In the dream the figure had come after him, reaching out with something, not just his hands, something was in them, something sharp, threatening, meant to hurt, even kill. This time the guy was gone as quickly as he had appeared.
It was something in his mind. It had to be.
Jamie crossed over to the bathroom sink, his eyes glancing to the side as he moved. He watched the reflection of the toilet stalls in the mirror as he rinsed his hands under hot water, then he turned off the taps and stepped backwards, still watching the mirror. He crouched to the floor, looked under each stall door. Nothing.
Of course not.
He was standing on top of one of the toilets.
Stop it.
Waiting for you to push the door open, just the tiniest bit.
No. There was no one there. He was completely alone, and his mind was playing tricks on him.
Then open the door. Prove it.
No.
Jamie stood quickly and rushed for the door. Turning the light off as he left, leaving the bastard standing in the dark.
The bastard who wasn’t there. The one who didn’t exist.
He rushed out the door and dove for the floor as the man in black lunged at him from across the hall.
Christ! He was real!
Jamie felt wind from the sweeping arms that came towards him. He tucked his shoulder in and fell to the side, smashing into the corridor wall, even as he began to run. His body straightened as he took off like a shot, the sound of the imaginary starter’s pistol in his head. His legs were numb, unfeeling. He ran as fast as his body would let him. Even as he moved, his mind continued telling him that no one was there.
NO ONE was there.
One look back would confirm that, but he just went faster, tearing around the corner and rushing up the next flight of stairs. Down the corridor and up the stairs to the fourth floor, then the fifth, arms and legs a blur of motion as he rushed down hallway after hallway. His lungs burned now. It felt good. It felt fucking great. Cabin fever breaking. Whatever.
No one was there. He was still alone in the building.
Run God dammit it. Run!
Down the length of the fifth floor. Taking the stairs in one fell swoop. The fourth. Then the third. He opened up his stride, cold air rushing over his face. He was feeling good now. Dorm room doors sailed past on either side of him. He stared ahead at the center of the bleary tunnel around him, anything and everything topsing and turving off to the sides. For a moment, for the first time in months, he was perfectly in sync, mind, body, everything. Then he rounded the corner, glanced at the ground with a blink, and when he looked back up, a figure was standing in the middle of the hallway, a figure who turned to him at the last moment wearing an expression not of threat, but of utter panic.
Fritz.
Jamie twisted his body to the side, barely deflecting the blow, just enough to prevent the crunching and popping and splintering of bones had he hit Fritz head on. Even now, the impact sent the two of them flying, the initial collision and grunts of pain dropping to silence as Fritz staggered back over his own duffel bag, and fell to the corridor floor. Jamie angled off the side wall, arms and legs splayed wildly. He soared over Fritz, and touched down in a cloud of flailing limbs as he skidded across the floor, and come to an abrupt stop as the top of his head rammed into the front of his own door.
***
“Phew, it’s okay,” Fritz said with a sigh, as he took a small crystal bottle from his duffel bag and pulled a cork from the top.
Thoop!
“What is it?” Jamie asked.
“Smell,” Fritz commanded, as he held the bottle under Jamie’s nose.
Jamie took a whiff, his eyebrows pulling together.
“Tequila?”
“Not just any tequila, my friend. Top shelf Patron. The best. The stuff the owners of tequila distilleries drink. The stuff the owners only keep for special occasions.”
“What’s it called?” Jamie replied.
“That is, well, I can’t remember the exact name.” Fritz handed him the bottle. “I just know this stuff is two hundred bucks a pop, comes in numbered, hand-blown crystal bottles, and my father will never know it’s missing.”
“Your father?” Jamie asked incredulously. “He’s not gonna miss a two hundred dollar bottle of tequila?”
“Not when he has a half dozen of them.”
Jamie looked at Fritz questioningly.
“Half his clients buy him this stuff each Christmas. He usually keeps a couple bottles for himself and re-gifts the rest. But even with years of practice, it takes a while to polish one of these things off. He’s getting behind, so I grabbed one before I left.”
“And he’s not gonna notice?”
Fritz shook his head.
“So what are you gonna do with it?”
“Drink it,” Fritz replied.
“All of it?” Jamie asked.
Fritz looked at him for a beat, incredulous, then he changed the topic.
“Where’s Kelli?”
“Delayed. She won’t be in until tomorrow.”
“Good. Then you’ll be drinking it with me tonight. No reason you need to keep your faculties functioning tonight. No lady friend. No fucking. But this,” he held the bottle aloft, “this is the next best thing.”
~
Jamie looked down into the empty shot glass. A glimmer of crystal-clear tequila reflected up into his eyes.
This shit was good.
He looked up, everything around him was moving in a thick haze. He was sitting in the open doorway of Fritz’s dorm room, his back pressed against the frame. Fritz was sitting on the floor, leaning against the side of his bed. A TV across the room was playing some sort of porn movie; two women on screen sat on either side of a shirtless businessman, fighting over him. Curiously, their fighting included a great deal of nipple pinching and lingering French kisses, both with the man and with each other. How had this video even been put on? Jamie’s head lolled over to the half empty Patron bottle. Oh yeah, around the fifth or sixth shot, Fritz had confided in him and brought out his porn collection, which was quite… comprehensive. Jamie hadn’t gotten a precise tally on the number of films in his RA’s collection, but the fact that he kept them in a foot locker and in several shoe boxes showed that the guy had a true passion, if not a downright problem. At some point a disc had been put in the DVD player, the ‘play’ button was pushed, and after a few moments of uncomfortable joint viewing, the movie was quickly forgotten. The sounds of pornstars and bad music faded into the background, a flickering backdrop for a drunken evening.
“You want another?” Fritz asked him.
Jamie turned his head gingerly, fearing any momentum might twist his head loose from his spine. His first words came out in a mumble. “I buhbuhbuh.” He stopped himself, opening his mouth wide, enunciating carefully. “I’m- all- right,” he replied.
Fritz looked at him with a lopsided grin. “We’re gonna be so hurting in the morning.”
Jamie nodded his head, a bit too effusively, “Yeah we are.”
Fritz shrugged his shoulders. “Eh, fuck it.”
“Fuck. It,” Jamie agreed.
Then they sat quietly.
Fritz looked up at him suddenly. “Is it working?”
“The tequila?”
“No, no, no,” Fritz replied. He reached out a drunken hand, waving his index finger in the general direction of Jamie’s head. “You know, that thing, the fifty year battery thingy-”
“Oh. Yeah. Well, it seems to be-”
Fritz looked at him blankly, his expression detached.
Jamie lolled his head to the side peacefully.
Yeah. Everything was great, except for, you know, hallucinating and running from creepy figments of my imagination from time to time.
He glanced up at Fritz who was still looking at him expectantly.
“What?” Jamie asked.
“That’s it, nothing more than ‘it seems to be?’”
Fritz nodded. “I hear ya.” He motioned towards the TV. “Probably the same as when I try to go cold turkey on this stuff. Can’t even let myself even think about it, or trouble starts up again.”
“Yeah, pretty much the same thing,” Jamie agreed with a smirk. “Let’s just say it’s working, all systems are go, and leave it at that.
“Leave it at that!” he repeated emphatically.
Fritz opened his mouth as if to speak again. Jamie watched as he bobbed his head up and down.
“Yes?”
“I gotta piss,” Fritz exclaimed as he struggled to his feet and marched for the door. Jamie ducked out of the way as Fritz disappeared into the bathroom across the hall, leaving the door open and shouting from inside.
“Weird being here with no one around!”
“Yeah,” Jamie called back.
“Makes me wish I had keys to the residents’ rooms, so I could go inside, see what the girls have hidden in their drawers.”
“Yeah,” Jamie closed his eyes. “That would be a great idea. No trouble could possibly come from that!”
The toilet in the bathroom flushed. Jamie heard Fritz washing his hands in the sink.
Fritz stumbled into view.
“All I wanna know is what kind of stuff chicks have. They gotta have porn, right, man?”
“I dunno-”
Fritz drew an inebriated hand to his forehead, wiping the sweat from his brow. “They gotta!” He took another haphazard series of steps across the hall. Jamie again dove out of the way as Fritz hopped, skipped, and awkwardly jumped over him and flopped face down on his bed.
“You tired, Fritz?”
There was no answer.
“Fritz?” Jamie said again, but all he heard was heavy breathing, and the frantic moaning coming from the TV. Jamie got up and pressed STOP. He glanced at the older boy who lay with his head to the side, belly down, back rising and falling with each breath, then he left the room, pulling the door shut behind him. Jamie glanced around the empty hallway and hustled to his room. He locked the door behind him and lay down on his back in the bed, staring up into the darkness.
~
He woke with a start. Felt the tiniest quiver in his heart as he realized he was not alone. He looked into the darkness, waiting for his eyes to start sending back information. There was the outline of the room, the desk, the dresser. A faint glow of moonlight sent a dim stream of light toward the door. His eyes sifted more shapes from the blackness, layer upon layer of space coming toward him. There was his chair. The corner of the bed. And there, standing over him, was Kelli. Nude. Hands at her head, pulling her hair back behind her ears. The movement brought her chest into view, the pale white shapes of her breasts rising with each breath. He felt her fingertips on his foot as she slipped one hand under the covers, slicing up into the warm pocket of air beneath the bedding. She slid into the bed and lay on top of him.
“When did you get here?” he asked.
He felt the weight of her breasts sliding over his chest.
“An hour ago,” she answered, her lips pressed against the corner of his ear. “I caught the late train out of New York.”
He felt her legs straddle his thigh. Her pubic hair tickled the top of his leg. She was warm.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
She set her arms on each side of his chest, lifting herself up to look down at him. Jamie’s fingers ran up the sides of her ribcage and gently cupped her breasts.
“I wanted to surprise you,” she whispered.
She relaxed her arms, bringing her chest down against his. Her legs moved up the bed, bringing the two of them face to face. Jamie looked up into her eyes as his lips parted ever so slightly.
“Did you miss me?” she asked as she leaned in to kiss him.
He didn’t say a word, just pulled her closer against him. He ran his fingers down her spine, held his hands against the small of her back, and rolled her to the side, where they kissed and held each other until they slowly drifted off to sleep.
Outside, trees moved in frozen gusts of wind, their branches bristling under the weight of the snow, the bite of the cold. Inside, they held each other close, feeling the pulse of their hearts, the heat of their skin, and the comfort of not being alone. Not now anyway. Not in the middle of this storm.
The weather cleared overnight. Jamie woke to the glare of the sun reflecting in through the windows. Make that the blinding glare. His body was stiff, out of practice with sharing a bed. The soles of his feet were sore. Must have been kicking the foot of the bed in his sleep. The rest of his body was tired, but invigorated. Having a gorgeous girl in your bed tends to do that to you. Kelli was still asleep. The covers of the bed were pulled away from her body, leaving her breasts out in the chilled morning air. Her nipples were hard, even under the growing warmth of the sun. The curls of her hair framed her face in a shimmer of haze.
Jamie slipped out of bed to stretch his back and massage his muscles. He placed his hands on the bare skin of his lower back, arching his spine and feeling the bones crack into place one by one like dominoes. He stretched his legs, kneading his calves and thighs, which burned as though he’d been out running a marathon. He was just leaning over, bringing his chest down towards his feet, when he heard a voice behind him.
“Whew, check that guy out.”
He turned to see Kelli watching him.
“Good morning.”
“Get over here,” she replied.
He walked over to the edge of the bed, where Kelli reached her arms out towards him, placing them on his hips, then gently running her fingers down the fabric of his boxers, and tugging on the lower edge until his pubic hair started peeking out from the top. She looped a fingertip under the cloth, tugging gently as she rolled back onto the bed and slid the covers farther down towards her.
Jamie slipped silently into bed beside her. A week might be enough time to fall out of practice sharing a bed, but in other areas, they had no problem. They made love for the better part of the morning, stopping only to rest and recharge and to slip off down the hall for water. They passed Fritz’s door, which remained closed, the grumble of snores rumbling out into the hallway.
When they’d worn themselves out, they lay in bed talking, their hands always on one another’s bodies. Kelli ran her fingers through the hair on Jamie’s chest, her head pressed against his shoulder.
“You couldn’t sleep last night?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You were up for a while. I thought you had insomnia.”
Jamie cocked his head to the side. “Oh,” he hesitated. “I forgot about that.”
“Did you get up and read or something?”
Something.
He brought one hand up and massaged his shoulder. “Just thinking I guess.”
“Everything all right?”
Jamie gazed down at her. “Everything’s fine.”
Kelli lowered her head again, her hand slipped down to his stomach. The weight on his body grew heavier as she fell back to sleep.
The rest of the day was a haze. They got up in starts and stops, making it to the middle of the room, then, either collapsing in a pile of sloth on the bed, or finding other, repeated distractions. In the afternoon, they finally staggered out into the corridor and down the hall to the girls bathroom, where they slipped into a steamy shower, breathed in the thick, moist air, and felt the heat relaxing their tired muscles. As they were returning to Jamie’s room, they passed Fritz, risen at last, but half dead, lying spread eagle on the common area couch. He was watching The Today Show and massaging his temples with his fingers. Kelli and Jamie eyed him warily. His eyes opened and darted in their direction.
“When did you get here?” he asked Kelli.
“Last night.”
“Huh,” Fritz drawled. “I don’t remember that.”
“It was late.”
“How ya feeling?” Jamie asked.
“Maybe you need to rest,” Kelli answered.
“Maybe you’re right. You guys need to track down some bubbly and some hooch. It’s New Year’s, we gotta have the proper supplies to watch the ball drop.” He turned to Kelli. “Or to watch the ball drop, again.”
She curled her lip in disgust. “Whatever that means.”
Fritz smirked, his head lolling back against the couch.
“He’s still drunk,” Jamie interjected. “His clever wit is drowning under a thick layer of Patron.” He turned to Fritz. “Leave the supplies to us. We’ll catch a bus later and see what we can rustle up.”
“Okay,” Fritz slurred as he teetered toward oblivion, “but don’t wait too long, it’s a jungle out there.”
It was indeed a jungle out there. Jamie and Kelli caught a mid-afternoon bus to the strip mall off Jefferson, where they went first to Discount Liquor for cocktail supplies and champagne, then next door to Wegman’s to stock up on party food. Planning a last minute New Year’s spread that could be prepared entirely in a dorm microwave proved easier than expected. Fighting the crowds was another matter. By the time they made it back to campus, the light in the sky was growing pink.
Fritz was just staggering out of the bathroom as they wandered out of the stairwell, bags in hand. Neither was surprised by his expression of pure, hungover misery. He wasn’t so much fresh from the shower, as he was sporting the drowned rat look, eyes sunken, wet hair clinging to his forehead. Jamie thought the better of a few “hair of the dog” one-liners.
“Jesus man, you look like shit.”
“Thanks,” Fritz muttered.
“Are you really gonna be wanting to celebrate tonight?” Kelli asked.
Fritz looked up suddenly, stumbling back against the brick corridor wall. “What are you talking about? It’s New Year’s!”
“Still,” Kelli began.
Fritz took a wary step forward, wobbled in place, then pushed himself free of the wall. He stood in the middle of the corridor, wavering in place like an inflatable figure on a used car lot.
On/Off - A Jekyll and Hyde Story Page 18