Author's Note:
This is what happens when I attempt to write a short "flash" story. I feel sincere admiration for authors who can craft a well-formed tale in a few thousand words; I don't have that gift.
Readers should be warned this is an extremely graphic -- or graphically extreme -- story. If you have read my other stories, this one is darker. I was inspired to try my hand after reading some erotic horror anthologies, and the genre is not the one I usually practice. I've tried to attach appropriate story codes to warn off those who might be squicked, but proceed at your own risk. I sincerely hope that nobody still reading is clueless enough to think these activities are in any way condoned or legal in real life; this is
fiction
.
The genesis of this tale (pardon the pun) is a particularly interesting shower curtain that hangs in my bathroom. It has been repurposed, in somewhat modified form, in the story below. All other characters, places, and furnishings not incidental to the story are entirely the products of my imagination. Enjoy.
*
Lily inhaled deeply and held the breath, letting the clean air purge her body of stress. Releasing it, she turned and smiled at Adam. "I feel better already!"
He grinned at her exuberance. Although it was unseasonably warm, the car's heater was still working overtime to battle the cold air that was streaming in the open window and teasing his wife's dirty blonde tresses into disarray. "Worth waiting for?"
"God, yes! Two weeks alone, just the two of us!" Both of them young, and newly-employed, their honeymoon last summer had been a weekend in a local hotel. They were making up for it now, renting a cottage not too far from the beach. It was early in the season, before the spring break crush (and price increases) hit, and the weather was more than cooperating.
The cottage was enchanting, just like its picture on the web site. There were others, but nestled in among the trees and not too close, and the beach was just visible a quarter mile further down the narrow unpaved road. The managers, in the cottage next door, not so much.
"Wow," Adam commented, sotto voice, as they walked back to the car after checking in.
"Eew," you mean, Lily corrected him. She discreetly wiped her hand on her jeans. "He gives me the creeps."
Sam looked nice enough, toned and fit from working outdoors, with teeth white enough for Hollywood. He had a firm, professional handshake, but something about it hadn't felt right. And the look he'd given her! Lily was familiar with guys perving on her, but it wasn't that; Sam's dark eyes had felt like they were piercing deep inside her, stirring dusty corners of dark rooms within her soul.
"I hadn't noticed," Adam mused, and then yelped when Lily punched him.
"Go right on 'not noticing' --
both
of them," she threatened, mostly joking.
Norma, Sam's wife -- or whatever, she didn't wear a ring -- was a slut. Her heavy-lidded eyes had undressed both of them. Norma's lacquered nails had traced Lily's palm when they'd shook hands, and lingered inappropriately long in Adam's grip. Her deep auburn hair had an alluring distressed look Lily couldn't have achieved if she'd tried, and she'd never seen somebody who could make a sundress and cardigan sweater seem suggestive -- until now. And Norma smelled like sex. Not semen, or sweat, or anything tangible, but... sex.
Lily took another breath of the clean outdoors to wipe away the taint, and shook herself. The important thing was that she and Adam could concentrate on each other. She was smiling again by the time they had the luggage out of the trunk and into the cottage.
The cottage was just as adorable on the inside. It consisted of a small front room with a fireplace that doubled as a living and eating area, a cramped but fully-equipped kitchen, and a bedroom in the back. The bedroom was nearly filled by the queen bed and a dresser, because a sizeable chunk of it had been sectioned off to provide a modern bathroom.
Since Lily was a fervent believer in the virtues of flush toilets relative to outhouses, she wasn't going to complain. Besides, they were going to be doing nothing except sleeping in the bedroom, anyway. Lily giggled. "Well, almost nothing!"
"What?" Adam asked, but was more than game when Lily pulled him onto the bed on top of her. They wriggled out of their jeans and made delicious love to each other right then and there.
Lily felt so decadent, letting Adam make love to her on top of the covers right in the middle of the day! Her orgasm felt extra intense, and she didn't push him away after he climaxed inside her, the way she usually did.
"I love you," Adam crooned, nuzzling her hair and snaking a hand beneath her flannel shirt to cup a breast.
"I love you, too," Lily sighed. She kissed Adam tenderly while extracting his hand before it could work its way under the cup of her bra. "But you came like a horse, you stud" -- the dirty language felt slightly naughty -- "and I'm going to leak all over the covers if I don't go clean up."
"Hey, it's not our comforter," Adam laughed, even as he rolled off her. "Let somebody else do the laundry; we're on vacation!"
The first defect of the cottage struck Lily once she was standing, bottomless, in the bathroom. The huge picture window doubtless provided occupants of the large whirlpool tub a fine view of the scenic woods, but the only window treatment was a gauzy sheer. There didn't seem to be much difference between standing outside or standing in the glass-lined shower stall.
There was no way she was going to take a bath and sit in water with Adam's jizz floating around in it. Lily hurried through her shower, keeping her back to the window as much as possible and trying not to think about it.
Maybe it was well water or something, but Lily didn't feel clean when she emerged, although the soap smelled pretty and left her skin silky soft.
The other thing was the wallpaper in the bedroom. Lily noticed it that night, after they'd made love again. Adam was already asleep beside her, and she was lying on her back watching the play of shadows made by the faint illumination from the fireplace in the front room.
It was a busy pattern, in deep burgundy and gold, and she hadn't paid much attention during the day, thinking it was floral or paisley or something, and that she was glad it wasn't in her house. Like an optical illusion, something suddenly flipped in Lily's brain, and the pattern became something entirely different.
Maybe it was post-coital bliss. Lily lifted herself on one elbow and craned her head, but it still looked the same. She saw, as if from above, a couple fucking. The woman lay on her back, hair arrayed about her head like a corona, and her mouth wide open as if screaming in ecstasy. Her jutting breasts protruded just above her partner's head. His looming form obscured the rest of her body, but Lily knew his penis was buried within her. The image repeated over and over, covering the walls of the room.
It was dirty, and erotic, and Lily couldn't get it out of her head once she'd imagined it. Finally she rolled on her side and stared determinedly at Adam; it took forever for her to drift off.
It was still there in the morning, but Lily decided not to mention it. After breakfast, hoping the weather would hold, they donned shorts and light jackets, and set off to explore the beach.
The world belonged to them alone. Birds called from the trees, occasional squirrels looking for last fall's nuts crossed the road ahead of them, and it was easy to believe civilization did not exist. The sun filtered through the new greenery, calling them forward to where the barely audible waves shushed on the sand.
