The Bunny and the Bellhop

I finished my shift at nine and hung my apron on the hook by the kitchen door. My feet hurt. Six hours of carrying plates up and down the dining room at the lodge will do that to you, especially on a Saturday when the snow is good and everybody decides to celebrate at once.

I cut through the bar on my way to the staff hallway, and that's when I saw him. The quiet guy at the end of the counter. He'd been in the lodge three days and I'd waited on him twice. He ate alone, read on his phone, tipped fine, said thank you. Ethan, I think the reservation book said. Young, maybe twenty-four, glasses, shoulders like someone who sits at a desk all day.

He had a beer in front of him that was mostly empty and he was staring at the fireplace like it owed him money.

"Last call is at eleven," I said, mostly to be friendly. "In case you were planning a long night."

"Oh. Well. I wasn't sure!" He turned and looked at me like he'd forgotten waitresses were people. "I'm on vacation. I keep forgetting bars close at all."

"Where are you supposed to be right now, if the bar was open?"

"Home. Working, probably." He said it like a confession. "I took this week off and I don't know what to do with my hands."

I laughed and told him that was the saddest thing I'd heard all week, and he actually smiled. Then Marta waved me over to help restock the silverware drawer and I had to go, and the matter was closed. But I thought about him the whole walk back to the staff wing.

Here's the part where you'll judge me, and honestly, fine. My boyfriend dumped me six months ago. Three years, gone, and he did it over text because he's a coward. Since then my whole strategy for feeling like a person again has been attention. I wear the shorts that are a little too short to work. I flirt with the ski instructors. And lately, when the mood hits, I leave my door open a crack and take care of myself, where anybody walking past might hear me.

Nobody ever has. The staff hallway is usually empty by ten.

So that night I got to my room, which is small, just a twin bed and a nightstand and one window looking out at the slopes, and I took a quick shower and put on my silk robe. It was a birthday present to myself, red, and it makes me feel like somebody in a movie. I sat on the bed and opened the nightstand drawer and got out my vibrator. It's pink and it has been very good to me.

I turned off the big light and left the little lamp on. I left the door open about four inches, which was more than usual, but the hallway had been quiet, and the lodge was full of drunk skiers who were all in the hot tub or the bar, not wandering past a door marked STAFF ONLY.

I lay back on the bed and ran my hand up my thigh, slow, the way I like at first. I was thinking about nothing in particular, just the feeling, when I heard footsteps in the hall.

Heavy ones. Slow. Not Marta, Marta walks like she's angry at the floor.

And then they stopped. Right outside my door.

I should have stopped. Any reasonable person stops. But I was already half gone, warm and buzzing, and the idea that somebody was standing there, three feet away, on the other side of four inches of wood, went straight through me like a wire. I pressed the toy a little lower and let out a breath I didn't try to hide.

The footsteps didn't move. I heard him shift his weight. Once. Twice.

I thought about the guy at the bar. Ethan. Sad about his hands. Alone on a vacation he didn't know how to use. Probably just lost, I told myself. Probably looking for the vending machine. Probably.

Then there was a knock. Soft. Two taps, barely.

I sat up, heart pounding, and pulled the robe closed, and honestly I don't know what I planned to say because I hadn't planned anything.

"Yes?" I said. My voice came out steadier than I deserved.

A pause. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I was looking for the ice machine and I heard... I mean, are you okay? It sounded like..." He trailed off and I could picture him out there, ears going red. "I'm Ethan. From the bar. You waited on me twice."

"Well," I said, and I got up and opened the door, because at that point hiding was pointless and, let's be honest, I didn't want to. "That's one way to introduce yourself."

He was standing there in a flannel shirt and jeans, looking as though he had been caught at a door he hadn't meant to stop at. Which, fair. He was holding a plastic bucket for ice like a shield.

"I really was looking for the ice machine," he said. "There's a sign on the stairwell that points down this hall."

"Was that before or after you stood out here for a full minute?"

He opened his mouth. Closed it. "You heard that."

"I heard everything, Ethan from the bar."

He looked at the floor, then at me, and something in his face shifted from mortified to honest. "I stopped because it sounded like you were... and I should have kept walking. I know that. I just didn't."

"Do you usually stand outside strangers' doors?"

"No. Never. This is the worst thing I've done in maybe five years." He set the ice bucket on the floor like he was surrendering it. "I'll go. I'm sorry, really."

And I did what I had already decided somewhere between his second shift of weight and his knock. I held up the vibrator.

He made a noise. Not a word. A noise.

"I was just winding down," I said. "Long shift. This is how I do it. And you were out there listening, which, fine, I left the door open, so some of that's on me. So. Do you want to come in, or do you want to go find your ice?"

"You're serious?" He said it like I'd offered him a job. "You're actually..."

"I don't do this," I said, and that was true, mostly, if you don't count the