The Situation

She sat up in the hotel bed, the hotel sheet pooled in her lap, her bare breasts on display as she smoked her cigarette, every now and then reaching to tap her ashes into the hotel ash tray on the hotel bedside table.

She stared blankly at the hotel sconce on the hotel wall, her thoughts so very far away from the hotel room she shared with a man she hardly knew.

She could hear him now, showering brutishly. Her lips pursed in disgust as he grunted yet again, probably harshly rubbing the soap on a tender spot of his body. She wished he would be silent and let her hear only the sounds of the water hitting his body on its way to the drain. Then she could easily imagine that he was anyone, anyone at all, but as it stood, every time she tried, he would let loose another grunt or groan and ruin her daydream.

She rested her chin on her shoulder as she fiercely stubbed out her cigarette on top of all the other butts in the ashtray. She smiled softly as she imagined his body beneath the glowing ember, reddening and then blackening at its touch.  It struck her what she was thinking about, and she dropped the butt, wiping her fingers on the hotel sheet. She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them to her body, and a tear slipped softly down her cheek.

The knob squealed a protest as he turned the water off in the bathroom.

She jerked her head upright and scrubbed frantically at her face to dry the single tear, then closed her eyes and took two deep breaths to calm her heart rate. She heard him step out of the hotel bathtub and caught herself wishing that he would fall and strike his head against the porcelain and bleed out, there on the floor, and she could claim innocence until the red pool crept out from under the bathroom door. She laughed, and clapped a hand against her mouth to hold back the rest of it.

He walked out of the hotel bathroom, beaming when he saw her, his body still dripping hotel water on the hotel carpet, a hotel towel tossed artlessly over his right shoulder. She didn’t meet his eyes, her gaze hovering instead on his unshaven upper lip.

“How about we order in some dinner?” he asked, and his voice grated on her ears.

She suppressed a cringe, and smiled brightly, reaching for her phone. “Sure, what’d you have in mind?”

He chuckled. “You.”

He threw the towel to the floor and leaped onto the bed, nearly crushing her left foot. His hands reached for her, and it took every bit of inner strength she had to let him fondle her nakedness.

She praised whatever gods there may be when her stomach grumbled, loudly, distracting him from his struggle with the sheet that covered her body.

“How about later?” she offered. “I’m starving.”

He raised an eyebrow, then acquiesced. “Later, then. I’m pretty hungry myself. Let’s get room service; they’d be the fastest.” He stood and pulled a pair of jeans from the duffel bag on the dresser before jamming his feet into the legs, one at a time.

He winked at her, and her stomach tied itself in another knot of disgust.