Super Secret Vault, The

Pages 1 - 4; First and most important line; first and most important scene

(And, seriously, I know it’s long and probably boring, but if you do want to say something about it, that would be good. Or email me. Or whatever. I want to maybe start querying, and I can’t be objective about this piece of crap anymore.)

The dirty brown recliner in the front room is damaged. He found it on a curbside and put it in the back of his truck. He figured no one would care since it was marked for trash anyway. He tells me this as he pulls me down to sit on his lap, as he reaches under my shirt and runs his hands over my bra and underneath my bra, as he unhooks it and tosses it on the floor. I’m not entirely comfortable with this.

The house smells like boys. Boys live here. It’s a flop house for firefighting boys. They fight the fires that erupt in the forest, but it’s the off season. They are still here, or some of them are. I’m not entirely sure how the whole thing works, and I’m not entirely sure I care to ask. I think the answer will be far more complicated and involved than I want it to be.

The carpet is dirty. The dishes in the sink are clean. There is a layer of dust on the TV.

I should be doing homework. I have a paper due. The class where the paper is due is a class I’m close to failing. I should be writing that goddamn paper. But I’m here. He called, and I came over.

I try to get up off the chair, but he pulls me down and laughs. I laugh, too. I try to get up again and he pulls me down again. I don’t laugh. He is still laughing.

I reach over and get the remote off the coffee table. I turn the TV on. Adventures in Babysitting is just starting.

“Let’s watch this,” I say.

His hands are going up and down under my shirt. Up and down my jeans. He unbuttons my jeans.

“This is a good movie,” I say.

I set my drink down, and it makes an empty sound on the coffee table. He gets up, spilling me off him, and offers to make me another one. When he leaves the living room, I pick up my bra and shove it in my purse. I feel vulnerable and loose.

When he brings me the drink, I take a sip. Holy shit. I take another drink. Holy, holy shit.

“This is really strong,” I say. “Really strong.”

He smells it. “I’ll fix it for you,” he says.

I excuse myself to the bathroom, but I don’t really have to go. I want to work on the stain again. I took my roommate’s blue cashmere cardigan tonight, and I spilled half of my first Vodka and cranberry down the front. I pick up the towel hanging on the rack, but it’s filthy. At one point, it must have been white. Now it’s stained gray from dirty hands. I take a wad of toilet paper and wet it, but it crumbles and smears all over the sweater so I take the cardigan off, and when I go back in the living room I toss it on top of my purse.

He’s not in the living room. He’s calling me from the bedroom. I go there. We sit on the bed, and he gives me the drink.

“Is it better?”

“Yes, it’s better.”

It still tastes like shit, but I drink it. I drink it fast. While I’m drinking it, he kisses my neck. He kisses my knees through my jeans. The looser I get, the more receptive I become to the idea that my paper is something I will conquer. I’m open to the idea of knowledge, of long conversations, of making it all mean something.

I’m open to hearing an opinion. I’m open to sharing mine. I’m open to love and to hate and all that goes in the middle.

 He takes a break to get more drinks. Shots. We do some shots, plus he’s made me another drink. I feel like I’m in a cloud, like I’m making snow angels in a cloud. I could fall through, or I could stay here.

My pants come off. My underwear comes off. I’m naked except for my little tank top. He’s on top of me and the world is spinning in the violent and terrifying way it likes to spin when it’s influenced by alcohol. I shake my head. I shake it no.

“No,” I say. My arms are like dead fish. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“Come on,” he says. “Let me feel you. I want to feel you.”

He’s inside me.

“Stop,” I say. “I don’t think we should do this.”

His face has changed into something I don’t know. I look up at him and he says, “This feels good. You feel good.”

And the anesthesiologists says, “This won’t hurt. You won’t feel anything.”

He puts an IV in my arm. My mother is sitting next to me. She tells him I want to be a doctor when I grow up. He asks me if that’s true, and I shake my head no. I don’t know what’s true.

He is an older man, with brown skin, and dark, bleeding eyes. The IV in my hand hurts. It hurts. I open my mouth to ask if it’s supposed to hurt, but I’m watching the lights above me. I’m watching the lights below me.

I tried to ask him what was happening to me. I wanted to tell him things were weird in my head, and I didn’t know what was happening to me. I tried to lift my arm, my swollen hand, but I couldn’t. My arm had died.  This is a mistake. I’m not supposed to be here.

“If you start counting back from 100,” the doctor-man says, “you’ll be out before you hit 98. You’ll wake up still you, just you without tonsils. But what are tonsils? Who needs ‘em? We don’t need ‘em. I mean, if needed ‘em, we wouldn’t be taking ‘em out. Right? Do you agree?”

100.  The room is dark, but not dark enough.

99. His breath is hot against my neck.

98. He is raping me.

97. I am being raped.

96. He is damaging me.

95. I am already damaged.

94. Damaged. I am damaged.

93. Well, he walked up to me and he asked me if I wanted to dance. He looked kinda nice and so I said I might take a chance.

92. The drink. I think about the drink.

91. It’s coming back in my throat.

90. The Vodka is burning my throat; it’s right at the back.

89. How do you fuck up a Vodka and Cranberry?

88. It’s Vodka. And it’s Cranberry.