Midnight at the Oasis

She was awakened by a cat. The mewing that had suddenly turned into a roar sent her lashes fluttering open effortlessly. She sat up in the bed, draped in Elliot’s crisp white sheets (he refused to sleep on anything of any other color). She stuck her toe out from the sheet, wiggling it in the chilly night air. The breeze from the fan rustled the linens and licked her foot. She giggled lightly. Elliot simmered from his sleep. Through squinted eyes, he made out the delicate outline of her face, soft lips, feathery lashes. He closed his eyes and slid close to her. He laid his head in her lap, his arms about her waist. She hummed as he rested against her. She stroked the curls on his head, leaning back on the wall. She closed her eyes, resting on the wallpaper that she knew her hair would stain.

The wind from the fan danced from her toes to her face, kissing every inch of the side of her body through the sheet. It hummed her favorite tune, that of summers in the city as a child, of popsicles on the beach, of water bottles in the car on road trips in college, of ice that Elliot would slide down her back, to her thighs. She lost herself the hum of the fan, thirsting for days past. As the breeze rotated, shunning her face like an absent lover, her eyes opened. She blinked as she glanced around Elliot’s studio, the posters, stained couch, dinosaur mugs in the kitchen. She gazed at the clock, whose red glow quickened the pace of her heart. 12.03. Time to go to Midnight.