“Oooh, I’m a big girl, I’ve been around the world and done a lot of things, I can tell. I can tell by the way you kiss me that you’re hungry. Hungry, for me, I can tell!” Darcie was breathless.

I hadn’t gone down three flights of stairs before she caught up with me earlier that evening as I left her group’s office. The meeting had gone fairly well, and I was almost looking forward to the descent down the twenty flights.

“Will you make it for me?” She had asked, batting her eyelashes.

“I can’t say yet.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Standing on the top stairs, she almost towered over me.

“What difference does it make?” I asked, descending the stairs to the landing. There was a bachelor’s button in a vase, the purple buttons in full bloom. Through the glass, I could see the traffic beginning to give, albeit slowly.

Tek, tek, tek, slowly, she descended the stairs behind me and stopped on the landing, masking my senses in her vanilla scent.

“Obi,” she purred in the small of my neck.

“Mmmh, what difference does it make?” I asked, turning around to face her.

“I want it,” she replied, her almond eyes glistening.

“What do you want, my lady? The Dungeon Portfolio?” I asked, feigning confusion.

“I want that too!” She replied, stepping closer. Surely, she longed for something, and a business kink house couldn’t wet the eyes with desire.

“I have to go, Darce. I have a long descent, and dusk is almost here,” I said, stepping down the next flight.

“Oh, about that, the building's backup power is up, you can use the elevator,” she said, straightening the hem of her cloth.

Then she called as I stepped off into the lobby.

“Let’s meet and talk more about the deal over dinner. Maybe our group might sweeten it,” she had said.

I knew the pestering wouldn’t stop, yet I was adamant to play the stubborn stud. Words and wind, words and wind! And besides, my dear reader, I believe by now we’re far gone, too deep for straws of courtesy that’d scatter in the wind.

I am a cultivated man, and I’ve thought about this. As slave to my primal instincts, I’d play the distant lover, yet surely my ache burned white each moment for her.

The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man. But a man always talks of his own aches.

“Listen, I’ll call you once I get to my hotel. Traffic is a mess right now,” I replied and hung up.

I decided to take a motorbike back to the hotel and got back just in time as a helicopter took off from the helipad.

“Good evening, Mr. Obi. Your bath is ready, just as you like it, and we’ve asked the chef to prepare your favorite dish. You pick, and it’ll be brought up,” the manager said as I walked through the thick wooden double doors into the lobby.

“Thank you, Tsalame. And I’d like a bottle of a 12-year-old Weller, brought up. If possible, let it get there before the food,” I smiled as he bowed to the closing lift door.

Ever since my engagement by the hotel group, other staff who worked on mainstream activities didn’t know what to make of me. And I just let them stew in their quagmire.

Though I hadn’t asked for my favorite meal to be prepared, it still felt nice to have the thoughtful staff look out for me, I thought as I took out my key card, but stopped short when I saw the door open a crack.

Stepping in, there she was standing in the middle of the room. Three long strides and she was breathless.

“You see, you’ve been longing for me too,” she said, stepping back and looking at my fly, wide-eyed in the dim light.