The Grande Futapest Hotel Ch. 07

Layla thought that the hike Selena had promised would be an intimate affair, just the two of them passing through a snaking trail far off the map, taking treacherous steps down slopes of black sand, possibly cutting through overgrown reeds with Gurkha knives and wearing anachronistic pith helmets.

Instead, there were about nine people already there when they arrived, and ten more came afterwards. The hikers varied greatly, from some in spandex running tops and multicolored athletic shoes, like they were a marathoner who had lost their number, to T-shirt and cargo-short clad tourists that seemed to be more common on Maui than fire hydrants.

Selena had her large sunhat, sundress, sunglasses, parasol and a backpack. Layla was dressed as she always was, yoga pants, T-shirt and sweat shirt around her waist to keep herself... hidden.

One person in the crowd, a man of about twenty-three, seemed very tense when he saw Selena in the hiking party. Selena noticed his apprehension, and merely brought her first finger to her lips and puckered her lips, making a silent shush. This seemed to make the man even more tense, as she just confirmed that he wasn't hallucinating. He couldn't have seemed more shocked if he had seen Darth Vader waiting for this hike.

Layla hoped she didn't look so ridiculous the first time she saw Selena. But his reaction reminded her once again that, oh yeah, she was on a tropical vacation with Selena freaking Grande.

---

Mossy cliffs with waterfalls peeking through bare rocks and tumbling in the distance, giving a faint hiss behind the rustling of leaves and branches of the trees surrounding them. Sugarcane as high as a second-story window. The occasional exotic call of some species of bird, which the tour guide helpfully identified by the Latin name. A surprising absence of bugs, though that didn't seem to stop Selena from reapplying both repellent and sunscreen at equal intervals.

If this was a movie, this would be where Layla's heart and mind would be opened to the splendor of the world that the concrete cities had denied her, and she would live in the natural splendor of these tropical islands with Selena, where they would recreate their own version of Gilligan's Island. Selena would be the millionaire, and she would be... Gilligan? Layla hadn't actually ever seen any Gilligan's Island.

As it was, the natural splendor was something she'd spent her life fighting against. The acres of land her parents had cut from Gaea's flank were a nuisance from which she was glad to escape. She might not have a car in the city, but she hadn't once had to get a tractor out of the mud in the city. She dealt with rude customers at the coffee shop, but she never had to give medicine to a cow, or assist in other animal husbandry in ways she rightfully never should have to deal with firsthand, due to her gender.

And yes, she made money by stripping and masturbating for sex-starved Internet creeps. But no matter how much she jerked it, the calluses on her hands were still fading.

The group took many, many photos. Some of them had expensive DSLRs and other modern cameras, some took them on their phone. Selena kept her phone in her bag, except to take a single picture of Layla standing in front of that crazy picturesque waterfall. She took it vertically and horizontally, possibly to use as a desktop background or phone wallpaper.

Once during the hike, some unprepared hiker asked the trail guide if they had extra water because they were thirsty. The guide shook their head and said no, clearly disappointed that they hadn't read the instructions on the trail. Selena reached into her backpack and pulled out one of many bottles of water she had stowed in there. A few other hikers asked if there were more, and she dispensed with more bottles. Suddenly, everyone realized how heavy that backpack must have been. It was like the rucksack filled with rocks the sergeant would force the lazy soldier to hoist around to teach them a lesson.

After all, Selena was used to giving thirsty people just what they needed.

"Whatever makes this lighter." She said, her first time speaking after she'd joined the group.

Another man in the group tensed at the sound of her voice., suddenly unable to fathom how likely it was that this women who looked just like a world-famous porn star would also sound like her.

Layla smothered her giggles in her fist.

---

At the midpoint of the hike, there was an ordinary concrete building that would not look out of place in any strip mall or antarctic research station. Vines and other plant life licked and scraped at the edges of the building, as if waiting for it to be disclaimed by humans so it could be returned to nature. Nothing about the exterior of the building seemed to indicate they were in Hawaii, not even a tiki statue or torch. It was as if they'd walked all the way to a forest outpost in western Washington.

The building was evidently a rest station, where the majority of the party did just that. Selena ditched all the empty water bottles she'd been carrying in her backpack. She brought Layla into the bathroom and pulled out something Layla hadn't seen her pack: a rolled towel from the hotel.

"What's that for?" She asked, as Selena draped the towel across the floor of the single-occupant women's restroom. She stepped on it like it was a bath mat and upturned a dull orange bottle of powder into her hand.

"Baby powder?" Layla asked.

"Gold Bond." Selena brought the powder under her skirt. She closed her eyes and sighed. "This is actually kind of embarrassing, doing this in front of you."

"I didn't know anything could embarrass you." Layla smiled.

"I'm sweating a lot." She said softly. "Must be the humidity."

"Yeah, standing by that waterfall was my favorite part of the hike so far. It was so cooling."

"Well, this will have a similar effect."

Without warning, Selena hooked two fingers into the waistband of Layla's yoga pants and pulled them out horizontally. Selena shook the orange container of powder against Layla's groin and brushed it around with her fingers. She released the waistband, letting it snap against Layla's abs with a little cloud of powder.

Selena clapped her hand and rinsed it under the sink to clean the powder from it.

"Selena." Layla said tensely.

She turned around. Layla was already fully erect, the tip of her cock barely staying beneath the stretched latex.

"Oh! Sorry." Selena bit her lip. "Guess I should've let you do that."

"Normally, I'm all for it, but right now, after having not come for two days..." Layla looked down to herself.

Selena sidled behind her. "Well, you'll thank me when you don't wake up tomorrow chafing." She pulled the back of her yoga pants back and did the same thing for Layla's bum, snapping the waistband shut and giving her rear a spank punctuated with another cloud of white.

Layla groaned, grabbing Selena by the torso and pressing her up against the wall, causing the automatic hand dryer near them to briefly jump to life as Selena's arm passed underneath it. Layla positioned herself under Selena's skirt, rubbing herself against her vulva. Only the thin layer of stretched yoga pants fabric separated the two of them.

"Selena..." Layla's eyebrows were low, her hands moving to Selena's wrists. "If you just want me to fuck you in this public bathroom, just say so."

Breathing deeply and gritting her teeth, Selena's eyes said, "yes, yes, a thousand times yes." But aloud, she said, "I don't think we should."

"Then please don't make this so tough for me."

"OK. I'm sorry."

"This would be so incredibly hot under almost any other circumstance. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, when I have to walk around with strangers, it's just annoying."

Layla stepped back. Selena was now erect, too, her cock pushing her skirt up.

"We can't go out like this, obviously." Layla said.

"We'll just have to wait."

After five minutes of waiting, Selena had succeeded where Layla had not. In her career, sometimes Selena found the rare time where losing an erection was a necessary skill. Sometimes, it was to shoot some B-roll of her walking around nude before the fun began. Most commonly, it was just to re-shoot her growing erect.

The tour guide finally found the missing pair leaving the lavatory. "We're about to head off. You two ready?"

"Yep." Selena piped quietly, and they rejoined the group.

The tour guide looked at Layla's adjusted clothing arrangement. "You're going to be awful hot wearing

that sweatshirt out there."

"No, I'm always cold." She gasped, as she pulled the bottom of the shirt down to keep it covering her hips. "Let's get moving."

Partway through the journey back, as the tour guide expected, this woman removed her sweatshirt to put around her waist, the T-shirt beneath it now soaked with sweat.

What on earth was this woman thinking? At least she'd come to her senses.

---

Quite exhausted from the hike, Layla and Selena elected to take dinner in their room tonight. Selena got grilled chicken and roasted yukon gold potatoes. Layla got macaroni and cheese. There was the option to sprinkle lobster bits in it for extra extravagance. Layla didn't think the best way to try lobster for the first time was smothered in cheese and tangled in pasta, so she declined.

The other advantage to eating in their room was that nobody would judge them for eating all this fancy crap... while drinking Gatorade out of the bottle. Selena seldom indulged in 'soft drinks,' as she called them, which led to a spirited two-minute discussion concerning whether Gatorate was actually a soft drink or not.

The pair also split a chocolate molten lava cake, certainly not because Selena couldn't afford two. Even on vacation, Selena just didn't feel like eating the entire thousand-calorie treat by herself. They each cut the tender cake with their spoons and fed it to each other like an obliviously obnoxious couple on a date.

Selena was surprised that Layla hadn't hopped on her the moment they were both in bed. The hike really had sapped her energy. They watched whatever was on the TV, but only when they weren't trading lovely kisses.

Layla broke away to take control of the remote, muting the television before returning to Selena's soft lips.

Selena turned away. "Do you always mute the commercials?" She asked.

"Usually." Layla said. "I don't have cable, so I'm used to the commercials on the over-the-air programs, and they're... essentially one step above banner ads."

"My face has been on a lot of those." Selena noted. "Never for a legitimate product, of course."

"Well, since over-the-air TV is free, the presumed audience is people in poverty or people who are stuck at home. It's all ads for cheap phone plans, questionable herbal supplements, class action lawsuits and purchasing structured settlements."

"That shit should be illegal." Selena snapped. "They come on daytime TV with their little songs, knowing that people who are out of work will be stuck at home watching television, and they buy their settlements for a fraction of what they're worth and leave them with almost nothing for their suffering. If I ever get out of porn, I might just start a company where I buy the settlements at face value, or very close, just to put them out of business."

Selena took a breath. "Sorry. I see those commercials all the time and they drive me crazy."

"You're going to do what Uber is doing to taxis?"

"Run them out of business with a more convenient product and then raise prices once they no longer have competition?"

"Well, taxis have had a terrible reputation for... decades now."

"But that's the question, isn't it? Did they earn that bad reputation because of bad service and a lack of competition...or did they gain a reputation unfairly because it's a career dominated by immigrants and religious minorities?"

Layla thought on that for a moment, but she shrugged. "I don't know. That was an entrenched stereotype before I was born. And I've never actually ridden in a taxi."

They looked to the silent television for a moment. Battered shrimp tumbled in empty space, bread crumbs flying off like raindrops lashed off wet hair. The price of these allegedly endless shrimp appeared in bright white text.

"Any commercial is better than that smiling dude and his penis pills." Layla said.

"I think they don't exist anymore. Bankruptcy, money laundering, that sort of thing. If there WAS a penis pill, you wouldn't need any funny business to promote it. People would beat a path to your door."

"Have you ever turned down an endorsement deal?"

"A serious one?" Selena said. "Because I get emails about penis enhancement pills probably every day."

"Everyone gets those."

"No, these are from the companies themselves." Selena specified. "I wouldn't endorse anything unless I used it, or at least COULD, like those condoms. Even if those pills worked, which I'm confident that they don't... I don't want to be any bigger. I'm already on the verge of what most women can handle. If I can't have sex, that's the end of my career. I actually posted something on my Youtube channel that basically said that every banner ad that you see saying that I used penis pills was lying to you, and to not click them."

"Did you ever sue them?"

Selena scoffed. "I might as well sue a particular mosquito in a swarm. They've got nothing I want or need. The money would be better spent promoting my video to spread the word about it. Then again, most sensible people know that it's not true. That'd just be throwing good money after bad."

"Have you ever been sued?"

Selena looked out into space for a second.

"Should I even ask this when we're on vacation?" Layla pulled back. "I'm sorry."

"Once." Selena answered.

"What happened? If you don't mind sharing."

"A man sued one of those shake oil penis pill companies... and me for appearing in their banner ads." Selena blew out a breath, the memories evidently not entirely cooled off with time. "I called the lawyer myself and said, 'you're not going to find a single judge in California or likely anywhere that will tell you that my inclusion in this suit is meritorious. If your client had e-mailed me and asked, 'do you really use those pills?' I would have told him 'no, no, don't buy them, do literally anything else with your money.' I don't answer all my emails, but I definitely answer people asking that kind of thing.

"Unlike your client, I know what to do with my money. So if I have to get my lawyer involved in this, he will make sure that you don't get a cent out of me. And then we'll make sure you pay his fees. Not your client... YOU, the lawyer who is facilitating this nonsense. So drop me from this suit TODAY and save yourself some money.' See, this is before I had you around to keep me from snapping off angry emails."

"No, I'm completely behind you on this one. What did they do?"

"They kept me in."

"Uh-oh."

"To be fair... I did actually text my lawyer my idea for this beforehand, and he thought it wouldn't work, but didn't see the harm in it. So he got involved, and he got me out of it."

"Did you ever get your money back?"

"I don't know. I pay my lawyer whatever he wants. He might be overcharging me, but so long as he isn't actually embezzling, I'll be fine. It's the same thing with my accountant. His job isn't to make sure that I pay no taxes. His job is to make sure that I'm doing everything completely by the book and above board so that I don't go to jail. No amount of opulence is worth risking that. I'll go back to peanut butter sandwiches and noisy neighbors before that."

"Luckily, you'll never have to."

The commercials had ended, but neither of them decided to turn the sound back on.

"You feeling alright after that hike?" Selena asked.

"I think so. I'll be ready to do another one tomorrow."

"There's a longer one we could do, but it's further out. Let's see how we feel tomorrow."

"Sure."

They cuddled closer.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you today." Layla apologized.

Selena looked at her. "That thing in the bathroom? That was awesome."

"What?"

"Grabbing me like that... that was so hot. I'm getting hard just thinking about it."

Layla chuckled. It was like Selena was a succubus that didn't know how to do anything in a non-sexy way. Layla kissed her on the temple.

Selena moved up and placed her lips on Layla's.

Tired as they were, sleep was still some way off.

---

Selena had performed all her morning rituals, but Layla was still in bed. This wasn't that out of the ordinary. Neither was the desire to stay in bed or sleep in while on vacation. But Selena heard a gentle moan penetrating Layla's pillow. These weren't fun sexy moans; this sounded more like every breath hurt.

"You OK, Layla?" Selena asked. "You didn't get a sunburn, did you?"

Layla didn't answer. Her moans didn't even change in pitch to indicate she had even noticed that Selena had entered the room.

Selena gingerly picked up a corner of the bed sheet and peeled it off Layla's nude body like a banana peel. "Nope. Just as lovely and fair as ever." Selena rubbed one of Layla's buttocks gently before giving it a light tap, barely enough to really be called a spank.

Layla whimpered.

Selena sat on the bed. "We probably should've started with a shorter hike. I'm sorry."

"I thought I could handle it." She croaked.

"We can take it easy today, if you need time to recover."

"Don't let me ruin your plans."

Selena placed her hand on Layla's shoulder. "You ARE my plans, Layla. But I've got an idea."

---

Two women in their thirties entered the suite, pushing two folding massage tables in front of them. They set up the tables in the living room and stood outside the doorway to let them strip and place themselves on the tables in privacy.

They looked at each other knowingly, and Selena snickered.

Once Selena had undressed, she approached her table and put one leg up to climb on top of it. She looked to the other table, where Layla was, flat as a board, a small towel over her rear.

Selena walked over to Layla's table and whipped the towel off Layla.

Layla yipped.

"What, are you shy?" Selena set the towel down on the table. "We can't hide that ass."

"I thought this was what you're supposed to do at a massage."

"You can... unless you work in the professional nudity industry."

The two masseuses re-entered the room. Selena specified that since this would be Layla's first massage, she should get a standard massage. Selena asked for a deep-tissue massage.

The moment Layla's masseuse put her hands around Layla's right calf, she whispered to herself, "Oh, goodness." Alternating between pressing with her thumb and squeezing with her palm, she massaged the tight muscle. Every time she applied pressure, she heard Layla moan.

The massage stopped and she asked Layla if she was in pain.

"There's a difference between pain and discomfort." She explained. "Massages can cause discomfort, but they shouldn't cause pain. Pain is sharp and sudden. Discomfort is dull and spread out. If you actually experience pain, let me know."

Layla nodded and allowed the masseuse to work her stiff leg muscles. The masseuse also worked her shoulders and neck, but those were probably stiff from too much time sitting at a computer rather than from the hike. She swore she felt something crunch in her muscles as she pressed on them, like trying to break up corn flakes stuffed inside a balloon.

"Roll over." The masseuse instructed.

Layla turned over on the table. By the time she was on her side, she realized she was exposing her erection to the masseuse. She'd been so comfortably naked so often, she hadn't even considered this might not be OK. She covered herself with her hands, blushing.