#~tickles

                            Aside from the surly concierge, Johnny’s amble across the grand motel’s entryway was eerily lonely and achingly still. Each rigid footfall rippled an echo between the muted columns, bouncing the sound back at him, forcing his head to jerk suspiciously over his shoulder. Expecting, hoping, for someone.

Yet, that was merely his paranoia haunting him like a shadow, and that was all. He shuffled away, eager to be free of the feeling of suffocating loneliness, and desperate, necessary isolation.

At the bar he found reason to halt, head curiously tilted as he studied the back of a stranger already occupying one of the bar stools. There was no one else. He thought that both a blessing and a curse — he had been dreaming of a woman, any woman, since he had found himself at the hotel; had there been one here… well, the stimulant in his veins might have edged him over a particular line he hadn’t dare cross just yet. This was better; safer.