There are better ways of engaging your sense of touch
I’d never been in an airplane before—not even with Johnny. While the spacious private jet Riftan had procured for us could hardly be considered typical air travel, I still had first-time jitters.
Though the noise canceling headphones over my ears did numb out the engines’ roar, I still knew it was there, and that made me a little twitchy under my blanket cocoon. Maybe Riftan saw that, and maybe that’s why he decided to slip me a short, clear glass in combination with a convincing nod toward it. Pulling my headphones down, I sat up and took it from him. “What’s this?”
“Gin.” He smiled. “It’s the best liquor I could find in the cabin.”
My nose scrunched at the thought. I’d had one too many bad experiences with gin—you could say I was getting too old for that kind of liquor. “I prefer the frilly mixed kind of drinks.”
“You haven’t tasted any liquors since you turned. Your opinion might have changed as your tastebuds have. I can assure you that gin is one of the better.”
My face hardly relaxed from its appalled state as I brought the glass up to my nose to have a smell. While my taste buds were dulled, my sense of smell was so much stronger, and smelling something before I tasted it was always my first and worst mistake. The pungent sting of alcohol burned my nostrils, instantly springing water to my eyes.
That was stupid.
Riftan wore a melodramatic look but said nothing, which was generous of him.
Shaking off my revulsion, I took a drink; curiosity got the better of me, wondering how the taste would compare to what I expected. While I’d anticipated the strong bitter and somewhat piny bite I remembered gin to have, that wasn’t at all what I tasted. This had the burn of alcohol but dimmed to a hardly notable degree; it was smooth—almost sweet.
“Weird. It’s actually good,” I agreed, shock highlighting my tone.
“Told you,” Riftan gloated. “Bitters are sweeter, and sweets are more bitter. That includes alcoholic beverages, so you probably won’t prefer the sugary ones anymore.”
That was a bummer to hear. I’d always loved a good mixer—maybe a mimosa.
Though I’d started to get used to the changes in my taste buds and how that affected what I wanted to eat, I still longed for the taste of sweets again. I didn’t need to eat to sustain myself, and I only really needed to drink blood to stave off hunger, but sometimes I thought cake would really hit the spot better than a gallon of blood ever could. Unfortunately, I would no longer enjoy cake the way I used to; but the sweet, serendipitous taste of my next sip of gin was nearly enough to stave off a cake craving, which was odd given my former familiarity with both cake and gin.
Loosening up, I sunk into the plush couch around me. The normal buzz of a straight beverage like gin would usually affect me quickly, especially at the rate in which I was suckling on the tasty treat. When it didn’t, I queried, “Wait, is this going to affect me the same as it would have before?” Everything about my body had changed so much that I wasn’t sure I could get drunk anymore.
Riftan let out a rich, warm chuckle. “If you’re asking if you can get drunk, then yes, you could if you had enough, but inversely, you won’t stay that way for long. Alcohol is, in itself, a poison, and you’ll heal from its effects exponentially faster now.”
“I suppose that’s good because otherwise this”—I raised the glass of gin—“could be dangerous.”
“Enjoy it.” He raised his glass until it clinked against mine. “You don’t have to be so high-strung all the time.”
I’d always thought of myself as the opposite, so it was ironic Riftan would label me as high-strung. Though, I supposed the only side of me he’d ever seen was the one that hid underneath a blanket 24/7.
Multiple glasses of gin later and my anxiety was a thing of the past, and the tension over my senses was long gone. Unfortunately, I did sober rather quickly, and the drinking process would have to be restarted once I could feel my muscles winding tight again. A few cycles of that and nearly eighteen hours in a skyborne metal tube—no matter how extravagant—had proven to make even me stir crazy.
By the time we were landing, I was raring to get out of that plane and hit the town, still riding my most recent drunken cycle. As though he were taking advantage of my newfound enthusiasm, Riftan didn’t spare a moment to take me directly into the center of the city. Our belongings were left to the thralled attendants and Riftan insisted they’d make it to our place before we got there—wherever “there” was. The only information I’d gotten was that we were staying in a condo in the city somewhere, but I supposed that’s all I’d understand anyway. It’s not like I knew anything about where we were. We were in a whole new country—hell, a whole new continent. And it was so much different from my little Creswell.
At least, different is what I’d expected it to be, but as we drove through Prague’s city streets under the shroud of night, it resembled nothing more than what I was used to back home. The buildings were all constructed in a similar fashion, some smaller and concrete and some skyscrapers of glass and metal. The sidewalks hugged buildings and were dotted with decorative trees. I’d never been anywhere else, so I didn’t know what I was expecting, but I’d expected it to be different. Instead, the only difference I’d noticed was that I couldn’t read any of the street signs.
As if the universe sensed my disappointment, it began morphing the horizon before my very eyes. Slowly at first, one or two old, gothic buildings popped up on the hillside out my passenger window. Each one was set apart from the rest by a bright light that cast the stone in yellow, separating it from the darkness of a moonless night. Sharp crenelations poked the sky, so totally polar from the chopped, flat roof of a Creswell skyscraper. A wide river ran adjacent, multiple bridges crossing its span, one of which we were driving over, giving me a fantastic view of the rest.
Pressing my nose against the window, I took in every bit of the spectacle. It was everything I’d anticipated… it was more.
I could only imagine the way the city might look in the daylight, illuminated by more than some measly colored bulbs. I wished I could conquer the sun for one day to see the true beauty of the sprawling man-made creation.
For fear of burning alive, I wouldn’t get that, but I would get to see it like this, lit up in its own gothic, glorious way. Be it artificial, there was still something magnificent about how each perfectly aimed spotlight highlighted the archways and peaks characterizing those thousand-year-old buildings.
Soon we were among them, and they were not a distant vision but a looming reality that crowded the skinny cobbled streets.
As Riftan parked the car along the street, I swung open my door and hopped onto the sidewalk. The city before me beckoned, and I felt the impulse to dance my way through its cobbled streets. I wanted to marvel at the arched windows of each storefront, memorize the many statues that lined the medieval architecture, and smell every culturally unique pastry curated in the bakeries—even if I knew I’d hate the way they tasted. However, Riftan was quick to catch me by the arm, warning me once again “not to get ahead of myself.”
Telling a drunk girl who’d never left her little town to not get ahead of herself in the center of downtown Prague was the most irritating concept he could have come up with.
“I took you here to explore,” Riftan agreed with a stern brow. “But you must calm down. There are going to be a lot of people out, even at night, so I need you collected. Understand?”
I nodded, my loose hair bouncing against my face as I exaggerated the movement. I’d survived a plane ride without a care in the world. Not to mention there’d been several other humans with us then, too. Never once had I considered eating them, so that was one less problem to be concerned with.
As if to prove that wasn’t the problem Riftan was hinting at, a trolly car zoomed by, ringing a bell before driving over the crosswalk ahead. That chime alone was enough to make my ears feel like bleeding. What was worse was that I could hear every single voice from within the bus-like vehicle. The volume of them wasn’t the painful part, but the clutter of overlapping speech was. Without meaning to, I shrunk into my secondary security blanket—Riftan.
Still cowering, I fought my own convictions to not give up. I wanted to stretch my limits, no matter how scared my body was of it. Riftan’s hands gripped my shoulders, gently pushing me out of his bubble of safety. With that little gesture, he’d also deemed it time for me to face what I’d been avoiding.
Summoning all the courage I could muster, I squared my shoulders and released a steady breath, displaying the composure Riftan had requested of me. He nodded and guided me down the sidewalk.
Still early evening, the streets were lit by artificial lamps and still held a substantial gathering of people. Passing by them, I could hear every soul’s breath in cadence with their heartbeats. I’d gotten used to the sound of my own heart beating in my chest, and Riftan’s, too, but these were different. They were slow and intense, a different tempo from what I’d become accustomed to.
In the open square where bodies gathered in masses to admire the looming gothic architecture, I maintained the poise I’d hoped to have in a public setting. The sights, sounds, and smells weren’t consuming me. They were merely background sounds, only slightly more hectic and loud than your typical white noise. I’d even been able to appreciate the little tour Riftan was taking me on, showing off the most iconic buildings in the main square with an in-depth and personal history of each of them.
When the street narrowed, we were forced to push past a group of people so thick that there wasn’t a substantial pathway between them. My heart raced before ever getting near them, but my fear of losing Riftan in the throng kept my feet in pace with his. When the women were cackling loud and the men’s baritone voices boomed close to my ears, I pinched my arm to distract from the muss.
“You’re doing quite well,” Riftan offered after we’d cleared the large gathering of people unscathed.
I looked up to see his sincere eyes searching for any inclination of discomposure. “Yes, I’m fine.” I squeezed the flesh on my arm once more to thoroughly disregard any growing anxiety that made the smells ripen and the floodlights burn against my fragile eyes.
“Are you pinching yourself?” His eyes fell to my hands, and he narrowed his gaze.
“Yes.” I dropped my hands away from each other. “It helps lessen everything else.”
“I suppose that’s one way to distract yourself. I’m impressed with your ingenuity, but I do believe there are better ways of engaging your sense of touch. It doesn’t have to be pain.” His statement thickened with lascivious intent, heightening the tingle that followed his fingers as they slipped into mine and gave them a squeeze.
Although I didn’t believe he had meant what he said with any carnal denotations, it was hard not to take it that way when his tone was always laced with some sultry drawl. That with his exotic accent was enough to make me weak in the knees a million times over. He was right though: there were better ways to distract than pinching myself. All I needed was for him to speak to me that way, and I didn’t need his touch to add to it—though I would be interested in more of it.
And now distracted was an understatement.