Sample Sunday - You Tell Me
Happy Sunday! I think things are coming along beautifully for this couple, so let's check in a bit later than where the previous sample left us. Still no release date to announce, but we do have a title now - Prior Affair!
Definitely weird.
At this point, I felt like that was truly the best way to describe it— the word that encompassed it all. Not necessarily negative, but good enough to fit the perplexing nature of my absolute comfort stretched across Hailey's bed.
Especially considering that she wasn't even in it.
It was either late or early, depending on your point of view— two or three in the morning.
We’d fucked, we’d slept, and now, after graduating from her notebook, pen, and a book light over by the wall of plants, Hailey was at the acrylic desk across the room, her nails making a soft click-clack against the keys as her fingers flew, the glow from her screen providing the only bit of light.
She hadn't woken me up— the nightmare had.
Indistinguishable voices calling to me for help through layer after layer of rubble and debris I couldn't seem to dig through, though I ripped through my gloves, through my flesh, down to the bone, desperately trying.
Honestly… her fingers flying over the keys had grounded me back in reality, giving me something to focus on as I transitioned through that veil between awake and asleep, into full consciousness.
Now I was tired of watching.
I needed to engage.
“How are things coming along with the house?” I asked her, breaking the relative silence.
I half expected the sound of my voice to startle her, since she was so keenly in tune with whatever words she was pulling from her head to leave on the screen. But she didn't even flinch, just turned in my direction to peer at me. I doubted she could see me that well with most of the room shrouded in darkness, but somehow she managed to look me right in the eyes.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Well damn,” I chuckled, grunting a bit as I pulled myself into a position to sit up. “I take it that's your way of telling me to leave?”
“If I wanted you to leave, I would have just said that,” she countered. “It's an honest question. I just… would have expected you to go back to your own bed after we were done. Instead, you fell asleep.”
“What if I just like this bed?”
She smirked. “Have at it. But, you can't talk to me while I'm trying to work.”
Okay.
Cool.
I could respect that.
I spent the next couple hours dozing, messing around on my phone, watching her.
Studying her.
Damn near ethereal in beauty, draped in that same soft robe from the last time. The artificial light cast a bluish radiance over her dark skin, contributing even more to that other-worldly quality, making it easy to wonder if this whole thing – meeting her at all – was just some sort of long, fucked-up dream.
An illusion.
My head went to, left, and revisited myriad places and possibilities between then and when the sun finally started coming up, replacing the light from her computer with the muted luster of daylight through the shades.
I used the room phone to order breakfast when I heard her stomach rumble.
I didn't even try to be quiet about it, just looked her dead in the face while I ordered us avocado toast and breakfast potatoes from the onsite restaurant.
“So are you going to answer my question?” I asked her, once she’d had an opportunity to get some food down.
She met my eyes with a smirk. “Why are you so interested?”
“Why wouldn't I be?” I asked her. “It's the entire basis for how we met. Allegedly.”
Shaking her head, she laughed. “Here you go with that again. Why do you think I'm keeping some secret first meeting from you or something?”
“I didn't say all of that,” I chuckled. “It's just.. you know…”
“You think I’m a witch or something – obviously.”
I chuckled. “Your pussy is quite hypnotic, so shit… you tell me.”