Something a little different. Enjoy. RR
*******************************
Olive sat on the subway, her leg crossed over her thigh so that the point of her heeled boot made it risky for anyone to stand too close to her. She was nine stops away from meeting
him
again in the East Village, the new object of her obsession. Though she had dressed sexy for him, in a red teddy, stockings, and garters, she wasn't really comfortable letting everyone in the city see her that way, so she'd hidden the lingerie under leggings, a pale sweater, and a voluminous scarf. She was all wrapped up like a present for him. The extra layers made her sweat in the dank inferno of the station.
Her hair was held in place by a knit headband adorned with a brooch, and her copper waves framed her face delicately. Her makeup was feminine and youthful, with shades of blushy pink and lilac, and she'd opted not for her usual red lipstick but an elegant berry-colored gloss that reminded her of the glazed pout on a porcelain doll.
She really should be studying instead tonight. She had a paper due in a few days that only existed as an outline in her head so far, and an exam not too far behind that required some serious cramming.
And it ain't the only thing, either,
she thought to herself with a smirk.
She met eyes with a man standing nearby and held eye contact just a beat too long, not so long that he'd approach her but long enough that he'd wish that he had as he walked home later. She liked to imagine she could leave a lingering impression on people like that, with just a look. It had been so satisfying to develop more sophisticated ways to flex her power of flirtation lately, and the city provided ample opportunities to practice. Sometimes it required the finesse of an art form. Other times all she had to do was post a cute picture of her body on a meetup subreddit and let the replies roll in, and she'd have her pick of the kind of evening she wanted to have. An orgy in the Hamptons, or hookah and Egyptian food in Astoria, or pizza and molly with a guitar player in Bushwick...
Yes, she'd sampled many of the city's offerings; it had been a truly perfect playground for her. But lately she only seemed to have the taste for one kind of experience, with exactly one man. She didn't know his last name yet, but his first name was Paul. He'd found her the normal way, with a horny reddit reply to one of her posts. She found it charming, the way people would reach out to shoot their shot. It was like the modern day version of answering the personal ads in a newspaper, but for perverts.
So, he'd taken her out to dinner, and they'd sized each other up to ensure the other wasn't a crazy person. Then they went back to his place where they abandoned the pretense of being on a date and, per their mutually agreed-upon terms, fucked. So what?
Olive couldn't answer that question for herself, but for one reason or another, she couldn't get this one out of her head. She bit her lip and felt her hot cheeks swell. He was almost like the kind of guy she could bring home to her mom, if she'd met him under different circumstances. He'd had an impressive path to law school, from what she'd gathered, and he was tall, witty, and thoughtful. Twice after their first encounter he'd called her on the phone, and she'd laid in her bed in her dorm room listening to his voice in her ear as they got to know each other. Though they were just playmates, and she was distantly aware that their age gap precluded them from being real dating prospects, she never felt like he wasn't taking her seriously. And he had the biggest fucking dick she'd ever seen.
The subway car rattled Olive out of her reverie in time to dismount at the stop her navigation app recommended. She grabbed her overnight bag and took a second to compose herself before rising and making her way to the door. She kept to the right on the stairway up, taking the steps slowly. She was always punctual to her booty calls, and was actually running a little early. He'd told her to punch in the address to a sushi restaurant, but to take a nondescript staircase to the left upon entry. A swanky cocktail bar was hidden on the upper level.
She wandered into a dimly lit atmosphere with a brass front bar and a brocade-papered wall and took a seat at a small corner table that looked down upon the street below. With time to kill, she ordered a drink. She didn't recognize more than half of its ingredients, but it came with egg white foam, which she enjoyed immensely, so she hoped it'd be good. If she were honest, her nerves could be braced by knocking the whole thing back quickly before Paul arrived, but she didn't want to let on that she'd shown up so early to anticipate him. She dreaded appearing too desperate for him. More delicate than the art of flirting, was the tightrope act of counterbalancing her indulgence in sensual vulnerability with enough aloofness to keep things vaguely casual. Too much restraint could ice someone out, or limit the intimacy, but too little could scare a partner away. She delighted in this dance, in the intoxicating complexity of human mating rituals, but it stung to get it wrong, even in a situationship like this.
She glanced out the window and caught a glimpse of a tall figure hurrying up the street in a long dark coat, his head bowed against the late autumn chill. Her heart seemed to rise in her chest like a flag on a pole. She breathed, took a sip of the fizzy bitter concoction the server had brought her, and closed her eyes to try to dissect its notes. She had not been drinking alcohol long enough to appreciate the nuances of a fancy cocktail like this.
She slowly opened her eyes at the sound of the wooden door swinging to look up at him through her mascara-teased lashes as he entered. Paul.
His hazel eyes darted across the small room and locked onto her. A warm smile danced across his face as he approached.
"Hi, Olivia."
"It's Olive..."
*********************************************
