Phone Sex

I dialed the number and held my breath. Her smoky voice came over the phone and I thought of the movie line, "You had me at 'hello'."

"Hi Sarah, it's Jake Gottleib.

Her breath caught. "Jake?"

"Yours truly."

"Oh my god! Jake! I can't believe it's you. It's been..."

"Thirty-one years."

"Thirty-one years! How have you been?"

"Mostly well."

"I saw you on Oprah -- what, a decade ago. Great interview."

"Thanks. Actually, that was fifteen years ago."

"You never lost your thick hair. You still looked really fit."

I had to ask. "Did you read it?"

"Of course I read it."

"I mean, you were married by then."

"I had a kid by then. So what?"

"Frank didn't mind all the sex in the novel?"

"Hank," she said.

"Hank," I repeated. "Oprah called it, 'the steamiest story since 50 Shades.'"

"As if I didn't know. That was plastered all over the buses and billboards. But, come on, I didn't tell him, 'By the way, this sex scene is exactly what really happened with Jake and me.'"

"Which sex scene?"

"Ha. You know damn well which one. You spent practically a whole chapter on the man training the woman to love ass-fucking. I guess that scene was important to you."

"It developed her character," I said, "and it showed the power-dynamic in their relationship. But yeah, it was my celebration of you and me. Of our youth. I wanted to get it just right," I said. "I'm glad you recognized us in that scene."

"Recognize?" she said. "You reported every detail. The Gypsy Kings poster on the wall, the bottle of lube dancing off the bed, how I gushed on the sheets when I came. Yeah, it sounded just a bit familiar."

"I tried to capture your feelings. Your reluctance, and finally, your thrill."

"Well, you nailed it."

"Was that a pun?"

She laughed. "Unintended."

A silence.

"Jake, what's up? Are you really okay? Thirty-one years! Why did you call me?"

"Did you like the story?"

"I loved it. It made me nostalgic. It made me horny," she said. "That's why you called? To see if I liked your novel?"

"Partly." I hesitated. "To see if you even remembered me."

"Now you're being maudlin. How could I forget you?"

"Well... all the years." I sighed. "We've orbited the sun thirty-one times since we were a couple."

"I'm not saying I think about you day and night. But forget you? Ha. I...uh...never mind."

"What?"

She was silent.

"Were you about to say you remember me when you get out your vibrator?"

"Geez. So blunt!" A pause. "But, yeah. You always could read my mind."

"It was more than a guess, because whenever I 'take matters into my own hands,' I always remember you."

"So you called to let me know you think about me when you jerk off."

"I've never had sex with Donna-"

"-that's as good as the sex we had."

"Now we're finishing each other's sentences."

"Like we always did."

"I really miss how good the sex was. We were so hot together!"

"You don't miss the arguments? Those were really hot, too."

I laughed. "Remember the time you threw your bloody tampon at my head?"

She laughed along. "That was pure slapstick comedy."

"It led to wicked make-up sex."

"Wicked, yeah. And bloody."

A pause.

"Remember when you gave me head when we were driving to the Keys?"

"I remember your Jeep getting a flat."

"That was on the way back. Heading south, you edged me from Miami to Homestead."

"I'm kidding. Of course I remember. You pulled off at that rest stop. You were too turned on to drive."

I shivered, recalling that long-lasting intense pleasure. "Oh my god, Sarah. We're lucky we were parked. That orgasm belongs in the book of world records. My whole world smithereened."

"Mmmmm. You came and came like a fountain." She sighed. "That was yummy."

Another pause.

"Jake, let me ask again: why did you call me? Is this phone sex we're having?"

"I'm very married, Sarah. I love my wife. Love my sons."

"But."

"But the images that come to mind when I..."

"Jerk off."

I nodded, as if she could see me over the phone. "I bring to mind that orgasm at the rest stop. I bring up the time we fucked in the bathroom at your voice teacher's party."

"Oh. That was so hot," she said. "I think I stifled a high-C in that bath towel."

"I think about the time we-"

"-Jake, I get it. We were the horniest couple on the planet. But that's not why you called me."

"Be honest, Sarah. Have you ever fantasized about me when you and Hank...?"

A pause. "Yes."

"Often?"

"More often than I want to."

"That's why I called you."

"What do you mean?"

"Lately, I've been fantasizing about you every time Donna and I have sex."

"How long have you two been married?"

"Twenty-six years. Three months. Four weeks. Twelve days. And sixteen minutes."

She laughed. "There's your problem. The thrill is gone."

"No duh. When I said 'lately' I really meant for the last couple years. How is it with you and Hank?"

"Same. But that's life."

"That's death. Death in the bedroom. I miss you! I miss the mind-blowing sex we once had."

"Reality check, Mr. Gottleib. I'm fifty-six. You're, what? Fifty-nine. You're remembering hot sex with my hot 25-year-old body. My tits were lovely and my ass was bodacious - if I do say so myself."

"Oh, you were a knockout. You know it."

"We didn't have kids. We had just started the careers we wanted. We had the time and energy and the drive to fuck and fuck and fuck."

"You're leaving out kissing, licking, sucking-"

"-I'm also 'very married'," she said. "Where is this going? Tell me what you want."

Here goes. "I want us to have an affair."

Silence.

"Sarah?"

"Get real. We don't even live in the same city."

"I know, but Ft. Lauderdale is half-way for us both. A 32-minute drive. I Googled it."

"I don't know why I haven't hung up yet. I'm not going to have an affair with you."

"But think about it, Sarah. We're the perfect couple for having an affair. Neither of us wants to leave our spouses, so there won't be any drunken phone calls at 3 a.m. blubbering about true love. Our relationship didn't work, and we made the right decision to split up."

"Gee, you think?"

"But we were both thrilled by the sex. We were incredibly compatible in bed."

"Or in the bathroom."

I laughed. "That time on the paddleboard."

"Our seats in the back row at the art movie house."

"Oh. I forgot about that."

"You came in my face. You had to go get napkins so I could wipe it off."

"That was so hot."

"And messy," she said. "But back to reality: that was three decades ago. My tits and ass ain't what they used to be. I've put on some pounds."

"No. Of course you've aged. Me too. That thick hair I still had when I was on Oprah is nearly bald in front. And it's no longer salt-and-pepper, it's pure salt. But listen, do you really think our sex life was so passionate because you had perky tits and I had six-pack abs?"

"I loved your abs."

"Yeah, they were pretty. Youth is pretty. But Sarah, what made our lovemaking so good is that we're both unabashedly lustful. Uninhibited. Creative. We absolutely love-"

"-to fuck, to finger, to spank-"

"-All of it. To make love in every imaginative way two bodies can come together."

"Pun intended?"

"Donna is a kind person, a wonderful partner. But I think - I know - that sex for her is only a minor pleasure, like eating a bowl of ice cream. A good feeling, but not mind-blowing. I've never known her to utterly lose herself in a climax like you used to do. And now that she's gone through menopause, she's just not that interested in sex anymore."

"Sounds like sex was never really central to her personality."

"Exactly."

"You're saying she's not the slut that I am."

"I'm saying she's not the wonderfully wild woman who once straddled my cock in a ski lift gondola."

"And we got caught and booted off the mountain. But thanks for the compliment."

"Are you still?"

"What?"

"A wild woman."

"Eating cum thrills me a lot more than eating ice cream."

"What about Hank? Is he good in bed?"

"He's got a big cock, like you; so there's no lack there. But no, he's not nearly as imaginative -- as free -- as you are in bed." She sighed. "Jake, I've never been with anyone as good as you. Not even close."

"And I've never been with anyone nearly as good as you, Sarah.That's why I'm proposing we have an ongoing hook-up."

She scoffed. "What, like we'd meet in a motel room every other Tuesday, fuck like fiends, take a shower to wash off the cum and the smells, then go home and kiss the loved ones?"

"Well..."

"Plus, I know you, Jake. You wear your heart on your sleeve. Your wife would be saying, 'Why do you look so guilty? What's going on?' You know we'd get caught. I don't want to hurt Hank; he's a good man. He's my best friend."

I sighed. "I know. Donna would be devastated."

No one spoke for a moment. Finally, she said, "Maybe we should actually just have phone sex. We could Zoom... I don't know."

"Nah. That's for people whose eyeballs can satisfy them. You know how much I loved your smell, your taste."

"It's true. Not even the women I've been with have relished eating my pussy as much as you."

____________________________________

My girlfriend, Sarah, walked into our apartment. I was sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop.

"Hey sweet cakes," I said.

"Hey babe. Working on your novel?"

I shook my head. "Not just now." I handed her my laptop and let her read the phone dialog above.

She pouted. "That made me sad." She had the reddest lips; she hardly ever wore lipstick. "You really think that's what's going to happen to us? We'll end up marrying other partners? We'll be reduced to having boring sex, then we'll try to hook up again in our fifties?"

I looked into her green eyes. "Sarah, I don't know how we can stay together if we keep up this arguing."

"I admit this morning's blow-up was all on me. Most of our fights are." She ran her slender fingers through my thick hair and turned on her smokiest voice: "But the spirit that gives me a fiery temper, makes me fiery in bed." She bent and slid her hand under the crotch of my Levi's and gave my balls an upward tug. My brain and cock took notice.

"Redheads," I said.

She smiled wickedly. "All our sex you wrote about - the Jeep, the paddleboard, the gondola - it's already happened. But we've never ass-fucked." She sat on my lap and snuggled her warm ass against my burgeoning cock. "The evening is young."

"You've been unsure about it."

"Because you haven't 'trained me' to love it." She whispered in my ear, "Right now I'm feeling very trainable."

She hopped up and took my hand and led me to the bedroom, exaggerating the sway of her bodacious ass. Her firm cheeks rolling under her skin-tight jeans made my hard cock ache with anticipation. "Put on your writer's hat," she said. "I'll make it worth a whole chapter."