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.
"I guess they all couldn't find right women for themselves."
Nick gulped his drink irritably and leaned back in his couch with an annoying smirk that sent waves of anger in Michael.
"At least they have the curtesy not to do it in front of their wives."
"You like preaching about love Nick and yet behave very opposite from someone with so much faith in soul mates and right now, monogamy."
Nick waved his hand at a waiter and had him pour him a full glass of whiskey. He drunk it all without rest, his adams apple bobbing up and down. He finished it off with a big sigh.
"You know.... I feel sorry for you Michael," he said drunkenly.
"Why is that?"
"Because you are too embarrassed to admit that you fucked up your life when you left your wife and married a whore."
The women gasped in disgust of his profanity.
"Oh sweethearts don't act too coy, isn't that why you are here too? You are no different to his whore wife."
"Excuse us ladies, Mr. Andrews has had too much to drink ," Harry said as the women hurried away.
"You married a whore whose not satisfied by you alone and therefore convinced you that an open marriage is the way to go so that she can spend your money while she fucks young men with firm bodies...."
"Okay that's enough!" Harry pulled him up, "you've had enough."
"Look at her," Nick said pointing at the direction of Crystal who was smiling coquettishly at an army man.
"That man is going to fuck her and you tell me it doesn't bother you the least bit?"
"Come on!" Harry said dragging him out of the room.
****
"Are you out of your mind?" Harry asked when they got outside.
"Drunk or not, that's the last
conversation to start around Michael, you know he doesn't like anyone talking about Crystal or his marriage for that matter."
"Someone had to say it eventually," Nick said pulling his arm from Harry's grip arrogantly.
"What's wrong?" Harry asked.
"Everything is wrong, at least if the whore loved him I wouldn't care, but she's just using him...."
"I'm talking about you Nick."
"Nothing is wrong with me," he said defensively.
"I know you....When you start picking unnecessary fights then something is bothering you."
"There is nothing wrong, Michael needs to open his stupid fat eyes...."
"Nick I asked you what's wrong?" Harry asked calmly.
Nick signed and rubbed his hair back.
"Its a girl, she's driving me crazy."
He could have just said 'your sister' but he was smart enough to know how that would end.
"Don't you just know how to pick them," Harry smirked, "what did this one do, rob you, pull a gun at you?"
Nick picked women Harry always considered mad and feisty. He had been stabbed, beaten, robbed and one time tided to a bed in a hotel room and left for two days until house keeping found him, all acts by different women.
"No guns and robberies," he answered and grabbed a drink from a passing waiter.
"What is it then?"
"I think I'm in love with her."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Harry asked and took the cup from him.
He would have been surprised that his friend was acting erratic over loving a woman had he not been in a similar situation, only he was handling his situation differently, even though he felt like he was on a blink of madness too.
"She's stubborn, rude, and disrespectful!"
"Really, why does that sound familiar?" Harry said with mock surprise, knowing Nick just described the exact type of women he liked.
"I know what you are thinking, but it's different, I want this woman."
"Then get her."
"She doesn't know I want her this bad and I'd never tell her, she's too proud."
"Sounds to me like you are too proud too."
"Even if I told her, it wouldn't make any difference,....she would reject me."
"Is that what you're afraid of?"
"I'm not afraid."
"I think you are. You are afraid of rejection."
Nick remained quiet for a moment.
"You should tell her how you feel or you will lose her," Harry said.
"I think she's in love with another man," Nick replied soberly.
"Even more reason to tell her how you feel, before the other man wins, who knows maybe she wants you too."
"Maybe you are right," Nick said excitedly.
"Of course I am, if you don't and you lose her, you will regret not ever taking that step for the rest of your life," Harry said pensively, he was speaking to himself now."
"You will regret having not taken that step," he continued, "you will always wonder if she wanted you back.....how your life would have been had you asked her and she said yes. You will always want her, the hunger for her will haunt you forever." He mused then looked at Nick.
He handed him back the whiskey glass and said, "I have to go, I have to tell her...."
"Who?" Nick asked, "I thought this whole conversation was about me."
"It is about you Nick....good luck with your woman," Harry said walking away.
"I shall declare my love to her tonight!" Nick shouted after Harry drunkenly.
"I'd wait until I wasn't sloshed if I were you," Harry advised without looking back.
He was done holding back his feelings for Anna. He was going to tell her how he felt. The conversation with Nick gave him the courage he needed. He wished it would calm his nerves too.
***
Harry knocked on Anna's bedroom door. It was very late at night, but it was now or never. He knew he might never get the courage again if he didn't tell her that night.