aventure d’un soir

There were four e-mails, the last including the name of her hotel and the room number.

I glanced at the time. Ten o'clock. I had to be up early for work the next morning. I could think of several excellent reasons for not driving into DC this late at night.

None of them were enough to overcome my curiosity.

I dressed. At the door, I paused, went downstairs, and pocketed two leather cuffs and a metal hitch. Once in the car, it took me an hour to find the hotel and another twenty minutes to find parking.

There was no answer to my first knock; I stood in the hallway, idly planning my driving route home. She came to the door on the second knock, dressed in a bathrobe. The dark hotel room obscured the details of her face, but her short hair was slightly mussed; she had fallen asleep while waiting.

I followed her inside.

Details. She was from Memphis, in town for a convention, her second this year. She was a reader. She had a perfectly round ass; she jumped, as if startled, everytime I gave it a slap. When my hands slid the bathrobe from her shoulders, she repeated over and over again, "I can't believe I am doing this. I can't believe I am doing this."

I left three and a half hours later.

It wasn't until I got home that I realized I did not know her name.