Ski Lodge: I used to drive to Mammoth for skiing, when I lived in the LA area. Never had a night quite like this, though!
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It was a long, good day. Sore afterwards, from keeping up with the boys, and full on spaghetti &crispy garlic bread, Anjin curled on the couch in the half lit room. Electric blue, the television complemented the yellow-red firelight licking into the living room from the hearth. Eight tired skiers made small talk as the opening credits rolled. It was possible, she thought, after a day like THAT, that half of them would fall asleep where they sprawled before the movie ended. They'd driven 6 hours from LA to Mammoth Lakes on through a blustery white night to get here at 11PM yesterday, drink too much, sleep too little, and then snowboard all day. Her body yearned for a massage, but most small aches were soaked away in the hot tub earlier, or dissolved by the wine.
A little smile tickled the corner of her mouth as she thought back to the hot tub. It had been dark but for the spotlight down in the water, big fat snowflakes coming down, 5 of them in there drinking and telling stories about the day's skiing when she'd decided, just like that, it was time to take her top off. It had pretty much stopped the conversation for a second. "What? These... are my tits." Anjin said, tracing a fingertip down her sternum and then briefly cupping them for a jostle, lifting the nipples out of the water for a second and then dropping them back in with a little splash. "Nothing special. See?"
"Whoa." said Daniel, nervously and looking away. Just that, a syllable tapering up into the darkness.
"Yeah, it's cool, what's the big deal?" said Guillermo, getting on the bandwagon, he pulled his shorts off and plopped them in a wet heap on the edge of the tub, a big "I dare you" grin across his bearded face. Guillermo was a muscle-packed fighter, Italian, outgoing, devil may care and it showed in his enthusiastic but haphazard skiing. You could count on Gui to get injured, and to shake it off.
Anjin grinned. "Yeeea, let's see, Guillermo. Come over by the light!" she teased, reaching to poke him.
He swatted her away with a brush of his powerful left arm. "You just stay on your side, woman." Guillermo always pretended not to like Anjin much, which she believed, but everyone else knew better.
As for the others, Steven the ingenue, was repulsed. "Why does everybody always have to be Naaaked? It's obscene. What will Jago say when he finds out you've been showing your breasts everywhere? (Jago is Anjin's boyfriend, and he had been absent, making the spaghetti sauce at the time.)