He -- our hero, or, more aptly, anti-hero -- sits in the decadent hotel room, 27 floors up, alone. In one hand is a highball glass inappropriately full of premium Jack Daniel's; his favorite. Reclining in the unfortunately cheap office chair with his feet propped on the desk, he idly twirls the ice cubes in the glass. I almost expect to see a cigarette hanging from is lips, and wafts of smoke dancing in the warm light from the lamp. But then again, that sin he was able to put to rest. His gaze lands on the button-up and sport coat tossed onto the the hotel bed, but his mind is still lying in another, 26 floors down and 20 minutes across town.
He left her in that bed not less than fifteen minutes after she'd fallen asleep, nestled in his arms. Which, as an aside, was in total just moments before they would have completely undressed and enjoyed each other fully, if she hadn't had a bit much to drink. But, he was more than okay just being wrapped up in that petite ball of cuddly happiness. Lord knows I would be. And that lost experience is what is eating him up right now. It wasn't his fault at all, the reason why he's here, and not there. Just bad timing.
Her hair smelled faintly of being washed, which is always more feminine than fresh out of the shower. He noticed, as he laid there absentmindedly tracing crop circles along every inch of body he could reach. Over a shoulder, under the bra strap, along her bicep to the crevice of her forearm. She inhaled, subtly, as his fingers danced along her ribcage, pausing at the sharp place where it met her abs, before continuing to her pelvis – he could feel its sharpness, too – and lightly down her thigh. She whispered to him and he kissed her shoulder, forehead. There was silence for a time, and her body began to relax, breathing slow, and deep. And that's when the phone began buzzing.
He struggled to twist his body and reach awkwardly over his shoulder to silence it, while avoiding waking the mess of blond hair weighing down his opposite arm. The text message simply read: Japan needs document before close of business. It was 2:37 AM, which meant that he had just enough time to return to the hotel and email over the paperwork before the clock hit 5 PM on the other side of the world. And that, was that.
So here he is beating himself up about the whole thing in a lavish hotel room after carrying out the business that affords him the salary that affords him that pretty black Beamer with the high performance tuning. I know he loves those things, and that coming from where he did, he has a genuine appreciation for them. It's curious, then, that he would be so agitated.
He jumps to his feet, suddenly; the stark contrast of his solitude here compared to the earlier companionship – however whimsical and impulsive it may have been – driving him to do so. Arriving at the floor to ceiling window he looks out at the shimmering lights of the city, and for whatever reason remembers a similar view of Paris. It was in this city in France where he first slept with a girl, swept away with romance and taking her so inconspicuously that the other students sharing the room never even knew. And the redhead he met in Hawaii – they never slept together, but they certainly snuck into the penthouse suite and had the time of their lives talking until the sun came up. His childhood girlfriend, if you could call her that, years later sneaking away with him at a wedding reception followed by a weekend exploring their old town, as well as each other. The brunette that flew him out to The Gulf of Mexico several times, just to keep her company.
He paces back towards the desk, passing the granite counter-top in the kitchenette and sliding the empty glass towards the sink. He has had all these great experiences, with great women, who did a great job keeping him company. And he knows he's lucky for it. But that blond across town...
Truth is, I don't know many people who have experienced a quarter of the things he has, and I don't think he does, either. There must be countless times he was in the exact same place: basking in the warmth of some cutie's embrace, keeping the other side of her bed warm, and waking up all the better for it. So what gives? He's gotten his fill, a few times over.
He cracks his knuckles, a bad childhood habit, as he mulls over very similar thoughts and makes some conclusions. One. Some people derive self worth from their yacht, or the glory days playing the QB, or jumping out of planes, or maybe remaining monogamous for years on end. He was never those things. In high school he was nondescript, just another angsty teen who didn't feel accepted. He doesn't own a yacht, and Jumping out of planes, or flashy tattoos, or extraneous piercings always seemed such a farce. And he never got to give monogamy a try; he had a fiancee once, but she walked away and never came back. The one thing he did have, though, was an ability to find companionship in romance. Back in school while the rest of the jocks didn't know how to untie a bra without a direct line of sight and a manual, he was seducing all their girlfriends with scary stories and a well timed squeeze of the hips. Now, he's usually able to make a friend for the night in the hotel lobby/bar/pool when he goes out of town on business, much like he did tonight.
It's an interesting paradox, then, that with all the self-edifying experiences hes recalling, he still feels he's missing out on the blonde.
He moves on to his second observation: he really misses the emotional bond he feels with a woman—this particular one, tonight—in its absence. He's addicted to the closeness between a guy and a girl, just being human and trying to make the most of the nights they have together. And it is here that he realizes what is really eating him up: in that moment she was his movie-screen ending, she was his companion holding him close and loving him unconditionally, sharing her body with him and taking care of him in a way only a woman can. Those fleeting moments, by virtue of being too short to tarnish from exposure to reality, that is their power. It is a concentrated solution made of all that is good. Which is all that is missing, for him.
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