The sun
glowed as it sunk between the skyscrapers. I stood in lengthy shadow, against the outer wall of the white, pristine Chateau-style hotel. I thought she would be waiting for me, maybe in disguise, but she was nowhere in sight, and now the lavender sky was getting darker. I scanned
the windows but they were glossy chrome and not permitting view of anyone
behind them.
Then my phone
vibrated. The new text said:
take the line spidey
What?
A rustling
sound from above before a long spool of string streamed down through the air
and bouncing on the pavement some feet
away from where I was standing. The line seemed to run up miles over my head
and into a gap in one of the many identical silver windows.
I looped
the string around my chest into a makeshift harness, and then it was pulling,
lifting me into the air. The other end seemed to be winding into the open
window, though no one was in sight. The ground departed below as the building
façade scrolled by.
My heart
dropped into my stomach as the ground stretched further below my feet. The
string curled at a right angle over the balcony railing, which held me out a
short distance from the building’s face.
The open
window came into view, gazing upon the interior hotel room, compromising two
main spaces partitioned by a dividing wall: the main living room space, and
behind the corner, the kitchen space. The kitchen was lit, the living space had
a dimmer on low, lit more by the outside street lights.
The line
ran through the dim living space air and threaded into the hands of Anya. A
black head sash kept her hair back, spilling out messily behind her shoulders,
and her eyes looked different, darker with the silver contacts not in. She wore
ripped skinny jeans and a white tank, looking not like a polished celebrity but
like any of the random girls in attendance at her own concert.
“You’ve got
a beautiful place here,” I said without thinking, looking back at the sun
setting behind the city skyline out the window – now that I was high enough to
appreciate it.
“I LOVE THE
BOUTIQUE HOTELS,” she said. “IT’S MORE INTIMATE.” She ducked her head past me,
throwing a glance out the window as if checking for paparazzi. Then she shut
the window.
It was a
hotel room, of course, and I then felt stupid complimenting it., as if she
owned it. But then she smiled in a totally forgiving way. Her voice had this
alluring understatement that was absurdly hot for a girl. I could imagine her
sitting on a ranch in the desert, smoking a cigarette, and holding the thing
perfectly between her lips as she talked. And considering how big her lips were
compared to me, the mental image produced an erotic ripple through my body. It
came as a surprise; nothing like her glamorous on stage alter ego, the girl
whose resonant vocal highs could be heard amplified over a screaming crowd.
“NO ONE
KNOWS I’M HERE,” her eyes passed over me with meaning.
“Sure.” I
nodded at the floor, swallowing. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
“SMART GUY.
AND,” she considered, giving me a look of understanding, “YOU’RE MY SECRET,
TOO.”
“Then you
know how I operate,” I said, gratefully.
She turned
to the kitchenette.
“CAN I
TEMPT YOU, PARKER?”
“What’s on
offer?”
The air
felt hazy and dreamy just by her presence. Such was the gravity of celebrity
that she pulled me into her and I wasn’t even a fan.
“ANYTHING
ON THE HOUSE: WE GOT RED BULL, PERRIER—” Silhouetted in the arch entrance
between rooms, she paused, tossing me a look over her shoulder, “—HERE’S A BETTER
QUESTION: WHAT DO YOU DRINK FROM?”
“A
bottlecap works.”
She carried
on into the kitchen space.
“HUH,” a
sound of amusement. “SO, IT’S LIKE EVERY BOTTLE COMES WITH A TINY CUP FOR YOU. SMART.”
“Necessary,”
I corrected. Then joked: “My brain is the size of a pea. You think I’m smart?”
Maybe it
was her laid-back attitude that made me feel like baring my guts to her.
From the
kitchen space there was rustling and clinking sounds in the fridge.
“SO,” she
giggled, “JUST HOW DOES YOUR BRAIN
FUNCTION LIKE NORMAL WITH THE REDUCED SPACE?”
She
re-entered with the bottlecap, clasped between finger and thumb, which she
lowered into my raised hands. As I drunk, I sensed her eyes on me, with
interest, before they fluttered away as she took a swill from her own glass.
People loved watching me eat and drink, I thought resignedly, it was the
cuteness of it.
While I
drank, she answered her own question:
“IT’S LIKE
MAGIC.”
That tone
was still in her voice, solemn wonder; the correct tone for talking about how
old the stars were, not how my mind worked. I didn’t like the direction this
was going.
“The stuff
in my brain is the same as yours, it’s just been warped in scale.”
“I’D BE
VERY SURPRISED IF OUR BRAINS WERE THE SAME.”
“You know I
was only joking, right? I’m a lot more normal than I look.”
And before
I could work out if that was an insult or a compliment, she eyed me seriously
and went on:
“FACE IT, SOME
WEIRD SHIT WENT DOWN WHEN YOU GOT SHRUNK.”
“Well, my height went down.”
“I MEAN, NOBODY
KNEW YOU. THEN YOU SHRUNK AND SUDDENLY YOU’RE FAMOUS.” She paused, letting it
sink in. “IT’S LIKE…LIKE…”
“It was
lucky?” I laughed.
“YEAH!
MAYBE IT TURNED YOU INTO A LITTLE WALKING GOOD LUCK CHARM!”
She was on
her feet again, out into the kitchenette, then back into the living space, and
finally folding her long, tight ripped jean covered legs in front of me, ending
in black knee-length suede boots, filling up the frame of my view with the athletic
bulges of her calves and thighs. One hand held onto what looked like a paper
square, a bandage sticker, with strange printing on the backing paper. I knew
what it was; a medical adhesive. Jen had a stockpile at home.
She held my
gaze with her freaky platinum contact lenses.
“I WONDER
IF YOU LIKED SOMEONE A LOT…AND THEY ASKED NICELY ENOUGH…WOULD THE LUCK RUB OFF
ON THEM…?”
She was
trying to seduce me.
A pale,
slender finger extended to trace over my left pectoral, unknowingly grinding
Jen’s initials beneath it. Her fingertip held over my chest for an extra
moment, and pushing down a little more, accidentally compressing my ribcage. My
heart fluttered.
“OH MY GOD,”
she cooed. “SO CUTE. YOU’RE NERVOUS!”
“It’s
nothing. Just a side-effect of some medication I’m on.”
She frowned.
“I’M NOT A
DOCTOR, BUT THAT DOESN’T FEEL LIKE A NORMAL HEARTBEAT. YOU WANT SOMETHING FOR
IT?”
I shook my
head and drained the last of my drink. Her cool eyes were chipping into me as
if waiting for me to suddenly change my mind. Finally, she leaned back and held
up the adhesive.
“THIS ONE IS SMOOTH,” she drawled, “AND YOU
CAN STOP ANY TIME; JUST RIP IT OFF.”
It wasn’t a
medical adhesive. It was a transdermal recreational drug. I didn’t even know
they existed.
“Where do
you put it?” I asked. If it made taking my medication more tolerable, it didn’t
seem like such a bad thing.
She was
already leaning over me, taking my question as a solicitation to proceed. She
easily pushed my shirt up, sliding her fingers over my stomach, inspecting it. Her
touch was cool and made my flesh quiver. To answer my question, she sent her
nail tip into the softest part of my stomach, drawing a ticklish circle, and a
second smaller one in the middle, and finishing by poking the very center, like
a target. I cringed and stepped back. She smiled at my reaction.
“YOU MIGHT
WANT TO LAY BACK,” she said, gesturing her hand as if to say ‘go ahead’. “’CAUSE
SOME PEOPLE FEEL A LITTLE LIGHT-HEADED AT FIRST.”
“It’s okay,
if I pass out it’s not a long way to the ground,” I joked.
Her eyes held
on me, noted my apprehension.
“NOT A FAN
OF NEW EXPERIENCES?”
“Not a fan
of bad experiences,” I corrected,
blushing a little.
“THE CHANCE
OF SOMETHING GOING WRONG IS SUPER SMALL.”
“But not
impossible.”
“IF IT MAKES
YOU FEEL ANY BETTER; I’M HERE.” She reached forward and gave my knee a little
pinch between finger and thumb, intended to be a reassuring squeeze. “I WON’T
LEAVE YOUR SIDE THE ENTIRE TIME.”
I said
nothing. The backing paper was unstuck from the adhesive, and being aligned
with my abdomen. Cool gel melded with my soft flesh.
Focus became increasingly elusive. Anya was still speaking,
but her voice seemed to loosen from her and float around the room, and took on
a ringing quality. Shapes acquired ghostly peripheral dopplegangers which
flipped away as I tried to stare them head on. Everything began to blur as if
seen through a torrent of rain.
My shoulders were being massaged. My eyes must have closed
for some unknowable amount of time. Somewhere to my left, the pop star’s voice
fluttered around with an ethereal echoing quality. My eyes opened again.
She was
hovering very close, her breath was hot and thick dark lips immediate in my
face. She had put her contacts in and her eyes were silver and unnatural, she
had transformed into the white-haired Goth freakanatrix from Club Galaxy, and now she seemed to be
studying me like I was an insect specimen. Meeting my eyes, she flashed me an
animalistic smile that showed too many of her teeth.
My palm slapped around my abdomen but the adhesive had
gummed hopelessly to my bare flesh; I lacked the strength to peel it off. A
tumble of slurred words came out, as if my tongue was swollen:
“I fthfink I wanna rip it now, fthfanks.”
Then the
world ground to a halt and went black.