Sandalwood

I stepped through the front door and let my bag drop. The house settled around me, quiet and mine. I kicked off my shoes and stood for a moment on the cool hardwood, feeling the ache in my feet, my calves, the deep satisfying burn in my thighs.

I’d danced tonight. A full hour in the studio, sweat soaking through my shirt, the bass working it all loose. There’s something about movement that brings me home to myself. Bone, muscle, breath and blood.

I could still feel it humming through my legs as I walked to the bathroom. Muscles wrung out, sweat cooling on my skin. A bath was calling.

In the bathroom, I plugged the drain and started the hot water.

I reached for the matches on the shelf and struck one, watching the flame catch. I lit three candles along the edge of the sink, and as each wick caught I whispered, “I am love,” feeling it deepen with each expression. The glow softened the room. I stood in it for a moment, just breathing.

Then I turned to the mirror and began to undress.

Shirt over my head, sports bra peeling away from damp skin. Sweatpants down my hips, underwear off.

Bare. Present.

Candlelight painted me in gold and shadow. My eyes gently landed on my soft belly. My textured thighs. Stretch marks like silver rivers across my hips. Forty-five years lived in this skin. No judgment. Just witness and gratitude.

I reached into the cabinet and pulled out a small bottle of bathing oil, something I’d picked up at a market months ago and hadn’t opened yet. I twisted the cap and poured a slow stream into the rising water.

The scent lifted immediately.

Earthy. Spiced. Something underneath both of those, sweet and enticing.

I stopped pouring, the bottle balanced between my fingers.

Steam thickened around me, carrying the fragrance up and in, and something in me went very quiet. A memory pushing to the surface. Not a clear thought. Just sensation, unmoored.

I set the bottle on the edge of the tub and stepped in, one foot then the other. The heat climbed my ankles, calves, thighs as I lowered myself down. Water rose to meet me, surrounding my hips, my waist, my ribs.

I turned the water off, leaned back against the cool porcelain and closed my eyes.

The scent wrapped tighter with every breath.

The water held me. Heat worked into tired muscle. I sank deeper, the waterline climbing my collarbones, my neck.

I breathed. Long and slow. Belly and ribs expanding fully, chest rising above the surface into cool air. Exhale. Chest sinking back under, the warmth flowing back over me.

The sandalwood held in the air, denser with each breath. My limbs went heavy. My thoughts quieted.

A faint chill climbed the back of my neck, raising the hair on my arms, full body goosebumps. I went still inside it.

I knew this feeling. The way it started beneath the sternum. I’d learned not to chase it. To simply stay open and curious to it.

A shift moved through me, recognizable but altered. Not the pull I’d come to know, that insistent luminous hum. This was different. Quieter. Less like a summons and more like an invitation, coaxing rather than pulling, as if it had something specific to show me.

I breathed into it and felt it expand.

The blue light crept into the corners of my vision. Soft. Hazy.

Another breath. Deeper.

The blue light flickered. And there, at the edge of it, something taking shape. A door with glinting licks of brass colored light that focused into numbers. 19.

I put my hand on the knob, turned it, and walked through.

The bathroom dissolved. Dim yellow bulbs lit a smoky haze.

A living room, cramped and overheated, packed with bodies and noise. Music thudded from speakers stacked in the corner, bass vibrating through the floorboards. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, stale beer, and the sharp tang of body odor trying to hide behind too much CK One.

I was 19, maybe. Wedged into a sagging couch between two strangers, nursing a cheap beer.

That’s when I caught a glimpse of her.

Across the room, quiet in the corner, a woman flipped through a huge CD binder. Dark bob, sharp and blunt at her jaw. Red plaid pants, Doc Martens unlaced. A white baby tee worn thin. She held an unlit joint loosely between two slender fingers, chipped black polish contrasting the natural white tip of her nail. Her attention focused on the music in her hands. Around her the party pressed and postured and she didn’t register any of it.

She pulled a CD from the binder, held it up to the light, and spun it around her finger.

I forgot I was holding a beer, forgot to breathe, forgot everything except the way she moved.

The guy next to me said something. I glanced at him, nodded without actually hearing him, and when I looked back across the room, she was gone.

I scanned the room. Nothing.

I settled deeper into the couch. The color in my cheeks wouldn’t cool, something restless lodged behind my chest. And then I noticed my bladder, full and impossible to ignore. I needed to move. I stood, set my half empty bottle on the coffee table, and headed for the hallway. The downstairs bathroom door was open, some guy hunched over the toilet, retching.

No thanks.

I turned and headed for the stairs. The higher I climbed the more the party fell away. At the top, a long hallway stretched ahead, poorly lit, walls painted forgettable beige, doors lining both sides.

I tried the first door. Locked. Heard someone say “Occupied!”

I stepped back and waited.

Across from me another door sat half open, soft light spilling through the gap. Women’s voices, intimate and layered with laughter. I glanced over and saw them through the opening, three of them on the bed, passing a joint, smoke drifting lazy and thick. One was talking, hands cutting through the air, complaining about some guy downstairs. The others laughed, nodding along.

And there she was.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, the now joint lit between her fingers. Those big almond eyes languid, her mouth curved into the tail end of a smile. Mazzy Star drifting from a small speaker on the nightstand, barely competing with the noise downstairs, and somehow more present than any of it.

I tried to look away. Didn’t know them. Didn’t want to stare.

But she looked up just as I was about to shift my gaze.

Her eyes found mine and held.

“You want to join?” Her voice cut clean through the noise.

Color flooded my neck. My face burned.

“I—yeah,” I stammered. “Just need the bathroom first.”

“We’ll be here,” she said. “But this joint may not be.”

The other two giggled.

I thought for the slightest moment she was checking me out, the way her eyes swept me from head to toe. Or maybe I was imagining it, suddenly feeling more stoned than before while managing a full bladder.

The bathroom door opened. A girl stumbled out, barely glancing at me as she headed back toward the stairs.

I stepped in and locked the door.

My hands were shaky on the button of my jeans. I sat, peed, stood, washed my hands, all of it mechanical, my body on autopilot while my mind stayed on the image of her sitting on the bed.

I looked up and ran a quick scan in the mirror. Makeup intact, nothing in my teeth. I tousled my hair and reached for my bag. I knew I had thrown a joint in there before work.

I found it. A little crushed but intact.

An offering.

I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The room was dim, lit only by a lamp in the corner, an orange silk scarf draped over it that made everything look like it had been dipped in honey. The woman with the dark bob sat on the bed with two others, smoke languid between them.

I held up the crushed joint and cheekily said, “Brought reinforcements.”

She looked up, pleased. “Smart girl.”

A small shiver shot through me at those two words.

I sat on the bed with them. Close enough now that I caught something different in the air around her. Not the cloying body spray from downstairs. Earthy. Something sweet rising from her skin, a scent that belonged only to her.

She asked where I worked and laughed when I told her about the bartender who got drunk on his shift and yelled at a customer.

“I saw you grab a CD downstairs. Is this what you picked?” I asked, suddenly embarrassed by outing myself as having watched her.

“Yes! Mazzy Star.” Her eyes lit up. “Hope Sandoval’s voice does something to me I can’t explain. Do you like her?”

“Honestly?” I said. “She turns me on and trances me the fuck out.”

Her gaze lingered. Something shifting in her expression, like she’d just heard exactly what she was listening for. The hint of an invitation.

“Exactly,” she hissed.

Then she introduced herself. “I’m Mia.” The way she said her own name, her voice dropping just slightly, made it feel like a summons. She gestured to the other two women, names I caught and immediately lost. We passed the joint around a little more, the four of us falling into the easy conversation of shared taste, favorite bands, the kind of pop culture shorthand that makes strangers feel like they’ve known each other for years. The other two women eventually stood, murmuring something about finding more beer, taking their time gathering cups, bags and cigarettes before the door clicked shut behind them.

The room felt different with them gone. Fuller somehow, even with fewer people in it. I was aware that Mia had been directing small moments of attention toward me all night, a look held a beat too long, a smile that felt layered, and now there was nothing between us but a few inches of mattress and whatever was about to happen.

Mia turned her body to face me fully. We were close now, sitting cross-legged, knees almost touching.

Her gaze moved over my face, assessing. “You have really pretty eyes,” she said, like she was telling me something I should already know.

Color crawled up my neck, prickling across my skin. My mouth had gone bone dry. I wanted to say something back, something clever or equally warm, but all I managed was a smile that probably said everything anyway.

Mia leaned in slowly, giving me every opportunity to see it coming, her eyes steady on mine the whole way. She knew exactly what she was doing. Her lips gently pushed into mine. Soft, electric, her full mouth molding to my own.

My breath jammed against my pounding heart.

She pulled back, eyes searching mine. “Sorry. I’m super high and you’re just... really fucking hot.”

I didn’t give her time to say anything else.

I grabbed her by the neck and pulled her into me. Our mouths collided, tongues sliding between wet lips that tasted like Dr. Pepper chapstick.

My hand found her thigh. Her fingers gripped the fabric of my shirt, pulling me closer. The kiss deepened, her tongue against mine, smoke and sweetness, deepening into a hungry swirl of wetness and heat. I pulled her closer, my hands finding her waist, her ribs, the heat of her desire pulling me in like gravity.

A sound escaped me. Small. Whimperish.

My hands moved up her sides, she arched into my touch then broke the kiss, pulled back just enough to look at me. Green eyes searching mine. A question without words.

I let my lips resolve the quiet question in her eyes.

She kissed me harder this time, hungrier, her hands tightening at my waist.

I stopped thinking about where my hands were. Stopped thinking entirely. I was dissolving into her mouth, into the heat of her, into the strange gorgeous fact of what was happening, when—

The door swung open.

I jerked back, heart slamming against my chest.

A guy stepped in. Tall and lean. His vintage Zeppelin tee hung on him perfectly, the hem barely grazing the top of the red plaid boxers peaking out from the low-riding Jenko jeans.

I worriedly looked over at Mia and saw her face break open. A sound of pure delight squealed from her before she was even off the bed. “There you are!” she chirped.

Mia strutted across the room and kissed him. I reached for the half smoked joint in the ashtray, my hands a little jittery, suddenly unsure of the rules of a room I’d only just entered. I took a drag and held it, watching them from the corner of my eye.

His hands were in her hair, her body pressed flush against his, and watching them together sent a flush of embarrassment and heat through me, each one feeding the other in a way I didn’t quite have words for.

When they broke apart she looked right at me.

“Ella, this is Anthony. Anthony, this is adorable Ella.”

He nodded with an easy smile. “Hey. Don’t let me interrupt.”

“Hey,” I said back, a little too bright, a little too friendly.

She came back to the bed but I’d shifted back, giving them space.

She noticed. Reached out and tugged my arm. “Where you going?”

“I just thought—”

“Stay,” she insisted. Playful but firm.

Anthony sat down on the other side of Mia. We were all on the bed now, close but not quite touching.

Mia took a long drag from the joint, exhaled slowly, and looked at me with the self-possessed ease she’d had all night. “You want to show him what we were doing before he got here?” she asked.

My stomach flipped. I glanced at Anthony, looking for the landmine, the jealousy, the shift in temperature that would tell me I’d done something wrong without knowing it.

There was none of that. Just that easy grin, open and ready, like this was exactly where he’d hoped the night was going. He looked at Mia and said “Yes, please show me” and it was clear in the way he said it that this was their thing.

Mia stood, walked over to where I sat on the edge of the bed. She took a long hit from the joint, held it, leaned down close to my face and stopped.

She looked right into my eyes and said, “Inhale on my exhale.”

I opened my mouth. She pressed her lips to mine and blew the smoke in slowly, her eyes not leaving mine until the last wisp dissolved between us. My head swam, the weed hitting fast, Mia’s mouth warm and close, the whole thing so intimate it made my chest ache.

Her lips pressed on mine long after the smoke had cleared. The softest kiss. Then she pulled back just far enough to look at me, her thumb grazing my jaw, and what passed between us in that half second felt like a whole conversation.

Anthony had moved to the edge of the bed, close enough for Mia to reach over and graze his chin with her delicate fingers.

“Where do you want me?” he asked her.

Like she was always the one who decided.

She smiled. “Let’s all get comfortable. Finish this joint and see what happens.”

Anthony leaned back against the headboard, Mia sat cross-legged beside him, and I settled across from her, close enough that our knees touched again. The joint made its way around the three of us, and in the golden haze of that honey-lit room something opened up, relaxed and charged. Mia kissed me slow and easy, then turned and kissed Anthony while I watched. Anthony’s hand found its way to my jaw, tipped my face toward his, and kissed me. His stubble rough against my skin, the sudden sharp distinction from Mia’s softness felt disorienting in the best way. He kissed harder, more direct, and I liked it in a completely different way than I liked kissing Mia.

Mia watched us with open appreciation before pulling me back to her. The joint went around and we smoked and touched and kissed in no particular order, Mia’s fingers in my hair, Anthony’s mouth on Mia’s neck, my palm pressed flat against Anthony’s broad chest feeling his breath come faster than his easy smile let on.

A loud thud hit the door from outside. It fully swung open, and a drunk guy practically fell through it. He caught himself on the doorframe, laughing at nothing before stumbling sideways back down the hallway, nearly taking a picture off the wall with him.

We all looked at each other and busted out laughing. Anthony got up, grinning, and locked the door.

When he turned around, I saw it.

His cock straining against the denim, thick and obvious.

I stared.

Mia saw me looking. Giggled. “He’s like this. Hair trigger. Always ready.”

Anthony grinned and shrugged, completely unapologetic.

She stood, moved to him with a slow roll in her step, turned and pressed her hips back into him. His hands went straight to her hip bones, holding her there, pulling her ass flush against him.

She looked directly at me, mischief dancing in her eyes. “So... you into this? Into us?”

My mouth went dry even though my panties were soaked.

I nodded. Too fast. “Yeah. I mean... yeah.” Trying to sound cooler than I felt.

Her smile split wide and unguarded, the Cheshire kind that makes you feel like you’ve just agreed to something wonderful and slightly dangerous. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

Mia slipped away from Anthony and came to me, standing close, looking down at where I sat on the edge of the bed.

“Can I kiss you again?”

Half playful. Half genuinely asking.

I stood up to meet her and exhaled, heavy want. “Yes.”

She kissed me, her hands cupping my face, her tongue moving against mine, purposeful and claiming. Anthony came up behind her, his hands finding her hips, his mouth on her neck, and she moaned into my mouth. Her body caught between us, her breasts pushed into mine, the sound of Anthony’s breathing getting heavier, it was all so fucking hot.