Drying off and sliding into bed

It took Nick and Marley a second to catch their breath after they got through the doorway and into the next room. Having to run that fast after going at each other so intensely made it hard to think straight, and the two of them needed a moment to calm down.

They couldn’t even look at each other, they were so worked up.

Fortunately, they had a whole new room they could observe to their heart’s content.

“What is this place?” Marley murmured, looking around. In this next room, the premise of the escape room seemed to reassert itself. Things were a little dark, and while it didn’t look like a medieval dungeon, it definitely seemed to resemble a cabin of some sort, with wooden walls and a staircase leading up in the corner.

The atmosphere had a strange suffocating sensation, almost like they were underground. Nick suspected that was the case; it felt damp and dusty, like an actual basement.

Part of him hoped they were almost out of this stupid room.

“Nick…”

He stiffened in more ways than one and turned cautiously back towards Marley. She looked at him uneasily, her face flustered with sweat and embarrassment.

“Marley…” Nick didn’t really know what to say. They’d done a lot in the last room, and had been just about to go the rest of the way before Dakota had interrupted them and **** them through the doorway.

Now that moment was in the past. But… what did that mean?

Marley was biting her lip. Not suggestively, but just because of the uneasiness of the situation. The moment they’d shared together… it had been amazing. Marley would be lying if she said that she didn’t want more of that.

But at the same time, they needed to keep their wits about them. She knew that if she said something, Nick might actually throw her down and have his way with her. And while the Marley of several minutes ago may have wanted nothing more than for that to happen, every second that ticked by post-orgasm was helping her think clearer, and she knew that they couldn’t lose focus like that again.

“We, um… that was… back there…” The words just wouldn’t come out of her mouth. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and then straightened up. “…We really kind of lost control there, didn’t we?” She laughed, like it was just a joke. But inside, she felt anything but amused at what had just happened between them.

Nick blushed and nodded. “Yeah, it was really… yeah.”

Marley couldn’t help but glance down again, and saw that Nick’s problem still hadn’t “resolved itself” so to speak.

“You, um… I don’t know about this, but… it’s a good thing we didn’t go any further,” she said, clearing her throat. “I suppose we owe Dakota a thank-you for letting us know that the glass was running on a timer…”

“Yeah, I guess,” Nick admitted. “Although… Dakota was the one who PUT it on a timer in the first place, so…”

Marley blinked. “Are… are you saying that you regret not being able to… oh, what am I saying, of course you do!” She turned away from him and hugged herself. “I mean… I… I got to, and you didn’t get a chance to…”

She squirmed, rubbing her legs together. Her thighs were still slick and sticky from her orgasm, a fact that she would probably keep getting reminded of until she had the opportunity to change out of her pants.

“I mean… I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to,” Nick admitted, burning with embarrassment. He wished that he wasn’t still hard as a boulder right now, but he didn’t have the kind of control over his body he wished he did. “But… that was back there. The mood’s gone now, so… don’t worry, it’ll go away on its own…”

“I’m not worried!” Marley turned back to him and shook her head frantically. “Why do you think I’d be worried? It’s not like I didn’t want to either! It’s just…” She looked at his erection once more and swallowed. Once again, Marley’s mind was at war, struggling between wanting to satisfy her heated desires and wanting to keep up some measure of dignity.

Her face burned with shame as dignity won out.

“Look, Nick, I don’t regret what we did, obviously, it felt amazing!” She gushed. “But now that I’ve settled down and had a chance to think, I think… I think we should focus on solving these puzzles, what do you say?”

Nick could agree to that. But his cock had a different wish.

“Um…” Marley still kept staring at it. “But I suppose… maybe… it would be better if I took care of that?” She proposed, feeling like she was going to die of embarrassment just saying it. “It’s only fair, I mean… you helped me out, but I haven’t… I didn’t… you didn’t get a chance to, so…”

She wanted to do it. But at the same time, Nick could see that she didn’t. He heard the hesitation and uncertainty in her voice. But he completely missed the source of it.

If it was up to Marley, she would do it. With her hands, her mouth, her tits, she’d use whatever part of her body Nick wanted to get him off. In her mind, fair was fair, and he deserved that much for driving her to such a pleasurable orgasm and putting the good of the game ahead of getting his own satisfaction.

But she couldn’t deny her hesitation. Now that she was thinking clearly, she could get a better grasp on her mental state, and she was pretty damn confident that while things may get started as her just trying to repay him for the orgasm he gave her, with how worked up she was there was no way it was going to end that way.

If she was put into that state of mind again, without a ticking clock to drag her back, she was going to take him for all he was worth. And while there was nothing wrong with that per se, this was neither the time nor the place.

Then again, what was the harm if they did?

That was the dilemma playing out in Marley’s heart right now, splitting her between what she wanted, and what she thought the responsible course of action would be.

Unfortunately, all this was lost on Nick. Maybe if he had a better grasp on Marley’s state of mind then he would realize the source of her hesitation, and they could talk it out like rational adults, and maybe even arrive at the conclusion that it was okay for the two of them to have sex first (maybe a few times…) and then get to work on the puzzles.

But he couldn’t reach that conclusion on his own. All he had to work with was the hesitation in Marley’s voice as she suggested repaying him for the orgasm he gave her, and while he could see that part of her clearly wanted to do that, he could also see that another part of her didn’t.

“No, it’s fine,” he said, shaking his head. “I did that because I wanted to, Marley. And yeah, this thing is kind of a pain, but just give it a minute and it should settle down.” He laughed, trying to play it off as a joke himself. And Marley gave him an awkward half-giggle in response.

That was the end of the discussion. Neither wanted to take the next step and actually push the issue for their own reasons, so the topic of satisfying Nick’s sexual frustration dropped like a sack of bricks.

Marley did a pretty good job of hiding her disappointment about that.

“W-well, um, in that case, we should probably focus on solving these puzzles, right?” Marley frantically changed the subject, her face burning and her heart pounding. She had all but resigned herself to the pleasures of sweet, steamy fucking on the wooden floorboards, and not getting that was kind of a letdown, even though she knew it was the responsible thing to do.

“Yeah, this place is pretty cluttered,” Nick agreed, looking around the basement. It looked exactly like how he would expect a witch’s basement to look, desks and shelves crammed with paraphernalia, strange symbols carved into the walls, and a very odd dial embedded on a pedestal in the center of the room, almost like a sundial but with no arrow. A ritual sacrificing altar, maybe? Nick wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Do we just start looking for the key, then?” Marley suggested, glancing up at the staircase. “I mean, it’s pretty clear that’s our way out this time.” She could see the door at the top of the stairs, shut firmly. “I don’t think it’s going to be easy to find, though. This place is messier than the secret laboratory from before.”

Nick nodded. That was definitely the case.

And for obvious reasons, neither one of them thought it was a good idea to radio Dakota for a hint, not after they’d been so close to fucking each other’s brains out all on their own.

“I wonder what these symbols mean,” Marley said, walking over to the staircase. There was a triangle inscribed on the side of it, with three circles at each of the points. There were four dots in the center of one circle, three wiggly lines another, and something that looked like a crude arrow in the top circle of the triangle, pointing straight up.

“Could mean something, could mean nothing,” Nick grumbled with a shrug. “That’s the problem with these escape rooms, you can never be sure. Come on, let’s get started looking, maybe we have to make another potion or something.”

Marley nodded and walked over to one of the shelves. There weren’t any books on this one, but there was a small box.

“Nick, I think I found something,” she called him over, picking up the lockbox. “What do you suppose this thing is?” She shook it, and heard something rattle inside. It sounded too heavy to be a key, unfortunately.

Nick shrugged. “Can you open it?”

“Nope. Padlocked.”

“Great, so we’ve gotta find two keys in here now?” Nick shook his head. “That’s just great.”

“Did you find anything?” She asked.

“I found this,” Nick said, holding up a carved wooden mask. “It was sitting on the table over there, the one with all the scratches in the surface.”

Marley took the mask from Nick and checked it out. It was very amateurish, with two wide, hollow eyes, and thick nose, and two bulging ears on the sides. Scratches were covering it.

She turned it over to see if there was anything written on the other side, but there wasn’t. There was just a tiny notch near the top, like for hanging it up on a hook.

“Not much of a clue,” she said, shaking her head.

Nick agreed. He set it down on the table next to the lockbox. “Let’s gather anything we can find that seems like it might be useful, and put it over here,” he suggested. “I’m going to go check out that altar, sound good?”

He walked over to the stone pedestal in the center of the room, and studied it. There was definitely something up with this. He knew it had to play a factor in something; the question was, what? He ran his hand over the surface and was surprised at how smooth it was, like it had been sanded down.

With one exception. His fingers traveled over a small cavity; a divot in the rock, still smooth as could be but an obvious imperfection in the altar. The fact that it was right at the point of the star inscribed in the center of the circle made it even more obvious that it had to mean SOMETHING at least.

“Find anything?” Marley called over. She was looking through another shelf.

“I found a hole,” Nick called back.

“Well, you’ve always been good at that!” Marley joked.

Nick rolled his eyes. “I’m going to go check the stairs next. I know this altar definitely means something, just not sure what it is yet.”

He walked over to the staircase and climbed it, trying to see if there was anything he was missing in the dim light. The stairs creaked and seemed unstable; he grabbed the railing with one hand, while pressing the other against the wall. The last thing he needed to do was fall right now.

As Nick continued to walk up the stairs carefully and precisely, his hand brushed against something on the wall and he stopped.

“…Hey, Marley, I think I found something here!” He called down to her.

“What is it?” Marley shouted back.

“I don’t know,” Nick shook his head. “It’s a hook. Like for hanging something!”

“A hook? Let me see!” Marley rushed over, carefully climbing up the stairs. “You’re right, there’s a hook here… and look, over there.”

Nick turned and saw another hook a couple of feet away from the first one. And then he saw a third. They were ascending up the side of the staircase.

“Okay, that’s CAN’T be a coincidence,” Marley said, shaking her head.

“You think we’re supposed to hang something here?” Nick asked.

Marley nodded. “Makes sense to me. Maybe the mask could fit on one of these hooks? It did have that little groove in the back for hanging them…”

Nick could definitely see the logic in that. But which one? Which hook did the mask go on? That was the real question here.

“Let’s go get the mask,” he suggested. “We can try hanging it from each of the hooks, and see if that does something.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Marley agreed. The two of them headed down the stairs, and back to the table. Nick circled around the dais to get there, and that’s when he stumbled over something.

“Whoa!” He grabbed the pedestal to keep from falling over. Marley whirled around to see if he was okay.

“Nick?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry, just tripped over something,” he said, taking another step forward, only for his foot to nudge into something that he sent clattering across the floor and right to Marley’s feet.

She knelt down and picked up whatever it was.

“It’s… another mask!” She realized.

Nick blinked. “Another mask? You sure?”

“Yeah, definitely,” she nodded. “Take a look.”

She held it up for him to see. It was indeed another carved wooden mask like the first one, though shaped a little differently. This one had a snarling mouth, and the eyes were tiny lines down the sides of the face instead. The nose was rounded with a point at the top, like a teardrop, and the ears with spiked into points as well. It wasn’t as long and narrow as the other mask, either, it was more blocky, like a square, as opposed to the other one, which was more face-shaped.

“So that’s two masks now,” Nick noted.

“It’s got the notch on the back, too,” Marley checked, just to make sure. “Which means… hey, do you think we could slide this onto one of the hooks, maybe?”

Nick nodded. That sounded exactly right.

“So we have two masks now,” he noted, walking over to pick the other one up off the table. “Two masks, and three hooks.”

They looked at each other.

“There must be a third mask in here somewhere!” They both gasped at the same time.

From there, the two of them rushed to tear the room apart, looking for the mask. They checked the cupboards and shelves, and under the desks, but they couldn’t find it.

“I found a skull,” Marley said, setting down a small skull about the size of her palm on the desk. It had a blue gem in its left eye. “You don’t think that’s got something to do with this, do you?”

“Who even knows at this point?” Nick sighed, shaking his head. “But I found this. It’s like a crystal or something.” He held up a long purple crystal with a rounded base. “No idea what this would be used for though. It’s not a mask. Let’s keep looking.”

Marley nodded, and the two of them kept searching. But if just didn’t seem to be anywhere!

“Do you think there’s a secret door or something?” She wondered, studying a wide circular mural drawn on the wall. There were a bunch of etched lines going in all sorts of directions, like a maze, only the lines didn’t all line up.

“Yeah… that’s what I’m thinking, too,” Nick agreed. “But I don’t know where it would- oh! Wait! Look, up there!”

He pointed to the top of one of the shelves. It was hard to see if you were standing right below it, but Nick was on the stairs right now, trying to see if Dakota might have hidden the mask up at the top of the staircase.

He had a birds’ eye view of the whole place, and could see the mask just sitting there on one of the shelves.

“Marley, can you reach it?”

“I think so…” Marley stood up on her tiptoes and pulled down the mask. She dusted it off and took a look as Nick came to join her. The two of them studied it closely. It was short and more bulbous compared to the other two, and without any ears it looked more like a round face. Its eyes were wide beneath two thick eyebrows and its mouth was curled up in a smile, and its flat square nose sat above a strange shape, almost like a mustache, but a crescent moon that curled up the sides.

Just to make sure, Marley checked the back to confirm that the notch was there. It was.

“So now we have all three masks,” Nick noted, picking up the other two. “Should we go see how they fit on, then?”

That was the issue, wasn’t it? Just because they had the right combination of masks, that didn’t mean they knew which one went where. Unlike in the laboratory, they didn’t have any hints to the order, which could be a problem.

But it wasn’t for Marley.

“There are only so many possible combinations you can put them in,” Marley assured Nick. “With three masks, there are only six possible arrangements. I can get this done in a couple of minutes!” She crowed.

She arranged the three masks on the hooks, but nothing happened.

So she changed the order, swapping one mask for the other.

Still, nothing.

She changed the order a third time. No changes at all.

“What are we supposed to be looking for?” Nick asked, looking around the room.

“I don’t know,” Marley admitted. “But we’ll know it when we see it.”

She changed up the order once again. But since nothing changed for the fourth time, she was starting to get concerned.

“Come on, this has to work!” She groaned, rolling her eyes, and tried the fifth combination. When THAT one didn’t work, she got mad.

“Okay! There’s only one left! This HAS to be it!” She exclaimed, and arranged the masks into the last arrangement they hadn’t tried yet.

But nothing happened.