Maybe We Shouldn't...| SCK AU story

15 • The Morning After

Dual Narration
Serkan and Eda's POVs   

      I hit the jackpot -- I've made it to the proverbial candyland. Waking up half naked and wedged between Eda's thighs is heaven. I have to say, my sex dreams are getting more vivid and realistic -- too realistic, as a matter of fact. Eda's screech penetrates my semi-consciousness. Wait -- what? I'm not dreaming -- Eda is not a mirage.

      "Why is your face so close to my coochie? Did you fall asleep on my crotch?"

       The way she says 'coochie' is adorable. Not the word I normally use to refer to a woman's genitalia, but it's irresistibly cute coming from her lips.

       Eda springs up from her pillow and stares at me. How is she so agile and peppy, when I feel like a racoon died in my mouth while a steamroller ran over me? Just imagine Road Runner from Looney Tunes -- splayed in the middle of the road, flat as a pancake, while Wile E. Coyote looks down on him, cackling maniacally. Fine, she looks nothing like the hungry coyote. Her petrified expression does resemble the look on one of Hell's Kitchen's contestants, when Gordon Ramsey goes on a rampage -- spewing a string of expletives -- making the contestants shake in their shoes, while waiting for their fate to be determined.

       She lets out a high pitch, ear-piercing shriek, while pointing to the wedding band glistening on my left ring finger, as the sun hits the lower portion of our bed. She glances down at her own finger, then looks at me, her eyes as round as the moon from last night.

       Holy fucking shit. Pardon my French. 

       We're both wearing a silver wedding band on our ring finger. I raise my left hand to inspect the band like Gollum – examining it from every angle. Upon closer scrutiny, I exhale a sigh of relief -- when I realize that it's a cheap aluminum 'toy ring'.

       "Please tell me a clown is going to jump out from the closet screaming -- gotcha!"

       "It's not April, so it can't be an April Fool's joke."

       "Please do not tell me a fat Elvis impersonator in a super tight white bedazzled unitard married us, during our drunken stupor last night! Surely, nobody would marry two people who were drunk as skunks, would they? Don't you have to be lucid to --- "

      Serkan's voice fades into the background. I scramble out of bed and walk towards the door -- fishing my purse from the floor. I swipe my phone and click on the photo gallery icon. A few images pop up -- two different pictures with the both of us in the bright, blue neon-lit Big Apple Arcade, posing with our left hand next to our face, and our right index finger pointing to the toy ring on our fourth finger. 

     "Don't worry, kitten, we got sloshed and we pranked each other, or something like that. We probably got these from a gumball machine -- or a carnival claw machine. You know, the big display cases in the arcade, where you can insert money and use the large claw to fish out your prize."

       I bring the phone up to my shoulder and flip it around to show Serkan the pictures taken at the arcade.

       "Phew -- we dodged that bullet!

       He bellows, and slumps back onto the mattress.

      The ferocious golden orbit suspended outside our hotel room window is determined to make its presence known. I lift my arm to shield the ray from scorching my retina. The bright stream of sunshine penetrating the window pane sheds a light on our reality. The morning after. Shit, shit, shit. Can we just rewind the reel to last night?

       Last night, the world was our oyster. I love being cocooned in our drunken 'love bubble'. Everything felt so right. Did we confess our feelings for each other? Why is everything more fun at night? I sure prefer the sinful night -- the darkness has a way of blanketing the stark reality. The reality that it is now 'the morning after' -- and Eda and I will be flying home after the conference.