Brutally Beautiful(36)

Some of the women agreed, some didn’t. I just shrugged and sighed, “For me, I’ve learned the hard way that I can’t ever expect a man to make me feel that way. I have to make myself feel that way. I want to be the one person who could inspire, arouse, and affect me. Because, let’s be honest, no one is going to be with me longer than me.”

The way those women reacted to what I said, I thought I was going to be carried out of that bathroom on their shoulders with them chanting my name. I had never been more proud of my ovaries and uterus for all of womankind.

Morgan and I walked back to our table laughing with our arms hooked like teenage best friends. Fran was still on his soapbox, while a slanted Jeremy hovered over a dark amber drink, smiling at the table, and nodding his head. Fran stopped mid-rant and smiled at me, “There you are. I ordered a red wine for you. I hope that’s okay.”

Smiling at him, I nodded and sat in the seat next to him. The four of us ordered dinner together and our dinner discussions went from one extreme to another, never touching on anything personal. Throughout the dinner, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was separated off from the three of them, even though we all shared in the conversations. They seemed so far removed from my life and my experiences that I felt as if I were from another universe. Of course, my mind wandered to Kade and that kiss. What made it so earthshattering? Was it my attraction to him? Was it because he was mean and degrading, and I wanted to prove to him what and who I really was? I always did have a big issue with people who underestimated me. I loved to prove them wrong. Then I wondered what was it that made Kade so damaged. Was he just as damaged as me?

After dinner, Fran, as promised, took me to the best bookstore I’d ever been to. Well Red was a bookstore/wine house, where you could buy books, sit and read them over a glass of wine; a little spin on the bookstore/coffee houses of the city. We sat there for two hours, sipping a glass of red wine and read. I left with a stack of new books, and he left with a smug, proud smile on his face. Nevertheless, I let him keep it there, since the bookstore was perfect and I guess I was thawing a little towards him.





Chapter 6





Kicking my foot through the pile of clothes on the floor, I watched them fly up until I spotted my pants and pulled them on. The rest of the material belonged to the naked woman sleeping on my bed, the one that still had my reddened handprints on her ass. I’d already let her sleep fifteen minutes past the time I would let anyone stay in this room (incidentally, that’s usually fifteen minutes), and that’s only because I left her to search my house for the strongest whiskey I had. A fifth of the bottle was gone already. Do you know how many shots are in a fifth of whiskey? About twenty-drunken-five shots, so I should have been out cold.

I kicked my foot against the bed, the mattress moved about half a foot off my box springs, and I took another swig. “It’s time to go, um…” I’d completely forgotten her name. “Hello, love?”

The body stirred quietly on the bed and the woman’s eyes peeked out from under the covering of my sheets. I scooped up the clothes that belonged to her and dropped them right in front of her face. “I’ve got work to do, so you have to shove off now.”

She sat up, and the sheets fell away revealing a pair of large breasts that I didn’t even bother to look at, let alone touch, thirty minutes ago. I tossed her purse onto the bed and leaned against the far wall where I’d already opened the door for her highly anticipated (only by me it seemed) departure. Resting my body against the frame of the door, I gestured my hands for her to move along and hurry.