The sleeping girl was a husk of the high-spirited mademoiselle whom Desmond had drunkenly courted – and paid for – the previous night. The thick layer of cosmetics that had given her face a façade of sensual maturity had faded with rivulets of sweat to reveal the plain visage of a young woman. And yet, as Desmond began to curse himself over his lascivious behavior, his eyes slowly and irrepressibly slipped over the girl’s naked shoulders, then descended to her small, round, firm breasts, and, finally, to the nubile curves of her hips and legs beneath the bed sheet. Suddenly, even in the intense throes of a hung-over stupor, an overpowering urge came over him.

His mind suddenly awash and his cock fully hard, Desmond flung the bundled sheet from her and flipped her over with an energy not his own, awaking her in the process, then pushed himself inside her to a moan of surprise and pleasure.

He was done quickly.

After he came, he was immediately overcome by the same intense exhaustion that his lustful haze had dispelled only a few moments before. Mentally and physical drained, he lingered inside her for a moment, hunched over her back, before removing himself and collapsing at her side.

The girl put her arm over his chest and began to massage him in delicate circles. It was a welcome gesture, but an empty one. At that moment, with the memories of the previous twenty-four hours boring into him, he just wanted to sleep. He just wanted to forget.

Before his consciousness mercifully fell away, he again cursed himself. Like drinking the diluted liquid that melts from the leftover ice cubes in an all but empty glass of aged whiskey, he had just imbibed a spent lady-of-pleasure in a vain desire to find a sense of fulfillment that he knew was not – and could never be – present.

He damned himself. But, even as he did, a greater terror over his current condition gripped him. Though he had everything he could possibly desire: friends, money, and the freedom to leverage both to the fullest, he knew that a great void remained and that his activities over the past few weeks were nothing more than vain efforts at self-deception. He was not enjoying himself. He was making a fool of himself. He was not absorbing a new culture. He was choking on his own bravado. He was not happy. He was desperate.

Like a bubble of truth buried deep beneath a ocean of conceit, what he had known all along finally floated to the forefront of his mind: What he had sought in Sao Paolo was simply not there – it could never be. He had already found long ago that which he needed so gravely – and it was locked away in someone else’s heart.

What he needed could be found nowhere else.

Rachel… he breathed to himself as the waking world faded away.

I love you.

© 2016 P. D. Nym