The Cabin in the Sky

"Not how I usually like getting hot and sweaty on a Friday night." You give her a chuckle. The door back inside has locked, damn it, but a quick wander back to the front of the club is perfect for drying the sweat in the LA heat.

You enter the lobby, the Maitre D gives you an alarmed look and points over to the bar, where three burly police officers are talking with the bartender. The bartender is pointing to the hallway backstage. They part, revealing Tanya in plain clothes, a detective badge in her hand, leading them towards the hallway. Babs voice soars over the crowd.

You give them a count of three to clear the area and then make your way through the tables towards Kalchik's table. You reach his alcove to find it empty. A cold hand grabs yours and you look up. He is there, Kalchik, standing behind you, intense eyes piercing into your soul.

Who are you? His voice seems to emanate from some place behind your eyeballs, ringing and echoing in your skull. What are you doing here - wearing that skin suit?

You struggle to find your voice. You see Gloria reaching towards you, in slow motion. Her mouth is moving but no words come out.

You are not one of the LOST SOULS. The word he used did not sound like "lost souls'' but rather felt the way the words should feel. How are you sustaining the SOUL HUNGER?

You look up, his pupils vast wells of endless darkness and you feel yourself falling towards the void.

Enough - I return you to the incessision point, your well is almost dry. The ground begins to slip away, his leathery cold hand sliding through yours like water through your fingers.

BAM! Gloria crashes into you and the two of you tumble to the ground in a mass of awkward limbs. The world snaps into stereophonic sound as the club is filled with raucous applause.

Kalchik looks down at you and Gloria, startled and confused.

"We got to go!" Gloria hisses in your ear as the two of you scramble to your feet. "The cops know you are here and they are pissed!" You stagger away, getting swept into the crowd as they cry out for an encore as you and Gloria slip back to the kitchens. You glance back to see Kalchik done his hat and turn back towards the lobby, his features fixed in a stony glare.

You and Gloria scamper through the kitchens, dodging suez chefs and waiters before tumbling out the back door into the LA heat.

"Shit! Caroline!" You say.

"Who?" Gloria asks, catching her breath.

"Babs. She's still in there." Gloria shakes her head.

"With all the eyes on her, there's no way we are getting her out of there without a fist fight or some fast talking with the cops, you up for that?"

You weigh your choices.

You pat down your coat and pull out your pad of paper, a heavily chewed on pencil and a crumpled dollar bill. You scratch a quick note - "Be like Simon and Garfunkel if they want you to sing. I've got Pixie and we're headed back to Steve Carrell's show. Hold tight, you be Peach, I'll be Mario."

Okay, maybe not your best work but all of those references should be far enough in the future that it will work. You knock on the back door to the kitchens. A confused waiter pokes his head out.

"Hey, where's the star tonight? Babs?" The waiter shakes his head. "Cops have her all occupied."

You hand him the dollar and the note. "Any chance you could put this in her hands?" He looks skeptical. "It's okay if the cops see it." He looks relieved and takes the money and note.

"Okay, time to call that driver. Gloria? We've got a murder to solve."

###

Gloria is strangely quiet in the car. The driver raises his eyebrows at the additional passenger but gives no other indication until he pulls to a stop in front of an aging brown brick building.

"You need anything else, Boss?" you shake your head and he sails off. Gloria, shivering slightly, despite the LA evening heat, leans in to you as you make your way up the stone stairs to the front door. You begin to feel odd. The sounds seem to bend and distort, becoming distant. Focus.

Keys? Yes, front pocket. Luckily, you only have six keys on the keyring and only two seem the right size for the exterior door. With minimal fuss, you are in the lobby, up the rickety old staircase and to the frosted glass window of Jane Elliot - Private Instigator.

The office is exactly what you expect, a simple wooden desk with a phone, an old wire fan and paperwork. A couple of chairs and doors to two other offices. You flip the flickering lights on and proceed into the main office. Larger, with a full couch, a mini-bar and a large wooden desk. You try to ignore the safe in the corner - without the combination in your head, messing with that would just inspire frustration. Your sight blurs slightly and you there's that faint sense of the void on the edges of your vision. Like a picture with everything but the center dimmed.

Gloria makes a bee-line for the bar and mixes herself a drink.

"You want one? I'm having one." You shake your head as she throws something together. You begin leafing through the files open on your desk. A dead boyfriend in the shower, the sudden police appearance, skin suits, lost souls.

You take a deep breath. One problem at a time. This was obviously a frame-up, someone wanted to pin a murder on Babs, so they kill her boyfriend and make the drop while she's on stage.

But why hire me? Or rather Jane Elliott. If she thought that someone wanted to give her trouble, wouldn't she hire the detective to follow the bad guy, not herself? It was some sort of trap.

"Maybe it wasn't her that they were after." You look up in surprise at Glora, and then realize you had been talking out loud.

"Who would want to kill Babs? She's just a pretty singer. No offense, I get the impression she's your gal."

You shake your head. "That's not the first time you've asked about that." Gloria smiles back at you, Pixie's eyes half-lidded.

"I'm just double-checking." You let that pass.

"So if not Babs, then someone wanted the boyfriend dead . . ." You muse.

"And used this as an opportunity to throw the cops off the scent?" Gloria adds. You pull out Anthony Lorsecco's wallet.

"Aha! Union man, apparently he's an assistant electrician with Robertson Development." Robertson . . . Harry Robertson! The man who built the cabin in the sky and the Hotel Murano. Or rather the man who will build the hotel.

The void swirls around you as the wallet slips through your hands, falling on the desk in front of you. You lurch forward, clinging to the chair trying to keep a grip on this world. What is going on? This is by far The longest you've ever been in one of these visions, was there a time limit? The soul hunger? You stumble to the ground.

"Are you okay?" Gloria closes the distance, her soft hands pushing back your hat and feeling your forehead and cheek.

You lean up and kiss her, full and passionate on the lips. She melts into you, her body pressed against yours. You break for a moment, waiting to pass out or fall into the void but the world feels solid, her chest pushing against yours, her hot hand on your hip. She searches your eyes, looking for answers,

"Is this . . . is this what you want? When you brought me here, I had hoped but I didn't want to assume." You lean in and kiss her again, silencing her worries.

She knocks your hat to the ground, her hands everywhere at once, behind your neck, around your waist, pulling at your butt. You trail kisses down her throat, fumbling along her side for the zipper to her dress. She pushes you back, and then leads you by the hand to the couch. With a gentle shove, she pushes you back on the couch, standing tall over you.

The neon lights outside filter through the slats of the window, lighting her full curves, the glittering of her earrings and the silver dress clinging to her curves. She reaches back, arching her back and pulls down the zipper on the side of her dress.

The silver dress slides to the floor, leaving Pixie in her simple white panties, one arm draped across her chest. She looks down at you, her eyes smoldering. She plants a knee on either side of your legs on the couch, and flexing that taught dancer's body, she lowers herself into your lap. Gracefully, she pulls her hands away, her chest spilling out into the night. She runs her fingers through your hair as she pulls your lips to her breast.

The nipple is hard, a rich rosy red in the dark light, as you tentatively lick and suck at her breasts. She moans, low and lusty, her hands tight, pulling thirstily at your head..

"Yesss," she hisses, "oh god yes." You feast on her full chest, rolling her nipples in your mouth as she writhes above you. You reach around and feel her full butt, tensing and pushing as she grinds her groin against your leg.

"Give it to me, give it all to me." She moans, throwing her head back in passion as you pull her into you.

"I have wanted you from the moment you walked into the club, Jane." She whispers in your ear. "Can I taste you?" You nod and she pulls down your suspenders and unbuttons your shirt, revealing a sturdy chest minimiser, the 1930s equivalent of a sports bra. Obviously no stranger to the contraption, she skillfully unlatches the sides and slides it off your shoulders.

She hops off so she can shimmy your pants and panties down onto the floor. You look down and see Pixie's familiar tousle of brunette curls, her eyes shining in the dim light as she kneels before you.

You sit back down, stroking Pixie's cheek and she gently nips at your inner thigh, sending a jolt of excitement through your body. She grabs your legs, gives you a grin and dives in, swirling her tongue vigorously around your clit.

"AHH!" you buck, your hips jumping off the couch. "FUCK!" Her tongue is fast and furious, never letting the pressure relent for a moment. Your whole body clenches as the first wave builds. You grasp desperately at the couch pillows.

"Ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck!" you can't help yourself as she increases the pressure, moving fast and swift inside you, fingers working expertly around your lips while never stopping with her tongue. Her face gleaming with your excitement, her eyes never leaving your face.

"AHH!!" you arch your back and scream your orgasm into the night, hot and blinding and bright. She rides you, her hair thrown this way and that until finally the tremors subside, your chest heaving, as you sink back into the couch.

She softly kisses your thigh, your stomach and works her way up until she is curled in your arms, her head resting on your breast, as there is a moment of stillness. The sweat slowly drying on your skin, her languid eyelashes resting on her cheek as all you hear is the sound of your shared breathing.

She's the first to break the silence. "You want a cigarette?" She gets up and wanders to your desk, her shimmering naked body catching the bars of light filtering in from the flickering signs outside. The match strike illuminates her face, flushed and beautiful, as she lights the cigarette and sits on the floor next to the coach, her head resting on your stomach.

You look up at the slowly rotating fan, the smoke making strange trails and particles in the light. Glowing particles, drifting up to the sky. The frozen-in-time droplets trailing upwards in the hold of the pirate ship.

We came from beyond. That part was clear, the meteorite, the metal itself was some sort of alien. Some foreign creature, struck down and stuck here on this planet. Kalchik called them something. Lost Souls. Poor creatures - crashed in the ocean, stolen by pirates, melted down into ingots by the italians, nearly stolen by bandits in Idaho and then reforged into whatever that strange room was at the heart of the hotel.

Kalchik. He was in Italy, and Idaho and now he is here. He's tied to it. Not of the creatures, but using them?

Pixie passes you the cigarette as you take a cautious drag on it, trying to play it cool. Thankfully, you don't feel a cough, and blow the smooth smoke up into the room, passing it back to Pixie. Well, you suppose you should really think of her as Gloria while you are here.

Here, why here? Here in 1935? In LA? Harry Robinson stole some of the metal and made his basement, his cabin in the sky, and it sent you here. Why us? Surely others had rented the space, and no one mentioned the vivid time travel hallucinations in the AirBnB listing.

The Hotel. That's got to be the connection. You had been to Hotel Murano. Not just one of you, but most of you. Tanya, Simone and you had all been there. All had experiences there. Of course the creatures would try and reach out, to tell their story.

We must rebuild. We must refuel. We must RETURN. The voice that is not a voice had pleaded. Not just tell their story. To help them escape.

That brazier in the center of the hotel. It fed on sexual energy, it was powered by the orgasms generated within its walls. That was clear, with Kalchik tending the flames.

How are you sustaining the SOUL HUNGER? Kalchik had been confused, he must not have known about the Cabin in the Sky or the creature's ability to bring you here. You sit up, Gloria turning at the sudden movement.

This whole time you've been on the couch, there's been no creeping darkness, no endless void threatening to swallow you up. There's been no inkling, you've felt solid, anchored to this place.

"What is it?" Gloria looks up at you in the flickering light.

"Sweetheart, I think you just saved my life."

BAM! The door to your office flys open as a large man kicks his way into your space. Gloria screams and dives towards the mini-bar. You spring towards your desk, your naked body shining in the flickering light. He swings his gun this way and that.

"What the . . . " the man is momentarily stunned, his eyes not comprehending the beautiful naked woman diving behind her desk, frantically yanking open the drawers. You find a pistol in the right hand drawer and point it at the man. He raises his gun and

CRASH. Gloria brings a wine bottle down on his head as he lurches forward, crashing face first into the floor.

"Some people just don't appreciate a woman's privacy." Gloria snaps at the prone figure. You roll your eyes at her, coming over and flipping the man over revealing the unconscious face of Chiho.

"Wow, he's huge!" Gloria quips as the giant man groans. Gloria gives a startled yip and scrambles to find her clothes. His dark skin looks warm to the touch in the dim flickering light and you notice no scar adorns his throat. Maybe life as a tough in LA is a little kinder to Chiho.

You throw on your shirt and pants, no time for undergarments as he begins to come around. At a loss for how to secure him, you simply sit on his massive chest, handing your pistol to Gloria.

"Try not to shoot me, okay?" She gives you a nod that is not at all convincing. Chiho's eyes flutter open and he looks up into your face, confused and disoriented as to how he arrived on the ground and why you are sitting on him.

"What are you doing in my office, Chiho?" His eyes flick back and forth to you, to Gloria with the pistol, back to you, to your hastily buttoned shirt, back to your face.

"My name is Aleki."

"Okay Aleki, what are you doing in my office?" He shuts his eyes and turns his head, defiant. You feel him shift uncomfortably underneath you. Ah yes, he is definitely having some trouble down below.

"What are you doing in my office, Aleki?" You reach back and gently brush the front of his pants, already straining. You feel the outline of his cock, stretching down the leg of his trousers, hard and throbbing.

"Fuck you." He bucks his hips slightly, trying to knock your hand away. You push his head back down onto the floor.

"Ah ah ah!" you chide. "Another move like that and Gloria's start popping off a shot or two. And want that, do we?" you start stroking him through his pants. "Popping off?"

He groans, low and deep. "I'm not sayin' nothing." You unzip his pants and fish out his cock, hard and so thick, you can barely reach around it. You give it a slow, luxurious stroke. You hear Gloria gasp and she sees what you are doing.

"Really no, I was hoping you would be a," You stroke it faster, he gives a strangled cry, "a little more cooperative." His hips start to buck, moving in time with your hand as you work him faster and faster. Precum coats your hands as he begins to leak. You can feel him getting close. Gloria watches, enraptured, her mouth open in shock and arousal.

"What are you doing in my office, Aleki?" He writhes underneath you, twisting this way and that. He's on the brink. You freeze, holding him steady.

"Ahhh!" He screams in frustration. "Fine, you fucking bitch. I'm a Pinkerton. My boss sent me here because you were mixing things up with the singer and the dead union guy. He wanted you out of the way. For fucks sake, don't stop!"

You grin, your hand a blur. He bucks beneath you

"AhhhhhhhhHHH!!!" he shouts, erupting all over your hand, sending up an impressive fountain of cum.

"Wow!" Gloria is watching breathless at his giant spurting cock, still thick as it goes limp. "That was something."

Aleki stirs, starting to rise but you push his forehead back down, his head thunking on the wood floor.

"Listen up, you like that? Good. You owe one. Actually, you owe me a couple since I didn't let Gloria just shoot you. So that's two." You get up off his chest and fish a few bucks out of the desk.

"Here's a few dollars, head down the street to the nearest bar and have a drink or two. Don't check in with your boss until after Noon tomorrow. I don't care what you say then, but you stay out of touch." Aleki gives a slow nod, clambering to his feet.

"And don't forget, you owe me. Now zip up and get out of my office." As he stumbles out, Gloria looks on in shock.

"That was amazing! You are just . . . wow." Her mouth hangs open. You give her an indulgent smile as you piece the door back together and fiddle with the latch on the murphy bed next to your desk.

"Alright, let's get a few hours of sleep and then it is off to the construction site. We've got a murder solve." Oh yeah, and Caroline to rescue, you muse as you drift off curled up with Gloria.

###

Robertson Development was putting the final touches on a mid-rise apartment complex on the east side, or at least, that's what the County Assessor said when you gave them a call first thing in the morning. Goddess bless your girl friday. She turned up at 7:30am, didn't bat an eye at you rolling out of your office in disheveled clothes with a leggy brunette not far behind. She pointed you towards your own stash of clean clothes and helped secure a fresh outfit for Gloria. She also ran down the assessor's phone number and dispatched your lawyer, a "Mr. Stantzel", to go spring Caroline from her jail cell.

And you didn't even catch her name. She just went right to work. The driver took you to the address and now you and Gloria were staring at a half-painted apartment building surrounded by fences and trailers. You glance at Gloria, she had been rather subdued this whole time but considering she has just tagged along for your adventure, you don't blame her. Maybe wearing Pixie's body, she feels consciously drawn to you - that this seems like an impulsive action but there is something deeper, pulling her along.

Either way, you are grateful for a familiar face, if not a familiar heart, on this journey.

You slide past the gate and head for one of the trailers. A man with a thick mustache and a thicker helmet directs you to "Foreman Joe" in a grey trailer once you flash your badge at him.

You slide open the door to the trailer, and there's a broad shouldered man with thick glasses (Chris Pine, you decide) pouring over plans with a protractor. Standing next to him is Orlando, having traded his cape and mask for a reflective vest.