Dusk.

I loved cigars on late afternoons like these. Those days when I would laugh at that priest who once lectured us on how promiscuity was a sin. It was on afternoons like these that I found creativity flowing out of me like the smoke I exhaled or rather choked my lungs with. Life was too short to live on others' terms. And I chose to have it my way. Even if that made me the perfect bastard.

I stretched in my chair and stared at the screen for a minute. I was trying to recall a certain phrase that hit my mind before I... allowed myself to be relaxed by those slender, long arms that led to her voluptuous bosom, hidden in the light black net of her bra that I could see through. The flamboyance and comfort she radiated in that naked skin made me all the more impatient. Like every other thing I really wanted, I needed to my hands on her....

Lucy walked into the study in her skimpy night gown. She still hadn't bothered to put her lingerie back on and I could see how the satin perfectly outlined her nipples. If I weren't the bastard I was, I would have waited another month or so, gotten to know her a little better, but I genuinely couldn't care less. If I couldn't charm my way through, I wasn't short of money. But that was the last of my problems. And what made me a bigger ass hole was the self awareness. I 'd been told I had a way and I made it a point to use it to make it through. What the heck anyway? I was 27. A writer. A successful one at that. And I did get the attention I wanted. Could you blame me?

But I had to give it to her. It was the best sex I'd had in a while. I guess it was because I was initially attracted to her presence and the persona she was. She was the lady in red, and eyes followed her all evening. I would have to admit I was lucky this time. But like every other woman I'd ever come across, I didn't feel the need to bid a proper farewell to her. It was almost like every night and this was just another afternoon. And it was my favorite cigar and my favorite time to write.

"Would you like me to call you a cab?" It was the same line I used for the last one who walked into this study and definitely the one I was going to use the next day.

"No. Thank You. I've made my arrangements. I should be leaving in about an hour."

That was easy, I thought to myself. I was expecting something more elaborate from her. I nodded and smiled at her. She returned one, which meant that she wasn't going to curse me later on. Well that made one of the sort that wouldn't hate me.

My evenings were busy. Meetings, conferences and  my daily newspaper column. And by the end of it, it was time for another late night event where I found my next prey. And my day would start itself in the same way. A different woman, a different cab, different thoughts, a new story and the same cigar.

It was the same old circle of life, until I met her one day. It was the smallest, most casual meeting that I had ever had. People said, I had changed. But four years later I was still the same old person. The promiscuous son of a bitch, the heart breaker women usually referred to as the one you could fuck but couldn't fall for. Because it was just a matter of time before you found yourself being pushed away like the many others, into taxis he called every morning before he started working on his latest novel. The only thing that had changed was my style of writing. Over time I noticed how abstract I had become and how noticeably broken I was to my readers.  I thought of her everyday and every time I was with another woman. Now, the others had become mere comparisons that could never match up.

She just left. I couldn't think of what went wrong. Or what I had done. But one day I woke up to find that she was gone. All she had left was a note saying that she was sorry that consisted of only two sentences.

I had never thought over anything about my personal life until then. I tried to think about the time I had hurt someone so bad to deserve something that tore my insides into bits I couldn't even feed to my once diabolic  conscience. It was then that I realized, that sometimes, life doesn't want you to change. All it wants is to bite your ass so hard that you think twice before sitting down. I was nothing less than the whores I slept with and I learned how to be a lover until one fine day, I found myself where I had started in the first place.

It was perfect... Maybe too perfect. But then she left. And I could never find it in me to hate her. Because I never could.  For the sake of redemption, I tried to remember the last time I had hurt someone that bad. Was it that pretty girl back in high school when I was 18? Or was it the girl  I was with in New York when I was 22? Guilt only seeped in because I was finally the broken mess those women were.

Her name was Noor.  Over time she became a writer's untold story, whose silence screamed out to anxious hearts that longed to hear the words that could never be verbalized. She was my hidden strength, a reminder of the courage I had to still be in one piece on the outside, to be able to hide from anyone, except my reader.

I remembered the first day I saw her.

*To be Continued*