"So wha'? You're like, like a dude or something?"
This was shouted. It was also slurred, and, just for good measure, a droplet of spit lasered past my face. My facial expression, one of suitable disgust, fell on a blank audience. He was in that state that a certain type of man gets to when in his cups, one that relies less and less on an opposing party to maintain a conversation. He was managing to blink with one eyelid at a time, and was focused on a point either just above my head or somewhere past my shoulder, it was difficult to tell.
It had been a fulfilling, three-day conference. Two days had been crammed with back-to-back presentations, keynotes and launches followed by cocktails and dinners designed to be more extravagant than any attendee had experienced before.
It was exhausting but so incredibly engaging. Most of the final day had been allocated to time in small breakout groups, drawing connections between amazing ideas that had been shared and presented over the first two days. Inspiration and experience married perfectly to provide a container load of new ideas to take back with me.
One of my companions through this final day was a ruddy complexioned, amiable moron of middling years. At the pleasant-seeming professional end of his spectrum, he'd appeared worthy enough to acquiesce to an offer of a drink in the hotel bar. He had managed to morph from pleasant-seeming professional with the occasional quarter-decent idea, to shirt out, gently swaying buffoon in four quick drinks.
To a backdrop of softly tickled piano, we'd chatted in a pleasant-seeming, professional way until towards the end of his second neat Scotch. At which point the inevitable question arrived.
"So, what does the second half of this evening look like?" he crooned. To add some gravity to his seduction, he attempted what I believe he thought was a suggestive eyebrow cock. In truth the look suggested less about seduction and more a man of middling years embarking on a stroke.
Viewed from without, I hoped that my facial expression conveyed the acute disappointment in my judgement that was felt within. Again, my displeasure went entirely unnoticed. I decided to discard pretense, and knowing this would be the last time we would cross paths, I told him truthfully.
"Oh for me, it will involve meeting the young man and woman I've paid for and taking them back to my room for sex."
As tonight was the last night of the conference, and as I am entirely without shame where my proclivities are concerned, I had no hesitation in boggling his quickly shrinking mind.
Part of me enjoyed the next part. His disbelief. The flabbergaster. The elbow that had been supporting him while he was waggling his eyebrows at me slipped off the edge of the table, narrowly avoiding a slapstick chin-to-table collision. I watched the cogs crunch together awkwardly while his brain tried to find the gear that would allow him to comprehend the reality I'd presented. I could see his mind's eye forming images of fantasy, referencing his sweaty late-night one-handed scrolling before his laptop screen. I watched with amusement as those thoughts then attempted to join enough dots to create a picture where he might insinuate himself, however long the shot might seem, into the evening's revels.
He dealt with it all quite stoically until half way through his third drink. He asked the sort of fascinated, chummy questions that one of the gals might ask. There were even a few nudges and one wink thrown in for good measure. My straight-bat, no-nonsense answers continued to fuel the fantasy section of his brain as the logical, reasonable part that was trying to keep up came to the realisation that in fact, no, the evening wouldn't be involving him.
As he drained the last drops of his Glenwhatever, he'd reverted completely to type; a drunken buffoon.
"Like a dude?" I replied.
"Yeah, you know, a duuuuude. Just in it for the fuckin!" He thrust his hips for me, in case I wasn't able to join the dots.
I glanced at my watch. My guests were due in a couple of hours, and I wanted time to prepare fully. It was time to wind this up. While entirely unnecessary, I felt the need to clarify my position for Gary. Or Geoff, or Warren, or whatever his name was.
"I travel a goodly part of the year, I'm often away from home. I enjoy sex in all its forms, and I won't be denied my desires purely because I'm on the road. So rather than reducing myself to hooking up with conference-goers on the final night, I pay handsomely to have my every sexual whim sated. So have a lovely evening, and do get home safe."
I said the last as I walked away, leaving him slack-jawed and swaying gently.
I had spent considerable time and energy researching my purchases for the evening. Scrolling through potentials, matching and cross-references likes, dislikes, preferences, hard boundaries, experience, as well as simpler things, like the sensations and feelings I got when I looked at each candidate. A good sign, I always felt, was if I needed to close the screen of my laptop and indulge myself.
The young man I arrived at was simply gorgeous. The smile that beamed out from his head-shot would stop traffic, and his bio and description had me quite giddy with potentiality. I imagined all things I could do to and with him as I lay in bed, and came much more quickly than I had anticipated.