Through Tinted Glasses
written by: Peter Rehn
“Where are you?” I asked, perplexed, scared even, blinking away the haze of my cat nap. We had only been here an hour, and she was already gone.
She had a way of slipping away like that. Vanishing, leaving me to my thoughts. Not ideal, but that’s what she was like. Impulsive, mysterious. Selfish, perhaps, but not cruel. Or maybe I had always been too lenient, too deeply in love to see clearly. I had been warned, even by her mother, but love… love wears the strangest lenses.
This was supposed to be a break for us, a reset. Things had been rough. Too much noise in my head, too little time for anything real. She had insisted that I needed a break, but now I was thinking, perhaps it was more for her? Why else would she vanish, leaving me here, on this oval-shaped-bed, in this romantic, mirror-ceilinged suite, alone.
My palms slid over the purple satin sheets, feeling the smooth coolness.
“It takes two to be romantic,” I sighed. I’m sure she knew that. Or did she?
I got up to enter the bathroom. Walked down to the bar, around the common areas, nothing.
“I have a question,” I said to the receptionist. “Have you seen my wife?”
“Yes,” he said. “She left in a taxi half an hour ago. Alone. Carrying only her handbag.”
“Great,” I muttered, then went back up to the suite.
I lay there, fuming, but mostly with myself. Why had I fallen for this again? Where had she gone? Was there someone else? Had I been so damn busy I had not seen the signs?
I must have dozed off again, and didn’t hear her come in.
Then, suddenly, a cold trickle slid down my chin.
My tongue instinctively followed the trail. Sweet. My eyes flew open.
She sat there, straddling me, naked, apart from some white lace lingerie I had not seen before. Stunning, as always. Her long, dark hair cascaded over her shoulders. Down over her breasts. A bottle of champagne in her hand.
“I bet you wondered where I went,” she purred, a mischievous smile on her dark red lips.
“I did,” I said softly, heart still racing. “I got worried.”
“I wanted to surprise you,” she said. “I forgot something. You won’t be disappointed.”
She began unbuttoning my shirt, tracing every inch of revealed skin with her sharp, long red nails. Just the way I liked it. She knew me so well.
Soon I lay there, undressed, waiting, wanting, impatient.
She took a sip from the bottle before pouring some cold champagne on my belly. I twitched.
“It always tastes better like this,” she said, bending down, letting the point of her tongue trace the trickle, slowly licking it up.
“Mmmm…” I breathed, my doubts dissolving slowly.
But even as her lips touched me, I felt it. That flicker in the back of my mind.
Was this love, or just another shape I poured my longing into?
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