Room for Two?
A/N: As always, for my best friend, Eve. If you hadn't have been there silently prodding me to write like a mother bird would prod at her nestling this piece wouldn't have taken flight.
I stirred from my sleep to a blinding genesis outside my window. I couldn't evoke last night's events with a steeping concussion. If I thought about anything too hard—even if just for a small fissure of time—my head would start thrashing against my skull, forcing my eyes to deign to my basic feet. My life amounted to the lathers tumbling down the motel shower drain, along with the residue within the frothing soap. I was the soap: once pure, once immoral. Now I was the soot embedded in the detergent: defunct, unsolicited, and ripened to the core. My reflection through the stopcock wasn't clear, soiled with dirt and skin particles and God knows what else. That was my only benediction. I didn't want to see my face staring back at me as much as a butterfly wanted to admit that it was just as beautiful with its wings severed. I was no Saint. I didn't even deserve a release as humble as the water surging down my length. My body felt like raw meat put through a tenderizer. Whatever had happened the night before must have been blacked out by the pain. Not to feel, think; exist; even if just for a couple hours. There weren't enough things I would give to be in that mind-numbing state again.
I think I'm going to write the motel manager's name into my estate. He gave the room to me free of cost for the entire week and a half I was renting and even gave me his personal number if I had any issues with the pipes or electricity. I asked if there was any catch-22 to his diplomatic exploit. He just gave me a curt smile, lent the keys to me with bright emerald eyes, and said "Just don't watch too much Casa Erotica. It's a bitch to scrape out semen from the shower walls."
"Dually noted," I said somewhat impishly, seizing the keys. I tried not to linger my fingers too long on his, but they were like incredibly fine (and incredibly warm) silk on my frayed ones. My mind was convulsing with a thousand thoughts poles apart from the innocuous touch.
That man was a Saint, I thought; both internally and aesthetically. He wore his somewhat unkempt caramel hair parted to the right, had a protruding jaw that would make Rock Hudson weep in his grave, and this smile that somehow meddled into your personal space without consent. I could tell by the crow's feet dancing around the corners of his eyes that he did this often, smiling. Usually I would have been led to believe that he was hitting on me when he retracted his hand and smiled again—this time through a stifled chuckle and profusely red cheekbones—until another man came out from around the counter to sling a lazy arm around his shoulders.
"Alright, Dean, I unclogged the drains in twenty, restocked towels in ten and—" The stranger paused to cast a glance from Dean to me. "Who's this?" he asked curiously. This man was much taller and had a firmer handclasp than Dean's when he told him that I was a new guest. His name was… Stan, Sal? I was still too preoccupied with the attractive motel manager staring at me like I was the one who physically gave him that temporary sunburn across his face. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked, noting that Dean hadn't said anything between the awkward interval. Dean cocked his head sideways and nodded.
"Just peachy, Sammy," he said quietly. Sam relinquished his arm, patting him absently on the chest before sprinting out of the small office. My face had never felt more on fire in my life. There I believed that someone actually thought I was eye-candy to another human being only to learn that he had a counterpart.
That was a week ago when I checked into the place. I haven't seen Mr. Perfect or his moose of a boyfriend loitering around the place since. I pulled the covers tighter around my shoulders, praying to whoever had their ears on that I would drift into a long, comatose slumber.