Doctored Vows - Chapter 8

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Zoya asks as we exit the plane on the heels of the first-class passengers who glowered and snickered at me when I made my way to my seat after the pilot announced we were about to begin the descent. I would have never left the washroom if given the choice, but my options were limited.

“You’ve been quiet.” She leans into my side and lowers her voice. “I didn’t snore, did I?”

“No.” I gulp before correcting, “I don’t think.”

I haven’t told her about what happened in the washroom. I’m clueless about how it went from exhilarating to disastrous in seconds, so how can I explain it to anyone else?

She probably wouldn’t believe me anyway. My cheeks are still flushed, my panties are still saturated, and lust is still beaming from my eyes.

Not even the flight attendant believed my mumbled excuse that I’d been in the washroom for so long because I was cleaning Maksim’s shirt as initially planned.

It was wet from a soda water sponge bath and folded over my arm, but she still tsked me.

Her scorn took me back to my pre-med days and how the head professor was harder on me than everyone else.

I thought it was because he wanted me to succeed, but I learned otherwise when my father was convicted to life behind bars.

His constant ridicule almost had me leaving medical school. I only stayed because Zoya got him off my back.

Married men will do anything for their wives not to find out that they’re adulterers.

I’m drawn from sordid memories when the woman who will go to hell and back for me suddenly stops walking.

After cocking her brow, Zoya fans her hands across her tiny waist. “Why do you smell like a hot hunk of a man with too much testosterone?” A second after her eyes lower to my neck, her mouth gapes like a fish out of water.

“And what caused that red mark on your neck? Neither it nor that expensive aftershave I’m smelling were present when we boarded.”

“Everyone on our flight now smells like a hunky man. It is the airline’s preferred scent.” I’m only good for one lie. It is all downhill after that. “And what mark? My neck feels fine. It isn’t the slightest bit achy.”

When I stupidly shoot my hand up to rub the stubble burn Maksim’s beard left, Zoya’s mouth no longer hangs open. It hits the floor.

“You’re the woman they were talking about in first class! You stamped your mile-high card in the bathroom during the flight. Who was it?” She twirls to face the people exiting the plane with us, making a spectacle of herself. “Which one of you horny fuckers claimed my BFF’s airplane virginity?”

“I’m so sorry,” I apologize to the men close enough to hear her before I clamp my hand over her mouth like she did mine earlier and drag her toward the baggage carousel. Once we’re at a safe distance from prying eyes, I say, “I didn’t lose my airplane virginity.”

When her nostrils flare like she is dying to call me out as a liar, I add quickly, “He would have had to fuck me for that to happen, and he didn’t. He left me hanging.” My next words are barely whispers. “I didn’t even get to orgasm.”

Her nostrils flare for an entirely different reason now.

She is disgusted.

Mercifully, she is more subdued when confused by the actions of the opposite sex.

After warning her that I know how to dismantle her voice box permanently, I slowly lower my hand from her mouth.

It takes her a moment to find her bases, but her voice is more respectable once she does. “One, who the hell would walk away from that?”

While whistling like a construction worker on a building site, she glides her hand up and down my body. “And two, was penetration involved? Because if something was poked, it could be classed as virginity popping.”

She pays my gaped mouth and wide eyes no attention. “Remember Alekstar Quinovic? He had that issue where down there didn’t work unless he was being poked in his…” She pulls a face I can read with no issues, and it has the tension tightening my shoulders easing a smidge.

“He didn’t class that as losing his virginity, but when it was multiple fingers and a handful of kitchen gadgets, my opinion on virginity popping changed.”

Since she looks settled for a long conversation on a card she stamped far too young, I wrap my arm around her shoulders and escort her toward the luggage carousel our fellow passengers are surrounding.

It is late—or early depending on whether you’re a sun chaser—and I’m more than eager to get out of the clothes I’ve been wearing for almost twenty-four hours and wash off the funk of a long flight.

During the short trek, Zoya continues reminding me of the horrifying men she’s met in her jam-packed twenty-eight years. Her trip down memory lane ends when we reach the baggage carousel assigned by the airline.

“What the…” She storms away from me with the determination of a momma bear about to protect her cubs.

Her possessions are the only thing of value she has, so to see her clothing shredded and strewn across the conveyor belt of the carousel is devastating for her.

“Someone is about to get a new asshole… and don’t go looking at her.” She points to the lady behind the lost baggage claim desk. “Because she’s sick of cleaning up your guys’ mess just like the rest of us.”

I’ve never seen Zoya so quiet. Anyone would swear the 3,800-dollar compensation check she got for her ruined luggage was a million dollars. She wouldn’t have gotten a single cent if our tickets hadn’t been upgraded, but since she was first-class, she got the max and is tickled pink.

“Imagine how many margaritas this will buy.” She grips my arm as her eyes widen. “Or maybe I could book us a private poolside cabana. Then you’d have no excuse not to come swimming with me.”

“Cabanas don’t offer shelter from the sun’s harsh rays in the pool.”

She slaps my arm before she returns to daydreaming about the luxurious life she could live with her small windfall. I’m not as appreciative of the silence as you’d think. It gives my head too much time to wander back to my exchange with Maksim in the washroom and the possible cause of his rejection.

Twenty minutes of deliberation only awards me more confusion.

I am completely lost as to where his anger stems, and out of time to deliberate further.

We’ve finally arrived at our hotel.

“Wow. This place looks nicer than the online brochures.” Still accustomed to tipping from spending her formative years in the American schooling system, Zoya hands the driver a few low-domination bills from her purse before slipping out the back of his cab.

“It doesn’t even look like the same hotel,” I say after joining her on the footpath outside the massive steel-and-glass architectural structure. “Are you sure you said the right address? Your Russian is better than mine, but maybe you fudged an important detail.”

“I did no such thing.” She barges me away from her before I can search for the reservation she printed out this morning, then moseys into the elaborate foyer.

We added “Doctor” to my name during the booking process, hopeful it might award us an upgrade, but I doubt we will need it here. This place is so stylish. We stand out like a sore thumb in scrubs, shorts, and midriff T-shirts.

Zoya ribs me with her elbow halfway across the glistening marble floor that stretches from one side of the resort-like hotel to the next. “Act like we belong so we don’t get kicked out.”

My reply is barely a whisper. “They can’t kick us out if we’re guests.”

Although I’m telling her no, I straighten my spine, roll back my shoulders, and tilt my nose.

We look ridiculous, but the check-in clerk acts oblivious. “Welcome to Signiel. How can I help you?”

“We’re checking in,” I reply when Zoya fails to acknowledge she was addressed. She’s frozen at my side, gasping like a fish out of water.

“Wonderful. What name is on the booking?”

I remove the reservation Zoya pulled out of her pocket during our trek across the elegant foyer before handing it to the clerk. “Nikita Hoffman. Doctor Nikita Hoffman.”

“Welcome, Dr. Hoffman.” The clerk dips her head in greeting before punching my name into the computer.

I hold my breath, convinced we are seconds from being asked to leave.

My worry isn’t warranted.

After a handful of taps, the clerk says, “We have you as our guest for three nights. Is that correct?”

“Yes. We leave Sunday.”

“Wonderful.” She bounces her eyes between a still-frozen Zoya and me. “How many keycards would you like for your room?”

“Two, please,” I reply after ribbing Zoya, soundlessly requesting that she get with the program. She looks like she’s seen a ghost. Her cheeks are as white as my legs, and her pupils are massive. “Does this hotel offer a buffet breakfast?”

When the clerk nods, I slip her a twenty with the hope it will get us on the buffet list for free.

She peers down at the crinkled note before returning her eyes to my face. “That isn’t necessary.” My disappointment doesn’t linger for long. “Breakfast is included with your reservation.”

With Zoya back on planet Earth, she taps the low-five I’m holding out for her. With breakfast included, we won’t need to purchase hardly any meals during our mini getaway.

Smuggled muffins and yogurt aren’t a feast fit for a king, but they’ll get us through the day with only the slightest grumbles from our stomachs.

“The elevators are left of the bar.” The clerk slips two keycards into a mini envelope before handing it to me. “You will need to scan your card to select your floor.” Her eyes once again bounce between Zoya and me. “If you need anything during your stay, my cell number is on the back of your keycard.”

Surprise resonates in my tone. “Great. Thank you.”

She smiles before asking if we need a bellhop to assist with our luggage.

“No. This is it.” I gesture to my carry-on and Zoya’s luggage, now housed in a garbage bag. “This is all we have.”

The clerk hides her grimace well, but I don’t need to see it to know of its arrival.

Eager to leave before we get any more looks of pity, I slip the keycard envelope into my pocket before helming our walk to the elevators.

The further we walk, the more fraudulent I feel. This place is impressive, with vaulted ceilings, chandeliers, and the aroma of wealth.

I hope one day to match the level of sophistication in this room, but I don’t know if I will ever become accustomed to it. I didn’t lie when I hinted to Maksim that I want my heart to be my only greedy organ.

“Shit,” I mumble under my breath when a co-rider in the packed elevator asks what floor we need. She is closest to the panel, so she’s hogging it like it’s a slice of my grandmother’s famous ptichye moloko. “I didn’t check the room number the clerk wrote down.”

“The ninetieth floor,” announces a voice at the back before he leans over my shoulder to scan his room card and select the button at the top of many.

Even if I hadn’t recognized his commanding rumble, there’s no way I could mistake his scent—even more so since his cologne is now mixed with my perfume.

I’m proud that I make it to floor thirty-three before my curiosity gets the better of me.

I only peer back at Maksim for a second, but my gawk is long enough to announce he’s replaced the button-up shirt I stuffed on top of my clothes a second before they commenced deboarding the plane.

He must travel with a selection of shirts, because this is the third one he’s donned in less than twenty-four hours.

With the turmoil in Maksim’s eyes as strong as it was in the seconds prior to him leaving me in the washroom, I return my focus front and center.

Not even a nanosecond later, Zoya leans into my side and whispers, “He wants to fuck you.” She’s quiet, but not enough for a lady with a hearing aid and an apparent disdain for personal space.

The hotel guest who popped my bubble within a second of entering the elevator coughs to demand our attention before she hits us with a cranky glare.

Over narrow-minded people, I crank my neck to Zoya and say, “He did.” I don’t care that we have eavesdroppers. I’m too confused to continue going at it alone. I need help, and who better to get that from than my best friend? “But he doesn’t seem interested anymore.”

“Because…?” Zoya leaves her question open for me to finish on her behalf.

“Because…” I’m clueless. Maksim announced at the start of our exchange that he used my face as inspiration while masturbating the past two weeks, but then he left me on the edge of orgasmic bliss instead of helping me over it. “Because he’s a… patient’s son?” My confusion makes the last half of my reply sound like a question.

I’m not the only one bewildered. Zoya looks constipated as she tries to follow the minimal crumbs I’m laying out. “And that matters how?”

“Because he… I…”

I’m saved from portraying a brain-dead idiot by a likely source.

We are here for her bachelorette party.

“Zoya?” Zoya’s younger sister, Aleena, forms her mouth into an O as tears flood her bloodshot eyes. “You came?” When strands of platinum-blonde hair bounce in the aftermath of Zoya’s nod, Aleena squeals so loud it could shatter glass, before repeating, “You came!”

When she bounds into the elevator with her giggling and bouncing bridesmaids in tow, I’m no longer worried about homicide being cited on my death certificate as it was my mother’s.

Death in a plunging elevator, though. That is now at the top of my list.

And perhaps the narrowed glare of a patient’s unappreciative son.