Chapter 1

“How much did you pay for this Anna? There’s no way we could have afforded this.”

Matt was the first to walk in and the moment he swung the door open his jaw dropped. Glass walls on the opposite end of the room framed a covered but outdoor inset infinity pool flanked by cocktail tables and plants, and beyond that the beach. Inside the room, the floor was perfectly tiled and smooth granite. In the middle of the front of the room were two large leather couches and between them around a mid-century modern wooden coffee table. Beyond the front seating area were a small kitchen and a dining table. A slightly tinted glass wall to the right revealed the bedroom. Around the corner of that wall was a hallway and another darkly tinted room; it looked like that was a large shower and the bathroom.

“Hey let me through,” said Anna, trying to peer over Matt’s tall, broad frame. He stepped forward, towing wheeled luggage into the room.

“Holy shit,” gasped Anna as she walked in. “I swear Matt, it was $80 a night. I mean, $110 after those damn Airbnb fees. But yeah. $80 a night.”

“How is that possible,” asked Matt, as he walked further into the room and peered down the hallway. To the right was an entryway to the bedroom and to the left was the massive bathroom, and down the small, wide hall was a well-lit seating area with a sliding door in the wall. None of the rooms had any doors.

“I don’t know,” replied Anna. “I just ... came across it on Airbnb. It didn’t have any reviews. Maybe that’s why? It’s a new property?”

“That must be it. This place must cost ... millions. Literal millions. I’m afraid to leave fingerprints.”

Matt and Anna had used all their air miles getting here, and the only way they could have afforded the week-long getaway was snagging a place this cheap. Everywhere else on the island was at least $600 a night. The listing for this place even said that breakfast was provided.

Matt shook his head in disbelief.

In an uncharacteristically sudden move, Anna dropped her luggage and leaped into Matt, nearly knocking him over. “Matt, this is perfect,” she said, gazing up at him with a huge smile. Matt shrugged off a bit of surprise and smiled back. “Yeah,” he agreed. He looked up, admiring the place again. “This is exactly what we needed.” Matt liked feeling the weight of Anna’s body pushing into him. They’d been working so hard back home, him on his career and she on her post-grad degree, that he honestly could not remember the last time they’d even, well, hugged. Looking down at her Matt felt a flush rush through his body. He felt Anna’s breasts pushing into his torso. Were Anna’s nipples hard? It felt like it. His dick responded with an instinctive twitch when she hugged him tighter for a second. Then she pushed herself away, he relaxed a bit, and she wandered into the hallway towards the opposite wall, the only wall with an actual door. It was a sliding door, closed, and after she tugged at it, apparently locked.

“Oh, there’s a note,” she said, pulling a post-it note off the door. Matt picked up the luggage and walked it into the bedroom.

“What’s it say,” he called looking for a place to stow the luggage. The bed was set against another glass wall, this one tinted so dark it looked brown, matching the hardwood cedar of the wood and the furniture. A dresser was set against the far wall, below the window.

Anna stepped into the room and leaned against the thick glass doorway frame. “It says, ‘Sorry we couldn’t meet you today but we’re indisposed until tomorrow. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. We made the smoothies this morning, just for you. There is a list of safe, fun clubs on the kitchen table. We’re so excited you’re here. Make yourselves at home and we will see you tomorrow. XOXO, Karen.’ That’s how she spelled it out. XOXO. So cute. Shall we try the smoothie? I’m starved.”

“Sure,” Matt said as he moved clothes from their luggage into the dresser. Unlike the inside two darker walls, the wall facing the entrance, away from the beach, was a soft pleasant white. In the middle of the wall was a large window which looked out onto the building’s awning and the city beyond. He admired the view for a second, listening to Anna open the fridge and pour out smoothies. “It’s kinda weird,” he said, turning around, “so many glass walls. And no door.” He walked out of the room.

Anna was walking towards him. God, she looked good. She was just wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but the jeans were tight, showing off her calves and thick ass. Her shirt was a v-neck and Matt couldn’t help but stare at her cleavage, the freckled nape of her neck. Her breasts bounced in their bra as she walked toward him with a glass of blue smoothie in each hand. Was she literally walking with more of a bounce in her step? And why was Matt just now, for the first time, noticing how damn good she looked? They’d been at the airport and flying all day.

Anna handed him a glass of what looked like a blueberry smoothie. “Bottoms up, handsome,” she said as she clicked her glass to his. “I think it’s blueberry.” And before Matt could get a word in, Anna had raised the glass to her lips downed the whole smoothie at once. Matt must’ve looked shocked. “No brain freeze. Mmm, this stuff was good,” she said, licking the blue from her red lips. “I’m going to check out the porch. You mind unpacking the rest of the clothes, honey?”

Handsome? Honey? Matt couldn’t think of a time when he’d ever heard Anna use those words. Who was she, Matt smiled as he nodded to her and walked back into the bedroom. Anna usually was restrained, precise, scientific; literally a scientist. She had been working so hard on her project, a study of the positive effects of cultivated bacteria in slow down the aging process, that this vacation was just what she needed. It had come at just the right time.

Matt looked at the blue smoothie, shrugged, risked the brain freeze, and downed the whole thing like Anna had. It was cold and had a strange taste: at first like blueberry but then something bitter and more like cocoa, or even chalk, followed by a bit of a sting as it went down. Did it have liquor in it? He wasn’t sure. Or maybe that was a kind of sharp anise taste? Matt waited a moment, ready to wince. But no brain freeze.

And the smoothie tasted good - really good. As in, one of the best smoothies he’d ever had. It had been odd tasting at first, but now that it settled, Matt really liked the taste. Even though it was cold, he felt his body warm up. And even though he’d just downed the whole thing barely a minute ago, his body felt looser, a bit slower. There had to be some liquor in there. He sniffed the empty glass. Smelled ... blue. He put the glass down on the dresser and picked up some more clothes and put them in the drawer, and then glanced back towards the back deck. Anna was laying down on a deck chair in the sun.

Laying down. That sounded like a good idea. From the bedroom, Matt stole one more look at Anna on the porch. The sounds of the ocean drifted in from the open sliding patio doors. Anna’s hands were raised over her eyes. Even from across the apartment he could see down her t-shirt, her breasts pushing up from her body, barely constrained by her modest sports bra. His cock twitched again. Matt shook it off, there’d be plenty of time for that, and then glanced at his watch, which he’d adjusted to local time as soon as they’d landed. 4:30pm. He looked down at the king-size bed. The bed’s expensive sheets and blankets and big pillows called to him. Just a quick nap. 30 minutes tops.

The flight and the connections had been so hectic. And with the in-flight wifi working, he’d used the flight time to squeeze out of a few work emails instead of sleeping. Yea, he was pretty tired. A quick nap would let him enjoy the evening more, and Anna would surely be back inside in a minute to wake him up. He laid down on top of the blankets. Damn this bed felt good. He smacked his lips, tasting the blueberry and the bitterness ... just... 30 minutes.

What was this.

It ... it felt like someone with very big hands was pinching Matt’s head between two fingers, then releasing it for a second, and then doing it again. Over and over. Matt tried to open his eyes. His face was pushed down into some pillows, and all he could feel was a thump, thump, thump coming from inside his head and echoing into the rest of his body like a jackhammer in a parking lot. He let out a pitiful moan. Holy shit did he have a hangover. Was this a hangover? This was something more.

Where was he? Was it Monday? Did he need to get into the office? He ordered his brain to move his hand and felt for Anna. No Anna. Where was Anna? He opened his eyes and let a let a little light in. It hurt. He moaned again and turned back into the pillows.

He breathed in, trying to alternate from the thumping in his head.

Alright. He’d have to get up. He took a deep breath and pushed himself up off the bed, and then before he could tell it was happening he fell off the bed and onto granite floor. The impact hit with the same timing as whatever was banging on the inside of his brain and the sharp cold pain of the floor smacked through his body.

“Oh God,” he said. His whole body hurt. He took a second, the pain oscillating from one side of his body to the other, but it was dark down here too. “Oh boy.”

His whole body was also cold.

Wait, why was it cold? Where were his clothes? Was he naked? Yes, his whole body hurt and shivered. And he was naked.

He took in another breath and pushed himself off the floor to kneel at the bed. Anna was on the opposite side of the huge bed, naked, on her back, her arms and legs everywhere, her body contorted like she’d walked in and collapsed on the bed. Or, he thought for a second, like she been tossed there. What a strange thing to think, tossed. He looked more closely, squinting to block out the light. Anna’s breasts heaved heavily with her heavy breaths, drooping a little groundwards and billowing up against a pillow. Matt stared at her tiny nipples, licking his dry lips, and looked down to see if he could see her pussy, but no, it was lost in the jungle of blankets and pillows.

His head banged against itself, reminding him that he needed to a) get dressed, b) find some Advil, c) figure out what the hell was going on.

He stood up. Gravity pulled him downwards and he stumbled a bit. Ok. Where were his clothes from before the nap. Oh, yes the nap. That’s what he’d taken. He’d drank the smoothie, put some clothes away, then taken a nap. Anna was on the porch. Her tits pushing upwards. Wait what? Oh and the sound of the ocean.

They must have been so tired from flying. THis must have been one of those jet lag two hour naps. But why the headache? He opened a drawer and put on some boxer briefs, closed the drawer, and then stumbled around the bed. He squinted and looked through the tinted black glass wall. Someone, a woman, was doing something in the kitchen. He refocused his eyes. There were fingerprints on this side of the glass wall. Where those his fingerprints? There was more on the glass wall, the outline of a body, with some kind of dripped stains coming down onto the glass. The same fluid had, apparently, dolloped onto the floor too.

It also smelled strange in here. Like sweat. And ... something else.

Matt cringed. What the fuck had happened during his nap? He stumbled out of the room and into the hallway. “Hello?” he asked, his voice croaking. The light was so goddamn bright from the ocean. The sun was high in the sky.

The woman at the kitchen counter said something, but Matt didn’t hear her. He was too busy looking. She was tall, with long dark black hair that was pulled back with a headband and cascaded downwards halfway down her back. She was wearing a fashionable white, knitted, see-thru beach cover-up that stretched the length of her body, itself lending even more a sense of curvaceousness. Underneath the cover-up was, of course, her ass, covered by a strikingly bright red one-piece that crawled up the middle of her butt cheeks and reached around her thighs. When she turned around, Matt almost gasped.