Solace

She would wake up to the familiar comfort of unfamiliar heat. Despite the sleep wearing off and her senses getting more responsive to her surroundings - the slight tickle of his hairy limbs, the subtle hint of his oud based cologne teasing her nostrils, the stench of the overnight stay of tequila and red wine in her mouth - she’d remain in the same position with her eyes closed. A final struggling attempt to retain the warmth of the comfort, no matter how fleeting. 

He would wake up feeling a weight against his chest, a throbbing in his chest, and an urgent stream of bile running up his chest. Pushing her off him, he would run to make it to the toilet in time to throw up the remnants of his broken self control from the night before. He would stay bent over the toilet for longer than necessary to stall the imminent interaction. Brown hair, long legs; he would try to piece together fragments of his memory of her as he washes out his mouth and takes in the necklace of hickeys around his collarbones. Carnivorous tendencies- he would add that to his developing profile of her.

She would straighten out her shirt - his shirt- and mumble to herself about the non-necessity of his abrupt rousing whilst reaching for her phone to check the time. She would, based on the lack of natural light in the chalet, assume it’s close to sunrise, look at the time on her phone, run to the window and say almost simultaneously with him- “we’re snowed in”. 

“Fuck. This can’t be happening”. They would look tentatively at each other, both expressing unsureity about the situation and their unintended extended interaction. He would take a moment of thought away from the crisis and appreciatively soak in the image of her in his shirt. It would cause blood to rush southward as well as to his head and he would regain his memory of their alcohol saturated night laced with sexual innuendos and openly expressed lust.

She would feel his eyes roam over her body and feel her skin prickle once more with want for him. She would wonder why her other one night stands never elicited the same reaction from her. 

Without network on either of their phones and the inability to leave the thankfully fully stocked chalet, they would accept the resting of their fate with mother nature and he would start a conversation. 

“What brought you to this resort?”

“I’m getting over a heartbreak.” He would let out a dry laugh and think grimly how the gloomy lighting of the chalet perfectly matched the sob pity party about to unfold. 

She would revert to silence and he would think about the subject of his own heartbreak. He would think back to the contrast of the red against her dark skin and let out a pained sigh. He usually hated and thought it awfully cliche when people described body parts with food items but he would classify the night prior as a special case. He literally couldn’t help but compare her smooth dark skin to creamy milk chocolate as he stared at her open back and her exposed thigh, courtesy of the slit in her dress. He would feel a slight burning beneath his heart remembering the first time she tried on that red dress. She enthusiastically pranced around the fitting room on her tiptoes and instructed him to imagine the slinky red number with the black louboutins she bought after her most recent promotion. He did her one up and visualised how perfect it would be with a pair of oval cut diamond earrings to complete the look. He planned to buy them as a surprise for the first night of their honeymoon; the honeymoon they were currently on - individually. “Well, I am here individually. She’s here with him.”, he would think spitefully.

She would take a minute to distract herself from the pain of the details of her heartbreak and think back to the red A-line silk dress-corseted at the bodice and then left to flow freely to the ankles with a thigh high side split. She would remember thinking that the beautiful dress was disserviced by being worn by such an obvious bitch. She watched her condescendingly order round the waiters and completely ignore her dining partner while sending flirtatious looks to half of the men in the restaurant. The only benefit of her presence that evening was leading her to the beautiful set of eyes piercing holes through the back of her red dress. She would recall focusing first on his eyes, then his perfectly shaped lips and then his broad shoulders clad in an impeccably fitting suit. She would remember almost losing her balance on the bar stool taking in his entire appearance and thinking abruptly, “I want him”.

He would be her fourth lay of the trip and a mighty fine note to end on.

“What caused your breakup?” he would ask, getting impatient with the silence. She would remember the little signs from her ex she was too lovestruck to notice: His disinterest in her stories that used to captivate him; his suddenly busy work schedule; the myriad of excuses to cancel whenever something did get planned; his switch from “I love you” to “love you” at the end of their incrementally shorter nightly calls. Now, their awkward post-breakup  conversations were peppered with “I loved you” and she’d think about how much she preferred “love you”. 

“He lost feelings for me”, she’d say between gritted teeth; wishing the pain she felt was being inflicted by her gritted teeth rather than the words coming out of her mouth. He would look at her and feign indifference. “That’s not too bad. At least he didn’t cheat on you.” He would look away to hide his annoyance at this man he has never met, right before the teardrop forms in the corner of her eye, drops, and slowly trails down her cheek. She would curse herself for opening up in the first place and feel misplaced anger at him for not understanding her pain; for not sympathising with her; for not hating him with her. 

He would remember initially being spotted by her and then spotting her, the night before.  He would reconcile the aura of brokenness he sensed around her with her recent revelation. He would remember feeling betrayed by his body by his immediate attraction to her. He would remember making an effort to remain concentrated on the red dress, the chocolate skin. He would remember failing, looking back at her staring directly at him, and thinking that no food item could do her skin, her eyes, her beauty justice.

She would see the flames from the fireplace cast shadows on his spaced out expression and remember that same look from the night prior as she walked towards him. She would remember being engulfed in his expensive oud and trying to restrain herself from too obviously sniffing it in. She would remember his eyes glazing over in lust and feeling the want she missed from her ex. 

He would remember wanting to dispel the dubiousness in her eyes. He would remember wanting to please her till she pleaded for him to stop. He would remember wanting her to want him as much as he did her. 

With the air punctuated by the crackling of the wood in the fireplace, he would go on a rant about how his fiancé cheated on him and at the end of his tirade, she would reply, “that’s not too bad. At least she didn’t inexplicably lose feelings for you”

They would both end up on the bed - under the covers, rustling them, tossing and turning in them, buried in their lust, and wrapped up in each other’s bodies all day. Two broken hearts finding solace in each other.