Free Night Monsters by Lee Allen Howard

Savoir-Faire
    by Lee Allen Howard
 
    W yatt Bell hadn’t been with a woman in over a year, but Natalie Trattoriano was well worth the wait. He met her at the fall E-Commerce Services Fair while he was staffing his company’s booth. She sashayed to the table in a blood-red suit and leaned over the sales literature.
    “I wonder if you could help me,” she said, and he no longer cared what he sold that day, so long as he sold himself to her. He managed to make a date for a drink in the hotel lounge that evening.
    After a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and some stimulating conversation, she raked her glistening nails across his palm and smiled salaciously.
    Sooner than he thought possible, they were up in his room, peeling off each other’s clothes. Their sex was hot, savage, ravenous.
    Afterward, she caressed his navel while he drew his fingers through her jet-black hair. He was waiting for her to answer this question: “Stay the night?”
    “I’d love to,” she said. “There’s just one problem.”
    “What’s that?” Right then, he could imagine no such thing as a problem.
    Natalie stroked his navel and said: “I’m . . . married, Wyatt. Married.”
    •     •     •
    That was the first time Natalie mentioned her husband to Wyatt, but it wasn’t the last. In fact, every time they were together—even in bed—she mentioned Vince. Hers weren’t venomous, hate-filled words about a man who cared less about her. Vince sounded like a nice, sensitive guy who was fond of her but who had a few problems.
    Vince worked nights, so Natalie rarely saw him. When she was up, he was asleep, and when she was tired, he was getting ready for work. They never ate together. Worse yet, they never slept together. For someone as sexually voracious as she, Wyatt could understand her frustration.
    However, Wyatt had no desire to discuss their issues when Natalie was writhing beneath him in his bed after work. It was time to concentrate on the task at hand.
    She gasped and he grinned, panting.
    “Ohh, Wyatt. . . . Vince could never have done it twice.”
    Wyatt’s smile faded, and he threw back the sheet.
    “What’s wrong?” she said, drawing the covers over her breasts.
    “Must you always compare me with him?”
    “Who, Vince?”
    “Who else?” He yanked up his boxers. “We can’t even make love without you bringing him into bed with us.”
    Natalie sat up. “I’m sorry, Wyatt. I didn’t know you were so sensitive about him.”
    “Sensitive?” He huffed. “Why do you go on about him? Did you ever think if he really loved you, he’d want to satisfy you sexually?”
    Crestfallen, she glanced out the door, down the hall.
    He stood at the end of the bed, arms crossed over his chest. “If you love him so much, why are you having an affair?”
    “I don’t know. He’s a wonderful man, and he’s really good to me, and I wish things were different between us. I know if you met him, you’d really like—”
    “ Meet him?” Wyatt snapped. “I don’t want to meet him for God’s sake, I can’t stand him. I don’t ever want to hear his name again. I wish we were rid of him, and it was just you and me.”
    “Wyatt!” She flung back the covers and reached for her black bra. “Unless you want this to be the last time, don’t talk about Vince that way again.”
    Wyatt grumbled, pulling on an old Penn State sweatshirt. He looked squarely into her coal-black eyes. “And unless you want this to be the last time, don’t mention Vince in my bed again.”
    She frowned but said nothing more. When she finished dressing, she left Wyatt’s apartment to go home to Vince.
    •     •     •
    The following evening, Wyatt glanced out the window of his office at Symplex Systems and straightened the contracts on his desk. It was after the autumn time change and already getting dark.
    He studied the appointment column of his planner and then glanced at his watch. One more meeting and he was done for the