15Chapter 3 Here to Stay Part 2
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes Benz
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget
So I called up the Captain,
'Please bring me my wine'
He said, 'We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine'
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise, bring your alibis
That morning I slept in later than I had in years. According to my clock it was twelve-thirty in the afternoon. Usually by that time I was packed up and ready to hit the road again. The advantage to having no windows in your room was that the sun didn't wake you up with its blinding rays of white.
I rolled out of bed and my bare feet touched the plush carpet, sinking in as they did so. Strolling over to the bathroom, I grabbed a pair of black, denim jeans. My feet touched the cold tile floor and the chill ran up my leg to my spine causing me to shiver. While turning on the hot water in the sink, I looked into mirror and something caught my eye.
There was no sign that I'd been asleep at all. Usually I'd have dark rings under my eyes or they'd be puffy, my complexion would be off a little, or at least my breath would give it away. None of those things applied this morning and I couldn't put a word on how that felt. Without being vain, I almost looked perfect.
My ears picked up on the creak of my door opening and I stopped for just a moment and peaked through the crack that I'd left in the door. I couldn't see who had come into my room without even knocking but I would know soon enough. I slowly pried open the door to find that Tiffany was standing in a red mini-skirt that didn't leave much up to the imagination.
She was looking in my direction and a smile wore heavy on her face. She too looked just as beautiful as she did the night before. I had to get some answers. Being curious had always been in my nature.
I stepped through the door with a smile and suddenly noticed that I wasn't wearing a shirt. I smiled, she smiled, and then she pointed at each of my arms. "What are those?" She asked. She was pointing at the tattoos that I wore on each bicep. On one arm I had Jackie and on the other I had Jonathan, my parent's names. They were done in black cursive and each were underlined in red.
"Oh, those were my parents." I almost stressed the word were. She stopped reading my arms for a second and then she began reading my eyes. "They died in a car wreck five years ago"; I said it because I knew that she would ask eventually.
"I'm sorry to hear that", she said. "I haven't spoken to my parents in over ten years." Now it was her turn to make me study her eyes.
"Why is that?" I was eager to know as much about Tiffany as possible. She was, to me at least, a puzzle in itself. She was a puzzle that I craved to put together.
"To tell you the truth I left for selfish reasons. They wouldn't give me the things that I wanted so I just left." Shame filled her eyes to the rim. It almost made me want to cry. Almost. Something about this hotel almost seemed to make me completely devoid of all unpleasant emotions. I knew in my heart that a building, a place couldn't possible make you feel differently about things but it was feeling more and more real every minute.
"Do you know what the seven deadly sins are?" She continued. "Pride, greed, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, sloth." She looked down at the ground and just when I thought a tear would fall from her face she looked up at me and smiled. "Greed, lust, and envy got me. Which one will get you?"
I didn't like the way she made that sound. She'd made it come out as if she was already dead and I would be there soon. I turned that bit of information over and over in my head a few times.
"I'm not any of those"; this really shocked her. She looked at me as if I were insane, or completely the opposite.
"Lucky you", she almost seemed offended. Maybe she wanted me to say lust. The fact of the matter was that I didn't lust over her as much as I loved her. I know that this, above everything else, sounded crazy because I'd only met her the day before but for some unknown reason it was possible.
I smiled, sensing what she was thinking, and responded accordingly. "Of course I lust, just not bad enough that I can't say no if I need to." Smiling, I took a step closer to her.
The moment was extraordinary and before I knew how it happened our bodies had closed the gap in between us and our chests were touching lightly. Her smiled made my knees so weak that I thought I would fall to the ground.
She was the first to make a move and pushing her lips to mine, we kissed. It was a moment of true bliss that I'd never experienced before. It was as if there was an electric shock moving between our bodies through our lips. I'd never felt pleasure like that, not even in sex. We pulled each other closer together and we fell to the bed.
We rolled around on the bed slowly, taking in all the pleasures that I never even knew existed. Lust, it seems, had a stronger hold on me than I knew. I couldn't find where I stopped and she began. I wasn't even aware that we were actually making love until she let a few soft moans escape her soft lips.
Playing on eternity and dancing on clouds made me feel as if there was nothing that could harm me. I felt as if I was floating on the wind, intertwined with Tiffany. After what seemed like hours of completely fulfilling sex, we ended up cuddling on the bed.
"That was amazing", I said. She nodded in agreement. We were both still panting too hard to force out extended sentences. "I mean, I don't understand."
"It was two people that lust for one another in the moment." I didn't like the way she stressed the word lust.
"That's not what I meant. I don't understand a single thing that goes on in this place. I just don't get how I'm feeling some of the feelings that I've experienced here. Would you please give me some answers?" I looked deep into her dark eyes. I knew that somewhere in those windows to the soul there were the answers that I was looking for.
"Just trust me when I say that everything will get better for you. Missing your parents, missing your home, the feeling that your missing out on love, all of those things will go away if you stay here long enough. If you want them bad enough you can make them go away."
"How did you know that I missed my home? More than that how did you know about the love thing? I haven't ever told anyone that."
She smiled and kissed my lips. "I love you", she said. I could feel her words burn through my chest and hit my heart like a cool fire. She meant it and I knew it. I wasn't the only one that knew it was possible to fall in love at first sight.
"I don't know how to explain-", she stopped me short.
"Then don't. Do what you feel and don't worry about the explanation."
"I love you", I managed to say with a smile. Doing what you feel is a good philosophy in theory but I just had too much trouble trying to swallow things down with no questions asked. I got that from my father.
It was two o'clock when I told her that I loved her for the first time. We conversed for hours about our lives and ourselves. We'd both grown up in southern states and had loving parents that were middle class. I found that she loved children and she'd never had a job. There was something about her that went unsaid but I knew that she felt bad about leaving her parents. I couldn't put my finger on it but there was something going on. There was more than met the eye and the scariest thing about it was that I was beginning to get very, very comfortable with it.
"There is a big feast tonight. The Captain expects everyone to be there", she said.
"I will only go if you will come as my date." I smiled at her.
"Deal."