Suite Encounters by Rachel Kramer Bussel

Author:Rachel Kramer Bussel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cleis Press
Published: 2012-05-09T16:00:00+00:00

RETURN TO THE NONCHALANT INN

Erobintica

Nearly twenty years had passed since they’d climbed these stairs together. Though Gerald and Jillian had visited the island many times over the years since, both separately and together, they’d not stayed at this inn since that fateful trip. His beard was now almost white, her long braid was more salt than pepper, and though they both were still in jeans and carrying backpacks like in their younger days, they moved a tad bit slower.

They’d requested the same converted attic room with the east-facing window, so they could watch the sunrise from their bed, just like they had all those years ago, when they’d first had company. At the top of the last flight of stairs, Jillian turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door.

She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. They knew the room’s decor had been changed several times in the intervening years, since they’d become friends with the innkeepers. When they’d stayed here before, it had been filled with antiques left from the previous owners. Such a prim setting for what had turned out to be anything but a prim visit: Painted iron bed with a pastel quilt. Flowery Victorian wallpaper. Milk glass vases filled with fresh-cut flowers sitting on old oak dressers topped with doilies.

Now the wallpaper was gone and the white paint had been stripped away from the beams. There was a skylight over a custom platform bed. Everything in the room—furniture, lamps, framed sketches, hooked rug, turned wood bowls filled with beach stones, handblown glass vase holding a few sprigs of dried grass—was made by local craftspeople. It was all clean and sensual lines with muted, earthy colors.

“It’s so different!” Jillian said.

Gerald set his pack down just inside the door next to Jillian’s, and watched his wife move about the room. He never tired of watching her, since she always seemed to put her whole body into whatever it was she was doing. He’d fallen in love with her while watching her paint back when they were both grad students. He’d fallen in love with her strong arms, her slender legs, her cute little ass. He’d also fallen in love with her intensity, her joy with every discovery, and possibly most of all, her passion.

“Oh, look! It’s one of Tom’s rocking chairs!”

Jillian sat down by the window and began rocking.

“Wonder if it’s a coincidence that it’s in this room? It would certainly be like Tom to arrange to have it here,” Gerald said as he placed his hand on the back of the chair and felt the smooth wood. At first, this almost stopped its motion, but Jillian soon compensated with the muscles in her legs, using just a little extra force. She’d never been one to let him stop her.

“Maybe he has a chair in each room. We’ll have to ask him at dinner tonight,” she said, reaching back and patting his hand. She got up and headed over to the bed, kicked her shoes off and lay down.

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