LURKING IN THE DARK

"Collins! It's time to spin the wheel!" Sarah echoed, rubbing her two hands together in excitement and grinning from ear to ear. The thought of leaving Central America, where they currently reside, for a vacation in one of the many places their wheel will choose for them, probably a fun place if they are lucky, was just overwhelming for the two lovebirds. Collins soon came out to meet Sarah, with a cake he had just finished baking. "You must be dying from excitement, honey." Collins chuckled, looking at his wife's face. "Look at you!" He added, giggling. "What is that?" Sarah, with a timid yet flirty tone, replied, looking at her husband curiously. "You are all red already." He said, laughing at his wife, who was looking almost all red. "You are no different, though." Sarah said, half smiling, while punching her husband with her small fist playfully. "The heat from the kitchen while I was baking the cake must have turned me pink. That's if you are even saying the truth." He said, slightly tilting to the left to check himself in the small mirror that was hung on the wall close to where he was standing. "Anyway, sorry for taking a lot of your time. I mean... Our time actually! We are in this together." He said, while they both laughed at the statement. " Babe, I can't seem to ignore its fluffy appearance. The smell alone has literally hooked my nose right now. Should we cut the cake first and take a bite before we spin the wheel or..." "Calm babe! We spin the wheel to know where our new adventure is going to happen, and then we eat the cake to celebrate. How does that sound?" Sarah, looking at Collins with a pouted mouth, replied. "Okay." Collins nudged her playfully while raising his two hands in surrender. "We are spinning the wheel then!" Carrying her to where their adventure-presiding-judge of a wheel is, Collins made contact with Sarah's ear from behind and mouthed "Do the honor, darling." "It is my pleasure to..." They both gasped in shock, watching the wheel spin really fast. "Gravy! " Collins screamed and then started to laugh out loud. Sarah, who was excited a minute ago, just stood at a spot, uncertain of how to feel while looking in the direction where their cat, who had earlier jumped on the wheel, thereby spinning it, was, majestically walking around and later settling on the soft cushion chair at the center of their room. At the sound of a click, they all turned to look at the wheel, including the cat who stopped on its track. There and then, the faces of the couple slowly became serious! "What is this place?" Sarah asked aloud while moving close to the wheel to see it clearly. "Wow, Collins!" She screamed with excitement. "We are going to Cape Town." She shouted while dancing and jumping round and round the wheel, while looking at her husband at intervals with a broad smile. "Gravy!" She shouted from a distance and, moving closer, carried their white-colored cat with small patches of brown on his nose, back, and ears. "You'd like to explore Cape Town, yeah?! " She asked Gravy while caressing his nose. "You want to take the cat with us, Sarah?" Collins asked with a half-smile, half-creased face. "Yeah, Collins, I want Gravy to go with us on this beautiful trip. After all, he was the one that spun the wheel." She replied, smiling at her husband, who seemed to have surrendered the little disapproval he had in his head. "Baby, he won't trouble us. I will make sure of that." She said, walking towards him and, on coming close, started to rub his chest and flirting with him like some high school girls that have been granted little freedom to unleash their wildest s****l desires. "Mmmm!" Collins murmured, his voice low and husky. "You naughty man!" Sarah said, smiling seductively at Collins while at the same time stroking his nose. "Oh girl, you are asking for it, yeah? ... Come here." Collins groaned, lifting Sarah up and walking towards their bed. "Oops!" They both chorused. "Sorry, I fell the cake down." Sarah muttered with small chuckles. "No problem, honey. It wasn't you who laid the cake down there anyway. I won't punish you for that." He replied seductively, pressing his face into her neck. "Your beautiful feet probably just want us to have it another way." He said, looking down at his wife's face and kissing her softly. "Okayyy.. Yeah, just that you took so much time and effort to make that cake so we could celebrate. I..." "Sheesh! You are talking too much, Sarah. Here..." Collins dropped Sarah off his shoulders and onto the bed while tearing his shirt off. "We can celebrate this way too, you know." He whispered to her and started to bend forward, reaching for her mouth, her nose touching his. "Let's leave gravy with the cake on the floor, Sweetheart." He said, turning off their bedside light and leaving the room pitch black. ***************************************************** "What a mess!" Sarah whispered to herself, struggling to fully sit herself up. After what seemed like five seconds of her looking around, she let out a muffled scream. "Ohhh, gravy!" She couldn't believe the mess gravy had created while she was having a swell time with her husband the night before. Thoughts of what happened the night before slowly replaced the frown on her face with a huge smile, and her cheeks instantly turned pink. "You enjoyed it, yeah?" Collins, who had been looking at her from where he was lying, said, jolting Sarah back to reality. "You are just being silly, Collins." Sarah replied, smiling sheepishly while at the same time using her hands to make her scattered hair cover her face. "Oh, now you are shy?" Collins asked, laughing at his wife. Snapping out of her veil, her hair in this case, Sarah replied sharply. " Now why should I be? Uhh? " She said, rolling her eyes at her husband in a way of saying, Duh! "You know you are, dear. After all the... come on baby you kept screaming last night." "Please stop!" Sarah, who was now flushed cherry-pink and way beyond embarrassed and shy, whispered to her husband. Mimicking her, Collins continued "Come on, Col… yeah." Sarah, who could not take it anymore, pounced on her husband with a pillow in her hand, smacking it on him. Laughing really hard, Collins rolled both of them over to the ground. "Okay, stop." Collins ordered his wife, while trying to catch his breath. Seconds after, he said. "But seriously, you want more, yeah? More of me." "Stop being silly." She replied. Looking around one more time, she said. "Gravy has really caused a huge mess here with the cake, Collins." "He really has." Collins replied, still staring at his wife like he had found his prey. "What? What's with the stare?" Sarah questioned her husband, trying so hard not to let him see her blushing. "Should we cause a bigger mess than gravy?" Collins asked his wife with a flirting look. "What bigger mess?" Sarah asked, looking the other way, like she didn't understand her husband. "You know, so you could scream." "Stop it, Collins." Sarah replied, jumping off his side and then to the bed, attempting to crawl to the other side. "See, you really want it, don't you? You wouldn't have climbed that bed if you didn't want it." He said, laughing. "Don't worry, I got your code. I know you are shy, so you can't tell me directly, but I get you." He said in low tones, almost like a whisper, while pouncing on the bed and drawing his wife back to the center. "No, Col.. stop!" She screamed, laughing alongside her husband, who was now tickling her so much that she couldn't control herself from laughing out loud. Their laughter echoed through their one-bedroom apartment in the city of Managua. ************************************************ "Yes, mama, yes. We plan on staying there for a week." Sarah replied to her mother at the other end of the call while making sure they had hot tea to drink before going to get her bags from the store. "Collins, have you booked the flight for 6 p.m. tomorrow?" Sarah shouted across to her husband from their kitchen while slightly taking her phone away from her mouth. "Yeah, I have done that since yesterday, Sarah." Collins replied, looking back at his wife. "And what about the cat?" "The Cat?" Collins replied, looking surprised. "You are seriously taking the cat?" "Yes, Collins, we discussed that yesterday. Sorry, mama, I am with you." Sarah said, adjusting her phone properly while her voice continued to radiate with excitement as she continued to talk to her mother about the good stories she had heard about Cape Town and the fact that this was going to be her second time going to Africa, even though, in reality, she is of African descent. "Gravy, you really want to go?" Collins asked, facing the cat, who in turn let out a "meow" sound, walking away. "Of course you do." Collins replied with a sarcastic look on his face. For the next two hours, Collins and Sarah had a not-so relaxing time packing their stuff. By the time they were done, they were beyond exhausted and had to rest a little before they moved to the hotel they had booked to stay at the night before finally traveling to Cape Town.