The Love Hotel

That was what Bradley did to her. He was so utterly good looking, so entrancing that everything he seemed to do made everything else seem inconsequential. She did not care about anything around her while he was around. She just wanted to look at him all of the time. It was nice to be with someone like this. It was nice to be sitting in front of someone that made her feel that way.

They ordered something to eat. Rochelle ordered the escargot and Bradley ordered a fancy French dish that Rochelle could not even pronounce. She felt like she might embarrass him by not having the right table manners that rich people often used, but he clearly did not care. He was rich but he was not stuck up at all and Rochelle really liked this. It made her feel safe, it made her feel secure, it made her feel like she did not have to alter her behavior in any way whatsoever in order to suit him. She wanted him to feel good, though, so she tried to eat neatly even though she was usually such a messy eater.

Once they had finished eating, they started to drink wine. “Tell me something,” said Rochelle after her second glass of wine. She was starting to get a little tipsy. “I don’t think I understand why you had to buy me dinner if all you were going to do was offer me a job. I mean, what’s up with that?”

Bradley said, “I don’t see why not. My father always told me, never pass up the chance to have dinner with a beautiful woman. One does not get such chances every day, you know, and I am not the kind of person that would waste an opportunity such as this, oh no. I take advantage of every single opportunity that comes my way.”

“But still,” said Rochelle, “I mean, we’re out on such a fancy dinner and all you’re doing is offering me a job. That’s so weird. Is that all you want to do? You just want to have dinner with me? Like I get it, the food was great but still.”

“What would you like us to do?” asked Bradley.

“I don’t know,” said Rochelle. “How about we go for a walk or something?”

“That sounds absolutely lovely,” said Bradley. “What do you say we take the bottle of wine with us, though, I don’t think I would be comfortable with the thought of leaving such fine wine to dry out in a cellar somewhere. Besides, I am only a little tipsy right now, and I would like to get a lot more drunk before the day is out.”

“That suits me just fine!” said Rochelle.

They stood up and took the bottle. They did not pay on the way out. Rochelle did not realize why this was so in the beginning, but then she figured it out. He was the owner of the hotel, of course he wasn’t going to have to pay the way that everyone else did. Of course he was going to simply get what he wanted and leave. They would probably just deduct the total from what they paid him for the privilege of having a restaurant in such a prestigious hotel, if they took any money at all. Bradley Charles was an incredibly wealthy man, so wealthy that people stumbled over their feet trying to get him to feel comfortable. They all wanted him to feel as comfortable as possible so that they might be able to curry some favor from him.

They walked for a long time and it was absolutely lovely. It was the kind of walk that you saw in romantic movies. They locked their arms and strolled through the park, looking around at the trees.

“This place is so beautiful at night,” said Rochelle. “I can’t believe they allowed us in here after it was closed!”

“They allow me to do a lot of things because I have money,” said Bradley. “Usually I do not take advantage of this. It’s a rude thing to do. If I have money, I should be able to buy things that people can buy legally. I should be able to use my money the way that anybody should be able to use their money. This, though… I am not comfortable with this. I am not comfortable with all of this privilege that I get just because I am the kind of person that has a lot of money. It just doesn’t seem fair. I have money, I can buy all that I could possibly want, and at the same time I get privileges like this and for what? I never do this, but this time around I made an exception.”

“Why’d you make an exception?” asked Rochelle.

“Why, because I’m with you of course,” said Bradley. He looked genuinely surprised by the question. Rochelle looked at him. He looked unbelievably handsome under the light of the moon, so handsome that Rochelle wondered for a moment if he was real. How could he be real? How could he actually exist right now? How could someone so utterly handsome even be possible?

She did not know and she did not care. She kissed him hard and they dropped the bottle. She heard it shatter. She still did not care. She just kissed him harder. She bit his lip. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back, he tilted her back in a very graceful manner and they continued to kiss. They kissed the way that people only kissed in movies. They kissed the way that every lover in the world only dreamed of kissing.

That seemed like an excellent suggestion to Rochelle, and she felt very flattered that Bradley thought so highly of her that he wanted the first time they had s*x to be special. It made her feel good about herself. It made her feel like she was doing something right. Seth had never made her feel this way. Seth had made her feel like she did every single thing wrong.

In that moment she was glad that she was with Bradley. In that moment she was glad that life had allowed her to be so free that she would be able to spend the night with such a wonderful man.