The pebbled leather Prada folio contains my passport, a few hard to replace governmental clearance cards and about $3,000 in hundreds
FUCK!………………….
It would be more than embarrassing for a security consultant to report a theft due to his own lack of diligence.
I turn off the tub, get dressed and ready myself for another long walk through the hotel and casino to the security complex. Pulling on a silk t shirt. It clings and shows every fold, bulge and curve in my ‘older’ torso……
I check myself in the mirror, sucking my gut in a bit. Note to self: need to get back to the gym. Got a bit of sag to my belly and my arms are getting too scrawny. I contemplate putting on something cotton, something baggy….. Nah, who I am trying to impress anyway?
I head out and as I exit my door, I almost collide with exercise gal, now dressed up and ready for a night out.
“Hah! Our roles are reversed. Where are you heading dressed down like that, I liked you better before” she says.
“I forgot something in my office that I need to retrieve”.
“Retrieve……….. is that like you have to go get it?” she teases. “What office anyway? Aren’t you a guest?” I explain as we walk the curved, never ending Encore hallway. She tells me that she is in town for a convention involving AI. She is a former coder who now pitches artificial intelligence for a variety of applications. On the elevator we do the eye exchange in the mirror again.
“Nice ink.” She says, nodding at my sleeved forearms, usually covered, but no longer the alienating signposts they were nearly 30 years ago when I mustered out and joined the private sector.
“Thanks.”
I examine her transformation. Her open toed, strap pumps reveal she has tattoo work on both feet, covering her metatarsals. That takes serious commitment and is usually not a first tattoo location. I wonder what else on her is inked. They look like mandalas and seem to have some intricate detail.
Her dress is a light copper with uneven hems that fall below her calf on one side and is cut away above her knee on the other. The dress is belted with a wide leather belt and she has an odd assortment of necklaces across her chest.
One looks like it could be Bulgari, the others are more like some exotica from a souk in a middle eastern bazaar. The neckline is wide, but shows little cleavage.
She has curled a wave into her shoulder length brown hair and put on a bit of makeup. Her lips are bare, but full and rosy, not really needing help. There is a scent of perfume, but I would swear I still smell her workout underneath it.
Maintaining eye contact, she adjusts the belt across her midriff, runs her palms up her flanks and then lifts her breasts a bit, pushing them together, causing the heavy one to disappear into her cleavage. She dips a hand in between them and seemingly caressing herself, lifts the necklace back out.
Wait, was that done for me?
I am a bit lost and unsure of how to react…………..her face is seemingly emotionless. Before I can assess the situation, the door opens and two Chinese couples push their way in before the doors are fully retracted, forcing me into the corner.
“Have a nice evening.” She says over her shoulder as she exits the elevator. By the time, I disentangle myself from the Chinese, she has greeted another woman and they stop at the ATM in the elevator lobby, their backs to me.
I shake off whatever just happened (or didn’t happen) and head to my office. Tonight’s fantasy blown in our obvious disconnect.
A few days pass. It’s Thursday night and I once again head to my room around 8PM. After greeting Bobby, I quick step in between the closing elevator doors, amazed to find myself on the elevator with HER once again. I am dressed the same and she is once again glowing from her workout, stains of sweat on the belly of her tank top and the waistband of her shorts.
We are alone once more as 31 glows white on the panel and the elevator begins its rise.
“Well, now I feel so much safer with you on board. How is your work going?” It’s delivered with a smile and I accept the teasing.
“It’s going well. Looks like you had a good workout.” I inwardly cringe that is the best line I can come up with.
I look her up and down in the mirror as I inhale her scent again. She seems to know what I am thinking. With a grin, she raises the arm next to me and smells herself, the move wafts more of her over to me.
“God, I stink…………..” she says, but leaving her arm raised and she watches my nostrils flare as I inhale deeply. “However, you seem to like it….” — she says, waiting a beat and then letting her arm drop to her side. She pivots 90°, reaches out and pushes on my shoulder, turning me to face her.
Taking a step forward, she is now inches from me, sniffing me and turning her face up toward mine. “But you smell so pretty……………”
For one short second, I think ‘what the hell?’, and then I just react……………
I grab her wrist, lift her arm over her head and bury my face in her greasy arm pit, smearing it up and down and left and right. As the elevator dings for our floor, I run my tongue across the heart of her pit, let her arm drop and step aside.
I think of the wall of monitors downstairs (124 constantly scanning the 1,500 cameras throughout the building) and wonder if this one was on display when I did my pit dive.
The door opens and a young couple bound on board, paying no attention to the “elderly” pair exiting. This time we actually walk down the hall side by side, a tension growing between us. The air between us grows more and more electric as we take that long walk in thick silence.
As we round the bend in the hallway, her voice a bit hoarse, she asks, “You want to drop off your dog and join me?” I look at her questioningly and realize she is talking about my rollaboard and briefcase that I am dragging behind me.
My throat is just as constricted as hers and I croak, “Okay………..” having no idea what else to add in response.
Stopping at my room, I dump my jacket and bags……. My mind is racing, just what the fuck am I doing? This is a fantasy………. Exactly! Go for it you moron….. Then I suddenly realize I don’t know what room she is in………….. maybe she will just be waiting in the hall…………….Or most likely, she is just playing with me……….. Almost hoping she is……She is the one in control and I am not used to that.
I step through my doorway and turn right. She is sitting on the bench at the end of the hall. The lights of the strip are twinkling through the window behind her. Her top is off and she is untying her shoes. By the time I move the four room distance to the end of the hall, she is barefooted. Just what does she have in mind?
Standing there in only her workout shorts and athletic bra, she smiles at me. The bra is light beige with dark brown stains along the swell of each breast where her sweat has soaked the cotton.
Her age is a bit more apparent now. There is some sag to her belly and some stretch marks there and on her thighs. Her biceps are toned, but have a few crepe wrinkles, Regardless, she is still more fit than I am.