Infatuation Read online

  Every time I came I thought of her.

  Craig would have understood if I’d shared my fantasy, if I’d told him I wanted to go back and hire her for the night, for him that would have been a turn on. He would have enjoyed watching me with her, I know, but it wasn’t what I wanted; I didn’t want him to touch her, to watch us, I wanted her all to my selfish self.

  The fantasy he could have understood, but not the infatuation.

  I knew it was stupid to want to go back to the hotel, there was no guarantee she’d be there, no guarantee that she’d speak to me, and a good chance that I’d make a fool of myself.

  Could I really pay anyone for sex, let alone another woman?

  But no matter how often I played through every possible embarrassing outcome, it wasn’t enough to keep me away.

  The first time I went back I wore my favourite business suit, looking stern and official. Nobody could have known how my impeccable grey trouser suit was hiding red and black underwear that caressed me with every movement.

  She wasn’t there, and though I waited for over an hour, pretending to read the Financial Times, checking my watch every ten minutes as if some potential client were late for out meeting, she never showed.

  Afterwards I went home horny as hell, fucking Craig furiously with my eyes closed. She might not have been there, but even just being where she had been was enough to turn me on.

  The second time I was more casual, in a tight black v-neck jumper with jeans I knew showed off my curves well. This time I was a woman exhausted from shopping, carrying the bags of impulse buys I had bought while trying to resist the urge to return to the hotel again. I told myself that if she were not there this time then this really had to be enough, that I loved Craig, that the sex was good, that I was risking everything I had with him for something I couldn’t even explain.

  She wasn’t there again, and this time I only let myself stay forty minutes.

  That time I went home and fucked myself with my vibrator, unwilling or unable to have Craig touch me as I thought of her hands caressing my body, of her mouth on my breasts, of her fingers inside me.

  I came harder than ever, and, feeling guilty, cooked Craig a wonderful three course meal.

  I wasn’t supposed to go a third time, but somehow instead of driving to work I found myself there, phoning in sick as I grabbed a magazine and settled myself in, determined to wait for her this time.

  It was supposed to be third time lucky.

  I stared at the magazine without reading the words, thinking of her, how it would feel to unpin her dark hair, to feel the length of it flow through my fingers, to unbutton her top and see more of her creamy skin, to undo her bra and take her breasts in my hands. To slowly take off her clothes and see more of that beautiful body, to touch her like I had never touched another woman before.

  To see her light up another cigarette after we had finished fucking.

  I found myself squirming with lust, my thighs rubbing together beneath the table, my nipples growing almost painfully hard.

  The bartender, the one who had seen me kiss her that first night, the one who had seen me come here far too many times now, smiled at me, like he knew exactly what was going on. I flushed, sure he could see my lust written clearly all over my face.

  I quickly walked to the ladies, and stuck my hand down my trousers, feeling my wetness through my thin panties. Quickly I touched myself, not interested in teasing myself now, desperate for the pleasure that I knew she could give me. My clit was slick with my juices, hard and swollen beneath my fast fingers, and even as I heard someone else walk in and tried to stop, I felt myself coming hard, biting my lip to stop myself moaning loudly.

  It couldn’t continue.

  Things were getting strained with Craig, he knew I was withholding something, but I knew he didn’t dare ask. It wasn’t fair on him. It was affecting my work, my concentration was shot and I was making stupid mistakes. I couldn’t sleep, and when I did my mind was full of dreams that made me wake exhausted.

  Friends had asked what was wrong, but how could I explain this? How could I tell them that while to everyone else my life seemed perfect, it was being slowly eroded by my growing obsession with an escort I had only met once?

  Maybe they could have understood an affair, or a silly crush on some guy from work, but this? How did I explain this when I couldn’t understand it myself?

  But still I went back, telling myself it would just be one more time.

  And, at last, she was there.

  I saw her as soon as I walked into the bar, watching the door almost as if she were expecting me. Her face flashed with recognition as she saw me, then she purposely turned away.

  Today she was wearing a smart suit, her hair neatly pinned up again, all hard and official until you saw the little flimsy top beneath it, the creamy skin of her throat and cleavage so vulnerably exposed.

  “Hi,” I said, sitting boldly opposite her, wishing I were as brave as I was acting. “Remember me?”

  “Yeah,” she replied, lighting up her cigarette with a flashy silver lighter and taking a drag as I wondered who had given it her. “What do you want?”

  I blushed, as if the whole room can see exactly what I want from her.

  “Look, I don’t need friends and I don’t do girls,” she told me, barely looking in my direction.

  “I just wanted to talk,” I stuttered, all bravado vanishing.

  “My time is money,” she told me, still not even looking at me, as if I am not even that important.

  “I have money.” I quickly took the wad of notes from my bag, the money I’ve been carrying around for so long, the money I’ve worked so hard for, ready to be given up so easily.

  She quickly pushed it away, trying to look stern but the corners of her mouth betraying her amusement.

  “Don’t be stupid, do you want everyone to see?” She took another drag of her cigarette then stubbed it out; she’s hardly smoked it. “You really are an innocent,” she mused, staring at me thoughtfully. “I’m hungry, you can buy me dinner.”

  “Where?”

  “Here is good, but expensive.” She paused, as if waiting for me to protest, then when I don’t she quickly leads the way, hips swaying in a look-at-me walk still advertising herself and her availability, never bothering to check that I’m following.

  “Madame,” the host greeted her effusively, quickly kissing both cheeks. He led her to a table without speaking to me, obviously her table. I quickly asked for mineral water, ignoring her smile as she orders a scotch on the rocks.

  She didn’t even look at her menu, instead her dark eyes studied me, and I felt myself flush again.

  “Prices too steep?” she asked, sounding like a bitch, and I shook my head slowly, pretending I’ve not yet chosen just to avoid looking at her.

  I couldn’t understand why she sounded so hostile.

  The waiter appeared and she ordered a Caesar salad, and I did the same.

  “So what are you?” she asked, leaning away from the table as she lights up another cigarette. “Journalist? Writer?”

  “No,” I told her. “Just interested.”

  “In what exactly? You get off on kinky stories?”

  I ignored that. “In you. I wanted to know about you.”

  “In how I got here?” She laughed, that deep throated chuckle that suits her well. “How much do you think dinner gets you? You think I’d bare my soul for a Caesar salad?”

  The waiter brought a bread basket and she picked at a roll listlessly, still waiting for my answer.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “So?”

  “So what does a Caesar salad get me then?” I snapped, nervousness coming out as irritation. It wasn’t how it was supposed to go, in all the scenarios I’d played out this prickl
y defensiveness never figured.

  I’d somehow thought that if we got this far then she’d feel some connection to me, like I did to her. That she could help me understand.

  “It isn’t how you think,” she told me. “There isn’t some story of abuse, some horrific parents to escape. My mum’s lovely, and though my dad’s not around, I can’t exactly say I missed him.”

  “She knows what you do?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she snapped back, and I smiled at her irritation.

  “So what then?”

  She reached for her cigarettes, lit one elegantly and took a deep drag. It shouldn’t be allowed in the restaurant, but nobody said anything, and I admired how such a bad habit made her look like a 1940s siren of the screen.

  I also admired how it was such a useful tool for distraction for her.

  “There’s no drugs, no evil pimp holding back my hit unless I turn tricks.”

  “So what then?”

  She looked at me hard, the first real eye contact she’d made.

  “What do you want to hear?”

  I said nothing, waiting.

  I couldn’t even figure out what she was still doing there.

  I wanted to touch her so much.

  She put out her cigarette.

  “A case of mistaken identity really, much like when you first came here. I’d been out with a boyfriend, some idiot that my family and friends didn’t approve of, and we’d had a row over something stupid, I can’t even remember what now. I’d climbed out of the car at the traffic lights outside,” she gestured at the door, “thinking that he’d follow, that he’d apologise, that a dramatic gesture was just what he needed to give him a wake up call. Unfortunately instead he drove off, with my handbag, my money and my phone still on his car seat. How stupid,” she laughed at herself. “So I came in here, hoping they’d let me borrow their phone to call someone to pick me up, but while I was waiting at the bar this cute guy came over. I thought he was trying to pick me up, so I let him buy me a drink, no longer in quite such a rush to leave, and when he asked me how much I charged I told him some extortionate amount, sure it was some stupid joke. And that, as they say, is that.”

  The Caeasar salad arrived, and we both went quiet.

  “But they can’t all be cute?” I asked.

  “Hell no,” she laughed, amused at my naivety. “But you get past it.”

  I felt jealous of all the men that had touched her, of all the men that still could, of the way she gave herself away so easily.

  “And this is it? Your job, your future?”

  “No, someday I know I’m not going to be able to charge quite so much, no matter how much I eat right or exercise, someday I’m going to get old. So I’m going to save for that.”

  “And what about men? Other men?”

  “There are no other men,” she told me bluntly. “I’ve had boyfriends who say they understand, but trust me, they don’t. They can’t. And it’s no good lying, a lie as big as this would mean things couldn’t be right, there’d always be something missing.”

  I nodded, thinking how things were with between Craig and me already.

  Was this what I’d fucked things up for, stories of a life I couldn’t understand?

  She put down her fork, finally sick of pushing the food around the plate. “Shall we go back to the bar?”

  I nodded, handing over my credit card to the hovering waiter without looking at the slip before signing.

  She walked back to the bar, again not looking back to check if I was following.

  “So you finally found her?” the barman greeted me.

  I didn’t say a word as she replied for me, “Looks like it, doesn’t it? Two scotch on the rocks please.”

  I started to protest but she quickly cut me off, “Are you driving?”

  “No,” I started, but before I could finish she turned back to him repeating, “Two scotch on the rocks please.”

  She led the way to a booth, letting me in first then sitting close to me, as if her shared confidences cancelled out the earlier protest that she didn’t need more friends.

  “So what else do you want to know? About sex?”

  Her voice was low as she began, low enough to draw me closer, to draw the barman’s eye.

  “Which version do you want to hear? The one where it’s just a job, where it does nothing for me, how good I am at faking? Or the version where it makes me wet, being so obviously treated as a sex object, the version where I get so turned on I can come without them even trying?”

  My voice was as low as hers. “Which version is true?”

  “Which one do you want to be true?” she asked, her voice insistent, placing her hand on my thigh, stroking so softly.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, placing my hand on top of hers, sure she was somehow playing me for a fool, but not quite sure how.

  “What you want,” she told me, leaning in even closer so I could feel her breath on my face.

  I wanted her to kiss me again.

  “I want the truth,” I lied, and she laughed as she pulled away.

  “Everybody says that, but nobody really means it.”

  She was too far away from me.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” I replied, my voice still low, hoping to draw her closer, hoping I could pull her too me the way she pulled me to her.

  She ignored me as she leans further back and started fiddling with her cigarettes, as if ready to light up once more.

  I put my hand on top of her hand to stop her; I’m wise to that now.

  She looked over my shoulder again, and I wondered if she hadn’t been watching for me, then who was she watching for?

  As soon as he walked in I knew he was the reason we had returned to the bar. Had I just been someone to kill time with until a client turned up?

  He was maybe late thirties, his broad shoulders and toned body could easily rival that of a younger man, but the dark hair slowly greying at the temples betraying a more mature man. He walked over to us as if he owned the room, an easy confidence that matched his easy smile. His bright blue eyes met mine briefly, then passed over me as if he has instantly assessed me and found me wanting.

  When his eyes met her gaze I could feel the electricity, and was so jealous I felt I could turn green all over.

  She stood as he approached, and he kissed her cheek. “My dear Katriona, how are you?” He had a strong accent, possibly Russian, and that hint of the exotic made him even sexier.

  “I’m fine Patrick, and you?”

  “I am good,” he replied. “I was hoping you could spend some time with me this evening?” He looked at me, seeming slightly bemused by my presence and seeming slightly annoyed that I was in the way.

  “Oh, Patrick, I can’t tonight!” She sounded disappointed, and I wondered if it was genuine.

  He looked at me again, and she followed his gaze. “But Jenni could.”

  I was too stunned to say a word.

  He looked back at her, answering her and not me. “That would be good. I’m in 401.”

  He didn’t look back at me, merely kissed her before walking away.

  “What are you doing? You know I can’t do that!”

  I couldn’t believe she’d just assigned me to some sexual arrangement with a stranger. But then, how could I not believe it when I didn’t really know her at all.

  And, despite my bluster and indignation, a part of me was already getting turned on at the thought of going upstairs and fucking Patrick, at the thought of living her life, just one time.

  “You’re the one that was so interested, well here’s some first-hand experience,” she said, her voice stern.

  “I can’t, I have aboyfriend!” I protested, coming to my senses.

  “It’s not
exactly cheating.”

  I laughed, exasperated. “That’s exactly what it is. I can’t believe you’ve done this!”

  “You know where the door is.” She stroked my face softly, calling my bluff. “But you don’t really want to walk away, do you?”

  I was wet at the thought of what could happen, the thought of fucking this stranger and getting paid for it, the thought of being treated like a real whore.

  She was right.

  “Is your name really Katriona?”

  “Does it really matter?”

  I leant forward to kiss her cheek, to say I’d do this, but she moved her head and somehow our lips met instead.

  I got wetter.

  Her tongue slowly met mine, before she quickly pulled away.

  She was such a tease.

  But if she wouldn’t fuck me, then he would.

  ***

  Patrick answered the door in his dressing gown and passed me a drink. It was brandy, something I never drink, but I drained it quickly, refusing to cough as it burnt my throat. As he passed me an envelope of money I couldn’t look at it, and instead looked at his hands, noticing how nice they were, how strong they looked.

  It was Katriona I really wanted to sleep with, but at that point I was so horny I’d have fucked him for free.

  But still I put the money in my bag.

  He didn’t say a word, merely slipped off the gown and lay back on the bed. He wasn’t hard yet, and for some reason I was disappointed, not used to seeing limp dicks.

  I stood there, momentarily paralysed, unsure of how the hell I started this.

  “Strip for me,” he instructed, and I slowly removed my clothes, glad that I’d put on my sexy underwear that morning.

  “Come here,” he said, roughly pulling me to the bed. I expected him to kiss me, but of course, I thought, I was not supposed to kiss. Instead he roughly pulled off my bra, tugging at my panties until I helped him remove them.