She decided she would call herself "Rose". Not that anyone would care; not with the dress she was wearing. She could be Eunice or Bertha or Griselda or Enid, but with her tits just about hanging out and her back exposed nearly down to her ass any man would nod and tell her it was a beautiful name. But in keeping with her dress, which was a deep crimson red, Rose it would be.
With that settled, she peered into the dimly lit hotel bar and scanned the scattered crowd. She saw what she expected to see; tired, lonely looking businessmen swilling down a few drinks before heading back to their empty rooms for a quick toss and a restless sleep. It was good hunting grounds for a woman eager for some easy, rootless company. It was a good place for a neglected wife and mother to find a chance to feel like a woman again.
Roger was suppose to be "meeting a client" tonight. It was bullshit of course; she knew he wasn't in sales. But she didn't care and obviously he didn't care if she believed him. How sad that the hot fires of their once urgent love had cooled to this. But she didn't want to think of that now. The kids were at their grandmother's and she was free for the evening. She still had some good miles left on her chassis. Roger would have his fiction and she'd have hers too: as Rose.
She looked at herself in the mirrored wall panel just outside the bar and adjusted her hair. She was wearing her lustrous black tresses gathered up, showing her graceful neck and shoulders. She remembered how, before the kids threw them into a perpetual state of haggard exhaustion, Roger used to slide up behind her to run his face from the nape of her neck up to just behind her ear and greedily inhale her scent. He didn't even have to touch her to make her skin bloom in goose-bumps and her nethers go moist. But that was nearly a decade ago.
She was dawdling and she knew it. She was justifiably nervous. It had been so long since she had gone out on the prowl. When she was a young woman, really more of an overgrown girl, she would go out to parties knowing she would end the night in someone's bed without knowing who. But she was so out of practice now. It felt as strange and wrong as when she and her friends used to cruise frat parties when she was still in high school. She shook her head. Had she ever really been that wild; that free?
"It's like a cold swimming pool Rosie-girl, just jump in and get it over with," she said to herself. Taking a deep breath she opened the big tempered glass door and strutted in to the bar.
Her confidence increased as several heads turned to take her in as she strode self-assuredly across the dark, carpeted floor. She smiled coquettishly left and right at slack jawed strangers whose eyes were focused too low on her body to appreciate her tempting glare. At each step of her spiked heels she felt the scandalously exposed inner slopes of her breasts and the tightly wrapped flesh of her ass jiggle wantonly. She made her way to the end of the bar and slithered up onto a stool, letting the leg slit along the right side of her dress fall open to the top of her thigh high stockings.
The bartender was a woman in her forties. Her nametag said "Clara". She looked Rose over with a wary eye.
She thinks I'm a whore
, realized Rose. For some reason the thought made her quiver excitedly.
"What'll you have?" asked Clara without any pretense at civility.
"Cosmopolitan," she said, although she'd actually prefer a chardonnay. However, she was Rose tonight and it seemed to her that Rose would drink cosmos.
The bartender wandered off joylessly to find the cranberry juice while Rose scanned the room surreptitiously through the mirrored backing behind the liquor bottles. She noticed several lonely looking men eyeing her eagerly. Her exposed back felt cool from the air-conditioning, but simultaneously hot from the knowledge that several sets of eyes were sweeping up and down her display of flesh. She checked her posture, making sure to keep her back arched, chest out. Giving any hopeful stranger entering the bar the best possible show.
"Fella down the end says he's got this," said Clara as she sat the cosmopolitan down on a counter in front of her.
Rose looked over at the man in a crumpled, yellow button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His hairline had receded almost to the top of his head and he had a dark, bristly shadow across his jowls and chin. Rose smiled. The lust in his eyes was flattering, but she knew already she didn't want him. He wouldn't be the one.
He gathered up his beer and drifted her way. He was a little paunchy; a doughy business traveler a long way from home. She spotted a pale band around his ring finger where his wedding ring had probably been two minutes previously. She felt sorry for him already. He was wasting his time and money on her. But then, that was part of the game; wasn't it?
"Hello there," he said with an honest grin.
"Hello," she smiled back coolly, trying to not be too encouragingly.
"My name is Bill," he said while sliding onto the stool next to her and extending a hand.
"Mine is Eunice," she said, taking his hand for the shake.
"That's a pretty name," he replied and brought her fingers to his mouth to kiss. She smiled in amusement. Of course he thought Eunice sounded pretty; behold the power of the slutty dress!
"But everyone calls me Rose."
He mistook her bemused smile and grinned back hopefully. "OK, Rose. I have to tell you, you're the loveliest woman I've seen in ages."
"Don't let your wife hear you say that, Bill."
"Oh, this," he said indicating his pale ring finger tan-line. "I just wear a band on sales calls. People trust a married man more than they trust a single guy."
"That's clever," she said. She meant the lie, not the sales strategy. She was expecting something about just finalizing his divorce or an open marriage, maybe the tragic death of his late, loving wife if he was extra ballsy.
"Actually I just finalized my divorce last month."
"Oh, that's too bad." She meant the excuse again.
Bill started going on about the life of an industrial pump salesman; the meetings; the pressures; the politics. It was deadly dull. He was such a typical man, so wrapped up in the petty victories and defeats of his dull life that he assumed they were fascinating to everyone. It occurred to her that he reminded her of Roger in that way, always going on in painfully minute detail about his office squabbles. It made her sad to realize how very much Roger and Bill were alike in that regard. Men will be men.
She cast her eyes down the bar to focus on anything but the bland life of Bill. That's when she saw a new man leaning on the bar. He was tall. His hair looked freshly cut and neatly styled. His face was newly shaved but for a smartly trimmed mustache; so unlike Roger's full, often scraggly beard. He wore a crisply pressed charcoal grey suit with a green silk tie and a dark green shirt. He stared at her with an unwavering, knowing look. His glare dropped to take in her bountiful cleavage and looked back up to smirk at her through his eyes; unapologetic at having ogled her so openly, almost daring her to take offense. He was a cocky bastard; so sure of himself, so sure of his intentions. Rose felt her pussy tingle in spite of herself.
She looked away. She wouldn't give that arrogant ass the satisfaction of staring back at him.
"The gentleman down the bar wants you to have this," said Clara, interrupting Bill's monolog about his many sales successes. She sat down a second Cosmopolitan.
Bill turned around to look at the cocky stranger, his face livid with annoyance. The stranger sauntered over with a martini in hand without taking his eyes off of Rose. Ignoring Bill completely, he spoke to her.
"Hello there beautiful, I'm…"
"Hey. Jerk. The lady and I are having a conversation," growled Bill.
The stranger looked at Bill with a friendly smile. "Oh come on now, surely you can see she's way out of your league."
"You want to take this outside asshole?"
"OK. But only if the lady has no preference who she'd rather sit with."
Bill's face was red with irritation. He looked from the stranger to Rose.
"Sorry Bill, I'm just not that interested in industrial pumps," Rose said sympathetically as she shrugged. "I think I'll give this gentleman a try."
"Well fuck you then, you
cunt
. And you too, asshole," hissed Bill who grabbed his beer and stormed out of the bar. Every eye in the bar followed him out. As he left the tall stranger settled into Bill's vacant seat.
"He seemed nice," said the stranger with an ironic smile.
