The Book Tour

A year ago I was fortunate enough to have my first book published. I was 46, and though I'd lost touch with the craft for years at a time during my 20s and 30s, I had been a hopeful writer since I was a teenager. Not too long after the book launch (a modest affair at a coffee house in Montreal), I was added to a small list of authors which our publisher sent out on a book tour. It required taking two weeks off from my day job, and, for the most part, was two weeks of travelling just to do small readings at bookshops and public libraries to audiences of 5 to 20 "somewhat" interested listeners.

As anticlimactic as the tour was professionally, on a personal level, it was an adventure, and a rediscovery of someone, and something, I'd lost a long time ago.

The book tour began in Vancouver. The four of us on the tour flew in from our various locations around Canada separately, and were booked into the same hotel for the Sunday night. We did the tour's first reading at the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library on Monday afternoon, but we met for the first time over breakfast at the hotel on Monday morning.

Now, I did know that she was going to be there. The publicist had told me the names of the other authors early in the process, the emails we received included her name, advance publicity had her picture, and, well, she was the "star" of this tour, promoting her 5th book, with two of her earlier titles legitimately described as best-sellers, while two of us were promoting our first, and the other was promoting his second. So, as I went down to breakfast that morning, I knew that Marissa would be there. I knew what she would look like, I knew how her voice would sound, but, after approximately 21 years, I didn't know how it would feel to see her again.

She kept me waiting.

The publicist was at a table in the morning sunlight when I arrived. She was in her late 20s. I had the impression she was the junior publicist out on her first cross-country tour, while the senior publicist stayed in Toronto working on other projects. Her name was Eileen. She was tall, perhaps 5'10, with shoulder length dirty blond hair, smallish breasts from what I could tell, and a busy, "let's work out the details" expression always on her face. She looked up from her cell phone when she saw me, and stood and gave me a hug.

I had been indecisive in the hotel room about what to wear, and had chosen to dress "up" a bit. I was wearing black dress shoes and slacks, an iron grey dress shirt, sleeves rolled up and the top two buttons left undone, and no tie. Eileen had dressed nicely as well, a black lace pencil skirt and a tight fitting sleeveless blouse. Steve arrived wearing the jogging pants and T shirt he'd apparently just been jogging in on the treadmill. Steve was younger than me, a 29 year old travel adventure writer whose first book about Southeast Asia had been a fairly successful title for our publisher. After Steve, Mary arrived. Mary was probably the oldest of our group, 50+ and, like me, a first time author. She had been a stay-at-home mom and/or an office administrator off and on over the years, but had never given up on her writing, and what she was promoting on this tour was something in the vampire romance arena. Her hair, once red, was fading to something in the blond area. She wasn't an athlete, but she would come to mention long walks, and I guess they account for the general aura of health that she radiated, her smile probably helped with that as well. She was perhaps 5'5, and about 160 pounds.

And so, Eileen the publicist, Mary and myself, the rookies, and Steve the "jock", we waited, for our star, for the woman I'd known 21 years earlier, for Marissa.

When she arrived, the first thing I was aware of were hands on my shoulders, a presence behind me, and then long dark brown hair flitting before my eyes as soft lips left a polite "peck" on my cheek. "Hello everyone," she said, moving to her chair, her eyes finding mine for the first time. "Hello Nathan."

Marissa had gone basic black, with a one piece tight fitting sleeveless dress that ended several inches above her knees. The breasts I'd once cupped and held were still firm, swelling the top of her dress, her long raven-black hair fell loosely past her shoulders, and her thin face with those piercing eyes cast me back a long time, when we had been much much younger.

Steve was the one who demanded an explanation for Marissa's greeting to me, and so we told them, with smiles and humour, while we drank coffee and nibbled on toast, how Marissa and I had gone to McGill together; how I had been the star of the various creative writing classes we'd been in together, and how she had been the star of the women's swim team, and I the stubborn but hopeless swimmer she would pass over and over again in the lanes during open swim hours.

We didn't tell them about the lost moment that had haunted me for 20 years. The time we had both found ourselves invited to a dinner party at a professor's house, how we had been young, and alive, and how we somehow maneuvered ourselves into a quiet bedroom, where my lips touched her neck as I stood behind her, and my hands found her breasts, and how soon she was lying back on the bed with her legs dangling over the edge, her dress bunched up above her waist, as I knelt at her feet, nibbling and licking my way up her inner thighs, and my tongue just barely finding her when the door opened, the light came on, and our professor's wife lost her mind at what was happening and kicked us out of her house.

After that, the moment that night was lost, and being the end of the spring term of our final year, we never found it again. I fairly quickly left the city for a summer of hard work in northern Ontario, and she eased into the unhappy marriage that would produce two children, but end in divorce in her early 30s.

After breakfast, Eileen gave us instructions for meeting at the library at 1:30pm, and then quickly became engrossed with her cell phone. Mary wandered off for one of her walks, and Steve seemed to suddenly realize how beneficial a shower might be. Marissa and I were left alone, in the hotel lobby, dressed well enough for a dinner date, and with nothing to do. "Nathan," she said, "you look like you still swim."

"I do."

"Well, the hotel has a pool, and I still swim. Would you like to relive the glory days and watch me pass you in the pool over and over again?"

I smiled. "Sure, that would be great. Want to meet at the pool in about 15 minutes?"

"What floor are you on?"

"The third."

"Well, I'm on the fourth. Be a gentleman and escort me upstairs, and then we'll get your stuff and go for our swim."

We opted for the stairs, and somehow, perhaps teasingly but perhaps not, her arm linked itself into mine. We climbed to the fourth floor, talking a bit about my novel, which, to my surprise, she had both read and enjoyed. She opened the door to her room, and walked in ahead of me, in that tight black dress, her long black hair falling down her back, her hips swaying. "Nathan," she said, stopping near the bed, "help me with this."

She was indicating a clasp at the back of her neck. I stepped close behind her, and brushed her long silky hair to the side with the back of my left hand. I undid the clasp quickly, in fact regretting how quickly it was done, and resisted the urge that came over me to rest my hands on her shoulders, or touch them to her sides and slide them down to her hips.

"That was... one of the most unfortunate nights of my life," she said softly. Turning towards me as she eased the dress from her shoulders.

"The night of the party at Brooker's house? The night his wife burst in on us?"

"Yes," she said, the dress down below her breasts now, concealed still within her bra. The dress slightly bunching at her hips as she continued to push it down.

"I agree," I said, breathlessly. "And I've thought about that night, often. Very often." I smiled. "Very very often."

"I've always regretted something," she said, the dress falling to the floor, standing before me now in her bra and panties, her body long and pale.

"What's that?" I asked, heat rising within me, feeling saliva begin to collect in my mouth.

"I've had other men where you were that night," she said. "But I've never ever wanted to pull someone deep into my pussy the way I wanted to pull you into me that night, and the way I want to pull you into me right now."

"Well," I said, "you better sit down on the bed then."

Marissa smiled and lowered herself down onto the bed, her feet on the floor. I moved to her and knelt down at her feet, my hands going to her knees. I smoothed my hands up her bare thighs to her hips, and then back to her knees, and then down to her ankles, and then all the way back up to her hips, where I hooked my fingers into her panties, and pulled them down, down her thighs, her legs, to her ankles, and then away.

"Marissa, if you would lean back a bit..." I whispered, as my right hand went to her left inner thigh, my palm flush against her skin, pressing, back and forth, warm. Marissa leaned back on her arms, her chest thrusting slightly up. I let the tips of my fingers move into and stroke the soft brown curls of her hair. Little strokes and brushes, my left hand resting on her bare right leg. I could feel Marissa's body begin to ache, her legs parting further, and as they did, I slid my long middle finger to her, searching, and finding, her clitoris. I stroked it softly with my fingertip, my left hand up and down her bare thigh, Marissa's eyes closed, beginning to softly moan.

Kneeling in my dress slacks and dress shirt between Marissa's legs, I slid my finger lower, just inside her, finding her wet already. I stroked down and up gently, and then slid it deep into her, and when I pulled back again, I added my index finger, and slid both of them long and deep inside her. I continued this way for a few moments, rocking my fingers in and out of Marissa's pussy, looking at her face, her breasts, still hidden by her bra, her admirably tight tummy, her hips, pushing out towards me now.

"Lie back, Marissa" I whispered.

Marissa's eyes met mine for a moment, and then she eased herself down, her back on the bed, her long slim body before me. I leaned in and kissed her left inner thigh. Her right. My hands on her knees. I licked her, kissed her, from one side to the other, moving deeper into her, until my tongue was tasting her curls of hair. I licked her here, licking those curls into my mouth, teasing them and releasing. Finally my tongue found and pressed against her clitoris, as my finger had done moments ago. I pressed my tongue hard against her clit and urged it down and up, and across, and back. Marissa's right hand went to my head now, moaning softly, as her left hand went to her left breast, cupping and squeezing it through her bra.

I pushed Marissa's legs apart further and slid my hands her her hips and ass, and lifting her ever so slightly, pushed my tongue deep deep deep into her wet pussy. I was hungry for her now, hungry to do this, to be just where I was and where I'd imagined myself being for 20 years. I tucked my face deep into Marissa's pussy and tongue fucked her... driving my tongue in and out hard, up and down, lapping up her juice as I felt both of her hands go to my head, her fingers lace into my hair, and felt her pull my head hard and rough into her pussy as she ground her hips up to me as well.

"Nathan," she moaned, her eyes closed, almost breathless on the bed, her body seeming to twitch and pulse with tiny explosions. I wanted to push her over the edge now, and was close to something myself, my cock fully erect inside my pants, swollen, and thick, and dripping precum. I turned my attention back to Marissa's clit, finding it with my lips, and sucking it deep, and hot, and wet, into my mouth. She bucked on the bed as I sucked her back, her ass thrusting up her hands pulling me in, groaning fully now. I sucked her deep again, and again, slowly, but steadily, my hands on the bare skin of her ass, of her sides, her thighs, moving, stroking, adjusting her as she slid and twisted this way and that.

My cock raging inside my pants I began sucking Marissa's clit faster and faster and faster, my face buried deep in her pussy now, my mouth full of her taste, her juice and my saliva dripping down my chin. Marissa groaned and began bucking her hips up at me, and I had to lock my right arm down across her waist to keep her still enough that I wouldn't lose my liplock on her clitoris. I sucked and sucked and sucked her clit hot and deep into my mouth - hungrily, ferociously, as Marissa began crying out on the bed, until finally, her hips and ass thrust up high so high, her hands ground my face into her pussy and her legs locked around my head nearly smothering me... Marissa's orgasm coursed and coursed through her body, and all I could do was hold her legs, her hips, her waist, as she roped us together, thrusting her pussy up over and over again, rocking the waves of her orgasm until they came to an end.

When Marissa's hips settled back down on the bed, and her legs slid from shoulders to my sides and her feet to the floor, I sat back a bit, looking at her. Marissa's pussy was dripping wet, her legs quivering slightly. Her gorgeous skin, her breasts hidden within her bra, her face relaxed and her eyes closed. My erection was waning now, some crucial point had been reached and passed, and I no longer had an urge for release.

But i did want something.

I put my hands on Marissa's legs and began dragging her to me. Her ass crossed the edge of the bed and she slid down, and as her ass bumped to my knees, I pulled her upper body to me, my arms going around her, her arms going around my neck.

"We haven't kissed yet," I whispered.

Marissa's eyes were on mine, a foxy, seductive, wry, expression on her face. "Try me," she said.

Marissa's lips parted as I pressed my mouth to hers. It was an open, hot, deep kiss, a hungry kiss, that tried to make up for 21 years of lost time. My hands moved down to Marissa's ass, squeezing it hard so hard, burying my fingers in her ass cheeks. Marissa moaned in my mouth as I clutched her, as I ran my hands up her sides, as I pressed my hands against the bra wrapping around her breasts and chest.

"Jesus, Marissa," I whispered, as our kiss ended, and as I rested my forehead against her shoulder. She held me in her arms, clutching me to her.

"Nathan," she whispered, "this could be an exciting book tour. One to write a book about."