“Sorry, today was a lot. But hey, you’re still here. Still in my bed. I’ll take that as a win.”
He hums, eyes sweeping over the details in the wooden pillars of the Victorian canopy bed, his hand reaching to feel the carvings.
“I have to say, Chez Brothel is growing on me. All the velvet, the antique furniture, the filthy yet sophisticated details... It’s so you. I like that.”
I glow.
“We certainly did the place justice. It was everything.”
He turns to me. “I was so nervous, Sapphire. I wanted it to feel good for you so badly.”
“It did. But I’ve got to say, I’ve gained a lot of respect for you.”
“Oh, you have?”
“Yeah. I mean, I was gritting my teeth half the time, and you’re always like,harder, Sapphire, harder. I can take it.”
He doubles over laughing, and the elbow for my waist follows.
“Oh my God, why do you make me sound like a squawking peacock? I promise you, after a while you’ll be the one saying,fuck me senseless, Yosh. Fuck me like I’m your yoga mat.”
He’s going for the cigarette voice I get when I have to shout over music all day.
“How do you even fuck a yoga mat?”
“I don’t know.” He gestures vaguely. “But that’s definitely something you’d say.”
He turns around, finger pointing in front of my nose.
“Don’t you dare say that, because I will totally crack up and accidents will happen. I do not want a penile fracture. Trust me, you’d become a legend in the ER in the worst possible way.”
“Oh, is that how it works in the ER? Making fun of vulnerable patients?”
“Of course. It’s break-room talk. Not about heart attacks, but when a scan shows… let’s say, household objects in places they definitely don’t belong. That kind of thing.”
“You must’ve experienced some crazy shit in there. What’s the wildest thing you’ve ever seen?”
“So much. You can’t imagine. People ‘falling’ on shampoo bottles, for one. Oh no, wait. Once there was this lady who caught her husband in bed with a guy. She waited until they slept, took the lover’s wrist and superglued his palm to her husband’s balls.”
“No way. You’re fucking kidding me.”
“No, I’m not! I spent nearly my whole shift trying to un-glue them. The guy even managed to get hard while I had his sac in my hands. And that wasn’t even the worst. At the end of my shift, they invited me over for a threesome!”
“What? Okay, that’s wild.”
“My colleagues made fun of me for days. They even snuck a bottle of superglue into my locker with a band-aid label that said ‘lube.”
I cover my mouth, trying not to laugh, and fail miserably. Then I move toward his ear.
“But the real question is, did you do the threesome?”
“No. That would be unethical.”
I nearly choke at how flatly he says it. A joke is on the tip of my tongue, something stupid about the two of us, but then I feel his body soften against mine.
My hand finds his, and he maneuvers his fingers until they’re laced with mine.
“Let’s get some sleep,” I say. “We’ll need all the rest we can get for tomorrow.”
