Working together for a few years Maria and I traveled for work before. We're not close in a meaningful way, but we're comfortable with each other, can carry a conversation, and might end up talking to each other at company events, sarcastically rating the quality of the BS being served at the presentations. On the road traveling together we can have dinner and a couple of drinks, talk, and say goodnight without any stupid tension about maybe hooking up. We like each other OK, no obvious chemistry.
Usually.
In Des Moines this time I guess there were differences. I was just about divorced, the drama was over and everything was pretty much resolved legally. My soon to be ex and I were headed on our own separate ways. I figured I would be dating again when I had enough time to think about things--later, when I wasn't so pissed off. Being angry all the time wasn't helping me out in any way shape or form.
Now, don't get me wrong, Maria is lovely. I could watch her do just about anything, she's long-legged and has this curly dark hair that's just long enough to swing around a little. Her face always looks a little flushed, like there's a lot of healthy blood flow. Or something. She's not a super-hot gym addict or anything, but solid and very fine looking.
She definitely might find herself in one of my sexual fantasies, strictly in my head. But only in my head, she's with somebody else -- a pretty serious relationship with Chip, who I've met a few times, and he seems alright, they seem happy, and up until recently I was married.
I made a reservation for Maria and I at a Des Moines restaurant that was supposed to be pretty OK, but when you're traveling for business it's always uncertain. My expectation for the evening was your usual business talk recapping the last couple days, food of unknown quality and quantity, interspersed with whatever two work acquaintances might randomly talk about.
I waited for Maria in the bar, sipping a midwest approximation of a martini. She was running late, which normally didn't make me irritated, but I'm in a bad mood a lot lately, and I was downing that martini pretty quickly. Our business meetings for the day were all long past, and in a midwest town far from home what could possibly be slowing her down? I put my empty martini glass down a little hard, I guess, because the bartender and at least one of the patrons glanced my way.
"Pretty good," I said to the bartender. "Can you make me another one with a little less vermouth? Just a little drier."
By the time the drink arrived I saw her crossing the lobby headed my direction, clutching her cell phone in a fist. There was one hell of a dark look on her face, so I grabbed the bartender's forearm. "Make that two. Looks like she's going to need one."
Was it a well-known client that's always a pain in the ass? This was a different kind of scowl -- I had barely opened my mouth when she blurted out "That motherfucker just dumped me long distance over the phone, knowing I'm stuck here for another three days and he's got a long head start running away from me." She rolled her eyes and continued, "Chip was supposed to land at the airport in an hour and meet me at the hotel, and he never even bothered to book the flight. Fucking weasel."
"And I got all dressed up," she continued. "Fucking loser."
Hell yes she had dressed up. Her dark pink blouse plunged pretty deep, the pushup bra offered her breasts high and tight. Her short black skirt fit really well -- really, really well. Shapely legs and dark smokey stockings, a skirt like that was not subtle. And a whiff of perfume. Not overkill. But there.
"Sorry." I said, checking her out in what was probably an obvious, I-just-pounded-a-martini kinda way. My gaze was a little too upfront, her narrowed glance told me.
Really, I was sorry to hear about her trouble. "Getting dumped sucks," was the best I could mutter
Dinner was awkward, and the food was on the low side of midwestern hotel dining roulette. We had more drinks, bitched about exes and soon to be exes. I gave her a little of the 'what Chip might have been thinking' male viewpoint. But Chip now sounds like an asshole the more I know. It's pretty weak to tell her by phone from far away that he's leaving her, but at least he didn't text her. That would be even worse.
We stumbled up to the hotel rooms, searching for her number in the rows of identical doors, and considering our condition it was not easy finding it. I needed to get some data from her to write up my summary reports before turning in.
"I'll find that flash drive for you," she said, fumbling with the key card, getting the door open without too much trouble. Lurching forward a little into the room, she said "see, I remembered it. You need the it so you can file your report. Just a second." She probably was a little more sober than I was, which is admirable considering the kind of evening she'd had, and how many martinis had showed up on the bill.
I sagged against the door frame, watching her hips sway while she walked across the room, her back turned to me. Dude. I said to myself. Don't be too obvious, go to your room with the flash drive. And get some bad porn on the TV. Don't do anything stupid. Do not hit on Maria. Do not start some stupid dead-end awkward shit with someone you work with regularly. Do not create office drama. Do not hit on Maria. Flash drive. Get the flash drive.
She moved around the room, bending down to move a folder, her skirt nicely hinting at the shape of her ass. She was still talking to herself. "Flash drive. Come here flash drive." Mumbling a little, moving piles of paper around, then clothes, checking the laptop's slots more than once.
"Sorry," she said, "you might as well come in. I know it's right here somewhere." I closed the door behind me, and left about half my reservations in the hallway. I wandered over to a vanity and I leaned against the narrow desktop instead of the door frame, a little tilted, not quite straight up.
She opened one of the vanity drawers right in front of me, her wrist brushing my thigh, and shuffled a couple of perfume bottles around. She lost balance and lurched against me a little. I steadied her up, catching her with a hand on her smooth, firm tummy. Solid, toned. Maybe she does work out like a maniac, I thought, as my hand maybe lingered a little longer than is a good idea.
She moved on to the next pile. Maybe she was smiling a little.
Damn she's hot, trying to think about something else. Like the flash drive. Getting the flash drive is why I'm here.
She fumbled with the items in her open suitcase, reaching in to lift the corner of a neatly folded blouse on a stack of clothes, tilting the suitcase a bit to get a better angle. With the lift, a pair of leather handcuffs rolled into view. Pink. Inch-and-a-half wide leather bands with a cinch and a large chrome buckle, lined inside with fake fur for comfort, I guess, and connected to each other by a couple of heavy-duty steel clips two inches long. One of the cuffs rocked back and forth a little and came to a stop as we both stared.
My mouth was definitely hanging open. A strange look came over her face, and I mistakenly took it for deep embarrassment.
"Hey," I said. "I'm going to forget I saw that. No mention to anyone, it's nobody's fucking business but yours."
She reached out a finger and snagged one of the cuffs, lifting it up and twirling the pair in mid air.
"That's nice of you to not mention it. Though I was sort of liking the 'no more mister nice guy' phase you've been into lately with the divorce." She smiled a little. This smile a little different from the last one. "I was saving these for Chip's arrival tonight before I found out what a loser he is." The cuffs dangled from her bright red enameled fingertip, swinging side to side.
"I'm not as nice as I used to be," I said, reaching around her waist. Pulling her in. The cuffs stopped swinging. She was still smiling. "I never thought pink was Chip's color, though," I said.
She narrowed her fingers and slid a hand up through one of the cuffs, encircling her wrist. Right in front of my face. "They're more my size, really. And Chip never had any fucking style anyway."
OK. Never mind the stupid flash drive. I reached for her wrist and cinched the cuff's buckle tight.
She leaned forward and kissed me hard. "Hope you weren't in a hurry to get back to your empty hotel room."
I kissed her back and pulled her cuffed wrist down towards her waist, moving the empty loop toward her free hand. Before I could get her other hand locked down she reached around the back of my neck and pulled me close, kissing me harder than before. Leaning back a little she said, "I don't know if you've done things like this before. Just so you know, this shit makes me really hot -- feeling helpless and not in control. You know that's not my usual style."
"If you hurt me, though, I will hunt you down. There should be no pain. But I'd like you to fuck my brains out for the next few hours."
I spun her around and pulled her wrists behind her back and clicked the empty cuff shut on the other wrist. Both hands were immobilized and we could both feel my swelling hard-on between us. I stroked her neck. She rolled her head back onto my chest and I breathed in her smell, my face buried in her hair. I held her wrists behind her back and let my free hand roam down, popping a blouse button. No bra, just soft breast, her nipple tightening up against the smooth silk of her blouse as it opened and fell away. I slid the blouse down, her breasts now in view. The blouse, pulled halfway down her biceps behind her, bunched above the handcuffs, immobilized her even more, and as I traced her breast I could feel her heartbeat through her whole torso.