Chapter 7: The Last Taste
The world was reduced to sensation: the crush of velvet against his cheek, the bite of her nails into the skin of his hips, the percussive rhythm of their bodies. Bethany’s back arched, a pale curve against the dark red upholstery of the ottoman. Her hair was a wild cascade over her face, each gasp syncopated against the low, insistent thrum from the city fourteen floors below. Raj’s palms were slick on her waist, holding her in place, trying to anchor himself in the physical, in the now.
But the now was splitting.
On the nightstand, his phone lit up again. A second vibration, a brittle buzz against the marble surface. He saw the glow from the corner of his eye. He knew, without seeing, what it would say. ‘Priya.’ Or ‘Avi.’ A shrill, silent accusation cutting through the fog of jasmine and sweat.
Bethany felt his attention fracture. She slowed her movement, raised herself up. She placed a damp hand on his jaw, turning his face back to hers. “Hey,” she breathed, her voice a rough melody. “You still with me?”
“Yeah,” he said, the word thick. He tried to focus on her eyes, the pleased, heavy-lidded look in them. He pulled her down into a kiss, trying to taste oblivion on her tongue. For a moment, it worked. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling just enough to sting, and the sharp pleasure drove the other thoughts back.
But the phone again. A longer vibration this time. A call.
He flinched.
Bethany stopped altogether. She sighed, a sound of theatrical exasperation, and pushed herself off him. The cool air of the room hit his damp skin, raising goosebumps. She padded, naked and unconcerned, to the minibar. “The world’s most in-demand man,” she said, her tone light but with an edge. She poured two fingers of amber whiskey into a glass, didn’t offer him one. “It’s like you’re performing heart surgery in here.”
“It’s my son,” Raj said, the admission tasting like betrayal. He sat up, the silk sheet pooling at his waist. He didn’t look at the phone.
“Soccer game, right?” She took a sip, leaning against the minibar, watching him. She remembered. Of course she remembered. She remembered everything he’d ever offhandedly mentioned, storing the fragments of his life like curiosities. “The big one.”
“It started twenty minutes ago.”
“And you’re here.” She said it as a simple fact, not a judgment. It was worse than a judgment. “One last taste getting complicated?”
He looked at her then. The city light through the window haloed her blonde hair, but her expression was unreadable in the shadow. This was the game, part of the thrill. The boundary-testing. The real world pressing against the bubble of the suite. He’d found it intoxicating before, this sense of being chosen over the mundane. Now it felt like a surgical needle, drawing out his guilt.
“I should go,” he said, but he didn’t move.
“Probably.” She put the glass down and walked back to the bed. She didn’t get in. She stood before him, tracing the line of his shoulder with a single, cool finger. “But you won’t. Not yet.” Her finger trailed down his chest. “The Raj who walked in here an hour ago wouldn’t. He was hungry. Is he gone already?”
The phone screen went dark. The room was quiet, save for the hum of the air conditioning. The candle on the vanity flickered, casting a dancing shadow over the rumpled sheets. He saw the photo in his mind: Avi’s grin, the blue jersey, the thumbs-up. A monument to his normal, good life. A life that felt, in this crimson-cocooned moment, like a story he’d been told about someone else.
He caught Bethany’s wrist, gently. Not to stop her, but to feel the pulse point beneath her skin. It was steady, confident. “I’m here,” he said, and it was both a declaration and a surrender.
She smiled, a slow, knowing thing. “Prove it.”
Later, tangled in sheets that smelled of her and of them, the world did intrude. His phone, silenced but not invisible, lit up once more on the floor where it had fallen. A text preview glowed in the semi-darkness.
Avi: we lost 4-2. i scored one tho. where were u?
The words were a physical blow. Raj stared at the screen, the blue light painting his face in the room’s darkness. Bethany was asleep, or pretending to be, her breathing deep and even beside him. The jasmine scent was cloying now. The velvet felt oppressive.
He saw the bowl of cereal on his counter at home. The unlit candle on his desk. The lonely thumbs-up in a pixelated photo.
Carefully, he extricated himself from the sheets. He stood on the plush carpet, his body aching in unfamiliar ways. He gathered his clothes from where they lay in discarded heaps—his khakis, his sensible button-down, the socks tucked into shoes. He dressed in silence, each article feeling like a costume he was reluctantly putting back on.
He didn’t look at Bethany as he wrote on the hotel notepad by the phone. The pen felt absurd in his hand. What did he owe her? An explanation? An apology? He wrote two words. Thank you. He left it by the empty whiskey glass.
The ride down in the elevator was a silent descent through purgatory. His reflection in the brass doors was a stranger—hair mussed, shirt imperfectly tucked, the ghost of her perfume clinging to his collar. The doors opened to the brightly lit, marble lobby, a world of echo and polished surfaces. It felt violently public.
Outside, the midday sun was a shocking assault. The heat wrapped around him, replacing the suite’s artificial chill. His car was in the paid lot. He fumbled for his ticket, his fingers clumsy.
As he unlocked his car, his phone rang. Not a text. A call. Priya.
He stared at her name on the screen. The world seemed to hold its breath—the traffic, the pigeons, the distant siren. He imagined her in their sunlit kitchen, holding the phone, her face composed into that careful, wounded neutrality he had come to dread.
He took a deep, shuddering breath of exhaust-tinged air. He slid into the driver’s seat, the leather seats hot against his back. He placed the phone, still ringing, face-down on the passenger seat. He started the engine. The radio blared to life, a peppy, meaningless pop song.
He pulled into the traffic, leaving the hotel, its crimson room, its complicated taste, behind him. He drove toward the highway, toward the suburbs, toward the lost soccer game and the silent house. He drove without knowing what he would say, the only certainty the weight in his chest and the ringing phone slowly going to voicemail beside him, each unanswered call a stitch in the shroud of what his life had been.