ONE
Sunny Pines Motelsat at the end of a long winding road, surrounded by trees and miles and miles of national forest. It was forgotten—a place people went when they had nowhere else to go. Or were lost.
No one sought Sunny Pines Motel out.
But you did.
That night was like any other night—I was alone, and it was dark, and the radio in the corner was quiet and scratchy. I couldn’t bring myself to turn it off, though. It was my only company on a night like that. The road that ran in front of the motel was less traveled now that they’d built a main highway through town.
People never ventured out this way, and if they did, they used the parking lot to turn around. They didn’t stick around to check things out. They were on a mission to a five-star hotel in the heart of downtown, overlooking the snowy mountains and swaying pines.
But every so often, some people, people like you, preferred the scenic route. You wanted to get lost on a dark winding road and pull into the first motel you saw for the night, thentomorrow, do it all again. You longed for quiet and beauty in a too-loud world.
My boots were kicked up on the desk, laces untied, and shirt wrinkled. But I was clean. I thumbed through a magazine. Women tied up in ropes and wearing thin strips of leather were on every page, blindfolds covering their eyes, or mascara running down their cheeks. But I hid the truth in an old travel magazine—I couldn’t let anyone know what I was truly looking at. They’d think I was a freak.
It was easy to get lost in the fantasies conjured up in my mind by that magazine. That’s why I had to start acting on them a few years ago. Looking at pictures wasn’t enough anymore. Watching guests wasn’t enough.
Hiding my true nature was fracturing me, and it was painful. I know you’d never want me to be in pain, so you have to understand why I did what I did to all those women. I didn’t have a choice.
I was just being true to who I was.
And that was what everyone always said to do, wasn’t it? Be true and you’ll be happy?
You want me to be happy…don’t you?
Headlights panned across the office, and I lifted my gaze to the window. There were no curtains, and the glass was clear, not a speck of dirt or fingerprint smudges on it. I didn’t move from my reclined position. I was used to watching people turn around and go back to town.
But instead of speeding out of the parking lot, the car came to a stop. For a moment, you just sat there. What were you doing? What were you thinking? Were you looking for directions to get back to town? To reverse and leave my little corner of the forest forever?
But then you shut your headlights off, and the darkness was almost painful.
Then I heard your car door shut. Quietly. Almost timidly, like you were scared to make a sound. Just a little doe in a big forest, scared of her own shadow.
That was who you were when I first saw you.
I finally got up, and my boots thudded against the hardwood floor as I made my way toward the window. My heart was erratic in my chest—I hadn’t had a visitor in a while.
Your eyes were wide as you looked around, but there was something I couldn’t place in them. Maybe it was the smudges beneath or how swollen and red they were.
It wasn’t fear that radiated from you. Looking back, I think it was intrigue. I think it might’ve even been excitement. But at the time, I didn’t understand what I was seeing. I didn’t know what you were feeling. That look in your tired eyes made me believe something was wrong…and maybe there was. Just not in the way I thought.
Your lips, so full and juicy, were pressed tightly together, and I wondered what you looked like when you smiled. Really smiled. Not the half-hearted, polite one I knew you gave people when they looked at you too long. I wanted to know what your eye-crinkling smile looked like. What shade of white your teeth were or how healthy your gums were. I wanted to know the ins and outs of your body, of your mouth.
There was a voice in my head telling me that your smile belonged to me. That I owned your smile.
That I owned you.
You pulled a bag from your backseat, and it took all I had not to rush out and take it from you. But that would’ve been crazy—a man rushing out to take a heavy bag from you?
I didn’t want to scare you.
So I let you carry it yourself.
I couldn’t peel my eyes away from you as you walked across the parking lot, toward the office.
Toward me.
Every step you took was mine. Every breath, mine. Every flick of your eyes…mine.
