Christopher inhaled the scent of laundry soap as he buried his head into his freshly washed pillow. It had been a long day, hell, a long month. Sleep evaded him no matter what time of day he tried to grab hold of it. Between his daft work schedule and living in and out of hotel rooms, he never felt rested. An obnoxious humming noise snapped him awake from mere seconds of sleep. Dammit, I guess I should have set you to silent rather than vibrate, he thought to his phone.
MEET ME IN THE LOBBY, read the text message.
He didn't recognize the number but he didn't always save his client's numbers into his phone. People were supposed to have an assistant for that. He had yet to hire one. He pulled one leg at a time into his jeans and then lazily slipped on leather house shoes while pulling a t shirt over his head. With the room key in his front pocket he turned to walk down the hallway to the elevator. Fog appeared to rise from the floor which made him feel like perhaps he was in a dream. In the elevator, he grasped the rails along the wall to test what he could feel. If this were a dream, he wouldn't be able to feel the coolness of the metal on his hands, or the jump in his stomach when he found the lobby floor. With a ding the doors parted and he meandered to the section of the lobby that held the large comfy chairs and fire place.
A woman was standing in front of the fire, looking into the burning flames. Christopher laughed to himself. Everything felt so out of place and wrong, and he felt like he should be wearing a well tailored suit and fedora as he approached this woman. He imagined that she would turn, her dark locks falling over blue eyes, and half throw herself at him. The tight pencil skirt wrapped around her ample rear wouldn't even bunch. The fitted suit jacket would only allow a slight jiggle of her plump breasts. He would say, "What's a dame like you doing in a seedy hotel like this," or something equally cheesy. To his surprise, she turned around just as he was finishing his thought, and her hair fell over her blue eyes. That's weird, he thought to himself, with a shake of his head.
"Excuse me, Miss. Did you send me a message to meet you here?" Christopher asked, his voice breaking a little from grogginess.
She nodded her head slowly. "I need your assistance." Her voice was like silk wrapped around a wave.
"Wha...um. What can I help you with?" He was having a difficult time taking his eyes off her well placed breasts in the suit jacket. They looked exactly like he had imagined they would before she ever turned around.
"I'm having difficulty opening the door." She cocked her head to the side which seemed like an odd thing to do to Christopher. He wanted to ask her why she was texting him for that reason. He didn't work on doors for a living. The words that came out, however, were, "Of course, let's take a look." She guided him down another hallway, swishing her hips like a cartoon character. He rubbed his bottom lip to make sure he hadn't been drooling. Stopping in front of a room door, she turned to look at him. This door was different than the other room doors. It was dark wood with carvings, as well as twisted metal ribbons that adorned it. She handed him a skeleton key rather than a card key, and he scrunched his eyes at her in confusion.
"Miss, I think the issue is that you're using the wrong key. You need a card not this," he explained. She closed her eyes and shook her head, pointing to the keyhole in the door.
"Oh...excuse me. I'm sorry. This is just very strange. I wonder why they have this kind of lock on a hotel door," he stammered. He pushed the key into the hole and turned. A click rattled the door and he twisted the knob. It opened, and the woman smiled, moving in front of him to push the door open before he even had a chance to remove the key from the hole, causing him to move inside the room with her. He pulled the key out and turned to hand it to her, but the crack of the door closing startled him and he dropped it. Bending to retrieve the key, he looked around for the woman, but she was nowhere in the room that he could see. What in the world is going on, he thought to himself. Taking a better look around, he noticed this was not the normal hotel room set up. There were large hand carved wooden chairs and end tables. The curtains were a deep red and looked to be made of silk.
"MISS!! Miss, I'm leaving the key on the table here. I hope that's all you needed," he called into the room. His voice echoed as if he were in the middle of a field in the mountains. An anxious feeling rose up in his stomach, and he turned to open the door and go back to his own room, but when it opened, all he found was a grassy area surrounded by tall trees. Turning from the door, he looked into the room again, certain he must have found the door to the outside rather than the hallway. Colorado did have some beautiful wooded areas, but not in downtown Denver. He felt so confused to find there were no other doors. I'm having a dream, he convinced himself. There is no way I'm awake right now. Just calm down Chris. This is just a dream. Once he was feeling calm, he walked out the door to explore a bit. If this was a dream, he may as well enjoy it. After all, a dream like this will insure that he wakes exhausted.
Christopher breathed the smell of pine, dirt, and warm sun. A hint of floral played in the warm sun, and his eyes fluttered open. He turned to see what the other side of the door looked like to find it on a stone house rather than a hotel. Smoke billowed from the chimney and female giggles wafted from windows that were framed with wood but had no screens or glass. On the other side of the opening was a tall set of stairs that led up to what looked like a tree house. He climbed the stairs to explore, and found the first level housed a wooden bed frame made from bark and branches. A large blanket of made of animal fur covered it, and a makeshift roof carved into the tree only hung over the bed itself, leaving the rest of the room open to the forest and sky. Every few steps up found the same type of room. Some with one bed, others with up to three. At the top of the house, blankets lie in a small circled area, and flowers in clay bowls of water surrounded the outside of the blankets. A squeal made Christopher jump, and he looked over the bark made wall out to the field of flowers down below. Three golden blonde women were running around in circles, their long hair flowing in the breeze. They were dressed very different from any woman he had ever seen. Thinking back, he could compare it to the way some women at the renaissance fair would dress. A white long sleeved shirt covered by a corset that went under the breasts and was strapped onto the shoulders and made of rawhide, and a full length flowing skirt.
"Atiya!!" one called after the other, and pointed to the sun. With that, they all stopped giggling and scurried off in different directions. One gathering water, the other starting a fire in a pit surrounded by stones. The third pounded fur blankets hanging on a line with a large paddle. A victory scream sounded seconds later from deep in the woods. Not too long after, a group of three women bare-backing wolves came into view. Christopher moved down the stairs to get a better look, and was met with the astonished look of the one called Atiya, her bright blue eyes wide.
"It's fine," he assured her. "This is only a dream." She narrowed her eyes at him, shook her head, and then went back to blowing on the fire.
The closer the three women came into view, Christopher noticed they were also dressed very strangely. The first was a raven haired beauty, and even from far away he could see she had piercing eyes that he couldn't even call blue. They were like a clear light blue sky but they shimmered like a diamond. Her face had swirled red markings that reminded him of the metal ribbons on the door he had opened. A leather baldric wrapped around her shoulder and front, and carried two swords on her back. Her breasts were covered with a rawhide bra lined with gray fur that matched that of her wolf, and a frayed rawhide skirt.
The second had sandy blonde hair with hints of gold weaved through it, bouncing off her shoulders as she rode, and eyes the color of caramel. A rawhide top wrapped around her full breasts and a similar skirt to the raven haired woman covered her bottom. Leather straps wrapped around her waist twice and carried a quiver at her hip, filled with arrows, and a beautiful hand carved longbow was secured around her body like a sash. Around her head, she wore a tan fur band, the same color as her wolf.
The third had long rust colored hair that seemed to light on fire in certain light flowing through the trees, and green eyes that could cause a man an instant erection. As if that weren't bad enough, she had a beautifully curved body covered in a leather corset with intricate designs over her breasts and a fur skirt that matched both her hair color and that of her wolf. A leather belt held a beautiful sword with designs in the blade and a handle that looked to be made of bone at her side.
"Who is this?" the redhead asked in a powerful but beautiful voice. The three blondes shrugged.
"He wandered out of the door and told me not to worry because this was a dream, Lilith. What does that even mean?" Atiya looked confused, but not frightened of the three powerful looking women.
"Excuse me, girls, I think can explain" Christopher announced.
"Girls?" the dark haired woman asked him, clearly annoyed. "We are Lilith, Oriel, and.." she motioned to each woman as she said their name, and pointing to herself, finished, "Zita. We are not girls. We are women. Warriors."
"My apologies, Zita." Christopher felt a little bit unsettled. Why should he? This was HIS dream after all. He needed to take control of this situation. "It seems I am having a dream. You see, I went to bed and received a text message to meet a woman in the lobby. That encounter led me here. So I'm still in my hotel room sleeping right now." All six women gaped at him.
