That Conversation
Gisele woke in a cold sweat from the dream. Her eyes snapped open to the sight of a dimly lit hotel room, street sounds hardly muffled by thin walls.
She remained still, so not to wake Han sleeping beside her, inhaling deeply as she listened and looked for signs of danger. Any sound or movement that required her to shove Han to cover and retrieve the weapon hidden under her pillow or tucked beneath the mattress. Like that little mess in Berlin.
Slowly, she got out of bed and went to the window, looking down at the neon lights of a narrow Hong Kong street.
"I had the dream again," she said. He hadn't moved or spoken, but she could feel him awake and watching her.
"I don't like that dream," Han replied.
The corner of her mouth quirked upward as she pressed her forehead to the dirty window. "Neither do I. No matter how dazzling you might be coming to my rescue."
She heard the rustle of sheets, sounds of a bag crinkling, and a crunch of potato chips.
"A dream should not distress you so much," she said as she glanced at the complex across from the hotel. It felt as if someone else watched. They were cautious during their adventure in Madrid, but it did not mean her and Han were in the clear.
Gisele dropped the curtain and looked at him with a soft smile.
"Who's distressed?" Han asked in a flippant tone, even as he slid his gaze to her. "They can be prophetic you know."
"You believe such things?"
Han shrugged his shoulders as he finished his chips and crumpled the bag. "Not really."
She leaned on the space of wall near the window and closed her eyes, inhaling the scent of conditioned air. "It's how I would choose to go."
"Not this again."
Her eyes opened and she watched him search for something else to eat instead of the cigarettes buried deep in his pack. He relapsed to smoking twice since meeting her in Rio. "Can you truly see me an old woman? Sitting in a comfortable home with grandchildren on my knee?"
"I never said anything about children. I said… I asked if you wanted to settle."
"Settle," she said, repeating the word and rolling it with her accent. "So many meanings."
Han looked at her with a sharp gaze. "Say no if you want. Just say something."
"You ask a complicated thing. There is what one wants now and what one desires for the future. Men, for instance," Gisele said, pushing away from the wall and sauntering toward him, "want a woman who is wild now." She placed a hand on his chest to make him scoot back to the headboard as she crawled on the bed to follow after.
Han watched her attentively, as he always did.
With a slight smile, she lifted his hands over his head and pinned them on either side of his head. "A freak in the seats, if you will," she said, her lips millimeters from his. "However, in the future, a tame, demure creature is desired to keep a house and raise children. I could never be so." She tightened her grip, putting pressure on a vulnerable point on the inner wrist. "I'm a freak."
To his credit, Han did not panic at the position or pressure as most men did. "Really? That's your read on me?"
"Not now. You will."
She read the movement in his eyes and allowed him to destabilize her with his legs and tumble her onto the mattress with his greater strength. He pinned her. "And if I never want that?"
Gisele smiled affectionately as he stared down with that deceptively impassive face. She kicked into the mattress and used gravity and the sloping edge to flip them onto the floor, rolling to end up on top with her faster reflexes.
"I would have made a mistake. Fortunately, I have not rejected you."
