M Sellars: The End Of Desire

“All right then, hun,” she said. “Let me get my shoes, and I’ll take you on down to the room.”

“You know,” I offered. “I’ve really disturbed you way too much already. If you just want to give me the key, I’ll go have a look and then drop it back through the mail slot when I’m done. That way you can get back to bed.”

“Okay,” she said, giving me a quick nod. It sounded almost as if there was a note of relief in her voice. “Let me get it for you.”

She turned and headed back around the check-in desk, rummaged beneath it for a moment, then returned to the door with a key that was attached to a bright red, diamond-shaped piece of plastic, which was emblazoned with a large number 7.

Handing it to me, she pushed the door open a little farther and pointed down the length of the building. She stifled a yawn then said, “Room seven. All the way down in the corner, hun. Can’t miss it with that damn tape up.”

My face must have betrayed the sudden flutter in my stomach as I took the key. Room 7 had been the ongoing theme with Miranda. It was the number on the doors where both Hobbes and Wentworth were killed in Saint Louis. And, it had even been the room at the no-tell palace where Felicity had taken a potential victim when under the Lwa’s control.

“Something wrong, hun?” the woman asked.

“N…no,” I half stammered, catching myself and quickly trying to come up with a plausible excuse for my sudden reticence. “I was just thinking that seven wasn’t such a lucky number for the victim.”

“That’s a fact,” she replied with a shallow nod. “Odd enough he specifically asked for it too.”

I wasn’t surprised by the comment. The desk clerk where Wentworth was murdered had said the same thing. He had explicitly requested room 7.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Odd that it was even available. When I called down here it took forever to find some place with a vacancy.”

The words were out of my mouth before I even realized what I was saying. I had just managed to contradict my entire fabrication with a single slip of the tongue. A fresh spasm hit my stomach, but I tried to ignore it and nonchalantly turn my head toward the distant room in hopes that I could hide any expression it might involuntarily evoke.

A second later I sighed then turned back to her and said, “I’m sorry. I’ve really kept you long enough, ma’am.”

If she had noticed my slip-up, there was nothing in her face that said as much. She simply pointed to the mail slot in the door and replied, “It’s no problem, hun. You can just drop the key in here when you’re finished.”

“Will do, and thank you very much. Again, I’m sorry I had to disturb you at this hour.” I was doing my best to recover from my stumble and sound official, so I added, “Now, make sure you lock the door behind you.”

She simply nodded in reply, but I waited until she was back inside and I heard the click of the deadbolt before I turned and headed toward the room.

“Dammit! Stupid. Stupid.” I muttered the admonishment to myself as I walked.

Concerned that I might need to simply veer toward my car instead of continuing on with this insanity, I cast a furtive glance back over my shoulder. Fortunately, I didn’t notice anything unusual, such as her spying on me from the window, so I mutely worked at convincing myself she was half asleep and had completely missed the gaffe.

It didn’t take me very long to cover the distance between the office and the far corner of the building, and though I made it a point to walk at a modest pace, my heart was thumping hard against my ribcage by the time I arrived at the door.

I stood there for a minute, simply inspecting the surroundings. The physical characteristics of the building made room 7 an obvious choice even over and above Miranda’s penchant for the number. The way this particular end of the structure terminated, there was an open stairwell leading up to the second story of the addition. That dead space would have acted as a sound barrier to dull any errant cries from her victim. Still, there was a room on the opposite side of this one and, given the limited availability of lodging in the city lately, it almost had to have been occupied by someone. Had that been the case, surely the guest would have heard something.

I gave my head a small shake then reached up and massaged my temples. I was tired, I had a headache, and I had just lied my way into a crime scene. My brain was launching into rampant speculation while ignoring the facts. It remained that a murder had occurred in room 7, and no one had reported anything suspicious, so I needed to stop over thinking the situation and just do what I came here to do.

Glancing back toward the office, I still didn’t see anything to raise any alarms. Turning in place, I saw nothing on the parking lot to worry me either. Giving up and deciding I must be in the clear, I stuck the key into the lock.

The moment metal touched metal, I felt the chill on my spine once again. This one, however, was just like the first, carrying with it not fear but a feeling of excitement. As sick as it seemed, the sense of elation literally felt like the passionate rush of anticipated sexual release, and it coursed through me, branching out to touch every nerve. At that instant, there was no doubt in my mind that Annalise and Miranda had been here.

I closed my eyes, drew in a deep breath, and then let it back out slowly as I struggled to ground myself, mentally fighting to maintain a solid earthly connection and not allow the cries of the dead to drag me across the veil. Then, opening my eyes once again, I twisted the key in the lock and pushed the door open, tearing the tape seal between it and the jamb in the process.

Ducking beneath the yellow crime scene tape, I stepped into her world.

I froze in place, an involuntary physical pause brought about purely by things felt, rather than seen.

I had only taken a single step across the threshold and then come back upright before hitting the invisible wall. Now, as I stood there motionless, the incandescent bulbs in the walkway overhang were spilling illumination inward through the open door at my back. The light edged in past my form, revealing random bits of the room in narrow swaths, making it appear far more eerie than I suppose it would have under less horrific circumstances. Of course, it didn’t help that my own distorted shadow fell along the floor down the center of the oblique display and then disappeared into the otherwise blue-black darkness, adding an urgent sense of foreboding to the overall picture.

Of everything permeating the unmoving air, to me, sex was the most palpable. But, it wasn’t the same stale funk of peddled intercourse and spent prophylactics that oozed throughout my lodging back at the Airline Courts. In fact, sweet watermelon, cigarette smoke, and what might have been a hint of burnt flesh were actually what formed the base of the obvious olfactory signature here. However, raw, uninhibited sex was definitely the high note, and in that way, it rose above everything else.

Simply being the accent, however, wasn’t good enough for it where I was concerned. It hit me hard and didn’t let up. Even at a week old, the assaulting pheromones seemed fresh enough to have been released into the atmosphere only a moment before. Unfortunately for me, my awareness of things ethereal served only to amplify their effects several fold, and no amount of grounding could stop them.

But, even then it went deeper still. Intertwined with the base physicality were two very distinct emotions-love and fear. And, even given the opposite natures of the two, it was obvious to me that they were not mutually exclusive. Though starkly different, the feelings wrapped around one another and then wove themselves tightly into the sex itself. On the surface, they seemed symbiotic, feeding on one another in an endlessly growing spiral of depravity.