"Dammit girl," I muttered to myself as I tied my boots. "Your first time legally drinking and you get carried away..."
I trudged down the stairs and locked up the house, let myself into Tori's. As predicted, she was sitting on the couch, watching TV. At least there wasn't a drink in her hand. Not that I had ever been a paragon of sobriety, but depression ain't something to mix alcohol with.
"Hey, neighbor."
She looked over from the screen. "Hey"
"Sienna just called, her and her friend need a designated driver. Think you could help me pick their car up?"
I got a shrug in response and she grabbed her shoes from the mat by the front door before following me out.
The April night was warm, and I let my arm hang out the window as I drove. It was nice to feel a cool breeze after months of ice and snow and freezing temps. Buds were starting to appear on some of the trees, and though I knew we would see cold and snow and gloom yet again, I felt exhilarated to know that we were gaining daylight and warmth with each checkmark on the calendar.
"I'm gonna give those tickets you gave me to Sienna as a birthday gift," Tori said quietly. "You guys go and have fun."
I'd given my neighbor the tickets that Senator had given me. A little online searching had resolved the address to a couples retreat of very private cabins stocked with high-quality fetish gear and a promise of absolutely privacy. The price tag for the rentals had shocked me, apparently Senator was quite a fan of me.
My hope had been that Tori might hang on to them until she found her way out of her depression, that I could spend a nice weekend torturing and fucking my best friend into an orgasmic stupor, but apparently that was not to be. "Ok."
"I'm not feeling it right now, she is. I just..."
I reached over and put my hand on her knee. "You don't need to explain to me. Just let me know if I can do anything for you, alright?"
She smiled softly, her face lift only by the street lights and the dashboard lights. "You can't. I just...I just miss them so much. I feel hollow. Work helps, and then I get back home and even around you guys its just... Empty. I have time to think, and it sucks. Everything reminds me of Nina."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Its not your fault. I'll pull myself out eventually. I always do. Right now...I just want to sleep."
We found Sienna and her friend giggling next to their vehicle in the parking lot. "Someone call for a ride?" I asked out the window, pulling up alongside.
"Um, yeah!" Sienna swayed in place slightly, tilted too far to one side, and leaned heavily against her friend. Both of them burst out laughing at the almost-fall, and I rolled my eyes. "Get in. Who has the keys?"
"The bartender?" Sienna's friend grinned maniacally. "One of the guys we were dancing on took mine and gave them to the bartender."
I looked out at the entrance to the club, the bouncers, the thick lines of people waiting to get in. Dammit. "I'll come back and get em for you in the morning. You have a hotel or a place close by, or were you planning on crashing with us?"
"We got a hotel," Sienna said. "Er, Hazel did. 's a nice one."
Taking directions to a hotel from a pair of tipsy young women was aggravating, especially when they kept trying to reroute me to fast food joints for drunk snacks. They had no idea where they were going, couldn't even tell me the name of the hotel, and burst into laughter constantly at my frustration. Tori however seemed to have come out of her shell a little bit, and was trying to make them laugh, interrupting to give me obviously false directions they started talking over each other and trying to decipher street names in the dark.
After an hour of driving aimlessly around Minneapolis with the two young women pointing at street signs and various tall buildings on the horizon, Hazel finally laughed and said "Wait, wasn't it by some big mall?"
"The Mall Of AMERICA?" I asked, feeling a little frustration.
"That's the one, I think. They all look the same out here." Sienna stuck her head between the front seats. "If you don't mind though, I've got something WAY more important to do now than play GPS. Excuse me." She giggled and launched herself at her friend, tackling her back into her seat.
I kept an eye on their makeout session in the rearview as I drove to the Mall. Both tipsy girls were aggressive, hands roaming, bodies twisting and arching together, lips pressing, grinding together and then moving to another body part before coming back together. They were in shadow, so I couldn't get a good look, but what saw was enough to get me hard. See had mentioned her friend Hazel occasionally, and now I connected the dots and couldn't help but wonder if this girl had been the one to lend a helping hand during her sexually frustrating previous relationships.
We arrived at the Mall and the two young women broke apart long enough to give us giggled, breathless directions to what they thought was the correct parking lot. As soon as my SUV stopped moving they spilled out, opening our doors. "C'mon in," Hazel said, pulling at my hand. "C'mon up and drink with us."
I sighed and locked the car, and we followed the girls through the parking garage, down to street level and then into the lobby. The massive room was a study in space and light and elegance - gauzy curtains hiding a view of the street, expensive wood benches and tables set with arrangements of real flowers, long sweeping arcs of tables and desks, and towards the back, lounge areas with soft, off-white chairs and and chrome modern art sculptures.
If they had meant to give an impression of opulence upon opening the door, the hotel has certainly succeeded.
In the light now, I finally got a good look at Hazel, and was immediately struck with a sense of...familiarity? I'd seen her before.
Somewhere.
Had I slept with her?
She was short, two or three inches shorter than Sienna, just a hair below Tori's height even. I'd sensed strength in her grip when she was jokingly trying to pull my hands from the steering wheel, and now could see lean muscle sliding under light golden-brown skin. Her forward-charging yet playful attitude and obvious strength reminded me of a pitbull - she wanted to have fun, roughhouse, and she was strong enough to fight as well. Hazel wore a short, black, sleeveless dress, the hem showing off sleek, firm, rounded leg muscles. It was tight over her midriff and squat-rounded ass, and tied behind her neck, cut low between small, almost flat breasts. Her face was small and triangular, always crinkled with smile or laughter, the fine, angular features a mix of multiple ethnicities. What should've given away her identity was her hair, shockingly, outrageously pink shot through with what I assume was natural black, a grown out bobbed cut that she had partially tied at the back of her head.
Sienna had gone in the opposite direction, stylistically. Her long legs were sheathed in tight faded jeans that looked to be more rips and worn white strings of fabric than actual clothing. She wore a simple white tanktop, and through a rip from the collar to her sternum I could see a basic black bra cupping those firm round tits I enjoyed so much. She'd done her makeup in a manner I'd seen before, heavy burgundy lipstick, dark eyeliner and mascara, the "warpaint" matching a black velvet collar around her neck. Her middle-of-the-back hair had been changed from its usually silky mane to a tangle of blonde braids.
One looked sophisticated, one looked casually sexy.
I got disapproving looks from the two night staff working the desk, as I typically did as the only man in the company of a bunch of hot young women. Oh well. Their disapproval meant nothing. I'd been INSIDE two of these girls.
Sienna fidgeted through the elevator ride, too much energy for her body, it needed to escape somehow, and she burned it off with finger and head twitches and constant shifting. When the door opened, she laughed and sprinted down the softly carpeted hall, Hazel racing unsteadily after her on black high heels.
Through the hotel room door and I instinctively caught the small item flying towards my head - a vodka mini. "Catch!" Sienna called out belatedly, and I nodded to her as I twisted the cap off and took a sip.
The hotel room was as opulent as the lobby. Thick white carpet, thick white cushions on the dark wood furniture, modern art light fixtures. The living room area had a massive window looking out onto the parking lot, a gigantic couch on the right side and a desk that angled down into a bench on the left, the chrome and leather chair looking like it cost more than some economy cars. Dammit, that TV... over the desk was suspended a flatscreen way wider than I was tall.
A short hallway led to a bedroom with one fluffy white bed visible, a bathroom off to the left, both does made of thick frosted glass.
The whole apartment gave off an air of money.
Sienna practically dragged Tori to the couch, and I shrugged, let Hazel take the desk chair, took a seat on the bench. The blonde lifted a mini, caught my eyes across it, grinned and took a long slug. "Having a good birthday?" I asked.
"Awesome! Hazel took me out on the town. Dinner, dancing, she got this hotel..."
Beside me, Hazel rolled her shoulders. "This is my FAVORITE place to stay when I'm in Minneapolis. I had to show you."
"It certainly is beautiful," Tori said. "I don't think I've ever stayed anywhere as nice as this."
"And you should see the place we went for dinner," Sienna gushed. She drank the rest of her mini. "Even fancier than that place we went for Black Friday!"
I snickered. "That's not hard, See. You and Tori were the fanciest parts of that whole trip."
"Awww, you're so nice. However, it's hard NOT to be fancy wearing four hundred dollar lingerie..."
"Shit, I thought my clothes were expensive..." Hazel piped up.
"They are," Tori replied. "But great for out-of-doors. Especially snow-mobiling. Very warm."
