gilt + modern erisling
The headache woke her up first, but the rest of the hangover followed quickly behind.
Her whole face was heavy, and basically glued to the pillow. She felt sticky, and sore, and not a little bit nauseous.
She was in the crisp bedding and disorienting darkness of a hotel room, a mattress so soft it wanted to swallow her for another eight hours, but everything felt too tight and too wrong in her body to enjoy it. Aisling fumbled her way through turning on the bedside lamp, then her phone, searing straight into her brain with its brightness turned far too high.
It was in her groggy, hungover fumbling that she saw the note on the table, there beside a silver packet of paracetamol: I've left for the office. The door will lock behind you.
Not a fucking hotel, then. Nowhere she recognised: dark walls, furniture that was all sharp angles. No smirking weasel of a man like there normally was, at least, to eye her up as she scrambled into her clothes. Was that note better, or worse?
She felt chafed and raw as she found the door to the bathroom, where — bliss — plush towels, clean tile, gleaming, gilt taps. The man's products were Aesop, which was a cut above what she really expected a man to have but a cut below what she would use on herself. Still, she had a rummage through the drawers under the sink, half of which were empty. The other half contained exactly one comb, one tin of hair pommade, one dark amber bottle of Tom Ford — Oud Leather, she sniffed. He took himself seriously.
In her reflection, her mirror-self wore bruises around her hips: on the left, purple as a sloe, tucked into the bone. Aisling touched her finger to it, and it ached when she pressed down.
So the man had big hands, then. She stepped into the shower to wash the traces of his big, bruising hands off.
She took her time, scrubbing luxuriously, savouring the way the water pressure seemed to scald her hangover from her. She drank some of the water from the showerhead, too, uncaring that it was too hot. She felt like a wild, dirty animal, washing the unknown man's dried cum from her thighs.
Once done with her shower, her clothes presented an uappealing prospect. Her jeans were fine but her top was miniscule, too tiny and sheer, and Aisling discarded it in favour of pawing through the man's closet instead, since he had left his walk-in door so invitingly open.
It felt right, to slip into one of his crisp white dress shirts. It was bespoke, no tag, but the fabric was cool and smooth and felt soothing when it brushed against her bare nipples. They were sore, like the man had pinched or bitten them the night before.
His shirt was the least he could provide, then. She half-tucked it carefully, just sloppy enough to look artfully casual, leaving it unbuttoned low.
She stepped out of the bedroom, and the plush quiet of a hallway enveloped her: completely impersonal, just like his bedroom, some dubious modern art without an ounce of personality on the wall. Aisling padded quietly past it, wondering if it came with the flat or if the man had actually liked it and exchanged money for it.
The kitchen was gleaming white and black; glossy, and clean, and with only San Pellegrino bottles and a dessicated-looking lemon in the fridge. Milk that was in date, too; skim, the fucking freak. Did the man tend towards being fat if he ate too much? Or did he think indulgence was embarassing and gauche? Probably the latter, considering everything he had in his flat was sleek and stark and utterly soulless, as if purposefully stripped of anything but that which could be marketed as tasteful masculine.
His Marzocco made a delightful cappuccino, though, even with the skim milk. Aisling drank one shot of espresso, quick as a tequila to chase the grinding sandiness from behind her eyes, then the cappuccino slowly.
She was about to prowl from the kitchen and into the living room, to plant her raw arse on the very appealing navy sofa that she could see the edge of, when a spectre of a dog appeared in the doorway. Aisling hadn't heard the greyhound, hadn't even been aware there was one, but there it was: long-limbed, inky-eyed, silky-furred and clicking across the tile to sniff her legs and then graciously accept a scratch behind the ears. It stared at her in silent, gentle feeling. Its fur was soft to the touch, and its whip of a tail swept once twice and no more.
No big shows of emotion. Aisling could respect that.
Still, the hound stayed near her as she drank her coffee, an interloper in the dog's life. Aisling left the dirty mug in the sink, the ring of dried coffee on the white granite counter, evidence everywhere the man would look that she had been here. She pictured his exasperation, his scowl as he would come home and run his hand through his — red, his hair had been red, that was what she had noticed first about him.
Whatever. He'd run his hand through his red hair, narrowing his [brown?] eyes. She couldn't remember what his voice had sounded like, but she imagined it deep, swearing in exasperation that the woman he'd left in his bed had dared to do more than slip out the door like a pale, shamed ghost.
The hound followed her as she went to the door, silently hopeful at her heels, its plaintive dark eyes watching Aisling as she pulled on her boots. She didn't cry, or whine; still, she stood there, her eyes seeming to ask for something. The silent dog, in the silent, hermetically sealed flat, sparkling clean and not a breath out of place.
Shall we? the hound's eyes asked, the same as Niamh's before they went out last night. We can go anywhere you like. Shall we?
The Prada sunglasses felt right to wear, even though it was probably cloudy outside of this stale, stagnant bubble. Aisling slid them on, then clipped on the dog's leash. The door locked behind them as they left.