Sleep No More
Prompt Fourteen: Sleep No More
She had been waiting a long time for this night and had traveled a long way to get to it as well. Jemma made sure to be the first in line, the first to receive her playing card. She ordered a cocktail at the Manderley Bar, soaking in the faux speakeasy pub. Red lights flushed the bar, and there was a smoky effect without anyone actually being allowed to smoke. Actors in flashy 1930’s outfits mingled it with guests. Jemma herself looked like she could be a part of the production, she had gone all out in recreating the look of a glamorous 1930’s woman. She wore a silver strapless gown, long enough to hide her comfortable shoes but not get tripped on when running. She felt glamorous and lavished.
She felt someone tap her on her bare shoulder. Their hand lingered for more then a quick second. She turned around, and an actor stood before her.
“Madam, the McKittrick Hotel would like to offer a special concierge service offered to only our most prestigious guests,” he said eloquently.
Jemma played along, masking her smile while a woman of mystery persona.
“Is that so, sir? What kind of service are you offering,” Jemma batted her eyes.
“We would like to request your presence at one of host’s dinner,” the actor hung an open palm in the air. In his palm was a small brown package with a ribbon fastened through a hole on one side. Jemma picked it up off his hand and examined it for a moment until she realized he hadn’t put his hand down. She slipped the ribbon over her head to hang the small package like a necklace. He made a motion for her to take it. Jemma slipped her hand in his, and he led her through the bar patrons to a hallway located behind the bar. It was poorly lit, and the noise of the bar was drastically muted so it was only a faint background noise. They came upon a door, where the actor knocked on it.
He didn’t waited for a response before turning the knob and opening the door. He did not walk in; instead he stood in the archway and led Jemma by the hand through.
“This is where I leave you,” he said, bowing to her. He made another motion with his hand influencing her to continue walk into the new room. The door shut after she was in completely.
The room was lavishly decorated. Deep red velvet curtains lined the wall, creating a dramatic look similar to the Manderley Bar without using the light. An antique chandelier in the center supplied the light in this room. It did not offer much light, but gave off a yellow hue. The music from the bar could no longer be heard, but instead a record player in a corner spun a Billie Holiday song. Jemma recognized this song, All of Me. There was a door on the other side of the room, directly across from the one she stood in front of.
Underneath the chandelier was a table. At the far side of the table, sat a man, with a plate of food and a glass of wine in front of him. When she focused on him, he stood up.
“Forgive my manners, please come and join me for dinner,” he spoke. He had a Scottish accent, and Jemma was fairly certain it was real. This was supposed to be Macbeth, of course; so employing a few Scottish actors was always helpful.
Jemma crossed the room slowly. When she reached the table, the man passed by her and pulled her chair out for her. Jemma gathered the skirt of her dress and stood in front of the chair, where the man gently pushed it underneath her. When she sat down, he returned to his own chair.
“Wine,” he offered, picking up a bottle of red wine that had been chilling in a stand on the side of the table.
“Yes, please,” Jemma responded. She noticed she was breathing heavily. Being alone with this stranger was a thrill. The song had ended, and a crackling noise replaced the crooning voice of Billie Holiday. The man stood up again to pour wine into her glass. He watched the wine fall into the glass, but as he titled the bottle upwards to stem its flow he looked directly at her and let the stare linger. Jemma thought about his lovely blue eyes. He returned the bottle to its bucket of ice and crossed the room to the record player. He lifted needle off the album and replaced the record with a different one. Jemma recognized this song too, her grandmother used to play it as a child. Blue Moon by Jo Stafford.
Her lips remembered the words better then her mind did, and she found herself lip-syncing to it, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. It was a pleasant memory to have, and it released some of her nervousness. The man returned to the table and back to his seat. He picked up his glass and lifted it into the air.
“Cheers,” he said.
Jemma snapped out of her trance and raised her own glass to his.
“Cheers,” she echoed, bringing the glass to her lips to take a sip. It was an aromatic wine, slightly dry and most certainly expensive.
“What brings you to the McKittrick, all by yourself no less,” the man said, beginning conversation. He picked up his napkin and tucked it into the collar of his tuxedo. Jemma mirrored him, setting her own napkin on her lap.
Ms. Jo Stafford sung behind her, ‘you knew what I was there for, you heard me saying a praying for, and then there suddenly appeared before me, the only one my arms would ever hold.”
Jemma was lost in the song for a moment while trying to come up with a fitting answer.
“I heard there was someone waiting there for me,” she responded, she was trying to keep up her mysterious woman front. It was hard when the man in front of her was being paid to be that character. She hadn’t planned for this, but this was what Sleep No More was all about. It was an experience that involved encounters with strangers, and three hours of forgetting yourself as a person.
“You will find many guests at the McKittrick,” the man said, he cut a piece of his steak and brought the piece up to his mouth.
Jemma finally picked up her own utensils and cut into her own steak. She wasn’t hungry, but she wanted the full effect of this moment. After having a piece of steak, she washed it down with more of the wine.
The Jo Stafford song ended, and another Billie Holiday song churned out. It was Jemma’s favorite because it had been her grandfather’s. As a little girl she used to dance on his feet to this song. Jemma lightly tittered to herself, the memory overpowering herself with a happy memory. It made her miss her grandfather dearly.
The man noticed her light laughter.
“Enjoying this song?” he asked, he was very polite.
“Quite so, it’s my favorite,” she gushed.
Yet again the man stood up, placing his napkin to the side of his plate. He moved to the side of the table, and extended his hand out to her like the other actor had to bring her here.
“Would you like to dance, I cannot simply deny you the full pleasure of this song,” he mused.
The word pleasure sent a chill down her spine.
Jemma smiled up at him, and without vocally consenting, she accepted his offer with her hand, allowing him to tenderly lift her from her chair. He held her hand high in the air between them until they were far enough from the table. The man faced her, and pulled her in close with a hand on her lower back, but not low enough that would alarm her. She placed a hand on the side of his shoulder. And together they swayed in circles to the lulling hums of Billie Holliday’s voice. Somewhere in the middle of the song, Jemma rested her head on his shoulder, her nose nuzzling against his collar. His cologne smelled like an accord of gourmand and crushed leaves. A wave of coziness melted Jemma into the moment. Even if this moment was fabricated, she was lost in it.
The song ended without Jemma realizing. His fingers were drawing shapes on the curve of her back. It was back to the slight crackle and popping of a finished album. Neither of them had noticed, they kept swaying in their small circles. His hands had become warm in hers.
It wasn’t until the pin of the record player skipped and sent a shrill noise into the air, causing both of them to jump. Jemma could feel a heat in between their chests as they pulled away from their stance and she felt compelled to look at her feet rather then at him. Without saying a word he went back over to the record player.
Jemma lightly rubbed her eyes, careful not to smudge the make up she poured incessantly over Youtube tutorials to get right. She moved back over to the table and had some more wine to cool her down. The chill of the wine refreshed her senses. While he was still attending to the record player, she down the rest of her glass.
Just as he returned to the table, a ringing bell noise sounded somewhere outside the room.
“Oh, look’s like it is time for you to meet your guests at the McKittrick,” he said. He crossed to a different corner of the room and opened a drawer of a vanity she hadn’t noticed there before. It was swept up in the darkness. He turned back to her, a white mask held in his hands. The white mask would cover form her forehead to just above her top lip. The part of the nose extended outwards, to replicate the mask Plague Doctors war during the Renaissance.
He stretched the elastic over her head and lowered the mask on her face. She adjusted the band on the back so the mask wouldn’t slip, and tucked the band underneath her hair. She would not let it ruin the perfect pressed curls she had strained over to get right.
“Inside the package around your neck, are a map and a key. You are more then welcome to open it and read it anytime during your journey at the McKittrick Hotel. Following the instructions is up to you. And remember, fortune favors the bold,” he led her by hand to the door opposite of the room, the one she hadn’t come through.
He opened and entered through the door first and brought her into another hallway. A low, undulating noise resounded. It reminded her of the dying sound of thunder, but there was something mildly off putting about the noise. It was just a bit comfortable.
The hallway was almost completely empty, she could tell it was fairly long, despite there only being one light hanging from above. The man closed the door after Jemma, and brought her over to the only thing that occupied the hallway, a wheelchair.
“Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” he spoke softly. These were the opening lines to Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. He prompted her to sit on the wheelchair.
As he rolled her slowly down the hallway, he continued with the book’s opening paragraph:
“It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me,” his speech had changed from the demeanor it was when they were having dinner just moments ago. He maintained a breathless quality, and coupled with the unending rumbling sound it itself had an air of uncertainness to it.
He stopped rolling her down the hallway. He adjusted something on the wheelchair, and eased the back of the chair down, so Jemma was lying flat on her back, with her legs bent at the knees. She was staring up at the dark ceiling. He circled the chair around, and continued down the same way.
As he walked he picked up where he had left off in the opening lines of the novel, describing the drive up to Manderley, the mansion. Above Jemma, small lights popped on and off, illuminating a diorama. First the drive up to the mansion, the encroaching woods as described as surrounding it. And when he reached the part about the moonlight and clouds, the diorama shifted to a dreamlike depiction. He stopped again, when there was a break in the clouds in the diorama, it was Manderley again, but a light was on in one of its tiny windows.
“Time could not mar the perfect symmetry of those walls. Moonlight can play odd tricks upon the fancy, and suddenly it seemed to me that light came from the windows. And then a cloud came upon the moon and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face. The illusion went with it. I looked upon a desolate shell, with no whisper of a past about its staring walls,” he said as they were stopped.
He lifted the back of the wheelchair so Jemma was sitting up right again and could no longer see the diorama. He held out his hand for her, like so many times before during the evening. As Jemma lifted from the seat, he brought her hand up to his lips and tenderly kissed the back of her hand. She could feel his lips on her hand even after, as they left an imprint of wetness, whether it was from his oration or the wine.
He walked her to a wall, and backed her up against it. In this spot, it was completely dark, and she could no longer see that single light in the hallway as he stood directly in front of her.
He dropped her hand delicately, and placed a hand on the wall at either side of her head. Jemma’s chest rose and fell furiously. The heat had returned to Jemma, and this time was even more intense. Her knees weakened, and she clenched the wall with her palms to steady herself. She thought for a moment that she could sense the frantic pace of his heartbeat, but considered it was probably her own. She could feel heart rattle inside her ribcage, like it was trying to escape out of her chest.
He leaned in to a side of her face, his shoulder brushing up against the jutting nose of the mask. And then, he recited the last line of the opening paragraph:
“We can never go back to Manderley again.”
The line was chilling in and of itself. But his delivery lent a new dimension to it, part desperation, and part craving. He lingered with his lips near her ear for an prolonged moment. She could feel his hands lift from the wall next to her on either side. He moved to the side and opened a door that had been next to her the whole time without realizing.
Jemma lingered against the wall for another long moment. She peeled herself off slowly, first extending her hips, then her chest and shoulders. In the darkness she could barely see him, but a tiny shred of light poured in from the now open door, and she could tell he was in an open stance, beckoning her to go through another door. He said nothing more. As she passed him to go through the door, she stared at him, taking her time to exit. When she passed through, she was turned to him, and in the shadowy light continued to look at him deeply. He stayed in that moment, too, until he slowly shut the door, returning its appearance back to a wall. There was no handle on this side. He was right, she could not return to Manderley. At least not return to the bar from this door.
She could hear the scurrying of feet around the corner, and turned her attention away, putting the thoughts of this intriguing stranger aside. Around the corner she found a group of other white mask clad guests following an actor, the actors were the only ones note to wear a mask. She explored the McKittrick, following different characters and unraveling the mysteries to be found.
When she reached what she believed was the mid point, she stayed back in one of the rooms, which was empty as no character was in it. She took the package off her chest, and huddling to the dim light (there was not well lit room in this whole place), she found a small piece of paper, and a brass key.
On the paper, like the man had said was a map to a secret room. Jemma made her way to the room, getting lost a few times, but soon enough she found herself in front of a partially hid door. She wouldn’t have known unless she had been looking for it.
She slid the key into its lock, and opened the door.
She opened the door to… another hallway. The undulating noise had subsided, and it was quiet. She closed the door after her, and could tell it locked again. The hallway wasn’t as dark as the last one. In fact, it was lined with candles. Jemma walked, holding her gown off the floor so it wouldn’t catch on a candle. During her walk, she slipped the key back into the packet, and back around her neck. When she reached the end of the hallway, she came to a thick and dark curtain. She could hear music being played on the other side of it.
She parted the curtain, and there the man was again, lounging on one of those fainting couches.
“Hello again,” he said warmly.
“Hello,” she replied, trying to hide the smile forming on her face. She was happy to see him again.
“You may take your mask off here,” he informed. This was definitely different from how this experience worked.
Jemma did as she was told; she set the mask down on an end table next to her.
Fortune favors the bold, resounded in her head.
“Another drink?” the man was pouring another glass of wine and offered it to her.
She accepted, it was the same delicious win that was in the room they had been in together.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
Jemma forgot for a moment. The mood was so different in this room. It was warm and she could feel that heat rise in her again. She took a swig of the wine.
“Jemma,” she answered.
Felling bold, she asked him his. He didn’t respond right away either. He looked away form her, like it was knowledge he had to unlock for himself.
“At this point, I would be telling you my character’s name.”
His response was a total surprise. His voice had shifted from its airiness to add a mystification to his act. It was his normal voice.
“I get a feeling you weren’t supposed to say that,” she responded, feeling clever.
She drew herself closer to him, sitting next to him on the fainting couch. He was slightly hunched over, his elbows resting on his knees, and his head tucked down.
“That’s the beauty of this place, every interaction is unique, and I chose to go this route with you. My name, and it is my actual name, is Leo Fitz,” he said with his head still hung.
“Do you feel the heat?” Jemma said. With his act removed, she felt that she could speak freely, that she could have control of the situation.
Now his chest was the one steadily rising and falling. She discovered what it was like to have powers with words. She wanted more. He straightened his back and looked up at her, positioning his body to face her.
“Every night, someone different is brought into that room, and I don’t see them. I stick to procedure. And tonight, when you walked in, I felt something different in the air, like a soul had entered instead of a body,” he said, there was a light in his eyes.
Jemma scooted closer to him on the couch. Entranced by his words, by his realness.
“To speak frankly, I felt something in that room. I was sad to leave it, to leave you, because it would be my only chance to see you. I’m glad I’m not the only one to have recognized something special was happening even if I can’t describe how or why. Thank you for that experience,” she said.
He moved in closer on the couch as well, his knee brushing up against hers. His head was level with hers, and as they stared at each other, both of their chests rose and fell with an enthusiasm.
“Would it be wrong to ask you to kiss me?” Jemma blurted out. She didn’t want to get him in trouble at work, obviously.
“N-No,” he stated firmly.
With that confirmation, Jemma reacted on impulse, pulling herself in to him. The kiss turned the heat into a full inferno, and there was passion and intensity Jemma had never experienced before in a kiss. In the natural order of things, the pair had worked themselves into frenzy. While it was difficult to position her with the constrictions of the dress, Leo had taken care of her dilemma by returning the force of her kiss so that she was on her back.
Jemma trembled underneath him. The whole hour and a half she had been apart with him her longing had lied dormant. She craved a moment like this. It was surreal, she had never imagined something like this could have happened in her anticipation of the journey. And the fact that the feeling was mutual, that the intensity had gnawed on him as well so that they couldn’t ignore a breaking point meant something magical had occurred.
He had been the person she was looking for tonight, even if she hadn’t realized what that statement meant when she said it in the beginning of the night. It meant when he drew shapes on her back as they danced that he was fighting through the script, connecting with her and not just entertaining her. It meant when he kissed her hand, and lingered there for a moment that he had to fight, and again when he leaned in so close she could practically feel his erratic heartbeat.
When the kiss ended, the realization that she would have to return stifled the mood. She wanted him again and again, and the glow in his eyes echoed her sentiments. She didn’t have her phone on her or a pen to write down a number.
“Wait for me tonight, in the bar,” he said, as if he had read her mind.
She thought she would try to be smart and clever with her reply, bringing back up her woman of mystery persona.
“So we can return to Manderley.”