BEEP!!
BEEP!!!!!
Wes swam up out of black nothing to a ceiling he didn’t recognize.
White paint, one bare bulb, a water stain in the corner shaped like nowhere he’d ever been, and his first honest thought was, wow, what a dream, because he’d dreamed he was rich, dreamed a gorgeous girl picked him up at a burger joint and took him home and wrecked him in the best possible way, and that obviously wasn’t real, because things like that did not happen to guys who counted coins for the bus.
“So I’m the gorgeous girl you picked up yesterday?” said a woman’s voice.
Wes bolted upright so fast the room tilted.
She was sitting at the desk with her legs crossed, wearing an oversized shirt with her hair up in a knot, flashcards in one hand, watching him with last night’s smirk like she’d been awake for an hour and enjoying the show.
His heart skipped, because it wasn’t a dream.
The money was real, the hotel was real, the girl was real, all of it real, sitting ten feet away in the morning light like it was nothing.
A slow smirk spread across his face.
“Of course you are. You’re a dream in this life. And delicious.”
She laughed and shook her head.
“And what’s my name then?”
Wes paused, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Damn. I was so lost in your beauty I forgot to ask.”
“Shut up, you idiot, go. You’re gonna be late for your exam,” she said, flipping a card.
“Tell me your name first.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. But if we run into each other again, I’ll think about it,” she said, and the way she said it turned the whole thing into a game with rules, her rules, and he found he liked that.
Wes checked the clock on her nightstand and the number hit like cold water.
6:58.
The midterm was at eight, Marbury was forty minutes away, and he was naked in a stranger’s bed with yesterday’s suit puddled on her floor.
“We still have a little time,” said Wes, sliding out of the sheets.
“Why don’t we have some fun?”
“Fine. But in the shower, because we’re in a rush, so make it quick,” she said, and dropped the flashcards.
She walked to the bathroom peeling the shirt over her head as she went in.
Wes followed, watching her strip down with zero shame this time, and even after everything she’d let him do to her last night, she still tried to cover herself the second the water started running.
“Don’t look!” she said.
“I saw everything yesterday. I explored every inch of you. Why are you so shy now?”
She gave him a playful slap on the arm.
“Shut up, dummy. I’m a decent girl.”
“Nobody said you weren’t. I love it.”
He stepped into the spray and pulled her into his arms, kissing her hard while their wet skin slid together, one hand full of her breast, the other squeezing her ass and dragging her tight against him until she reached down between them and her fingers brushed over him.
“Looks like someone’s ready for action already,” she said.
He grabbed the soap, lathered his hands, and ran the foam over her breasts and stomach while his palms slid slick over her skin and she let out a breath with no fight left in it.
“We have to be fast, right?” said Wes.
“Yes, so stop playing around and just—”
He spun her around and put her against the cold tiles before she could finish.
He spread her legs and pushed in with one hard shove while the hot water hammered his back, and she screamed into the wall as he buried himself to the base, everything slick and loud and echoing in the tiny bathroom.
He gripped her hips and set a frantic pace, every thrust landing with a wet slap, and she white-knuckled the shower handle just to stay upright.
“Wes, god, yes, right there!”
He was slamming into her with no restraint now.
The clock ticking somewhere behind the heat of her, and he reached around to squeeze her tits while his hips hammered her ass over and over until she started shaking and clamped down on him like a vice, and the pressure snapped.
He gave her three more hard shoves and exploded inside her while she collapsed against the wall with one last jagged moan.
“That was way more than a quickie,” she gasped under the water.
“Worth it,” said Wes.
They scrambled out and dried off in a blur of one towel and four elbows, he threw on yesterday’s suit with the collar bent and no time to fix it, she hunted for her bag with her teeth holding the zipper shut, and for ten seconds they stood in her doorway dressed and functional, looking nothing like the people from the last twelve hours.
“Go get your exam, chainsaw,” she said, and shoved him toward the stairs.
He hit the street at a dead run with his heart still racing from the sex and the sprint, and his rideshare was idling at the curb, and he was one foot from the door when a white sedan screeched up alongside the block and a voice came out of the window like a foghorn.
“Who is that hottie? He looks so familiar. Wait. Isn’t he the guy from the drama club?”
The girl from last night was standing next to the sedan with her bag over one shoulder, and the friend driving it was hanging half out the window with her jaw practically on the doorframe.
“Yeah, that’s him,” said the girl, calm as anything.
“That’s the Chapel Prince. And it looks like he finally broke his vow of celibacy.”
“Are you serious? No way. You slept with him?” The friend’s voice climbed an octave.
“You dirty bitch, why didn’t you invite me? I’ve wanted a piece of that forever, but he was always such a frigid monk!”
Before the girl could answer, the friend slammed the car into gear, did a wild U-turn in the middle of the street with tires screeching and horns blaring, and leaned back out the window.
“We’re giving him a ride! Why did you try to keep him all to yourself?”
But when the sedan lunged back toward the curb, Wes was already gone, his ride pulling away into traffic, and in the side mirror he caught the friend’s face fall like a kid watching ice cream hit the pavement.
“Shit, he’s gone!” she screamed, flooring it toward campus.
“We have to get to school fast! I need to catch him before the other girls find out this prime cut of steak is finally for sale, because they won’t even leave me the scraps!”
Wes leaned back in the seat and let the city slide past the window, and he waited for the dread to come.
It was supposed to come.
He’d missed a midterm in a class with a ninety percent fail rate, he’d crossed lines last night that couldn’t be uncrossed, and the old Wes would have been spiraling by now, knees bouncing, stomach in knots, rehearsing apologies nobody wanted to hear.
The dread didn’t come.
Something else was sitting in its chair with its feet up.
He had a midterm to pass and a new life to build, thousands sitting quiet in his account, a suite on a private floor with his number on it, a booking tonight at eight, and a shower that had just rewritten what his body was capable of, and for the first time in his life, he had the energy for both.
BZZT!
The Ledger lit up in his jacket pocket.
[Reminder: Appointment tonight at 20:00. Arrive thirty minutes early. Be professional.]
Wes pocketed the phone, cracked his neck, and when the car stopped at the gates he paid the driver and hit the ground running.