You open your eyes and you can feel her pulling on you. It hurts in a weary, distant way, like it has been going on for a long time and you are just now feeling it. You can barely even lift your hand to stop her. You can’t even feel your crotch, which is dry and limp and she is pulling harder to make up for it. Her breath is hot and wet like something crawling on you and it brings up in your skin a sweaty, nauseous feeling. The couch under you is damp with your sweat. You look down and your head falls like a dead weight and you see her hand and in it your sad, boneless self, moving but not responding. You put your hand over hers to stop it and she keeps kissing your throat, your jaw, your neck, your lips. The edge of your mouth, even as you zip up your jeans.
Still drunk, you think. Stumbling, blinding drunk, and you don’t even know who it is next to you. You put your hand on her shoulder and push her back gently as her neck stiffens against you and her lips pucker out, like a nursing baby. You turn to look at her face and all you see is her wrinkled, reddened lips hanging open in mid-kiss, the sad, sliding down of her eye makeup as if she’s been crying. Her breath is thick and sweet with rum and it’s so distracting that you can’t figure out who she is for a few seconds.
Maybe Amber O’Quinn. The best singer in the youth choir. She was going to a performing arts college in Vermont. You remember, as she blinks her big, blue eyes at you, and asks you, ‘what’s wrong?’ that you had always thought she was cute, but just too good for you. Her hand is now resting beside what may have once been a fantastic erection but who knows how long ago that was?
You can barely look at one thing for longer than three seconds before everything else starts spinning. You realize that you may have been sitting on this couch getting jerked off by Amber O’Quinn for hours. In a panic, you look around the room and adrenaline rushes in like water soaking into a sponge and you feel cooler all over, more awake. Thank God. No one is here. You and Amber are sitting on a couch with cushions that swallow you in certain spots even though the bed is right there.
Amber sighs, then cuts her eyes away, then falls back onto the couch. She is drunk, and completely oblivious to your sudden and intense fright. Doesn’t she want to know what you did with the last four hours? Doesn’t she want to know who’s been watching?
You feel heavy from your neck down and the weight is so intense you can’t sit up and if you did, you know you would throw up. So you don’t. The room is dark and there are candles burning and you are thinking, shit, what is this?
But you still have all of your clothes on. You are on a loveseat opposite the bed and when you look at it (empty, thank God), you remember when there were people sitting here, talking to you. Right after you did shots in the kitchen with Alex and Rodney and this girl he brought who hung on him like a fox fur.
Where's Rae?
You zip up and try to stand, slowly realize she is not here. She wouldn't be here. This thought gives you a cold feeling. You remember now what exists beyond the walls of this room, the college you are visiting that is nearly an hour away through nothing but creepy farmland. The room is small and the ceiling is low, the walls painted brick, slightly underground, the windows a strip of rectangular panes of frosted glass. The beds are positioned facing each other in opposite corners of the room, one half-made, one half covered with laundry and books. An open laptop glows in the otherwise dim room, the only light besides a desk lamp and the muted TV. You stare at the screen for a while and see a lot of naked women but you're pretty sure it's not a porno you're watching. Whatever it is, it seems to blend perfectly with the clanking sounds of Zeppelin playing from the laptop. You vaguely remember choosing this music.
I said it's alright, you know it's alright, you know it's all in my heart...
She murmurs something you don't hear. You hear the music and it's so good and the love seat is so acceptable (and you can't move anyway). You're pretty sure Amber is passed out for the long haul so you look down at your sad, limp penis and feel a rush of panic so you cram it into your underwear and zip up your jeans. You make it to your feet and you tell yourself it's fine, just keep your hand on something. A doorframe. The wall, to steady yourself. You remember your brother telling you that there were still active Klan members out here, a community of them, out in the woods between your home and this college. This is what you are thinking about as you stumble to the bedroom door, as you turn the knob and nearly fall down opening it. You fall against the doorjamb, your hand clinging to the knob as your shoulder takes in the sharp edge like a bite. It stings but you talk your legs into working and you know that everyone in the common room outside the bedroom is probably looking at you, shaking their heads. The room outside is a loud rush like water that keeps crashing over you and it's just music, more music and conversation but it's so loud. You only think about this for a split second before you think about your cigarettes. Your coat.
Then you think of something else and panic gets you, makes you suddenly fast, accurate, focused. You spin around to the couch and see your coat draped over the back of it and you pad your hands over it, groping for the shape of the small plastic case you put in your pocket earlier and nearly going limp with relief when you find it, solid and safe like you left it. Candace has leaned back on the couch and appears to have passed out. You look her over as you find your cigarettes. She's got on a deep red blouse that laces up the front like a corset. It's very low-cut and still, very strange to you. You have never seen this girl in such an outfit. For a moment you want to find a blanket and cover her up. For a moment you consider taking one of the bedspreads and covering her but it's too much trouble. You have to get outside, smoke a cigarette, find Rodney, and get the hell out of here. It's far too risky to stay.
When you get to the front porch the cold hits you and makes you feel thin and weak and you slump against the wall, feebly sticking a cigarette in between your teeth. You are shivering and you drop your cigarette and immediately a rush of panic goes through you as you look at the crowded floor, the proximity of dirty sneakers that, any one of them, could crush your precious cigarette if you don't pick it up in time. You're not even sure if you can pick it up. Then you feel a hard, jarring slap on the shoulder and before you even look up, you know it's Rodney and then there he is, grinning at you, amused by your pathetic state. He is smoking American Spirits and he hands you one and says, "don't strain yourself."
"I need to get out of here."
"What? Did something go wrong with Amber?"
"She's passed out. Dude, what happened?"
"We were in there, like ten of us, and you two just started sucking each others' faces off like no one else was there. We ignored it for a while but, you know, we figured you guys wanted some privacy."
Rodney nudges you with an elbow in an encouraging way but it makes you feel sicker. He expects you to laugh, or even to crack a smile, and when you don't he straightens up and says, "okay. I'll go get the guys and we'll leave. Sit your ass down before you hurt yourself."
There is nowhere to sit out here so you stay where you are, dead weight against the wall, smoking hard on the cigarette as if the smoke were a solid thing that could run through your bones and make them useful again. You don't dare close your eyes, and you keep your free hand inside your coat, feeling the plastic rectangle in your pocket, like if you take your hand away it might vanish without even having to be stolen. You have never had in your possession anything so valuable.
Rodney is nearly as drunk as you are. You pray to the cold, the air, the plastic case in your pocket, that you get home alive.
You have so much to live for.
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