Allure of the Vixen (5 page)

“How do you decide? What days to dress like that?”

She finished with her stockings and put on her bra,
then took her purse into the bathroom. She left the door open, and I watched as
she started to apply some makeup. Without looking at me she said, “I wore that
outfit  today because I knew I was going to see you.”

“I’m flattered.”

She gave me a quick glance, her hand poised over her
face, holding her lipstick. “Some days I don’t wear any underwear at all.”

Making me feel good, then putting me in my place, or
at least, making clear where I stood. Or didn’t.

“For someone else?” I couldn’t help but asking.
Normally I wouldn’t really care if a woman was fucking someone else. Not at the
beginning. Later, yes. I didn’t like to share. I hadn’t been in a situation
where I wouldn’t win, where the woman wouldn’t abandon whoever else she had
been with.

Joanne moved on to another part of her makeup
routine. “Sometimes for you. If I know I might see you in the office. That time
at the party, I was so wet after just talking to you, my panties were soaked.
It’s pretty uncomfortable, you know, walking around in wet panties. Another
thing guys don’t have to deal with.”

I noticed that she had deftly avoided answering me
directly, again deflecting my question about other lovers by saying she dressed
up—or didn’t—just for me. It was none of my business anyway. She hadn’t asked a
word about other women in my life.

“I like your hair up like that,” I said. I could
pretend I didn’t care, just as she could.

“I didn’t want you to mess it up,” she replied. “I
can’t be going back to the office with just fucked hair, could I? That’s why I
didn’t wear much makeup this morning.” She snapped her purse shut. “And I’m not
putting much on now, just fixing what you smeared. Otherwise someone will
notice.”

“Someone would notice that? Just having a little
more makeup on?”

Joanne came out of the bathroom and stood next to
the bed. “Only the women. You’d be amazed at what women notice.” She bent over
and gave me a light kiss on the cheek. “I noticed you staring at Julie.”

Julie was one of the other women in the office. She
was beautiful, not in the exotic way that Joanne was, but more of the Midwest
blonde girl, but one who had grown up, piercing blue eyes, incredibly long
legs, outgoing and friendly. And very married.

“You’re just guessing that,” I said. “She’s
obviously good looking, most of the guys must check her out. So you don’t get
any credit for guessing I look at her. If you had picked someone less obvious,
someone not so beautiful, I’d be more impressed.”

“So Julie is beautiful?” Joanne gave me a fake pout.
“Then what am I?”

I swung up to sit on the bed facing her. “It’s
beneath you to fish for a compliment,” I said, handing Joanne her blouse.

“Put it on me,” she said.

I stood up and did as she asked, slipping my arms
around her, our faces almost touching, her scent now familiar, yet now
different, mixed with the musk of our lovemaking.

“Don’t mess up my makeup,” she warned.

“You have more,” I muttered, wanting her again.

“But I don’t have any more time. Some of us are on
the clock, remember? Now button me up.”

Reluctantly I worked the buttons, but slowly,
pausing twice to pretend I had to reposition her breasts, my fingers slipping
over her nipples.

“If you keep doing that, I won’t be able to control
myself.”

“That was the point. Or at least getting you to
admit it.”

“You
are
a bastard.” She pulled away and
quickly slipped into her skirt.

“So much a bastard you won’t be back?”

Joanne’s green eyes burst on me. “Do you want me
back?”

“You know I do.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“I want you back.”

Joanne held my eyes for a moment, as if deciding
whether to believe me. Then she slipped into her heels and brought her lips to
my ear. “You don’t even know me,” she whispered.

I took her shoulders and held her so I could see her
eyes, I didn’t know if I could trust anything she said, I wasn’t even sure I
could trust her eyes, not because I thought she was a liar, but because of the
way she affected me, making me lose all sense of reason and rationality. “I’ll
learn,” I said.

“What if you don’t like what you find out?”

“I could say the same thing.”

She shook her head and pulled away. “It’s not the
same thing.”

I didn’t know what she meant, but sensed she wasn’t
going to explain, not now. I followed her to the door.

She gave me another quick kiss, this time on the
lips, just a hint, a promise. She turned to go, but stopped and looked back at
me in the doorway. “I won’t fall in love with you, ever.”

I don’t know why that hit me so hard. “As you said,
we barely knew each other, who can predict something like that?”

“It’s not that.”

“So how will you know what you might do?”

“It’s not that I might not want to, or wouldn’t, in
some other life. But I simply can’t.”

And she turned and walked down the hall to the
elevator,  her stride purposeful and elegant as it always was, but the cadence
of her clicking heels giving off the barest hint of uncertainty.

Or maybe that’s what I wanted to hear.

I was away all the following week,
traveling for business, my days filled with meetings, the evenings with working
dinners, the hours crammed full. I struggled to focus, my mind on Joanne, her
eyes, her body, her words. An enigma wrapped around the body of a goddess.

The first night away I wanted to hear her voice, but
I didn’t even have her phone number. How crazy that was, she had been to my
apartment, I had kissed her, seen her naked, fucked her, but I had no way to
talk to her.

I considered calling her at the office, but she
worked in a group, anyone might pick up the phone. As Joanne had said, women
noticed everything, and I know that if someone saw my cell phone on the caller
ID they’d jump to conclusions, in this case the correct one.

After the third day I couldn’t take it anymore, I
snuck out of a meeting in the middle of the day and called her from the hotel
phone. If I couldn’t have her today I could at least talk to her, a poor
substitute for an afternoon delight. Someone else answered and I hung up,
fearing they’d recognize my voice if I even mumbled something about a wrong
number.

I tried again later that day, and this time it
rolled over to her voicemail. “Call me,” I said, and hung up.

I normally turned my phone off in business meetings,
but now I kept it on, glancing at it every time it vibrated with a message.
Nothing from Joanne. I felt like a foolish teenager, with a crush on the class
beauty queen who had for reasons of her own picked me out of the horde of boys
who would have kissed her feet.

By the third day I was pretty angry; if Joanne
wanted to contact me she could find my cell in the company executive directory.
She must have known I didn’t have her number, it wouldn’t be listed there. She
didn’t seem like the old fashioned type, to wait for a man to call.

Or maybe she just didn’t care.

That didn’t seem right, with all her talk about fantasizing
about me, getting wet, thinking about what to wear when she saw me.

Maybe this was another tease.

Fuck her.

After a late work dinner and the obligatory drinks I
went back to the hotel. Normally at this hour and after having had a few I’d
head back to my room and call it a night, but instead I turned to the bar.

The hotel was a good one, catering to business
people during the week. The bar was refined, designed for mingling.  The crowd
was what you’d normally see midweek, a mix of groups with men and women, people
probably from the same company, having a few before packing it in. A lot of
guys by themselves, mostly at the bar, probably salesmen, in town for one
night, a lonely ritual, some looking to hook up, but knowing the odds were
against them, because most of the women were with their colleagues, and even if
some of them were interested they wouldn’t break off from their group to go
chat up a stranger.

I avoided the bar and took a seat in a booth not too
far from the entrance. The waitress, a too perky girl who introduced herself as
Melissa, who looked like she wasn’t old enough to drink herself, but had to be,
took my order for a cognac.

I didn’t know why it bothered me so much that I
hadn’t heard from Joanne, I’d only been with her that one time. It wouldn’t be
the first time, and I suspected not the last, when I wouldn’t have any contact
with a woman I had slept with.

Certainly if Joanne didn’t want to phone me from the
office she could call, or even text, from home.

Miss Perky came back with my drink, doing a little
ass wiggle, maybe trying to get a bigger tip, not realizing it that to someone
older than thirty it only made her look like a bad actress playing a street
hooker. Maybe it worked on the salesmen, but not me.

“I need to go work the private room bar,” she said,
as if that was something I’d be impressed by. “If you want anything else, Pam
will be by in a bit.”

I thanked her and slipped her a five, I couldn’t
blame her for trying. The men at the bar ogled her as she walked out of the
room. She did have a nice ass, but it was the ass of youth, if she didn’t keep
up with it she’d turn to flab. Totally unlike Joanne, who was still haunting
me, damn her, as I tried to drink her out of my mind.

The bar started to thin out, it was getting late,
one by one the tables cleared. I was staring at my amber liqueur when I felt a
presence at the table.

“You seem like you are nursing that one, but if you
want another, you might want to order now, table service ends in a little
while.”

I looked up to see a different waitress, this one
blonde, probably not a real one, but without that extra fake bleach look, maybe
just a highlighted light brown. She had a nicely squared off face, something I
always liked, and full lips. She looked to be about my age, maybe a few years
older, just the hint of a few wrinkles around her eyes, not detracting from her
beauty at all, just making her look more like a real woman.

“You’re Pam,” I said.

“I don’t remember you,” she said. “And I certainly would
have.”

It was a nice line, well delivered. Much better than
the ass wiggle of the other waitress. “How quickly they forget.”

“I don’t,” she said, comfortable in the double talk.
She had a Southern accent, which always sounded a little flirtatious to me, and
so I didn’t know if I was imagining things or if this was her usual spiel,
making the solitary men feel good, her version of an ass wiggle.

“Neither do I,” I said.

Pam must have picked up on something in my voice.
“About someone you know, or someone you want to know?”

She was better than a therapist, very good at
reading people. “Both.”

“I’ll bring you another drink. After that you can
decide which one you want to remember.”

She walked away, and now she had peaked my interest,
 this time my eyes were on her, she had fine legs, and walked with a comfort in
heels that were stupid to work in, but just right to show off her assets.

I didn’t think she was offering herself up, I’d been
in a lot of bars and that was pretty rare from the help, it tended to get them in
trouble with their bosses. As a matter of fact, I’d never picked anyone up in this
type of bar, in a hotel, the ratio usually wasn’t good, and whenever an
attractive woman was there, a dozen guys were hitting on her, which is why most
women probably avoided showing up. There were easier ways to find someone, why
bother with all that?

I watched Pam as she served her other customers,
pausing now and then to take part in a little banter, maybe fend off some
advances, maybe do a little flirting. From the laughter she endeared and the
looks she got, I bet her tips were a lot better than Miss Perky, who might have
the body of a twenty one year old, but still had a lot to learn about men.

The biggest difference between them? The men would
lust after the younger girl, fantasizing about what she looked like naked, but
knowing they had no chance with her. Pam, on the other hand, beautiful in a
totally different way—
her
they could imagine themselves getting lucky
with.

At one point as Pam walked away from a table of
especially hormonal men, she glanced over at me and kind of rolled her eyes, a
little communication across the room,
Can you believe these guys thinking
that would work on me?

I laughed in spite of myself, still not enough to
pull me out of my funk, but I was somewhat amused.

When Pam came back I sat up a little taller, not
even thinking about it, just the subconscious male reaction to the attractive
female. The colored lights around the room reflected in her eyes.

“You’re a slow drinker,” she said.

“I had a few before, I’m not trying to get a fuzz.”

“You look like you want to.”

“You do this with everyone? Psychoanalyze?” I tried
not to sound harsh.

Pam laughed it off. “Don’t need to be a doctor to
pick up on your mood.”

 She bent over the table to wipe off a nonexistent
wet spot, her hair a whisper against my face. In almost every way she couldn’t
have been more unlike Joanne, she was approachable where Joanne was aloof, she
was open where Joanne was cryptic, she was immediate where Joanne was distant.

Yet they were both beautiful in their own way.

Suddenly I wanted her, because she was everything
Joanne was not, because I couldn’t have Joanne right now, because if I had suddenly
found some woman like Joanne I knew that woman would pale compared to Joanne.

But I didn’t want to play games, I just wanted to
cut to the chase. Find out if she was teasing, or if I had been imagining
things.