Collide Gamer

Within the greater festival of their marriage was the private festival in Lorelei’s Guild hall. Within Lorelei’s Guild Hall, there was a European style courtyard, complete with an empty pseudo-mansion wrapping around it. Within that primarily decorative architecture was a hidden chamber. It was an isolated court within a gala within a festival within a festival.

Despite that level of exclusiveness, there were well over 40 people in that retreat. It was not what John had envisioned for it. His design for this had been a borderline private retreat, a dozen people at most. Intentions not explicitly stated were swiftly trampled under the march of assumptions. So was it that those with access decided to drag in partners, potential partners and even flirting targets into this chamber.

What was supposed to be a cute little secret within the greater festivities turned into a slightly less public indoor dance hall.

John sat in the corner, beholding it all with an admittedly sour taste in his mouth. The people were clearly having fun, so he had no cause to impose his original vision, but they were having fun in the wrong way. ‘Things like this aren’t fun if anyone knows about them, the exclusivity is part of the point!’ he wanted to yell.

Of course, he didn’t. He may have been the haughty sort, but he was not so petty to ruin what worked. This was just a small compromise on a much grander stage. It ultimately did not matter at all.

‘Got to defeat that pettiness,’ he thought and reclined in his chair. It was the opulent sort, light wood, white cloth and gold thread. It was also the static sort, creaking softly in response to his attempt to get comfortable in it. ‘Why do I even allow these to exist?’ he thought. His mind leapt back to the less unpleasant parts of school life. Whoever had decided that school children only deserved unpadded wooden chairs deserved a flogging.

Probably there was no ‘one’ who had decided that. It was likely an emergent property of penny pinchers, chair suppliers bribing officials, and sheer bureaucratic slowness.

While the thoughts raced through his head, his eyes meandered over the crowd. He was one of few hanging at the edge of it all while others danced to the steady music from the overhead speakers. It was a wild crowd of many different types of dress. More people arrived by the hour. Because of the way he had structured attendance, most did not care to be present notably before the weekend. The areas would get more and more crowded until Sunday, then suddenly empty over the course of Monday.

Chinese robes and dresses, European styles from various ages, various modern interpretations of African tribal garbs, suits, uniforms, and eccentric uniqueness were all on display. All of that colourful crowd was like fluorescent dust around the red fire in their midst.

The bright red dress was like a weapon on Esmeralda. It clad her dancer’s curves tightly. Frills fluttered in the wind of her steps, lagging behind her motions like her chin-length hair. Little wreaths around her wrists and painted nails all harmonized with her chosen colour. She was a rose, tumbling in her own storm. She held the rim of her flying skirt, emphasizing her steps further with every swing. Truly, it was an artform to tease that much leg without showing anything else.

[Esmeralda Dancing AI: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/f8e9052ddb21.png ]

Yet, while all of the crowd was mesmerized, John was merely watching. Esmeralda soon noticed him and his absent stare. Immediately, she went over. “You have the expression of a plotting murderer,” she pointed out in her Hispanic accent. It added a sassy, feisty note to everything she said – which was partially intended, consciously or unconsciously.

“I do have the three kinds of people in mind that are responsible for most of life's problems,” the Gamer responded.

Esmeralda raised one of her elegantly swung eyebrows. “Who would those be?”

“The stingy, the greedy and the lazy,” the Gamer responded fluidly.

Hand on her cocked hip, the feisty Latina had a look around. “Can’t even tease you on that one. You’re certainly not stingy and can’t say you strike me as the lazy sort either.” Stopping short of facing him fully again, she smiled at him with a sideways gaze. Her brown eyes glinted with mischief. “I do declare you a greedy one though.”

“One could justifiably level that accusation,” the Gamer responded. “Though I must admit that my greed is reaching a point of being sated.”

There was a calm in John’s mind, facing this very attractive, nubile woman, that he had not expected. Perhaps that talk with Layla had finally forced the reality of his situation down his brainstem, through his spinal column, and managed to convince his balls to stop asking for more. Alternatively, his short-term celibacy was having the opposite effect on him than it did on most men and actually cleared his thoughts of constantly wanting more.

John was giving that second idea more credit. For one who had no end to his sexual readiness, post-nut clarity was a very short-lived state of affairs. That plus ready satisfaction had perhaps primed his instincts towards expansion, because it worked. Now that he had that proverbial sword sheathed for a moment, life was less of a seeking for the next lay and more just… life.

Though that had its benefits, he was eager to get back to the casual and competitive sex.

“Lust, greed, pride, definitely not in that order, those are my sins,” the Gamer continued with a shrug. “I am far from perfect, Esmeralda.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” the Latina answered in a low purr. “Ready for a dance?”

John tilted his head to look past her at the crowd. It was the oddest mixture of a club and a ball, combining the worst of both. “If I dance with you in public, there will be rumours,” he told her. “Rumours that I do not want. I don’t want to add you to my ha-“

“Yeah, yeah.” Esmaralda made a slicing gesture with her offhand. That entire limb did a lot of talking, moving around while her hips swayed. “Here’s the deal, Gamer, you got a dance in a couple of days and who do you think can better check that you are up for it than the Dancer?” Pearly teeth glistened behind a crooked smirk. “Can’t let your lady be disappointed, can you?”

“I know you’re playing me… but you’re right.” John did not need much convincing to get out of the uncomfortable chair. He was feeling of stronger will than usual, but when an attractive woman offered him a dance – well, he was no saint.

Esmaralda grabbed his hand. Refusing to be led, he took two large strides to walk beside her. The gesture transformed the smirk on her face into a girlish smile. “Confident,” she purred.

“My soon-to-be-wife taught me to be,” John responded.

“She’s a wise woman, then.”

“Absolutely.” They stopped in the middle of the dance floor. Neither of them would accept any other position. People would gawk and stare anyhow.

In a snap, they embraced each other. A mutual challenge on who could assume the dancing pose faster. They were back to the waltz. His arm was around her narrow waist. Her main hand grabbed his biceps for support. Their outstretched, leading arms were up in the air. Fingers threatened to intertwine, before coming to a platonic clasp.

They stared at each other, a dance’s space between them. John had been in this position many times. Memory overlayed the faces of his many loves, how they had gazed at him in the seconds before the music started. The shy, the confident, the causal, the serious, the interested, the reluctant – above all, he remembered Nia. The blank and yet so deeply entranced gaze of the pariah, her lack of expression changed through shared steps and twirls.

Esmeralda’s brown eyes burned with a deep passion.

The beat looped, giving them their entrance into the dance. Their first step was sharp, a knife cutting through the ocean of clumsy movements around them. They whirled around their shared axis, their feet impossibly avoiding contact. All others on the dance floor immediately shied away, swept from their spot in awe of what a true dance looked like.

Their first dance had been a matter of aggression, of combat and red-hot blood pulsing in their veins. Their second dance was a matter of curiosity and of challenge. John saw her quickened heartbeat in the veins of her stretched neck.

There was no thinking as he danced. It took everything he got to keep pace with her. He was leading, but she was demanding. If ever he stopped for even a moment, he knew that she would tear the control of the situation from him. In that challenge lay purpose. The world around them was a blur. The violin of the song rose to a fever pitch, then suddenly stopped.

They stopped with it, frozen at the end of a rotation. Her fanned-out skirt fell back into place. They were breathing heavily, bodies craving more of the dance yet wishing to maintain this moment of gazing.

Esmaralda pursed her lips. Her desire was clear. She stood on her toes and waited like that.

The dance had weakened his resolve, but it had not shattered it. Standing straight as a ramrod, he held his ground. When he found his voice again, he spoke firmly, “I am not going to kiss you.”

Red lips dropped into a scowl. The rejection lingered on her face as a dark mask. John appreciated the openness of her emotions, even if their intensity and direction worried him. A half smile appeared in the anger’s place. “I suppose that is proper.”

“Esmeralda… I mean it. I don’t intend to make my harem any larger. I have more than I could ever ask for and I need to draw the line.” He moved out of the dancer’s embrace, keeping an arm around her waist only to usher her out of this dancing room and into a private corner of the pseudo-mansion.

The adjacent corridors were empty, vast things of splendour and nothing else. There was no function to them besides providing impressive scenery. Their voices slightly echoed from the smooth stones.

“I will not-“ the Gamer started again, only for Esmaralda to cut him off again.

“I get it already,” she hissed. “You will not pursue me. Message received. I get swept up in things, I am not an idiot.”

“If you know that, then what is your goal here?”

“I am pursuing you.” A finger landed on his sternum, hitting the bone with enough force to echo in his chest. “And you can go about saying that’s a futile effort all you want, I am still giving it my best shot. I want this and what I want I do. You say you draw the line? Draw it behind me then.”

John blocked out the yearning of his heart and the sweet scent of her floral perfume. “There’s no value in drawing a line if I keep making exceptions.”

“I am making myself an exception.” Esmeralda kept tapping his chest as she rattled down her words. “I’ve not been this interested in a man, ever, and I am not letting you keep me from chasing what I want just because you are that man. If you want to reject me in the end, fine, do it then, make that mistake, but I will not be told I can’t even try. By the time I am done with you, you will give me what I want.”

The Gamer was equal parts irked by her declaration and more drawn to her than ever. “You think you’re that special?” he challenged.

A clear, harsh nod, then an elegant back step. She put a hand on her once again cocked hip. Spread fingers journeyed down the air in a curve parallel to her peaks and valleys. “Obviously, I am. I am Maria Esmeralda Espinosa.” To the rhythm of her own accent, she swung her hips the other way. Her crucifix shifted slightly in the embrace of her caramel cleavage. “I am the Dancer, a Latebloomer, as per everything I’ve learned in the last two weeks, I am not just special, I am exceptionally special as-“ She took a lunging step forwards, putting her index finger back on his chest. “-are you.”

John managed to suppress his gulp. He managed to withstand the incredible pressure that tiny bit of contact put on him. The flame of her passion burned bright enough to be manifest, the air around her literally flickering by her reality manipulating powers. “We barely know each other,” he pointed out.

“And I am changing that,” she shot back immediately.

“It would be unwise.”

“Maybe.” Esmeralda shrugged. “I don’t know how you make this harem work. Almost 30 women? Absolutely ridiculous. If I hadn’t seen them all, I would think you’re just another billionaire buying barely legal playthings.” He opened his mouth to respond, but she did not give him the chance. “I have seen them. I know how you treat them. You genuinely love them and they genuinely love you. I want that. You swept me off my feet, John Newman, and I have never denied myself a good dance.”

Reiterating his stance for the umpteenth time was not going to be productive. A calming breath later, the Gamer simply said, “There’s no talking you out of that, is there?”

“No, there’s not,” Esmeralda admitted in an unapologetic tone. “I know who I am. I will live by my ardour.” Without a warning, she whirled around and strutted back towards the door, offering a glance over a shoulder as her goodbye. “Whatever I am reaping from that sowing, I’ll live with it,” she said, then she was out of sight.

‘Will you?’ John wondered. ‘Emotions that vehement rarely work out in a straightforward manner.’

He was left standing there, chewing the inside of his cheek. For all that was worth, he was content with his own conduct in that conversation. He had made his position clear, had not indulged her more than a friendly host should have. Some would argue that the dance was too much, but that was more prudish than he was willing to be.

Still, he was not going to be rid of her interest in him. It felt good to be wanted by a feisty Latina, that could not be denied. Was she going to cross the line he had drawn? He could not deny the possibility. Perhaps she would convince not just him but all of his haremettes that she was an exception.

‘What matters is that I am not making or supporting that case,’ John reminded himself. ‘I am holding myself to account. That is my responsibility. For everything else, I can only take life as it comes at me.’