Love Set Free

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jackson

The trip on the plane, from Rio to Rhode Island, was long. Very, very long. But overall it wasn’t too bad. Although, what else would you expect when you get to take that flight on a luxury, million-dollar, private jet?

Mrs. Wilding spent most of the flight sleeping; waking up periodically to use the bathroom, talk to the crew and Mr. Wilding, and graze her way through some light snacks. The rest of the time, she was firmly ensconced in a bedroom at the back of the plane, with an eye mask over her eyes and the door firmly shut.

The fact that their plane contains an entire bedroom—a spacious, fully decorated, and looks-just-like-a-normal-bedroom bedroom with a king-sized bed—just blows my mind.

Mr. Wilding spent most of his hours of our flight seated at a small conference table toward the front of the plane’s main cabin, going over paperwork and talking to business associates on the phone. Phoenix quietly murmured to me that this was pretty typical for his father—he liked to get as much of his work done and out of the way while Mrs. Wilding was occupied, so that, later, he could give her more of his undivided attention.

When we boarded the plane, Phoenix directed me, with a hand low on my back, toward a plush, two-person couch—one of several that ran along the sides of the back interior of the main cabin. It wasn’t a very large couch but, even still, I was thrilled by how closely Phoenix tucked me against him. And I loved that, every time he glanced in our direction, Phoenix’s father was forced to see Phoenix and I cuddled up together, much closer than two men who were merely ‘friends’ would be.

We passed the time munching on all of the various snacks and meals the flight crew was willing to serve us, dozing, and watching a couple movies—including a replay of the movie we hadn’t actually watched last night. By the time the end credits rolled on it, I still wasn’t sure if it was an adventure movie or a romcom, and I still didn’t really care.

It was dark when we landed in Providence, a few hours past dinner time, and it’s still dark out 45 minutes later when our limo rolls up to an ornate set of iron gates blocking the entrance to a long driveway.

I think I know what I’m expecting, after the gates open and the limo carries us down that long, white gravel driveway. But boy, oh boy, am I ever fucking wrong about that.

It’s one thing to know Phoenix and his family are loaded. Like, really, really loaded. It’s a whole other thing to be confronted with a mammothly huge, gleaming white mansion, brightly lit by a gazillion decorative outdoor lights, that could easily house a half dozen families. The separate garage, which clearly has some sort of guest rooms built into the space above where six vehicles could park, is nearly twice the size of any house I’ve ever lived in.

And on top of the several acres of perfectly groomed and landscaped lawn that the mansion is sitting on...the whole thing is situated right on the fucking beach. Part of Phoenix’s childhood backyard is the goddamn Atlantic Ocean!

The limo driver slowly takes us down an elegant circular drive and glides the vehicle to a halt directly in front of the wide front door. Welcoming golden light spills from the large, arched window inset in the white door, and I watch it, anticipating that it’ll shortly be opened by a snooty, English-accented butler. Instead, after climbing out of the limo, Mr. Wilding, himself, unlocks the door with a set of keys he pulls from his pocket, like this imposingly giant mansion is just some ordinary, average house.

Phoenix clambers out of the limo before me, then he extends his hand out to help me get out. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it but, after seeing where he grew up, he has to practically yank me out of the limo to get me out of it. I want to be wherever he is; I just didn’t realize that where he’d be would be someplace even grander than the hotel we’d just left—a place I didn’t feel at all like I belonged at. Just looking at the exterior of the place, I already feel like a grubby hobo. I’m terrified of stepping foot inside and getting my dirt-poor, homeless-guy germs everywhere.

Phoenix doesn’t seem to share my worry, tugging me along after him as he heads toward the sweeping stairs leading to the front door, and saying, “Welcome to Stormview. My childhood stomping grounds.”

I think I choke just a bit on a shocked gasp. He grew up in a house with a name? To my mind, only super rich, ridiculously privileged people live in houses with a name. Which, I suppose…is exactly what Phoenix and his parents are.

The noise I make must be louder than I thought because it causes Phoenix to whip his head around to look at me. His charming, man-on-top-of-the-world grin comes out as he tells me, “Yeah, Mom named the place after they bought it. Something about loving how the curve of the shoreline lets you see storms coming in off the ocean from miles away.” His voice drops to just above a whisper as he says, “Don’t tell Mom, but I always thought it was sort of silly—giving a house a name. Especially because just about all the houses around here have a name that have something to do with the view, the sand, the cliff, the ocean, or whatever. And, of course, a lot of the streets are also named after the same sort of thing, so… Like Ocean View House just off of Ocean View Highway. Seriously, what were those people thinking when they named their house? But whatever. I guess it’s just a thing around here.”

Following Phoenix into his parent’s house, I enter a world I never thought I’d be in–one of casual, comfortable, overabundant wealth.

The foyer–that’s what they’re called, right? The spacious, room-like room that’s only where you leave your coat and exchange overly polite social niceties with the home’s owners before making your way into the rest of the giant house?–is big and airy, with an honest-to-goodness crystal chandelier hanging from the beamed ceiling. Smack in the center, on top of the highly polished wooden floors that flow from this room and on into the next, is a spindly wooden table that looks like it would collapse under the force of a stiff breeze, topped by a huge, lush bouquet of flowers and green leafy things. Good thing there’s plenty of room to maneuver around it because I’m afraid to get within breathing distance of it, lest I topple the whole thing over.

“C’mon, I’ll show you to my room,” Phoenix says, grabbing hold of my hand again, which had fallen limp by my side under the weight of my uncertainty of what the hell I was doing here, and tugging me after him. “Thankfully, I moved to the west wing of the house when I was a teenager. I needed a little bit of space and privacy between me and the folks, and the bedroom I was in as a kid was right across the hall from theirs. I’m sure you get it.”

I really don’t think Phoenix understands just how much somebody like me doesn’t get it. Everything about his life, his childhood home, is so far beyond the realm of my own experiences that it feels like we’re from two separate planets. When I was a kid, I didn’t get a choice in what bedroom I had; often there were only the two wherever we were living, my parents’ bedroom and mine. And the idea of living in a house that had different wings? Like I noticed earlier, the Wildings’ garage is larger than most of the houses I’ve ever lived in. And a lot of the time, my parents and I didn’t even live in a house; apartments were a lot easier to find and willing to sign on with a short-term lease.

But I don’t want Phoenix to realize how little I belong in this house, how little I belong with him, so I stay silent as I climb a grand, wide, central staircase to the second floor of this mansion he views as an ordinary childhood home.

My brain’s gone numb to the grandeur all around me, no room at all to be surprised that the upper level of the house is just as richly and comfortably decorated as the first. It’s all I can do to blink in resigned met expectations when Phoenix swings open a door at the far end of a long, wide hallway. My eyes sweep over a king-sized bed, topped with fluffy, expensive bedding and a mountain of cushy pillows, situated below a large window with a perfect view of the wild beach grass beyond the edge of the carefully groomed lawn, along with a sweeping arch of pristine sand and the seemingly unending expanse of the ocean beyond that.

“See, plenty of privacy. Not that Mom will let us get away with avoiding her while we’re under her roof. Oh, the bathroom’s just through here,” Phoenix adds, throwing open a door on the near side of the room. “And the closet’s just through there, too, for when you need to scrounge around for something to wear for the next couple days. I usually keep a small wardrobe of all sorts of clothing here for the few times a year it makes more sense to crash here than to drive across town to my place.”

“Sure. Makes sense,” I mutter, barely paying any mind to what I’m saying. But I know I need to fill the silence somehow; let Phoenix believe I’m participating in this mostly one-sided conversation he’s having, rather than revealing to him just how out of my depth I’m feeling.

“Now, I don’t know about you,” he says, “but I’m actually kind of tired. Surprising, what with how much we napped on the plane. But there you have it. Did you want to stay up longer? I’m sure Mom and Dad wouldn’t mind if you make yourself at home, explore more of the house or just hang around downstairs. Or we have a games room or a billiards room if you’re in the mood for something like that.” Had he read on my face how little those options appealed to me? Perhaps he had, because next he offers, “Otherwise, you could just stay up here with me. If you don’t feel like going to sleep right away, you can watch something on my TV.” He points toward the large flat-screen TV discreetly mounted on the wall opposite the large bed. “Or else...” Phoenix turns in a slow circle, surveying the bedroom as if it might be hiding some stash of entertainment options he’d never noticed before. “Looks like someone left a few books in here at some point. Not sure what they’re about or if they’d be any good,” he mutters to himself. “Or you could soak for a while in the tub. It’s a Jacuzzi.”

There’s something rather adorable about this man, who has more money than almost everyone else on the planet, who is definitely more well-educated than I am, who is immeasurably more well-traveled and cultured than I am, being so very clueless and floundering in figuring out something he can offer me that will make me happy.

Fuck. I just about want to eat him up and absorb everything that is him down into the very marrows of my bones.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I tell him. “For later. Right now…”

Now that it’s just the two of us alone, I let everything that isn’t him and me fade away into nothingness. I turn my brain off—it never does me many favors, anyway—and I make myself forget about the private jet. I blank out the entire rest of this house, everything beyond the closed door of this bedroom. A bedroom with a gigantic, comfortable-looking bed and an adorably flustered Phoenix in it. I blot out the presence of the whole goddamn Atlantic Ocean a stone’s throw away from the closed window over the bed. I let my focus be on just him and me. The two of us. And on how I’m not going to waste time worrying about the otherwise worrisome differences between us, when I could be rejoicing in the fact that Phoenix doesn’t seem to want me going anywhere either.

“That bed looks comfortable. I think I’ll join you.”

Phoenix’s eyes go slightly wide and a touch of pink tints his cheeks, but otherwise, he gives a carefree shrug as he says, “Okay. Well, pajamas should be in the closet with the rest of the spare clothes. Like I said, it’s just through the bathroom.”

“Pajamas? Why would we start botherin’ with pajamas when we haven’t yet?”

My teasing gets more of a reaction, a gulping swallow that has Phoenix’s Adam’s apple bobbing alluringly in his slender neck.

“Hmm. Alright then.”

I watch avidly as Phoenix pulls his shirt over his head. While we slept next to each other in the same bed last night, both of us stripped down to our undies, I hadn’t paid much attention to what Phoenix looked like mostly naked. I’d gotten undressed while Phoenix took a shower and was in bed, under the covers, when he came out. He’d hurriedly slipped out of the hotel-provided bathrobe he wore and had slithered under the covers without letting me get a good look at him. But this, right now…this is a show.

Phoenix’s skin is pale and luscious as fresh milk, stretched over elegantly thin bones and lean muscles. The gentle curves of his pecs are topped with small, dusky nipples, almost as dark a brown as his hair and eyes. His body is a symphony of liquid cream and melted chocolate—a living hot fudge sundae for me to devour.

Those slender muscles are deceiving. I’ve already run my fingers over the ridges of his defined stomach, which are hard to see unless you look really closely. Or you give them a feel the way I did. His shoulders are wide with softly rounded muscles, and his biceps bulge, a decently swelled curve, while the sinewy strength in his forearms flex as he fiddles with unfastening his pants.

I’m practically flat as a board, top to bottom, front to back, and I haven’t gone around making it a practice to study the physicality of other guys. So, I’ve not much firsthand knowledge to be able to compare the way Phoenix looks with what is considered traditionally attractive. But I do know that my eyes are eagerly gobbling up every line, every curve, every groove and dip in the way he’s formed, and I like it. I like the way he looks.

The ridged diagonal, framing a path from his hips down to his, uh, bits, seems to hold a particular fascination for me. I want to trace along that crest, and the echoing shadowed valley below it, with my fingers. With my mouth.

I wonder if he’d let me.

And speaking of those, um, bits… It feels wrong for me to be looking at the bulge contained in Phoenix’s teal blue briefs, revealed after he shoves his pants to the floor and steps out of them. A lifetime of being taught not to look at that part of another guy…that’s a hard habit to shake off. To distract myself from that sense of awkward weirdness, I turn my attention to getting my own self naked, or near enough to.

Knowing I’d be spending the largest portion of my day on an airplane, and that I’d be stepping off the plane to frigid winter temperatures, I’d pulled on a comfortable pair of lounge pants—not quite sweatpants, but probably as close to that as any of the Wildings would consent to purchase—and a soft, cotton t-shirt. When we landed in Providence, one of the flight crew handed me a hoodie to pull over my t-shirt, labelled with The Wilding Corporation name and logo, and a thick coat.

The coat I’d already shed when we all came inside, and it takes me but a moment to pull my other bits of clothing off now.

When I’m down to my own undies—a rather plain set of briefs in a conservative navy blue—Phoenix sucks in a garbled gasp that I’m able to hear clear across the room. “Right. Yes. Bed,” he chokes out between a few clearings of his throat.

The large bed is just as comfortable as it looks. But it might as well be lined with rocks for as much as I care, I’m more interested in the other person climbing into the bed with me. As soon as he’s settled in on his side of the bed, I instantly scoot myself over to Phoenix and practically fling my limbs around him like an octopus.

“You gonna let me touch you this time or are you gonna keep denying me all the fun?” I ask, nuzzling my nose close one of his nipples, which is actually the target I want, but haven’t quite scrounged up the guts to go for yet.

“You want…you want…”

“Oh, I definitely want,” I tell him, answering the question Phoenix can’t get out.

“But you… Last night, you didn’t even… You weren’t hard, babe. Not even a little,” Phoenix reminds me.

“Yeah, so? Straight guys don’t normally get hard for other dudes.” Before Phoenix can continue to argue that my lack of a response means we shouldn’t fool around, I take my own turn to remind him of something. “But I want to touch you. I wanted to touch you last night; I offered, and you turned me down. Are you gonna tell me no again tonight?” I lightly trail my fingers along the shallow canyon running up the center of Phoenix’s chest. “Please don’t tell me no, Phee,” I beg. “Not again.”

His groan of surrender sounds ripped from his soul, and the next thing I know, I’ve got a hungry Phoenix on top of me, pressing my body down into the mattress, his lips feasting on mine, with his delving tongue searching for and tasting the flavor of my mouth.

I thrill at the way he’s ravaging me; the command he’s using to take what he wants. But I don’t want tonight to be all taking. I want to give him pleasure. I need to give it to him.

Wrapping a leg around one of Phoenix’s, I throw my weight against him and roll us onto our sides. Phoenix mumbles something against my lips, but he hasn’t pulled back far enough for it to be understandable. It’s just a rumbled vibration tickling my mouth, which I lick away with a pass of my tongue, swiping a slick stripe along Phoenix’s plush lower lip at the same time.

He groans and doubles down on consuming me with kisses, his tongue chasing after mine and following it back inside the interior of my mouth. His hands don’t remain idle while he’s kissing me; his wounded left carefully cradles my head and strokes the shaggy, overgrown strands of my hair. And his right hand sneakily drifts down to curve around the meager swell of my butt.

Phoenix’s touch on my butt is soft and tentative, almost as though he thinks I might not notice what he’s doing if he’s gentle about it. I’d laugh and tell him not to be so silly, if my mouth wasn’t thoroughly occupied and filled with the addition of a tongue that isn’t mine. Phoenix can play with my butt all he wants. I’m not sure why he’d want to–there isn’t even enough there to grab to fill his whole hand. But if he finds something appealing about touching and squeezing the thin padding I’ve got, he’s welcome to it.

I have a different objective in mind for my hands. I’m gonna get them on his dick. He didn’t let me do it last night, but I’m bound and determined that I’m gonna wrangle and tame that one-eyed snake this time around, no matter what it took.

While Phoenix is distracted by my butt and mouth, I slip a hand past the elastic waistband of his briefs and, without giving myself time to think too much about what I’m about to do, I grab ahold of his dick.

“Holy shit!”

He definitely wasn’t expecting that. Phoenix nearly bites my tongue when his head jerks in surprise, and his yelled swearing is loud enough to cause me to flinch.

“Hey, watch it, Phee,” I gently scold him, for both the near bite and the yelling.

“Sorry, sorry. But jeez...what the heck are you doing?”

I think it’s pretty obvious what I’m doing, but I go ahead and answer his question with a teasing question of my own. “What does it feel like I’m doing? I can’t have messed it up already. ‘Specially because how can you mess it up? It’s a hand and a dick. Apply one to the other and let friction take the wheel.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Obviously, I can tell you’re stroking my cock...” I suit actions to words and jerk his dick firmer and faster. “Jesus. Fuck. Babe, fuck. Okay, yes, you’re definitely stroking my cock...” Hmm. I must be doing something right–I’ve got Phoenix panting and groaning. “I just…I just… You really want to do that?”

I lightly nip his chin with my teeth, his evening stubble prickly against my lips, in retaliation of him doubting my words. “I said I did, didn’t I?” I narrow my eyes at his grumbled acknowledgement. “Well, I meant it,” I tell him. “I want to touch your dick, so I’m touching your dick. I want to stroke and squeeze your dick, feel how hard and thick and hot it is in my hand, so that’s what I’m doin’. Your only job is to lie there and let me. And to, you know, come all over me when that time comes.”

“God damn, you are so fucking hot.”

Phoenix’s voice is full of awed admiration. I don’t agree with his assessment but, just like with his puzzling desire to put his hands on my scrawny butt, I let it go. If Phoenix wants to think I’m hot, I’m not going to be the one to disabuse him of that notion. I’m realistic about my looks, but I’m not stupid.

“Fine, since you seem so determined to do this…might as well get the full experience. Do it right,” Phoenix says. He drags his hand off my butt long enough to yank his underwear down to the tops of his thighs, freeing his thick, hard dick, then it’s right back to cupping and fondling the flat, nonexistent bounty of my butt.

Now that I’m not hampered by the constricting barrier of his underwear, I readjust my grip around Phoenix’s dick. I’ve got a good solid handful of it now and I go back to giving it long, intentioned pulls.

“Oh, yeah, that’s good. Just like that, babe, keep going.”

Phoenix tugs my hair, pulling my head back, and his mouth descends on my neck. Nibbling, licking, sucking, my neck is his new meal. And he’s still hungry.

I feel hot, nearly feverish. My pulse is hammering; surely, Phoenix must notice it pulsing away in the hollow of my throat. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I’m feeling the stirrings of arousal.

But I can’t be. My own dick is still as soft as Phoenix’s is hard—that is to say, very.

However, I can’t be fussed to untangle the knots of what the heck is going on with me right now; I’ve got bigger fish to fry at the moment. As in, I’ve got a dick to jerk and one Phoenix Wilding to make come.

I like the feel of his dick in my hand, but I can’t help but think that I might have a better chance of getting him off if I can also see what I’m doing. I’m also a bit curious to know what Phoenix’s dick looks like. I’m used to the way mine looks when it’s hard; it’ll be interesting to see how his compares to mine. I already know that it feels thicker than mine, but what are the other differences?

I certainly can’t get a good look at Phoenix’s dick with him tipping my head back and blocking my downward view with his own head. That’ll never do. So, I reach up, with the hand not on Phoenix’s dick, place it on top of his head, and resolutely nudge him down and out of the way. Phoenix takes this action as an encouragement to turn his sucking, nibbling, licking attention to my collarbones and chest.

The jutting wings of my collar bones, more visible now after the events of the past few months, offer up plenty of real estate to worship with his mouth. The flat plane of my chest, not so much. As with the lack of fleshy padding on my butt, I can’t imagine what Phoenix would find attractive about my chest. It’s so flat, only the fleshy nubbins of my nipples breaking up the continuous, even surface, you’d think that I had no flesh or muscles whatsoever in that part of my body, all skin and bone.

But there seems to be something Phoenix likes about that part of my anatomy—he’s emitting audible rumbles of enjoyment and exploring each and every scant and scrawny inch of it.

I let him have at it. As long as he’s enjoying it, that’s all I want. And with him moved further down my body, I’m able to shift and angle myself better to gain my own objective—seeing the hot and firm column of dick I’m jerking off.

My eyes swivel down to look at it and my immediate impulse is to quickly flick my gaze away. Because seeing is believing and it’s hard to deny that I do indeed have another man’s dick in my hand now that I have the visual evidence of it. But I force my eyes to lock on and not look away from taking in all of the details of Phoenix’s dick.

My visual inspection of it confirms what my hand already thought—Phoenix’s dick is a fair amount thicker than mine. They look to be about the same length when erect, though. And for having such fair skin, his hard dick is flushed a deep ruddy color. The head, damp and slickened with pre-cum, is flushed a dark, plummy-purple magenta.

It looks odd—my hand wrapped around a dick that’s not mine. It looks obscene—the wet, oozing, sticky head poking in and out of the tunnel of my fist. Lurid. Weird. Wrong. It’s all of those things…and none of those things.

I love it.

Dislodging the wet, hot wrap of Phoenix’s mouth around my nipple, I quickly slither down the bed and jam that lewdly moist, dripping and engorged cockhead between my lips.

“Holy fucking hell! Jesus Christ. Jackson!”

My mind whirls with joy at Phoenix’s loud and profane reaction. Otherwise, it’s silent. No silent, objecting noises, no mental protestations or freakouts. Nothing going on at all in my brain other than the knowledge that, what I’m doing, it’s giving Phoenix pleasure.

I slurp, slurp, slurp and lick, lick, lick, all around and up and down, as much of Phoenix’s dick as I can. I could probably try to shove more in, but the amount of his length I have in my mouth, it’s not too much. I figure I may as well aim for being comfortable for my first attempt at sucking cock; I can always challenge myself to more the next time.

And, yep, I’m already resolved that there’s going to be a next time. The taste of it is…well, I’m not going to lie, I’d rather be chowing down on most of anything other than the musky, briny, slightly bitter mouthful of Phoenix’s dick. But hearing him pant, and groan, and moan, and beg, feeling his hands pleadingly grab at my head, having the heavy, solid, thick column of his dick throbbing against the fleshy cushion of my tongue…that’s a high of satisfaction I’ve never known before.

“Jackson, babe, I’m gonna… Shit, I’m gonna come.” I’m sure he means it as a warning, but all I do is take Phoenix’s groaned words as a gold star on a job well done. “If you don’t want… You should pull off sweetheart. Or else…”

Best threat my ears have ever heard.

I’ve been doing more licking and drooling than sucking, so Phoenix’s dick is a slobbery mess of my saliva and his pre-cum. But now I tighten my lips around his shaft and I slurp up all of that mess, while getting ready to suck down the additional mess that’s to come.

It only takes a few minutes of concentrated sucking and then, “Shit, shit, fuck. Coming. Fuck.” Splodge after splodge of concentrated flavor of Phoenix lands thick and goopy on my tongue, backed by Phoenix’s moaned chorus of cursing.

I saw someone eat an oyster once. And much like the strategy they used in consuming that dubious, gelatinous delicacy, I quickly swallow and glug the liquid offering in my mouth, trying to get it down without letting the taste linger in my mouth for too long.

Phoenix rolls limply onto his back. One of his hands is still resting on my head and he begins to slowly, softly drag his fingers through my hair. Tingles race from my scalp and down along the back of my neck, making me almost want to lean into it like a hound angling for some scritching.

“Jesus, I can’t believe you… What was running through your mind, babe? What made you want to… You literally just got done telling me you were straight so…your next move is to suck my cock like my cum holds the answers to the universe?”

There’s a note of annoyed confusion in his voice, and I get the feeling that nothing else is going to happen tonight until Phoenix gets some sort of answer that he can make sense of.

“I am straight.” It’s the simple truth as I know it and that’s how I relate it, as a truth. “Until you, I’ve only been with girls. Uh, women. Only a few, mind, ’cause about the only ones who were interested in foolin’ around with me were the ones who weren’t terribly picky about who all they fooled around with. And those sorts of girls are harder to find than you might think.”

“So, then, why—"

I roll up to sit on my butt. Shrugging my shoulders, I attempt to give an explanation to something I don’t understand. “I don’t know why,” I admit. “But it’s because it’s you. When I see you, it’s not that I’m seeing a man; I see you . Phoenix. And when I touch you…when you touch me…it’s you touching me. Not a man. You. And that…I want to make you happy. I want to please you.”

At this moment, it’s hard to look Phoenix in the eye, so I don’t. My eyes looking down toward my lap, I poke a finger at the ugly, bony knob of my knee. I still don’t get why Phoenix would be attracted to me.

Hesitantly, I ask, “For now…can that be enough? That I want you to touch me and that I want to touch you back. Does it really need to be anything more than that?”

Phoenix reaches over and grabs my hand, pulling it away from my knee before I can jab at it enough to form a bruise. Lacing our fingers together, he tugs and encourages me to lie down next to him. His skin is hot and damp with sweat against mine where we’re pressed together. But with his other hand, Phoenix still reaches down and pulls the fluffy comforter over our mostly-bare bodies.

The room is quiet as I wait for Phoenix to respond to my question. But instead of an answer, he says, “House, Bedroom Two, lights off.” Before I even have a chance to gasp in surprise, all of the lights in the room slowly fade, until they turn off completely, plunging the room into deep gray darkness.

There’s a safety in being unable to be seen and I allow myself to marvel, once again, at the foreign stratosphere of wealth I now find myself landed in.

The curtains aren’t drawn, so weak, silvery moonlight softens the dark, and shines shimmering sparks along the particles of the air. Those sparks dance and twirl before eyes growing heavy with sleep. Slower and slower I blink, the distance between awake and asleep getting shorter and shorter.

Just before my eyes stay shut, and sleep pulls me firmly into its arms, I finally get my reply.

“Okay.” The word is a gently whispered sigh. “That can be enough. For now.”