Free Slave to Love by Julie A. Richman

threading our fingers together. It is an excellent déjà vu.
    Digging out her key, she smiles up at me as she inserts it in the slot, “Thanks for walking me to my room.”
    I just nod. There’s so much I need to say, especially after this evening, but the words are escaping me. Finally, “I like to know you’re safe.” It’s my former military training and I want her behind that locked door, with the safety latch on.
    Her smile is making me feel things that are so foreign to my M.O. and I want more than anything to go into the room with her.
    Instead, I put my hand on her cheek and smile because her face actually fits into my palm. Leaning down, I press a kiss to the middle of her forehead. “7:30. I’ll see you then.”
    And I wonder how I’m going to wait that long as I start my way down the long hall toward the elevator.

My face fit into his big hand. Swoon. Just freaking swoon.
    Touching my cheek, I close my eyes, trying desperately to recreate what that just felt like. Falling back onto my bed, I actually laugh aloud. I’m thirty-three, not fifteen. Yet, I’m still holding my cheek.
    “It’s been too long since I’ve been laid,” I mumble as I laugh alone.
    “What a fucking night,” I begin my monologue and yes, I am talking to myself aloud, like a crazy person. “Bob Mannon is a huge whore. What a fucking sleaze bucket. Kemp needs that man’s job yesterday and that slimebucket needs to be put out to pasture with all the other useless old corporate whores. Robyn can keep him. Ewww. How the hell does she fuck him? God, I need a shower.”
    I think of poor Kemp. He looked like he was about explode a few times tonight. At one point, I actually saw Hale touch his arm to warn him down from blowing. I know he wanted to be protective, but it wouldn’t have done either of us any good. Catch-22. So, I used humor to deflect it and made a joke out of it, but seriously, does he think I’d throw it all away for a ride on his nasty old dick? What a moron.
    And the joke is, I was sitting between Kemp McCoy and Hale Lundström, two big handsome dark-haired, blue-eyed men who make women drool. And he really thought I was going to stroke his ego and his dick and lose all credibility with my boss and my client because of the title on his business card. Asshole.
    Getting up off the bed, I grab my purse from the desk and fish out the keycard to Bob’s bungalow. Ick. I’m getting the willies just touching it and spastically, as if it is singeing my hand, I toss it into my empty metal garbage pail. It lands with a ping.
    “Score,” I declare to no one and then laugh. “That’s the only score you’re getting tonight, mister.”
    Heading into the bathroom, I look at my eyes in the mirror and decide, I look really tired. It’s 12:30 A.M., but my body thinks it’s 2:30 A.M. Still feeling a little drunk and very hungry, I roam back out in search of the mini-bar and find it hidden in the armoire under the television. I always hate taking anything out of a mini-bar because the prices are so ridiculously inflated. But with no dinner in my belly and too much alcohol, I grab the large bottle of Fuji water and a package of chocolate covered blueberries, convincing myself they are significantly healthier than the Pringles, which I’m sure, like cockroaches, will survive the destruction of mankind.
    Fishing around in my suitcase, I find my white tank top, aka pajamas, and pull off the clothes that I have been in for way too many hours. There is no better feeling in the world than ditching a bra at the end of a long day. My sigh of relief is loud and long.
    Wandering back into the bathroom with my water, I check out the Natura products, opening the little shampoo bottle to take in the wild chamomile fragrance.
    Should I shower now or in the morning?
    Morning wins out as I peel my contact lenses from my very dry eyes and start to wash my face. The sound of the phone ringing literally makes me jump. It’s so loud,