Room 418

Of course it was a bad idea, she realized now. When the hotel had called her assistant to admit that they had made an overbooking error, she should have found another hotel. She should have told Him that he could keep the room, that it was no problem for her to stay somewhere else while they both attended the conference. She should have smiled brightly and said all the right things. She should have avoided his eyes after their last meeting, the feeling she felt in her stomach- between her legs. She should have walked back to her office instead of lingering- gathering her papers… waiting eagerly for him to suggest they share the room. She should have done so many things, said so much more- instead he suggested what she had wanted, what she had hoped for- and she replied with “Yes”.

She studied him as he slept in his bed across from hers. His lanky body was sprawled out, his legs tangled in ivory sheets. She liked to imagine him naked, she allowed herself to pretend that he was- that the t-shirt and boxers she had seen him come out of the bathroom wearing last night were figments of her imagination. She watched his chest rise and fall, imagining herself falling asleep beside him, inhaling his scent. She ached to move into his bed and curl up against him, stealing his body heat, pressing herself against him. She had allowed herself to visualize anything but the idea of his mouth on her body, she wouldn’t allow herself to imagine that. Not here. Not now.

But as her eyes settled on the sliver of skin that she could see with his boxers slung low around his hips, her mind raced thinking of what he must taste like, how salty his skin would be if she climbed into his bed and ran her tongue along the edge of his waistband. She thought of how good she wanted to make him feel. She slid her hands beneath the sheets, between her legs and moaned softly. She did not  look at his wedding ring.

He had asked her out two months after joining the firm. Over the photocopier he suggested lunch. When She declined, he proposed breakfast, dinner, a trip to Hawaii, marriage. Startled, she laughed out loud- the kind of laugh she hated doing, the kind that showed her fillings but he had smiled back, noticing only that if he stood close enough he could smell her hair. Gardenia. His smile only broke when she explained she was already seeing someone. He moved on, their relationships always overlapping each other- never both being single at the same time.

He got married last winter to an intern. A fucking intern. She skipped the wedding, blaming a ‘family emergency’, took two days off, and went to bed with a bottle of vodka and the cold realization that it’s possible to only realize you love someone after they declared love someone else. She wondered how the intern did her hair for the wedding, if the intern got His jokes. She wondered how many times they fucked on their wedding night. She called in sick for one more day.

She woke before he did, staring at the richly embossed wallpaper covering the hotel walls. She thought of how regret was like a knife that could cut you over and over, a wound that did not heal with time, or flings or bottles of vodka. She had lost count of how many times she wished she would have agreed to lunch, or dinner or Hawaii or marriage. How happy she could have been- instead of shamefully stealing whatever time she could, watching him sleep in this hotel on this weekend. What a fluke someone had overbooked the rooms, her excitement at this news had only been outweighed by the sadness that it never had to be like this to begin with.

She laid in bed like she did every morning, allowing herself a few minutes to imagine a thousand things, a lifetime of moments with him that would never happen, then she crawled out of her bed, past His still sleeping body and into the bathroom to shower to try and wash away her regret.

He laid there listening to the water run in the shower, thinking of how it had taken every ounce of determination not to pull her into his bed as she tiptoed past him towards the bathroom. How despite his best efforts, he could not rid her from his mind- how she clung to his insides and refused to let go. He thought of how dangerous it had been to call her assistant and make up the fib about the overbooked rooms. He should have been ashamed at the way he tricked her into staying with him, but he had needed her. He had needed more of her, more time with her, more moments to count her fillings when she laughed.

He breathed deeply.

Gardenia.

Still.

Always.

~ by brandy on October 21, 2009.