The Cumming

Moving In

Jason was driving an old, beat-up Volkswagen Beetle up the winding road. He looked over at his wife and smiled. She looked pretty in a summer dress and had layered a denim jacket over it to combat the cool fall air. Her blonde hair was down around her shoulders.

"It's going to be great," he said. "Nothing but solitude. Time to think. Time to read. Time to..."

"Fuck each other's brains out," his wife Olivia said, finishing his sentence and laughing.

"That too," he said, and smiled back at her. He liked having her beside him, and rolled down the window in the Beetle. "Oh, smell that air," he said.

Olivia was slightly annoyed at her husband for having done so. She didn't want her hair to be windswept by the time they met the manager of the Vista View Hotel, the place where they were going to stay the entire month of October.

Taking the caretaker job was sort of a new lease on life, though. Jason had been laid off from his job at a local machine shop, and Olivia hadn't had the chance to find a job after her accident, so it had been hard to make ends meet since July. Then Jason's friend Jerry mentioned a hotel up in the mountains of Virginia that needed someone to look after the place.

"From what I can tell, it sounds great," Jerry had explained when Jason called to see if he knew of any job leads. "It's a summer resort from May to September 30, but they always shut down for October, then start back up again on November 1st. It sounds like a great gig if you can get it. They pay the caretaker a ton of money, sounds like."

"Why is that?"

"I don't know. Some silly superstition, I guess. The owner has a thing about Halloween or something like that. I'm not sure. There are some drawbacks. Like, you wouldn't have reliable cell service up there, or really any at all. You know how people can't be away from their phones for five seconds. All I know is I would take the job if I could get a leave from work. Well, that and I have a girl I want to visit on the weekends about an hour away."

Jason laughed and remembered how it had been when he had been dating Livy. Sex was still great of course, but when they were dating there was that anticipation, and well, it just wasn't the same when sex was a sure thing.

"Really, you guys would be perfect for the job," Jerry continued. "Just call this number. They'll pay $15,000 for 31 days, and all you have to do is live there. Watch the weather, turn on the heat, flush the toilets, and leave the faucets dripping if there is a cold snap. Stuff like that. Like I said, it sounds like a paid vacation."

"Thanks, Jer," he'd said, and meant it.

Immediately after he hung up with Jerry, he called the number he had been given for the Vista View Hotel and, surprisingly to him, got an interview. He was shocked people weren't lining up for the position, or that it wasn't already filled, but he wasn't going to ask questions.

"You have a kind face, Mr. Thompson," the manager, Mr. Aldridge had said when they met face to face. "Honest. I'll do a background check on you and your wife, of course, but if all that checks out, the job is yours."

Jason outwardly smiled, but inwardly felt a gut punch. His credit was bad, and he'd gotten into an altercation once with a guy in a bar about seven years ago. He'd been trying to chat up some girl, and her boyfriend hadn't been happy about it. The man shoved him, and he screamed back. He ended up spending the night in jail.

He hadn't done anything since, but it was there.

Evidently Mr. Aldridge didn't think much of it, or after so much time it had somehow been expunged from his record, because three weeks later, they were making their way up to the resort, enjoying the mountains and taking a grand adventure together. Just the two of them.

When they pulled up to the Vista View Hotel, Olivia let out a gasp. It was beautiful. In fact, it almost looked like a castle. It was at least five stories high and looked like the type of place presidents and movie stars would stay. Someplace you would hear about as an ultra-luxury palace for modern-day royalty.

"Well, hello there, Mr. Thompson," a short, stout, balding man said when they pulled up to the valet entrance. "You certainly don't see cars like this anymore."

"Well, I have a thing for 1970s memorabilia," Jason said, even though that wasn't true. It was just all he could afford at the moment. The truth was, his dad was the one who had rebuilt the engine and let him buy the thing for $20 and a six-pack.

"We're so glad you can take this job," the manager continued, and they exited the car. Olivia suspected it would stay there in front of the hotel until November 1st. "I know the lack of reliable cell phone service is a deterrent, but you'll still have a television and a landline," he said. "We simply shut down all the costs we don't absolutely need during our downtime. I trust you have given the number to any loved ones?" he asked, and Olivia and Jason nodded.

They followed the manager into the lobby. It was beautiful and spacious, and was more decadent than it looked online, if that was possible. There were people bustling around, checking out, and staff who seemed bored and eager to leave their posts.

Opposite the lobby, there was a shop for high-end purses and scarves that a lady of a certain income bracket might wear, and then one right beside it for perfume. There was also a chocolate shop, and there were signs for a spa downstairs, a gym, and even a pool. Olivia secretly wondered if they would have access to that.

As she scanned the room, watching last-minute staff members scurry to take the last bus down into town or get to their own cars for their month-long vacation, she noticed a poster on the perfume store.

It was odd. Somehow it looked very sexual, and there were two women and a man intertwined in a way that was highly suggestive. It turned her on and embarrassed her at the same time. Then, right beside it was an actual woman in a red lace negligee standing there with her nipples prominently displayed. She seemed to be beckoning Olivia to come to her. Like she wanted her sexually somehow.

Olivia imagined briefly what it would be like to kiss the woman, then looked away and blushed. As soon as she looked back, though, she saw that she had been mistaken. The woman was just a mannequin. The perfume poster changed too. Where once she had seen three people in a very provocative pose, there was now only one man in a suit holding up a fancy bottle.

Maybe it was some kind of computer-generated poster? Or maybe she just really, really needed to have sex? It had been a few days since she and Jason had been intimate, so who could tell?

"Is something wrong, Mrs. Thompson?" the manager asked Olivia directly.

"Oh, no," she said, smiling. "I just... I guess I wasn't prepared for how swanky this place is," she said, and wondered if she shouldn't have used the word swanky. Maybe she should have used the words high class instead. No. Not those either. It made her sound the opposite of the type of person who would stay here. Elegant. She should have said elegant.

"Well, let me show you around the rest of the place," Mr. Aldridge said, and took them up the elevator. The place was huge, and even the regular rooms were twice the size of a basic hotel room anywhere else, and some of the suites looked almost too good for royalty with their high ceilings, ornate furniture, and scenic views of the grounds and lake.

When they got to the presidential suite, the manager opened the door, pleased with himself. Almost like he owned the place himself and couldn't wait to show it off.

He had a bit of trouble with the lock, but when he managed to get the door opened, Olivia drew her breath in sharply.

The room was beautiful. It had the same plush furnishings and bedroom sets as the others, and the bedroom was sprawling, but in the middle of the room, there was a full orgy happening, right in front of her eyes.

Her husband and Mr. Aldridge seemed oblivious to what was going on, but there were six women and four men all fucking each other at what appeared to be an elaborate party.

One man had two women sucking his cock, and both girls were wearing headbands with fake fur cat ears on them. Then there was another trio in the corner where one man was getting his balls licked while another woman rode him in the reverse cowgirl position. The girl riding him wore a witch's hat. Her large breasts jiggled up and down as she screamed on the edge of orgasm.

The remaining two women were simultaneously getting fucked doggy style by two very handsome blonde men, and kissing each other while wearing red and black lingerie. All the men were gorgeous. They looked as though they might be athletes. Maybe part of a football or soccer team, and all the women were big-breasted and slender.

The room was also decorated to the nines with orange and black streamers, a jack-o'-lantern in the corner, and instead of a bowl full of candy, there were condoms, though it didn't appear anyone was using them.

Olivia was shocked, excited, and a little creeped out, but somehow neither her husband nor the manager seemed to react. In fact, Mr. Aldridge kept droning on about how many famous people and presidents had stayed in this particular room as though nothing was happening at all. Was she the only one seeing this pornographic display? Maybe it was some kind of delayed reaction to the accident she'd had. She thought that was over and done with, but it must have messed with her brain somehow.

"Look at that view, honey," Jason said, looking out the window. "I think we're going to really enjoy our time here."

"It really is something," she replied, and stared as the man getting a double blowjob shot his load into the waiting mouths of two women.

She then looked away to see the actual view of the grounds from the room, but when she looked back to the bedroom, the orgy and everyone participating was gone.

The Kitchen

After showing Olivia and Jason around the suites, Mr. Aldridge suggested that Olivia get acquainted with the kitchen, and he would show Jason the boiler room.

"Andre the cook should be down there," he said. "He'll give you the grand tour," he added, pointing her in the right direction.

As Olivia walked to the kitchen, she realized she was getting really horny while simultaneously questioning her sanity. After seeing what was upstairs, she thought about ducking into a ladies' room somewhere and finishing herself off. It was too much watching all those beautiful people have sex. And in the lobby too, where there was so much suggestion.

She shook her head. If she WAS going crazy, should she leave?

No. She couldn't. She would stay here with Jason. They certainly needed the fifteen thousand dollars, and she loved him. She wouldn't leave simply because she was imagining sexual things. It was probably something like sexual repression or who knew what. Maybe because she had waited until she was 25 and married to have sex, unlike all her friends who had gone crazy the moment they turned 18. That had to be it. Now that she was having regular sex with Jason, the floodgates had opened, and her imagination had gone wild. She would just have to control it, that was all.

Or maybe it had been the concussion. Maybe it somehow shook loose her sexual desires and caused her to see things.

She took a deep breath, and as she entered the kitchen, she saw a big black man in a chair, masturbating his huge dick.

She wasn't sure if it was an apparition or if it was real, so she gently rapped on the door and cleared her throat. Maybe this man with a huge delicious dick would also vanish like the others did upstairs.

"Oh," he said, clearly embarrassed. "Hello there." He quickly tucked his rigid cock back into his pants.

"Hi," she said, and blushed.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's just that this place gets to you sometimes."

"I... I know what you mean."

"Do you?" he said, looking at her skeptically. He stood. "Follow me." She did, and he led her down the hallway to a pantry. "Okay, now. Tell me what you see," he directed. She then looked in the pantry and saw a maid and a busboy with his dick buried inside of her. They vaguely looked like they were dressed up for an event of some kind as their clothing was so out of date, but more importantly, they both seemed as though they were in heaven.

"Oh!" she said, shocked.

"I'm guessing that reaction isn't because we have so many cans of peas up here."

"Do you see them too?" Olivia asked.

He nodded. "I've learned to turn it on and off. For the most part anyway, but I tell you, I saw a woman with the most magnificent jugs turn round the corner and, oh my God. And that's what you walked in on me wanking to," he said, and she could somehow tell he was blushing under his black skin.

"So it's not real?"

"No. It's just like... pornographic movies or something. Just images. Stuff that happened a long time ago. And for some reason it only really gets going in October. The rest of the year, it's pretty tame. You might think you see a topless woman, or a hard dick somewhere, but it sort of goes away pretty quick. In October, though. Well, it's much more active, let's say. Somehow the sexual spirits of ages past start ramping up, and have their parties until Halloween. It's just that only some of us can see it. I call it cumming."

"The Cumming?"

"Yeah. 'Cause it makes you want to cum."

"Hmm," she said, reflecting on this.

"You know, if you want to, we can go in there and join the maid and busboy."

Olivia looked down at Andre's crotch, and thought about it. She had gotten a good look at his big black cock, and she would certainly enjoy having him fill her up, especially while watching the two people in the pantry.

It made her pussy wet to think about, but she said, "No. I'm married, and I just can't. It's not you, I just..."

"I understand," he said, and then proceeded to show her around the Vista's kitchen and where everything was.

It was hard to ignore all the people having sex. Two men going at it in the back room, a threesome right on the counter of the kitchen, and of course the maid and busboy in the pantry. As they continued, the black man's offer seemed to sound better and better, but she ignored her urges that were building considerably.

It wouldn't be right, though. She thought of Jason and their marriage vows. They had only been married since May, and to cheat on him now... well, she wouldn't do it. No matter how much pornography she was subjected to. Besides, Jason could satisfy her just as well. Of course he couldn't double penetrate her, or kiss her soft like a woman, and he didn't possess a soft pussy to kiss, but he was the one she chose to be faithful to.

At the end of the meeting, she said, "How about just one kiss and you can rub up against me," looking right at a woman with a T-shirt up over her tits. She had feathered hair, knee socks, and robin's-egg-blue shorts on. She was kneeling at cock level in front of a man with dark hair and a sweatband around his forehead, sucking him. That dick was huge too.

It was too much just to have to sit by and watch. Nobody could be expected to ignore such a thing.

Andre then smiled, touched her breast, leaned her against the counter, and put his tongue in her mouth and kissed her completely as she felt that big long dick up against her right as she was watching another couple going at it right beside her.

He hiked up her skirt and rubbed his dick, with his pants on, over her pussy, causing her to groan with pleasure. "Oh my God," she said, leaning back to give him more access. "You feel so good," she said.

She was afraid she wouldn't be able to keep it to just rubbing. Just a few strokes. Just enough to get her off... Then, suddenly, she heard a noise. She straightened up to realize the man with the huge black dick had vanished. In fact, everybody in the kitchen had, and she was alone.

"Ah, hello," a large, round man with green eyes said as he walked into the room. She hopped off the counter. "You must be the caretaker's wife. I am Andre, the head cook."

Night Of October 1st

That night, after the manager had gone and Jason and Olivia were alone, curled up in the caretaker's quarters, Olivia was relieved that she didn't see anybody having sex there. That there was a place where she could escape and get back in sync with her husband.

She felt horribly guilty about whoever that man was in the kitchen she had made out with. Whether he was real or imagined, it wasn't right, and she wanted, no, needed her husband to fuck her so she would forget about it.

"Honey, I want you to fuck me," she said, feeling more horny than she ever had. After all, that apparition or whatever it was had left her very wound up with no way to relieve it.

"Let me relax a little first," he said. "I want to write down some notes. I really don't want to screw this up. It's a lot of money, and I don't want to give Aldridge any reason not to give it to me."

Olivia stayed quiet for a while and tried to read her book. After about ten minutes, when Jason seemed to have satisfied his urge to write whatever reminders he needed to into his tablet, she asked him, "Did you see anything weird while we were walking around?"

"Honey, not now," he said, and then relented, realizing he had probably been too harsh. This was a new experience for her too, and she probably wanted to talk. "What do you mean, weird?" he asked.

"I don't know. Just things. Like sexual things."

He thought for a moment. "Like that mannequin in the lingerie? In the lobby?" he said, wondering if that could possibly be it.

She nodded.

"Honey, don't be such a prude," he said. "It was just a piece of plastic. You can't be jealous of something like that," he said. "I mean, it was surprising something like that was out where anybody could see it, especially with nipples and everything, but I'm sure the clerk was in a hurry and forgot to dress it, or put it in the back. If it bothers you that much, I'll put it away somewhere," he said. Honestly, sometimes she could get jealous over the silliest things.

"Well, I saw a lot more than that," she said.

"Like what?"

"I don't know. More," she answered. "And it made me really horny, so..."

"Oh, all right," he said in mock annoyance. "I'll let you fuck me," he said, and she laughed, feeling for his cock.

It was already hard, and she loved it. It was an exquisite piece of male anatomy, and she fished it out of his sweatpants, then pulled the pants down around his ankles. "My God," she said, and started sucking on it. She tried to use the same technique she had seen one of the girls use on the man getting the double blowjob. She put her hand around it, and then put her mouth around the tip, and bobbed them both up and down.

"You taste so good," she said between bobs, and then put her mouth back on him, and after a while she stopped and said, "Fuck me."

She then stood up and pulled her dress up over her long hair, and looked at herself in the mirror. She was hot. She knew she was. Every bit as hot as those girls up in the presidential suite even. She hadn't been wearing a bra, so she reached up and cupped her breasts for Jason, and then sort of played with her white lace panties, teasing him before taking them off.

"You want this," she said and smiled. He grabbed hold of his cock and told her to come sit on it, which she did with pleasure.

The Boiler Room

Olivia lay there for a while, cum dripping out of her, deflated and happy. She had such a strong orgasm after having been so wound up for so long, she felt tired after, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Jason, on the other hand, was still restless. He had enjoyed sex with his wife. He always did. She was a hot, sexy thing, and he loved fucking her, but he wanted to make sure he did a good job with the caretaker position.

In fact, it bothered him that he was getting so much money to stay here, rent-free for the month, and have everything paid for. They wouldn't even have to pay for food, and after it was over, they truly could start fresh, so he didn't want to screw up. His deepest fear was that Mr. Aldridge would come back on November 1st, tell him he had done something wrong, and only hand over five thousand, or worse, send him away empty-handed.

With the hotel money, if he couldn't get a job right away, or had to take something for minimum wage for a while, well, the fifteen thousand would hold them over.

He wondered if he had been set up. Maybe he was being taken advantage of in some way, and he didn't understand quite how yet. It just seemed as though things were going too well. Mr. Aldridge hadn't cared about his background, and (he was fairly sure) hadn't run the background check he said he would. It didn't make sense. Surely every unemployed man or couple in Virginia would happily stay here for a month for the amount of cash the Vista was offering. Cell phone service wasn't that important, and people were always saying they wanted to unplug anyway.

He supposed he could see how some people wouldn't want a caretaker position, though. Maybe people were more squeamish than he realized. A big place like the Vista View Hotel? Anything could be around the corner. There were security cameras on the outside, but what if someone had stayed inside and had an axe?

No, he wouldn't think about that.

The hotel had been checked thoroughly. Heck, he had been through the hotel and looked at it with the manager just this afternoon. There was nothing hiding here. It was just a big empty shell.

He looked over at Olivia, and decided to sneak down to the boiler room. He would check to make sure the dials were in normal range, and if they weren't, adjust them. It wasn't rocket science, and he was sure everything would be just fine, but something told him to go down there. That he needed to go and look there. To check on all the machinery and pipes.

He got out of bed, looked at his sleeping wife, who seemed so angelic, pure, and beautiful, and snuck downstairs silently, trying to keep the door from squeaking on the way down.

Once he got downstairs, he looked over everything. Everything was perfectly fine. All the dials were in perfect position. Of course they were. He was being paranoid.

He sighed and laughed at himself for overthinking it. Fifteen thousand dollars. The manager probably just wanted someone half competent, and fifteen thousand ensured, in his mind anyway, that he was getting it. Somebody who would treat the place with respect, and not trash it. He should just relax.

He then noticed a box in the corner that he hadn't seen when he had first walked into the boiler room before.

He walked towards it, and couldn't help but look inside. It was open anyway. It was a box of pornographic magazines from the 1970s and '80s.

His dick got hard. Even though he had just had sex with his wife a few hours ago, there was something about a box of old porn that seemed more illicit somehow. More forbidden than looking at pornography on his phone.

He looked at all the beautiful women with fake boobs, and hard cocks on the front. There were about ten of them, and then as he dug through, he saw Polaroids at the bottom of the box. They were pictures of a Halloween sex party. The women were beautiful too, getting rammed while kissing other women's pussies, and men getting double blowjobs. There was even a shot of double penetration.

It took him a minute to realize that these had been taken in the hotel, and it bore a remarkable resemblance to the presidential suite, which he had been in that very afternoon.

Somehow it made things hotter that he was looking at real people at a real party that happened right where he was caretaker. He looked at the pictures, and seemed to recognize one of the men as a famous actor, but had no idea what that person's name could be. Someone his father would probably know.

He wondered if the women were famous in their day too, but he had no way of knowing. They were all hot as hell, though, with their fluffy hair and large breasts. One was wearing ears that looked like a cat, and another a little sexy witch's hat.

Soon he was stroking his cock, and enjoying the pictures. Imagining himself up in that fancy suite, having the time of his life with multiple women sucking his cock and giving him pleasure.

Of course he loved Olivia; he would never do such a thing, even if it was offered on a silver platter. In fact, he hadn't so much as looked up a naked picture on his phone since he got married in May, but it felt so good to finally be able to stroke off to somebody else. Some other fantasy.

The thing that got him off was seeing a blonde girl wearing cats ears and a sequined mask going down on a redhead while a man fucked the blonde from behind. God damn, that was super hot. He loved watching that particular image too, and there was something about the blonde that really got to him. Probably the fact that the woman looked so much like his wife, Livy. In fact, if he didn't know this had happened so long ago, he would have thought it was Livy. Same long legs and hair color, same face structure.

A few minutes later, he produced a large load of cum.

He lay there on the floor in a stupor for a moment, and then started to put things back in the box where he had found them. Between two magazines, he saw something he'd missed before. It was an old invitation with a champagne bottle on it that said, "Cum to the party! October 31st!"

October 7th

A week later, Jason and Olivia had fallen into a routine. Jason wanted to do things in the hotel and out on the grounds, but Olivia usually stuck very close to the caretaker's quarters, though she had ventured out twice with Jason on a few walks on the nature trail behind the Vista, and fortunately hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary.

Usually, Jason would go out, and Olivia would take care of mundane tasks like laundry (as there was a machine in the apartment) and cook meager meals on a hot plate and microwave, trying not to think much about sex.

Olivia knew she would have to leave the caretaker's quarters today, though. The food they had in the small apartment wouldn't last much longer and she'd have to go to the main kitchen to get more.

She wasn't sure what would happen if she did go down. Maybe she should wait until Jason got back to venture out. But then what would he think? He would think she was crazy for not wanting to walk several hundred feet by herself. Surely she wasn't that helpless. He already seemed to think it strange that she didn't want to go down to the pool, or to play racquetball.

Well, surely seeing sex ghosts was all in her head. She was sexually repressed, and after the concussion she was still not completely healed and seeing things. It had been silly, really. She had been reaching up to get a box of art supplies for the kindergarten class she had been an aide for, and one of those old-fashioned projectors came toppling down and hit her in the head. She'd been knocked out, and the doctors said she'd had a concussion. She hadn't been able to look at screens for several days after. The doctor said she was fine, but doctors can be wrong.

It was a delayed reaction. She was still a little addled from the accident, and that's all it was. She had simply been seeing things that day they moved in, and she was fine now.

Besides, today she wasn't feeling sexually repressed. She had sex with Jason, and had been reading about Egyptian mummies. She couldn't think of anything less sexy than that. Maybe if she kept her mind on ancient kings, nothing would happen.

It was ridiculous. She could put a few cups of rice in a canister, get some cans of vegetables, some butter from the freezer, whatever else caught her fancy, and be done. Maybe they even had some potato chips or something fun to eat, and then she could come back to the caretaker's quarters. One trip. That was it. She couldn't possibly cheat on her husband by taking one trip to the kitchen in an empty hotel.

Only the encounter with the black man felt so REAL. In fact, she could still taste his mouth on hers, and feel the heat up against her pussy. But certainly it wasn't. No. She had been half dreaming. She had to have been.

She took a deep breath and told herself to be sensible. She would be fine. She was going to the big kitchen to get a hamper full of food, and then she could come back to the caretaker's quarters and continue reading about Egypt. After that, she would start something equally dry and boring and unsexual. Maybe she would dive into that book about how to manage finances, even if they didn't have much to manage these days.

She grabbed the empty hamper she used for clothes, and took a deep breath. She then tried the door, which opened easily. Almost too easily. Then, outside was the hallway. Just an innocent hallway that led down a corridor and into the kitchen. It wasn't scary, or sexy, or anything at all. It was just a kitchen. Only a kitchen.

She let out a sigh of relief when she didn't see anything in the kitchen right away. There was nobody fucking or sucking anywhere.

She opened the freezer and got out a pound of butter she doubted they could possibly use all of in a month, and then a frozen loaf of bread that would thaw nicely in the toaster.

She then grabbed a few apples from the fridge that still looked to be in good condition, some onions, and then headed to the pantry to get some canned tomatoes for soup, and some other veggies.

Once she got to the pantry, she saw her. It was the girl she had seen having sex with the busboy, only this time she was alone, and her breasts were popping deliciously out of her maid's uniform.

"Hello there," she said, and twirled her hair. "I was looking for Travis. Have you seen Travis?" she asked.

Olivia almost felt powerless. It wasn't real, she told herself. She would just get the veggies she needed, then she needed to get out.

"You know, you are very beautiful," the woman said to Olivia. "I saw you the other day, you know." Olivia looked at the woman. "I couldn't stop thinking of you," she said. "Can we kiss?"

Olivia had always wanted to have sex with a girl, and if it was all in her head, and it was just a made-up phenomenon, then why was she fighting it? All of a sudden, it seemed ridiculous that she had worried so much about having sex with something that wasn't even real.

It occurred to her that it wouldn't even be cheating on two counts. One, because it was an apparition, and the other because it was female. A woman. Jason wouldn't have a problem with a woman, would he? Did men ever have problems with women having sex with other women? Wasn't it a husband's dream to walk in on his wife having sex with another woman?

"Jason won't mind," the girl said, and suddenly she was naked, and coming closer. "Please. Just one kiss," she said.

Somehow Olivia was frozen in her tracks, and was powerless to stop herself. She was then close to the girl, and kissing her. She tasted like cherries, and Olivia found herself trapped by lust, and her pussy felt as though it was pulsing as she felt the woman's breasts against her own.

"There now. Let's get this shirt off," the naked girl whispered. "Let me feel those beautiful tits of yours," and suddenly she was massaging Olivia's breasts, and then putting her mouth on a nipple. It was driving her crazy the way she teased her.

She soon found herself on the floor of the pantry, with the girl kissing the inside of her thighs, purposely avoiding her pussy, first blowing air on it, then placing a feather kiss right on her clit. She teased her like this for a few minutes, and then stuck out her tongue to lick at it.

Finally, Olivia put her hand down on the girl's hair, which was cut in a smart, angled bob, and the girl, sensing Olivia could take no more, started sucking her.

The girl's tongue felt amazing on her hot button, and she somehow knew exactly where to suck and nibble in a way that made Olivia feel amazing. She had certainly never felt this way with Jason. Of course she loved Jason, and he was a good lover, but this was something else entirely. A softer side of sex.

The girl continued to tease her pussy, and drive her crazy for ten or maybe even fifteen minutes until Olivia came almost against her will. She nearly blacked out from pleasure, and then was completely alone again.

After she came to her senses, she gathered the food she needed, then headed back to her room, hoping against hope that she hadn't forgotten anything else she needed. She couldn't risk having sex again. She couldn't.

October 20th

Jason was outside, walking around the grounds. He had been out for about an hour when he noticed the hedges on the east side of the hotel. They were cut in all kinds of amusing shapes for the guests at the Vista View. There was a bear, a tiger, a ballerina...

And then he noticed the ballerina was topless.

He did a double take.

How could a hedge be topless?

But no. The artist had intentionally left little protrusions meant to be nipples on the torso of the ballerina.

He looked away and looked back again, and this time, she had moved. She was standing just as still as before, only now instead of having outstretched arms and a graceful pose with her feet, she was holding what looked like a dildo, and she was seemingly about to place it in her vagina.

In fact, now that he saw clearly, what he thought were animals had turned into people. Or maybe they had always been people. Maybe he had simply been wrong at first. They were people having sex. They were in all kinds of positions. There was a strong-looking hedge man with a very large member ramming into a girl while he kissed another, and two hedge girls in a 69 position while another man fucked one of them in the ass.

He closed his eyes hard, looked away, and then looked back. No. They were just animals. Weren't they? Somehow he could see them both ways. As animals, and as people having an orgy.

He had only been at the Vista View Hotel for 20 days. It wasn't possible he was losing his mind already. Maybe he and Olivia should pack up their bags and leave. Go back to her mother's house, or live with his father. His father was a good guy. It wouldn't be that bad. He could take a job working nights at a big-box store or something like that while Olivia looked for a job. She was better now. The concussion had cost her a job working at a kindergarten, but she could be a secretary somewhere until the next school year. They would get through.

Then he thought about the fifteen thousand dollars. This job was only eleven days more. He could make it eleven days. Collect that money, and get psychologically evaluated. Then everything would be easier. Right now, he barely had two nickels to rub together. Eleven. More. Days. He could do it.

He shook his head and went towards the entrance of the hotel on the west side, desperate to get away from the hedge people... or animals. He still wasn't sure which.

When he got there, he walked in the door and saw a little paper. It was another invitation. This time there was a picture of a woman on it with impossibly large boobs smiling and saying in a thought bubble, "Cum to the party!"

He picked up the invitation and for some reason knew he had to get down to the boiler room as fast as his legs would carry him. His heart was pounding.

Everything with the boiler was fine, but he looked around the room and saw that the box of porn was gone. The box he had been getting off to about every other day... on the days he didn't have sex with Olivia.

Had he misplaced it? Had he himself put it somewhere? That had to be the explanation. He couldn't think of what else it could have been. Either that or Olivia herself. Maybe Olivia had seen it and gotten rid of it. They were certainly apart for hours at a time. Her saying she didn't want to leave the caretaker's quarters was a lie. She was spying on him. She never did want him to get off to anybody else but her, even if it was just images from 50 years ago. She was too jealous. Too uptight. Why had he married somebody so prudish about sex?

He went upstairs angry. He would confront Olivia about the box of porn. It wasn't right. He didn't even have phone service up here, and now he couldn't even see a few girly magazines?

"Livy!" he called when he got inside the apartment.

Olivia froze when she saw him. Her first reaction was to act natural, but then when she saw his face, she knew. Oh God, he KNEW. Knew what she had been doing in the kitchen and in the pantry, she thought. He had a look on his face that scared her.

"Livy," he said in a barely controlled way. "What did you do with the box that was down in the boiler room?" he asked, angry.

"What box?" she asked, relieved that it had nothing to do with the kitchen or the pantry.

"The box. You know what was in it!" he bellowed.

"I... I don't," she said.

He took a deep breath. Maybe she really didn't know what he was talking about. But of course she did, the dumb cunt. She had stolen it from him. She had snuck down to the boiler room, caught him masturbating, and gotten jealous. She was always jealous!

"Just tell me where you put the box!" he said. His voice was low and controlled, and Olivia knew he meant business. She looked at him totally confused, then he picked up a vase and smashed it against the floor.

He looked as though he was going to hit her, but then turned around to go back to the boiler room.

Olivia looked terrified, and realized she had started crying. She cried for a long while, and then decided to go to the bathroom to wash up. Clean up her face. When she saw the mirror, she stopped short. On it was scrawled three letters in lipstick. It wasn't even a shade she would wear!

XES.

It was exes, spelled wrong, or rather creatively. With the E and the S backwards. Like a young child trying to write a word. She started crying anew.

Jason wanted to dump her. He didn't love her anymore. He knew what she had done, and he wanted her to be his ex-wife.

The Ballroom

Jason was on his way to the boiler room when something caught his eye in the ballroom. Something moving in the corner of his eye.

He went in closer to inspect.

There he saw a man in a tux tie and a leopard-print thong behind the bar. He was well-muscled and very handsome.

"Hello," Jason said. He was more curious than upset. The man was pouring a drink and offered him one.

"Jack on the rocks?" he asked.

"I'm not much of a drinking man," he explained, but looked at the drink longingly. He didn't have a problem with alcohol, but had been quite a drinker in college, and decided to deliberately cut it out a few years after that night he spent in jail. He hadn't had so much as a beer in four years.

But then, maybe that was Olivia's fault. She WAS always keeping him from fun. Always keeping him from looking at porn, and though he had THOUGHT it was his decision not to drink, of course it had been hers. Women always knew how to manipulate. The bitches.

"Yeah, okay. I'll have one," he said, and took the drink.

"So is there some kind of sex party going on here?" he asked, looking at the man's crotch with a little curiosity.

"Mr. Thompson. There is always a party going on at the Vista View," he said. "You know, your wife has already been partying quite a lot."

"Olivia?" he asked skeptically.

"Oh yes," he said. "She's been partying in the kitchen. With a big black man, and a female maid, sir."

Jason laughed. He let out a raucous roar, but the bartender stayed completely serious. "She enjoyed it quite a lot, sir."

"Really?" Jason answered. "That's not true. She stole my pornography and doesn't want me to have any fun."

"Oh, hardly, sir. We... the staff of the Vista... think that you are past needing pornography, and, if you don't mind my saying so, feel that you need better... stimulation."

Jason turned around, and could have sworn he was dreaming. There were three girls coming up to him. They were naked, but dripping in ropes of diamonds, and had on high heels that were also sparkly and studded. There was a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead.

"Well, I'll be damned," he said, looking at them.

The blonde and the brunette put their arms around his shoulders and the redhead sat in his lap at the barstool.

"I bet he's really big," the redhead said, and put her hand on his crotch. Jason felt a throbbing in his cock, and allowed her to massage it through his pants.

"We want you so much," the brunette said, and then kissed him. She tasted so good, and reflexively he reached up to touch her breasts. A moment later, he was kissing the blonde, and had his arm around the redhead, then took turns making out with the three of them, while they took turns rubbing him over his pants.

The redhead was just about to unzip his pants when a tear-streaked Olivia came into the bar, and everyone but Jason disappeared.

"Do you want to divorce me?" she cried, and ran towards him. "Do you not love me anymore?"

Jason had no idea what she was talking about.

Oh yes. He had been frustrated and broke a vase. That seemed like years ago. Years and years ago.

He had a headache, and looked behind him for his drink, but there was none. It was gone. The bartender, the girls.

"It's this place," Olivia said. "I'm seeing things. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"What have you seen?" he asked.

They went back up to the caretaker's quarters, and Olivia and Jason talked like they hadn't in a long time. Olivia admitted she thought she was going crazy, and Jason said the same. He told her about the hedges, the box of porn, and the bartender, and how he already knew she had sex in the kitchen with a woman and a big black man.

"Well, I never had sex with the big black man. I just made out with him a little. But the hotel made me do it," she said, and then added, "But I guess I wanted to," she said quietly.

"Yeah. The hotel gave me three gorgeous women and dared me to resist."

"Well, what do we do?" Olivia said. "Every time we leave our quarters, there is something waiting for us. Some sexual thing, wanting us to break our vows."

"Well, is it really that bad, honey? I mean, if these are apparitions..."

"That's what I told myself, but surely some higher power knows it's cheating, and we did make promises to each other."

"We did," Jason agreed, and then said, "I'm so sorry I broke that vase and scared you. It's this hotel. It's trying to break us up, I suppose. It wants us to cheat for some reason."

Olivia then told him about the scrawling on the mirror. The XES.

"That sounds plausible," he said. "Yes. It must want us to break up. To make us exes. Oh, honey. If ever I get mad at you again, please know it's the hotel. It's not you. I love you."

"Let's just make a pact to only go out if we are together. That way we can resist temptation. Or at least save each other from it," Olivia said, and Jason agreed. There was something paranormal in this hotel, and evidently, for whatever reason, it needed sex partners, and lots of them.

October 27th

Over the next week, they checked the boiler room together, heated various sections of the hotel, and made sure the water pipes didn't freeze, and walked through the halls to make sure everything was in order. After all, November 1st was coming in a few days, and Jason wanted to make sure everything was perfect. That fifteen thousand dollars was everything, and Jason was scared that something would happen. That Mr. Aldridge would find some reason things weren't quite right, and decide that he and Olivia weren't worth giving that much money to.

They were in the east wing doing the rounds, and suddenly there seemed to be a rustling behind the door of room 237.

"Do you hear that?" Jason said to Olivia, who was already past the room and had nearly reached the elevator.

She doubled back. "Hear what?" she said, but Jason put his finger to his lips.

Then there was a knock, but on the inside of what sounded like the door.

Jason looked to Olivia to confirm she had heard it and said, "Oh, great. I bet an animal got in."

Olivia had been nervous, but took a deep breath and realized that Jason was probably right. The simplest explanation was usually the one that was correct, and neither of them had seen anything remotely supernatural for a week. In fact, things had been wonderfully boring as long as they stuck together.

Jason had an all-access key and opened the lock.

Olivia was beside him, a little scared for some reason about what they would find, hoping it wasn't a rat. She could handle anything but rats. She just hoped it was a chipmunk or a squirrel.

When he opened the door, though, at first all they saw was a regular hotel room. One of the suites with a king-sized bed, but then when they got used to the dim lighting, they realized there was a silhouette of a woman on the bed. She was faint at first, but then seemed to get more fleshed out the more they looked at her. She was wearing a silk negligee, and had a dildo in her hand.

"Oh, please help me," she said in a sultry voice when she noticed the two of them enter the room.

"Help you?" Jason said, and looked at Olivia. They were both shocked to see someone here in the room. How had she managed to stay up here so long when the heat was only on high enough to keep the pipes from bursting? The bed wasn't even unmade, and here she was in the thinnest of fabrics.

Still, strangely, Jason noticed the temperature was comfortable. Nothing like the hallway, which was set at 55 degrees.

"Yes. I need to cum so bad, and my boyfriend just dumped me," she said. "I would love a couple like you to help me out." She was begging at this point.

Jason and Olivia exchanged glances. "It's not real," Olivia said.

Jason didn't believe it. Even though he had seen an apparition or some kind of ghost in the ballroom a week ago, he was just tired from hiking around the grounds and hallucinating. He had likely been dehydrated and dreamed up a bartender and women in diamonds. Now... now he wasn't sure what to think.

"Ma'am," he said. "How long have you been up here?" he asked, but the woman only put her hand between her legs and started rubbing there. She wasn't wearing any underwear.

"Oh please," she said, rubbing her hand faster. "I need you both so much!"

"It doesn't matter," Olivia told him. "Let's just have fun. Just this once. She clearly wants it," she said, thinking about how much fun she'd had with the woman in the pantry. She had done nothing but think of it since it happened, and wished she had done so much more. Now she had the opportunity lying before her. "The hotel can't tear us apart if we are together," she said.

Jason looked at the apparition. She was beautiful. Her hair was arranged in blonde ringlets, and the silk negligee was barely covering her nipples. She looked like something to be ravished. Something decadent and indulgent. Like a cake for a very special occasion.

The apparition held out her hand to Olivia. "Come," she said, and Olivia took it, excited to explore this woman's body, and almost as though in a trance, took off the shirt she was wearing to reveal her perky breasts.

Then, with anticipation, she looked at Jason, who gave her a kiss, and unbuttoned her jeans for her.

Once she was naked, Olivia then climbed on top of the girl, who abandoned her dildo, and hungrily accepted Olivia's mouth. This girl was different from the one in the pantry, who had been very attractive as well, but this girl had plumper lips, and was more curvy in general. Also, by being on top, she could explore this woman's body more thoroughly and enjoy the voluptuousness of her curves and large breasts.

Olivia kneaded her breasts, and the girl moaned. Olivia enjoyed how they felt over the silk, and then soon enough she was reaching for the girl's pussy to put her fingers on it.

It was wet, and her middle finger glided effortlessly into the girl, causing her to writhe in pleasure.

Olivia then looked at Jason, who was sitting on the chair beside the bed at the small hotel room table, and jerking his beautiful cock while watching his wife finger another woman.

Then Olivia pulled up the silk negligee and kissed the girl's nipples, and then navel, until she reached the area surrounding the girl's mound.

She kissed the girl's thighs, and realized the aroma of the girl's hot pussy turned her on more than she realized it would. It was sweet, and hot and wet all at the same time, and she put her mouth on it to kiss it.

Oh my God, she was going down on a woman. She had dreamed of this, but never thought it was happening. Now it was. Her tongue was dancing around the girl's clit, and made Olivia want to cum hard herself, and she knew it wouldn't take much for her to explode.

Then, as if he read her mind, Jason appeared behind her and entered her from behind, helping her relieve some of the tension by fucking her pussy, in and out.

She moaned, and then the two girls maneuvered so that they could kiss, and had their pussies stacked up, one on top of the other.

"Ooh, so you both want to get fucked?" Jason asked.

Olivia knew he was asking permission to fuck the girl, so Olivia said, "Fuck her, sweetie. Let her find out what a good cock you have."

At that point, Jason eased himself out of Olivia, and slid into the girl directly under his wife. It was so tight and wet, and he fucked her for about 30 seconds before pulling out and switching to Olivia.

Once he was sure both had cum, he began switching his cock between pussies faster and faster, eventually only putting his cock in one stroke into each pussy, and enjoying how hot and wet they both were from having cum.

Eventually, he felt himself about to cum in Olivia, and then pulled out and put the majority of his jizz in the girl. He then pulled out and put the final spurt in his wife, essentially cumming in both women.

Jason then lay on the bed between two sets of tits, and kissed his wife first, and then the girl. The girl then angled herself towards him so he could feel her tits and small waist, and then her butt, and he collapsed between the two.

Olivia and Jason then fell asleep. When they woke up, the girl was gone.

"What are we doing here?" Jason asked when he woke up and found himself beside Olivia in a very cold hotel room.

"Don't you remember?" Olivia asked.

"I'm not sure. Do you remember what I remember?" Jason asked.

"I do, and it was... pretty great," Olivia said. "How do you feel?"

"That depends," he answered, afraid he had been hallucinating. "What did you experience?"

"That we saw a beautiful woman, and we had sex with her," she said, and laughed.

"What did you think? How are you feeling about it?" he asked. He was genuinely afraid of the answer. She had been so prim and proper when they were dating. She would never have entertained the possibility of something so wild when he met her. That was for sure.

"I... I liked it," she said. "I can't believe I'm saying that, but I did," she said, blushing. She never would have guessed she could have had anything but vanilla sex with her husband. "But I'm not sure it's something I want to do again."

He smiled. "I liked it too. But it's kind of spooky, though, don't you think? It felt so real, but there is nobody here. Where did the girl go?"

"Maybe we fell through some kind of portal or something," she said. "I don't really know what's happening, but the hotel does seem to keep trying to get us to have sex. Or maybe we're just both having some kind of delusion. Together."

"I don't quite know. But let's not overthink it. We never have to do it again if we don't want to. It was just a one-time thing," he said. "After four more days, we can go back home to find an apartment. Something nice in a decent part of town that doesn't cater to drug-addled alcoholics, among other things."

They went back to their quarters, and didn't see anything strange at all. Nothing out of the ordinary or odd. Just a regular hotel, and Olivia thought to herself that the hotel had gotten what it wanted, for now, and hopefully, if they just stayed where they belonged, in the caretaker's quarters, nothing else would happen.

She went to the bathroom to tidy up after so much sex. She had forgotten about the scrawl on the bathroom mirror. That had been a long time ago, and Jason hadn't been himself. He had been angry, and probably somehow scrawled it on the mirror wanting to freak her out. Maybe he had found lipstick left by a guest somewhere and wanted to send a message to her because he was mad. Mad he had misplaced something, and whatever that something was was likely linked to getting paid. He was so worried about Mr. Aldridge thinking he did a good job.

This time when she went to the bathroom, she let out a scream. The letters on the mirror were back, and she knew she was the last one to use the restroom. It couldn't have been Jason.

There it was. XES, but the E and the S were backwards. Like a kindergartener had written it.

"Jason!" she called. "Look! Do you see this?" she asked. "It's after us! It wants to break us up. I knew it!"

Jason looked at it and said, "Are you sure you didn't write this? I didn't. And I promise you I don't want a divorce. I don't want to be exes."

"But you will! After you really think about it, you will. The hotel knows things. It wants us to be apart. I know it," Olivia sobbed.

Then Jason caught sight of the letters in the mirror opposite the medicine cabinet. "Wait a minute. If you look at it through the mirror on the other side, you can see. The letters flip the right way around, and the word spells SEX. The hotel just wants us to have sex."

October 31st

Jason and Olivia stayed in the caretaker's quarters for the next three days, on the 28th, 29th, and 30th, but on the 31st, Jason knew he had to check the hotel and the boilers. "Honey, I have to go out there. What if something is wrong? I don't want to give the manager any reason not to pay us. You know we need the money."

"But everything has been okay this far!" Olivia said. "What could happen?"

"What if some animals did get into the rooms? And I want to check the rat traps in the attic, and get rid of anything they might have caught," he said. "I can't let the manager think I was slacking off on the job. I'll be back," he said.

Olivia thought about going up in the attic or in the cellar, and her stomach turned. She didn't think she could manage the sight of a rat in a trap, and she wouldn't even know how to tell if the boilers were working, so she stayed right in the caretaker's quarters, determined not to set one foot outside the door until tomorrow morning. They would have to break their pact just this once.

Instead, Jason made his rounds to the traps alone, but didn't find anything. He checked both the attic and basement, and he then went to the boiler room. Everything was perfectly fine.

He let out a big sigh of relief, but then saw yet another invitation on the floor. Why did these things keep popping up? Each one was more sexual than the last. This time there was a cartoon woman getting penetrated by a large man with a huge member on the front of the card. She was smiling, and had a mask on, presumably for Halloween.

There was a jack-o'-lantern smiling up at her and winking.

Jason picked it up and flipped it open. "Cum to the party!" it said. Then, underneath that it said, "Presidential Suite at the Vista View Hotel, October 31st, 2026."

2026? Jason nearly dropped the card. Surely it was a typo. 2026? Maybe it was misprinted. It had to have been from decades ago. But then why did it say 2026? This didn't make any sense.

He was slightly afraid, and went back to the caretaker's quarters.

"Livy!" he called. She was lying down in bed, and he had the distinct impression he had caught her masturbating, but right now he didn't care. "Livy... look what I found."

"It looks like an old card," she said, not quite understanding.

"Yeah, an old card that has this written inside," he said, and tossed it to her. She picked it up and read what it said. After examining it for a moment, she said, "2026," and looked at him. She was as perplexed as he had been.

"It has to be a typo," he said.

Olivia agreed. The card did look old. Not like something recent. "But there is something going on with the presidential suite," she said, thinking back to the first day she set foot into the Vista View, and she told him about the orgy she had seen. "If you want to, maybe we could check it out," she said. "I mean, the hotel is inviting us and all."

Jason looked at her, perplexed.

"Well," she said, "we already had a threesome, and we're leaving tomorrow, so... why not see what the hotel has in store for us? It's not real anyway," she said. "And we don't have any evidence that the hotel is out for blood or anything. It seems to genuinely want us to have a good time."

Jason thought about it, and then a few minutes later, they were headed towards the elevator and up to the top floor where one of the most decadent rooms she had ever seen had been.

They stepped out, and there were streamers and balloons everywhere in the hallway, and Olivia was the one to knock on the door.

The door opened by itself, and this time there were at least 20 people having sex, all of them with masks on, and there was food and decadent hors d'oeuvres on the side wall. "Do you see this, Jason? Do you?" she asked.

"I do," he said, and Olivia turned to him, and somehow now he was wearing a thong and a mask. She herself looked down to realize she was wearing a string bikini, and felt that she was wearing something on her face as well. When she caught herself in the mirror, she realized she was wearing a headband with cat ears on it.

A woman reached out to Olivia and took her by the hand, and she noticed another one did the same to Jason. The woman kissed her, and another man came up to her and put his hands around her waist. It was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. He was muscular and strong, and had large hands, which she found particularly appealing.

She turned to face him, and he accepted her kiss while the woman pressed her breasts against her back.

Soon, she was feeling the man's cock up against her thigh, and she moaned as the woman behind her reached around and touched her pussy.

Soon, they had found a spot on the bed, and the woman licked the man's cock a few times before guiding it inside Olivia, and then spent time rubbing her pussy while the man fucked her, occasionally pulling out so that the woman could clean his cock before he plunged it back inside her.

Soon another woman came up to the man. A beautiful brunette, and kissed him while he fucked her. She then lay down and started kissing Olivia when he pulled out and started fucking the woman kissing him.

No sooner had he pulled out, though, than another man rubbed his cock up against her mound, and she moaned as he entered her. This time the man was blonde, and was equally built. She wondered if he was a bodybuilder or something. He certainly was in good shape.

As he fucked her, Olivia felt her body rising and rising to a fever pitch, until she could no longer take it anymore, and came hard, which caused the blonde man to let loose inside of her.

When he pulled out, she couldn't help herself, and got on her knees to clean him up. To taste his beautiful cock, and then, somewhat satisfied, sought out her husband.

When she found Jason, she saw he was fucking a redhead while she went down on another girl, and she kissed him while he grabbed on to her hips and thrust harder. "Are you having a good time, baby?" she asked.

At that moment, he tensed up and let loose a big gob of cum in the redhead.

After she had rested a bit, she got back into the action with the beautiful redhead her husband had fucked. She found that she was filled with what was likely Jason's cum, and tasted it while another man, she had no idea who, entered her from the back and started fucking. At that precise moment, a photographer took a picture, capturing their pleasure.

Olivia and Jason both were unable to keep track of the orgasms they'd had and the people they fucked, but ended up passing out on the bed in the wee morning hours of November 1st.

When they came to, they were completely exhausted and woke up in the presidential suite.

"Thompson?" Jason heard just outside the door. Oh God, it was Mr. Aldridge. What would he think?

Jason quickly stood up from the bed, and so did Olivia. Somehow they were wearing normal clothes, and despite a few wrinkles on the comforter of the bed, there was no sign that anything had happened in the room at all.

"What are you doing here in the presidential suite?" the manager asked, looking around more curious than anything. Everything seemed to be in good condition, so it didn't quite make sense.

"Oh, I just got up early. Thought I'd do a final walkthrough before the staff came back," he said, and smiled in a way he hoped looked innocent.

"And I suppose just trying out the bed," Mr. Aldridge said.

"Well," Jason said and blushed.

"That bed is worth a small fortune. More than you or I will ever see in one paycheck. It was designed by Ferris Rafauli, it weighs over 1,000 pounds, and it's a Hästens Grand Vividus, you know." He said it with a pretentious accent.

"Yes, well. I guess we couldn't resist," he said, and hoped he wouldn't be shortchanged for lying down in a lousy bed. Fuck. He knew this guy would find a way to dock his pay.

Mr. Aldridge looked at Jason again and said, "I can't say I blame you. I've come up here on occasion to try it for myself as well. No harm done." He then said to Olivia, "How did you find your time here at the Vista?"

"We enjoyed it," she said, and smiled.

"Well, very good. It looks as though you all have done a wonderful job," he said and smiled, then handed over a check to Jason for fifteen thousand dollars. He was too proud to look at it in front of the manager, and instead folded it and put it in his pocket.

"Wonderful indeed. I know it's somewhat of a hardship staying up here without company or the internet, and I know the hotel can get a little frightening up here in the mountains when you are completely alone. You both look tired, bordering on exhausted, but if you are interested, we'd be happy to have you back next season," the manager said, hoping against hope they weren't scared off as so many others were.

Olivia and Jason looked at each other and heartily agreed. "Same time next year?" Jason asked.

"Wonderful." Mr. Aldridge smiled.