From the instant she collapsed backwards against the inside of her front door and peeked out the curtains to make sure the cab was gone, Amber gradually felt as if her real body was slowly re-entering the shell of whatever it was she'd become over the previous hour.
Surveying the darkness of her apartment, afraid to turn on a light and take a chance of seeing what may be reflected in the mirror hanging on the far side of the room, Amber groped her way down the hall to her bedroom, looking every bit the drunk and exhausted woman she was. With each staggering baby-step she took, she tried telling herself what she'd done in the backseat of the cab was only part of a very vivid and naughty dream. Each time she rubbed the slickness of her tangy and warm juices between her fingers however, she knew it was all too real.
Amber surprised herself by how easily she was able to fall asleep that night, but the following morning was not easy. Besides the normal malaise of a hangover to deal with, each time she looked at a picture hanging in the house, or into a mirror for that matter, she had a hard time jiving the woman she saw looking back with the one that had done such a lewd thing in the cab the previous night.
While the guilt and embarrassment did gradually fade over the next few days, Amber still found herself visibly recoiling each time she saw a taxi pass by. Too drunk that fateful night to remember exactly which cab company it was that brought her home, she knew she would be playing Russian Roulette each time a situation arose and she had to hail down a ride in the future. Even if it wasn't the same Arab guy driving it, somehow Amber knew there would be an icky kinship where the man that night would have told every other Middle Eastern cabbie in the world about what she'd done in his backseat.
It wasn't long after that debacle of a night that Amber's friends started bugging her to hit the town again. After a few weeks of hemming, hawing and excuse making, she decided to start joining them for the occasional drink after work. It took awhile but eventually Amber found herself back on the Friday and Saturday night barhopping circuit with her co-workers on a regular basis.
Much to her surprise, Amber started to feel more at ease than anytime of her life when it came to dealing with the men who approached her. Despite her continued self conscience about her height, and the presence of several yappy female friends to deal with, Amber found herself much more receptive to the flirtations of men, as well as more comfortable dabbling in a little of her own. Unfortunately she still hadn't quite found the right guy to flip her switch.
All that changed one night however when Amber was returning from the bathroom of a club she and her friends had dropped anchor at.
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Phillipe Ruiz had headed back up to the Great Northwest to check on a few business investments he'd made. It had been several months since he visited Portland, but he also looked forward to his visits. Venturing out his final night there with the owners of the stables he made the investment in, Phillipe didn't have any concrete plans for the evening, simply planning to take things as they came before his flight out early the next morning. Trying to navigate his way through the flashing neon cloak of darkness towards the restroom, Phillipe's night out took an early turn for the better when he accidentally collided with a woman nearly a foot taller than he was.
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Just as she'd done months earlier when Phillipe approached her while she was at a bar buying her friends a round of drinks, Amber instinctively recoiled when a man that short bumped into her.
"I'm ...so....sorry," she started to babble until she recognized who it was.
"...No..Prob..," Phillipe started to reassure until he too was also struck with a vague recognition.
A silent stare played out between the two as they blocked the zig-zagging stream of bar patrons making their way to the bathrooms.
"It's ..Phillipe...right?" Amber stammered, wringing her hands together nervously as a smile of recognition came to the man's angular face.
"Yes it is," Phillipe nodded.
Hating himself for an instant when he wasn't immediately able to recall her's from so long ago, Phillipe noticed the shimmer in Amber's eyes that said she didn't expect him to remember her. He was able however to call up the name of the club where their paths had first crossed, and that brought a huge sigh of relief to Amber as she continued to fidget.
"Are you here with anyone?" Phillipe asked as he subtly nudged Amber towards the wall and out of the rush of human traffic.
".....Yes.....No.....just here with some friends...," Amber fumbled for her words, unable to get the memory of what she'd seen with Phillipe and that other woman in the pool out of her mind as he stared up at her with that hauntingly familiar, all knowing gaze.
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Even though he didn't remember Amber's name, he vividly did recall not only her incredibly long legs, stunning dark red hair and statuesque frame, but also the air of cautious vulnerability that oozed from her pores.
The fact that she so readily pulled his name out of the air sent a tingle of primal curiosity through Phillipe. Having no clue she'd witnessed what he'd done with that other woman in a hotel pool several blocks away, all Phillipe could think was he'd made quite a good first impression when they'd met in passing all those months earlier.
Preparing to ask Amber if she'd care to dance, or perhaps just grab a drink and get to know one another in a dark corner of the lounge, he stopped himself when he saw the ghostly look of readied want in the much taller woman's eyes.
"I have a room at the hotel across the street," he looked up at Amber and offered over the din of music thumping around them.
".....Good," Amber trembled, feeling as if she'd somehow become handcuffed to a runaway train.
"Do you want to go tell your friends you're leaving?" he asked.
"..No....," Amber gulped. "I'll...I think I'll just call them on the way over and tell them I'll be back in a little while."
Within a minute or so the odd looking pair had made their discreet escape from the club.
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