In Love With a Master Read online

  Leticia nodded slow understanding – but she wasn’t entirely appeased. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I tried…”

  I shook my head, brushing away her words, and replacing them with my own.

  “There are no ‘born experts’ at lovemaking, Leticia,” I went on. “Learning to please another person sexually is just like any other skill a person can acquire – it is something that must be practiced and studied and learned. It is the same for dancing, for art, for carpentry… those who wish to become accomplished are the ones who seek out information and lessons. No one is a ‘born carpenter’ or a ‘born dancer’,” I shook my head, because the notion was ridiculous. “So why would anyone think that making love to another person would be different in any way? How can you be skilled at something instinctively, if you don’t first seek out the techniques that are required?”

  Leticia looked a little mollified. She gave a heavy sigh, but the burden of her inability to pleasure me seemed to lift a little from her shoulders.

  I kissed her tenderly on the forehead. “Good girl,” I said warmly. “You just need to learn. Now pay attention – this is your first lesson in lovemaking.”

  I stood up. I was still hard. I stood before Leticia on the edge of the bed. “Take me in your hands,” I said. Leticia wrapped her fingers gently around my cock, and looked slowly up into my eyes uncertainly.

  “The only part of a man’s cock that matters are the first two inches,” I explained. “Within those first two inches are all the sensitive nerves that need to be stimulated in order to arouse a man to the point of orgasm. Forget everything else you think you know, and everything you have ever seen or heard in pornographic films. Women who can perform deep throat are very talented, but the fact is their effort is wasted in terms of creating arousal. It might look spectacular to have a woman’s lips wrapped around the base of a man’s shaft, but the man receives practically no stimulation. If you want to make a man orgasm you need to concentrate all your efforts on the first few inches of his length, and you must forget about thinking it is a mechanical process. You need to make love with your mouth – you need to be in tune with the man’s responses and reactions, not just going through a process. Rhythm can only come after arousal.”

  Leticia nodded slowly like I was giving her some profound insight to men.

  “Do you understand what I’ve explained?”

  “Yes,” Leticia said. “I think so.”

  I nodded. “Good, then let’s try again.”

  Leticia slid off the bed and back onto her knees. She took me into her mouth, and this time I sensed a difference in her approach – sensed more passion in the way she glided her lips along my shaft and used the flat of her tongue to change the pressure. I looked down and noticed that she was looking up at me, as though trying to read my expression and adjust her actions accordingly.

  I closed my eyes again and my mind began to drift. Erotic images and snatches of fantasy played across my mind. I felt my hands instinctively tangle themselves in Leticia’s hair at the back of her head, and as she sensed the tension in me rise, she began to make small, throaty sounds that mirrored her rising sense of accomplishment. When at last I felt the sensations along my shaft begin to build, I gently guided Leticia’s mouth into a steady, constant rhythm. Leticia adapted to my change in needs. I felt her wrap one hand around the base of my shaft as she began to concentrate the efforts of her mouth. I felt myself swelling and at the same time Leticia gripped her lips tighter. Compared to other women I had known she was clumsy, but committed. Her mouth came off the end of my cock for a moment and she lavished me with the flat of her tongue in frantic, swirling motions. I felt myself pulse and my whole body began to clench. I felt a tremble begin in my thighs and I pulled her mouth back over me at the same instant I threw my head back and screwed my eyes tightly shut. I felt an instant of Leticia’s resistance and uncertainty, and then it was too late – I felt the force of my orgasm erupt in her mouth and flood across her tongue.

  We stayed frozen like that for several seconds. I was seized by the unexpected intensity of my release. I felt my fingers twist in Leticia’s hair, and then suddenly all the tension went from me in a long, gasping sigh that sawed across the back of my throat. My hands fell away, the swirling darkness of ecstasy began to fade and I opened my eyes slowly and looked down to where Leticia knelt.

  She was on her knees, leaning away from me. Her lips were swollen and puffy, moist and slick. Her eyes were huge and soulful, with a peculiar expression – almost as if she felt a sense of sanctity – as if she had completed some important task she had been a willing sacrifice for.

  For a long time neither of us spoke. Leticia’s breathing became steady, and then she smiled shyly. “Was that better? Did I please you, Jonah?”

  I sat heavily on the edge of the bed, and took a deep breath. Nerves were still gripping along the length of my thighs and the roaring rush of silent noise in my ears was still receding.

  “You did please me,” I said with emphasis. Leticia came up off her knees and sat on the bed beside me and I took her hand in mine. “Over time you’ll become much more accomplished, and much more in tune with how to read my body,” I explained. “But never lose your enthusiasm, Leticia. As I have said to you before, the most arousing, erotic aspect of a woman is her passion. Every man would rather make love to a willing, enthusiastic woman than one who is highly skilled but devoid of emotion. What made my pleasure so intense was your attitude – not your skill.”

  Leticia’s face became wistful and dreamy. She stared at the dark patch that was the bedroom window for a long time and then gave a contented sigh.

  “So this is what BDSM is like, Jonah? Is this what I can expect in the bedroom? I have to say, it wasn’t anything like I imagined.”

  I turned my head slowly and smiled, but there was a thin layer of ice on my lips. “Leticia, what we did had nothing to do with BDSM. I was merely trying to teach you the first, basic way to give a man pleasure. BDSM is about attitude – it is about submitting and dominating, and we did none of that,” I said bluntly. “You need to learn how to crawl before you can walk, and I need to learn how to pleasure you before I can teach you the exquisite rapture that comes from having your orgasms controlled and your body surrendered.”

  Leticia became pensive and quiet. “Oh,” she said softly. “I thought… because of the way you stood in front of me and I knelt before you…”

  I frowned. “Leticia, surely in your previous relationship there were times when you pleased your boyfriend in a similar manner?”

  Leticia nodded, but I sensed she was reluctant. “Yes…” she said slowly, “But it was very different to what I just did for you. Much faster…”

  I smiled thinly. “Leticia, teenage boys get turned on at the flick of a switch, and they orgasm just as quickly. Pleasing an experienced man is much different to some teenage boy. You’re not a naïve girl anymore – if you want to please a man, you need to become a woman.”

  I went to the bathroom, and then to the living room to retrieve a bottle of whisky and glass. When I came back to the bedroom, Leticia was curled up on the bed, still naked, with a blanket thrown over her. I sat beside where she lay and poured the tumbler half full. I set the bottle down on the bedside table and sipped slowly.

  Leticia had drifted to sleep.

  Darkness was coming with a rush. The bedroom filled with gloom and shapes became blurred and indistinct. I finished the whisky and set the glass quietly down beside the bottle. Leticia moved in her sleep, curling herself up into a tight, little ball, lying with her cheek cupped in one hand on the pillows. She was breathing deeply and slowly, and I spent long minutes simply staring at her before the night robbed me of sight.

  I sat perfectly still and gloated over her, aching to reach out, but denying myself and making the exquisite moment linger until the ache to touch her was so fierce as to be almost unbearable.

  I could make out the soft, flawless planes of her face, and the
delicate way her eyelashes were interwoven. There was a pout on her lips, and she was breathing soundlessly.

  Perhaps she sensed me, perhaps some instinct told her that I was watching her. Her eyes fluttered and she came awake dreamily, stirring beneath the blanket and arching her back. Leticia’s eyes swam into focus and there was tenderness in her expression. She sighed contentedly.

  I drew a delicate finger across her brow to brush away a tendril of golden hair. She looked very small; very childlike in that moment – a young woman trying so hard to break free of her little girl world. I felt an emotional pull towards her – some kind of protective instinct that was quite unfamiliar to me. It was an emotion beyond the feelings I had experienced towards other women in my past. In that moment, I saw Leticia the way I had seen her that first day in my study all those weeks before. She wasn’t ready for the real world: she was too young and too inexperienced.

  “You fell asleep,” I said gently.

  Leticia made a soft humming sound in the back of her throat. Her eyelids were heavy. She began to smile, then saw the thoughtful, solemn expression in my eyes. “Please don’t look at me like that,” she said. Her voice was husky and deep.

  I smiled. “I think that maybe I am seeing you for the first time,” I whispered.

  Leticia seemed to slowly come more alert. She rolled onto her back, and stared up at me, with a pang of uncertainty.

  “Is that a good thing… or a bad thing?”

  I smiled. “It’s just a thing.”

  Leticia’s lips pressed into a soft pout. Her eyes fluttered, and then closed again. I heard her sigh.

  “Go back to sleep,” I said. “I will leave you alone for an hour. I have some thinking to do.”

  I got up from the bed.

  I went out to the kitchen and paused for a moment with my finger on the light switch, then turned it on. A fluorescent tube blinked on. It flickered for a moment and then threw bright light across the room. The kitchen was immaculately tidy – the stainless steel sink scrubbed shiny, with a rinsed coffee mug and a spoon set on a wire dish rack to dry.

  I crossed to the living room window and drew the drapes. There was enough light from the kitchen to see the shapes of furniture and I slumped down onto the sofa and let my thoughts wander.

  Was my heart in danger?

  My protective feelings for Leticia, that had bubbled to the surface in the bedroom as she lay sleeping, troubled me. The tenderness I had felt had taken me by surprise – seemed to have crossed the border of caring and travelled into unfamiliar territory.

  A hard heart, and a sense of distance, had been like a shield and sword for me through so many physical relationships throughout my life, and I wondered whether my feelings for Leticia were a result of me lowering my guard or somehow being disarmed.

  Was this what love felt like?

  If this was love, then the emotion was highly overrated. I had expected some profound, deep moment of realization – some instant where my chest became tight and I realized that to live without this woman would be no life at all.

  I didn’t feel like that… but maybe this was the onset. Maybe love didn’t strike a single heavy blow – maybe it was a slow, gradual descent… like drowning.

  I grinned wryly to myself. The romantics around the world would hate me for comparing falling into love with death by drowning, but maybe those romantics knew what love really was. For me it remained some dark mystery, tantalizingly out of reach, and I wondered if I would ever recognize and understand the emotion even if it overwhelmed me…

  I heard a sound from the bedroom and a few moments later, Leticia appeared sleepily in the hallway. She had the blanket drawn around her shoulders, but she was still naked. She turned the kitchen light off and the apartment was plunged into darkness, then she found her way to the sofa and curled her body close beside me. She propped her head on my shoulder, and I could sense there was a question hovering on her lips. I waited in the silence.

  “Jonah, who was the best lover you have ever had?” Leticia asked softly.

  I stared into the darkness, seeing nothing. “Caroline,” I said without hesitation.

  For a long moment, Leticia said nothing more. She moved on the sofa and I felt one of her hands wrap around me. “No, not just of the women you told me about during the interviews,” Leticia explained. “I mean who was the best lover you have ever had from all the women you have known?”

  “Caroline,” I said again.

  “Why?”

  “In just about every way Caroline was the perfect woman for me. She was beautiful, she was sensual, and her sexuality knew no limits. She had an open mind and she was willing to experiment. She had a veracious appetite for sex and an enthusiasm and passion for lovemaking that has never been matched by another woman. Her open mindedness meant that she saw every new challenge I set her as an adventure – whether it be in the form of BDSM, or even bringing other women into our bed.”

  For a long time Leticia said nothing and we sat in the darkness and the silence, listening to the faint hum of city noise drifting up from the busy streets below. Finally, Leticia asked tentatively, “Do you miss her?”

  I hesitated. “Yes… Sometimes,” I confessed. “More than anything else, I feel the burden of guilt, because I sent her away when she did all she could to please me. I know I did the right thing for her, but that’s no real consolation to my conscience.”

  Leticia’s instincts must have warned her, for she lapsed into thoughtful silence again. This was a conversation I did not want to continue. I sat forward and glanced at my watch. “It’s getting late,” I said and scraped my hand down my face. I could feel the crackle of unshaven stubble on my chin and jaws. “It’s time I left.”

  Leticia moved against me and I felt her arm around me stiffen. “You can stay here for the night… if you want to.”

  I shook my head. “No, not tonight,” I said. “But one night soon.”

  I stood up and Leticia uncurled herself and got to her feet. She found her way to the living room light switch, and we blinked owlishly at each other. The blanket around her had slipped off one shoulder. Her hair was a golden tumble and she looked very waif-like and somehow vulnerable. I crossed to the doorway and cupped her face in my hands. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and as she did so the blanket fell away from her so that she was smooth and naked against me, more confident now with her nudity.

  “You will come back soon?”

  I smiled. “Of course. We still have an interview to finish,” I reminded her. “And I have to give you a very personal lesson on the pleasure of receiving oral sex,” I warmed my smile up. “Will you come to the house tomorrow?”

  Leticia nodded happily, and then her expression changed and became suddenly practical. “The editor will want everything you gave me tonight as soon as possible,” she said. “I’ll start work first thing in the morning, and try to get a couple of hours on my laptop before lunch. I can be at your place tomorrow afternoon if that suits.”

  I nodded. “Come prepared,” I said. “When you arrive tomorrow afternoon, I want you to be wearing a short skirt and a loose fitting top.”

  Leticia gave me an impertinent glare. “Oh, really? So you don’t care what type of bra and panties I choose?”

  My warm smile turned hot. “I didn’t mention bra and panties. You won’t need them. Just a short skirt and a loose fitting top.”

  Chapter 12.

  It was mid afternoon when I met Leticia at the door. She came walking up the driveway, tugging at the hem of her short skirt self-consciously, with a look of complete distraction on her face.

  “Is everything alright?”

  Leticia looked up into my face and smiled suddenly, and then giggled. “I feel like some kind of a hussy,” she confided. “This skirt is very, very short. I’ve been afraid to bend over all morning.”

  I took a step back and admired Leticia’s long, brown legs. “You look fine to me.”

  Leticia smiled again. “T
hank god I can park close to the house,” she said. “I pulled over by the side of the road five minutes ago and took my panties and bra off.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “And how did that make you feel?”

  Leticia shrugged, not like the answer didn’t matter, but like she couldn’t quite find the right words to describe how she felt. “Kind of reckless,” she said after a moment and then lowered her voice to a whisper. “Very, very naughty, actually.”

  I held the door open and followed Leticia into the foyer, her high heels echoing on the tiled floor. She glanced around the big house, and then at me. “Are we alone?”

  I nodded. “Mrs. Hortez has gone into the city to buy groceries, and I haven’t seen Dr. De Niro since this morning. I think he is playing golf again.”

  Leticia relaxed visibly. We were standing close to each other – close enough that I could smell her perfume – close enough that I could reach out and cup her breasts through the sheer fabric of her blouse or slide my hand up beneath the hem of her skirt.

  She brushed her hand along my forearm in some feminine gesture, maybe just to connect and make contact, or maybe some female response that I could never understand.

  “Jonah, I went through everything that you gave me in yesterday’s interview and got most of it typed up. The editor absolutely loves it. He’s very excited, and cannot wait for the final columns.”

  “Have you been into the office today?”

  Leticia nodded. “Yes. I went in to work this morning for a couple of hours.”

  I frowned. “Did anyone notice anything different about you?”

  Leticia glanced at me quizzically. “No…” she replied slowly. “Nobody said anything – I didn’t realize there was anything different about me.”

  “Leticia, an experienced man can tell when an inexperienced woman has just woken from a night of sex and passion. Considering what pleasures you have experienced on the phone, and then again in your bedroom last night, I would have thought it would be obvious to anyone who cared to look.”