I spotted him doing a line off the bar a scant ten feet away.  He was still wiping his nose when I finally caught his eye.  I called him over with a crook of my finger. 

He blinked a few times, swallowed hard, and came to me looking hopeful enough to stir some pity in me. 

Not enough.  But some.

He was very cute, tallish and trim, but muscular, with nerdy glasses that only seemed to add to his boyish handsomeness.  

"Darling, something's come up," I purred at him, grabbing the lapels of his jacket and moving our faces close.  "I've got to run." 

He looked confused, but didn't ask questions and didn't try to stop me.  He was my favorite kind of man, the kind that let me do whatever the hell I wanted without protesting.  He was just happy to be along for the ride. 

Until, of course, I left him on the side of the road, as I inevitably would. 

I pressed my chest to his and gave him a brief, warm kiss.  It stirred nothing in me. 

Hardly anything did these days. 

It was a show, no more, but I could tell as I pulled away that he'd taken something from it that he shouldn't have. 

I'd given him hope.   

"When will I see you again?" he asked me. 

I wanted to pat him on the head, the poor guy, but I just pursed my lips and shrugged.  "Who knows?  I'll text you sometime.  Or you can call me when there's another good party." 

I walked away from him and headed straight for my real target. 

It was pure misery to walk toward Dante, to make my body move closer to him instead of away, but at least there was some gratifying thrill to be had in the way he looked at me.  That little kiss had done the trick, taken him from incensed ex-lover to enraged mess. 

Perhaps I'd win this round after all. 

His date had stepped away, to network no doubt, and so it was easy to move right up to him.  I strutted close, not stopping until I was a mere foot away, going straight for the kill. 

He was here to mess with me, so I'd mess right back. 

And I happened to be better at making messes than he was, if I did say so myself. 

I looked up into his face, letting every bit of the spite, the pure, concentrated hatred in my eyes pour out to him. 

"If I were you, I'd stay far away from me," Dante warned.   

The way his voice quavered, the weakness in him, the unchecked violence in every line of his body, was nothing but blood in the water. 

I stepped closer with a smile.  "You're not me."  It was that simple and that devastating.  We were not one anymore. 

We were two.  Two very separate people now with little to connect us.

And it was all his fault.

I was not done making him pay for that.

Not even close.

He was almost panting as I brushed my body against his.  "Your date is not going to be happy about this."  His voice was a low rumble, his eyes aimed over my head, at Justin, I presumed. 

"No, he won't be.  He wants me, can you tell?  He's been obsessed with me for a while now and seeing me with you will only add to it.  But I'm too curious to pass this up.  What are you doing here?  Are you really going to try to tell me that this is a coincidence?"

"Yes," he lied, not even trying to convince me, his voice too full of raw emotion.  "I'm dating an actress, and she wanted me to come to one of her Hollywood parties.  That's the only reason I'm here."  He said it robotically, as though he'd rehearsed the phrase, but his delivery ruined it all. 

I saw right through him.   

I believed that he was dating that actress, and I believed he'd been invited here.  What I did not believe was that he hadn't known or suspected that I'd be here.

What I did not believe was that he hadn't come here for me.  

"Did you bring your own car?" I asked him, my smile now mischievous bordering on malevolent.  "I rode with my date, so either he takes me home or someone else does."  I was daring him to tell me no. 

I wanted, needed to see if he even had it in him. 

I wanted to wound myself on that knowledge, to use the sharp finality of it to cut myself free.   

But alas, he did not, which was why I would never be free. 

He didn't even answer, just grabbed my wrist and started moving, leaving his date and mine to watch on in baffled affront. 

We were in his car driving furiously away before I spoke again.  "Where are you taking me?" I asked him. 

His eyes were wild, his hands clenching the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles were white.  "Does it matter?" he finally asked. 

I touched a hand to his leg and his thigh muscle jerked in agitation.  "Take me somewhere outside.  Somewhere with a view.  I want to watch the sunset while you're inside of me." 

I studied his face intently while I said it, saw him flinch then harden.  "I didn't come here for this," he uttered softly. 

"Well, then you're a fool.  What did you come here for?" 

His mouth twisted so bitterly that I had to look away.  "To see you.  Just to look at you and see if there was still any part of you left that I recognized." 

My head snapped back and I leaned toward him, grabbing him crudely.  "I found something of you that I recognize.  The only part of you that I miss seems to be about the same." 

He tore my hand off him, flinging it away.  "How could you?"  His voice was wretched with agony as he finally got to the point, to the ugly, rotten root of it all.  "How could you?"