“Hello. I didn’t realize it’s been an hour.” She’s lying. She wanted me to find her like this, all wet and sexy.
“I may have come a little earlier than I thought.”
The famous words of every man at some point. I glance at her body through the water and try to dodge leftover bubbles. She smiles at me with her eyes. I undress myself and slide into the tub behind her. Her warm back is resting against my chest. I take a bottle of body wash and squirt some into my hand. I begin washing her skin as delicately as possible. I start at her shoulders, then proceed down her arms. I continue back to her shoulders, down her neck, and over her breasts. I feel her breathing change as I pinch her breasts at just the right amount. I caress her in my hands and give them gentle, affectionate squeezes. I notice that under each of her breasts she has a small line protruding slightly from the skin. I feel them with my fingers gently before continuing downward. My hands work their way to her outer thighs, then inner. Her breathing is shallow now. I can sense her anticipation as she waits for me to find her sweet spot. I touch her gently and move my fingers in a small circle. She shows me it feels good, as her body begins to move with my hand. Her back presses back and forth against my chest. The panting sounds she makes causes my blood flow to shift south. I know she can feel my hardness growing on her backside.
The water in the tub begins to sway, threatening the floor around us. She doesn’t care, she is in the moment and loving every minute of it. I take my hand away from her and scoot myself lower into the tub. I lift her hips from the bottom of the porcelain tub and onto my erection. I thrust myself deep into her warmth and it feels incredible. She uses her arms to move herself just the right way on top of me. The way she rocks on me is like I’ve never felt before. I put my hand back on her sweet spot and continue where I left off, while she takes all of me over and over again.
Her movements become small as she begins to tire. I pull myself back up and slip out of the tub soaking wet. I lift her body out of the water and toss her onto the bed in the next room, leaving a trail of dripping liquid behind. She stares at me with those broken gray eyes and tells me exactly what she wants. She turns her body so she is on all fours and looks back at me, waiting to be filled with my warm wetness. I position myself perfectly and enter her from behind. Her moans make me want to screw, and her wet pussy makes it an easy ride. The sound of my wet flesh slapping her ass makes the moment more intense than ever.
Harder.
Faster.
Louder.
We both collapse on the bed with exhaustion. I think I just had the best sex of my life.
We lay together wrapped in each other’s grasp. These moments are few and far between. I tell Lana I want to go away with her. I tell her someday we could go somewhere beautiful. We talk about Mexico. We imagine cruising the Caribbean on an elegant cruise ship. Living in luxury for a week at a time. She talks about walking through Paris and riding bikes through London. We drift off into the depth of dream and let it carry us away into our adventure.
When I awake, it’s almost 11 a.m. Lana isn’t lying next to me in bed, but there is a note on the pillow that reads:
Had a work thing come up. Had to run out for a bit. I’ll be back in an hour. You can stay and we can hang out today or not, up to you. Will be back soon.
How long has she been gone already? I look at my phone. Saturday. Good, no students today. I get up and comb through my jeans pocket until I find my last oxy. I doubt this one pill will touch my headache so I head to the bathroom and take two aspirin. I follow the aroma of freshly brewed coffee into the kitchen and help myself to a cup. I remember our intense evening last night and begin to realize that I like this woman more than I comprehend. Probably more than I should at this stage of our relationship. Could we be more than what we are now? I need to get to know her on a different level before I can assure myself it’s a good idea.
I glance around the apartment and take in the surroundings. The walls are bright, the curtains are softly colored, and there are DVDs of mostly chick flicks. There are a few good movies that I’m surprised Lana would like. Jurassic Park and the Star Trek movies, for example. She has a large sofa and loveseat combo in the living room, with an electric fireplace that makes the room appear homey. Her closet has way too many shoes for one woman. There are piles of clothes all over the place. I can’t determine if they are dirty or clean.
Curiosity has begun to get the best of me as the name Lance Ryder appears in my head. I don’t see any indication of a man living in her apartment, so why are his medication bottles in her bathroom? I check the refill date on the pill bottles and they are dated for two weeks ago.
I log into my Facebook account on my cell phone and notice I have 36 notifications. I’m not much of a social media fanatic but Barbie was online constantly. It made me uneasy that she was potentially chatting with men, so I created a simple profile of myself. I wanted to see what she was up to online. At one point I was convinced she might be screwing around on me with someone from Facebook. That wasn’t true after all. I type in the name Lance Ryder.
A profile comes up on my screen of a young man. He appears to be clean shaven, blond short hair, and smaller than most of the boys in his pictures. There are pictures of him with friends, in a high school football jersey, and other photos dating back years ago. I can’t help but think he looks familiar—maybe a student I once had? It says that he lives in Detroit. I begin combing through faces of students from memory. No one in particular sticks out. The profile has nothing new posted in a very long time. He must not be much of a social media fanatic like myself. I skim through all the pictures on the profile and look for anything that would link this person to Lana. I come up with nothing reassuring. She is not old enough to have a child that’s Lance’s age.
Who is this guy?
I get an uneasy feeling in my gut. Part of me wants this thing with Lana to be more, and for this to happen I need to know about her life. I want to know where she works, what she does for fun, about her family, everything. I grab the medicine bottles from the cabinet and Google search the drugs on my phone. Estradiol, a form of estrogen that acts as a hormone for females. Spironolactone, a diuretic medication that’s given for high blood pressure and/or high levels of aldosterone. This doesn’t make sense. I sit at the kitchen table and think.
Just then, I hear the door to the apartment open. Lana is home.
“Hey, sorry I left you high and dry this morning. I had a slight emergency at work and my expertise was warranted. What’s that?”
She glances down at the pill bottles before I have time to hide them. Well, the cat is out of the bag. She now knows that I have been snooping throughout her apartment, and now she caught me looking up medications that I found in her medicine cabinet. The expression on her face goes from cheerful to terrified. I guess now is my chance to ask her what I want to know.
“Lana, I really like you and I have been thinking about us. Maybe we could try taking things to the next level. I feel like we have been playing this game where we don’t tell each other anything about ourselves. It’s been fun playing, but I want more. I need to know more about what makes you the person that you are. I think you want this too—am I right?”
“Yes I do, Mark. I want to know you. I love being with you.” She looks slightly relieved but there is something else there.
“Is there anybody else in your life right now?” I hope for her to answer me truthfully.
“No, just you.”
“Who is Lance Ryder?” I hold up the two pill bottles with his name printed across the label. Her expression stiffens. Her gaze drops to the floor. There is someone else, I can see it in her eyes. She falters for a moment. She begins to form words but stops. She won’t look at me.
“I am Lance Ryder.” She blurts out quickly.
“Lance is your first name?” I can hardly believe that anyone would name their beautiful baby girl Lance. It’s such a man’s name.
“No. well, yes. Lance
Ryder used to be my name. I had it legally changed to Lana Ryder.”
Lana’s expression becomes weak—like she has had this big dark secret and now it’s spilled all over the floor in front of us. I hold up my cell phone with a picture of the Facebook Lance Ryder that’s wearing his football jersey with his group of friends.
“Do you know this person?” I show her the cell phone.
“Yes, that’s me five years ago.”
Darkness
Some will seek and some will run.
There is no way to know until you do.
The essence of nothing appeals to sight.
Obliged to time.
Empty space, empty time, empty sound.
Frightened into dismay.
Sought as a relief for an ailment.
Hidden into the thought of despair.
Wrapped like a gift with a bow for some.
A place to unwind your weary bones.
A vision without visions.
Absorbent of color that yields for spoilage.
The ultimate void that’s never to be full.
Compared to evil but easily misinterpreted.
Begging to be brightened.
A lobe of mystery.
Shadows can lie to rest in the murkiness.
Wicked in portrayed moments.
Transmitting to the open, seeing life.
Friend or foe?
Janny
I am running. It’s pitch black. I can’t see anything, but I feel the need to run. Am I running from something? Or to something? I don’t know.
My body keeps running into the darkness, but my mind is tired. I try to stop myself, but my legs keep going. One foot in front of the other until I don’t think I can move another inch, and then I do. I smell stale metal. It’s so strong I can taste it. I can feel the thickness of the metal against my cheeks. I’m choking on it as it floods my mouth.
I’m in the dark and there is no one here. I know this is the end for me, so I take one last breath and close my eyes. I’m ready. I hear his voice calling my name. It’s faint, in the distance. I open my eyes. Still, the darkness surrounds me. I hear it again, this time closer, stronger than before.
I awake, pleading for mercy. I am entangled in Sean’s arms as he tries to calm me down. I am drenched in my own perspiration. He holds me close and puts his fingers through my soggy hair.
“I’m here. It’s okay. I’m here. You’re okay. You’re okay” His body is trembling with mine. I let my body fall into his breathing rhythm as I let exhaustion take over. Is this real? I ask myself over and over again as I try to piece together the past week.
“Here you go. It’s time for your medicine hunny.” He places three pills in my hand and gives me a glass of water. I take them without hesitation. Anything has to be better than this hell I am living in right now.
“Are you real?” I ask.
“Yes, Janny. I’m real.” His words are broken like he is going to sob uncontrollably at any moment.
“It hurts me to see you like this. What can I do to help you?”
Before I can open my mouth, I am back to the darkness, running for my life. There is no finish line in this race.
I awake later that evening to a migraine from hell. I grab some Excedrin and chase it with a glass of water that someone left at my bedside. I can hear people talking outside my room. I sit on the edge of my bed and think about the events from this past week. Why do I feel like this? The images of the body lying in the hospital bed flood my brain. The mangled face and blood-soaked hair are what comes from not wearing your seatbelt.
He was almost unidentifiable. When I walked in that room, I saw Sean in that bed. My whole existence came crashing down on top of me. When I tried to touch him, I couldn’t. His skin was cool and pale and sent a jolt through my body. It all looked fake—like someone was playing a horrible prank and this was all staged to get some sort of rise out of me.
The smell of the blood was not fake.
The tube in his mouth was not fake.
The many machines in the room powered off was not fake.
They say I passed out from shock. When I awoke, I was still lying on the floor with faces all around me. I wished I was dead; I still do.
I should be happy that Sean is alive. I should be happy that it was his little brother lying in that bed and not him. Any sane person in my shoes would feel that way, but not admit to it, of course. The truth of the matter is, Sean lost his brother that day and I lost something inside of me.
It’s been a week now since the accident. Sean survived the calamity with only a concussion and minor scrapes and bruises. He’s healed physically, but he is taking the loss of his brother pretty hard. I can’t help but wonder, What if? What if his brother hadn’t decided to surprise Sean and drive up from Indiana that Saturday morning? What if they never had, spur of the moment, decided to go out for brunch that morning? What if Sean had been driving instead of his brother? What if his brother hadn’t still been drunk from partying the night before? Would it have changed anything for his fate?
My mother has been at the apartment all week, looking after things. Sean was worried about me, so he called her. I think she might end up making things worse, but right now I don’t have the energy to care. I’ve been off work all week because I haven’t had my mind in days. I am exhausted. Sean says I wake up sometimes screaming for him; it scares him. It scares me. I just feel so low right now, it’s hard to explain in words. Nothing anyone does or says can lift me from this deepness.
I try to listen to my music and it makes me cry. It’s like the words are penetrating my body one by one, and I feel every syllable as if it punctures my skin. This kills me because I love music passionately. Music is the only thing I’ve been able to count on to make me feel better and now it makes me feel worse. I glance up and catch my reflection in the mirror. This is not me. This person I see in the mirror has no ounce of life in her right now. I glance to the right and there sits my plan B. A bottle of 74 tablets of lorazepam. I keep it around in the case that I need to escape. I was close once. Just the other day I dumped the pills onto my bed and counted each of them.
Twice.
Seventy-four tablets would probably do the job, but given my large body mass I think I’ll send in for a refill just to be sure I have enough on hand if the circumstances arise. Lorazepam is a sedative medication, highly addictive, and toxic enough to throw your body into respiratory failure and coma. I did my research, as I always do. Of course, I haven’t told anyone about my plan B, but it is looking more and more enticing every day as the bottle stares back at me from across the room.
It would be the ideal way for me to end it if I had to. It would be painless. It would put me to sleep quickly, then it would take over my pitiful life. I wouldn’t suffer if I went with plan B. It would be a clean kill; no mess for anyone to deal with. Why do I even care about the mess?
Maybe I should be messy about it. Why not? It’s not like I have to clean up after myself. I could use the .38 special my dad gave me and put it through my shitty skull. That would surely be a shit show for anyone to set their eyes on. There’s no way to know if I would die instantly, although I’m pretty sure that would be the case. I decide to load my weapon of choice and keep it close by. You know, just in case.
My mind drifts away to a place where I imagine myself after I die. A place where I am always smiling, where everything is bright and shiny, where I can feel safe again. I am walking in the green grass, my dress flowing in the breeze. I am happy with myself. I feel no pain. I can see across the hills into the further distance. This place has no walls, no pieces that are missing. I am whole.
Then my thoughts begin to sink. I see the aftermath that I could cause. I see blood splattered up the walls of my bedroom. I see a chair set in the middle of the room with blood on the floor all around it. This is what the room would look like after I shoot myself. I see Sean on his hands and knees scrubbing the blood from the floor, sobbing. He is hurting, and I
don’t care.
I love Sean, but I feel like he has done this to me. I asked him why he never called me that day. Why he didn’t let me know he was okay. He said he was passed out from the concussion and was disoriented for a while after he awoke in the hospital. He couldn’t have called me. I drove to the ER thinking he was dead. I looked at Georgia that day in the trauma room and saw death in her eyes. I thought it was Sean’s death she was showing me. I thought it was Sean’s lifeless body in the bed. I thought my world was over. Now I’m royally fucked up and everybody knows it.
My mother’s psychiatrist made time to evaluate me per my mother’s request. It took him all but an hour to conclude I am suffering from PTSD. I don’t agree with this. I thought PTSD was something that happens to military people. This is not true, according to Dr. Hibner. He says that any situation that causes stress within the body can result in PTSD. He believes given the recent trauma in my life and having underlying anxiety/depression, this event is likely the cause of PTSD. He put me on medications to help relieve some of the symptoms I am experiencing and, most importantly, help me sleep.
So basically, in other words, I’ve finally had a psychotic break. I’ve always wondered when this day would come. When I would finally lose the game. For a long time, I’ve dreaded the day that I can no longer hide what’s really happening inside my head. I believe I have gotten so good at covering up my issues that sometimes I even trick myself into thinking I’m actually okay.
“Hunny, we have an appointment with Dr. Hibner in an hour. Can you get dressed and we can go get some coffee beforehand?” My mother is trying to be motherly. I don’t want to go into the world today. I definitely don’t want to go see that shrink again.
“Mom, I don’t want to go today. I’m so tired. I just want to sleep.”
Tomorrow Page 10