Forest of Rope

Chapter 20

‘Hotel?’ Riley pointed foolishly to the insignia on their booking reference, abandoning the attempt to pronounce the name correctly.

The cab driver began to nod slowly with an intimate understanding as if Riley had imparted some great wisdom onto him. He gestured to the back of his vehicle and the two dragged their cases inside.

Throughout the journey Alexis passed into varying cycles of tiredness, drifting from one state of awareness to another. On occasion she would mumble something relatively coherent, a passing comment on the scenery for example, before inevitably slipping back into a dream. Riley felt much the same but couldn’t differentiate between dream and reality. There were no points of reference, no middle ground. Everything came across as contorted and blown out of proportion, spoken in a tongue that escaped comprehension and written in a language he couldn’t understand.

The traversing neon paradise beyond the window he slumped against cast strange and brightly coloured shapes, contributing to his headache.  

‘You are here,’ a solemn voice announced, breaking Riley out of his trance.

He gently woke Alexis and handed the cab driver a fistful of freshly converted Yen. A group of porters, who greeted their arrival with a small bow, assembled their cases onto a trolley despite Riley’s insistence that he could carry his own. Free from the weight of two weeks’ worth of clothing he was able to comfortably steer Alexis into the lobby where even more staff materialised to greet them. Their bows were slightly lower and more humble than the porters’. Riley, who almost made the grave mistake of reaching out his right hand, gave his best attempt for a bow. Alexis, whose head was buried into her husband’s shoulder, came down with Riley’s movement. Her dark hair spilled over Riley’s front like treacle.

One of the lobby staff gave a courteous smile at the sight of Alexis. Riley, feeling embarrassed, returned it with difficulty as he followed her lead to the reception desk. Alexis continued to cling on to Riley for dear life.

‘How much did you drink on the plane?’ Riley hissed in her ear as they approached the desk. He got no reply.

‘Konichiwa,’ a receptionist gave yet another bow, this one perhaps the lowest and humblest of them all.

‘Konni... Chiwar.’

If Riley’s complexion didn’t give him away, his terrible pronunciation did.

‘Room five-one-eight?’ Riley clarified when it was all over.

‘Yes sir. Here is your keycard. Your cases have been sent up to your room.’

They were led down an elegantly polished corridor which gleamed with sleek oak panelling, donned with abstract art and partly deformed sculptures.

‘I can see why you picked this place,’ Riley murmured smugly when they passed a particularly eye-catching piece featuring a woman with a face as pale as ash.

‘What?’ Alexis asked tiredly raising her heavy head for a brief confused moment.

‘Nothing,’ he replied with a smirk.

‘Would you like to be escorted to your room?’ a porter offered when they reached the elevator.

‘No it’s fine thank you,’ Riley declined politely. ‘We’ll find our own way.’

They encountered very few guests on the way up. The place was silent and solitary save for their cluttered footsteps on the spotless carpeted hallways dimly lit by designer lampshades.

Riley wasn’t expecting to carry his bride across the threshold of their honeymoon suite but due to Alexis’s incapacitation he ended up doing it anyway. It was an odd, disconcerting moment since neither of them believed in tradition. After all, they hadn’t had a very traditional wedding. The deed had been done in a small novelty chapel in Las Vegas. It lasted an entire twenty minutes. That was seven hours and forty-five minutes less than his father’s first marriage. Even though it was a poor venue which reeked of shame and inhumanity, Riley would have given anything for both of his parents to have been there.

‘Easy does it,’ Riley whispered, more to himself, as he set Alexis down on the bed. All of a sudden he was back in their apartment in San Francisco, undressing her to a point she wouldn’t be uncomfortable with and searching for an appropriate container for her to vomit into.

‘You better not throw up,’ he warned her when he found none. Alexis half-smiled as he pulled off her jacket and unbuttoned her jeans. He couldn’t be sure if she’d heard him but he smiled too.

He took an opportunity to admire the room. For the price they’d paid it was a fairly luxurious space (even if a little cramped) complete with fridge and mini-bar. The curtains were firmly drawn, preventing the otherworldly neon light from penetrating their little alcove of darkness. Flustered with sleep deprivation yet unable to shut his eyes, Riley parked himself next to Alexis and held her for warmth. He held on for what felt like hours.

A beep at his watch signalled that it was four o’ clock in the morning.

No point now. Riley admitted to himself grimly, detaching from Alexis’s drowsy embrace.   

Sleep was now out of the question.

Now well and truly awake he dragged himself out of the honeymoon bed. On his way to the bathroom he caught a shadowed glimpse of his new wife enveloped in the tangle of duvet, her mouth partially open as she tossed and turned, arms reaching for the space Riley no longer inhabited. The scene was not unlike one from their forgotten teenage years.

Could Alexis have sensed her lover’s absence or had it been a semi-conscious spasm, brought about by another of her bizarre dreams? Riley couldn’t know for sure and didn’t dwell on the thought for long.

He shuffled in the velvet darkness blindly, fumbling for a switch before coming to a halt at the gilded mirror in the closet bathroom. He studied the reflection inquisitively, trying to deduce if the face displayed the restless ache inside.    

Five minutes later he was out the door and on his way to the hotel bar.