I Believe in a Thing Called Love

This one is a little more personal than a lot of my other work. I don't generally write pure romance, but this is about as close as I come. The brilliant 2000 film

In the Mood for Love

was a big inspiration for my initial writing prompt, as was 2009's

Up in the Air,

though I've taken a fairly big detour from either film's plot. Check them out if you haven't seen them.

Thank you to RawSilhouette for the plot development help, and to Ravenna933 for giving this story a beta read. Both of them have stories coming that should be submitted shortly, and I hope you'll consider giving them a read once they're up.

Sunday

Airport. Airplane. Hotel. Job site. Hotel. Airport. Airplane. Repeat.

If you've ever seen the film

Up in the Air,

you know something about my lifestyle. Fortunately I don't have to fire people for a living like George Clooney's character did, but I live on the road, travelling all over North America on a regular basis. Europe too.

I do that nebulous job called consulting, which means that I'm an Expert for Hire, so to speak. To be honest it surprises even me sometimes that honest-to-goodness Fortune 500 companies are willing to pay me to visit their factories and offices and write a report telling them what they're doing wrong, but there you have it. I handle the analysis on the road, and my partner Tim handles the forensics and accounting working from home.

As long as I could remember, I've been interested in failure. My business degree focused on the specific mechanics as to how and why and when companies failed, and in learning everything I could about failure, I've taken that to the logical extreme of being brought in by companies around the world to tell them why they're failing and how to stop the downward slide.

It logically follows, then, that one of the world's leading experts on failure would be such a failure in his personal life.

I lay tonight in a comfortable hotel bed at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in downtown Montreal. This client, at least, was a little closer to home, such as it was, to the point that I took the train in rather than flying to this site. The client had insisted on putting me up in that famous, luxurious old hotel, and while my report was likely to call them out on such waste, I certainly wasn't going to decline a generous expense account. I lived in a meagre apartment near Pearson Airport in Toronto, with the place's only real advantage being the easy access to my real home, the first class lounges and seats on the airliners of the world.

I'd had dinner and decided to stay in for the evening, finishing my report for my client last week in... I couldn't even remember. I checked the header of the document I was typing out -

right. Memphis.

When I first started consulting, nearly a decade ago, I'd tried hard to sightsee the places I went, to seek out new restaurants and visit museums and galleries and historic sites. Now, just past my fortieth birthday, I was content to live out my peripatetic existence treating the cities before me like any other. I'd been in New Orleans for Mardi Gras and Munich for Oktoberfest and participated in none of it. This was my life.

Just then, through the wall, I heard a soft, faint moan.

My ears perked up at the sound. I set my laptop down beside me on the bed, got up, and turned off my in-room exhaust fan. Silence descended. A moment later, I heard it again. It was faint, but it sounded like someone in the room next door was having sex. My cock started growing in my underwear in response.

How long has it been since I've had sex?

I wondered idly to myself. My libido was still going strong as I hit early middle age, and masturbation was a frequent pastime during my many alone hours. I didn't usually bother with trying for one-night stands while travelling, nor was I the type of man to seek out sex workers. And I certainly didn't have room for a relationship with my lifestyle.

I thought back. I couldn't remember where I had been, but I vaguely recalled hooking up with a blonde single mother a few months back, a woman a few years older than me that I'd met at the hotel bar.

Was that the last time?

I couldn't remember her name or anything else about the encounter except for her short skirt and low-cut top in the bar. She'd been sitting alone with a cocktail, her blue eyes trailing me around the room, all but advertising her availability. Sex happened for me only when it was that easy.

I heard the moan again, and in response I saved the document I was working on, closed the laptop, and unzipped my trousers. I pulled my cock out of my underwear, already fully hard, and started to gently stroke as I strained to listen for the woman next door. I had always been a little bit of a voyeur, so what? Overhearing sex in the next hotel room was one of the very few small and unexpected pleasures of my itinerant lifestyle.

In comparison to some nights in my memory, this woman next door was fairly quiet. I couldn't hear a second voice, nor did I hear any creaking bed springs or enthusiastic thumping. Whoever this was, it didn't sound like she was performing for anyone or anything. Her sounds were that of a woman having a natural and unguarded sexual experience, not trying to make noise, but also not trying to be quiet. I grew harder, my cock slippery with precum as I jerked off, trying to remain quiet so as not to spook her. I usually tried to time my orgasm with the woman next door whenever this happened, which wasn't as often as you might think. Or as often as I'd like.

I came just a few seconds before the woman, and as semen erupted out onto my chest, I heard her soft, breathy, familiar orgasm - "Ah, ah, ah, aaaaaaaaaah!" Her moans instantly mentally transported me back to a part of my life I'd tried very, very hard to forget.

Amy Callaghan.

And also my ex-wife.

***

Ten Years Earlier...

It should have been the happiest day of my life. Lisa and I had been married for four years and together for longer, and we were ready. It was our first child. We'd met in university and done everything in life right, gotten our educations, gotten good jobs, gotten married, bought a house, and we were finally ready to start a family. I took her to the hospital after her water broke, and after two hours in labour, with me at her side, she gave birth to a healthy, beautiful, seven-pound baby girl, with shining eyes, a full head of hair, and smooth dark skin.

Which was a little bit of a medical mystery, considering both expectant parents were white.

It came out, of course. Lisa had been having an affair with a Brazilian guy called Sergio for over a year, and of course the baby was his. I walked out of the hospital, and after she tearfully confirmed what I already knew later that night, I never spoke to her again apart from through our lawyers or in court. By the time she was released from hospital I'd cleaned all my stuff out of our shared house and initiated divorce proceedings.

I wasn't a vengeful ex. Truthfully, I didn't really let myself feel anything. I walked around in a daze for months after. I agreed to an equitable split of our assets, and I wasn't really interested in further punishing her for her mistakes. I heard through mutual friends that she was already punishing herself enough. But I ignored her frantic requests to talk, to reconcile, to carry on somehow. I wasn't in love with her anymore, and I never would be again. I just wanted out of the lie that I hadn't known I'd been living.

Our divorce was simple in comparison to some, but Amy had been the real complication. She had been Sergio's fiancée, and my one piece of petty vengeance I had allowed myself was seeking her out on social media that first horrible night and letting her know about her man's philandering. She'd thanked me, their engagement was soon broken off, and they, too, wound up in court, splitting up their common-law life together.

And somehow, during all this, Amy and I wound up sleeping together.

It had been a secret, of course. Family court judges look down heavily on adultery, so both of us had the upper hand in our cases because of Sergio and Lisa's cheating. Even though we knew we weren't also cheating, given that we hadn't even met each other until both our relationships had already crashed and burned, a skilled lawyer could easily have made us out to seem to be equally guilty parties. We were worried about being discovered, because we couldn't prove we hadn't been together for longer. You can't prove a negative, after all.

Although we tried many times, we couldn't stop fucking each other. We were two broken, desperate people, working through the emotions from the worst thing that had ever happened to us by fucking the pain away. Sex with Amy was easily the best I'd ever had, too - explosive and emotionally cathartic. She was a highly-skilled lover with a libido like a runaway freight train. We were sexually compatible in a way I'd never had before, or since. She was also the prettiest woman I'd ever been with, so far out of my league that I'd barely been able to believe before or since that someone who looked like her had been interested in a guy like me.

When both of our splits were finally settled, we stopped seeing each other. Our court cases had dragged on for nearly a year, and when they were done, we both had been ready to stop sneaking around and move on with our lives. She moved out west, I started my consulting practice, and I hadn't spoken to her in almost ten years.

***

I realized I was crying on the bed, leaking emotion as the pool of cum on my chest cooled. I quickly snapped myself out of it, cleaning myself up and then hopping in the shower. This woman next door, whoever she was, had an orgasm that sounded eerily like Amy's. That was apparently all it took to open the floodgates. What an emotional mess I was.

I finally got out of the shower after a long, long time, climbing into bed and going to sleep in a depressed state of mind. I had a site visit the next morning to meet my new client for the week and I couldn't be late for it.

Monday

The next morning I woke up with the alarm and quickly dressed, putting on my dark Armani suit with a silk tie, wing-tips, and my Girard-Perregaux dress watch. I packed my laptop into my briefcase and checked myself out in the mirror. My sandy hair was freshly cut last week and looked neat and clean, my face was freshly-shaven, and not a thing looked out of place. I looked great. I could see a little sadness in my brown eyes, but I still looked the part, as they say, and that was always important for first impressions. I headed out of my room and towards the elevator, and just as I reached the end of the hall, I heard a door open behind me. I turned around, and there she was.

"Amy?!"

She hadn't changed at all. She still had the body of the fitness nut she was, slender and trim, and the professional pantsuit she was wearing accentuated the curves of her figure. Her long dark hair was still in a similar cut to what I remembered, with bangs hanging across her forehead and pale white porcelain skin, freckles across her face, that betrayed her black Irish heritage. Her prettiest feature, though, was one I immediately got lost in - I hadn't ever forgotten how pretty her eyes were, but seeing them again for the first time in ten years nearly floored me. They were hazel, which only barely describes how spectacular they were. In different lighting they appeared green, or brown, or blue, or even yellow. She'd barely aged at all, and ten years had done nothing to cool the instant attraction I felt for her.

"Michael?!"

The recognition in her voice quickly gave way to what seemed like momentary panic as she fiddled with her room keycard, as if trying to disappear back into the room adjacent to mine.

So it

was

her I heard last night

, I thought.

I should have known. I'd know that orgasm anywhere. I hear it sometimes in my dreams.

"Uh... how have you been?" I asked awkwardly.

Amy stopped fiddling, as though realizing that she couldn't escape. "Oh, you know. I'm okay. You?" She composed herself and walked towards me and the elevator, which I could hear was about to arrive.

"Yeah. Not bad."

We looked at each other with the awkward tension of two middle-schoolers sizing each other up suspiciously at a school dance. The elevator dinged.

"What brings you to Montreal?" I asked as the door whooshed open.

"Conference. You?"

"Site visit with a client. I'm here all week. You?"

"Yeah, til Friday. Are you here alone?"

"Always. I work alone, consulting. How about you?"

"There's a bunch of people I know attending the conference, but I'm here solo."

Maybe she was masturbating last night, not having sex,

I thought. I hadn't heard a man through the wall, she appeared to be alone this morning, and the Amy of my memory almost always touched herself before going to sleep. Even if we'd had sex that night, it was still a common occurrence to hold her and let her rub one more out before we drifted off. It also occurred to me that I'd probably hear her again throughout the week, unless either her libido had diminished or she'd learned to stay quiet, and I felt a surge of excitement course through me as the elevator descended.

It also occurred to me that I might not see her again once the elevator hit the ground floor unless I made a point of it, and I immediately spoke up. "Did you want to have dinner or something? It's been ages, and I'm sure we've got lots to catch up on."

Amy looked back at me plaintively. "Do you really think that's a good idea?"

"I've missed you," I said honestly. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed her until I saw her again just now, but even breathing in her scent was having an effect on me.

"Yeah. I've missed you, too. But I still don't know if we should."

The elevator door opened, revealing the Queen Elizabeth's opulent mid-century modern lobby. We stepped off.

"Well, you know where to find me if you'd like to," I volunteered hopefully. "I'm in 1407, which I think is the room beside yours. I've got a dinner tonight with my client, but I should be free in the evenings the rest of the week."

Amy nodded. "There's a big conference-opening gala tonight anyway I need to go to, but... yeah. Maybe. I'm also available the rest of the week."

"Can I give you a hug?" I asked.

She hesitantly wrapped her arms around me, and I deeply breathed in the scent of her hair. God, I'd missed the feel of her body against mine. She just felt like she fit, her head exactly the right height to lean on my shoulder.

I turned to leave, but she stopped me.

"It's good to see you, Michael," she finally managed. "It's a real shock to see you out of nowhere, but it's good, too. We can have dinner. Tomorrow night?"

"Sounds good. Are you still at the same number?"

She nodded. "Yeah. You too?"

"Yeah. Send me a text tomorrow, and we'll figure something out."

And that was it. I watched her leave, admiring her ass in her tightly-fitting pencil skirt as she left.

The site visit that day was the same as any other, apart from the fact I spent it distracted and lost in my own head. I was visiting a mid-level manufacturing firm whose business was drying up in the face of competition both foreign and domestic, and I already knew from preliminary research that their problems were pretty much out of a Business 101 textbook. Third-generation family ownership born into wealth with no idea how it got there or how not to blow it, intransigence within the labour union, old, inefficient machinery and processes, mid-level administrative bloat, entrenched bureaucracy resistant to change. I could easily have given them a copy of ten other reports I'd written in the past few years with their logo on the cover and they'd have been none the wiser.

Their issues could be fixed, but when the problems started at the top, so many of my past clients, who were the source of their own problems, rarely wanted to hear it. Many of my reports were duly paid-for and then, presumably, chucked in the recycling bin. I didn't specifically care, as long as I got my fee.

My day was mostly taken up with a site visit to their main office complex and manufacturing plant in Dorval near the airport. Nothing I saw changed my original assessment that they were a textbook case study that didn't really need an expensive consultant. Then the CEO, COO and CFO (two brothers and a first cousin, of course) took me out for dinner at

Joe Beef

, one of Montreal's top restaurants. At least this I had been looking forward to.

I got back late and full of rich food, expensive wine and top shelf cocktails. I went straight to bed, keeping half an ear out for Amy until I eventually fell asleep. I never heard a peep from the next room, and I can't say that I wasn't disappointed.

Tuesday

I could hear the shower running in the room next door as I awoke, and I drifted, half-asleep, on pleasant memories, remembering one of the many times Amy and I had sex in the shower. I imagined her naked under the spray next door, maybe touching herself, and before long I had a raging hard-on. I wanted to jerk off, but I held back, forcing myself to get out of bed and start dressing.

My site visit today was to the company's warehouse complex in the far northern suburbs, all the way up in St-Eustache. A car was waiting for me at the hotel, and I was driven up to the complex in silence. I thought about texting Amy, as I'd thought about so many times over the past ten years, but I restrained myself one more time. Why? I couldn't tell you, except that maybe I was scared. Of what, I have no idea.

I thought about her throughout the day as I was shown the warehouse complex. Far removed from the main plant and offices, the warehouse was a comparative model of efficiency, and the foreman was a likeable Québecois with a good head on his shoulders. Fittingly, he wasn't part of the family who ran the business. The warehouse easily should have been more profitable than it was. I made a note to myself to have my partner Tim do a little more digging to see if he could figure out why.

At the end of the day, I was riding back downtown in heavy traffic when I finally decided to send the text.

I should be available by 7:00, when do you want to meet up?

It took a few minutes, but she responded.

I can meet you anywhere. There's a brasserie in Vieux-Port I've heard good things about, do you want to go there?

I responded in the affirmative, and after a quick visit to the hotel to freshen up, I went for a long walk around the old city, nervously killing time until 7:00. I made it to the restaurant right on time to see Amy occupying a candlelit table.

Romantic

, I thought I sat down.

I wonder if that's on purpose.

"So how have you been?" I asked as I sat down.

"I've been good," she answered. "You?"

"Yeah, good enough."

We eyed each other for a moment.

How do you start again after a ten year break?

It felt so natural and familiar, and at the same time so alien. A waiter came and filled water glasses for us, and I ordered a bottle of red for the table.

"So what's your conference?" I asked.

"Women in the trades," she answered. "It's a summit designed to get more women oriented towards breaking into traditionally male-dominated blue-collar professions."

"Oh, that sounds cool. What brings you to that?"

"I'm an electrician!"

I stared at her across the table. "That's awesome, and completely unexpected. You were working in an office back when I last knew you - what brought you to electrical work? You have a physics degree, as I recall."