1032: Chapter 15

“That was a fun movie,” said Laura as we walked out into the daylight. “Not normally the sort of thing I’d go in for, but I ended up quite enjoying it. What did you think?”

“Yeah, it was good,” I said absentmindedly. I hadn’t really been paying attention. It was some sort of science fiction thing, presumably chosen for my benefit, but I just couldn’t get into it. My tiredness was getting the better of me, and it was all I could do to not fall asleep in the dark, even with the loud surround-sound explosions and rumbles reverberating all around me.

“Come on,” said Laura, tugging on my sleeve. “How about some food? I’m going to make you smile by the end of today, so don’t think you’ll get off that easily.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, not really listening. Her enthusiasm today was bugging me a little bit, but I humoured her. She was trying her best, after all, so I couldn’t be too bitter or annoyed at her. She couldn’t understand what I was going through, however much I explained the situation. I still felt self-conscious talking about it, even though we’d already discussed it in depth and she had seen proof with her own eyes.

She dragged me to some awful greasy fried-chicken place near the cinema, sat me down and, after a moment or two, returned from the counter with a bucket full of chicken thighs and drumsticks. Dripping with grease, they didn’t look particularly appealing, but they tasted pretty good, so I gratefully ate them. I could have probably done with something a little more nutritious given the crap I’d been eating recently — and some days barely eating at all — but for now, this tasted good.

“Wow, you’re putting that away,” said Laura with an expression that I couldn’t quite read — it was either her being impressed or disgusted with me devouring the chicken at a rate roughly twice hers.

I put down the bone I’d been gnawing on and looked at her with tired eyes.

“Feel any better?” she said.

“A little,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” she said. “Still no smile though, huh? I meant what I said, you know.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I said, with a slight smile.

“Hey, there’s one!” she said gleefully. “That doesn’t count, though. That was more of a sneer.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling a little put out. I always found smiling to be rather unnatural when I was conscious of it, and comments like that didn’t help.

“Sorry,” she said, giggling. She was in a good mood. “Anything else you want to do while we’re out, or shall we just go and chill at your place for a bit?”

I could tell that I wasn’t going to get rid of her easily. I just wanted to go back home and sleep for about a week, but that wasn’t going to happen. I compromised and agreed that she should take me home and we should just “chill” for a bit.

We didn’t say much to each other on the way home, but I felt her occasionally glance over at me during the drive. She followed me in to my house, and then took the lead, taking my hand and leading me upstairs. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, but there was an odd feeling in the air.

She led me into my bedroom, and sat down next to me on the bed.

“Laura, what–”

I was interrupted by her grabbing my face, pulling it towards her and kissing me.

My first kiss. I’d always suspected it would be with Laura, but I’d never considered the circumstances, or that it was a serious possibility, to be honest. But now it was happening, and all I could feel was a curious detachment from the situation, like I was watching it from outside.

Her lips were soft, and there was a pleasant scent about her. Her hands were clasping my face firmly but not roughly so, and the sensations weren’t unpleasant. I felt something stirring and immediately wished I hadn’t noticed it. Ugh, what if she saw?

She pulled away from me for a moment and looked at me with an expression I’d never seen on her face before. But before I could say anything or consider what it meant, she’d pushed me down on the bed and was straddling me. There was no way that I could hide my body’s excitement now. She was brushing against it. It felt good. But still I felt that odd detachment, that feeling like I wasn’t quite “present” while all this was going on. It just seemed to be happening, unfolding without any input from me. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

Correction. My mind wasn’t sure it liked what was going on, but my body sure did.

*

She climbed off me, her face reddened and beads of sweat visible on her cheeks. I collapsed back onto my pillow, panting like I’d just run for several miles.

So that was what it felt like.

I felt curiously unfulfilled. The feeling of detachment had only continued as she did more and more pleasurable things to me; the more erotic the situation had gotten, the further away I felt. She didn’t seem to care, though — she just carried on as if she had planned all this and was following a script.

Perhaps it was the tiredness. I had gone from having my first kiss to losing my virginity in the space of an afternoon. That should be a big deal. It was with my best friend, too. That should be a big deal, too. And perhaps it was. I just couldn’t process it right now.

She got up and went to the bathroom. I was left alone to contemplate things further, but just found myself wanting to close my eyes and fall asleep.

Sleep didn’t come — it would have probably been quite disrespectful for her to walk back in on me and find me snoring away after what had just happened — but I realised that it had been several minutes since she’d left, and she hadn’t come back. I didn’t hear any sounds coming from the bathroom, either.

I opened my eyes again, sat up and walked to the bathroom. The door was closed, but not locked. I still couldn’t hear anything.

“Laura?” I called. “You there?”

There was no response. I was starting to get a bad feeling. The feeling of detachment was slowly being replaced by a gnawing, uneasy sensation.

“Laura?”

Still nothing. I couldn’t hear her moving inside. Was she all right?

“Laura, I’m… coming in, okay?”

I opened the door slowly. It creaked as I did so — all the doors in this house creaked to one degree or another, but the bathroom was particularly noisy. Despite the noise the door was making, I still pushed it open slowly, just in case Laura wasn’t ready for me.

Instead I wasn’t ready for what I saw.

Laura was lying face-down on the floor, still naked. She wasn’t moving. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not, but it didn’t look good.

“Shit,” I said, racing into the room to be by her side. I tried frantically to remember the few things about first aid I’d learned in the past. I knelt beside her to try and work out if she was actually breathing or not, but I couldn’t tell with her lying face down. I reached out to touch her and turn her over, but as I did so, I was assailed by a feeling of absolute terror. It was only for a second, but it was enough to make me want to close my eyes and blot out the world.

I knew before I opened them again that the situation had changed. Sure enough, there was no sign of Laura’s naked body on the floor before me, and the light that had been on previously was now off. I stood up slowly and just stared at the floor.

The door creaked behind me and I suddenly turned around.

“Oh my God,” came Alice’s voice before I saw her. “What the fuck are you doing? Put some fucking clothes on!”

I frantically looked around for something to cover myself with and could only find a towel that wasn’t really big enough to cover me completely.

“Sorry,” I said, looking up at where Alice had been standing a moment before. She was gone. The light was back on. “What?”

I span back around to look for Laura’s prone body, but it was no longer on the floor.

What was happening?

“You all right?” came Laura’s voice from around the corner. I heard her footsteps, and then she was there in the doorway, fully clothed. I was still holding the towel around my waist. “Whoa, what are you…”

“I don’t know!” I yelled, a little more harshly than I intended. “I just… it all happened so fast! After we… you know… you went to the bathroom and you were gone a long time, so I came to make sure you were all right, and you were lying on the floor and–”

“Whoa,” she said. “Back up. After we what?”

I blinked. This was not happening. Or, more accurately, what I thought had happened had not really happened. Or had it? I certainly remembered it, and the current state I was in seemed to suggest that my mind was not playing tricks on me, but–

“No, come on,” she said, sounding a little more agitated now. “After we what?”

“You want me to say it?” I asked, my voice becoming meek. I didn’t like where this conversation was going.

“Yes,” she said. “You’re freaking me out a bit right now, if I’m honest, so I’d appreciate an explanation.”

“But we… you know…” Did she really not know?

“No, I don’t know!”

“We… did it,” I said, feeling my cheeks flush as I said it. What a ridiculous, childish way to put it. “We had sex.”

“What?” Her face contorted; she looked like she was laughing and incredulous at the same time. “We most certainly did not. I think I would have remembered something like that. What is wrong with you?”

Something was very wrong here.

“What?” I said. “You really don’t…”

“No!” she cried. “You honestly think that I would want to do that with you? Particularly with the state your life is in right now? I don’t think that would be the most productive use of our time, now, would it?”

Her words stung me. She didn’t need to be so cold about it.

“I think I should go,” she said. “I’ll see you around. Sometime. Not for a while. Don’t contact me. I… need some space.”

She stormed off. I heard her go down the stairs, and shortly afterwards the front door opened and then slammed.

I fell to my knees on the floor of the bathroom. The towel fell to the floor, forgotten. I could feel the stress, anxiety, fear and confusion rise up through my body. I gulped a little as the tears sprang to my eyes, then simply exploded with all that pent-up emotion. I wailed and sobbed, and the tears wouldn’t stop flowing. I was a pathetic figure right then, but I didn’t care.

“You have a weak connection to your world,” the mysterious figure had said to me. It felt like that last connection had just been cut.