Sleep Magazine (Completed)

The Energy: 3

The bathroom was an unusual shape, quite long and very narrow, and extremely clean. Celia's eyes focused in on the floor. The pattern of the tiles was identical to the tiling in her bathrooms at home; white porcelain hexagons peppered with smaller black ones. 

As Celia followed the pattern of the floor stretching outward to the back of the long room, her gaze drew up to take in the large tub shower at the back wall, and she suddenly noticed the shadowed figures of two women sitting, facing one another, on the edge of the tub. Celia reached out her hand to the wall, searching for a light switch.

"There's no light!" called out the woman seated on the left edge of the tub.

"Oh," Celia responded, unaware that they had noticed her standing in the entryway.

"Don't mind us!" called out the woman on the right edge of the tub. She grabbed the hem of the shower curtain next to her head and pulled it crassly across the tub shower to hide her friend and herself from Celia's view.

Celia turned and peered back out into the hazy, purple room. AJ had moved to a new spot along the wall adjacent to the bathroom door and sat with his legs out straight and his head tilted down, looking at something on his phone. Feeling Celia's gaze on him, he turned his head up to meet her eyes.

"You okay?" he asked her.

"Fine," she replied in a suspiciously saccharine tone. He furrowed his brow at her as she promptly shut the bathroom door.

The narrow bathroom was now nearly pitch black, except for the purple light that shone in from under the door and glowed eerily off of the shiny porcelain tiles. Celia unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them down quickly as she swallowed down an uneasy feeling, determined to get out of the bathroom as fast as she could. 

Sat still on the toilet, the room now absent of any rustling of denim and zippers, she began to hear parts of the women's conversation in the tub shower. Paranoid that they might sense her eavesdropping, and also a bit self conscious about peeing in earshot of strangers, Celia reached over to the pedestal sink and turned the closest lever until just a thin stream of water began to pour down into the wide, old fashioned sink.

"He said it would only be one weekend but he still hasn't come back."

Celia could barely make out the first voice over the hissing sound of running water.

"He hasn't even called you?" asked the second voice, a bit louder than the first.

Celia could not get herself to relax enough to pee.

"No but I had a dream about him..." the first voice trailed off. Celia contemplated turning the lever back a hair to lower the volume of the running water, as she became increasingly curious about the women's conversation. She tapped the lever gently until there was barely a trickle of water dripping down from the faucet.

"...do you think I should tell someone?"

She had just caught the end of the first woman's sentence. The second woman's response was too hushed for Celia to make out, and she suddenly felt a little pathetic for eavesdropping on the two drunk strangers conversing in a bathtub. She let herself pee and quickly fixed up her jeans so that she could leave the room before they might catch on to her curiosity.

She closed the door behind her when she exited, deciding that the women probably wanted the extra privacy. As she moved to sit down against the wall next to AJ, he reached a hand up to her hip and guided her to sit between his legs instead. Celia leaned back against him comfortably, enjoying the way she seemed to feel the movement of his breathing with heightened senses.

She recognized a few new people had come into the room, all dressed in shades of burgundy and purple enhanced by the colored bulbs above, laughing and talking with one another as a pair of men made their way to the device in the center of the carpet.

"What's it called?" Celia asked in a whisper. She craned her neck back to flash her eyes at AJ before resting her head against his shoulder.

"Canadian crystals," he spoke lowly against her temple.

"No it's not," she laughed into his upper arm.

"You're right, it's not," he laughed out over the top of her head.

Celia shifted her body to nestle herself closer into AJ, her side now pressed against his chest. She put a hand on his shoulder as she peered up at him.

"Why won't you tell me?" she crooned into his jaw softly.

"Because it's a secret," he replied quietly, wrapping both arms around her upper body. "And you're terrible at keeping secrets."

"You're right, I am," she giggled, smiling into his neck.

A sudden change in the tone of the conversation next to them drew their attention to the group of people they had called hippies when they first settled into the room. One of the women who had been making the ridiculous hand gestures stood up and walked to the bathroom, while the other woman and the two men, now high from the strange substance, became increasingly loud compared to the other groups' conversations. They were having a playful argument about what constitutes classic rock, but Celia felt too hazy to follow along with the reasoning behind each individual's countering opinion. 

Over the course of a few sentences, it became apparent that the foursome were not acquaintances, but had rather just met, as the two men now made an attempt to pick up the woman while her friend was away in the bathroom. In her peripheral vision, Celia noticed three women, still older but a bit closer to her own age, sit down against the wall across from her and AJ, by the spider tanks.

"Wait till those girls see what's in those tanks," AJ said in Celia's ear, making her giggle.

"We really like you girls but can't your friend do something about her face?" The booming voice made Celia and AJ turn their heads to look with wide eyes over at the two men, one of whom was speaking much louder now, talking to the woman.

"Oh stop it," the woman replied, laughing, clearly surprised by his rudeness. "She's tried everything!" she added.

"How about dynamite?" egged on the louder man. Paired with a theatrical smile, the brazen insult caused his friend, AJ, and Celia to burst into laughter. The woman also snorted out a laugh, unable to conceal her reaction to his audacity.

"Oh stop it!" she scolded, swatting at the laughing men. "She's not that bad!"

The other woman returned from the bathroom and rejoined her group, sitting criss-crossed on the carpet next to her friend, and their conversation returned to a lower, more subdued volume.