The Drop Off Pt. 04

He stared around the room in silence. He doing a shitty job at the conference this week. Brooding, letting his partner do the heavy lifting. After each session the main hall filled with men and women buzzing from table to table, setting up meetings, discussing the posters. One day he recognized her from behind in tight black pants- that ass- her hair hanging down in brown waves. He saw her another day with coworkers in a ponytail and one of her short skirts, all legs but looking downcast.

What he searched for as he scanned the crowd each morning and afternoon was the sight of her with a man, holding hands, hugging, or just walking together and talking and laughing. The boyfriend. Henry was ready to see them together, he wanted to get it over with. What a screwed up situation. It wasn't his style to sleep with a woman behind another guy's back. She needed to get her shit together, the little liar. The gorgeous, sexy, unbelievably horny liar. He wasn't over her yet, not by a long shot.

On Thursday he was leaving lunch early, walking down the empty hall back to the elevators when she came around the corner and stopped short. She had earbuds in and she did not smile as she removed them and tucked them in her purse. She was wearing a grey pencil skirt and a soft looking black sweater that hugged her curves.

"How are you, Henry?" she asked him cautiously.

"Not great, Laura." He sighed and folded his arms across his chest.

"You have every right to be angry."

"That's what I am. I'm mad. I don't like being lied to. But I'll get over it." He needed to shut this thing down and start getting over her, not prolong his bad moods and obsessive thoughts about fucking her.

"Look, I broke up with him Tuesday night, things hadn't been going well. He didn't take care of me like you did, Henry," she pleaded.

"Like I did and he did and who knows how many other men, Laura. You don't have good boundaries. Nothing more is going to happen between us."

"That's not fair, Henry. Don't call me a slut. What we have is what I've been waiting for, I just didn't know it and the timing was all off."

"Waiting and cheating are not the same thing!" His voice rose.

"Henry, hear me out, I can explain." She took a step closer and put her hand on his arm. Her touch was tentative but it sent a thousand possibilities into his mind.

In his head he grabbed her hand off his arm and pushed her firmly against the wall, pinning her arms behind her back. Slut. Her word, not his. He could show her the consequences of her actions. He could unzip that grey skirt and let it fall to her ankles, press his leg between her thighs and pin her against the wall. Reach his hands under that soft sweater and the cups of her bra and grab her breasts. He longed to bite her hard on the neck, marking her as belonging to him with no ambiguity. Pinch her nipples and rub his leg against her panties and feel her come again, that delicious release of tension. He loved how she held nothing back.

He wanted to bend her at the waist with her hands on the wall, pull her panties down, dip his finger inside and rub her juices over her lips, getting her ready to accept him. He would tell her how bad she had been, how bad girls need to be punished. He would spank her and make her beg and plead for his cock and then he would fuck her so thoroughly.

"I've heard enough. God damn it, Laura." He pushed past her and entered the stairwell, running up all eight flights to take the edge off his anger and his hard on.

In the shower he jerked himself off furiously, picturing her in his bedroom waiting in her red dress. He would order her dress off, he would sit on the edge of the bed with Laura naked at his feet, her long legs folded under her and his dick halfway down her throat. He knew she would love that. Would moan as he held her hair and fucked her face in anger, would love lying with her face on a pillow and her ass in the air while he held her arms and slid into her from behind, bringing her from one climax to the next. Then he would press her down into the bed on her stomach and cover her slim beautiful back with his body, holding her hair and feeling the friction of her long legs close around him as he came inside her. She was so sexual, so exuberant. Henry groaned as he came.

He sat at the table that night at dinner, staring through the crowd of people and praying they would not be on the same flight home.

"Henry, how are you?" A man's voice next to him brought Henry back to the present. Mike, a former colleague from graduate school, had planted himself in the empty chair to Henry's right.

"Mike! I didn't see you there. Great to run into you. I heard you gave a paper, what was your topic?" Henry knew Mike would have a lot to say about his research.

He listened as Mike launched into a blow by blow account of his grant, his research, all the team members and every other conceivable detail. Henry nodded periodically while he scanned the crowd for Laura. Apparently he and Mike spotted her at the same time.

"Whoa, look at her, doesn't she work at your company?" Mike asked.

"Yes," Henry replied shortly.

"Legs, man. She's hot. Did you go to her session? It was packed."

"No, I've been recruiting." Henry tried to think of something or someone else to talk about.

"I heard she dumped her boyfriend, guy from Sacramento. He comes to the conference to see her and she dumps him on the first night. Brutal."

"Yeah," Henry agreed. Brutal. Laura was standing a little ways away, looking at her phone, alone.

"She looks kind of sad, doesn't she? I think I'll go introduce myself and give her a shoulder to cry on." Mike walked over to Laura and spoke to her. Henry saw her start a little and answer him absently. She glanced around and caught Henry's gaze. They locked eyes while Mike chattered about something. Henry frowned and looked away, he didn't like seeing her with Mike. When he looked back they were walking to the bar together.

It's none of my business, he thought to himself. She's not mine, she can take care of herself. Still, he worried. He finished his dinner and stood intending to head back to his room but found himself walking through the bar instead. He didn't see them so he wandered out onto the patio outside the bar. Hearing low voices, he continued into the dark grounds of a golf course which hugged one side of the conference center. The grass was wet and he kept in the shadows, looking around for Laura and Mike.

Coming through a grove of pine trees he heard the sounds again, but it was just one voice this time. Several yards away Mike was moaning and murmuring as he sawed in and out of Laura. She was bent over a bench with her skirt bunched around her waist and her panties around her knees. She looked up as Henry came into view, their gaze meeting for a moment before he stepped back into the shadows. Mike was having a great time, his eyes closed and his hands locked on her hips, telling her how hot and wet she was. Her face was blank and her body smoothly accepted his entry. Henry saw no pleasure in her eyes, just a mix of boredom and melancholy. Mike finished quickly and rolled the condom off his dick, flinging it out into the golf course. He told Laura again how hot she was, whipped out a business card to hand her and said he had to run but he'd see her later.

Laura fixed her skirt and her underwear and moved to sit on the bench. She watched Henry step from the shadows to come and sit beside her. Neither spoke for a few minutes.

"What the fuck was that, Laura?"

She sighed and shook her head.

"I have needs, Henry. I have a... a strong sex drive. I just need an outlet sometimes."

"And did that satisfy you?"

"No," she whispered.

"Laura, I just have to say, you are worth so much more than that. Your body deserves to be safe and treated with love and respect."

"You don't want me so why do you care, Henry?" she demanded.

"Laura, I want you. I want you so much." He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. "But the way you are acting is so fucked up, and I want the woman I am with to be honest, to have some concept of loyalty and fidelity."

"Honest, loyal and true? Like a boy scout?" she asked suppressing a smile.

"Something like that," he answered. "Self discipline and the ability to communicate would be nice. Laura, I respect people's choices but my choice for myself is I don't share. I'm not going to share. It can't be a flexible arrangement. You would be mine." His mind fogged with desire to possess her. She started to turn toward him and he quickly stood to make space between them. "I have to think this through more, Laura. I'll see you back in the office."