Gray eyes meet gray eyes, the only flaw in them being the almost glowing blue spot in the irises that look like they might just be a speck of glitter. He stares at himself in the mirror, thinking about everything. Everything that he has in his life, and how meaningless it all is. He lives the life that everyone wants, the life that every bachelor dreams of.
He looks himself over in the mirror, seeing every flawless inch of himself. From the waist down, he's wearing silk pajamas that look like he stole them from David Hasselhoff. Above the waist, he sports the chiseled six-pack and pectoral muscles that every man wishes for. He looks like a marble statue, but with a tan. On his right shoulder, he has a tattoo depicting a blue serpent with a black rose in its fangs. His short, black hair is neatly combed back, making him look like he was in the process of getting ready for a date, though the sleeping woman in his bed would say that the date was already over, and it had, apparently, gone well.
If only he could remember her name, then he could wake her up with a kiss and thank her for the lovely evening, even though he didn't really remember much about it through the alcohol-induced haze.
Unfortunately, he didn't usually remember their names the next morning. The names of the women he would bring back to his room for a night, show them a night of passion they'd never forget, make them crave more of him for the rest of their lives, then forget even their names come morning. He would kiss them, thank them for the lovely evening, then send them on their way with the empty promise that he would call them.
No one could resist his charms, even if they knew the stories. As soon as he laid eyes on them in a bar or on the streets, they were goners. Whether they were single or married. Even the wife most closely devoted to her husband couldn't help but fall under his spell if he took an interest in her. With just a look and a smile, any woman would become his next conquest.
He could turn any woman he wanted into the next of his empty, meaningless hookups. It just came naturally to him. When he was a bit younger, in his mid to late teens, the prospect that he could literally have any woman he wanted thrilled him to no end. He spent every night with a different woman from the time he was sixteen and for the next four years. After four years, however, something strange happened.
It grew old. He had always seen it as a challenge of sorts. But one day, he just started seeing it differently. Seemingly overnight, he had gone from thinking "Women can't refuse me!" to "Women can't refuse me..." It had stopped being a challenge to him, and now he realized he craved more.
So, he had started trying to get to know the women before he took them to bed, trying to make a connection with them. Even so, without fail, he forgot anything he learned about them come the next morning.
The first time he noticed this was shortly after he turned twenty, right after he decided to try getting to know them. He had taken a beautiful woman out to the best restaurant in Luxuria, and he remembered truly enjoying his time with her. They talked all night, and he believed they'd had a lot in common, and that by the end of the date, he was truly wanting to see her again.
Then, the next morning, he woke with her in his bed, and couldn't remember anything about her. He could remember taking her to dinner, and talking, and laughing with her, but it was as if he was watching a silent film. He couldn't hear a single word she'd said the previous night, even her name.
He tried again the next night, this time taking her on a moonlit walk through the palace grounds. Again, they talked and laughed all night, and he somehow managed to not let her find out that he couldn't remember the previous night. Then morning came, and again he found himself unable to remember a word she said the day before.
He convinced himself that it was her, that she was some kind of memory-wiper, that she was erasing his memories while he slept. It wasn't logical, of course, and he couldn't figure out why she would do that, but he confronted her about it nonetheless. She slapped him and ran out with tears in her eyes, yelling that he shouldn't make up those lies if he just wanted casual sex.
He told himself that she was just covering for herself. So, he tried again. He took a beautiful woman to dinner, and they talked and laughed all night. He really listened to her, making sure to commit every word, every detail to memory. Up until they went to bed together that night, he could have quoted every word the both of them said to each other perfectly. But then, the next morning, it was all gone all over again. And he couldn't lie to himself after that. It was him. It was, and still is, his problem.
Which is why he couldn't remember this woman's name. This woman who, only a few short hours ago, was writhing under him in the throes of passion undeniable, unforgettable. This woman whose name he had been thinking constantly the whole time he was fucking her, begging himself to not forget it. Forget it, he did, however.
He sighed, and resigned himself to another morning of dealing with a woman's tears as he explained to her that she was just a casual hookup, just someone he wanted to lay with for a night, then discard. It was just easier for them if they thought he was just a pig-headed prince only interested in casual one-night-stands.
The one woman he'd actually told the truth to had gone crazy trying to help him remember her. She'd tried everything, even writing notes for him to read the next morning. But nothing ever worked. The notes he read the next morning felt empty. Even though he was reading everything she'd already told him about herself, none of it really rang any bells for him, and he couldn't spend the rest of his life reading an ever-growing encyclopedia of eveything he learned about this woman every morning.
The fact that nothing she ever did to help him remember her worked ended up driving her insane, and she killed herself from the heartbreak. Because he couldn't remember her, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't feel any heartbreak himself over losing her, though it did hurt tremendously that he was the one that had brought her to ending her own life.
And so, he resigned himself to his fate. He never told another woman the truth about himself, that he couldn't remember her. Instead, he stayed away from women, for the most part. He only brought one back to his bed when his urges became unbearable, and the next morning, he told his rehearsed lie to her, endured the slap he knew always came, and watched her leave in tears.
This woman was no different.
He sighed as he ran his hand through his hair and resigned himself to another morning. He turned away from the mirror and walked back to his bed, sitting on the edge, and gently rubbed her shoulder to wake her up.
The woman hummed and smiled as she stirred, and looked up at him with green eyes, brushing red hair out of her face. "Good morning, Prince Asamor." She hummed, her smile betraying her thoughts. She couldn't believe that Prince Asamor himself had shared his bed with her after such an amazing night. More than that, she couldn't wait to see what he had planned for their next date. It was quite obvious that she, like all the others, was planning their future in which she married him, became his princess, bore his children, and lived in nobility for eternity.
"Good morning." Asamor smiled back, pushing his sadness down as he adopted his cocky bachelor's persona. He kissed her softly, then stood up and gestured to her clothes, which he had neatly folded and placed on a chair in front of the fireplace in his room. "I've got your clothes for you there, and my coach is outside, waiting to take you home." He said.
The woman looked at him, slightly confused. "What do you mean?" She asked. "I thought...-"
"Yeah, well, see, that's the problem, isn't it?" Asamor chuckled coldly. "Women like you shouldn't really do much thinking. Your place in life isn't to think, it's on your back in bed. Got it? Now get dressed and leave before I have the guards come and throw you out." He snapped, then counted to three.
Sure enough, as soon as he hit three, the tears started flowing as the woman realized she had been used. She quickly got up, dressed herself, then looked at his gorgeously handsome face one last time, begging him to say he was kidding. Realizing he wasn't going to say what she wanted him to say, she slapped him and left without a word, sobbing as she headed down the stairs and out to the coach he had had prepared for her.
Asamor watched the coach leave out the window, and he sighed as he sat in the window seat, tears of frustration pricking at the corner of his eyes. He never let them fall anymore, though. If he let them fall, then he would be acknowledging the pain he felt at having to lie to these women, and he couldn't live with himself that way. As much as it hurt them, the feeling of being used, their pain was fleeting. His was lasting. He still remembered the faces of every woman he had ever been with, and he felt pain for every one of them that he had lied to.
He was tired of this meaningless life. He wanted something more.