Room Service Fantasy

I'm Mindy, I'm twenty-three, and I've been pulling espresso shots for a living since I got out of college. Geoffrey is twenty-four and does tech support, which means he spends his days telling people to turn it off and turn it back on again. We've been together three years, ever since he finally asked me out during junior year after two years of me being hopeless about it.

So here we are at the Grantley Business Hotel in downtown Portland, tenth floor, room 1014, for a coffee industry conference that has been exactly as boring as it sounds. Three days of lectures about bean sourcing. The room is beige. The view is a parking garage. The bed is king sized, which is the only interesting thing about it.

I went to the bathroom around nine, took off the conference lanyard, and made my plan.

"Geoffrey," I called through the door. "Can you grab the charger out of my bag?"

"Sure," he said, and I heard him digging around while I wrapped myself in the spare towel from the closet, stuck the cheap nametag I'd swiped from the registration table onto it so it read ROOM SERVICE, and gave myself a once over in the mirror. Not bad. Kinda ridiculous. That was the entire point.

I knocked on our own door.

There was a pause, then footsteps, then Geoffrey opened the door in his boxers holding my phone charger and staring at me with his eyebrows way up. He's got dark hair that he never cuts short enough and a chest with a little bit of hair on it, and I have spent a lot of years looking at that chest.

"Room service," I said, grinning.

"Uh," he said. "We didn't order anything."

"You definitely did, sir. It says so right here." I tapped the nametag. "One very special delivery for room 1014."

He looked down the hallway, both ways, like maybe this was a setup. Then he looked back at me and I watched him figure it out, watched the corner of his mouth twitch.

"Right," he said, leaning against the doorframe. "I did. I ordered the, um. Special."

"You did." I pushed past him into the room, past my own duffel bag sitting on the floor with the charger halfway out of it, and set myself down near the window. "That'll be forty dollars."

"Forty?"

"Delivery fee. Plus tip."

He laughed and crossed the room, and I put a hand up before he got close. "Tip first."

"How about a deposit?" he said, and he leaned in and kissed me, slow, one hand on my jaw. That was the tip. I approved of the tip.

"Best customer I've had all night," I said when we came apart.

"I'd like to place an order, then." He sat down on the edge of the bed, all serious, arms crossed like a guy at a counter. "I'd like a latte."

"A latte."

"A large one. Extra hot."

"Sir, this is a hotel. We don't have a machine on the cart." I gestured at my towel. "I brought the essentials only."

"That's a problem. I was told this hotel had everything."

"I can see what I can do," I said, and I untucked the towel and let it drop.

Underneath I had on the black lace set I'd packed that morning and said nothing about, the bra and the little shorts that I bought in the spring and never had the right occasion for. Geoffrey went quiet in a way that I always take as a very good sign.

"So," I said. "About that latte."

"You don't have a machine," he said, still staring.

"No. But I've got something on tap."

"That works. That works for me." He reached out and caught my wrist and pulled me in to stand between his knees, and his hands settled on my hips, thumbs moving over the lace. "You know, this is a weird thing for the tenth floor of the Grantley."

"You love it."

"I do love it." He tipped his head back to look up at me. "Where did this even come from?"

"I've had it in the back of my head for a while. It seemed like the right night for it. Honestly anything is better than sitting through another panel about cold brew margins."

"Fair." His thumbs kept moving. "I like it. I'm into this."

"Good. Because I'm not leaving until the customer is satisfied."

"Very professional," he said, and I pushed him back onto the bed.

Here's the part I don't usually say out loud, but tonight I did, because the whole point of the game was saying things. Five years ago I saw him for the first time at college orientation and spent the whole day finding excuses to walk past him. Then for two years after that I would show up at the campus café whenever I knew his shift was, and I'd order something I didn't even want, just to stand at the counter and watch him work. I never said a word. He asked me out first, which still annoys me a little.

I told him some of that while I climbed onto the bed over him, my mouth at his neck, my fingers tracing down his chest through the little hair there.

"Two years of lattes I didn't drink," I said against his collarbone. "You cost me a fortune."

"You should've said something."

"I know. I was dumb. So now I'm making up for it, one room service call at a time."

"I'd say you're making up for it." His hands found the clasp of the bra and paused there. "Can I?"

"Yeah. Take it off."

He did, and then it was mouths and hands for a while, the way it gets when we haven't been sloppy and distracted in a while, and the conference had given us plenty of distraction but no time. I worked my way down his chest and then lower, took him in my mouth slow, taking my time, and he made the low noise he makes and put a hand in my hair, careful, not pushing. I kept it up until he tugged gently at my shoulder.

"Come here," he said. "I want to do something for you."

"Customer service goes both ways?"

"Something like that." He rolled me onto my back and worked the lace shorts down my legs, and then it was his mouth on me, unhurried, his fingers joining in, and I stopped having opinions about cold brew margins entirely. I'd put the little bottle of lube on the nightstand before I knocked, right next to the clock, and I watched him notice it and pause.

"Planning ahead," he said.

"I'm thorough."

"So I heard." He went back to what he was doing, and after a while I pulled his hair a little, the signal, and he came up my body and kissed me.

"I want more," I said into his ear. "You know what I want. It's on the nightstand."

"Yeah?" He propped up on an elbow. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure. I've been sure since last week. Now take your boxers off and get the bottle."

He did, and he took his time about it, which is one of the things I like best about him, that he never rushes the part where it matters. He had me lie on my side with a pillow under my hip, and he started with one finger and a lot of lube, going slow, talking the whole time in a low voice, telling me to breathe, telling