the armrest that could be used to rotate it 360 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise, alternating the view from the river and the cityscape or the large, built-in TV on the opposite wall that offered in-room movies.

"Ho - ly shit," Holly whispered.

"We didn't know you'd be joining us so soon and we apologize, but room service will be up in a moment with some complimentary benefits. Please don't hesitate to hit the concierge button if there's anything we can do for you," Liz said. "Thank you for choosing the Rivermont, enjoy your stay and, again, congratulations. You're a lovely couple."

With that, Liz saw herself out.

Holly was still in undisguised amazement. She walked to the window and marveled at the view - at a towboat pushing a collection of barges that, together, appeared larger than two football fields slowly, silently against the relentless current of the wide, muddy Mississippi.

"Part of me wants to ask how much something like this costs per night, but the other part of me says, 'Corey knows what he's doing, what he can afford, let it go.' I've only seen stuff like this in movies. This is... unreal," Holly said. "We're not in Van Buren anymore."

I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms loosely around her waist and kissed her on the neck. "Whatever it costs, you're worth it - uncountable times over."

She turned and kissed me. A lifelong acrophobic, I maneuvered us away from the glass window a few inches away, outside of which was a 70-foot plunge to the ground below. Holly thought I was pushing her toward the bed.

"Much as I would love to have you rip my clothes off, lay me on those rose petals and fuck me like we're newlyweds, we don't want to traumatize room service. Remember?" she said.

"I'd love to do just that myself, but I didn't want to lose control, lean into the glass and fall together to our untimely demise," I whispered against her mouth as she playfully nipped at my lips.

Just then, a knock at the door. A portly gentleman with a pencil-thin mustache who wore a white serving jacket and identified himself as Winston entered when I opened the door and pushed in a cart covered with a white linen cloth with a bottle of Dom Perignon chilled to perfection in a silver bucket of ice bearing the Rivermont logo. Winston produced two long-stemmed crystal flutes from beneath the cart and placed them on the linen.

"Shall I open this for you now?" he inquired.

I looked at Holly. She smiled and shrugged, slightly wrinkling her nose, body language for If you want to, OK, but we might want to have it, oh... later?

I handed Winston a five-dollar bill and told him to just leave it for us to enjoy... later.

"Very good, sir," Winston said with a nod as he pocketed the Lincoln I handed him and walked to the door. We bolted it behind him.

"Now, let me make good on what you said just before Winston showed up," I said as I unbuttoned Holly's blouse and tossed it to the floor. She was already unbuckling my belt. I unsnapped her bra and her already engorged tits and her erect nipples came into view as it fell to the floor at our feet at exactly the same moment my Bermuda shorts did. My underwear were next as I unsnapped and unzipped her tennis skirt and lowered it along with her panties, a damp spot already evident in its gusset.

Holly kicked off her sandals as I picked her up, carried her to the bed and deposited her, just as she had said, gently atop the rose petals. Then I pulled my golf shirt over my head and flung it into the distance and joined her on the bed, my spring-loaded cock already swaying and bobbing in anticipation.

"So, how would real newlyweds go about this?" I said as I knelt before her feet and pushed her knees wide. I kissed my way from her right knee up her inner thigh to her slish-slickened slit, grazed my lips gently over it, savoring the clean, womanly scent of her, and then kissed my way down and back up her left inner thigh before lingering above her clit, using my fingers to open her outer and inner folds like a ripe mango before pushing my tongue into it.

Her body jolted from the contact as though from electrical current and she yelped. My mouth covered the apex of her cunt as I alternately jabbed her distended pleasure bean with my tongue and sucked on it. Holly laced her fingers into my hair on either side of my head and pressed my face hard into her pussy as her hips writhed rapidly - an immediate prelude to her orgasm.

"Oh God, Coreeeeeey," she said as her mound assaulted my face, powerfully thrusting into me as her torso bowed and her head rolled back, making rasping noises as she gasped for breath. I could feel juices flowing from her opening against my chin as wave after wave of her climax racked her body.

She pulled my face from her clit, momentarily hypersensitive after her explosive orgasm, as the last shock waves coursed through her. But then, without the customary moment of relaxation, Holly pulled me upward onto her, grasped my raging boner and guided it directly to her waiting pussy.

"Fuck me like we're newlyweds, Mr. Vaught," she growled.

Her wish was my command. I slid easily into her tight, soaking quim and was furiously burying my throbbing cock balls-deep into her within seconds. Holly had never fully come down from her previous climax and picked up where she had left off, heaving her crotch desperately onto my hardness.

"God yes. That's it," she grunted as our tempo increased. My hips had taken on a cadence of their own, freely wriggling and rotating in a way that stretched and pulled differently on Holly's labia as the shaft of my dick took on a slightly different ingress and egress angle with each thrust, and it was registering with Holly. Her face and chest had become flushed and a film of sweat was becoming noticeable on both of us. Her pupils seemed dilated, gazing into some unknowable distance as pleasure consumed her. The moment was at hand.

"I'm going to come deep inside you," I growled as I thrust my cock into as far as I could, just as the contractions in her pussy commenced. It felt as though the head of my penis was disgorging cum against a soft surface somewhere far inside Holly, and it drove her wild. I don't use the term scream easily, but that comes closest to describing what emanated from her as she came.

My dick was convulsing as it looped rope after rope of semen into her, and the muscles of her pelvis seemed to be simultaneously milking from me all that she could get. Our torsos were strained to the point where, at the point of orgasm, we were barely in contact with one another except for our hips and our spasming reproductive organs. It was as close to gymnastics as I would ever get.

When we were at last drained - literally and figuratively - and our inspired moment of hard, raw fucking had reached its resolution, we collapsed against each other and lay there wordless. Our exhaustion and our response to it - expressions that asked can you believe what we just did? - said it all.

I held her against me gently, her face near mine, as a postcoital languor set in on both of us. Her eyes fluttered shut and her breathing slowed and became deep. Just before I dozed off, I glanced upward and spotted what must have held Holly's rapt gaze as we were deep in the throes of passion: a mirrored ceiling above the bed.

●●●

We had the Rivermont pool all to ourselves. It was on the ground level with a commanding view through a metal fence of the river below the steep bluff. The cool water on the warm afternoon was refreshing and we just languished in it except for a game of underwater tag we played in the deep end almost as if we were teens. Holly was able to hook her hand into the waistband of my trunks and pull them down almost to my knees. I almost inhaled water bursting out in laughter underwater. I made it to the side of the pool and pulled my trunks back up, cinching the knot tighter to avoid a recurrence, as Holly laughed triumphantly in the shallow end.

I swam over to her.

"I got you good," she said, gloating as she giggled. "Got you good. Got you good. Got you good, lover boy," she said, almost cooing by the time my lips reached hers. She looped her arms lazily around my neck and, underwater, her legs around my hips as we continued kissing in a way that would have been scandalous if this weren't a weekday afternoon after Labor Day with summer vacations ended and kids back in school.

"You got me, all right," I whispered to her as our lips briefly parted. "All of me. All the time."

Still locked in our embrace with my feet doing the walking for both of us, we sort of meandered around the shallow end as the currents would carry us, slowly reaching deeper water, lost in our protracted kiss.

Once we were about neck deep, I unsnapped the top to her two-piece suit, quickly pulled it from her and flung it out of the pool onto the concrete deck.

At first, her face froze in shock as she put her hands over her nipples, but I kept her in my embrace, and she rolled with it.

"Now it seems we've each gotten the other," I said with a sly grin.

"You devious prick," she purred. Then she pressed her bare tits, perfectly buoyed in the water, against my chest just below the water's surface as we continued kissing for long, unhurried minutes during which I felt my dick begin to stir. So did Holly.

"I think your little scuba diver is getting worked up down there," she said, mischievously wiggling her bottom against my growing member.

"That's because it knows I have a beautiful, topless girl clinging to me and pressing her beautiful boobs into me. Which leaves us with two problems. If I get out of the pool to retrieve your top, I risk showing off my boner, and if you get out, you show your beautiful bare tits off to the Rivermont Hotel and downtown Memphis," I said.

"Hah. Problem for you maybe," she said defiantly. With that, she swam over to the ladder, climbed up it, walked as boldly as a stripper over to her bikini top, picked it up and put it back on. She never even looked around, but I did. We were still alone at the pool, and nobody outside seemed to be within sight. I scanned the holel's pool-facing windows seven stories high and saw nothing unusual except a curtain several floors up that seemed to have been partially pulled to one side and then quickly pulled back together, as though someone who had been peeking didn't want to be caught.

Well, if that's as bad as it gets, I guess we got away with it.

Holly grabbed her towel off the poolside chair where she had left it, toweled off a bit and then slung it around her neck as she walked toward the pool gate. She looked back over her shoulder: "You coming?"

I paused a minute. "Probably, but not until I get you back up in our room."

True to form, we hadn't been in the oversized shower five minutes rinsing the pool's chlorinated water off us before she had me erect, squatting before me and using her tongue and lips to restore me to full turgidity. Then, with the warm water streaming onto us from two sides, she sat me on a tile bench on the back side of the shower and then, with her back to me, perched herself on my cock, impaling herself fully upon me. She began bouncing up and down on my dick as her fingers teased her clit. I cupped and kneaded her ripe breasts, tweaking and twisting her nipples.

"How you make me so hot and wet I don't know, baby, but you do," she said.

When her legs tired after minutes of doing squats onto my cock, she suggested a new alignment. She leaned over and placed her hands on the bench, widened her stance and presented her reddened, ready pussy to me. The sight of her puckered, brown button winking at me was just a bonus. "Take me from behind," she said.

I aligned the flared head of my cock with her vaginal opening and entered fully, a position that in all our face-to-face lovemaking before, we had never tried. Somehow, it stimulated areas inside her in ways she hadn't experienced. She slammed her ass back into me with force nearly equal to my thrusts, creating a sound in the echo chamber of the porcelain shower that resembled staccato clapping. Soon, I could feel her orgasm begin to form deep inside her. I reached into her pubic curls and began rolling, massaging motions over her clit with my fingers, and her hips began to jerk. She was twisting her own livid, distended nipples when the first wave of her climax crashed over her, and she shouted her ecstasy. I slowed my pace and pushed myself into her more deeply, holding myself there longer as she savored her third orgasm of the afternoon. I was close, and I would have easily exploded my load inside her had I not slowed my tempo. I just held steady - and hard - within her as she rode out her crest.

Sitting back on the bench beside her, still prostrate and bent over with her elbows on the bench, I looped my arm around her waist and pulled her onto my lap and kissed her gently. She was as languid as a damp dishrag but smiling with unmistakable contentment.

"I love you, Holly," I said.

"I do love you too, Corey. I do," she said, then noticed my still-stiff penis. "Oh damn, you didn't come? Let me take care of that..."

I clasped her hands and turned her face to me.

"You don't have to do that, baby. I don't need reciprocity every time we make love. Remember, guys only have a limited number of times I can fire and then load a new round. I get my best joy from seeing you experience joy," I said. "Besides, we've got dinner reservations at the Rendezvous and I'm saving Sir Hollywood for your dessert."

●●●

You had to see the Rendezvous back in its heyday in the 1940s and through the mid '60s to really appreciate. The patented dry-rub Memphis-style barbecued pork ribs were as good now as they were the day Charlie Vergos opened it 29 years earlier in a basement beneath a restaurant he and his brother owned.

I parked the car on the street across from what was once Memphis's grand showplace hotel, The Peabody. It had been on the decline for years as had most of this area of downtown Memphis, especially since the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King less than a mile away at the Lorraine Motel nine years earlier. I can recall as a child, visiting the Peabody with mom when we'd visit Pop-Pop, watching the procession of mallards who came down from their rooftop roosts every morning and were ushered with grand fanfare by a man in a colorful uniform to the granite water fountain in the center of the hotel's cavernous Spanish Revival style lobby where they would spend the day until the same attendant ushered them back into the elevator in around quitting time to their pens. There were elite cafes and boutiques and smoke shops that sold Cuban cigars until 1959 off the lobby. A radio station that beamed music across the Mid-South had its studio in the building.

Holly saw none of that, when we got our of our car.

The Peabody had been sold by the Sheraton chain a few years earlier to a resort developers based in Florida and was now closed for refurbishment, which everyone dearly hoped, without much confidence, that it would restore the grand old hotel to her former glory. By 1977, it was surrounded by a bunch of dingy brick buildings with few occupants.