Banal Desires- Part One

Stuart was irritated.

The fire of desire had burned away, leaving behind only the charred ashes of banal feelings.  In the mirror opposite, he saw his own face bloated and magnified to obscure dimensions.  The scent of passion, slightly burnt, lingered in the space between him and the rest of the world.  Somebody shouted "faggot" outside.  The rain caught the sound and moulded it into its own creation.

The room was filled with girls.  To Stuart, they were the ones he had fucked and the ones he had not fucked.  Most, he reflected with a sense of satisfaction, he had fucked.  He remembered lips there, an arse there, breasts somewhere else.  Every face had a memory to share.  With some he associated the feel of a studded condom, or the scent of latex connecting the hours like streamers across a ceiling.  With others, the memory of more elevated pleasures, such as medicated lubricant.  

One of the girls caught his eye and raised her eyebrows.  Yes.  He did remember that one.  He remembered all his customers- that was just the way he was.  Gwen.  Gwen Rekker.  NY.  He mouthed her name back to her, and was rewarded with an approving, albeit provocative, smile.  She glanced around her, and then indicated a closed door with her head.  He declined smoothly, with an infinitesimal shake of his head.  Today he needed someone who did not- could not- remember his smell and his taste and his feel.  Today he needed a stranger.

He saw her almost immediately, though her face blended into the curtains behind her.  Dark eyes, dark hair, dark everything... he had a preference for brunettes.  Blondes often translated their hair colour into everything they did.  She was almost five rows back in the queue, and he heard the angry shouts behind him as he pushed throught the crowd to her side.  She was clearly new, but she lacked the nervous, slightly exhilarated air of breaking the rules.  Perhaps she had been to other places, seen other men.  Regardless, she looked oddly as if their roles were reversed.  

There was no greeting.  No customary hello, thank you for for my business, thank you for my life.  He simply stared at her as she stared back.  There seemed to be some unspoken vow of silence, and he was grateful for it.  He was aware of the magnitude of female eyes on his back, and yet it seemed that only this pair of eyes mattered, that the rest would fade into grey oblivion should he allow them to... 

He turned his head, bid her forward.  She stepped into the half-light of dusk and in that moment he saw   , traced across her face, the reason she was here.  Pain.  Droplets of it.  They inched into the crevices of her persona, lurking in places he least expected them to be.  He wished they would go away.  He showed her into the room: an expensive bed; an equally expensive shower to drown away the memories of the illegitimate night afterwards.  It was a bittersweet room.  He threw her an apprasing look; he did not know what to expect, but she was already setting her bag down on the table and drawing off her travelling coat.  

"It's cold," she said. 

He did not reply.  He understood what she was implying, and he knew he should respond in kind.  But suddenly every nerve in his body seemed to be screaming for release, and he knew what to do.  He reached forward and touched her arm, on the fabric.  "Come," he said.