A Miss Ellaneous Tale - Part One

I'm doing something different this week. I'm going to blog on Monday (today) Wednesday AND Friday and share a story I wrote many years ago. It still tickles me when I read it.

I hope you enjoy it. 

A Miss Ellaneous Tale - Part One

Miss Ellaneous’s hotel sat perched, like some great condor, on a cliff. The bulk of its body clung tenaciously to the rocks and contained a warren of Escher-like stairways. On either side of the “main house,” spread the wings with room after haphazard room in a multitude of different sizes, shapes, colors and decors.

Travelers finding her place were always quite lost, becoming instantly found by the famous Miss Ellaneous, whose reputation for finding lost people was known far and wide. For a modest fee they were supplied with food, a hot bath, and a bed. If they managed to find their way back to the front desk the next day, said travelers were given vague directions that sent them round in ever widening circles until they returned once again to her door. Thus, Miss Ellaneous was supplied with a steady stream of regular customers, all of whom she knew by name.

But now, here was someone new standing at her counter, someone she had never seen before, except perhaps in a few vague dreams she vaguely remembered.

“Where am I?” asked the tall dark mysterious stranger.

“Somewhere,” answered the equally tall mysterious albino.

“What do you mean, ‘somewhere?’ Where is somewhere?”

“Somewhere is here,” she said.

“Here? Where is here?” he asked.

“You’re here aren’t you?”

“Well…yes, but….”

“Then you are Somewhere.”

“Oh, I see,” he mused

“You see what?” she asked

He looked deeply into her pink eyes and discovered to his delight that she was very beautiful.

“I see you,” he replied huskily.

“Will you be spending the night?” she asked, trying to ignore the tone of his voice, while becoming vaguely excited.

“I only stopped for directions to….”

“There are no other hotels for several hundred miles,” she interrupted.

“That many miles?” His lilting British accent was giving her lovely goose bumps.

“That many miles," she purred leaning forward slightly. “Somewhere is the only where with a hotel and this is the only hotel in Somewhere. You’d have to go all the way to Someplace Else to find someplace else to stay.”

“I see,” he mused.

            

“You see what?” she asked. She leaned towards him a bit more as it had become important to keep him.

“I…I see you,” he said.

“Will you be spending the night then?” Her tone changed slightly and her pink eyes glittered beguilingly.

“Why yes…I believe I will.”

“Your name then, please…for the books you understand. You will still remain anonymous.”

As he stood there looking at her long slender nearly transparent fingers holding the pen, he didn’t care whether he remained anonymous or not. 

“Mister E,” he said.

The tiniest of gasps escaped from her exceedingly moist pink lips. “Mister E?”

“I am he.”

“The Mister E?”

“As far as I know I’m the only one.”

Her pink eyes reddened. Her voice got breathy. “Welcome to the Whiskey Alpha Hotel. I am Miss Ellaneous.”

His mouth fell open; a mouth she noticed that seemed just too perfect to be true.

“The famous Miss Ellaneous who loses the found and finds the lost?” he asked. There was a tone of astonishment in his voice.

She blushed at his recognition and nodded modestly. “The one and only,” she replied leaning so far forward it was all Mister E could do to keep from dragging her across the counter.

His heart thumped. 

Outside in the ample courtyard an albino peacock screamed.

“Are you…” she asked breathlessly, “Are you lost, or found?”

“If I was found before I was wrong, because I do believe I have become quite lost. And if I am now lost, and you are the famous Miss Ellaneous, then I have become quite found.” 

“Yes, you are indeed quite found,” Miss Ellaneous assured him. “How long do you plan to remain lost?” she asked hardly able to contain her excitement and desire.

His beautiful dark eyes gazed into her smoldering pink ones.

Barely able to speak he replied, “I suppose until…until tomorrow.”

“Ah yes…tomorrow,” she said dreamily.

He leaned across the counter, his lips nearly touching hers. “Tomorrow which never comes,” he whispered.

Her heart pounded in her breast. She had known it would be like this. But still, even fantasies can seem fantastic.

“Is this not more perfect than we dared to dream?” Mister E asked. Their faces were so close their lips brushed as they spoke.

“Oh yes!” she moaned.

           

They crushed their mouths together. “Oh, Miss Ellaneous, I do believe I have a….”

           

“Say no more, my love. I’ll show you to our room. Then you can help with that damned knothole in my wall.”

           

“It will be ecstasy,” he said. They glided off, arm in arm, whispering vague nothings in each other’s ears.


Coming Wednesday - Part Two!