Jane Unrue - Love Hotel

The man who went into the woods to find his wife no longer thought about his wife. He thought of nothing other than the movements of the forest rings that turned in opposite directions and at inconsistent speeds. As if so many days had passed the man felt empty as a person feels from fasting and it was within this period when deciding he could go no farther that the man sat down upon a stump. An animal appeared. It was a wolf that soon became a bear that then became an eagle. Through the transformations of the animal the man could feel a watchful presence all around him but he felt the presence most intensely when the eagle began to change

its wings retracting

petrifying head

first legs then body

leaving not a skeleton but just one bone that shot up from the ground into the air. As bone reached apex of its arc the sky took on the colors of a sunset. But before the bone’s descent began

as if the forest’s rings had synchronized

clicked into place

unlatched

an opening in the trees appeared.

The man then found that he was exiting onto a wide and sandy moonlit beach.

For when the body isn’t there it doesn’t matter if the life can be preserved. It doesn’t matter if it somehow was a big mistake about the death.

Then suddenly the man was once again engulfed by trees.

But if he isn’t your son

I asked

who is he?

Softly

secretly

the door has closed behind him now that he has stepped into this room

the candle out

in which he somehow sees from every corner

angle.

All perspectives being his

he instantly

How did I get here?

She is lying on the bed.

Who is she?

Bit of moonlight’s all there is. It casts a soft blue glow all over everything until his vision sharpens. Then

as if this story finally has delivered him

At last!

to where he has been headed from the start

he can devour her with his gaze.

He sees her in black velvet with tucked black tulle filling in the bodice narrow straps run down the shoulders forming a V in back. Her weeping can be noted in the quivering of the second shoulder straps that form the armholes into which is set a crushed tulle sleeve that falls just slightly over atop the arms. A heavy band of sequins black with sumptuous jet beading thoroughly embellishes the bodice back from which hang ropes of more jet beads. The loops as he can see continue underneath the arms where they are caught up at the neckline. To the underportion of the sleeve hang tassels

black

connecting to a black silk cording slung across the hipline. Wide black sequined bands of beads

jet

link the neckline back down to the hip. A long black skirt extends into a pointed train in back that hangs so gently off the bed.

The stark severity of the blackness of this gown is unrelieved with the exception of one band of iridescent sequins mixed with opalescent beads with sea pearls interlacing with the beading at the hipline.

It is for that glittering glowing hipline that he reaches.

You know just exactly who he is she said.

I do?

DOOR ONE

DOOR TWO

were locked.

(It’s wrong. I went down to the STUDY. But I did not go directly to the STUDY.)

Wrong again. My sleep was not uninterrupted that first night. I did awaken. I went out into the hallway stopped before the door into the NURSERY

DAY.

I tried the door. As I remember it

the door into the NURSERY

DAY was locked.

Next night I went down to the STUDY where I saw the little lacquered box beneath the photographic painting of a house. Snowcapped. Turned out it was a winter scene but flowers bloomed in front. Up in the window

top right

I made out a figure

standing

with it looked as if a darker figure standing just behind it. But I couldn’t say for sure because the figures had already disappeared as soon as I had

Yes

No

But

That next

next

night

DOOR TWO

DOOR THREE

were locked.

But ONE

I don’t know what possessed me to experiment with ONE.

was open.

What I saw in there was shocking although there is always something troubling in observing people when they do not know

But did they know? They had to know.

that you are watching them. To witness such a scene from back behind a hole bored in a wall is one thing but to see it from a slightly open door is something else. Those two in long dark robes were in the middle of the carpet crouching over something. Though they did not make a motion to acknowledge me I felt as if they wanted me to see them so engaged. But what enhanced the shocking nature of this sighting was the spot upon the carpet which I clearly saw when they rose up abandoning that room to enter the adjoining room.

Nobody in there anymore

ROOM ONE

I slowly entered from the hallway into

Furniture draped. ROOM ONE. The pictures draped. That room all dark except for light collecting at a candle in the window. Smells of dust with molded over mustiness the room had obviously been shut off. Sealed up. So well preserved he might have said. There quivering in the candle’s radiance the spot upon the carpet was a narrow one. From something spilling no doubt from a person moving toward the window from the door. Unless it had been window

door. As if it had been treated with a time released solution of removers it just disappeared as I was looking down at it.

702

Beneath the floral paper was a different floral paper.

So I entered the adjacent room by passing through the left ajar interior door as they had done. But they weren’t there. When I looked over at the other door the door out to the

DOOR TWO

Second on the

hallway

I could see that it was open. So I exited that room looked in the hallway saw that there was no one in the hallway went back in the room.

ROOM TWO

Still darker than the first room

curtains drawn

the only light was light that came in from the room

ROOM ONE

that had the candle in it.

In this darker more unkindly room there was the feeling that there were so many little creatures crawling on the borders creepies hung up in the corners dropping

legs up

on the carpet.

Through an open door connecting this room to the next room I went in the next room just as

I had gathered

they had done.

Then peeling that one back revealed another one.

It was a room that made me feel like lying down as if to walk into the sticky cobwebbed feeling of it was to get a quick transfusion from the veins of someone sleeping soundlessly for seven hundred years. It was at first completely dark.

My robe came off.

She’s cheap.

I heard the whispering.

She’s desperate.

She’s unseemly.

In this room I felt them walking toward me felt them kissing me all over.

Dirty girl!

They led me to the center of the room then lowered me to a carpet that I felt so ready for. I heard their robes fall off. They then began to offer themselves to me

a mouth

a breast

She whimpered.

Someone had a mole.

unless

unless

I felt an insect somewhere on me.

more slow licks

light quick vibrations

came between my legs. He got on top of me. Then she. Beginning here I saw an atmosphere within the darkness start to glow as if it were illuminated by the borrowed light that burned within their bodies leaking through their eyes that shone like balls thrown in the air above me kept aloft by so much heavy breathing. Panting. Moans were helpful in identifying who was who but truly there was no detective work to do in there.