She wasn’t dreaming. Not really.
Instead, Alaine lay on her side on the fold-out bed, staring out of the glass door of the suite to the balcony beyond. The snow fell now in earnest, the white flakes caught between the dark of the night and the bleached electric lights that flooded up from the street below. Her thoughts swam in and out of the waking world, from each separate falling flake, to the mountain peaks she’d regarded each day as child, and at last to a near-forgotten hike she’d once taken but now barely recalled. And then all at once she remembered that she had a flight scheduled a mere fourteen hours from this very moment. Her mind raced through all possible scenarios of getting the family packed, ready, and transported safely, before it found the worst case scenario and lighted upon it. And as though she had conjured its existence by merely considering it, the reality of her fears forced its way into Alaine’s mind.
“Mind if I join you?” Bowen’s voice snapped Alaine back from the edge of her dreams. He whispered the words, but she heard them clearly enough and felt the flimsy mattress shift as he lay down beside her. He didn’t bother to ask, “Can I run my hand under the edge of your tanktop?” but he did it anyway, and she made no effort to pull back from him.
From across the confines of the suite, the muffled laughs of Yvonne and Chase made their way out of the blankets of the large bed, invisible in the darkness of the room except for the sounds of their half-giggled conversation.
“I just wanted to come check on you,” Bowen said the words close to her ear, intent on a conversation that only she could hear and understand. “Did we kick you out of the other bed?”
“It’s really fine,” Alaine assured him quietly. “I can just sleep on this one. We have a flight tomorrow.” When Bowen’s face returned only a look of blank anticipation she added, “Or, today, I guess,” aware that it was now well past the witch’s hour. “Later today.”
Bowen nodded, the flat of his thumb moving slowly along one edge of Alaine’s ribs. “I get that,” he grinned down at her. “But, I mean, it’s our birthday.” His eyes brightened, even in the low light. “Actually it’s past midnight, now it’s just your birthday.” He whisper-laughed and softened his assault. “I’ll let you sleep though, if you’d like.”
Alaine exhaled slowly. “No, I can’t sleep anyway.” She raised one hand into the gloom of the hotel suite and stretched out her long, elegant fingers, admiring their silhouette in the dark. “My mind doesn’t want to turn off.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“My trip tomorrow. Today.” She wasn’t sure why she was admitting this, or why she offered even more of herself when she added, “I have a tendency to think over every possible thing that could go wrong, then fixate on the very worst one.” Alaine could hear herself talking but felt almost as though the words spoke themselves.
“I do that too,” said Bowen, his hand rubbing now more firmly as it explored the skin just beneath the fabric of her top. “In my brain, it’s almost like because I know something terrible could happen, I convince myself that it will happen. And I have to be prepared for when it doesn’t.” He gave her side a squeeze. “Is that what you do?”
“Not entirely.” Alaine shifted herself from her side to lay flat, her back sinking uncomfortably against the bars of the hideaway bed as Bowen’s hand crept forward slightly to her navel. She still held her hand aloft and examined it now thoroughly in the odd, wan light of the predawn hours. It looked cold, bearing the hint of a color that wasn’t quite blue, and that was nothing like the easy golden hue of the skin that she typically wore. “I feel strange.”
“Some of that is probably the mushrooms.”
“Some of it?”
“Mmmm,” Bowen buried his face into the skin of Alaine’s neck and mumbled into the back of her skull. “Some of it … is this place.” He clenched the fingers of his hand and used the edges of his short nails to tickle the skin around her lower stomach, and Alaine felt the prickle of them creep along her edges. “Every time we come here, we notice it. The weirdest shit happens. One time, and I swear this is true, we heard ourselves having sex in the next room.”
“Oh?” Alaine lowered her brow skeptically.
“It’s true,” Bowen said unapologetically. “The people on the other side of the wall were really going on at it for hours. And it got so loud that I thought maybe I should call the front desk. Then I realized who it was.”
In the air above her, Alaine’s pale hand adopted a faint, almost imperceptible shade of violet. “Why do you think it was you?”
“I could hear Yvonne. She has a distinctive sound.”
OO!
And as if one cue, a sharp note from Yvonne’s voice interrupted them from the other bed, caught somewhere between singing and laughing.
…oo
Then it faded once more into the diminuendo of half-whispered words between her and Chase.
“In fact,” said Davd slowly, his hand leaving the skin of Alaine’s stomach to turn her chin towards him with one outstretched finger. “It’s why we keep coming back. Because in this place, things move differently. Time is sort of … stretched out.” He used the tip of his finger to pull down on the bottom of Alaine’s lip, giving the soft skin a little tug. “And weird shit happens. You meet versions of yourself that you wouldn’t otherwise.”
“Some of that is probably the mushrooms,” she chided back.
“Some of it.”
Alaine’s hand remained outstretched in the air, but Bowen had turned her vision to stare up at him. She let her eyes take him in – his crooked smile and too bright eyes. He wore no shirt, and his skin looked pale, almost chalky in the low light of the room as it stretched across the muscles of his arms and shoulders.
“You look like David,” she whispered. Her hand retreated slowly from the heights and came to rest on the skin of her own chest, just below her neck.
“Who?”
“David. Michelangelo’s David.”
“Because I’m short?”
“He’s like, 17 feet tall.”
“He looks short though, doesn’t he?” Bowen laughed. “Like, If he were our size.” His hand slid down her chin, his fingers intertwining momentarily with Alaine’s own before moving on to massage along her collarbone. “Do you want to hear something really strange?”
Alaine did, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to admit it.
Bowen continued anyway.
“This moment – us, here.” He took his hand from her clavicle to waive slowly at the confines of the dark room. “This is the only instance of this night that goes this way.” Bowen’s hand returned, his thumb sliding beneath the strap of her tanktop to explore downwards. “In all the other versions of this evening, you and I don’t even do mushrooms. They do.”
…OOo
He nodded to the darkness, where the sounds of Yvonne and Chase disappeared among the shadows.
“What are you talking about?” Alaine’s voice betrayed a labored breath as Bowen’s thumb came to rest on the slope of her breast, just below the climb.
“I mean that in all the various versions of this moment, all the endless possibilities that live here side-by-side and room-by-room, it goes differently. Sometimes, we all have too much to drink and pass out before midnight. Sometimes we do little more than sit around the fireplace and talk.” His hand began to trace the edge of her breast, until his fingertips had encroached the sovereign border of the cup of her bra. “In one, you and I both take some gummies and we end up here, on this bed.”
One finger stroked absently at the edge of the rough skin around her nipple, pulling the entirety of it against the confines of its fabric prison. Alaine’s hand moved down from her neck to grasp his forearm tightly, holding the thing defiantly though unwilling to push Bowen away.
“And what happens?”
“Hmm?” Bowen wasn’t smiling anymore. He was trying to stare through her with eyes that had gone dark.
“In the version, where we end up here, on this bed,” she felt a twinge blush across the skin of her chest. “What happens?”
“Nothing,” said Bowen. Then his face dove downward and his lips found Alaine’s own.
…OOoo
From across the room, the muffled sounds of Chase and Yvonne intensified.
Alaine’s hand clenched tighter on the muscles of Bowen’s forearm, not intending to invite him but unsure of where else to put him. And for the briefest of moments, her lips froze, before she relented and took him in. She squeezed his wrist harder as they kissed, but Bowen’s hand broke easily from her grip. He gave her ribs another pass as his palm moved to the flat of her back, unclasping the bra in a single motion before pulling it and the tanktop up and over Alaine’s head.
“You got ‘em both,” Alaine said between breaths.
“Thank God.”
His hand found Alaine’s wrist and pushed it firmly, steadily back until he had pinned it against the pillow by her head. Instinctively, Alaine made to raise her other arm, but found it trapped beneath Bowen’s torso.
“Bowen, I – “
But her words failed her as Bowen’s mouth slid down from her own, along her neck and the gentle slope of her skin. “You can’t blame me,” he hissed quietly, “in all the possible moments of this night, for wanting this one.” He took her nipple in his teeth, holding it in place as his tongue flicked along it. Intensity flowed through Alaine, and she found herself fighting the strength that held her pinned, though she couldn’t say why. He sucked lightly, though he squeezed tighter on her wrist. Then he relented his grip, while his mouth pulled at her more fiercely.
OOO!
And not wanting to disappoint him, Alaine slunk down deep into her own skin, and lived in the sensation that was spreading along her. It was a complicated mix of things – anticipation and exhilaration, reticence and expectation. It was a color that you could only see in the dark. Some of it was probably the mushrooms. Some of it. She looked down to see Bowen’s mouth suckling at her, his eyes closed as he worked, and she let out a small cry of her own as the sensation found her deeper places.
…OOOo
Bowen let go of her as he rolled halfway, his hands sliding to the crests of her hips while Alaine’s came to rest in his hair. He moved his mouth to her other breast, and Alaine could feel the length of him hardening against her leg.
“Bowen,” she hissed under her breath. Her hands tightened in his hair until she pulled roughly at his scalp. His eyes opened to look at her while he worked, waiting for her to say something more. When she didn’t, he smiled, and gave her breast a kiss before he sat up on his knees between her legs, which were now outstretched.
“I come here often,” he smiled. “Back to this place.” The chalky skin of his body looked almost powdery in the light of the snowstorm. He placed his hands on her knees and slid them slowly along her thighs. “Back to this moment.” He reached into his sweats to pull his cock from the top of the waistline, while his other hand massaged slowly along the thin fabric that concealed the last of her. Then he lowered his hips, and put the head of his weapon along the edge of her opening.
…OOOoo
One of Alaine’s hands shot out instinctively, her palm pushing against the muscles of Bowen’s stomach. He caught it with the hand that wasn’t holding his own dick, and he smiled wider as he rubbed it against her.
“Bowen.”
“As long as you have these on,” he worked his tip against the fabric that hid her clit, “there’s nothing we can do.” She could feel the size of it, as it gave way in places while it prodded for an opening. Then he gave a little push, and tried forcing his way straight through the barrier, as though it had never even existed in the first place. And he brought the head back and forth, testing the entrance despite the holy veil that stood between them.
OOOO!
She pushed her palm harder against him, and he let go of her forearm and waited, until her hand slid down and found him and pumped at him firmly.
…OOOOo
His free hand came to rest on her hemline, his short nails digging beneath it.
…OOOOoo
He gave a little tug, and the veil was parted, and she lay naked before creation.
OOOOO!
And with a practiced motion, he placed himself at her ingress, and let his tip tickle at the walls of the opening.
“Wait,” Alaine gasped nervously.
“I have.”
She could feel him as his tip expanded just inside her. His thumb was already massaging the skin of her clit, pushing at it gently and tugging it northwards.
“You don’t have a condom.”
“I didn’t bring any,” he lied.
…OOOOOo
Bowen pushed a fraction of an inch further, his other hand sliding to the underside of Alaine’s breast before giving it a rough squeeze, sending her a jolt of something that wasn’t quite pain. Alaine’s hand snapped out and pushed at his wrist, but then shifted its defenses when Bowen advanced an inch further.
…OOOOOoo
Her palm pressed against the ridge of his stomach with resolve.
“You can’t blame…,” he said softly, his skin now pallid in the moonlight. He halted his assault but kept himself pressed just beyond the threshold, exploring the entryway and the front room. “You can’t blame me…,” he repeated again, and smiled down as he arched his back and took her firmly by the neck. His mouth descended to hover above her own. “You can’t blame me…” Alaine’s hips began to buck in short, sharp motions, involuntary at first, until she relaxed and rode them into existence. “For choosing …,” She felt the air catch in her throat as he gave her a squeeze. “…this moment.”
Then he held firmly, and kissed her softly, and pressed onwards into her deeper places.
OOOOOOOOOOO!!
***
Falling snow against the black. The mountains she had seen everyday as a child. A hike that was remembered now only in emotion. An impending flight. And everything that could go wrong.
Alaine’s eyes opened to the sight of the sun as it broke the crest of the balcony. The first dawn rays caught her skin, golden and effortless where she lay on her side on the foldout bed. There was snow piled against the edges of the glass door, framed against a sky that was fast brightening away from a color that was not quite blue. Beside her, Chase breathed lightly into the skin of her shoulder. Across the room, Bowen and Yvonne snored quietly.
She wasn’t dreaming. Not really.
