Vignettes of a Master (7 page)

A Literary Perusal

April,
2
nd
.

Jonah & Leticia in
a hotel bar acting like they don't know each other.

I watched the barman lean close to Leticia and whisper in her ear, then his eyes flicked across the room to me and he smiled mockingly.

I knew the guy. He was a jerk. His game was to hit on all the pretty girls who came for a drink. He figured he was a modern-day Romeo. I set my drink down on the table, and stood slowly.

The barman raised his eyebrows. He gave Leticia a long,
smoldering look and then made the kind of gesture that said ‘be my guest’.

I nodded, my expression blank, showing no emotion, but knowing that a silent challenge had been made… and that I had accepted it.

I walked up to the bar, and stood close to Leticia. She glanced at me, turned away, then turned her head back as though taking a second look. I smiled.

“You look amazing,” I said to Leticia. “I know we have never met before, but I have decided that you will come home with me. I want to make love to you. I want to leave you exhausted and satisfied in a tangle of love-twisted sheets. Understand?”

Leticia flinched. Her eyes grew wide. She glanced at the barman, then back at me. “God, yes!” she said softly, and her voice was a sensual sexy purr. “Take me, I’m all yours!”

She held out her hand, and
I helped her from the bar stool. We walked arm in arm towards the door. I could hear Leticia giggling softly. At the door I stopped, turned back to the barman and shrugged. The man’s shocked face was pale and blank. I cupped my hand possessively over one of Leticia’s breasts and lead her from the bar. We laughed all the way to the car.

A Literary Perusal

April,
2
nd
.

A fan's husband ask
s for advice from Jonah in a coffee shop.

The man’s brow was furrowed with deep concern. He looked h
aunted. He looked fearful. “I just can’t please my wife in the bedroom,” he confessed. “Can you help me?”

I nodded slowly. The man took a seat at my table, and the expression of relief that spread across his face was almost comical. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table and stared at me with expectation. “Do you want to know the background…?” he asked uncertainly.

I shook my head. “No need,” I said. “I know you… because you’re like most men. You don’t understand the basic sexual difference between a man and a woman... and that’s why you are failing your wife.”

Maybe the man was offended. Maybe he felt I was insulting him, but his face remained impassive, his ego suppressed. He stared at me.

“For men, an orgasm is ‘relief’ I explained. The sexual urge in a man is like a pain that comes, is relieved, and eventually returns. Understand?”

The guy nodded.

“But for women, an orgasm is a ‘release’. And there is a big difference,” I said. “A woman’s desire starts from further away, and it takes longer to be brought to the surface. For many women the urge for sex is a mood that is created. For us men, it is an urge that never quite goes away – it is always there, somewhere in the back of our minds. You’re not doing anything to ‘create’ arousal in your wife, and you’re not working hard enough to inspire that desire. You’re too interested in your own ‘relief’ to concentrate on creating her desire and building it up until it can be released – passionately.”

A note from Jason:

This mysterious man appeared more than once in scene suggestions from readers. It seemed like every time I put Jonah in a coffee shop or a restaurant, someone was asking him advice about women.

A Literary Perusal

April,
2
nd
.

Jonah and Leticia in a car
.

I threw the Alfa Romeo into a tight corner and the car’s tires squealed in protest. I dropped down through the gears, dancing heel and toe on the pedals
, then as the car came out of the corner, I pressed my foot flat to the floor and the car leaped forward. The grey ribbon of tarmac snaked ahead, winding its way high into the mountains.

I glanced across at Leticia. She was sitting quite still, with her hands pressed between her thighs, her knees together, staring fixedly through the windscreen as the scenery flashed by in a blur. She has a distant, delighted look on her face, and a reckless sparkle in her eyes. The color was high on her cheeks and as she turned her face to mine, she gave a nervous whoop of laughter.

“My God!” she breathed. “This is thrilling! Go faster!”

I grinned. A blind corner leaped out, and I punched my way back down through the gears, my touch light on the wheel. The car dipped as I braked suddenly, and then skidded across the road, and into the path of an oncoming truck…

A Literary Perusal

April,
2
nd
.

Leticia and Jonah undressing each other
.

Leticia reached impulsively for the buttons of my shirt, but I trapped her hands and held them tight. “No,” I said softly.

I felt tension creep into her fingers. I smiled down into her eyes. “Let me undress you first,” I said.

I let go of Leticia’s hands and they fell to her side. I ran my hand down the soft perfect skin of her cheek.

“Undressing a woman for the first time is something very special,” I said softly as I deftly unfastened the top button on her blouse. “It is an exquisite moment that can never be repeated, so it needs to be enjoyed.” Her blouse fell open to my fingers, gaping apart like a silken curtain so that I could see the lace cups of her bra.

“Undressing a woman for the first time is like opening a bottle of 1811 Napoleon Brandy,” I went on in a whisper. “It is something to be
savored: you need to delight in the moment, draw it out so that is becomes an unforgettable instant. The textures, scents, aromas of a woman’s body are delights that a man should gloat over and take great joy in, because there is nothing as sensual and soft and arousing as a woman in the hands of a skilled man.”

I peeled Leticia’s blouse from her shoulders and she stood before me, breathing in ragged little gasps…

Chicks Controlled by Books

April,
2
nd
.

Jason
Luke finds a fan at his desk reading book 2 on his computer.

It was a real dungeon door – a real one built by a local carpenter. Jason Luke pushed the heavy door open… and froze at the threshold of his office. There was a woman sitting behind his desk. She was blonde, maybe thirty years old. She had long hair that cascaded down across her shoulders. She was sitting in his chair, leaning attentively over his laptop so the author could see the deep cleft of her cleavage.

“Who are you?” the author asked quite calmly. He had never seen the woman before. She looked up in alarm – swung herself round in the chair like a startled gazelle. The woman got out of the chair. She had long brown legs beneath a skirt that was too short.

“I’m Debbie,” the woman said anxiously.

“And what are you doing?”

The woman looked guilty. “I’m looking for the sequel to
IwaM on your computer. I want to know what happens in the story.”

“So you broke in?” Jason Luke made a mental note to have the locks changed. He stayed in the doorway – came no closer to the woman.

She nodded. “I’m a fan of Jonah. I wanted to know if he was going to live through the sequel. I want a happy-ever-after. I was getting worried. I read your interviews…”

Jason Luke nodded – but he wasn’t happy. He studied the woman carefully. “I can’t tell you what is going to happen,” the man confessed. “I still haven’t started on the book.”

The woman smiled suddenly, like she was pleased. “Good,” she said, with a breath of relief. And then she hitched up her skirt until it was high around her waist, and revealed a snub-nosed pistol, strapped to her upper thigh. She aimed the weapon at the writer. “Then take a seat, jerkweed,” she snarled. “You’re going to tell the story the way us readers want it told. You start typing… I’ll tell you what is going to happen.”

Chicks Controlled by Books

April,
2
nd
.

Jonah at an office meeting thinking of Sherry.

“What are you thinking about?” Leticia asked softly.

I blinked. It was a meeting with Leticia and her editors at the newspaper about another series of articles. And here I was, my mind drifting…

“I was thinking about Sherry,” I confessed. At another time I had been on the other side of a desk just like this, as a publisher, and Sherry had been my secretary.

I thought about Sherry a lot. She had been the most perfect, the most wonderful lover of my life. Not just of the women I had spoken about in the first interview – Sherry had been the best of them all…

“Why?” Leticia asked, covering her mouth and keeping her voice low. “Why are you thinking about her?”

“Because she is the kind of woman who is hard to forget – the kind of woman that every man dreams of meeting. She was the lover who thrilled me more than any other…” I explained.

Leticia looked crestfallen – injured. “What about me…?” she asked.

I smiled, and then winked. “You and I haven’t slept together – yet,” I said.

Chicks Controlled by Books

April,
2
nd
.

Jonah and Leticia on the top of a Ferris wheel.

The Ferris wheel reached the top of its turn… and then stopped.

The carriage Leticia and I were perched in rocked gently from side to side at the sudden brake, and then a soft summer breeze brushed warm against my cheek.

Leticia clutched at my hand. “What do we do now?” she asked, and there was a fleeting look of panic in her eyes.

I shrugged. “Nothing too strenuous!” I laughed. “But we’re certainly not going to waste the opportunity.”

Leticia looked puzzled for an instant, and then I leaned close and kissed her passionately. I kissed her with a fierce hunger that took her breath away and left us both panting. I felt her tremble. I slid my hand down until it was resting on her thigh. I could feel her shaking beneath the woolen material of her skirt.

“Spread your legs for me,” I said firmly, but my tone soothing and gentle.

Leticia pulled back from me and searched my face. Then she bowed her head, closed her eyes… and her thighs fell open to my touch.

“Good girl,” I said. I slid my hand beneath the hem of her skirt
until I could feel the fabric of her panties and the heat that radiated through the gossamer silk. “Keep your eyes closed… and let your imagination run wild!”

Chicks Controlled by Books

April,
2
nd
.

Jonah and Leticia playing twister
.

“It’s a children’s game,” I said sternly, “and I don’t play games.”

Leticia set the Twister mat out on the floor, and then pouted at me. She folded her arms across her chest and tilted her head to the side as though she were trying to see me in some different light.

“Sometimes you need to relax, Jonah. Twister is fun for all ages. It even says so on the box!”

I made a face. There was no way I was going to play a game for kids. At least not in the way Leticia expected.

Leticia spun a little dial and then looked at me. “I have to put my left hand on the yellow spot,” she said. She completed the move and looked up at me hopefully. She was bent at the waist like she was touching her toes. “Now it’s your turn.”

I crossed the floor, stood beside the mat. I picked up the little cardboard dial and crouched down until I was at Leticia’s eye level. I spun the wheel. “It says I have to put my hand on the pink spot….” I said meaningfully. I arched my eyebrows and a slow, dangerous smile spread across my lips.

Leticia shot me a wary glance. “There is no pink spot,” she said.

“Not on the board, there isn’t…” I said softly.

A note from Jason:

Twister?

By the time this scene suggestion appeared I was nearing the end of the tour. The ideas fro
m readers were becoming crazier - and this may have been the craziest suggestion of them all. I chose the suggestion before I had any idea what I was going to write. At the last possible instant when I knew I had to wrap the scene up because of time limitations, I came up with a clever twister twist.