Waking Up

Your head hurt and you didn’t recognise the ceiling.

You pushed yourself up onto your elbows and realised, as you look around the room, that you are in a hotel room. Your eye finally lands on the person in the bed beside you and you nearly gasp as you realise it is Angela.

She is naked, turned on her side you can only see the mess of her hair and down to her lower back where the covers had been pushed back by you sitting up. You lift the covers to look down at yourself and see that you are naked as well.

You rack your mind, the drunken fog of the night before slowly starting to lift as you sit up in the bed.

****

“What are you drinking tonight?” You recalled asking as you finished up your first drinks.

The conversation had started out a bit tense, nothing but nods to the weather and other banal crap. Talking about anything other than what you both wanted to talk about.

“A virgin Martini, please.” Angela had said as you grabbed the glasses and ordered the drinks. You had put down the lack of **** to her driving or wanting to keep a clear head.

****

In the now you rub your head as you sit on the edge of the bed.

In the morning light, you look down at yourself, you can see the strains of cum on your stomach and thighs so you are sure you had sex. A thought occurs to you and you pull yourself up off the bed and move over to the bin beside the bed. It’s empty, not even a condom packet insight.

You move around the rest of the room and find the same. Not a condom insight as you look down at Angela, her chest exposed to you as she seems to sleep soundly. Even as you try to make sense of things. You can’t imagine you slept in the same bed as her and just masturbated yet you struggle to break through the fog of the night before.

****

The first drink had made your mouth feel a bit looser and the second had loosened it up even more so that by the time you had sat down with the third you found yourself talking about the things you knew you shouldn’t. Namely, you and Angela sleeping together.

“We haven’t talked about going camping again for a while.” You said, thinking yourself oh so clever for the coded language.

“Camping?” Angla asked with a look of bemusement.

“You know,” you went on, rolling your eyes and leaning forward. “Camping.”

“I haven’t been camping in a long time.” She shot back with a confused chuckle and a shake of the head.

“I guess me making you cum on my cock blanked your memory out.” You retorted huffily as you slumped back into the chair and took a draw of your beer.

****

“You awake?”

You leaned over Angela, gently shaking her awake, your heart in your throat as you wondered what she would say.

Angela groaned as she awoke, her hand coming up to weakly try and swat your hand away from her shoulder as she cracked her eyes open.

A pause.

A pause that grew ever longer.

“Oh god,” was all she said.

****

“I don’t think we should be talking about something like that in a place like this,” Angela replied icily. Her fingers wrapping tighter around the stem of her glass.

“So what should we talk about?” You leaned forward, a shit-eating grin on your face. “Maybe why you came to a bar to meet a man who isn’t your husband in a dress like that?”

“Beer makes you kind of an asshole.”

“Beer makes me honest,” you leaned further forward. “Maybe you should have a few and see if it does the same.”

A cold smile, “I’ll pass.”

“Then why did you ask me here?” You had asked.

****

You stepped back as Angela slowly sat up on the edge of the bed, the duvet sliding down to reveal she was as naked as you.

“What time is it?”

You glanced at the clock, “About eleven-thirty.”

“Thank god,” Angela seemed to almost deflate with the relief as you watched her.

“My memory is still a bit hazy, hangover,” you offered almost like an excuse. “But did we...uh...sleep together?”

“You really don’t remember?” She asked, her tone odd.

“Well, I remember we met at the bar and we got a booth,” You began to list the fragments of the night. “I started getting drunk, we talked about a bunch of stuff that didn’t really matter then you…”

****

“...I’m late.”

The words didn't have the same effect as Angela had maybe been expecting as the **** absorbed the brunt of the impact.

You shrugged, “So, people are late all the time.”

Angela leaned forward, her voice low and intense. “The test was positive as well.”

That got through a bit more and suddenly you felt as if someone had opened a valve in you that was draining all the beer in a single go, leaving behind it the cold void of sobriety.

“Oh.”

****

“You’re pregnant!”

You pointed a finger at Angela as if accusing her of ****.

“So you do remember,” Angela again seemed strangely relieved as she pushed herself up off the bed.

Something about her seemed different. You would have expected her to be panicking or crying or something about this whole mess. The last thing you would have imagined would have happened is that you would wake up in bed beside her.

“Are you…”

****

“...ok?” You asked as Angela leaned back and took another sip of her drink.

“Aside from my having the bastard of a boy growing in my stomach I couldn’t be better.”

The reply caught you completely off guard.

“You seem to be taking it pretty well.”

Angela shrugged, “I already did my panicking and crying when I found out.” She looked at you with a sympathetic smile. “Now I’m on the other side. The worst has already happened so why worry about it?”

“Well, what are we going to do about it?”

Before you had even finished the sentence you knew it had been the wrong thing to say. Even in the sweaty heat of the bar, you felt your skin turn to ice as Angela levelled her eyes at you.

“Do about it?” She asked. “We are not going to do anything about it. We are going to enjoy our drinks and then, if you manage to not say anything else like that, I’ll ask you back to the hotel room I booked.”

****

You looked at Angela as she walked into the bathroom. You followed her without thinking, standing in the doorway as she considered herself in the mirror. The subtle make-up she had had on only slightly smeared.

“You don’t even seem like the same person anymore,” you said without thinking.

Angela glanced over at you and smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” She turned to look over herself in the mirror once again. “I don’t really feel like the same person anymore. I spent my whole marriage feeling like I had to watch everything I did. Had to make sure I was always being the perfect wife and the perfect Christian. When it all started it hadn’t really been an act. I had wanted to change, had wanted to stop waking up with used condoms on the bed and not even a goodbye note.”

She moved over to the shower and flicked it on.

“Eventually I convinced myself that he had trapped me,” she said with a derisive nod to the Pastor. “But that was just a lie to make me feel better. I hadn’t married him because I loved him. I had married him because I thought it was the only way to stop being...bad.”

“And what do you think now?” You asked, curious if this was a repeat of things that she had said the night before or not.

“I think that I didn’t change all those years ago, I just **** that part of me down. Down so far that I could convince myself that it was gone.” She sighed and you saw a flicker of the Angela you knew. “All it meant was that when it finally found a release it came out hard and now I am paying the price for it.”

Her hand traced over her stomach and as you watched her standing in the bathroom, the soft lighting casting soft shadows, making her curves and chest all the more appealing, you recalled something.