Intimacy.
Connection.
Just Noc.
I pulled one hand from his hair to wrap my arm around his neck, going up further on my toes to push even closer.
I did not hear the calls or whistles or shouts.
But vaguely, only because of what happened after it came, I heard, “Serious, dude, get a freakin’ room.”
Noc broke only the connections of our mouths and we panted at each other’s lips, our gazes sultry and hooded but locked as he muttered, “Great fuckin’ idea.”
And then I was teetering for a moment, bereft of Noc’s hold.
But only for a moment.
His hand closed around mine and he turned, dragging me behind him.
The earth beneath my feet was paved with an odd, continuous (though uneven and broken in parts) stone, but I couldn’t really pay attention to it or any of the rather active, raucous, loud and smelly goings-on around us.
I had to concentrate on walking on my heels.
This did not go well.
I tripped, emitting a faint cry, caught myself and called out, “Noc, I—”
He stopped, yanked at my hand so I completely lost balance, but did it falling toward him. He released me but only to bend at his waist whereupon I had his shoulder in my belly. Promptly I was on said shoulder, one of his arms wrapped around the backs of my thighs, and we were advancing through the street at the great speed Noc’s long strides afforded us.
“You go, brutha!” someone shouted.
“Right the fuck on, man!” someone else shouted.
“Oh my God, I think I just had an orgasm,” someone further said.
The first two were male voices.
The last was a woman.
I could pay no mind to this. Noc was marching down the crowded street and the way he was doing so—as I put my hands to the sides of his waist and peered around him to the front—I saw the throng part to ease his way.
He made the mouth of the road, turned left and kept striding down a slightly less populated, but much wider, avenue.
All I could see were the contraptions on the road.
Automobiles. Cars. Trucks. All that Noc had described, but far more fanciful in real life, vied for space on the thoroughfare.
By the gods.
He couldn’t be telling it true.
It had to be magic.
I stared at this until Noc stopped moving, bent, put me on my feet, took my hand and looked into my eyes.
“You think you’re good to go now?” he asked.
I didn’t know the answer to that.
But I was with Noctorno Hawthorne of the parallel universe. Thus there was only one answer to anything he requested.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He nodded shortly, turned to face forward and resumed walking (quickly), pulling me with him.
Fortunately, we didn’t go far. There was a door to our left that Noc turned toward, pushed through, and he continued pulling me along with him as we walked through what appeared to be a large, elegantly-appointed, rather elaborate entrance hall.
He took us directly to a long, tall desk, behind which a man and a woman, oddly (albeit different sexes) both attired in what looked to be poorly-fitting uniforms, were standing.
“May I help you, sir?” the male asked, looking from Noc to me and back to Noc.
“A room,” Noc stated. “King-size bed.”
The man cast his eyes down at the desk and his fingers started tapping on a peculiar apparatus that had letters and numbers on it.
I stared, transfixed.
“How long will you be staying?” he queried, not lifting his head (which, distractedly, I found rude).
“The night,” Noc answered.
“Two people?”
“Only two.”
“We have availability,” the man declared, looked up and gave Noc a courteous smile. “How will you be paying?”
Noc let my hand go to pull a billfold out of the back pocket of his jeans, and I watched all that happened next with fascination.
I stopped watching when Noc shoved the billfold back in his jeans, took a tiny envelope from the man and grunted, “Thanks,” when the man invited us to “Call should you need anything and enjoy your stay.”
Then I again had my hand in Noc’s and he was towing me toward a wall that had four shining-gold double doors (that couldn’t be real gold, surely), all inexplicably situated close together.
He stopped me near them, reached out and depressed a button in the wall between the doors.
I watched him do this.
I stopped watching when that hand came right to my face, cupped my jaw and forced it back so I was looking up at him.
My, but he was handsome.
“We’re about to get in an elevator, baby,” he declared.
I had no idea what that meant.
I also did not care one whit what that meant.
I only cared about the heat in his beautiful eyes.
“We’ll walk into a little box, you’ll feel it move. It takes you up and down automatically so you don’t have to use stairs. We’ll be going up,” he explained then asked, “You get that?”
It occurred to me vaguely that with the variety of things he shared that they had in that world—motorcycles, automobiles, these…elevators—much of it doing things “automatically,” that there might be a reason Noc ran around the Winter Palace frequently to “keep fit.”
If one didn’t even have to climb stairs in this world, such inactivity could make one quite unhealthy.
This thought, vague as it was, flew from my head as a bing was heard and I looked in that direction.
A set of the golden doors was sliding open in a way that made me stare in shock, but I had no time to recover. Noc’s hand left my face, grabbed mine, and he pulled me to them, through them, and we were as he said, in a little box.