Vera and Ghidra often stayed at the Benoit as a breather from their homes, their social obligations, their demanding husbands, their even more demanding children, and simply as a girl’s overnight giggle and getaway. As usual on their special Fridays, they met in the bar after registering separately.
Once settled in their rooms, they had slipped their cashmere-tailored bottoms into the russet-stained, ostrich-leather chairs in the lounge area near the reception salon. The ostrich leather was from Ethiopia by way of a Bombay designer living in Paris who had the seating made to order for the Benoit in Florence. The chairs were then flown by chartered plane to a Westchester airport to avoid the rough traffic on the Island while traveling to the Benoit. The soft, firm grasp of the chairs made the girls’ bottoms feel indescribably special. The Benoit is designed to make its guests feel special — as special as old diamonds right down to their unique, pedigreed asses. Dark wood, white lilies and the soothing odor of cold gin — with a hint of dry vermouth — enwrapped them. It really is heaven for those who can afford the price at the gates.
The Benoit sits as discretely as a nun near the corner of Madison and 71st. Only the most select clientele is allowed to make reservations there even to dine. Entry to the ground floor four-star dining room is extremely limited. However, entrée there does not guarantee you a future among the four tables where dinner is served in the enclosed paparazzi-proof, tinted, glass, bronze-framed garden built on the roof. In that hermetic atmosphere, softly lit orchid bays in each of the twelve corners are visible only to the elite of the elite. The security and comfort were vetted by The Donald himself as a special consultant, but he is not encouraged as a guest. He lives rather too publicly.
The facade of The Benoit still looks like the parking garage it once was. It is anonymous to the point of being drab. There is no awning or marquee, but only a small, dark, bronze plaque with the words “The Benoit” on it. Why be gauche? The people who belong at the Benoit naturally know where it is. The rest need not concern themselves.
The doorman appears in a tailored black suit with an umbrella and herds his delicate charges into the salon where they are seated on an empire couch to register. A young French woman with a deep decolletage, balanced by a moderate but creamy bust, greets each guest by name in English that is just bad enough to establish the guests’ superiority. The hotel has twelve rooms — one on each floor — a live-in masseuse and a concierge with instant access to every trader on earth and to every designer and jeweler in Manhattan. He has, and could again, arranged for a wombat to be present at an exclusive children’s party. The Benoit makes itself convenient. It is also so fashionably unknown to so many people that it has become the height of chic in a six block area of ultra chic. In fact, I doubt most of you have ever heard of it, which proves my point.
Vera sipped her gin martini and over the rim of the glass, she studied the calculated rise and sway of some tall woman’s ass as it was leaving the room. It was not a small ass like the ones on models or a tight one of the sort on modern coeds, but it had tone. The shape of each buttock was defined by a slight ripple of muscle as her haunches bunched and released during locomotion. It was annoying.
Vera’s eyes flicked quickly over to the big man in the corner drinking whiskey. Her husband was reaching the age of dalliance, and if this fellow in the bar was Benoit material, he was her sort of material. His eyes were in turn intensely clamped on the departing ass. Ghidra — who had long been attuned to the subtleties of Vera — said, “All they ever think about is sex. Sex, sex, sex all day, everyday, it’s sex. Sex, sex and more sex. It’s not just disgusting. It’s silly.”
Vera observed, “Yes, but that’s what we have to work with. They are all boys, and if you remember that, you can focus their attention where you want it.” That had been the case for both women with little difficulty. They were both smart as well as intelligent. They were not beautiful or ever precisely pretty, but they knew how to be irresistibly attractive. They were funny and fun, though perhaps less so now. They both read a lot and could not remember why. They understood the mechanics of sex in men from prostates to kinky propensities. They knew that men liked some things in their mouths and some things in their assholes. They knew to keep them separate. They enjoyed the benefits of having a male and kept their enthusiasms in check to insure the long run. They knew how to ride herd on their steers.
“Let’s relax,” said Vera.
“Right,” said Ghidra.
Vera, who was en route the next day to the cottage at the Hamptons, was going by private helicopter in the morning. Sex on that schedule, she thought to herself, was out of the question. She needed to relax. She needed a few drinks. She was not up to getting laid in a rush. She was aware of the connection between men, sex and asses. But you could not keep their balls in the air all the time.
A decade and a half before — when they had graduated from Yale, married, and started these outings — they had gone to the Oak Room at the Plaza. The Plaza had fallen from grace due to bad financial notoriety and weekend package deals for people from Nassau County and even New Jersey. In those days, she would have felt obliged to agree with Ghidra, but the words were no longer needed. They knew each other that well, and they knew the practical limitations of dick.
Still, all was not serenity. Vera had begun to notice her own ass. It seemed to be engaged in some sort of territorial acquisition. So to study the ass on the tall woman as she left the room was not comforting. The tall woman had dark, shining brunette hair pulled back severely in a bun. Her dress was long and made of shimmering silver raw silk. It was essentially backless down to the topmost shadow her ass crack. No panty line marred the flow of the dress.
Such a callipyghian impertinence would have been beneath the decorum of the Benoit were it not for the extremely high quality of her ass accompanied by the muscled back above it, and the long, shapely, tanned, powerful legs below it. Worse still was the fixed gaze of the whiskey drinking man in the corner. She knew he was in currency trading. He was obviously running amok and in need of a guiding hand. It seemed like a lot of work. She did not have the energy to start fiddling with his strings right now.
“I’m going up to the room to lie down. Want to come by for a drink?” asked Vera. Ghidra said that she did, and they agreed to meet in an hour in Vera’s room where they could kick off their designer heels and do their drinking prone on Vera’s enormous bed and couch.
They shared an elevator and parted without having to speak. They knew each other that well. Vera moved along the short corridor to her door. The carpet was so thick she could not hear her own footsteps. She looked down at her bag to get out her key card for the room. Managing to ignore her thighs (with which she was lately displeased), she could see her toes which she thought looked pretty as they peaked out from the opening in her D&Gs.
Once inside, Vera wanted a drink while she waited for Ghidra. She debated getting out the liter of gin she carried with her in her bag, but decided to save that. There are no mini-bars at the Benoit. Drinks are delivered one at a time — or by the barrel — to order. She picked up the phone and without dialing got the concierge, “Martini please, gin, my usual vermouth and a small pitcher,” concluded the discussion.
Within five minutes, a gentle tap at the door reassured her that the Benoit was up to its usual standards. She opened the door and there, as she had expected, stood a young man with an adorable mop of blonde hair almost in his eyes. He was perhaps six two, and wore a very simple but elegant shirt of the most blinding whiteness. His starched collar lent him an old school charm as did his black bow tie. His snug vest emphasized the rocky contours of his shoulders and pectorals. These seemed too muscular for the delicate charm of his shy eyes, but that could have been rehearsed. His hands were large but nicely shaped with long tapering fingers.
“Hmmm,” she thought.
He smiled and one could see that he was used to being the focus of female attention. Perhaps he was another aspiring actor which meant he was probably gay, but the smile seemed to say otherwise. He was either carefully naughty, or unassumingly charming. She could not tell which.
She went to the vanity as though looking for cash to tip him, but in fact to study him in the mirror. She stood so the light from the night table emphasized the contours of her ass. She picked up her mahogany hair brush and ran it lightly over her flawless “do.” His skin was scrubbed to a pale, creamy pink. She pictured him having just been bathed by large muscular men along with a whole sports team of other very young men in a hot steamy locker room. The room—that locker room in her mind—was always smelling of hot, wet cocks and balls, of crotches and soapy armpits, or of hard asses and the place in the crooks of their necks.
That was how she had always pictured locker rooms in her imagination—full of naked, wet, muscular men with semi-erect cocks. Gigantic, fierce, powerful, shiny, naked black men with enormous cocks would be the ‘coaches.’ They would growl and strip the boys roughly; and then herd them into the shower by slapping their naked butts. She loved the way young men said “butts.” The coaches would be shoving them against each other. Every single male in the place — every one of them — would soon be helplessly rock hard and stiff. They would be punished for that, punished on their bare, hard butts. They would be spanked incredibly hard by the coaches after having to wait in a long boring line and watch the others ‘get it.’ It was the ritual male passage from which they were graduated to pussy. That taught them to focus on pussy.
He coughed softly. She returned from the locker room.
“Shall I serve you now?” he asked.
Probably in his mid-twenties—though he looked much younger—but he had to be old enough to serve booze. Best of all was the playful snugness of his cotton slacks. They were black and so new that the material still had a dull sheen. The pants showed the thickness of his thighs and calves. They were a little tight across the front so she could easily speculate on the length and thickness of his cock. It was a test of her evaluative skills. Best of all, was the way the pants must be shaping themselves to his ass. She invited him in with his stainless steel cart and white tea towel. She got a good view of his butt as he passed. Her hand drifted out from her side as though to caress it, but she caught it in time.
“A martini, please, not too dry. Take it easy on the ice.” She inspected his ass carefully as he worked. She thought again about huge men with huge, hard penises holding him over their knees and spanking him. The spankers would have shaved heads and sweat a lot. His ass was a bit larger than she had expected and very appetizing. She thought about taking a bite. His ass moved a little in time to his efforts at shaking the martini. It looked as resilient as two fresh, early melons. She imagined the skin would be baby smooth to the touch. She liked very smooth skin on men, and had an aversion to all but the most limited quantity of body hair. If she wanted a rug, she could buy one.
He turned to her, still smiling, and handed her the drink. She raised the chilly glass to him and looking at his eyes, and then she sipped. She walked to the bedside table and picked up her Waterman pen. She cocked her hip a little as a gesture of expectation. He handed her the tab and she signed. He had now had a moment to look too, and, if her ass had not betrayed her, she would see that look of male concentration in his eyes. And there it was.
She took her tiny retro chain mail 70s bag from the table and produced a hundred dollar bill.
“Come here,” she said and sat down on the damask coverlet.
Once there he took the proffered tip and she gently took hold of his hips. With authority, she turned him to the right so she was now looking at the sloping, shapely, round profile of his behind.
She placed her hand between his legs just above the knees and said, “Relax.”
Sensing his part, he opened his legs to give freedom to her hand. She began a slow journey up his warm inner thighs over the topography of his muscles to the point midway between his balls and his asshole.
“Mmmm,” she said and on cue he replied, “Mmmmm.”
She let her fingers glide over and around his balls which had an immediate effect even through his trousers. She rested her forehead on his hip.
“Mmmm, balls, yes balls…,” she said. She squeezed his large balls very carefully.
“Umm, yes,” he replied, not quite sure what she meant.
Then she eased her thumb along his warm crotch until she came to the start of his ass. She began to press upward and massage in a gentle circle. The effect was invigorating. Even the waiter seemed surprised.
“That’s what you think about, isn’t it? Sex.”
To which he replied in a rough voice, “I do give it some thought. Yes.”
There was, in his voice, just a hint of detachment.
“Are you laughing at me?” she said creating a chill.
He looked down at her as though inspecting her for the first time. Then he asked in a tone that no longer suggested boyishness at all, “Are you laughing at me?”
Things were out of control here. She really wanted to run her hand over his ass. She had just been settling in for a deeper exploration of his reactions, but she removed her hand instead. She was annoyed and looked away. She could not stand up as she had pulled him too close to her. Seeing that, he moved away, packed up his drinks trolley and left. She adjusted her hair and then washed her hands.
“Asshole,” she said lifting her gin to her lips. Vera had learned to sip. Right after her marriage, she had found herself indulging in far too much booze at the social events they attended. It began to affect her complexion and dulled the color of her hair. A little flab appeared. So she learned to sip. She took up aerobic exercise tapes to counteract the effects. Soon, however, she would make a martini and watch the tape for an hour while she sipped. She ate undressed salad every day and sipped.
Sipping martinis leads to warm gin, but warm gin is much better than watery gin. Watery gin can go bad and lead to tummy problems at awkward times. So she limited ice as severely as she limited the intake of gin with each sip. In this way she could start in the morning with no apparent effects except for a pleasant numbness to which she could retreat unnoticed when she liked. She was an active woman with a difficult schedule. She was entitled to sip.
By the end of her average, busy twelve-hour day, she might have consumed half a liter of gin, but if she had that salad for lunch and a nap, she never appeared to be stewed. Regular massage, visits to the sauna and hydro-irrigation of the colon kept her from showing signs of her handy home companion, Boodles. And so life passed without disturbance.
Ghidra had learned to slug. Her father had been a prosperous attorney on Wall St. He had bought a large tract of land in Virginia near Washington that had been developed by squeezing in mansions five to a block. He then bought a large townhouse on Sugar Hill in Harlem. He had it meticulously restored to its 19th century splendor by Italian and Polish craftsmen. They were imported by his general contractor under the radar of immigration and sent back when they were no longer needed. In the late 70s –while much of Harlem was at war with itself over drugs and using Uzis to do it—her family had lived in a pocket of Afro-american (as it was called then) luxury. In photographs they looked like black Vanderbilts. They were just that rich. Ghidra had always felt herself American royalty.
Her father had died in the eighties of a massive infarction. It was precipitated by an obsession with late-night, cold, macaroni and cheese. That was exacerbated by a complete lack of physical activity from the age of eighteen. When her mother succumbed shortly thereafter, Ghidra inherited a fortune in real estate. She married two Orange County graduates of the Harvard Business School. They had both died working for the networks as experts on programming diversity. She did not remember what programs her first husband produced, but the second one had died of a stroke on the set of a half-hour sitcom called, “Wuzzup?” The pilot died at the executive screening as suddenly and finally as her husband. She felt ready to move on to cable. She found television dull, read a great deal and was a fair water colorist. She had two secret passions, the Benoit and getting eaten. She quietly satisfied both often.
Slugging allowed her to knock off a small belt of gin in whatever ladies room, quiet office, or doorway she found convenient. She and Vera had shared all of their adult lives which included everything they could think of to discuss. They never once mentioned their boozing, even though they did a great deal of it together. For the most part, they stuck to their appearance, their financial interests, and the maintenance problems of male husbandry.
So when Ghidra appeared at Vera’s door, Vera told her the story of the bartender-butt-toy who had smarted off to her. They were both equally shocked and finding a small jar of stuffed green olives from Dean and Delucca in Ghidra’s bag, they had a martini.
Feeling a little saucy, Ghidra asked, “Do you think we could get him back?”
“Why?”
“I think,” she said, “if we paid him enough, we could probably tie him over the sofa give him a whipping. He deserves it.”
“Yes, he does, the little smart ass.”
And Ghidra replied, “We can make his little ass smart.” She had had a very tiring week sorting out her portfolio.
They giggled a little and fell silent. It created a hole in the conversation. They looked around the room, but nothing satisfied their eyes.
Ghidra, who had been doing a lot of slugging that day, said, “That’s all they think about…” and then dozed off looking soft, and even pretty, curled up on the couch. It annoyed Vera. It did not, however, surprise her that Ghidra looked pretty for she estimated that her friend, who was a very able dresser, was wearing at least twelve thousand dollars worth of clothes, not counting her jewelry. Vera felt abandoned.
She went back to thinking about her ass. She had not looked at it for some time with any really serious scrutiny. She thought the barman had reacted positively to its pleasant contours, but perhaps she had not registered his precise reaction. She sipped.
Then she headed for the three-way mirror that was between the walk-in closet and the bath suite. Once there, she turned her back to the mirror and hauled up her skirt. There was her ass—which had always been a source of pride—encased, draped and shaped by lingerie and stockings from Bergdorf Goodman. If adornment was the key, her ass was going first class. She retrieved her drink and sipped a little more deeply.
Then she set the glass on the carpet and slowly hauled up her sheer slip. This left her with the stockings and her panties which she began to lower with reluctance. What happens when you meet your ass at an unexpected moment? What if it’s not the ass you trusted to be there when needed? She felt woozy. She paused to dip down and sip. Then she tugged at her panties some more.
There at last was her bare bottom. It was pale as could only be expected in late spring, but the shape was nice and the central division showed only a slight slackness in the cheeks where they turned inward. She could see no cellulite as yet and certainly no hint of ‘cottage cheese” on the outer extremities of the cheeks. The cheeks were a bit larger than they had been, but perhaps that had its own charm. Still it could be that Bergdorf Goodman had more to do with its shape than muscle tone. She would really have to strip completely to check properly.
But that would not work either. Her judgment seemed clouded by something as though no matter what she did she could not find the true identity of her own ass. She needed an outside eye.
Ghidra was sound asleep and besides, likely to be too soft in her evaluation. She was a friend, her dearest darling friend. She could not call on the staff of the hotel at random for an ass inspector. The Benoit was assphobic, she was sure. It wasn’t a Benoit sort of thing to do. Perhaps…perhaps she had misjudged the young man whose sensitivities she had not credited. Perhaps in feeling up his crotch, she had somehow denied him something of himself? She could make that up to him and break down the unfair social barrier between them in the same stroke. After all, she was a clever girl with a social conscience. She had been to Yale.
She called down to the desk and asked for another round of martinis. Then she finished her own and downed the remainder of the sleeping Ghidra’s. That way the order would seem realistic, logical, timely. She had asked the concierge to send the same waiter claiming that she had forgot to tip him the first time, and he of course obliged. That were not that many waiters for a twelve room hotel anyway.
She stripped entirely and threw herself on the bed, but that felt too aggressive. She did not want to alarm him. She rose and put on an ecru satin robe that would reveal her shape nicely. Would she have to open the door? Or would he have a pass key? She landed again on the bed in a pile of pillows. Her spare liter of gin helped her organize her thoughts. She sipped from it and slipped it into the night stand. Should she be lying there with her ass carelessly exposed for his scrutiny? Dare she look up with a naughty smile and say, “Whatddya think?” Would he regard that as bizarre? Abusive? Harassment?
Or would he, as she hoped, settle on the bed to admire and perhaps stroke her girishly proffered bottom. Ghidra shifted and muttered in a troubled tone. One of her legs fell from the couch which exposed her entire crotch to the door of the room. Vera got to her feet and going round the coffee table, she picked up the errant foot to return it to the couch.
At that moment the door opened. As Vera was bent over Ghidra, her own ass was thrust prominently toward the door. Her face was apparently starting a downward arc between the sleeping Ghidra’s knees.
Vera popped up and wavered from the dizzying shift of position.
“Shall I come back later?” he asked.
“No no. I was just taking care of her. She’s dead to the world.”
He was clearly withholding some clever schoolboy response about this method of raising the dead, but he had gotten in trouble with her before for opening his mouth. She wished he would. It would give her the upper hand. She was starting to feel things were again out of control. She looked him square in the eye.
“Shall I mix your martini?” he asked.
“Two please,” she smiled at him calmly.
“Is she joining you?” he asked doubtfully.
“No. For me, and …and for you. I was rude to you before. Would you have a drink with me?” She paused tucking her chin downward. She looked up at him through her lashes and added,” Please?”
Despite her earlier ass-fondling, he knew he was not allowed to drink with the guests on pain of termination, so he declined quietly but with a warm tone in his voice. She stammered a bit and then, in a strange fit of desperation, she went to the bed.
“Put the drink there,” she said pointing to the nightstand.
As he came over to do so she flopped down on her stomach and flipped up the back of her robe.
“What do you think?” she asked looking at him with the glitter of gin in her eyes. It was a moment of total nightmarish terror as she realized how appalling this decision had been. Even the hint of a snigger would have destroyed her even if it were propelled from him by sheer nervousness. But he did not.
He looked. He studied her bottom. He leaned over the rounded, pale hillocks of Vera’s ass. Then he contemplated closely. He even, finally, slowly, and very carefully, leaned down and kissed now one cheek and then the other.
“Charming,” he said, “absolutely charming.” Then he prudently handed her the fresh martini.
She took the cool stem glass in hand and quaffed off the top half of the drink. Then she handed it back to him to put on the table and let herself float down into the soft, yielding layers of duvet, starched sheets, cushions, quilt and fluffy pillows in which she nested. Her bottom was perhaps the highest point of her anatomy now. In the soft, incandescent light in the room, it offered a welcoming peachy glow. It was not as pert and perky as it had been at one time, but none of us are. It was not as toned as the woman who had undulated out of the bar earlier that evening, but it was no slouch of a rump. He smiled a little.
He reached down and let his hand glide gently over the surface of one cheek and then the other smoothing the tension from her with his hand. She purred and he trailed his fingertips along the crack just firmly enough to avoid tickling, but hard enough to stimulate the tender skin. In short, he blessed the imperfect perfection of her bottom with his unstinting appreciation. It was his benediction. She sighed and settled deeper. He packed his bar tools and left.
When she woke up, it was four in the morning. Ghidra was standing over her still feeling the effects of the gin.
“Do you mind if I sleep here?” she asked in a small voice, as though she were clutching a teddy bear in the dark.
“No. Come on,” said Vera grateful to have her friend near.
“You are going to freeze your ass like that, Vera, but I have to tell you. It’s still a great ass.”
“But will it last?” asked Vera. There was no answer to that.
Ghidra turned off the lights, stripped to her slip. She belched gently and then farted softly. Silence followed. Then she climbed into her side of the huge bed. The unfamiliar warmth was comforting to both of them.
“Where did he go?” asked Vera.
“I don’t know. He left,” said Ghidra.
“What do you suppose..he…? asked Vera, unable to form the question.
“I have no idea,” said Ghidra clearly not wanting to discuss it.
They were together in the dark and silence. They did not fall asleep for almost an hour. Then the grey light began to strengthen over the East Side of Manhattan as it always does when it steps over Queens on its way from Europe. The echoing rattle of trucks began to rise from the streets below. From somewhere a faint odor of coffee drifted into the room. After a while, they slept.
© 2005 Cervo. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.