Never been one for backwater motels, but when life starts buckin', well— better ride. There had been nowhere else. A disenchanted 'r' hung woefully from the Sweet Sugar Motel's flickering sign above the interstate, illuminating in sporadic bursts a fiery blaze of magenta that leaked through the skeletal blinds and their stale curtains. Its broken-hearted insignia felt eerily appropriate, thought Jesse, who dared not fathom the debauchery that had likely unfolded in his very seat, atop the very tassled velvet cushion in which he sat. The defunct lobby was dim with faux candlelight and polyester blooms, chipped linoleum in the façade of marble with a dust-laden chandelier dripping from its coffered ceiling. A decrepit soprano sung soft jazz from the old speakers by the door; every so-often the crooning would sputter with static and Jesse, for all his careful discipline, resisted the urge to shoot the damn thing more times than he could count on one hand, @killerdame , 𐚁.
"Y'all leave that goin' all night..? Ain't nobody here but you an' me, girl." Textured tones grate upon the air. He inhales the fragrance of artificial rose and gas-station perfume. The unsightly receptionist did not look up from her cracked phone screen.
"You can get a room or you can sit there with the music," said the woman. Jesse's chest shook with a tremendous sigh.
The weather would clear come morning. To ride a chopper through these storms was an all but certain death: compounded by the fog, the air was opaque with thick sheets of rain. He heard the downfall even now, hailing fiercely against their cheap metal roof, no promise of capitulation in the near or distant future. Jesse rocked in his chair. The aluminum cage of the old motel elevator rattled, mechanical bones straining as they lowered. What came next was a queer and diluted 'ding.'
The tired doors of the elevator yawned open like a tripped-up clamshell, Venus in its maw: the cowboy sat up straight.
He lowered his sunglasses where they sat upon his nose-bridge while the apathetic receptionist ejaculated a half-hearted salutation. Gold-rimmed hawk-eyes watched the sway of the intruder's slim waist with dangerous attention.
Thunder cracked. The soft croon stuttered and the lights flickered. His coyote tongue salivated.
Jesse caught fragments of a voice sweeter than sugarcane.
"We don't have anyone available right now," replied the receptionist in dull tone to the woman.
An abrupt ejection from his seat to his boot-soles. "Now don't go speakin' no nonsense when I'm right here. Wh'ussa matter, sweet-pea? Sheets ain't workin' like they should..?"
