“Going. Like you already paid Eloa to,” I answer. Trying to sound cool. Trying to sound matter-of-fact. Even though I’m not cool. And not even my annual trip back into the multiverse feels as mind-blowing as the sex we just had. But this is an act of bacchanoel. Something meant to be left behind in the human realm.
I shake the dress out, prepared to pull it back on.
But then he catches my wrist and says, “Not yet. Stay. Stay until the morning.”
I look at him. And he looks at me. I have less than twenty-four hours left in San Francisco until it’s time to go back to the North Pole…
Men like Hayato never happen to elves like me. And may never ever do so again.
So I do it. I drop the dress. And I stay.
California Dreamin’
HAYATO
The last day of Christmas
It’s not just good sex.
Not just better sex than I would have enjoyed with Eloa.
It’s the best sex I’ve ever had.
It feels like we’re communing on some deeper level. Having a conversation even better than the one at dinner. Is this what sex feels like when there’s actually some connection? Or is it her?
I don’t know. Can’t parse what any of this means. Only that I can’t get enough of her.
First on the couch, then over it with her curvy backside thrust out as I take what I want to the soundtrack of more California 60’s rock and her breathless moans. Eventually, we make it to the bedroom. I take her there, too, with her warm thighs wrapped around my waist.
She’s hot. Figuratively and literally. Her body temperature seems to naturally run on a higher setting than mine and sweat breaks out across my skin because it feels like making love to a toasty fire.
I like it. Like her sweet heat. Like sinking into her complete warmth after a lifetime of cold, cynical sex.
I try to savor it, make myself go slower this time, but I end up ruining a third condom faster than I want to, even though it can’t have been three hours since she followed me into the suite.
We fall exhausted onto separate sides of the bed. My cock’s finally spent as I recover from the marathon session, breathing hard.
I could ask her to go. I usually don’t let the woman I pay spend the night.
But I didn’t technically pay her. And I don’t ask her to go.
Instead, I watch her fall asleep on the opposite side of the bed, thinking about what I’ll do to her when we both wake up. Have another delicious conversation, disguised as sex. Then maybe order breakfast before my flight leaves for Tokyo. Thoughts of how to extend this one-night-stand as far as possible into the next morning race around my head. Then sleep overtakes me, too, as a woman with a gentle singing voice instructs me to dream a little dream….
However, when I wake up from dreaming, Kristal is not there.
At first, I think maybe she’s gotten up to use the facilities, but then I sit up and see it…
A single piece of drawing paper, just like the one she gave Eloa. But instead of a young woman, there’s a sharpie portrait of an old man on mine. He looks to be of Asian descent and there’s something familiar about his eyes, but I can’t say quite what.
There’s a date beside his picture, January 5, the same day as today but with the following year written behind it. There’s also a note…
“Hayato, please go be with your loved one. You only have a year left with him until he dies. Jae-Hyun didn’t tell me either. I’m sorry, so sorry. Kristal.”
My loved one?
I have no idea who the man in the sharpie portrait is or why I should care about his imminent death.
But I do care that Kristal seems to have left my hotel suite, without so much as a goodbye. And she has left the suite. I look everywhere for her, but she’s nowhere to be found. The audio system is no longer cycling through her playlist, and her clothes are gone, along with the elf hat I took off last night before asking her to kiss me.
“Oh, now I get it. Why you pay so much for company. Because you only desire it for a little bit, then you want the women you date to go away and not require anything back from you.”
The thing is, I still desire Kristal’s company. The first thing I desired when I woke up this morning was her company. But she’s gone…and it feels like the opposite of a broken song.
It feels like something cut short before it’s even had a chance to begin.
No, I decide, it can’t end like this.
I have a few hours before my plane leaves for Japan, and I use all of them to search for her.