Turn Me Bad

 Though it had been chased away by uncontrolled passion, the sensible side of her nature was firmly back in place. Consequently, rather than just dropping the keys at the empty hotel desk, she insisted on hanging around to find out for certain that the room was already paid for. A negative answer would have certainly been an additional insult that, thankfully, she did not have to suffer. But explaining her query resulted in making the overweight female receptionist look at her with disgust as if she was some kind of loose woman. She had slept in a hotel room where she was not registered as a guest. For what other reason could she possibly have been present?

Despite the cold look she was given, Violet insisted on pursuing professional customer relations in asking for directions to a bus stop. A cab felt lavish at that time of the day and she didn’t see any other option than taking two ambling bus journeys home. Fortunately, the stop was not too far away, though noticing the crucifix that hung round the receptionist’s neck made her wonder if room 32 would be fumigated and out of bounds to other guests for a while.

Her perturbed state refused to lift all through the route home, though she did not think too hard about what had happened. The whole encounter still felt a little surreal and her brain was too numb to delve into what had happened in any great detail. Instead, she let the morning wash over her and it was only when she got home – and saw Caitlin’s face – that there was actually a reason to cheer up and feel good about having stepped out of her boring life as she had dared.

“Where have you been?” Caitlin asked, confusion furrowing her brow.

“Surprised you’re so interested in boring little me,” Violet replied, looking to shrug off the question.

“Your friend Abby called for you.”

“Oh, did she really,“ Violet said, unable to repress a smirk. So Caitlin had been under the assumption that Violet had spent an evening at her friend’s and not told them – and that assumption had been blown out of the water by a coincidental phone call.

“We didn’t know where you were.”

”Didn’t Jeremy get my text? I was just having an evening out.”

”But where?”

”Just having a drink.”

”With who?”

Violet thought about annoying her then by stressing that the question should have been “With whom?“ but, on turning to look at Caitlin, saw that she was annoyed enough as it was. Instead, she only smiled furtively and waltzed on up the stairs to her room.

”You don’t fool anyone, you know,“ Caitlin called after her – but to Violet, it was obvious her brother’s girlfriend was not so sure about that statement. At some point she would find a way to reveal that she had indeed spent the night with a handsome stranger… and that he was a model… and rode a bike, but there was no need to cut Caitlin’s envy so short. Much better to lead her down the path of believing her evening might have been something completely boring before sucker punching her with the truth.

Only once realizing that, for a change, she was the center of attention and speculation, did Violet start to think about the night before. Start to think about it and smile as well. The sensuality of their lovemaking; his hands and lips on her body; the giddiness of org*sm. Only then did she start enjoying the memory in spite of the disappointment that he had used her.

Violet didn’t do much that day. There was too much busyness in her life and she took advantage of feeling so sedate to have some downtime. She needed or desired no company and even excused herself by taking her dinner to her bedroom. The excuse that she was writing an essay was enough to annoy Caitlin with the idea that she was applying for yet another qualification, but really she mostly lay back in bed and daydreamed of her handsome model. Occasionally flicking through the pages of a John Grisham novel that lay on the bookshelf, but hardly taking in the words in front of her.

Then suddenly she sat upright.

It came out of nowhere, more like an instinct than a thought, and she realized it had been nagging her all day.

Benjamin liked her – really liked her that is.

That was what was weird about the whole waking up having been abandoned experience. Other than that, she thought there was no need to make such an escape, his words and his attitude throughout the whole night had not just been typical male flirting. He had chosen to speak to her and desired her company because he was genuinely interested in who she was.

As soon as the instinct hit her, sheer and vibrant for one clear illuminating moment, there followed a tidal wave of doubt that threatened to wash it away completely.

Don’t be absurd. There was no specific piece of knowledge to draw upon that could even come close to proving such a theory. This was male behavior that was being analyzed here and it’s impossible to make such a clear assessment of a species that hardly knows it has a brain.

Putting her faith in such a flattering assessment of her own chances was completely against character and so she dismissed the idea. Kicked it right from her mind. Wouldn’t think of it again.

There was no point humoring her intellect with the idea that he would come looking for her again. Or that he had left her hanging that morning because he thought it cool or amusing to see how much she wanted him.

”Hey girlfriend,“ came Abby’s voice from the cell phone – because Violet had decided that not thinking about Benjamin meant having a conversation about him with her best friend.

The story took a little while to relate and reach the point of getting anything useful out of Abby. She kept phrasing the same the two questions in a manner that never saw her complete the sentence: saying, “So when you say he was a model, you mean…?“ and ”So you two actually…?“ All of which was a way of saying, “Please give me more of the information it’s none of my business to have.” It was almost as if the story was becoming as much of a fantasy to Abby as to her, though eventually she got her friend around to address some useful comments about the road ahead.

“He sounds delicious, Vio. I just don’t think you should get your hopes up. Even if he does come back this way again it might just be like those Navy boys.”

“Navy boys?”

”You know, like it’s said they have a girl in every port.”

”So I’m a port? Great!”