Note: Please consider reading the first chapter of this story.
It can be found here: http://www.literotica.com/s/the-book-tour
In the first chapter, Nathan and Marissa, in their mid 40's, rediscover each other after 25 years.
*****
Marissa and I spent the first few days of the tour locked down in our hotel rooms in Vancouver and Calgary. What I remember from those first few days are mainly images, sensations - Marissa's long black hair spilling down onto my face, hot water raining down onto our bodies in the shower, running my hands over her body as she dozed, tracing the 20 years of lost time into her skin with my fingertips.
At one point, lying on the bed in a pool of afternoon sunshine, with Marissa's head resting on my tummy, I asked her what we were doing, and what would come of all this. She lifted her face slightly, touched a finger to my lips, and gently silenced me. In hindsight, that moment speaks volumes, but at the time I didn't understand, as Marissa did all along, that those two weeks would be merely an interlude, a brief escape from daily life, and that the tour would, inevitably, end.
I didn't quite understand that then. I do now, though there is regret.
*
In Regina, Saskatchewan, after a reading at a coffee shop downtown with Mary and Steve, Marissa and I convinced ourselves not to run straight back to the hotel room, but to go out on the town. I took her to a restaurant recommended by my one single fan at the reading. Almost everyone who attended the readings during the tour were there for Marissa, some for Steve and his travel writing, a few for Mary and her foray into the vampire romance genre, and then I, the novelist, had a random fan or two here and there.
At the restaurant, Marissa and I drank wine, we ate well. We laughed and flirted. Marissa was dressed in black tights and a warm, tight-fitting, cowl necked sweater. I had a wine coloured dress shirt tucked into my jeans, an old hand me down tweed jacket. I enjoyed that night very much. In fact, I enjoyed every moment of those two weeks. It becomes rare, in your '40s, to feel like you are glowing with health, to feel vital. And that is how meeting Marissa again, and (after a lifetime of trying) getting published, made me feel - alive, vital, glowing. And, as it turns out, with the right acquaintances, in the mood to experiment.
After dinner we found our way to the river, holding hands. The Delta on Spadina Crescent loomed brightly in the dark night, a breeze making the tree branches sway above us. Marissa lifted our clasped hands to her lips, and kissed the back of my hand. "I want to stop in and see Eileen," she said. "I want to double check some details about tomorrow."
I nodded, but didn't say anything. It was already apparent that our young publicist was in awe of Marissa, and was taking most of her direction regarding the tour from the star of the show. I suppose it was understandable, and could have been expected. Marissa was probably Carlton House's most bankable author, and God knows what her colleagues and superiors at work had told Eileen about handling, or not trying to handle, Marissa - especially as this was Eileen's first solo publicity tour for the publishing house, handed the difficult task of shuttling four authors quickly across the country.
In the elevator, heading upstairs, I leaned against the wall, holding Marissa against me, my arms wrapped around and clasped at her tummy. I drank in the sense of her, the feel of her, buried my face in her hair. She caressed my forearms with her fingers, and teasingly pressed her gorgeous ass back against me. The chime rang as we reached our floor, and Marissa took my hand as she stepped out of my embrace. "Soon," she smiled, her eyes sparkling.
When Eileen answered her door, she gasped, startled to see Marissa before her, smiling radiantly. "Hello Marissa. Hello Nathan. How are you?"
"We're well, Eileen. We were just out enjoying the evening. I wondered if we might talk to you for a moment? I think there are two interviews tomorrow, and then we're travelling again. I just want to make sure everything is in order."
Eileen nodded, stepped aside, and Marissa stepped past her, pulling me along in her wake. The room had two Queen sized beds, separated by a few scant feet of space. A long dresser stood against the wall across from the bed, a TV sitting on top. The TV was off when we entered, and I noticed an open book lying on the bed, placed upside down to hold Eileen's spot as she answered the door. A small table and chair sat at the farthest end of the room, beneath the window which offered a view of the Saskatchewan River, the night sky.
Eileen had been reading in bed when we arrived, the covers and blankets turned aside as she'd risen to get the door. The small bedside light she'd been using was actually the only light on in the room. The other bed had not been touched, though it held a skirt and top which were presumably Eileen's choices for the next day. Marissa and I sat on the untouched bed, facing the one where Eileen had been reading. With evident uncertainty, Eileen sat down across from us. She was wearing a loose grey T shirt, and a pair of boxers. She held her hands clasped in her lap, and tried to look comfortable sitting across from Marissa.
"Eileen," I said, feeling a bit protective of the younger woman, who I guessed to be about 29, when Marissa and I were in our mid 40s. "Eileen, I just wanted to let you know that you're doing a really good job with the tour. Everything is going very well. And I kind of wanted to apologize for the way Marissa and I have been acting. We've made it a bit difficult for you."
Without quite saying so, I was referring to the way Marissa and I had been effectively locked into our rooms so far, and Eileen had had to pound on our door to get us to move and attend a few events.
Eileen, very nicely, told me to think nothing of it, that everything was fine, but Marissa reached across the small bit of space between the two beds and put her hand on Eileen's bare knee, and looked her straight in the eye as she said "Nathan's right, you are doing a wonderful job, and we haven't been the easiest people to deal with recently. We do apologize. Sincerely, Eileen, I apologize."
A moment of understanding passed between the two women, Eileen acknowledging that she had heard and understood Marissa. As she lifted her hand from Eileen's knee and sat comfortably beside me again, Marissa rested her hand on my leg. "Eileen, perhaps it will help if Nathan and I explain what happened, or actually didn't happen, 25 years ago, so that you'll understand how breathtaking it has been to meet each other again."