The Morning After

Richard woke up in a bedroom that was neither his nor Lola’s. Lying on his back in the morning light, he rolled over and saw before him a young woman, no older than 20, sound asleep, her bare, rice-white shoulders, exposed to the room’s cool air by a deep blue sheet that lie tucked under her arms. He thought he recognized his bedmate---hadn’t she been one of the caterer’s staff who he had chatted up last night at the office party, the one who had said that she liked men in uniform?

Richard immediately rolled to his right and could see from the side of the bed that his chauffer’s jacket and trousers were neatly folded and laid over the side of a chair, behind which a wall of striped pastel wallpaper rose toward a blank ceiling. Although he had drunk a substantial amount and ended up in this unfamiliar bed, oddly, now he was not the least bit hung over, but rather, crystal clear. If Lola ever found out about his indiscretion, she would first shoot him, and then, while he lie there bleeding, leave him.