Inn on the Edge

by Gail Bridges

  It was a Lesson, after all. And Vane was our teacher.

  But now the apexes were over. Vane was gone. It was just Josh and me in our rather mundane North Tower, holding hands, whispering in boring, everyday English.

  “Mr. Abiba loves me,” I said again.

  “Mmm,” said Josh.

  “Josh, think about it! Mr. Abiba is in love with me. Zenith told me the last person Mr. Abiba loved went over the edge. Doesn’t that bother you?”

  Josh frowned. “He loves all of us, not just you. He loves me too. I’ve seen him look at me like he wants to eat me alive. I’ve seen it plenty of times.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “I know.” He closed his eyes then opened them again. “Zenith told you this?”

  “Yes.” I sat up in bed, pulling the covers to my chin. I regarded him. “You like her don’t you?”

  He grinned. “Crazy about her.”

  I nodded. “You and me both, with good reason. She’s amazing.” I searched his eyes. “But Josh, Zenith told me something else too. She told me something about you. About you, and her.”

  He frowned.

  “About what you and she did after the train game.”

  “That? Ah. Well. Yeah.” He scratched his nose. “I almost forgot about that. Zenith and I had a nice little…encounter when you were still knocked out. That damn Train Ride! It made you go into convulsions! I was so worried about you I didn’t know whether I was coming or going!” His fingers plucked at the bedspread. “Making love with Zenith made me feel better, that’s all. You know how it is here—the sex is everything!”

  “But why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “I guess I fell asleep after Zenith and I finished. And when I woke up she was fucking you…and no kidding, it was fucking amazing. Know what? You and Zenith did me in, you were so hot together.” He started speaking more quickly, picking up speed, warming to his topic. “Why didn’t I tell you that I made love with her too? I forgot! It’s that simple. It was never supposed to be a secret.” His words rushed out now, tumbling over one another. “But does it matter? We’ve both made love with Zenith since then, right? And also with Vane and Nikki and Geoffrey and Tim and…hell, with everyone, like I said. So Zenith and me screwing after the train game doesn’t even mean anything anymore. Water under the bridge, right?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Right?” He stared at me, starting to get concerned. “Angie? Am I right?”

  “Except that you didn’t tell me! You could have. You had the perfect opportunity.”

  He didn’t say anything, just looked sheepish.

  “You know what I’m talking about, Josh! The next morning, when you admitted you weren’t really asleep when I made love with her. You could have told me then. You could have but you didn’t.”

  “I’m sorry.” He sounded wounded, stricken. “It doesn’t mean anything. Really.”

  I regarded him. Then I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, doing my best to love freely and generously. I shoved jealous, mean-spirited Angie back under the rock she’d crawled out from. “Okay. I believe you. I’m just trying to figure it out. Anyway, there are more important things to talk about, like what Zenith said about Mr. Abiba loving me.”

  “Then tell me the rest.” He sounded glad to be changing the subject.

  “Okay. But we have to be careful.” I put my finger to my lips. It wasn’t a good idea to talk about Mr. Abiba, especially in our room. There might not be hidden cameras over the bed as we’d joked about that very first night in the inn, but there was something in our room with us—a presence, keeping tabs on us, observing our sexual escapades. I was sure of it.

  Josh looked at me, his head tilted.

  I glanced around the chamber at the now-dark windows, at the window seat with its many pillows. Then I saw the roll-top desk, and my breath caught in my throat. The roll-top! It had that strange dead zone next to it! I clutched Josh’s arm. “Come with me,” I said, so quietly it wasn’t even a whisper. I pointed at him, at myself, then at the roll-top desk. “Over there,” I mouthed.

  “Why?” he mouthed back.

  But I didn’t answer. I scrambled off the bed and he followed, grumbling. I stepped into the corner between the desk and the wall and felt the same muted, chilly sensation I’d noticed days before, back when I’d first explored the room. How big was the odd patch? Was there space for two? I shuffled my feet, feeling for boundaries. There was space for both of us, just barely, if I turned sideways and lined my feet up with the edge of the affected area. I maneuvered myself into the corner as far as I could, then pulled Josh into the dead zone with me.

  “What the hell?” said Josh as soon as he entered the space, his eyes widening. “It’s cold! What’s this…place…doing in our room?”

  “It’s weird, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t like it.”

  Our voices sounded different in the dead zone. Flat. Tinny. As if we were breathing high-altitude, top-of-Mount-Everest air. Dry, throat-tickling air. Josh extended his arm from the boundary, then pulled it back in again, covered in goose bumps. It wasn’t a place where we wanted to stay for very long.

  “There are other areas like this,” I whispered. “Remember on the stairs? And in front of the fireplace?”

  Josh looked at the door to our room. “Can he hear us?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  We stared at each other. Now that we had a safe place to talk—maybe—we didn’t know what to say. Did we even need a safe place to talk? Was Mr. Abiba’s love so dangerous? Josh put his arms around my waist and pulled me close and we huddled together for a long moment. I started to relax. He smelled so nice, my Josh, a combination of Ivory soap and the inn’s complimentary shampoo, the one in the miniature cut-glass bottles with the exact scent of those ever-present yellow bouquets. He sneezed, then he ran his hand down the small of my back over and over again, petting me as if I were a cat. “Angie,” he said slowly, “this is so strange. I can think better in here. Like my head was full of sand and now it’s draining away. Do you feel it too?”

  “Yes, I do.” Something was shifting inside my head, like an itch I couldn’t scratch, making me want to squirm in his arms. My thoughts were getting clearer with every passing moment…and some of them weren’t nice thoughts. Not at all. “Josh,” I whispered, my knees going weak. “Oh my god.”

  His hands stilled. “What? What is it?”

  “I just realized something. Today I had sex with…what? Five different people?Or was it six? Seven, including you!” I gasped, horrified by my own words. “And…and…and I had fun doing it. They’re nice people. But why? Why, Josh? I didn’t plan to do this! Not on our honeymoon!” I held on to him, making noises that sounded suspiciously like strangled sobs. “Josh, what’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you. It’s okay,” he whispered.

  “It’s notokay!”

  “I’m doing it too, Angie. I probably slept with more people today than you did.”

  “But I came here to be with you. I love you.”

  “I know,” he said, and kissed me sweetly on the cheek. “I love you too. Don’t worry. We’re all doing it.”

  “Yes…” I said slowly, trying to get my breathing back under control. Then I sneezed. “We are, aren’t we?”

  “It doesn’t mean anything.” But the way he looked at me said he wasn’t so sure.

  “Maybe,” I said. A far-off foghorn moaned into the darkness, making me shudder. “But maybe it does. Maybe the sex means something completely differentthan what we think.” I frowned, surprised by my own words, trying to figure out what they meant. Why did I feel so disturbed? Something hovered just out of reach, dangling so close I could almost grab hold of it—almost, almost… But even though my mind was getting clearer, the something slithered away, back into the foggy reaches of my mind. Was it about the sex? About the amount of sex? The multiple partners?

  Was it
?

  Just because we were running from bed to bed, sleeping with one another in a frenzy of erotic delight, didn’t necessarily mean it was the right thing to do. The problem was that I had no idea what the right thing was anymore.

  “Aren’t you enjoying yourself?” asked Josh, “Because if you aren’t…”

  “Of course I am!”

  He hugged me close. “I’m so glad,” he whispered, and kissed me.

  It was true. I adored the sex. It was getting better with each day that passed—with each hour, almost. And those Tools…my god, those Tools were magnificent. Who wouldn’t like them? I kissed his rough cheek. “Enjoying myself isn’t the word for it. I’ve never had so much fun in my life. I’m learning so much about myself. Who would ever have thought I’d be so sensual? I’m loving it. But Josh, that’s beside the point. Can you explain why we’re banging everything that moves? Can you?”

  He didn’t answer, just pulled me closer.

  “Can you?”

  “No. Unless it’s the food.”

  “It’s almost like…we don’t have a choice.”

  This time it was Josh who made a strangled-sounding noise.

  “Free will,” I said. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  He stared at me, his eyebrows pulled together.

  Why were Josh and I sleeping with everyone at the inn except—mostly—each other? Because it was fun? Because it was exciting? Were we doing it because wewanted to? Or because Mr. Abiba wanted us to?

  I didn’t know. But I had a hunch.

  All this thinking was giving me a headache. My mind was clearer than it had been ten minutes before, but I was still horribly confused, because even if I’d been manipulated into it, I’d wanted all that sex. Each and every time—except for when I was painting, which seemed to turn it off—I’d wanted it more than anything. I still did! If Vane or Zenith—or Geoffrey or Nikki or Logan or anyone—had walked into that room, at that very instant, with Josh and me still crammed into the corner by the roll-top desk, my loins would have leaped with anticipation, my pussy would have fairly dripped with lust.

  Just listen to my language! Not like me at all.

  My nipples would have got hard, color would have risen to my cheeks and my lips would have displayed my most charming come-and-get-me smile. I would have wasted no time in getting whoever it was to make love to me.

  An exaggeration but not by much.

  Was that person me? Really?

  It wasn’t the honeymoon we’d planned. It was breathtaking, yes, but as I’d just told Josh, that was beside the point. None of it was what Josh and I had asked for. It wasn’t us. Didn’t we get any say in the matter?

  It didn’t look that way.

  I stared at Josh. “Free will,” I whispered.

  “Mr. Abiba,” he whispered back, even more softly.

  I nodded, frowning.

  Josh was right. Mr. Abiba was behind it all. He was everywhere. He was like an octopus, with his tentacles wrapped around us, squeezing us, sucking on us…and we hadn’t even noticed the danger we were in. It wasn’tright, not at all. Was Mr. Abiba using Josh and me and the others us as his personal petting zoo? So he could get off on our sex lives? So he could guide us and watch us and manipulate us? Was he—and this made my entire body go cold—feeding off us?

  And there was something else.

  Josh gripped my arm, concerned. “What is it?”

  “He’s… He’s…” I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut, unable to go on.

  He was getting younger. The hair. The color of his skin. The disappearing age spots. The vigor in his step, in his voice, in his manner. The way he looked happier, younger, more energetic every time I saw him. The way he had clutched at my naked body in the ghost town, holding me in his strong embrace, moaning with pleasure as I quivered with unfulfilled lust.

  The bastard—he was feeding off us!

  “We have to get out of here,” I gasped.

  Josh just looked at me.

  “He’s using us—our sex, I mean—to get younger! To rejuvenate! Haven’t you seen it, Josh? Remember what he looked like when we first arrived? Like a warmed-over skeleton. Well, he doesn’t anymore! Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.” I gripped the edge of the roll-top desk, hanging on for dear life. “I think he’s some sort of…I don’t know, some sort of vampire. Well, not a vampire exactly, because he doesn’t do the blood thing, at least as far as we know…” I shot a nervous look at the door. “So not a vampire, but something very like one. Something that sucks passion instead of blood.”

  “His hands,” said Josh. “His hands aren’t the same.”

  “I know. None of him is the same. Mr. Abiba is dangerous. We have to escape.” I clutched at his arms. “Oh god, what are we going to do? Mr. Abiba loves me! That makes it so much worse. Josh, what are we going to do?”

  His eyes darted this way and that, landing finally on the door to our room. “We tried to escape once—I remember now. We made a break for the front door but he wouldn’t let us leave.” He turned to me and his irises were a shade of blue I’d never seen before, a shade I couldn’t even name, and that scared me more than anything else. “He stopped us at the front entrance. He was big and strong, and wild. Remember, Angie?”

  I remembered. Oh yes, I remembered.

  “He turned into a monster! A…a…fiend!” Josh’s voice rose. “He’s a monster, damn it all—and we’re his prisoners!”

  I was trembling, and it wasn’t from the cold. “We have to get out of here.”

  “But how, Angie? How do you propose we do that? Our rooms might not be locked anymore, but the front door sure as fuck is. Have you even seen any other entrances? Have you? Because I haven’t. And we’ll forget again. The moment we step out of this dead zone and back into the room, we’ll start to forget.”

  I took his hand, looking out at our dark room, seeing the chamber for what it really was—foreboding and dour, no longer the enchanting North Tower I’d been so in love with. “Josh. The instant we walked through the front door on Saturday night we were his captives. We didn’t stand a chance. From the moment we signed his papers—bled on them—it was over.”

  Josh shrank into himself. “God, Angie. I did this to us. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.”

  “No.” I hugged him as best I could in our cramped space. “It’s not. It was me. My fault. You wanted to leave the inn, remember? Hell, you didn’t even want to check in. You sensed something was wrong when you were still in the damn parking lot. No, it was me. I wanted to stay. I just had to spend the night in this fucking tower when all you wanted was to get the hell out of here. It was me. It was me.”

  “Jesus, Angie! Stop saying that.”

  I swallowed. Nodded. Swallowed again. “Okay. But what are we going to do?”

  We fell silent. What could we do? It wasn’t only the forgetting thing, the sand-filling-up-the-head thing. There was more to it. I knew the moment Mr. Abiba put his hands on me again, I’d be lost. That would be all it took. A few touches from him, a few murmured words, and I would turn into witless putty.

  After a while Josh spoke. “He’s not all-powerful, though.”

  I stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” he said slowly, thinking, “you remembered what Zenith told you. All afternoon and evening, you didn’t forget. You managed to keep hold of it long enough to pass it on to me, right? And you—both of you—hid it from Mr. Abiba.”

  He was right. We had. At least I hoped we had.

  “I kept my distance from him. Yes.”

  “It worked. We have to remember that. And Zenith was frightened enough to tell you that she thought you were in danger. She must have broken the rules to do that.”

  I nodded, hoping she wouldn’t get into trouble.

  “And you. Even though you’re a fucking captive, you managed to find this safe place in our room where we can talk.”

  “If it is safe.”

  “And that’s anothe
r thing! This inn he’s so proud of—it’s not perfect. These dead zones can’t be what he was going after when he set the place up, right? Something’s not right about them. I think they’re mistakes. Overlooked spots. Places his influence doesn’t reach. That’s what I think.”

  I looked at our feet, crammed together in the small space. I shuddered. “Or traps.”

  He was already moving on. “And I think the rules can be broken, even if it’s just the little rules.” His words came more quickly. “Here’s another thing. Mr. Abiba is still bringing people back into line when they get antsy. Taking one or another of us aside for a talking-to. He took Jonathan aside after breakfast. You weren’t there—you were already painting, so you won’t remember—but I think Mr. Abiba has to work to keep us docile, to keep us doing what he wants. He can’t allow anyone to get angry. That’s what I’m saying. Right? You’ve seen it too?”

  “Um, yeah. Tim had a fit,” I whispered. “The other morning. Nikki told me.”

  “And you had one too, during the calling card game. You were mighty pissed off at Mr. Abiba,” Josh said, his head tilted. “And Valerian too, apparently. Something happened in that ghost town. Geoffrey told me. I have no idea how he remembered for long enough to pass it on.”

  Holy shit.

  Was it true? I’d been pissed off the day before and didn’t even remember?

  I clung to Josh, my breath coming in shallow spurts. The ghost town! My time there—the fun part, anyway—was as clear as crystal in my memory, even Mr. Abiba’s hug or whatever it had been at the very end. It was all there except for the ugly parts. But now every awful detail came rushing back. I cried out, remembering. Oh the humiliation! The resentment! The abrupt, ugly, forced end to two of my lovely sexual encounters. Yes, I’d been furious all right. I dug my fingers into Josh’s arm but he didn’t shake me off.

  Goddamn it.

  How much clearer could it be? I’d been worked over. I’d been handled. Mr. Abiba had calmed me down. He’d persuaded me to “see reason”. The bastard had probably been feeding from me the entire time he’d held me in his arms. And when he’d thoroughly drained me—how ghastly, how repulsive—he’d made me want him.