She sent over a bottle of expensive wine, thinking I just didn’t care for her first choice. Again, I told the waitress to leave it unopened but acknowledged the gift. This was making her crazy. Now, she was on a mission. She probably expected another woman to walk in shortly, which was why I wasn’t accepting her overtures. I sat quietly and didn’t look at her, but focused on making scribbles on a napkin.
For all she knew, I was sketching out a new app or a miracle invention. Tech people were like that. It never occurred to them that you might have ordinary thoughts and even weaknesses. They were a culture of challenge and triumph. Why else would someone live there if not to be in the ongoing tech laboratory that lay along the coast? It was crammed into unkempt ranch houses pocking neighborhoods where the rent was cheap, and no one had to take out the trash if they were deep in a key line of code.
The bar stool babe had all she could take. As I watched from the corner of my eye, she picked up her drink and wound her way between the tables to arrive at my side.
“Not like the drink?” she asked. I knew that would be her line. She was just like all the others.
“Don’t like drinking alone.” I played out a bit more line and then tightened the reel to wait.
She smiled now, on familiar ground and pulled out the chair. “Mind if I join you?” she asked although she’d already answered herself. I barely motioned to the chair with the tip of my finger, making it obvious that it didn’t matter to me one way or another.
“Why the sunglasses?” She swirled her words within a current of drugstore perfume and cheap whiskey. I’d seen it before. She was on the skids and had pulled together her last cent to get out of the hole.
I didn’t answer her question but asked one of my own. “You staying here?”
That caught her off guard, and I knew it. She couldn’t afford a broom closet in this place and would probably starve for a week due to the wine that now sat unappreciated on the table between us. She thought a moment and then replied slyly, “I’d like to.”
Oh, yeah, she was just my type. Stupid, predictable and entirely and completely forgettable. I stood up, threw a hundred on the table, picked up the wine and offered her my hand. I saw her glance at the hundred. It would have gone a long way toward eating that next week. She wasn’t sure if there was money in my invitation, but she was greedy and gambled it would pay off. She accepted my hand and followed me out of the bar and into the elevator.
We emerged at the penthouse, and I watched from behind my lenses as she tried to behave as though this was normal. I saw her sneak glances at the expensive art on the walls, the counter holding baskets of fruit, cheese, imported wines and platters of caviar and sushi that had just been refreshed by the staff. She walked toward the windows and then quickly turned away.
“What’s the matter? Afraid of heights?” I couldn’t help but poke at her.
She nodded and closed her eyes, putting her hand on her stomach as though she were queasy.
“If you’re gonna throw up, there’s the bathroom. There’s a toothbrush on the vanity. Brush before you come back.” She blinked at me, then fled. She must have recuperated because I didn’t hear any gagging and moments later, she emerged, her blouse opened to her waist.
I pointed at an opened doorway, and she trotted off in that direction, pulling off heels as she walked. She was so, so classic; so pathetically classic. I gave her a few minutes and poured myself a whiskey before presenting myself in the doorway. She was waiting for me, naked and shivering beneath the satin, quilted bedspread. I kicked off my shoes and socks but took my time removing the rest of my clothes. Naked, I stood next to the bed and looked down at her before ripping back the covers and inspecting her naked form as though she was a biology class mouse about to be dissected. She attempted a half smile and looked up from beneath a phony eyelash that had come half unglued. I rolled my eyes and dove onto the bed.
She gasped, then smiled as I grabbed a handful of her bottle-colored hair. I pulled her head back so far she couldn’t see what I was doing. Her eyes were huge, but she moaned.
“You like it rough?”
She couldn’t move her head, but she licked her lips. “Yes.” The word was a tiny breeze of air.
I let go of her hair and slid my hand down to her throat. I didn’t clamp down to restrict her breathing, only to make her submissive. When her muscles relaxed, I let go and spread her thighs apart before rolling on the condom I’d tossed on the bed. Without preamble, I rammed into her balls deep. She cried out at the suddenness of it but arched her back, giving me more of her. Over and over, I drove into her without so much as a kiss or brushing her nipple. This was sex, nothing more.
In my head, I summoned up every nuance of rejection and hatred I’d endured, pounding her hips deeply into the mattress with my fury. I was like a cold, steel piston; relentless and unfeeling. I knew what I was doing was wrong, using her this way, but couldn’t seem to stop myself.
Then something quite unexplainable happened. What felt like a current of warmth and light descended over me like a layer of insulation from the world around me. I tried to lift my head to see if there was a physical entity above me, but my body was becoming unbelievably heavy. The burning anger became sadness, and I actually felt a bit frightened. My dick went limp, and I fell out of the blonde and onto my back, staggering beneath the strange sensations rolling through me.
Her eyes wide, she rolled away from me and to her feet, gathering her clothes as she rounded the bed to leave the room.
“Hey!” I tried to bark, but it sounded like a pathetic whimper. I reached for my wallet and threw two thousand-dollar bills in her direction. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. Wanted to ask for her forgiveness. She didn’t deserve the treatment she’d just experienced at my hands.
Like a dog sneaking a bite of a dropped steak, she took a step forward and scooped up the bills. I heard the elevator door ding as it opened and again as she flew downward in it. I wondered if she had enough sense to halt the elevator until she was dressed, wondered if she’d be alright.
I laid on the bed, laboring as though trapped in thick syrup and wondered briefly if this was what a fly felt like when it became tangled in the spider’s web. I wondered if I was having a stroke or maybe an aneurism. I really didn’t feel sick at all. In fact, quite the opposite. I felt light and warm and smothered with love. There was nothing I wanted to do but lie there and revel in it, and that’s exactly what I did. Eventually, I fell asleep, or so I assumed the next morning when I awakened. Perhaps I’d died for a time.
I threw my things together and had a limo waiting to take me to the airport. It wasn’t until the jet landed at Standiford Field that I relaxed enough to breathe.
I headed straight for the Y — straight to Liane. She looked up from her perch behind the counter as I cleared the doorway. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been there that day. I think I would have gone mad.
“When are you off?” I asked in a strained voice.