Seven Roses (Haremworld)

The blonde that tried to seduce me finally gave up and headed back to her group of fem-bots.

“Another drink.” I stared at the crowd and sighed when I pushed my glass towards Steve.

“Right away, Mr. Martin.” I didn’t wait to see if he broke his previous record. I really didn’t care. I had enough booze in me for one evening but I needed to be holding something besides an empty glass.

And there she was.

She lingered at the back of a group of twenty-somethings. She only smiled when someone was looking at her. The instant they looked away, her face retreated to the natural discomfort she was in. She had dark brown hair falling down her shoulders and around her arms. Her dress was so skin tight she constantly shifted and tugged at it. She didn’t buy that dress. She didn’t own that dress. Someone in the group had convinced her to go out with them and loaned it to her. When the waiter brought shots, everyone downed them enthusiastically except her. She took a sip and then held it down by her waist. When the moment allowed, she sat it on a nearby table and walked away.

I had to have her.

She was a good girl. She didn’t know what it was like to ride the cock carousel with a different partner in her bed every time she put liquor to her lips. If I had a fetish, she was exactly what turned me on. I picked up my drink and walked towards her. Her tits were so natural and perfect. They were big enough for me to squeeze, but not big enough to knock her teeth out when I made the bed quake. Her ass might as well have been drawn on her perfect form. An artist would have struggled to draw or sculpt one so perfect without having her right there to serve as the model. When I got closer, I tilted my head to avoid eye contact with her friends. I had to charm her before they tried to talk her out of it.

“Hi, I’m Max—short for Maxwell, but please don’t call me that.” I extended my hand and she nearly jumped out of her sky-high heels when she realized I was speaking to her.

“Uh. Oh.” She turned towards me and blinked a couple of times. “I’m Abby. Are you looking for one of my friends?”

“No.” I flashed her the million-dollar smile—well, I guess it was a billion-dollar smile if you wanted to put a price on it. “I came over here to talk to you.”

Chapter 2: Abby

A few hours earlier

“Abby, come on, it’s Saturday night!” My best friend, Mary-Katherine, was standing in my kitchen with a dress in each hand. “Are you really just going to spend another weekend at home watching movies with your cat?”

“Sebastian likes it when we spend a quiet weekend at home.” I grabbed the orange tabby from the floor and hauled him up into my arms, speaking to him in a baby voice. “Don’t you, Sebastian?”

Sebastian tolerated my attention for a couple of seconds before flipping over and jumping out of my arms. He scurried upstairs as Mary-Katherine extended one dress and shook it at me before doing the same with the other. I hadn’t been out in over a year but the club scene just didn’t do it for me. It was fine when I was in college and had a group of friends to go out with, but doing it as an adult was just annoying. The music was too loud, the drinks were too expensive, and none of the guys ever talked to me anyway.

“Which one is it going to be, Abby?” She held the dresses side by side. “Ch

oose one.”

“You’re really going to make me do this?” I rolled my eyes and sighed.

“Yes, because eventually Rolando is going to propose to me and then I’ll be a barefoot pregnant wife who can’t go out when I want to. There’s a group of girls from work going out tonight, so we won’t be alone. You should wear this dress.” She tossed the blue dress on the table and handed me the emerald green one. “Come on, it’ll be just like college.”

That was what I was afraid of.

“Fine, but only because I know it won’t be exactly like college. You won’t hook up with someone and leave me to find my own ride home.” I took the dress from her and held it up to my body.

“That happened one time...” She wrinkled her nose and pondered what I said. “Maybe twice...”

“What time are you picking me up?” I ignored the fact she was clearly forgetting numerous other times in her attempt to gloss over history and rewrite it in her favor.

“Nobody drives anymore, silly.” She shook her head back and forth. “Get an Uber and meet me there at seven.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then.” I walked to the door and opened it, giving her a rather clear indication it was time for her to go.

It was the worst weekend to go out. I was just gaining traction with my career and we had an important meeting with one of our clients on Monday. I wanted to find some nugget of information other people might miss, memorize it, and dazzle my boss with a profound question that provoked thought. Everyone seemed to have one on the edge of their tongue at those meetings except me. While nobody really cared how a company’s business ventures were doing in a random territory in the wake of some various economic shift, the person who posed the question was always looked at like they were a genius for thinking about it. If I wasn’t going to find a way to become a genius overnight, I had to fake it.

“Sebastian?” I called out. “Do you want dinner?”

Sebastian appeared like a rocket and ran straight to his food bowl. He sat down and then started meowing at me because I had called him before the food was served. I poured some food into his bowl and walked towards the stairs with the dress over my arm. It was going to take a lot of pushing and prodding to get my figure into the elaborate fabric, but it was nicer than anything I had in my closet. I stripped down when I got to the bathroom and stared into the mirror. A loose curl drifted into my eye and I blew it out of the way.

I wasn’t getting any younger. At twenty-four, I was probably the oldest virgin left in America—maybe even the world. Everyone always said I was so pretty but I just didn’t feel like I had it—whatever it was. Mary-Katherine could walk into a club, shake her ass, and have a line of guys behind her. I didn’t have enough confidence to walk out on a dance floor and shake my ass. I hardly had enough confidence to go to a club in the first place. I hoped I would meet someone nice at the office, but I seemed to have fallen into the crack where every eligible guy was either a newlywed or a man-whore. There didn’t seem to be an in-between.

“Okay, Sebastian. I’m going to take a shower now.” I started the water and watched him scurry away when he heard it bouncing against the bottom of the tub.