Stuck With You

This was exactly what I needed.

To be intentionally alone transported me back to an almost adolescent feeling. The hard part was done: the flight was over. Here I was, and I could only afford one weekend in this luxury hotel.

I had decided to pamper myself for the first time in my life. The problem was, I didn’t know what I truly liked at that point. So, I settled on the feminine self-care basics: the spa, the massages, the indoor pools, the luxurious bed, and the amazing food. I figured that, all things considered, it would be cheaper to get full board for two nights than to pay for all of those services separately. At least, that’s how I justified it to myself. In that moment, it seemed to me that I had gotten myself a deal.

As I got closer to the receptionist, I saw someone cutting me off in line.

“Hum? Excuse me?”

My words disappeared into the air. The man who had bumped into me was already leaning against the marble reception counter, mumbling something to the receptionist before looking back at me. He stared me dead in the eye - his irises didn’t quite reach his lower eyelids, giving him a naturally sultry gaze - and smirked.

I coughed loudly.

“What is it, miss? Am I stealing five minutes of your precious holiday or something?” he mumbled before winking at me.

“No. I’m in a rush to get away from you, sir” I replied.

He laughed, and it sounded genuine.

“I have to insist that you talk to Miss Moody here first. Please, I insist. We have to understand this urgent need your client has to get away from me. No, please, I truly insist,” he said to the confused receptionist.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I need to talk to both of you. Ms. Estelle, would you mind?” the receptionist replied.

As I approached the counter, the man didn’t even try to make space for me. I politely bumped into him to make a point. The man looked genuinely delighted by this and proceeded to mimic a hissing cat at me. The more I frowned, the more he laughed, flashing his tacky gold tooth as if he were personally trying to offend me.

The receptionist interrupted us.

“There has been an overbooking issue. I don’t know if you heard, but it seems that a storm is coming, and we have more guests than we expected and, well… No need to worry, though! We have two luxurious adjacent apartments on the top floor. They are very rarely made available... In this case, however, an exception has to be made. I encourage you to look at it as an upgrade.”

As the receptionist left the bounds of the counter to guide us to a hidden elevator that would take us to the apartments, I realized that he was a lot shorter than he seemed. The other man looked like a giant next to him, as if they were from different planets, and there I was, right in the middle.

“What are you laughing about over there, Miss Moody? Thrilled to be my neighbour?”

I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t wait for this to be over. I could only think of one thing: alone time.

The receptionist pointed to a line in the marble wall, and soon after, the elevator doors cracked open. He politely gestured goodbye as the man and I got inside, and the marble wall closed behind us without a trace.

The elevator ride was brief but thick with an unspoken, awkward tension. We stepped out onto the quiet, carpeted hallway of the top floor and went our separate ways without saying goodbye. The room was breathtaking, but my body was spent. I locked the world out, collapsed onto the massive bed, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep almost immediately.

As I opened my eyes, the luxurious setting clashed with what my brain expected to see upon waking up. I had slept like a baby in those pristine white cotton sheets. I rolled from side to side across the enormous bed and let out a soft laugh.

I put on my favourite jeans, a white tank top, and a cardigan, pairing them with slippers. The best part of staying in a hotel had to be the breakfast. My mouth was watering just thinking about it. I left my phone inside the room and headed out.

Even the elevator music was pleasant, and its mirror was so impeccably clean that it seemed to me I had never seen such an accurate reflection of myself. I found myself beautiful, especially my eyes. I felt like I deserved to be there, in a sterile elevator of a five-star hotel.

Ping.

The elevator doors opened smoothly. There wasn’t a single soul in the lobby and the silence was deafening. I followed the directions to the breakfast area, and when I got there, I was once again alone.

There was nobody.

The food was there, though, steaming.

Something was wrong. I could feel it.

I should have been careful about what I wished for. I got what I wanted, didn’t I? To be alone. All alone. Completely alone.

I started hyperventilating as I scanned the room, and the sound of my breathing was unsettlingly loud in the middle of all that silent nothingness.

I ran toward the exit in despair.

“No need to run, Miss Moody.”

I turned around, and there he was.

I still didn’t know how I could possibly have missed him.

“It’s just us. I checked everywhere.” He paused and smiled. “Trust me.”

I just stood there, not really knowing what to say. It was so surreal seeing him drinking coffee in this sea of abandoned hotel breakfast tables, tastefully set up for guests who would never come.

“Join me for breakfast” he said, pulling out a chair for me.

“How can you be so casual about this?” I finally replied, pulling my lips into an asymmetrical expression of disgust.

“Is that a yes?”

I turned around and shook my head, but I feared he was probably enjoying it too.

“I’m going to go upstairs, get my phone, and figure this out.”

He laughed.

“There’s no service, Miss Moody.”

“Stop calling me that,” I muttered as I walked away.

To be left behind was bad enough. To be left behind with him was my personal version of hell.

I tried to conjure up in my head all the reasons that made it impossible for me to stand him as I walked through the empty hallways when, suddenly, I felt the man’s hand grip my wrist, and I stopped short.

“Are you out of your mind?” I yelled.

“Listen, whatever your name is, we don’t know how long we’ll be here for, but right now, you’re hungry, and there’s a five-star buffet of warm food that I’m not going to let you walk away from,” he said, inches away from my face.

He stared into my soul as he let me go, but I didn’t move an inch. My wrist was still raised in the air.

“Join me for breakfast?”

“Do I have a choice?”

I realized I didn’t really want one as soon as I said it.

This time, he put his hand around my waist and gently guided me back toward the breakfast area.

I couldn’t really pinpoint why I was letting him talk to me this way.

But he was right. I was hungry. I’d deal with the mess later.

He pulled out a chair for me and told me to sit.

“Good girl” he jokingly remarked.

“Fuck you” I protested.

He put his index finger over his lips and shushed me while smiling, then walked away.

For a moment, I thought that he looked good when he smiled. It clashed with his modern macho persona.

I quickly shook my head as if to shoo the thought away.

“You know you can’t run away forever, right?” he said from across the room with a coffee in his hands. “That thought you were having just now? Eventually, you’ll have to face it.”

“Thank you,” I said as he handed me the coffee. “As for the free therapy, I’d rather take advice from a pigeon.”

This made him laugh so hard that I caught a glimpse of what he might have been like as a child.

He got up, walked toward the trays, and started picking out all of my favourite food, plating it in the most intentional way, as if he knew exactly what I wanted down to the smallest detail.

Plate by plate, he brought over his very own gastronomic curatorship, and I remember thinking I couldn’t have dreamed of a better breakfast. Suddenly a loud noise followed by a lightning.

“The storm.”

“What?” I asked mid-croissant.

“The hotel evacuation: it’s because of the storm. They left us behind. I guess they must have forgotten our apartments.”

“How long is it supposed to last?”

“Probably a week. You’ll be fine, Miss Moody. We have everything we need and more here, and besides” He paused and looked me up and down. “you’re with me.”

“And you know all of this because?”

“The TV was working earlier. Nobody in the area can leave their homes until the storm is over.”

After that, he barely looked at me.

It was as if I had stopped existing altogether. He couldn’t see me even if I’d been standing right in front of him.

He gathered all the plates - mine and his - excused himself, and went up to his apartment.

I was left there, alone in the remnants of an abandoned hotel, and it felt so symbolic.

I went back upstairs, and in the elevator, I could physically feel my body craving his. As I walked inside my apartment, I decided to take a shower to distract myself.

But the distraction failed. I couldn’t stop thinking about him while I showered.

I felt almost as if he had become the water dripping down my body, mixing with the conditioner in my soaked hair. Stop.

I had counted at least six different women's names tattooed across his body during breakfast, and he seemed proud of them too.

For a moment, I could see my name also tattooed across his biceps, with a crown on it. I could see my freshly done French nails scratching it gently, an emerald ring glinting on my finger.

I pulled myself back to reality by turning the water all the way to the cold setting.

The only good thing about him was his strange ability to make me take my mind off my ex.

Off any man, really.

Maria, Tati, Melissa, Dilara, and the rest of the women spread across his body were a whole other story. I couldn't keep my mind off of them if I tried.

I wanted to have my name be the biggest tattoo, and I thought to myself that I never knew I could get so competitive.

I stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around myself, and stood there for a moment, staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

I'd had enough. Whatever was happening in this hotel, I couldn’t afford to spend my time thinking about him.

I needed to find a way out.

I grabbed my phone, and decided to start looking for answers. There had to be another way to contact someone. A landline. An emergency phone. A staff entrance. Anything.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

He was at my door.