GOODNIGHT

There it was, the

Comfort Inn Hotel, a rather unspectacular and somewhat ordinary looking, brownish

three story brick building just east of the 355 north-south tollway. The closer and

closer I got to the forbidding and castrating hotel, at least it sure felt that way

the nearer I got to it as I seriously thought about turning around and heading back

home, the more nauseous, nervous, and weak-kneed I became. Every gut wrenching inch

I drew closer to the virgin intimidating hotel, my hands began to grow colder and

sweatier by the millimeter while a panic induced fear raced up and down my entire

frenetic body as I frantically pondered worst case scenarios. Everything seemed to

be falling apart as I pulled into the hotel parking lot a complete and utter mess.

Terrified and afraid, I sat slumped in my car seat, like the cowering wimp I’d

always been, and began checking for things like bad breath, boogers, unzipped pants,

zits, bad odor, smelly feet, and other potential embarrassing downfalls before I was

finally jolted awake by a thundering bolt of testosterone, thus allowing me to take

some decisive and manly action for one of the few and rare times in my woefully

tepid life. Maybe the time had finally come for me to turn into a man and tonight

was the night I’d say goodbye to Paul the boy and hello to Paul the man, or so I

hoped.

If tonight, indeed, was

the night of nights I was destined to become a man, it certainly didn’t appear that

way as I spent the entire time walking from my sloppily parked car to Diana’s hotel

room wiping my sweaty hands up and down the front of my beige colored pants in a

monumental tidal wave of nervousness. I dreaded the thought of Diana greeting me

with a princess-Diana-like handshake then screaming in unimaginable horror when she

felt the cold and sticky wet dampness of my sweaty right hand. I also managed to

forget, not surprisingly, Diana’s room number by the time I stumbled into the hotel

lobby like a drunken sailor out of a dockside saloon. It took about a good fifteen

minutes of nervous and tension filled praying and cursing, while pacing back and

forth like a rabid hamster, before I was finally able to settle myself down and

narrow her possible room numbers down to three. Then with all the stealth and

creepiness of a future stalker in the making, I went up to each of the three, second

floor hotel rooms I suspected she might’ve been inside and listened for her one of a

kind voice only to be disappointed by what I didn’t hear. Unfortunately for me,

none of the hotel rooms echoed with the sound of her lovely voice though one of them

did have some non-discernible noise coming from the other side of it. So after

wiping my waterlogged hands against my slightly soiled and dampened pants one last

time, I timidly went ahead and knocked on the door I had hoped and prayed she was

behind.

To say all of the

unwarranted but understandable nervousness I felt nearly paralyzed me when Diana

opened the door would be putting it mildly at best. As it was also a fairly

accurate description of how I must’ve looked to her as I stood fluttering in fear in

front of her doorway. Especially when the warmness of her smile melted upon me as

she graced the inside of her hotel room looking absolutely stunning. But then

wouldn’t you know it, just as soon as I stepped foot inside her dimly lit hotel

room, with about as much poise and coolness as a drunk on stilts I fear, I noticed a

dark haired, chubby looking woman sitting casually on the bed closest to the door.

It was her friend Randy, who I had hoped wouldn’t be invited.

“I didn’t think you were going to come,” Diana immediately said to me upon closing her hotel room door.

“What took you so long, did you get lost or ride your bike?” she asked me in a tone of voice I had never heard from her before.

“No, I stopped by a friend’s house after work,” I replied, as I tried to remain as cool and aloof as possible.

“Did you have to work late?” she then questioned me.

“No. Why?”

“You’re still wearing your work clothes.”

“I haven’t been home yet,” I said, while still lingering over her question about riding my bicycle over.

Why in the world would she say that to me I wondered? Did she view me as wimpy and

un-masculine?

After exchanging hellos

and some standard, boring pleasantries with Randy, as she sat on the edge of her bed

listening to and watching Diana and I, I casually and smoothly walked towards the

only chair in the room and promptly took a seat on it like it had my name written

all over it. I had no idea what, if anything, I was doing or even attempting to do

as I nervously sat hunched in her chair like a frightened five year old kid in a

dental office, nor did I know or have a clue as to what was going to happen between

the three of us and for about the next half hour or so, Diana, Randy, and I just sat

around and talked though most of the time I just sat in my chair and listened. What

I didn’t know beforehand, however, was Diana shared her hotel room with Randy as

everyone from the restaurant’s training crew had to room with a coworker. As much

as I enjoyed talking to Randy earlier in the week, I didn’t feel comfortable talking

to Diana with her in the room. All I wanted was to be alone with Diana and for

Randy to get up and leave.

“Do you party?” Diana unexplainably asked me out of nowhere while I secretly wished for her friend Randy to disappear.

“Why?” I asked while trying to look as sexy and cool as possible.

“No reason, I was just wondering,” she said while slightly shrugging her shoulders.

I wonder why she asked me

that I contemplated. Was I being a party pooper? Maybe I should’ve tried looking

more relaxed and initiated more of the conversation between the two of us or maybe I

should’ve smiled and laughed a little more often. Whatever the problem or reason

had been, it left with me with little to no choice but to unveil my secret weapon or

as I liked to call it, my hidden treasure of pleasure.

So with current

circumstances being what they were and considering how dire a situation I found

myself to be in, I slowly began to nudge my left short sleeve shirt up my arm with

the greatest of caution and with the slight of my right hand, so Diana could bask

and revel in the wonder and glory of my bulging left bicep, or at least to me that’s

how I imagined it looking. I didn’t want to do this, not on the first night

anyways, but I had to show her what she’d be missing out on if she decided not to

see me anymore. I just hoped she’d hurry hope and notice because my left arm was

starting to hurt from flexing. How could she not notice I said to myself, after a

month or so of hard construction labor and lots of summer sun, my “guns” were

looking as good as they ever had. But apparently my left bicep wasn’t as impressive

and sexy as I thought it was because Diana never even once gave it a quick glance,

though in my defense, the room’s visibility was rather dim at best...or so I like to

tell myself.

I tried to act as calm,

cool, and collected as possible throughout the entirety of the night, sort of like

John Travolta in the movie Grease, while sitting in my chair pretending this type of

get together was no big deal because of all the women I’d obviously been with

throughout my life. But just when I felt like things were turning for the better

and something good was about to happen, someone started pounding on their hotel room

door.

“I knew it!” I screamed inside me while throwing a temper tantrum of epic proportions inside my head.

“Now the room was going to be filled with a bunch of cock swinging coworkers muscling their way in on my woman.”

“What the fuck?” I griped to myself, knowing full well what was going to happen as I sat slouched in my chair dreading the onslaught of testosterone about to stampede into the room.

But much to the initial

surprise and delight of my penis and I, two very attractive blond haired women came

strolling through their freshly opened hotel room door. Apparently they were

friends of Diana and Randy from what I could initially see and hear as I slyly tried

to eavesdrop on their conversation, though the only thing I could really concentrate

on or think of as they entered the room and started to mingle, was the chaos they

must have all caused when they went out together at night. They were by far the

prettiest collection of women I’d ever had the privilege of being with in one room

with Diana of course, being the center piece and crown jewel of the bunch.

After the two bubbly and

very talkative blond haired women politely acknowledged and greeted me, as I sat in

my chair like the bumbling idiot I was trying to stick out my chest in the hope it

would make me look more muscular and manly, they began gossiping and yapping about

stuff I couldn’t have cared less about. All I heard or shall I say saw, was one of

the blond’s breasts bouncing up and down every time she got overly excited as she

talked and after what seemed like an eternity but was probably closer to thirty

minutes, they quit their coma inducing chit chat and left. Maybe now I’d finally

get the chance to talk to Diana alone if only Randy would cooperate by falling

asleep or perhaps even, however unlikely, leaving.

The more and more I tried to assure myself it was only a short matter of

time before Randy eventually fell asleep or even miraculously left, the more

impatient and frustrated I became since it was already close to midnight and the

mood of the room had changed dramatically. The nervous, electric energy that seemed

to be bouncing off the walls just an hour or two earlier had now but all

disappeared. With the lights off, the television on, and no one talking, I

continually kept peeking out of the left corner of my eye to see if Randy was dozing

off but with no such luck. I knew it was getting late and almost time for me to

leave since all of us had to go to work the next day and just as I was about to get

up from my chair, Randy looked at me somewhat sympathetically and

said,

“She’s asleep…..she’s been working really hard.”

You’ve got to be kidding

me I thought, she fell asleep! What did I do wrong? Was I that boring and

inconsequential? Why this night of all nights? Though I guess it didn’t really

matter in the grand scheme of things what her reason had been for falling asleep, it

sure as hell wasn’t a good way to end the night considering the overall state of my

delicate and fragile psyche. But even amidst the chaos, uncertainty, and

disappointment of the night and as much as I wanted to be angry at Diana, I couldn’t

help but tiptoe over to her bed and quietly pull her half drawn covers up to the top

of her beautiful and lightly thumping chest. She looked so angelic and peaceful as

she slept I knew at that very moment the luckiest guy in the world would be the one

who got to wake up to Diana each and every morning. As much as I wished and prayed

it was me, I knew it would never be. She was so completely and astronomically out

of my league I didn’t even consider the trillion to one possibility she might have

actually liked me for me despite my many flaws and annoyances. Maybe if I were to

become a billionaire or even a millionaire she’d consider dating me I fathomed, but

then again who was I trying to kid, how could someone like her fall for someone like

me? I loved her but…well look at me I thought, how could someone as beautiful as

her ever love someone as ugly as me? Unlike the beast in the movie, The Beauty and

the Beast, I wouldn’t be turning into a handsome prince with a castle and servants.

My future seemed more likely to take place and unfold inside the desolate and

weeping walls of a homeless shelter or if I was real lucky, perhaps a cardboard

version of a mobile home at best. So after saying goodbye to Randy and insisting

Diana’s napping was nothing to apologize for, I opened their hotel room door and

headed on back to the loneliness of my grandmother’s unsympathetic living room

floor.

As I drearily and almost

tearfully drove my way home that night, my entire body felt like it was crumbling

into a tiny billion pieces. I had seen something so unbelievably and breathtakingly

beautiful I couldn’t imagine living my life without it. My head kept telling me to

be sensible and logical, but my heart wanted nothing of the sort nor would it bother

to listen. All I wanted was to be with Diana, to know her, to touch her, to hold

her, and to love her, but how? I certainly couldn’t make her love me...could I?

So with that very thought

and question echoing throughout the empty hallways of my trailer park of a brain, I

stayed awake for the remainder of the saddening and depressing night staring at the

blankness of my grandmother’s living room ceiling wondering what my ill-fated love

had in store for me the days and weeks ahead. There was something so special and un-

describable about Diana’s beauty, it seemed to serve as a forewarning to me. If

only I would’ve known just how right my instincts were that fateful August summer

night...if only I would’ve known.