Joseph Brad Kluge

The Terminal Hotel

 I.

Laurel opened her eyes to the smooth blue blankness of the ceiling overhead. She could not hear her own first breath of the day over Tim's wet exhalations. She smelt the scotch that permeated the room. His skin. The bedclothes. Nearly, it overpowered the odor of cum and perfume that stung her nostrils more as a persistent memory than any real identifiable scent. Laurel glanced over to where his suit lay in a mottled heap by humidifier. Tim was such a fastidious dresser. A bit of a dilettante actually. Too much in love with himself to really consider his being unfaithful, but when he rolled in so early this morning so uncharacteristically drunk and amorous she was taken aback.

So much so that she found herself sniffing him. Sniffing his face. His skin. His clothes. Sniffing at his dangling cock like a bitch worrying a bone. He moaned softly in his sleep as she licked him. Sure she could taste another woman. Then throwing her hair back, she rose naked from the bed and walked around to where he kept his other gun in the nightstand by his side. He wasn't permitted to keep it loaded. They had an alarm system and plenty of security. It seemed an unnecessary risk to keep it loaded. She opened the drawer, picked up the revolver and a single bullet. She watched herself somewhat cryptically as she loaded the single load, spun it and placed against Tim's head and pulled the trigger. Nothing. She watched herself rub the cold barrel against her face, across her lips and slowly into her own wet mouth. Closing her eyes she sucked on it longingly. Deeper and deeper until the gun sight tickled the back of her throat. She gagged and pulled the trigger. Nothing.

She carefully unloaded the gun, put it back in its place in the nightstand, turned and walked barefoot to the kitchen to start the morning coffee.

 

***** * *****

Laurel opened her eyes to the smooth blue blankness overhead and saw the geese soaring away northward.

© Friday, December 29, 2000