ghosts in the mist

The steam floats like an eerie ghost blanketing you in the gloom. Behind you a lone light bulb flickers, red and unsteady. You squint a little to adjust your eyes; and in the corners of the room, out of the mists, gray figures emerge—huddled like crows drenched in rain, along tiled benches. You shiver. In excitement and anticipation. A lump thickens in your throat, like when you ready yourself for your first sip of black coffee. A hand tugs at you from behind, feeling your waist, brushing past the towel draped so precariously on it. you look behind you to find yourself drawn to the eyes attached to the hands; to that wicked smile that seem to say, “tag, you’re it”. you smile back. He says “wanna go up?” you let him lead you, out of the room of gray ghosts, up, toward that room of sliding adjacent doors. You walk past across endless stares, across vultures perched on their imaginary branches, sizing up each other til the first one gives in. you hear a sudden click and you realize, you are shut in with him--the owner of the hand that tugged at you, closing the sliding door. You clear your throat of that lump, and you fumble for words; while he, smiling still, pulls you free of your towel into his own nakedness.