Most men, of course, walk like they think they should be the most interesting man in the room. They think it's owed them. But they doubt it a little bit in the back of their mind.
This insufferable man had no doubts. When he took his seat on the other side of Rob, he saw me glaring at him.
He smiled. Winked a beautiful eye, which had a dark, entrancing look to it. Then the show began in earnest and I thought I'd be relieved of his attentions for at least a while.
No such luck. He put one of his long arms behind Rob and tried to graze my shoulder with his fingers. He could barely reach me, so I swatted the fingers like I thought it was just a fly.
My swat made him jump and smack into his brother, who elbowed him in the ribs like they were children.
In a few more minutes, Rob must've had a call or needed to use the restroom, because he stood up and left as unobtrusively as he could, though the show was in full swing.
Joey took the opportunity to scoot into the seat next to me. I kept my gaze firmly on the stage below and put on my opera glasses so I could ignore him more effectively.
I felt the warm brush of breath on my ear. I wanted to jump, to scream and slap him, but I didn't want him to think I cared.
So I sat still while the animal breathed me in. I felt a thrill in the center of my stomach. It had been such a long time since a man had been so bold.
Was it that which drew me to him? The boldness? That he could look past my crystalline, anxiously perfected form and see another animal to sniff and devour?
Perhaps we were only drawn together by convenience. I'm not sure anymore, thinking about him sniveling in my kitchen.
But at the opera, he was not sniveling. He was breathing, sniffing up my scent, finally saying, low into my ear like a dangerous purr, “You wear too much perfume. I can't tell what you really smell like.”
“That's the point,” I said low. I hated talking during performances. It's so disrespectful to the performers and their craft.
His arm settled on the back of my chair and grabbed my shoulder on the other side of me. “Tell me, do you smell like the salty scent of armpits when you wake up? I doubt it.” His other hand, on the side of my that was closest to him, trailed its fingers up and down the thin fabric pooling on my thigh. “I bet you smell like sex, even when you wake up alone. Like sweat and warmth and the place those mile-high legs go.”
His fingers squeezed my thigh. My breathing deepened. His responded in kind.
He was warm. He did not smell like cologne. He smelled like sweat and warmth and that masculine musk that men produce to drive us wild.
I felt mad. I wanted to turn to him, to inhale that breath which so sweetly grazed my cheek. He held me like he owned me, like he wanted to take every inch of me and make it his own.
I'd known him all of twenty minutes. Such presumption. So scrumptious.
So different than meeting Hilde Klunt, a few months hence. The reason I told him goodbye for good.