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.