The Love Hotel

“There is another thing, just like you said. You are to be my employer, my boss, and that makes this highly unethical. It would end up causing problems because neither of us would be able to divorce our emotions from the situation, we would end up having our judgment clouded and we really can’t afford to let that happen now can we? And so I think that we should remain professional, I don’t think we should let what happened last night happen again. It would be good for both of us if we maintained a… distance. I would really like to work for you and I need this job in order to maintain the independence that I have managed to secure as of late. I need to feel like I am okay on my own. I hope that I have not hurt your feelings, and I truly hope that we can still be civil towards each other. I really don’t want to lose this opportunity.”

Bradley got up and said, “Ah. Of course, of course. I… I didn’t mean to imply anything otherwise. I, too, feel that we should maintain a sort of professional distance from one another. The thing is, I have many things in my own personal life, things that I have to deal with. It’s rather odd that I am telling you this, in fact, because I have never told anyone this in my life. I am not the kind of person that bares his soul in front of others. I am not the kind of person that tells other people his secrets or anything. I am a very secretive, very private person. But, at the end of the day, my personal life is my personal life, and I do think that it’s important that I do not let anything get in the way of that. I agree that as your employer it would be highly unethical of me to feel anything for you at all, or to express what I am feeling in any way. I think that you are completely right, and if you hadn’t said it then I certainly would have. I hope that we can be civil too because I do quite like you. I hope that… after a time… we can get past this and learn to be friends.”

Rochelle looked at Bradley. He was pointedly looking away from her. She wanted to reach out and touch his face, she wanted to stroke it and tell him that it would all be okay. She wondered if anyone had ever done that to him before. Had he ever been vulnerable in front of anyone before right now? He gave off such an imposing vibe, he gave off the vibe of a person that needed absolutely no support in every way. He gave the vibe of a person that would be able to handle anything and everything that anyone threw his way, that life put in his path. And that probably meant that nobody ever felt like he would feel the need to be vulnerable from time to time. People probably assumed that he had everything under control without anyone having to listen to him in any way.

She couldn’t do it, of course. She couldn’t touch his face. That would have been grossly inappropriate, especially after the conversation that they had just had. She just wished that things had been different. She wished that she had broken up with Seth long ago when he had started acting like an asshole with her. She wished that she had never been anywhere near him before so that when she met him she would’ve been able to hold him tight without having to worry about the implications that it would have on her professional life. She wished that the two of them could behave the way they wanted to behave without having to worry about what others would think, and whether the impact of what they felt and experienced with each other would end up having an impact that was anything but completely and utterly positive.

She sighed. He got up. The moment was over as soon as his feet touched the carpeted floor of the hotel room that they were in. He was the owner of the hotel once again, and she was his employee. She couldn’t go back and neither could he and perhaps that was all for the best.

He started to dress. Rochelle averted her eyes as he did so. It seemed wrong to look at his naked body right now. It seemed like something that would be far too forward, far too intimate, and they had just established that intimacy was not what they were meant to feel for each other. They were not meant to feel anything but the most professional of feelings and that was sad but it was also right. Or, at the very least, Rochelle hoped that it was right because if it wasn’t she would be missing out on something that could truly help her grow as a person, something that could help her get better and stronger and with someone by her side rather than all alone which was how she feared she would have to face the long and arduous path before her.

She got up and started to dress too. They had their backs to each other. Once they were dressed they turned to face each other but they still could not look each other in the eye. It was too difficult. It would end up revealing too much. They needed time away from each other in order to stop feeling what it was that they were feeling. They needed to get past this feeling of connection, this feeling of knowing each other a little more than they were supposed to know each other.

Bradley headed towards the door. For the briefest moment, Rochelle felt like trying to stop him. She felt like trying to make him stay here with her because she felt like he belonged here. But he didn’t, he didn’t. He was not hers to keep, and she was certainly not his. And so Bradley left, and left in his wake an absence that Rochelle was surprised to feel. She had not expected to feel so empty but there it was. That feeling of loss. A feeling that she had not felt even after leaving a relationship that had lasted five whole years.