But being angry doesn’t solve anything. My mud mask cracks, flaking, tiny pieces dropping to the towel in my lap when I try to set my face into a calmer position.
The television is muted, and I could argue that I have a headache and noise will only make it worse, but I don’t have a headache. In fact, I’m listening for Gaige’s door to open, waiting to shower so I don’t miss his reentry to his room. He was dressed to the nines tonight—looking like a man who had more on his mind than a casual work dinner—in a shirt that hugged every muscle across his chest and stomach and jeans that were too sinful for public viewing if kids were around. His cologne had me shoveling food in my mouth like a starving woman just to keep from breathing in the scent over and over.
As much as I’m starting to hate him, I hate myself even more because I know the man is married, and I’m still attracted to him, still thinking about the night we shared. I’m an awful human being, an awful woman, a disgrace to womankind in general. On principle alone, I should’ve kicked him in the nuts instead of stomping on his foot, forcing him to come up with some excuse when he went home to his wife that night, and refused to work with BBS.
I chose myself. I chose to further my withering career.
If I weren’t already in my pajamas, with plans to shower in the morning since I already showered earlier today, I’d go down to the little store in the hotel and buy them out of chocolate to eat my feelings, but I deprive myself that luxury, a penance for being so horrible.
I’ve been back in my room for nearly an hour, and he hasn’t even bothered to return long enough to drop his messenger bag off, but it doesn’t surprise me that he’s willing to troll the bar and pick up women with it. There’s no telling what kind of supplies he keeps in there.
I grow increasingly angry as I sit in the dark, knowing it’ll be easier to tell when he returns from the light under the door linking our two rooms. Of course, we ended up with adjoining rooms, but I made sure the damn door was bolted on my side.
A noise in the hall stops my breathing completely, and it makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong, as if I’m some sort of stalker. Then his door opens, the light from the hall casting a dull shadow into my own room. His room light comes on, but no other sounds are made. I’m frozen on my bed, but less than five minutes later, his door opens, and he’s gone again.
I move from the bed to my peephole, but I’m not fast enough to catch him as he walks past. What a damn snake.
I wash my face, turn off the television, and go to bed, tossing and turning before rolling over and double-checking to make sure my phone is not only actually charging this time, but the alarm is set.
I’m exhausted, but I just can’t find sleep. Every noise bothers me, and that says something about how stuck in my own head I am. I live in the middle of New York City. Noise is a requirement to me. Silence is what usually causes problems. Tonight, it’s a combination of the two, everything getting on my nerves.
It’s over an hour later when his door opens for a second time, and I squeeze my eyes closed. I will lose my mind if I have to listen to him entertaining another woman in his room, and not because I’m jealous or want to be in there myself. Yeah, I know what it’s like to be under that man. I know how skilled his fingers are, how easy my body was able to bend to his will, but he’s a dirty dog. I want nothing to do with him that way, and if I ignore the throb in my body when I think about that night, I can almost convince myself that those aren’t lies.
Listening to him cheat on his wife, now knowing he’s married? There’s no way I could lie here and not bang on that door and tell the next unsuspecting woman what he’s up to. I never would’ve led him up to my hotel room that night if he had that ring on, and I know it was missing from his finger tonight at dinner. I knew then he had plans.
No sounds come from his room. There aren’t any grunts or whispers. I don’t hear him asking a woman what she needs to get off. I don’t hear commands for her to lift her ass in the air or press her forearms to the wall.