by Sienna Ciles
Ah, yes, now I remembered, as I looked around the room. The gorgeous, curvy brunette with the black-framed glasses. I liked girls who wore glasses... And this one, man, she had looked sexy in hers. M... Melissa? Mindy? Mary? Oh, boy, I couldn't remember her name. This could get a lot more awkward than it already was. It wasn't as if I didn't have a ton of experience in this area, though. Yeah, this wasn't exactly my first rodeo, so to speak.
She wasn't here in the bedroom but I could hear the sound of running water coming from the nearby en-suite bathroom, so it was pretty obvious where she was. Now, I had a choice to make. I glanced across at the floor, where our clothes were strewn in a messy trail leading out of the door. Well, that brought back some pleasant memories from a few hours ago. Man, we had been making out like a couple of crazy teenagers when we had stumbled in through her front door, devouring each other with hungry kisses and pawing madly at each other's bodies. Clothes had been ripped off in the single-minded path to the bedroom, scattered all over, and there they still lay.
I could quickly climb out of bed and get my clothes on and sneak out before she got out of the bathroom. I remembered that there wasn't really much security at her condo, so it wasn't as if I needed her to let me out or anything. So, I could slip away while she was in there, avoid all the awkwardness of the morning after, and forget about the whole thing. And then that would be that; yet another conquest completed, another figurative notch added to the bedpost, and I could get on with my life, and she could get on with hers. Yeah, just like that.
I started to climb out of bed and reached for the nearest item of clothing: my boxer briefs.
I was about to slip them on when something stopped me. I don't know what it was, exactly. I just realized that it was stopping me, and usually when my intuition or sixth sense or whatever it was spoke to me, it was best to listen to it.
Inside the bathroom, the water stopped running. This was it, this was the now-or-never moment. If I wanted to hightail it out of here, I had to go right now. She would be coming out of the bathroom in a couple of seconds.
I took a half-step toward the door, my boxer briefs dangling around my right ankle.
Come on, man, go go go, what are you waiting for?!
But... no. I wasn't going to run. This time it felt different. I couldn't pinpoint it, I couldn't figure out exactly what it was about this girl – this girl whose name I couldn't even remember – but there really was something totally different about her, about how she had made me feel.
Sure, there was the fact that she was smokin' hot and curvy, and man, I liked my curvy girls but I don't know, there was just something beyond that, some sort of a spark that existed with her, a spark that I couldn't remember feeling for a very, very long time.
We hadn't only had sex here. I mean, we’d had a lot of it, and it was really hot, from what I remember but we had also talked. Something about this girl really made me feel like I could just, you know, totally open up to her. And that was a feeling I hadn't felt with anyone for a really, really long time. A feeling that I very rarely felt with anyone, to be honest.
But this opened another set of problems. What had I actually told her last night? And how much of what I had said did she remember? Hmm. This could be good, or very bad. She had also told me some stuff, stuff that seemed like it had been a bunch of secrets that she wouldn't usually have revealed to anyone, yet here she was, opening up to me.
I couldn't' remember the exact details of what she had said to me, to be honest, but I did remember that there were some revelations in there.
She was about to come out of the bathroom now, and any chance to escape had now passed. A sudden case of nerves gripped me though, and now, suddenly, I almost regretted the decision to stay. Almost.
I needed a little more time, just a few seconds to get myself together before she and I spoke. And damn it, what was her name?!
I grabbed my boxers and held them in front of my crotch as I rushed over to the door. I was totally naked but at least the important bits were covered. Well, um, it's not like she hadn't seen what was down there.
The door opened, and there she was, dressed only in a baggy t-shirt. Her eyes widened at the sight of me, as if she had just seen a ghost, but then, after this moment of fright, she quickly regained her composure. She smiled at me, beaming out a gorgeous smile that was just radiant. Wow. She was just as beautiful as I remembered her being.
“Kain,” she said warmly. “Good morning.”
Great. She remembered my name, and I couldn't for the life of me remember hers.
“Um, Mindy?” I said, smiling awkwardly.
“Close but no cigar,” she said with a chuckle. “It's Mandy.”
I grinned. “Four out of five letters right though, huh?”
“One vowel off. Not too bad.”
She looked down at the boxers I was clutching in front of my crotch and smiled. “I'm guessing you want to go to the bathroom?”
I nodded. “Please.”
She stepped out and then smacked me playfully on my bare ass. “Go on in,” she said. “It's all yours.”
I hurried in and closed the door behind me, and then turned on the faucet and splashed some cold water onto my face, which went a long way toward waking me up fully. I then used the toilet quickly and headed over to the sink. There was only one toothbrush but there was at least some mouthwash. I squeezed some toothpaste onto my finger, rubbed it around my teeth for a while, ineffectually, and then sloshed a mouthful of mouthwash around my mouth. After that, I at least felt like my mouth was a little cleaner. A nice hot shower would have gone a long way toward making me feel even better but I didn't really want to ask for too much at this stage.
All right, so now I at least felt as I was ready to face her. So, what was I going to say? Well, I figured that there wasn't really much point in hanging around here trying to figure it out. I had always been a guy who plunged headlong into things and tackled problems immediately, so that was what I was going to do.
As I reached for the door handle though, something made my hand pause and hover in mid-air. What was it about this girl that had made me stay? With pretty much any other girl I did this with, I would have been out of the door a few seconds after waking up, without even a single look back over my shoulder.
But with her, something had compelled me to stay. Something.
It wasn't like I wanted a relationship. Heck no. That was about the last thing I wanted. Relationships... I just wasn't a relationship guy. It wasn't my thing. So, it wasn't that. Then... what was it?
There wasn't much point in standing in here and overanalyzing it all. No more time wasting.
I pulled my boxer briefs on, and then stepped out into the room.
“You all good in there?” she asked.
I nodded. “All good, thanks.”
“You don't want to, uh, take a shower or something?”
“No thanks... Mandy.”
“Ah, good, you remembered this time,” she said with a wink.
I chuckled, somewhat awkwardly. “I remembered this time, yeah. So, last night...”
“Last night...”
We both looked away, and out of the corner of her eye I caught the crimson of a blush on her cheeks. I felt more than a little awkward myself... but to be honest, it really wasn't as bad as I had assumed it would be. In fact, I was already starting to feel a lot more comfortable in her presence. And I sensed – I'm not sure how but I did – that she was feeling pretty comfortable around me as well.
“I don't usually do that,” she suddenly blurted out. “You know, like... on the first date. Wait, I mean, that wasn't a date. I mean, you know, it wasn't, I just don't usually—”
“Hold on there,” I said, interrupting her. “Don't worry about it. I don't think that you're, that, you know...”
We made eye contact, and an intense look of attraction passed between us.
She smiled and looked away, nodding. “I know. Thank you.”
“Actuall
y, last night was really great,” I said. “I had a great time.”
“I did, too.”
I could tell from the look in her eyes and from the way that she said this that she meant it; she wasn't just trying to make conversation or make the moment seem less awkward. She really seemed to genuinely mean that.
But what was going on here? I mean, I didn't want a relationship, I knew that much. I had no idea if she did but I suspected that even if she did, what we did last night wouldn't be the kind of way she would go about finding a guy and starting a relationship.
But even so, I felt like I wanted to see her again. I was about to say so, when from somewhere outside the bedroom I heard a familiar ringtone – mine. She looked up, too, as the sound cut through the silence.
“That must be yours,” she said.
I could feel her eyes on my almost-naked body, hungrily taking in the sight of me. I couldn't deny that my eyes were roving across her form, too; her bare legs, the breasts so thinly veiled behind that t-shirt. But I needed to take this call.
“I'd better get that,” I said, hurrying out of the room in search of my pants.
I found them soon enough, lying in a heap just outside the bedroom. When I finally managed to get the phone out of the pants pocket, though, it had stopped ringing. It had been my father, and he had left a message.
“Kain, there's an urgent matter you and I need to discuss at the company. Please hurry your ass up and get here, all right?”
Well, that was that. I would need to leave right away; my father wasn't a patient man, and if he said the matter was urgent, it likely was. I typed out a quick message to him to let him know that I was on my way and then shoved the phone back into my pants pocket and pulled the pants on. When I was fully dressed, I went back to Mandy's bedroom.
“Hey,” I said as I stepped back in.
“That wasn't your girlfriend or wife on the phone, was it?” she asked, looking at me with a glint of suspicion in her beautiful, large brown eyes.
I shook my head and smiled. “I don't have either of those, don't worry.”
“Oh, that'll make it a bit easier when I tell my husband about this,” she said with a sigh.
I almost jumped out of my shoes with shock. “Husband?!”
She grinned. “Got you!”
I chuckled and breathed out a sigh of relief. “You did,” I admitted. “I fell for that hook, line, and sinker.”
“I'm sorry, it was a little cruel, but I can't resist a good joke. Don't worry, no husband or boyfriend. We're both in the clear here.”
“No problem. Well, anyway, that was my dad on the phone. He and I work together, and there's a problem at the company so I really have to run.”
She nodded knowingly. “Of course.”
“I know that this was just a one-night thing,” I began, hoping to get her to agree to see me again.
“It's okay, I understand,” she said, looking suddenly wounded. “You can go. We don't really need to say anything else to each other.”
“Oh, that's not what I meant,” I replied hurriedly.
“Really, you can leave, Kain,” she said, getting up from the bed and walking out of the bedroom to go open the front door for me. “I'm a big girl. We're both adults here. You and I both knew what we were getting into last night, and now it's not last night any more. So, seriously, it's fine. Just go.”
I nodded and swallowed slowly. I guess she didn't really want to see me again, so there really wouldn't be much point in me pushing for that to happen.
“All right,” I said. “Well, I guess I'll see you around.” I walked past her, out of her house, and out of her life.
“Yeah,” she mumbled flatly as she closed the door behind me. “See you around.”
Chapter 3
Mandy
I watched Kain walk out of my apartment and closed the door behind him. A strange tumult of emotions was gushing through me. I felt a little sad, a little disappointed, a little angry, a little embarrassed – and a sense of longing that I really couldn't explain.
I don't know why I was feeling these things. I mean, it had been a one-night stand, and it wasn't like that was something I had never done before. I couldn't figure out why I thought this might be different than the other couple of times I'd done it before.
It was weird though. It had almost seemed like he had wanted to stay. Like he had wanted something more. That had intrigued me but it had also frightened me a little. Not because I thought he was creepy or dangerous or anything like that. I really, really didn't want a relationship, yet it felt almost natural to be able to fall into something like that with Kain. Why I felt this remained a total mystery. Besides, he had left, I didn't know anything about him but his first name, and it wasn't too likely that either of us would ever see the other again. I mean, he had forgotten my name before, and even though I had just reminded him what it was, he would probably forget it again – and then it would be gone from his mind forever.
Just another casual fling, forgotten in a few moments when some other pretty young thing captured his attention.
I sighed. Why was I feeling like this? I needed to just put all thoughts of him out of my head, seriously. I mean, I had this new job on the horizon – fingers crossed that the guy would call – and it would be a fantastic stepping stone for me, a way to seriously climb the corporate ladder. Getting distracted by thoughts of a guy – especially some guy I had only had a one-night stand with – was totally not what I needed right now.
I headed back to bed, and started to think about what had happened the night before.
Ellen had arrived at my place to get dressed and put on makeup and stuff at around six in the evening. We had each had a glass of wine just to boost our confidence and get a little more relaxed. My mind started to drift back to the events of the previous evening...
“It's gotta be the red dress,” Ellen had said. “Red is totally your color. It works with your hair and your eyes, and adds a bit of danger to your image. Danger and seductiveness.”
I laughed. “I'm going out there to find a job, Ellen, not a boyfriend! And you know how I feel about the whole boyfriend thing these days.”
She rolled her eyes, as she often did. “I know, I know, after dating that jerk Connor anyone would be put off getting into a relationship. I still can't believe that he forgot you at the bar that one time and drove home by himself.”
“And that was only one of the many occasions on which that idiot revealed his true nature. I mean, he forgot my birthday, he forgot our anniversary and we were only together for eighteen months! Jeez, isn't that supposed to be the honeymoon period, where you're trying to impress the other person and put your best foot forward and all of that?”
Ellen laughed. “If that was the best version of himself, imagine what he would be like at his worst.”
“I don't even want to think about it. He showed me enough of his bad side in the honeymoon phase, so I don't even want to begin to try to imagine how bad his bad side really is!”
“What a jerk. He's a total loser, Mandy, a total loser. And seriously, you shouldn't let his shortcomings put you off all guys and all relationships. I mean, there are a lot of decent guys out there. Guys who aren't like Connor at all, guys who actually make an effort to impress you and who put you and your needs first.”
“Like Jason?” I asked.
That shut her up, although maybe it had been going a bit far. Jason was an ex of hers who had cheated on her multiple times.
“I'm sorry, Ellen,” I said quickly. “That was a sore spot, I know. I shouldn't have gone there.”
“It's all right,” she replied quietly. “You're right. For every good guy out there, there are probably three or four jackasses. I guess it's just a matter of sorting the wheat from the chaff.”
“And my philosophy right now is that I just don't have the time to do that. So, I guess I'll just leave both the wheat and the chaff by the wayside.”
“I guess. But don't you get lone
ly?”
“Why, Ellen? I have great friends – friends like you. I have my work, which occupies so much of my focus and time. Why do I need a boyfriend? It would probably be a cruel thing for the guy, to be honest, because I wouldn't have any time to give him. Why get into a relationship when you don't even have the time to maintain it properly? And you know how important my career is to me. It's not something that I'm just going to set aside for a guy... for any guy, no matter how great he is.”
“There's just no way of convincing you, is there?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Not at this point.”
“You and I are both twenty-nine now though. I mean, I know it's kind of a cliché, but haven't you ever thought of doing the whole settling down thing? Not necessarily having kids or anything but just building a life for yourself with someone else, with a partner. With someone who will be by your side through thick and thin?”
“I'm gonna cut you off there, my friend. I know that's what you want, and if things go well with Chris, who does seem to be a genuinely nice and decent guy, maybe that's what you'll get soon enough. But just because it's what you want, and just because it's kinda the default thing for people to do, doesn't mean that it's right for me, or that it's what I want or need.”
“I know, I know. But... Ah, well, we're just going in circles here, I guess. Come on, let's get our makeup looking perfect. The taxi should be getting here in half an hour.”
Around an hour later, we arrived at the convention.
“There are a lot of really influential and powerful people at this convention,” Ellen whispered as we had stepped into the hall, which had been decked out with all sorts of flashy décor. “So, aim to impress.”
“I always do, Ellen, I always do.”
We had flitted around the convention for a while, meeting people and doing our best to make a good impression on everyone we met, and just checking out the various offerings of new tech products and advances and stuff like that. Eventually, Ellen had led me to one particular area where the company I hoped to work for had a display stand. They were an online investing firm who helped the public trade shares.