A Lady and a Gentleman
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

He had watched her all night. He had danced with another lady, but his eyes had been on her, or rather her ears and her throat. He did not need to get in close to see that they were real diamonds. He knew that the quality of the settings was enough. You do not apply that much workmanship to protect stones of no value. He could see it from the clips behind the ears, and the clasp of the necklace below the nape of her neck exposed by the upswept hairdo. Quality work means quality stones.

She was staying in hotel. It was his business to find out. In one of the suites with a double lock safe. It is the way things are these days – no hotel offers a safe beyond what is in the room, and that hands over responsibility to the guest. The suite safes were good, but not good enough to keep him out, even in the dark. If a room is occupied then he would need to do that.

The woman he was with was reluctant to let him go, but he wanted to follow his target upstairs. This other woman was in the hotel too, but in a premier room only, and with nothing of value other that a good ring, and one not so good.

“I am dreadfully sorry, but I seem to have developed an upset stomach,” he said. “In fact I am now in some real discomfort. Please excuse me.” It always works. Nobody likes a man with the shits

He went to his room to change. It was a just a black running suit with high visibility strips that could be pulled off to allow him to merge into the shadows. Plus there were gloves and a small beanie, barely a skull cap, that concealed a full mask that could be pulled down. You need to wear something ordinary in the hallways and then become invisible in a room.

The front door he could access with tools at his disposal, but he chose to go into her room from the outside, just because he could. It was an old hotel – the kind with a grand ballroom full of wealthy people, and a reputation for good security that allowed windows to be left a little open on a warm evening. Just enough.

He slipped inside noiselessly. He saw her immediately. The drapes were not fully drawn and a mixture of blueish moonlight and yellow light from streetlamps nearby cast light between the shadows. The warm night saw the bed covers cast aside and her body seemed exposed with a smooth leg visible as she lay on her side.

But he was there to do his work. He knew the layout and the location of the safe. He knew it had both combination and key so he had not brought the device that all hotels use to open those electronic safes when numbers are forgotten. But he knew the pick combinations and the sound of the springs in the combination. While the occupant slept only feet away, his work was done in less than two minutes and the gems that glinted in the limited light, were in the velvet bag that he carried out of habit, and a sense of tradition.

When he stepped back he could see that the woman in the bed had rolled over onto her back. He was tempted to approach. He saw her face it the light. It seemed that she was still wearing makeup, and that she had simply slipped off her gown and any underwear and taken to bed. But she has loosed her hair and it tumbled in soft curls across the pillow.

He was not inclined to take risks but he was drawn to place his unmasked face close to hers – close enough to feel her warm breath and just the hint of snore – more a purr. Close enough to smell the mint of toothpaste she had used before she had laid down, and the perfume of floral shampoo in her hair, and another between her perfect breasts, seemingly too pert and round for a woman her age. His face took those scents in as his nose travelled down her body to the small tuft of pubic hair, shaped with some care, and her …. penis!

He lurched back in shock. There was a side table behind him which crashed over, and a vase hit the floor but did not break on the carpet. But the noise was enough. He had never been so clumsy before. The bedside light went on and he was exposed. He had never been revealed in the act before. She was staring at him, this beautiful woman with the penis between her legs.

“I know you,” she said. “You were a guest at the function tonight. What are you doing in my room? What is in that bag? My God – you’re a thief.”

He had thought her beautiful when her saw her dressed in her finery. He knew that she was beautiful when he saw her asleep. But now with the light on and with her disheveled and in a state of shock she seemed so much more attractive. Yet there was that thing between her legs. He had been shocked and even appalled to see it, but now he was just curious. What was her story?

“Madam,” he said in his well-practiced politeness. “You have me. Yes, I am a thief, and yes, these are your jewels which I assume are well insured, but I will put them back, of course.”

“I know your name,” she said. “It was mentioned to me. You are a guest here, so they will be holding your passport I think.”

“Clearly my secret is not who I am but what I do,” he said, remaining cool and suave as a means of survival. “But I know your secret.” He pointed to the exposed incongruous organ.

“Ah! That,” she said, looking down at with disdain, as if seeing a spot of dung on a rose petal. “If we are to discuss secrets, Sir, then you had better empty the contents of that bag. But put them over here, not back into a safe, that is clearly, anything but that.”

“I ask your forgiveness, Sweet Lady. Nothing is beyond a man who has desires,” he said with the hint of a smile. “Perhaps not even you, Madam?” He tipped the jewels onto her bedside table.

“I think it is my property that you desire rather than my imperfect person,” she said.

“There will always be other jewels, Madam,” he said. “But it strikes me that you might be genuinely unique.”

“I like to think that I am,” she said. She was smiling now too, enjoying a conversation in the middle of the night with a total stranger, even he was present with bad intent. “But if you want to know more than I must insist on some equality of circumstance. I am naked, and you should be too.”

“Happily,” he said. “But just so we are clear, this will be on the basis that you will keep my secret and I will keep yours?”

“I assure you that I am not one to kiss and tell, Sir,” she said. “But we haven’t even kissed yet, so my silence is not yet assured. And I should perhaps point out that the problem with ladies like me, is that a kiss or even two, is seldom sufficient to satisfy us.”

He kissed her vigorously, but then pulled off his black sweater without further delay, and within seconds he was as naked as she was.

“Genuinely unique,” he observed for the second time, as she reached out to his swelling penis and used it to pull him towards her.

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2022