When Stars Intertwine

Chapter 16

The room had a mingled smell of whiskey and cigarettes. The music was loud, laughter and chatter echoing the room. Harry sat on a four sitter floral victorian mahogany couch. Next to him, a girl called Juliet that Nicholas had introduced to him. Nicholas sat on the same couch with a woman by his side, and Michael the party host sat on a similar couch between two women facing Harry and Nicholas.

Michael looked like he was about to pop out of his clothes, he was a fat wealthy man with a scandalous, unconventional marriage to a prostitute. She let him have mistresses freely and every once in a while he let her have a different man of her choice.

"See what you've been missing Harry?" Michael smirked in the direction of women giggling across the room.

Harry smiled at Juliet instead, assuring her that his attention was only hers not the other women in the room. A polite, respective gesture he always used on women. He knew how to woo women and make them feel special even if he only wanted them for a night. A chivalrous trait that made him irresistible to women.

"Of course I can," he said looking at Juliet intently.

She blushed and looked down shyly.

"I'm glad you changed your mind and came, I was beginning to worry," Michael grinned.

Harry had been invited to the party a week earlier but declined like he had many other invitations. His encounter with Anna the night before gave him a last minute change of heart. He had decided to go to the party and make sure his obsession with her wasn't just an infatuation. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her, in fact he hoped that, that night at Michael's party would change everything and bring him back to his senses, senses that would make him leave Anna alone.

He had closed out the world since she came in his life, he needed to open doors to it and make sure he was in his right mind. So far, he felt like the night wasn't working. He couldn't stop thinking about Anna. Every woman he looked at seemed to have a feature that reminded him of her, obviously his mind was playing tricks on him. He wondered if she was feeling better now after her bad hungover. He took a big sip of whiskey and frowned a little.

"Now why would you worry?" Harry asked with a lopsided smile.

"I thought perhaps you got yourself trapped by a woman like my ex wife who thinks a man's manhood is meant for one woman," he sneered ands continued "my apologies ladies," he said to the seemingly embarrassed women sitting beside him.

"She maybe right," Nick said absently.

"How?" Michael asked.

"It may not be meant for one woman in the beginning. But I like to hope that it does at some point in life when you find the right woman."

"Are you saying that Crystal is not the right woman for me?" Michael asked referring to his prostitute wife who he claimed to love so much even though he was sitting with other women while she flirted with other men.

"Well if it doesn't make you feel in the least guilty about freely sleeping with other women while you're with her then...." Nick trailed off and shrugged with a frown.

"What would you know Nicholas Andrews? This is your fourth woman in two weeks."

"Thats what you think....and besides I'm not the married one here....look I know the notion of monogamy doesn't apply to you Michael...."

"And that's okay," Harry interrupted knowing that, that conversation was going to lead to an unpleasant night.

"Monogamy?" Michael scoffed, "Look at all these married men here without their wives" Michael said waving his hand around the room full of married men with their mistresses or flirting with single women present.