Just One Inch

I swore out loud again and got out a pack of condoms, slapping them down next to the sink before jumping in the shower. I was pissed but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to go for round two, or three or four, with the brunette. A hot box is a hot box, and she had one of the steamiest cunts I’d ever tasted, not to mention the fact that she was untouched. I couldn’t wait to sample that wet pink again, and I wanted her to drain me to my last drop, leaving me a destitute man.

But when I stepped back into the bedroom, the bed was empty. The cavernous space was like a giant white jail cell, the walls closing in on me without her warmth, those bouncy brown curls, the way she moaned into my mouth as she came. What the fuck? What woman disappears after a hot lay?

Was it because she was new to this? I could see a few red droplets mixed with dried juices on the sheets but nothing more. Surely Tina wouldn’t have freaked out at the sight of her own blood. Chicks had periods every month where they bled buckets, right?

I was truly stumped. I mean, usually girls hang on way too long, hoping to wheedle something from me, sticking around when they should have beat feet long ago. But I’d been focused on Manning Pharmaceuticals for so long that I’d forgotten what a real woman could be like. I stumbled back into the party like a dazed man, the noise and crowded sea of bodies disorienting after the mind-blowing sex I’d just had.

There was no trace of the curvy brunette in the room but someone else clearly had her radar on high. That blonde from before, the one shimmying seductively with her friends in the living room came up and “accidentally” brushed against me, grazing me with her tits. I want to say they were soft and jiggly, but that bitch had a boob job and it wasn’t the expensive kind. Her implants were like fucking rocks.

“Heya stranger,” she cooed, flipping that blonde hair over her shoulder. “Care to dance?”

I knew it was all a ruse. The blonde knew exactly who I was and how much I was worth. Plus, it was disgusting and profane to dance with another woman when I’d just been deep in the brunette’s body, but the blonde pulled me to the center and wound her arms around my neck, nuzzling me, cooing with saccharine, dove-like noises. Ugh. Fuck me. At the end of the night, I growled some vague promises to “see her again” and “keep in touch,” my mind still on the amazing fuck session with the brunette.

But lo and behold, early Monday morning there was a message.

“Mr. Manning, Jenna called,” chirped my secretary.

“Who?” I shook my head mystified. It’d been a long weekend.

“Jenna Walsh, from the party?” parroted Mary Beth. “She said to tell you that she’ll meet you at L’Osseria tonight as planned,” added MB.

Oh fuck. I hazily remembered saying something about getting together but it was a brush-off, the usual thing that you say at the end of the night. How the fuck did this become a concrete dinner date?

But I went to the restaurant that night. I had more free time than I’d had in years and figured I had to eat anyways. Hey, maybe a dinner out would take my mind off the mystery brunette.

But one date with Jenna became two, then three, and pretty soon she was staying over nights, commuting down to her law classes or whatnot in the Valley. On paper, she was perfect. A great student, an environmental activist, sharp as a whip and beautiful to boot. I was roundly slapped on the back after my friends met her, congratulating me on snagging this up and coming beauty with brains.

But it just felt fake you know? For one, I’d been asking around under the table for the brunette, trying to locate her. I’d thought about hiring a private investigator but it seemed too desperate and I was sure that our circle of friends would bring us together again. San Francisco is a small city, we were bound to bump into each other.

But my discreet efforts yielded nothing. Zero. Zip. Zilch. It was like Tina had disappeared into thin air. I even tried asking Jenna in a roundabout way once, only to be met with a stone wall.

“Hey, you remember the night we met?” I began off-handedly, trying to appear casual.

“Oh yeah baby, I remember,” she cooed, toeing my bulge with her feet. Jenna has a bad habit of putting her legs in my lap which I hate because her feet are disgusting-looking, bent and withered like an old crone despite her weekly pedicures. It’s odd how someone so beautiful up above has such ugly appendages down below.