Chapter 10: Lost Souls and Umami-chan

Howard: An old client called and begged me to do a seminar for them, as the next phase of a network where I had first been an instructor, then the lead architect. They put me up in the pleasant Tampa hotel where I had stayed before, and in a small suite.

I was tempted, for old times’ sake, to visit Mons Venus or another of the incredibly hot Tampa strip clubs, but was far too tired. In addition, I knew that I had women as wild, or wilder, at home.

After flying in, I was tired. I had a nice seafood dinner in the hotel, and, unusually for me, decided to have drinks in the hotel bar. I was at a table, and happened to look up at the bar.

On a barstool, face turned away from me, was a woman with a wonderful pair of legs, revealed by a short-skirted business suit. When she turned, and I saw her face, I gasped. “Becky?” She spun around.

“Oh, my God. It’s been a couple of years, but I didn’t forget. I hated it when I lost your number. Let me settle my tab and go to a booth and try to catch up.”

“Becky, would you like me to order room service and have us go to my suite, where we have more privacy? I know you know that isn’t some euphemism.

“Sounds like a great idea.

Becky has her own face, definitely attractive, but not with the look like a Tampa showgirl, but had the pretty face, made up with skill, of the sort of person whom I’d have liked both as a study partner and date. Her makeup was both heavy enough and skilled enough to show that she wanted to be provocative.

“Howard, this is honesty time for me, and I hope for you. Back then, when I met you in this hotel, at the bar, it was an excuse. I wasn’t a real bar girl.”

“I wondered, when you quoted me this really low price, and then told me that I didn’t need to use a condom. An excuse, perhaps, for wanting hard, maybe anonymous sex, to help you relax with crisis?”

“You guessed precisely. I guess I should tell you more about myself. I’m a lawyer, so you can fuck a lawyer rather than just be fucked by them.”

“Dear, I do that quite often. Hopefully, you’ll meet Lucy, the senior partner, soon.”

There was a knock, and room service rolled in a tray. We thanked him, and then I snuggled next to Becky, stroking her inviting legs.

That produced a pleased expression. “I don’t know how much you realized it, but I’m fixated on giving oral. Weird, huh? Sick?”

“Oral is weird? First, let me demonstrate with a classic oxymoron, jumbo shrimp.” I reached for the platter of freshly caught local, pink, large, shrimp. “This shrimp has no need for his or her precious bodily fluids.” With a flourish of my tongue, I dramatically put it into my mouth, chewed, moaned with pleasure, and offered Becky a shrimp. She snickered and made even more of a production of shrimp-meets-mouth than I had done.

I spoke. “You want me to think oral is sick? Oh, yeah. Remember who came in your mouth and then wanted to share it with you? And what happened?”

“Oh, my. This is coming back. I was pleasantly shocked. I wanted to all-out kiss you, but was scared--just touched your mouth with my tongue. I wasn’t sure what happened then, but I woke up, an hour or two later, with you gently holding me.

“I realized that I was still naked but heels and hose, but nothing had been done to me when I was out cold and vulnerable. Confused, I hurried to finish my part of the deal, and sucked you off as quickly as possible, and got out, while I gave you my number.”

“You had no way to know it, but I savored the taste of you until it was gone. It was a little difficult to drive home, because I was crying. The tears were confusing, about, I guess, loss.”

“It was really a pleasant surprise when you encountered me in the same hotel bar a couple of nights later. I tried to delay, but you sensed that I had already had a client. You took me to your room. When I tried to rush to the bathroom, you had an intuition, and asked if I needed the bathroom for the usual purpose.

“But now, Becky, I want to do the most intimate oral act: I want to kiss you, deeply and passionately.” I’m sure we attracted some eyes in the bar, and I’m proud of it. When we broke for air, I told her, “That was spiritually delicious, but you have a fascinating taste. In the West, we think of tastes as salty, sweet, bitter, or sour.

“The Japanese, however, identified a fifth basic flavor, umami. It turns out that is not just tradition; there are physical receptors for it. The best translation that I’ve heard is pleasant and savory. Maybe you don’t taste exactly like the Japanese foods that they use for examples, but your taste is very rare. I shall call you Umami-chan, or Japanese for my sweet little one named Umami.” She beamed.

“Thank you, Howard. That makes me feel wonderful. Yes, let’s go to your room, and let me clean up before we do anything else. Um, I have been working tonight.”

“Why do that? I find it rather exciting. If you don’t mind, how about getting on the bed and lifting your skirt? Before that, I want to ask you a little more. What kind of law? What’s your background?”

“My former firm isn’t pure law, but is starting to move into medical services with some of my clients. I do patent and intellectual property law. Like most patent lawyers, I have a technical background. My undergraduate degree is in pharmacology and toxicology, after which I did a graduate program in medical record librarianship, although I’m also a qualified medical reference librarian. That financed law school. This background makes me the specialist for the firm, and actually a local consultant, in medical errors that involve records.

“When we were together, you definitely enjoyed my mouth. I could see you wanting to kiss me or eat me, but encouraging that wouldn’t have been consistent with a bar girl hooker -- it would have been a high-end hooker doing Girlfriend Experience (GFE).

“But how the hell, I wonder, would giving you a GFE have been a problem? It’s not like you were going to turn me in and have my nonexistent license revoked. As a member of the bar, I should not use foul language to describe illogic, so, sir, I say to you, feces! I was full of feces!”

Laughing, I told her, “Well, now that’s out of your system, what was this about kissing?” We spent the next few minutes happily wrestling with our lips and tongues.

“As far as you savoring tastes, let me tell you something about myself, which I’m working through. My family, while I was growing up, was really nasty about making me feel guilty about sex with women. Unless I had an absolutely explicit consent, they treated me, and other young men in the family, as if we were rapists.

“So for me at least, it was comforting to make it with a sex worker, or at least with a swinging woman that I could taste have been fucking. That made the sex OK.

“I’m in an open relationship with Dove, who put herself through college and graduate school as a legal Canadian streetwalker. We met in a social way, and learning what she did was very helpful to me. I hope you’ll meet some others in my extended family, whom I cherish as swingers or happy hookers

“Becky, my dear, I gather you’re at loose ends from the firm?”

“Unfortunately so.”

“May I invite you to spend the night, and then to return to DC with me, to meet my colleagues and nontraditional family? I suspect that your background ties right into our new project, an improved online prescribing system.

“Oh, God, yes. We missed an opportunity before, when we had the strange connection.”

“Now, let’s get oral, and by that, I don’t mean cocksucking to start. I mean the part that we avoided thinking you were a hooker. Your mouth was lovely. How do you like being eaten?”

“Oh, Howard. I love it, when it’s safe, and you just made it so.”

It surprised her, when I put the phone on speaker and called Dove. “Hi, lover. Dove, meet Becky. Becky, meet Dove. The two of you are sisters from different mothers. “She’s in bad shape now, and we may be just what she needs.” I’m bringing her home with me.” Becky’s eyes were wide. “We need to involve Lucy very soon, because I think we just might be a professional home for her as well.

“Send one of the vans to pick us up at National Airport. You, and anyone with you, please wear a short-skirted suit with stockings. Black stockings if possible. That seems to be Becky’s signature outfit.

“We’ll want you, and, I think, Lucy, Marilyn, Sandra, Art, and Tony. Let Zelda know that we’ll have a very tense guest arriving, and preferably coming as well.”

My love spoke. “I’m looking forward to meeting you, Becky. Just to be explicit, Howard and I, and other members of the household, have a happily open relationship. Given the hour, may I hope that you two are spending the night together?”

One of my English colleagues, from Yorkshire, had taught me the wonderful word, gobsmacked. Becky was gobsmacked at the acceptance. “Um, we hadn’t decided, but yes, I can. I was fired by my law firm today, and hadn’t really figured out what comes next. It was a wonderful surprise to see Howard, with whom I had lost track. Are you sure it’s OK that I met him when I was working a bar?”

“Honey, I put myself through college and graduate school as a legal Canadian streetwalker. Don’t look for hypocrisy here. You two have fun tonight. If you feel like it, call me, play when you’re on speaker, and I, and anyone whom I have with me, will play along. Any suggestions, Howard?”

“Jill has this strange ability to observe as well as play. I think, after years, I just figured it out. She’s a flavor enhancer for sex. Maybe her nickname should be umami.”

After we hung up, I told Becky, “I really have to give my seminar tomorrow. You’re more than welcome to attend, and I’ll introduce you as my colleague, as an observer. We’ll tell them that we’re waiting for business cards, but I can get some printed locally and delivered. There actually might be a couple of places where a technically literate lawyer could add to the discussion.”

“I’d love that. Let me get a suitcase from my car, so I have something to wear tomorrow. It’s a nice navy blue suit, for which I have both conservative and eye-catching skirt lengths. Which one for tomorrow?”

“Conservative, I think. You’re too distracting.”

We stopped and looked into one another’s eyes. “Yes, Becky. Let me be explicit. I want you to spend the night, and I want to wake up next to you. In other words, another side of true GFE: I’m not going to send you away.”

“Fantastic. I’m going to strip down to hose and heels for our first round, but take them off for sleep. No, these are comfortable stockings, so I think I’ll keep them on.

It excites me, though, to think of putting on heels for you in the morning -- I’m just sorry I don’t have wilder ones. “I’ll make a show of it. Please talk dirty to me when I do it, and I’ll return the favor.