Alan stepped in front of the safety bar to hold the elevator door open after I exited. While I rocked my weight from one aching foot to the other, he carried on a one-sided dialogue as though he didn't notice my flamingo impersonation, or the door bucking his back.
"I think we should skip the first session tomorrow. Sleep in, or pack so we'll be ready for check-out. The agenda looks boring." I nodded; admiring his ability to ignore conditions that I suspected must be as painful for him as they were for me. When a buzzing alarm finally called him back inside the car, he waved and left me with a final comment. "Remember, I'm right above you if you need anything."
No doubt, Alan wanted his statement to reassure, but the reminder that I was alone and might need something accomplished the opposite. Thanks to his suggestion that something could go wrong, I strained muscles in my neck and eyes, trying simultaneously to watch my back and the doors on both sides of the long hall that led to my room. Apprehension crescendoed when it took three tries to make the key work in my door, and dissolved into freedom once I was inside, the second lock clinked a declaration of safety and privacy, and I remembered that Room 224 belonged to me for the night - only to me, to enjoy as I pleased. By default of death and gender (my intended roommate's grandmother died and the company sent Alan in her place), this room hosted a number of firsts for me: my first business trip, my first night away from my husband and son, and my first time having a bed (actually, two identical beds) to myself. I refuse to count the hospital bed when Jason was born since I had a roommate and nurses traipsing in and out all night. Lights, temperature, alarm clock, and television programs awaited my sole preferences. Fear would not ruin this for me.
I started by kicking off the shoes that had tortured me for the last fourteen hours, and then stripped my way across the room, shedding clothes and inhibitions without the slightest nag of guilt for leaving them where they landed. A naked rebel emerged, examined the bland, mauve-and-gray surroundings, and decided she would enjoy trashing the faux-pristine room. I had seen the truth on a news program; the matching bedspreads and lampshades covered traces of sperm and germs.
With no concern for nudity or utility costs, I turned the temperature knob on the heat/air unit to the coldest setting, pushed the highest fan button, and danced across my clothes, turning on every electrical device in the room. With equal (and familiar) disregard for my obvious pleasure, Ron's voice invaded my thoughts. How could anyone need six lights in one hotel room?
Why does anyone think a criticism doesn't annoy if it comes in the form of a question? As usual, I swallowed those words, but I did answer my husband's question. "Sometimes, it's okay to forget need and just give in to feeling pampered."
The response--even after feeling stupid for speaking aloud to someone who was not in the same state--made me drunk with freedom. I bounced from one bed to the other, scrolling channels with the remote. Cable offered more choices than I could deal with so I passed on television, settled on music, and thumbed through the books on the nightstand. Room service tempted, especially the drinks on the back. Goose bumps and the urge to crawl under the sperm-hiding blankets won that battle and stayed the regret of finally getting privacy after I had quit drinking.
Propped like a princess on four pillows, I clapped my hands on the odd chance that this fairytale evening might produce a servant with a drink. A knock on the door echoed the clap, almost making me believe I might actually have a fairy godmother, until I heard Alan's voice.
"You still up in there?"
"Kinda." I wrapped myself in the bedspread and mentally tracked the robe in my overnight bag, which, for reasons I could not recall, I had left under the bathroom sink.
"Come to the door. I have something for you."
Shrinking deeper into the spread, I pulled it off the mattress and wore it to the door, where the clink of the lock worked in reverse. Apprehension crept back in with the locks and hit full force when I opened the door. Jeans, a tee shirt, and bare feet removed ten years and most of the stuffiness of his suited appearance, making me wonder how many other attractive men I might have missed at work. He raised both hands, a bottle of wine in one and two glasses in the other.
Close the door and go to bed. No question mark. My voice.
"Want to come in?" The words that slipped out.
I shifted the bedspread to poke out an arm and accept the bottle he handed over as he walked past me. "Looks like you undressed in a hurry," he said, leaning over to pick up my jacket.
"Drop it. I'm being defiant."
He threw his head back and laughed, revealing another new secret: his hair actually moves.
"This room will be a total mess before I leave. In a little while, I am going to leave toothpaste in the skink. I might pee and forget to flush."
"Maybe you didn't need that bottle." He let the jacket fall back to the floor. "I can live without the toilet, but wouldn't mind witnessing the toothpaste blob. This is going to excite you?"
What was I thinking? I had to face this man at work. "Forgive me. I needed silliness to unwind after the conference. Was this the most boring day in your life, too?"
"Right up there with the worst of them. That's why I thought you might like a drink." He raised the glasses.
"I appreciate the offer but I don't drink." There, hard part said.
He put the glasses on the dresser and reached for the bottle. "You don't normally throw your clothes on the floor, either. You're being defiant."
"True." I handed my reservations over with the bottle.
He filled both glasses and we sat on the beds to drink, he on the still-made one, and I on the one whose spread I still wore. Halfway through the first glass, I stopped wondering why I hadn't gone to the bathroom and changed into my pajamas and robe. After the second, I fell back on the bed and complained that wine must be stronger than it had been when I drank every night.
"Could be," he said. I giggled because his voice tickled my ear. "You've lost your cover, my dear." His voice was in my ear this time, escorting me into that wonderful realm of inner heat shared with contradictory goose bumps and taut nipples. "Let me help."
Eyelids too heavy to lift, and not trusting what might come out if I tried to speak, I lay still and nodded. I needed help. He took my glass and placed it on the nightstand. I convinced myself that excitement and irregular breathing were causing the room to spin; keen senses proved I couldn't be drunk. I sensed his movements, heard the glass hit the wood, smelled the fabric softener in his shirt, and imagined the taste of his tongue in my mouth.
Still in a denied-drunk state of confidence, I knew he stood between the beds, staring at me. I sensed he would speak before he did.
"Will it upset your defiance if I turn off a few of these lights before I leave?" He sighed. "I'll get out of here and let you sleep."
My response surprised me more than his words had. "No."
"No, you don't want the lights off?"
"No, to both. I think." I slurred because my throat was dry, cursed myself for setting the fan on high. "My defiance will not suffer if you turn off the lights. And no, I don't want you to leave."
"Then, you'll have to put something on."
Thank God, he planned to turn off the lights. Otherwise, I would be too embarrassed to ever open my eyes again. My first chance to experience what I had seen in movies, read in books, and listened to on Mondays in the office - my first potential one-nighter tells me to put my clothes on? I could think of nothing more humiliating, at least not until the tears rolled down the sides of my face and plunked on the sheet like bowling balls on plywood. Maybe two glasses of wine was enough to do it these days. I hoped I was lucky enough to pass out soon.
He sighed again, this time maybe loud enough for people in surrounding rooms to hear. "Are you okay?"
"Drunk, naked in front of a co-worker, freezing, and too damned humiliated to move. Does that sound okay to you?"
"Let me get tissues," he offered.
I pulled the bedspread around my apparently repulsive body while he was gone. Maybe it wasn't me. He might not like women. Oh God, it might be even more humiliating to have missed something that important. When he returned with a handful of tissues and handed me one, I thanked him and blew my nose. What could it hurt? A honk would not make this night any worse.
"Do it," he said.
"What?"
"Toss the used tissue on the floor." I laughed, dropped the tissue, and reached for another. He fed me the stack he had in his hand and then went back for more, purposely dropping a couple before he got to me. We laughed until the tissues ran out.
The spinning settled while I learned to live with humiliation. He deserved a reprieve now that I knew I would survive. "Thanks for the wine and tissues."
"My pleasure." He ran a hand across the bed he had wrinkled and stopped mid-sweep. "What am I thinking?" He yanked the spread off the bed and dropped it on the floor. When I laughed, he went back for the blanket and top sheet. "This is actually quite fun," he said, watching the sheet parachute over the television. After it settled, he turned to face me. "Do I still get to watch you leave the toothpaste blob before I leave?"
"Maybe later." I adjusted my cover and held it closed with both hands. "I just thought of a great act of defiance." I stepped up on the bed and jumped; he did the same on the other bed.
"We're both crazy," he said.
I kicked my legs out and landed on my ass. "If you tell anybody at work about this, I'll have to kill you."
He smacked the ceiling with his palms. "Likewise."
After leaving toothpaste and shampoo blobs in the sink and on the counter, I walked him to the door. My "thank you" felt inadequate.
"For helping you destroy your room? I enjoyed it."
"For making the room the only thing I destroyed."
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Comments: 87
(A minor typo - "toothpaste in the skink")
This shows a new side of you, Sandy, and I like it.
(dropping a few lines so my comment doesn't ruin this for the next reader...
The tension, the suspense, and the resolution so much better than I feared!! Let's hear it for real gentlemen! (Even if they are in fictional settings!)
Delightful!
I'm too tired after a hectic week to critique, but I loved: "I handed my reservations over with the bottle."
Dannielle, I'm glad you liked the way this ended. I was afraid people would be disappointed.
This is (almost) a scene from a novel I'm working on. I thought the scene would make a good story, but it didn't work out of context and without knowing the characters. I rewrote, removing what seemed over-the-top without the rest of the story, and creating what I hoped was enough of a new story to carry the scene. In the end, I think this was harder than starting a story from scratch.
1) In my mind, in order to really imitate a flamingo, the narrator would be not only shifting her weight from foot to foot, but lifting her unweighted foot up and tucking it under her ass, as in the picture. I'm pretty sure that's not what she's doing. I think she's just shifting her weight.
2) Surely this is not the first time she has ever had a bed to herself, unless she slept with someone all through her childhood and up until she got married. Maybe clarify that it's a first in her adult life? A first in her married life?
3) Propped like a princess on four pillows Clause misplacement here. Should be "Propped on four pillows, like a princess, . . . " The meaning difference is subtle yet important; the way it's written suggests that "a princess on four pillows" is a common descriptive referent. My favorite example of this type of clause misplacement comes from Arthur Conan Doyle: "The wind was moaning like a child in the chimney," rather than "The wind was moaning in the chimney like a child."
And one for the road:
4) With no concern for nudity or utility costs As written, "costs" modifies both nudity and utility. To avoid this, rephrase as "With no concern for utility costs or nudity".
(saw that fly past in the email - have to fun for a few minutes and will be back to read the rest)
He may have had some vague thoughts of "maybe" but had the same reservations she had. I did get the sense of a time lapse -- two glasses of wine were imbibed -- so there was time to reconsider. Or maybe he reconsidered after he realized the wine might have been too much for her to handle; two sober, consenting adults would be fair. One inebriated woman and he could be accused of taking advantage.
David, I added the flamingo so you would see her lifting her leg. Although this scene is purely fiction, some of their characterists are mine. When I've spent a day in heels, I lift my feet (one at a time, of course) off the ground to relieve both the foot and the leg muscles. I wrote some weird description like that the first round and thought it looked like clutter, so I used the flamingo (actually, used a pelican first) to paint that picture in fewer words.
In the novel, they know each other fairly well and are often in the same hotel. By the time this scene takes place, he follows her lead and it makes sense. With this version, I considered different ways I could have made more of his thoughts known while still staying in her head but decided to let the reader wonder, as she will have to do. I like to think that he probably came down there to test the water, but because he is a decent guy, she said she didn't drink, and he saw how the drinks affected her, decided not to take advantage of the situation. I hope the sighs are a result of his not knowing what he has done or what the consequences might be for both of them, and that he was totally relieved when he was able to turn it around so they ended up laughing.
Also, The jist I got from the guy backing off a bit was her state of inebriation, like someone else said. I also felt this might be part of a bigger story, which Sandy confirmed here.
My only slight sticking point was here:
No doubt, Alan wanted his statement to reassure
The pause implied by the comma seemed to glitch the pace of the sentence for me. But then I am weird that way. heh. Feel free to ignore me.
Ok that was my other 'moment.'
I saw that as a sigh of exasperation. Now that you've explained it, it makes everything just that much clearer. I would be very interested to read the novel.
I hoped it was obvious that the second sigh only seemed loud to her because of her heightened attention to all senses. Maybe I should rethink using that one.
"The article I did yesterday was hell to get done. Every time you add a picture, the text goes away! It's getting harder, not easier, to publish. I thought the improvements were supposed to help us????"
and if you think back it took me two days and twelve clones of an article before I finally gave up. Gather Inc hasn't got a clue about editing software or setting up decent tools; but it's seriously into advertising revenue.
funny story-- well-written.
normal lunatics--not everyone is so paranoid as Howard Hughes and it's not illegal to have dogs in restaurants in Europe, so don't come here. It's written that Socrates did battle in the snow barefoot, so guess he was lunatic, too.
The flamingo/leg thing is a detail that any woman who wears heals can identify as realistic. I'm forever flexing my calves. You even described the shoes the character wore as 'torturous'...'nough said.
This piece treaded the nebulous terrain of 'office sexual politics' with such aplomb. Kudos! As in life, it's confusing, discombobulating, frightening, titillating and, often, embarrassing. All represented here.
EB, thanks for mentioning office sexual politics. I included fantasy in the tags and hoped no one would consider that choice misleading. I believe most people have entertained at least one innocent fantasy about someone with whom they work or routinely interact. This story takes that fantasy one step beyond thinking but remains innocent. In my personal experience, (and from what I've heard from others), this is often the outcome when one or both parties edge away from safety - reality intervenes and nothing happens.
Thank you, Joanne, for not letting that nasty little comma ruin this for you. I think I used a semicolon, and it looks like everyone is still alive, so I might be improving with the punctuation.
I also heard the sighs as exasperated, which was one of the reasons I wasn't sure I was "reading" his motivation correctly. In my experience, it's actually rather unusual for a person to sigh audibly unless he or she is making some sort of point, i.e., being exasperated.
Mary -- anything wrong with slippers? Or socks? And you do know I was making a joke, yes? Just in case, I'll try to stay out of your part of Europe ;-)
On a personal note, your comment about not being the sort of man in front of whom a woman would feel comfortable doing such a thing makes me wonder how a man who thinks as you do would react to someone like me, who has few inhibitions and would be totally natural around you. If we were riding the elevator together, I stepped out of my shoe and wiggled my toes or stretched my leg muscles, would you be offended instead of flattered that I trusted you to accept me as I am? Would you consider my action in horrible taste? A come-on? Shocking? I said on a personal note but do not mean to put you on the spot, or suggest that I ask this question in reference to the two of us. I'm asking your personal input on a generic situation, to help me understand different personalities and how they affect one another.
Were you to behave in an elevator as you described, my thought would be this: "Those must be some damned uncomfortable shoes. Thank God I don't have to wear shoes like that."
It's an interesting phenomenon, I think, that people who are unapologetically themselves have the capacity to make other people uncomfortable, or to cause them to feel the need to modify behavior, responding to an unvoiced expectation. That has little or nothing to do with your story, but it does explain why I've never seen a lady in heels imitate a flamingo.
I had the same questions about Alan, but I think it is in the nature of such stories (and part of the charm) that we're left wondering. Stories like this are much like sitting in a plane or train terminal and people watching.
And as for barefooted in a hotel -- when I travel I never think twice about it.
Damn --- you have your moments dont you?
x Thanks for this!!
Vaguely uncomfortable? Do I get to guess whether it was the writing, the story, or both?
Thanks, everyone, for reading and commenting.
I tried even harder to look only at what is written here, looking for what you see that makes you not trust Alan.
To play Devil's Advocate: Were he acting from a truly gentlemanly/trustworthy perspective, he would have said: "Oh, I'm so sorry to have interrupted you -- I'll come back in a minute," closed the door, and waited for her to get dressed.
The fact that he didn't indicates either:
1) He knows her far better than this excerpt allows the reader to see, which is one of many problems inherent in excising part of a novel to use as a short story, or
2) He sees an opportunity. The fact that he is showing up at her door in casual attire, carrying wine, suggests to the reader (who does not have the benefit of knowing him from the rest of the novel) that he was looking for an opportunity to start with, or
3) He intuits her reason for being naked, which is a pretty big leap for the reader to make.
We also don't know, for sure, in the excerpt, why he doesn't take advantage. Maybe he doesn't find her attractive. Maybe he doesn't like to go to bed with drunk women. Or maybe he's taking the high road. The deliberate ambiguity is partly what compromises the reader's perception of his trustworthiness, IMO.
I enjoy seeing how differently we can look at the same set of circumstances.
Nekkid woman in the hotel room
Guy with wine
Away from home
Surely the path to all things adulterous.
"Well Done!!"
Like Mary, I've also been plagued by Gather glitches when publishing - using both IE and FireFox - especially so when adding just one pic. Then Gather lost the articles, posted phantom ones, added wrong pics ..... horrendous.
Sandy.. do you feel like I was meanly nitpicking you? That was not my intention at all. I adore your writing. I just thought that you wanted feedback. If you feel I was being mean, please do tell me, and I will immediately offer up my sincerest apologies.
(Some people are totally drunk on two glasses of wine.)
Pretty damn drunk, if you are me. Seriously. I am not a drinker. I feel the effects begin after a few small sips, I kid you not. Since the chick in the story had sworn off drinking, likely she had a very low tolerance as well. Folks who enjoy a regular drink, like my husband, have a hard time believing just how low my tolerance is. One glass would have me table dancing.
On the other end of the spectrum, it has been my experience that alcoholics who have stopped drinking for a while will also get drunk very easily when they first start drinking again. I thought I set up this as her situation when: she was disappointed that she finally had privacy after she had quit drinking, said she did not drink, she handed over her reservations with the bottle, and then she thought maybe wine was stronger than it had been when she drank every day.
I liked it. Oh, Peter, we are drinking the good stuff down here, not that cheap Canadian wine. LOL
The challenge here is that you know far, far more about these characters, and about the type of situation it is, than the reader does. Without that knowledge, the situation falls into a certain kind of category, and I think the reader looks at it with the conventions of that category in place. I cannot for the life of me imagine, unless I were hoping for something, entering the room of a woman who was naked save for a bedspread. :-)
I'm sounding defensive now, and that isn't my intention. This conversation has helped me see how much the reader brings to the story. Writing aside, I enjoy learning how differently we all think. Instead of thinking "I don't know enough about Alan to believe he is innocent," I think, "I don't see anything about Alan to not like."
It doesn't say in what manner she does this. I pictured her wearing it like a sarong, which would leave her shoulders bare, which would let him know she was naked. If she's wearing it more like a coat, I don't know how she would keep the front from flapping open at least enough to show that her legs are bare. If she's rolled up in it like a cocoon, I don't know how she's even able to walk :-)
Nobody touch that line.
For me that is the exquisitely perfected ending.
I think what we're down to discussing is nothing to do with the merit of the piece -- it's a good entertaining story, and very realistic in that there's confusion and disappointment, rather than a tidy resolution. I guess the question is whether enough people read it as you intended, or whether you need to put more clues in there that will put the reader more inside your head, so the reader believes the initial situation to be more innocent than I (and some, but not all, other commenters) thought it was.
Emm. I think I just confused myself with that convoluted wording.
Move along. nothing to seee in this comment.
I do take every criticism/comment seriously, rethink what I have written as a result, and make changes accordingly (seldom immediately, unless it is a typo). On this thread, I have documented many of my thoughts in the reconsideration process. For each comment made, I went back to the written words to determine whether I thought the conflict was in the way I had written something, or a difference in the filters the reader and I process through. David and I apparently have extremely different filters, which makes his input not only interesting, but also valuable to me. While I would rather not have anyone think of Alan as a bad guy in this story, I don't believe showing up at someone's door with a bottle of wine and bare feet suggests that this man is a cad unless we already have something to show us that. Prior to his showing up at the door, we saw that he was a bit oblivious (didn't notice she was switching weight and uncomfortable), maybe a bit irresponsible (let's skip the morning session), and that he expressed concern about her (I'm up there if you need me). With that being the only information to go on, I would assume that he is a good guy, maybe a bit of a party guy. That does not lead me to suspect anything sinister in his motives. I think it is unfair to expect him to reject her invitation to enter the room because she is wrapped in the blanket, whether or not he knew she was naked under it, unless it was obvious to him that she was already too drunk to know what she was doing (according to the words written, he did not know she was naked, and she was not drunk). I don't want to perpetuate beliefs that men are always wrong, and that women are not responsible for their actions. At this point, that will be my major concern in sorting through this critique.
Donna, I'm curious about what made you comfortable, also. My guess for you wouldn't be the same as my guess for Johnny.
I am fascinated by the subtle gender politics in this story . . . because there are gender politics, to my eye. This would be a different kind of story, I think, if she showed up with the wine and he answered the door with a towel around his waist, and she entered the room anyway. Or am I wrong about that?
Completely unrelated: I forgot to compliment you on your completly correct and appropriate usage of the colon in this story.
There are gender politics in this story. Have we pounded every issue now? I do think, given what we know about her in this story, it would have been different if she had gone to his door. We know she is looking for some defiance. Maybe one (or both) of us should work on that story, David.
Thanks, Anne. I appreciate your comment.
Peter, yes, that was sexual on her part. I think she would have done whatever he wanted, and regretted it later.
The temptation to drink, cavort, flirt, experience abandon with nakedness in Alan's presence, and trash the hotel room indicated to me how unhappy she is inside. It made me uncomfortable to feel the discontent in her restricted reality at home.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Firstly, you did a good job o putting me in your skin and both wanting the "visit" to succeed and to subside into nothingness. The first desire would have left me content with the outcome because I knew the story was going to get juicy and fun. However, the ending of choice was superb. As in real life, there was greater satisfaction in restraining lustful temptations for just a one night fling. I found a clear understanding unfold (written between the lines) regarding Alan. He showed up with one intention and diverted due to some sudden internal reality check. Those tears did it.
David, I hate to break this shocking news to you, but this is the real world - you are right here in it with the rest of us - and you aren't even the only one who thinks/lives out of sync. In my opinion, the people who live 'out of sync' (see Marcelle Dreams) make the most interesting characters. I don't want to read about normal people in normal circumstances, who do normal things or see the world through normal eyes. I want to lose myself in the pages of something different, and walk away thinking something different. Therefore, I would enjoy reading your version of this story from a the POV of a guy who thinks differently.
She would have, but for Alan and probably would have regretted it after, as her life was fairly sheltered and her marriage a controlling one. Or so I thought from her husbands comment and the fact that she didn't reply but only thought her reply.
In other words, I loved this! I cannot publish pictures in word either, but though notepad isn't a great choice, the pictures don't disappear when you use it. That sounds funny, but it works, so I use it.
(I think this probably qualifies you to pick up your uniform)