The Bubble Four

Highway of towers,

Loaded like a morgue,

But someone is happy to see the mist.

Four and a half miles north of the wrench.

Picture a stretch of gray underneath the gray sky. For this particular stretch, the part that mattered started at the top of a hill and ended at the bottom where an interstate bridge cut from west to east, or east to west, however you wanted to look at it. Towers of varying heights lined either side of the stretch, some matching the height of that bridge at the bottom, some surpassing it.

All of them were in contest with each other.

Yet here they stood in silent appeal, some with bellies full, some left wanting.

There were only a handful of customers to shine for, but under that gray sky there was no shining to be done. And Cocoa and Pudding were choosing a hotel based on pool size. Nothing else mattered.

The search was swift, for several of the hotels made it easy, positioning their pools out front, tall wooden fences walling them off for privacy’s sake, disappointing the two girls who stood at attention upon the back seat, propping themselves up on the headrests of Nathan’s and Tanner’s seats, making use of the new sunroof to get uncompromised views of what the hotels had to offer.

Nathan took it slow down the turn lane centering the highway, pretending he had all the time in the world. Since he had lived here for most of his life, these giants looking down on his car with their hundreds of square eyes were always something accepted as part of the scenery, but also removed. Because he lived here, the only times he had to have a place to crash for the night was when he was at a friend’s and was too tired to drive back home. Never once did he have to pay, so, unlike all the other businesses and services available to him, these structures were always within reach but never accommodating. Never ventured.

He looked at them now and almost felt guilty about discovering them for the first time. And the thing was, this was too much of a one-sided advantage. There was so much here, yet nothing moved. Shadows were frozen. Doors, he knew, were open to anyone. There were tons of people around, sure, but Nathan and his friends were the only ones seeing all this.

The majority of the cars were parked along the sides of each hotel, the space in front usually nothing more than a drive with easy access to the front entrances. Most of the hotels’ structures spread themselves to take up land, but there were few that wanted to take up the sky.

“So, what’ll it be, ladies?” Tanner asked, glancing at each hotel in turn, “a quaint spread with a modest share of the sky, pool about half and half, four feet up front, eight in the back, give or take, who knows because there’s a fence in the way? Though, I’m guessing since there’s more spread than reach, the pool’s about the same, plenty of room, just not a lot of depth to play with. But since the balcony walkways ringing each floor aren’t crumbling apart, the air conditioning units aren’t square metal boxes dripping all over the place, and the staircases are all indoor instead of iron railings subject to possible severe weather conditions, I’d say there’s a fair share of quality in swim action.”

Pudding and Cocoa examined the caramel colored compound and then looked away to the other side of the street.

“Pass.” Cocoa said.

“Okay, next one.” Tanner said, looking to the left now, “Oooo, a sheltered drive-through, big freaking windows in the lobby for a great view of the competitors. Oh, and what’s this? A pool on the side. Hey, we can actually see that one. Those thin metal gates aren’t enough to keep us out, right? On closer inspection, seems like another modest spread, possible depth to it, even some accommodating lounging furniture.”

“Pass.” Pudding muttered.

“Burned.” Tanner said and glanced to the right again, “Coming up, we got one a little stand-offish, and I mean quite literally. A parking lot wide and empty enough in front to let your second thoughts play out, though from the looks of this one, it’s a full square with a hole in the middle. The pool has center stage, but you know what they say, those who like to cater to suspense don’t always deliver, know what I’m saying? Besides, this one is more spread than reach. What do you think?”

Nathan was paying more attention to Tanner’s voice than what he was saying. True, there were many people in the vicinity, the crazy idea of them all being in one spot and not participating in what was happening tickling his imagination, despite his actions, because Tanner almost sounded like he was the only one alive. He also sounded like this gray stretch from hilltop to bottom was the only piece of land that comprised this planet. His voice echoed, and Nathan wanted to think it wasn’t because of the faces of all these towers, but instead was because of the invisible walls that enclosed this gray stretch. And yes, it had four corners. The four corners of the earth were within reach. So was the ceiling, which was the gray clouds.

For a second, Nathan was able to trick himself into thinking he and his friends were the only four living souls in this part of the wide universe.

“Pass.” both Pudding and Cocoa said.

“Coming up on our left,” Tanner said, “what have we here? I do believe we have a skyscraper. Does that look like a ten story to you? Didn’t know they grew’em that big up this way. And look at that spread! Trying to act a little modest by boasting all that reach up front, but there’s a greedy stretch tucked away back there. Who wants to wager the pool is an outdoor one, though? This one looks promising. Dignified and not too showy. Though it has a lot to show. What you girlies think?”

Pudding extended her arm and pointed at that hotel, “Take it.”

Cocoa smiled, “I agree!”

“And we have a winner, Nate!” Tanner threw his hands up and cheered, “The girls have spoken. They like their hotels with a gentleman-like approach. Would you grant their wish, old chap?”

Nathan let himself smile and pulled the car into the hotel’s drive.

“And since we’re chauffeuring winners, I do believe they get the red carpet treatment, right?” Tanner added.

Nathan pulled the car along the drive that cut underneath a glass canopy and parked with his driver door facing the hotel’s entrance. He cut the ignition, held the keys in his hand, stared at them, and then let them slip from his palm to fall onto the floorboard. That release was both relieving and terrifying. Had he dared to admit that this was his last ride?

Tanner was already out of his seat and opening the back passenger door. He stood at the end of the door and bowed to Pudding, extending his other hand back behind him to indicate the opened passage for the lady. “Allow me.” he said, and the fingers of Pudding’s left hand dug into the headrest of the front passenger seat, ripping the fabric and digging into the yellow filling. Then, she offered her right hand to Tanner and stepped down out of the car, ducking under what was left of the roof.

Nathan got out and opened the passenger door on his side. Cocoa was still standing on the backseat grinning down at him. He offered her his hand. She didn’t take it, instead, gripping the edge of the make-shift sun roof to brace herself as she threw both of her legs over. She plopped there on the edge with her legs dangling. Now, she extended both her hands down to him.

Nathan grinned, taking the hint, and reached up to take her hips in his hands. She placed her hands on his shoulders and slipped forward. Nathan supported her weight and eased her down to the ground. When she landed, she landed against him, and she followed through with her lips against his. She curled her arms around the back of his neck to trap him. He was quick to follow her lead, wrapping his arms around her waist, but he had another idea. He twisted to where her back was facing the opened passenger door, and he pushed his weight forward, forcing her backward, and soon she was caught between the door and his body.

They pulled apart when they heard Tanner chuckling. They looked to see Tanner being lead into the hotel. Pudding was walking ahead of him, and she had him by the front of his shirt, shoving the double doors open with her other hand. She wasn’t looking back. Tanner was, however, wearing a dopey smile, and he was waving at Nathan and Cocoa.

“See you guys later.” he said. “That’s if I survive this.”

The hotel’s foyer had another set of double doors. Pudding grabbed hold of the metal handle and ended up twisting it out of shape in light of Tanner’s comment. Then, she shoved those doors open, and the couple disappeared into the shadowed lobby.

Nathan watched after them and wondered if he really would see them later. He didn’t get much time to think about that, because Cocoa placed her hand upon his cheek and eased his attention back to her. “I have my new bathing suit on underneath my clothes.” she said. “You wanna see it?”

He held back the desire to burst into tears. He promised himself he wouldn’t weep like a coward who would beg for his life, distraught only by the fact that he got caught instead of being sorry for what he did. No, he would face his punishment like a man.

“Yeah,” he answered, and Cocoa let her smile stretch just a bit further. Only a bit.

She then eyeballed the hotel’s upper floors, “We don’t have to go all the way to the top. Not unless we want to.” She looked him in the eyes. “Let’s just see how far we go.”

Once again, Nathan allowed himself to grin. While he wouldn’t allow himself to ease his wicked soul, there were some things, he found out, that he just couldn’t escape. A grin was one of those.

“Okay.” He said.

·

Tanner was right. There was an outdoor pool centered among the outlining rooms that made up the spread. Nathan was looking down at it all from the window of a room on the seventh floor on the backside of the main tower. The outside court was laid with cement, with a raised portion ringing the pool, and there was a two tier diving board at one end. The rest of the space was littered with reclining chairs and patio furniture, but since no one was down there, the umbrellas over each table were folded in.

Even from up here, he could tell that the surface of the pool water was still. There was no wind. No external teasing whatsoever. He wished he could open the window, and he didn’t even know why. Maybe because he thought that peeking out would do something to the water below, that just one little far away push would give it life. Or maybe if he could toss something from that high up into the water and watch the splash, then the resulting ripples…

He couldn’t explain it. There was just something wrong about pool water not moving. Then, with a ping in his chest, he knew he could explain it, and knew that was a ping of guilt.

There really was no taking it back, was there? What was done was done. The results were water that didn’t move, people that constantly slept, and a world that didn’t turn. This was it. The end of it all, and it was his fault, and others were having to pay.

He stepped back away from the window, and the gray sky flickered. That ping in his chest tightened around his heart when something dropped down from above, passing in front of the window. Then it was gone.

There were only a few seconds between him standing there in place and jumping over to press his face against the window, but in those few seconds his mind was able to play back the image that passed, and when he looked at it that second time, he saw the frame of a woman stretched out to her extreme, toes pointed toward the sky, fingertips hurrying for the ground, and almost in crystal clarity he saw that she was naked. And in that moment captured by the window of her suspended above the earth, there was no expression on her face, just one of calm indifference…or one of a cold assassin.

“Pudding?” he muttered against the glass, looking down onto the cement court below. He had looked just in time to see that that was no flicker of wishful thinking. Whether it was Pudding or not, there was a naked woman falling toward the ground, no sound, no struggle, just an acceptance. And if it wasn’t for the positions of her hands and feet, that tight grip in Nathan’s chest would have squeezed harder to the idea that he was watching the last moments of Pudding’s life, dictated by Pudding herself, but the end nonetheless.

But she was in control, and she was heading straight for the pool. Nathan held his breath for her. Even from that high up, the pool was only so deep, and…

Pudding’s drop hesitated.

Nathan felt himself pressing against the window, and somewhere in his mind he knew that he could press hard enough to break the glass, but he didn’t care. His mind was too busy picturing what the event below might look like.

For the first few seconds, he pictured Pudding’s fingertips touching the surface of the water, a tiny ripple whispering out in all directions from her graceful posture, her naked body frozen in calm precision, and now as he could see from the window, the water was changing.

He saw the water dip away from her fingers in a bowl shape, a few drips falling from her fingertips, and her body eased from its unnatural suspension. Yet, before she fell, the bowl shape widened, and the invisible wind that made this happen stirred strong enough to be seen. It looked like a gray top spinning around both her hands and churning the bowl below. That water had to go somewhere, and the level of the pool rose. As the bowl widened further, the sea level rose over the pool’s edge and spilled out across the lower level of the court.

Pudding fell into the wind that shifted from a top shape to a ball shape that expanded wide enough to fit her whole body inside. When she disappeared, the ball expanded till its gray surface ripped in several places, and the pressure within escaped. The result was an explosion. The reclining chairs and patio furniture were shoved away from the pool and smashed against the court’s walls and glass sliding doors to the rooms on the first floor. With the wind gone, the bowl in the center of the pool was closing its jaws. The sea level dipped back down, and the bowl closed, spitting a jet of water straight up while waves tore the surface of the water to shreds.

There was enough momentum left to spill water over the edges of the pool, but the wind had left the court to disperse above the spread. Nathan jumped back from the window as the glass rattled from one of the stray gusts. When he thought it was safe to look again, he pressed his face against the glass and gazed down into the court.

The water of the pool was cheering with life. Funny, all it needed was a quick jolt, and Pudding was that jolt. He saw her now, swimming toward the diving boards, her rear end poking up above the water in a hypnotic rhythm.

Nathan heard a knob twisting. He turned around just as the bathroom door opened. Why Cocoa wanted to change in the bathroom’s complete darkness, he didn’t know, other than that she wanted her new bathing suit to be a surprise, but as that sliver of black interior spread open, a cloud of steam belched forth into the main room.

The door opened inward, so he saw nothing but the hint of the dark interior behind that thickening fog. The room was lit with a tinted gray from the one big window at Nathan’s back, but the fog bounced that light off its surface, hiding the details of the room underneath.

The fog crawled along the floor and slipped around his feet. It touched the wall behind him and spread over to the other two walls. Since the bathroom shared space along the wall with the main door to the room, the fog had already built up there, barring him from escaping. Now that the entire floor was submerged, the fog bubbled up Nathan’s legs. He didn’t move. He knew he didn’t have to. As strange as this was, he knew Cocoa was the one at work. She liked to play. He knew that. He would have to play along.

The front wall of the room was swallowed. The fog poured from the bathroom door, engulfing the bathroom’s outer wall, and bumped against the ceiling. It sprawled out along that surface, paused to shake off the disorientation, and then took up its exploration again. Nathan squinted into the approaching wall. The fog once at his feet was now up to his elbows. It wasn’t warmth he felt, nor was it chilly. The droplets he felt reaching beyond those closing walls didn’t feel wet. There was no temperature. No texture, only an embrace, and he invited it.

When the wall hit him in the face, he closed his eyes and thought he felt her arms wrapping around him, though the sensation wasn’t as substantial as her actual touch, which he was still waiting for.

He opened his eyes, and all he saw was gray. That gray swirled, and he could tell this by the difference in shades of gray, dark and light lying against each other, moving, falling, twisting.

“Nathan.” she said.

Her voice came from everywhere at once. Her voice was the gray.

“Remember what I said about the clouds that one time?” she asked.

He wondered if she could see his expression of awe, “I hear you everywhere.”

“Neat, huh?” she said.

“Where are you?” he asked.

She didn’t respond. He closed his mouth and waited. The gray strengthened the sensation of the embrace there at his left cheek. He felt it slip across his chin, and when he turned toward it, the sensation slipped away. He saw her hand instead, her fingertips leaving his face to slip back into the gray and disappear, but before that happened, her fingers curled inward, beckoning him.

He reached for her hand just before it disappeared, and she wrapped her fingers around his. She tugged, and he followed, chuckling until his knee bumped up against something. He gasped and fell forward, her hand tugging him down that much faster. He stuck out his other hand to catch himself, and he felt thick cloth and a padded surface underneath. He landed on his knees. He was above the floor, though. He could tell, because he hadn’t fallen far.

This was the bed. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was, because he heard her giggling underneath him. He couldn’t see her, but he could feel her. He leaned closer to her voice, and her other hand reached up out of the gray and rested against his cheek. The fog around her hand spun away to show it to him. The fog spun further still, unwrapping her arm all the way to her shoulder. Once there, it dispersed to the right, and he saw her grinning back at him.

“Like my new bathing suit?” she asked.

He looked down her body to see more of the fog raking itself away to reveal her belly and her legs which were positioned between his knees. Not all the fog left her, though. There was a fluffy layer floating across her breasts and along her pelvic region.

Nathan grinned at this. Cocoa beamed and laughed.

“Yeah,” he said at last, “I like it.”

“I thought you would,” she whispered.

Her soft tone sapped the energy from him, and he just gazed at her. Her smile stayed as she gazed back. Then, she let her hand fall away from his cheek and rest somewhere above her head, a gesture of presentation. He accepted her invitation and ran his eyes down her body again. The mist covering her breasts was not as thick as the rest that hid her and him from the world, but the most he got was the shadows that hinted at their shapes and the slight darker indications of her nipples.

Elsewhere in the mist their intertwined hands hid, but Nathan’s left hand was free. He lifted it from the mist at her side and eased through the cloud around her left breast. There was no resistance, no warm or cold change, just a small portion of the embrace which actually tugged his hand closer until he cupped her breast in his palm. His fingers pressed into her skin on their own volition, but it was something Nathan and Cocoa allowed.

“Like partaking of a forbidden fruit.” she whispered.

His eyes locked with hers.

“It’s every bit forbidden as it is available.” she added. “But you’ve been there before. You know. You’ve experienced. You’ve changed things.”

True, this wasn’t the first time he’d touched her like this. Of course, the first time he’d thought it was a happy accident, but now Cocoa was starting things off with every intent for this to happen. She was beautiful, exciting, and he wanted her, but he knew this wasn’t like her at all.

“Why is all this happening?” he asked.

Cocoa smiled and said, “Because once you get a taste you can’t help yourself.”

“So,” he said, “you know?”

“I know.”

“Then why haven’t you said anything?”

“What’s to be said?”

He searched her expression for any type of concern, but there was none. She was here with him, both wrapped in mist, probably wondering why he still had his clothes on.

“You’re not scared?” he asked.

“Maybe a little.” she answered.

“But…but…aren’t you mad at me?”

“Not mad.” she said, “Just a little frustrated. At least take your pants off.”

“But what about what’ll happen to us?”

“You already know there’s no going back.” she said. “I could say it’s my fault for tempting you. But exploring even more isn’t always a bad thing. You could even be selfish and say you’ve stopped time for this one particular moment. Screw everybody else.”

“But we’ll still pay.” he said.

“But reap the benefits before we do.” she said. “This is all there is, anyway. You’ve seen to that. This is all we have. All we need. This one moment.”

“Just like this?” he asked. “It’s alright with you?”

“It’s alright just like this. And no need for protection.” she whispered, “We’re gonna die soon, anyway.”

Nathan blinked at the tears in his eyes and finally just closed them. Cocoa reached up to cup his cheek in her hand again. “So, make love to me however you want. There’s so much freedom in death.”

Nathan pressed his lips against hers and devoured her. He couldn’t get his clothes off fast enough, but when he did, he ravaged her there in that world of mist, and she told all those sleeping souls stacked in that tower and the surrounding towers all about it.

Next Chapter: Imagination