Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
She walked towards me. Slowly, purposefully, wending her way through the glittering crowd. Pausing to smile, exchange a greeting here, a laugh there. She never looks directly at me, but I feel her inexorably closing in. I have a sharp moment of feeling hunted. My mouth turns bitter with fear and excitement. Halfway across the room she looks up and I hold her gaze, part curiosity, part challenge. She seems surprised, but in one brief flash I am sized, summed up, strategized about, and decided upon. Her slow deliberate path to me now, even more, seems an execution of a script I hadn’t read – but that she had been rehearsing for some time.
In the long minutes that pass until she, almost by accident, arrives by my side – I have time to watch her. To lose myself in red lips, bare shoulders and muscled thighs slipping in and out of green silk. She isn’t conventionally attractive, but something about her commands attention. What does she want of me? The target on my chest is oddly disconcerting. I resist the urge to flee. The sensation of being stalked exquisitely self-torturing. A little bit of anticipation goes a long way.
She is upon me. Inserting herself seamlessly into our conversation, she nails me with an outstretched hand and a crisp introduction. Her palms are soft. She holds my hand for a moment too long before wrapping those long fingers around a glass from the bar. She squares up and I feel like an audience before the curtain goes up at the ballet. Not sure if I’m already bored, or hoping this will truly be a Swan Lake like no other. Part of me laments she’s not a Russian ballerina – how exotic. My thoughts are derailed as she begins her well disguised pitch. A pitch for my money it seems. Chequebook trumps ego and neither are impressed. I toy briefly with letting her down fast. But I am starting to enjoy the dance. And so I too play – nicely.
We cover the usual topics, she flirts, I respond. I see the moment she relaxes, the almost imperceptible dropping of the shoulders, the first real sip of her champagne. Her confidence ratchets up a notch and she leans in closer. You’re very funny, she says. I know I am. But in that pat repartee I hear a faint gloating. Her work is done, another moth to the flame. No need to push to close this sale for I’m already packaged up. Bad move my little hunter.
I stay as I am, head to one side, taking her in. I push back a little, questioning a casual comment and I see her reassess. Her momentary panic is pungent. I breathe it in. She recovers well. I smile – all teeth and twinkling eyes. Oh what lovely teeth you have. I am momentarily heady at her hurried recalculations, tasting her fear. I reach out to reassure her. She relaxes again. I run my finger slowly along her exposed collarbone. She closes her eyes briefly and I see flashes of the evening to come. Hold off on tying the ribbon sweetheart – I’m not that easy a prey. But you, …… you just might be.