ROOM ONE OF the Apache Springs hotel had remained silent at the top of the staircase for the previous two hours since the beautiful Maria had left Uriah Moon sipping his coffee. The lusting female carefully left the confines of the hotels back rooms and then slipped passed the snoozing Hector. The clerk rested with his head upon the registration book as he balanced on his chair. His snores filled the foyer of the hotel as the minx-like Maria passed Hector and started across the wide foyer floor. She impishly blew the slumbering man a kiss.
As her bare feet navigated the distance to the carpeted steps, Maria glanced up at the landing and felt a fire inside her erupt. A bead of sweat trailed down her handsome features as she concentrated on the room door at the top of the stairs lustfully.
A couple of hours earlier she had been taken to paradise by the stranger she now knew as Uriah Moon. She had never experienced anything like that before and wanted more.
More of the same.
A lot more.
There was only one place where Maria knew she would rediscover that heavenly seduction and that was behind the door her dark long lashed eyes were fixed upon.
Maria had never believed it was possible to be so elated as she had been when the Uriah Moon had taken her. It had never been anything like that before to the raven haired beauty. It was as if she had never truly known a man previously.
Maria was determined to experience that elation again.
She knew that only Moon was capable of giving her that joy and like all wily females was determined that he would. Everyone else she had ever been intimate with faded into an empty meaningless nothing.
Only the mysterious Uriah Moon could transport her to that magical place.
A place where she had briefly forgotten everything else in her dull existence and just wallowed in the happiness he unwittingly gave her.
Maria wanted to return to the bliss she had experienced a couple of hours earlier. Uriah Moon had taken the young attractive Maria to somewhere that she had never imagined actually existed.
The mischievous young female tip-toed toward the carpeted steps. Maria held the hand rail and ascended silently toward the room door. Her heart pounded inside her tiny torso as she placed her naked feet on the landing and stared through the lamp light at the room door.
Maria blinked hard as she paused for a few moments at the top of the staircase. She took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm her emotions and not appear too desperate to the unmistakable Moon. Her breasts heaved within the confines of her sweat soaked blouse.
She swallowed hard and took the few steps toward the room door with its number painted upon its surface. Maria had a craving which burned deep inside her and could not be calmed as her thoughts continually returned to what had occurred a short time earlier.
The beautiful Maria licked her soft lips and vainly attempted to compose herself as she prepared to once again be transported to a place that only the mysterious Uriah Moon seemed capable of taking her to. The excitement swelled in almost transparent blouse as she tapped her knuckles gently on the doors paneled surface.
Maria raised herself up on her toes and looked down into the lobby at the snoring Hector. The sound of her knocking had not awoken the clerk but it had also not woken Uriah Moon from his slumbers either.
‘Wake up, you damn galoot,’ Maria whispered as she decided to hit the door harder. ‘I need me some loving real bad. Wake up and open this door.’
She knocked again and waited for what seemed a lifetime to her young pounding heart. Every sinew in her exquisite body ached in anticipation of the delights that awaited her beyond the door. Maria wanted to call Moon’s name out loudly but was afraid she might stir the slumbering Hector from his dreams. She knew the clerk was jealous of anyone who might rival him and was naïve enough to think he stood a chance against anyone like Uriah Moon.
Frustrated, Maria looked down at the doorknob.
Her small hand gripped it and turned it carefully. To her surprise, the door was unlocked. It moved inward. She entered into the lamp lit room and glanced to her side at the bed.
A bed which was still crumpled in evidence of the activity she and Uriah Moon had subjected it to a short time earlier. A coy smile came to her tanned features.
Then her smile evaporated when she saw that Moon was not in the bed at all and the disturbed sheets were merely how they had left them.
Where was he?
Her mind raced.
‘Moon?’ Maria softly called out as she searched the small confines of the room for the mysterious stranger. No matter how hard she searched, she could find a trace of the vigilante.
Somehow Uriah Moon was not within the confines of the hotel room. Her mind found it hard to absorb the fact that the silver haired stranger was not in the room. She knew that Moon had not left the hotel via its double doors and if he had attempted to do so, she would have either seen or heard him.
‘Where are you?’ Maria’s voice croaked emotionally.
Yet the simple fact was that Moon was not anywhere to be found. Maria swung around as her handsome eyes studied every secret corner of the room but it was to no avail. ‘Where in tarnation is that varmint?’
Then almost by accident she spotted the lace drapes moving gently as the gentle breeze entered the confines of the room.
Her eyebrows raised.
Maria marched toward the lace drapes, pulled them away from the sash window and then noticed that the window had been left slightly ajar.
Air blew into the room from the gap at its base.
She frowned and stared at the slightly open window for a few moments and then began to realize that Moon must have left by this route. He had left just enough room at the base of the window so it could be opened again on his return.
Maria rested her hands on her shapely hips and frowned at the sight of the slightly ajar window. Then she noticed drops of rain starting to pepper the boards of the porch outside the room window.
She momentarily smiled.
‘I hope you gets good and wet, Moon,’ she said. ‘That’ll teach you for sneaking out on me.’
The smile did not last long though. Soon she started to wonder again at why the stranger had decided to use the window and not the staircase to leave the Apache Springs hotel. It made little sense to the beautiful female.
Why had he left the hotel at all?
Why by the window?
‘That damn critter just don’t make any sense like regular folks,’ she exhaled loudly as she turned away from the window as rain started to tap across its window glass. Then thoughts about Moon’s prowess swelled up in her. ‘But he sure knows how to pleasure a gal.’
Her mind was awash with so many questions but she could not think of any answers which would answer any of them. Uriah Moon remained a mystery to her.
The beautiful face of Maria could not hide her disappointment as she folded her arms and sighed heavily over and over. Her small hands brushed her tears away as she walked to the food tray on the dresser. She lifted the napkin and noticed the stew had been eaten and the coffee pot was drained of every last drop of its black contents.
Maria picked the tray up and walked to the still open door as even more questions flashed through her innocent mind. As she left the room and closed the door behind her flowing skirt, it occurred to her that perhaps she had not satisfied the stranger called Moon.
Then a chilling notion came to her.
One which worried her.
He might have satisfied her completely but had she done the same for him? Moon might not have mentioned it but maybe she had not been everything he desired.
Had she disappointed him?
The thought clawed at her very soul.
Had Uriah Moon gone looking for more female company in the saloons which still filled the town with their haunting and alluring music. Had he gone in search for a female who knew everything there was to know about simple love making?
Maria was fully aware that the numerous bargirls and whores in Apache Springs were far more experienced in the unwritten laws of seduction than she was.
More tears tailed down her handsome face and dripped their salty liquid on her already damp blouse. The trouble with a vivid imagination has always been that it can take simple thoughts and create untold volumes of monsters where none actually exist.
With tray in hand, Maria descended effortlessly down toward the lobby. As she did so Hector looked up from the ledger and smiled at her as she carried the tray back toward the kitchen.
He smiled.
‘Could you rustle up a cup of coffee for me, Maria?’ he asked as he straightened up on his chair and rubbed his eyes in a bid to rid them of the sleep which filled his lashes. ‘I need something to keep me awake.’
A smile returned to her face. ‘I’ll put a fresh pot on the stove, Hector. I could do with a cup of coffee myself.’
As she glided passed him he noticed the tears on her cheeks sparkling in the lamp light. He looked concerned.
‘You bin crying, honey?’ he asked.
Maria shook her head. ‘Nope. I just got dust in my eye.’