James opened the door of the minibar and pulled out a bottle of water. He opened it and gulped down half of it, swaying on his feet as he put the lid back on. The hotel room wasn't quite spinning, but he knew he was very drunk.
He walked to the window and looked out, seeing the three people that had been in his room just moments earlier climbing into a taxi. It had been a strange night.
James was a technology consultant, working with a client in a city about three hundred miles from his own home. He'd been with them for nearly three months, coming into the project late on in the implementation phase. He'd got on really well the team he'd worked with, to the point that they'd invited him to the department's annual summer party. It was a Friday night, and though he normally went home on a Friday he'd extended his stay so he could attend the party.
It had been a good night. The department had hired the garden of a local hostelry, laid on a great barbecue and plenty of free beer and wine. It was the height of summer in the South of England, so the weather was hot. Everyone had changed into summer clothing and were in good spirits. James had met a few people from the wider department that he had previously only known in the passing.
At midnight, the party had ended. Some of the employees had gone home, a couple of the much younger guys had gone to a club and the senior managers had continued to a nearby casino. James had been stood talking with three members of the team he most closely worked with; Carl, Angela and Kylie, all HR administrators. They were all in their mid twenties. James was 33, so a few years older. Another lady was with them, Jennifer, who worked in the Recruitment team and was good friends with Angela. On the way out of the venue, they'd hooked up with another small group and the bubbly Kylie had suggested they all retire to the bar at James' hotel, which was just around the corner.
They'd sat in the bar for an hour or so, drinking mojitos, laughing and joking. James had listened with amusement as they slagged off some of their colleagues, moaned about management and teased him about the "shitty system" he and his colleagues were implementing for them. As the early morning rolled in, they'd ended up being the only group in the bar and the barman had announced he was closing up, though room service would still be available. That had prompted most of them to call it a night and go home, and was how he had ended up with Carl, Angela, Kylie and Jennifer in his hotel room and a round of mojitos on his room bill.
They'd drunk the cocktails, continued talking and laughing, to the point they'd heard a loud knock on the wall from the neighbouring room. Angela had announced she was "hammered and really needed to get some sleep," and had phoned for a taxi. She lived on the same side of the city as Carl and Kylie and they had taken the chance to share the taxi. A text to Angela's phone had confirmed the taxi was outside and they'd all given James a hug as they left his room, loudly telling each other to be quiet as they giggled their way towards the lifts. Jennifer, who obviously didn't live in the same direction, had gone to the door with them but had instead just gone into the bathroom.
He heard the flush of the toilet in the bathroom. He wondered if she had called a taxi too and he took another long drink of water. Wow, he felt very drunk. He turned and leaned against the window, feeling a wave of tiredness sweep across him as he closed his eyes.
He heard the lock click on the bathroom door and he looked up to see Jennifer emerging. It struck him, not for the first time, how attractive she was.
All the girls had been in summer party outfits, though Kylie, at five foot tall with, he guessed, a size 16 figure and Angela, a few inches taller but with a heavy frame hadn't caught his attention, despite short dresses with thin shoulder straps. Jennifer meanwhile, was closer to his own height of 5ft11, and slim, accentuated by the incredibly short cotton white skirt and pink, white and yellow tube top she was wearing. As she walked towards him, his eyes took in her toned midriff, the studs in her pierced belly button glinting in the dim light. She walked confidently on toeless white shoes with thin spiky heels and he found his eyes focussing on her slender tanned legs. Her skirt was probably 10 inches at most in length and it struck him how different she looked to the few occasions he'd seen her at work.
He'd had very little to do with the Recruitment team and though he'd certainly noticed her before, he'd never spoken to her until tonight. And to be honest, she'd been pretty quiet that night, speaking more to Angela and a few of the others than him directly.
She was very pretty, with bobbed hair, streaked in different shades of dark and light brown and blonde. She had large, dark brown eyes, highlighted by dark mascara. She had a slim face, with a thin nose, cutely upturned at the bottom, light pink blush on her upper cheekbones and matching lipstick. He found it difficult to place her age.
"And then there were two, huh?" she said, sitting on the sofa to his left and crossing her legs.
James felt his eyes wandering to her upper thigh, looking away sharply as he realised he could just make out her bum cheek as the skirt rode up.
"Umm, yeh," he replied, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. "You...ummm...where do you live then? Not anywhere near the others I guess?"
"Outside of the city," she replied. "A little village. Suburbia," she grinned.
He noted she was holding a small clutch bag on her lap; he expected she was about to take out her phone and arrange a taxi.
"So, how come you weren't hanging out with your own team," he asked, feeling a need to create conversation to prevent his drunken self from simply gawping at her.
"You heard what everyone was saying about the recruitment team," she laughed. "Bunch of tarted up blonde dolly birds with no personality," she continued. "They all really do my head in."
James nodded and smiled. "Yep, they don't sound popular."
Jennifer shook her head. "It was fine when Angela was in the team, at least there was someone there I got on with, but fuck, it's painful working there now."
"Must be awful," James said sympathetically. "No chance you could switch teams?"
"Maybe," she replied, placing her right arm on the sofa and leaning back slightly. "Depends on the next round of redundancies I guess. Might be some opportunities but the company seem hell bent on giving jobs to all the younger folk so I'm probably fucked."
James frowned. "Younger folk?"
"Yeh," she nodded. "If you are over 35 in that place you've got no chance."
"Really?" he replied, furling his brow. You...you're not over 35 are you?
Jennifer laughed. "Oh, charmer."
"No, no," he said defensively. "I...seriously, I didn't think you were over 35." He was speaking honestly, genuinely surprised.
She grinned. "That's very sweet of you. How old do you think I am then?"
James felt another pang of discomfort as she stared at him with an amused expression.
"I...well...I don't know. I'd have thought...well, early thirties at most."
She chuckled, a smile creeping across her face. "I was 40 two weeks ago."
"Wow," he replied genuinely. "I mean...40 is not exactly old or anything, but you know...I mean..." he felt his cheeks flush. In a million years, he wouldn't have guessed she was as old as 40. "You look so...ummmm...well...fit." He cursed himself at his choice of word.
"Fit at Forty. I'll take that as a compliment then," she grinned.
James fumbled with the water bottle lid. She leaned across to her left, placing her bag on the floor. James' eyes widened as her skirt rode further up her thigh and he got a clear view of her tight buttock. She was in incredibly good shape, with smooth skin more typical of a twenty something than someone who has just turned 40. It occurred to him that he didn't actually have much experience of such scantily clad females of any age, so maybe it was just his own prejudices.
As she straightened up, he quickly averted his gaze, his eyes falling on the tattoo or right ankle.
There was a moment of awkward silence as she looked directly item, and he found himself mumbling "ummm...cool...errr...tattoo." He took another gulp of water.
"Oh, thanks," she said. To his amazement, she uncrossed her legs and stretched our her right one towards him. "It's a dragon head, with the tail spelling out my daughter's name. Rihanna. She was born in Wales, hence the dragon," she explained.
James forced himself to focus on her ankle, desperately trying to ignore the stretched leg pointing towards to him. "That's...that's really...ummm...nice," he replied awkwardly. "How...how old is she?"
