There she was, just as she'd told him. At the bar of the hotel. He presumed she had initially been waiting on a table for the two of them, though now it seemed that she was either encouraging or fending off testosterone probes. He couldn't tell which from this distance. Probably very little difference which at some point.
He stood and watched, waving off the hostess in her practiced approach. Giving her little notice. She appeared miffed as though she wasn't used to being ignored or disregarded after dressing in her best skirt and top. She turned to cleaning menus with a vengeance as though that had been her actual purpose all along. Through the sides of her lashes she watched him observe the woman at the bar.
She'd taken the day off today. Not the hostess, the woman he was regarding. Taken the time to have her hair done, her nails polished, her outfit perfected. To his practiced eye, she was trying too hard. The dress was pushing her substantial curves up and out too hard and too far. She needed a greater subtlety in her attire and he was interested why she hadn't chosen with him in mind. At least, his likes. He presumed, as had been the case for several years now, that she chose and went through her daily life with him always in mind. Another probe joined the party and suddenly there were four guys surrounding her with a bartender hovering in the background in case things got out of hand and he would have opportunity to join in.
After making eye contact with her, he moved to a chair in the corner where he sat to watch the show. She was spilling out of parts of the dress and he decided that it was bought and worn with just such as those clowns in mind. Each of them wondering if they would get a chance to drag her up onto the bar and put it to her right here in front of whoever might look over or walk in. The slit on the sides showed that her undergarment was either not present or a thong that rode well up on her hip. She favored the thongs, but it seemed that it may well be appropriate here for the former. She could be bare underneath and forming a puddle on the vinyl upholstery of the bar stool.
The thought gave him some discomfort and he crossed his legs as a waitress came over, throwing a huffy look at the group in the corner as though they might notice and be chided for their play. The waitress exhibited her best features for him. She felt the need to throw herself at the only man in the room not taken up in the game. When his gaze moved only deferentially from the scene at the bar, the affronted drink monger thrust her chest out as if to make claim to the better of the two if he were only to compare then left to get his wine with an air of annoyance.
He didn't care about a waitress. If she were to go to all this trouble to make a show for him, the least he could do is watch. He settled back as she laughed a high tinkle that he rarely heard from her. She'd never been one of those women to lower her intelligence in order to get men to like her or want her company. Thus, the fake laugh was hardly ever used and he thought that he might have only heard it a couple times before. She had so few opportunities to be false with him. As if to punctuate this thought, she looked across the room at him.
One of the testachaperone junkies moved his musculature over to blockade him and draw her eye back. She slid slightly to the left to give him back his view of her. His wine came and he paid with a callous wave of his hand. There was a tip left in there, but the waitress wanted paid with his attention. Instead, he sipped his wine as if to make certain it was the brand he ordered. It was interesting, he reflected, that the more she would move out into a social grouping, the more he would revert and introvert, back away and become impassioned observer. Oh, she knew. Designed this little scenario with just that in mind. He saw it clearly now. It wasn't her pleasure to see him with others, it was her pleasure for him to take her. To see her defiance, to calmly meet and punish her for it.
He considered as he sipped, an appropriate punishment. It will have to fit the crime and have obviously taken some effort on his part. He believed that if something merited punishment, then in order for the lesson to be learned and carried forth, it certainly was worth the time and effort to make sure the measures taken were appropriate. His wine was fast disappearing as he thought of her being taken and trained as she tried to maintain herself within the confines of the bits of cloth she so boldly used to tease him now.
And what of her blatant display of her charms? Placing herself in such a precarious position that at just a misfiring of hormone, she could be in danger of being dragged off to a slightly darker area or even as and where she is if that hormone should stab upward into the already overtaxed brains crowded around her. He wondered idly how she was managing to keep them all from pawing her now, it was a dry timbered forest she walked in, needing only a match to set the fields ablaze. She played a dangerous game here and the effect was certainly not lost on him.
The dismal light of the room and the grimy reflection of the restaurant lighting gave a back room feel to the entire scene and he couldn't help but feel that she might well have taken things too far this time. Something she has often threatened to do. Such a free spirit, independent and strong willed. Thinking of herself so easily and willingly and others with such difficulty. She never sees how dangerous the world can be or how frightening it is for so many. She sees mainly her own pleasures.
Until he came to her life. Suddenly there was an immovable force. A silent brutality that would meet her head on and cow her. Something she wanted so desperately, but could only gain with subversion of her own nature and need. Someone who wanted not her pleasure, but his own, through her. His predilection for her suffering, her uncertainty and hesitance, made her both crave more and fear getting it.
Another sip and the waitress would be back displaying her wares for him. He swirled the contents of the glass instead and wondered if she was done. If she had made her point and was even now faltering in her moves, in her heart. Was she feeling the first trepidation for the punishment to come? Was she wondering what he would do for such transgression? For such obvious personal debasement? For placing herself in a position where she might be harmed? Just the situation that provokes him to impart those lessons to her she finds so irresistible?
She gave another tinkly laugh. He wondered how so many of life's denizens moved through the waters of superficiality so easily. The weight of the atmosphere often dragged him down into seas of morosity and he would find movement sluggish and forced. He knew her able to move within the social boundaries of platitude, but also saw the part of her separate and estranged from all others. In a moment of anguished clarity, he saw himself as the one who forced her out of the herd. Culled her and broke her. He let lie the fact that she was already more than those surrounding her when he brought his own passion to bear upon her impressionable form. He would rue the day she lay broken before him and had chosen her for just such an impossibility.
He drained his glass, waved off the mendicant hoping to flash her chest at him and have him give her sanctity. Justification. He wasn't in the mood to help her self esteem. Another laugh, lower this time. There would be a phasing out of the studs. She would move toward one, then another and create some confusion, but also a consolidation of those two against the others. Then she would move to the door with so little warning that only the quickest will be left working out how to get out with her. She always picks hotels because of the valet parking and that one remaining, quick on his feet but slow of mind, will be standing open mouthed at the curb as she drives off. He'll watch from across the street to be sure she makes it alone.
