CHAPTER ONE

IN THE TIME OF THE FLY
A Novel by Kalynn Campbell
 

WHEN I AM OF TIGER, ACCEPT CLAWS OF STONE

WHEN I AM OF FLY, ACCEPT WINGS OF PAPER

- CHAPTER ONE -

IN THE TIME OF DYING

deafening is the unheard scream

The aging Mustang gave a tired rattle as it hugged the space next to my wife's gleaming import. Seeing her BMW in our driveway came as a surprise. Maybe today was a court holiday, I could never keep track of them.
The weather was unbearably hot, even for June; Los Angeles seemed to grow hotter by the year. Wiping a layer of dampness from my brow, I pulled the brown paper grocery bag containing the makings of dinner from the Mustang’s sweltering trunk. I made a mental note to get the car’s air conditioner fixed, a mental note I gave myself every time I drove it.
With the groceries cradled against a sweaty chest, I fished around my jeans for the roll of mints I’d stuck in one of the pockets without much thought to the heat. My jeans were now soaked with perspiration, clinging to my legs as if I’d run through a sprinkler - not the most ideal place for candies that dissolved into a paste when wet. Dropping the damp roll of mints into the bag, I set about unlocking the back door, my eyes temporarily blinded by an intense ray of sunlight reflecting off the door’s glass window pane. The door’s lock proved stubborn, the key catching on rusty tumblers. As I worked the corroded lock, chicken blood began seeping through the bag, dripping onto my arm. The bloody discharge weakened the brown kraft paper bag, now threatening to spill its contents. With a few more jiggles of the lock, I made it into the house just as a lumpy sweet potato breached the wall of the wet bag, prompting a food avalanche; cans, loose produce, and a bloody chicken carcass tumbled down to the floor. The last to fall was the roll of mints. The cylindrical package bounced once then took off in full roll. I watched as the mints rolled the length of the hardwood floor, coming to rest against a pistachio-green suitcase. 
Without warning, my attorney wife walked out that day, abandoning both myself and the large house we rented.

Although the deed came as a vile surprise, our marriage this last year was far from perfect.
Eleven months earlier, I’d been given leave from a mid-level art director’s job at a mid-level record company catering to mid-level rock bands. Seems I’d fallen out of touch with evolving computer programs, unaware they now had the ability to mimic hard-earned skills of an art director - I was unaware that is, until the day one replaced me. Like abandonment from marriage, such things happen in the blink of an eye. Losing my job hadn’t worried me all that much; with my wife’s more than ample income as a lawyer, coupled with a healthy savings account, things would be fine until I could get back on my feet. What I hadn’t counted on was my wife’s sudden termination from the law firm employing her. I also didn’t count on my wife sinking every penny of savings into opening a law firm of her own - justifying it as “I’ll show them!” That hasty decision soon became the paper grocery bag holding our marriage together. With every passing day, it weakened a little - just waiting for the opportunity to split us wide open.

The litigious business of running a law practice sparked a change in my wife, and not for the better. A once bright, happy-go-lucky demeanor soon slid into one of peevish calculating coldness, until one day she was an ‘around-the-clock’ lawyer, the role of wife and lover having faded to memory. Before I knew it, the role of after-hours plaintiff fell upon me. Everything I did was suddenly on trial: from showers, “Explain the motives behind such blatant misuse of hot water...” to dinners, “Exactly when did you conspire to serve me chili on a 100-degree day?”
But those were merely sparring moves. Her ‘case of the century’ centered around my unemployment. Although every two weeks an unemployment check could be found among past-due bills, my wife wouldn’t let the issue rest. Over and over I was forced to state my case; “...almost overnight, my talents and skills became obsolete. They replaced me with a younger digital artist who’s only skill lies in operating a computer program...” My plea brought no sympathy, nor did efforts to find work in spite of my lacking computer skills. The simple fact that every morning I had nowhere to be was the crux of her case. At least once a day, with clichéd lawyer stance and a TV courtroom tone, my wife would ask, “Exactly how long do you plan to sit around and collect unemployment checks?”

Her nasty court demeanor was clearly a product of the new law practice. Once the doors opened, my wife immersed herself in that world until it became her only world. Unfortunately, one thing didn’t belong in that world, that was me. Rancor over my presence slowly festered. She was angry at herself for marrying a non-professional, some simple run-of-the-mill pedestrian. To add insult to injury, the lowly pedestrian was now out of work. Anger slowly gave way to need to punish me. I needed to pay for her silly weakness. I needed to pay for her falling in love with a lowly art director ten years prior.
But that was before abandonment. 

Now she was burying me with an endless procession of legal papers and divorce demands. No longer satisfied with punishment alone, my wife added a new goal; sticking me with debt incurred by her fledgling law firm. It was debt incurred within the bounds of marriage, so the possibility I could find myself on the hook for it had become a real threat. A divorce judge was set rule on the issue at a trial.
Her abandonment was punishment above and beyond - this was simply cruel. As icing on the cake, my wife walked out the very month the unemployment checks ended. She had been very shrewd in her cruelty, as lawyers often are.

With the help of several cases of sweet red wine, our ten-year wedding anniversary gift from her old firm, I self-medicated an aching heart - it helped numb the anger as well as the hurt. Wine was the medicine I took to help with sleep, then took to cure the morning’s hangover. Soon, the medicine flowed through my veins twenty-four hours a day. The medicine was good at its job. To my surprise, the wine had an interesting side effect; the alcoholic acted as a stimulant. It energized, even focused me. The medicine quickly became an ally in the divorce battle. Under the invigorating intoxication of a wine buzz, I did a damn good job of building my defense case. In a funny way, the wine had made me invincible. Delusion or not, the alcohol-based medicine summoned all the powers needed to fight the iniquitous actions of a spiteful attorney ex.

Before I knew it, the medicine was gone and my time as sole tenant of the huge house had come to an end. Our pre-paid lease was up. I needed to find another place to call home, and soon.
I had the house cleared and the first round of complex legal forms filed just six short days before the lease ran out. Not only had I cut an apartment search damn close, but my bank account was now closing in on the negative end of the financial spectrum.

Housing in the city of Los Angeles does not come cheap, unless one is willing to call a war-zone home. I frantically scoured the area’s apartment boards with miserable luck. I called friends, hoping to make living room floor reservations, but all took a neutral position, none wishing to bear the stigma of favoritism. I watched in numbness as friends from the old days, pre ill-fated marriage days, abandoned me as callously as my wife had. Anxiety grew with every “sorry, man,” and every crossed-off rental lead. Then, just two dire days before I had to vacate the old house, I happened across an affordable apartment in a safe enough area. But there was a catch. It was in the Valley.

Like a bag of spilled groceries, the “Valley” lies in a vast depression on the north side of the Hollywood Hills. I loathed the Valley, for the entire basin seemed nothing more than a repugnant failed suburban experiment. The Valley was home to franchise store chains and suburban sprawl and, as such, undermined the metropolitan membrane that makes a city a city. Only the Hollywood Hills saved the city from the Valley’s anemic hold. The hills were a barrier, a retaining wall protecting the urbane core of Los Angeles from the ever-creeping banal values of the Valley.
My hatred for the Valley was not unfounded, the few times I’d ventured into the trite basin I’d been a victim of it’s vapidity; from an hour long traffic jam caused by the opening of a new Walmart to a major street closure due to a fracas at a residential garage sale.
Personal animosity for the Valley wasn’t of consequence now. Fate made it clear, the status quo was no longer an option. With possessions packed and the U-Haul truck pointed north, I headed over the retaining hill and into the insipidness of the my new home.

I arrived on a sweltering 104-degree day in late July. My new one-bedroom apartment was in an aging, neglected, 50's era, three unit, bungalow-style building, common for the Valley. The building sat perpendicular to the street, facing an identical three unit bungalow. The twin buildings stood to the north and south of each other, separated only by a courtyard of scraggly, unkempt rose and carnation bushes. In the building to the north I was the middle apartment, sandwiched in by a younger (by around fifteen or so years) single girl in the back, and a sixty-something Korean woman in the front. Our three units shared a common walkway and a sliver of an alley.

While the world around us went off to work each day, the three of us stayed shut in our apartments. I was out of work, days spent reading do-it-yourself divorce manuals and deciphering reams of legal papers while swilling cheap wine. The older woman in the front unit was obviously retired and living off Social Security, but the odd schedule of the younger girl piqued my curiosity. She only left her apartment after the sun dropped, not returning until three or four in the morning. Every now and then she’d leave with a pink canvas backpack flung over her right shoulder. On those nights, I wouldn’t see her again for several days. Outside of the girl’s unusual hours, I thought it odd that she never had visitors. The girl was breathtakingly beautiful, she had been gifted with a level of beauty only found on magazine covers. She was always exquisitely dressed, as if everyday she was a contestant in some sophisticated beauty contest. In her short life she must have been placed on a thousand pedestals. The girl’s stunning beauty made her isolation and late hours all the more intriguing. She left me agog; I wanted to know more about this gorgeous girl’s mysterious life, but no matter how suburban the Valley seemed, it was still part of the city. In the city, people keep to themselves.

Eventually, I ran into the other neighbors one by one. The sixty-something Korean lady occupying the front apartment was a mere teacup of a woman. From behind she could easily have been mistaken for a little girl dressed in grandmother’s clothing. The lady owned a white, fuzzy, purse-sized dog, which she walked on a twisted, skinny red leash, the leash resembling a long stick of licorice candy. The dog would break into barking fits every time it saw me. The animal was so minuscule, its yap sounded more like the manic chirp of an angry bird than that of a dogs. Several times I tried talking with the diminutive woman, but her English was terribly broken, and conversation of any length seemed to only frustrate her. After several failed attempts at coherent dialog I gave up and simply took to waving whenever I saw her and the chirping dog.

The unit across the courtyard from her was occupied by an Armenian man, also in his sixties. The man’s face was habitually covered with a morning’s growth of flake-white beard; the bright white stubble accentuated by the man’s dark ethnic complexion. The man’s English was good, but his attitude less than hospitable, often countering my neighborly greetings with a rude turn of the head.

The old lady who lived across from my unit was frequently out front, watering a weedy container garden which crowded her porch stoop. The aged woman was elderly thin and somewhere in her late 70s. A faded floor-length blue robe embellished with large pink and yellow flowers perpetually draped her bone of a body. The old lady kept her hair tightly cropped to her head, like some 1920s Betty Boop comic strip, licks of blueish gray hair curling around grayer sunken cheek bones. Like the Armenian man, the old lady made no effort to acknowledge me. After awhile I happily returned both their sentiments.

I rarely had chance to speak with the woman living in the unit across from the young girl. The middle-aged woman seemingly worked long hours and was always in a hurry. The one time we crossed paths she stopped only long enough to shake my hand. She was too hurried to even give her name. The woman was short and on the heavy side, yet strangely proportioned; a large mass of buttocks and thighs had grown beyond that of normal size, dwarfing her torso. She looked like two mismatched humans stuck together at the waistline. Her unique proportioning caused her to walk with a slight waddle. The woman wore her hair haphazardly piled on the top of her head, like laundry in a hamper - the jumbled pile shifting back and forth as she hastily waddled to and from her apartment each day.
Just what did these peculiar neighbors think of me? A man with no visible means of income, no wife, no friends, nothing but trips to the store? Perhaps it was never questioned. This was the city, after all.

A full month flew by and I still hadn’t run into the beautiful girl. In four weeks, she was the only neighbor I hadn’t spoken to on some level. Then late one Sunday afternoon, I heard a timid knock at the door. The young girl was standing at my doorway, the late day’s sun creating a vampire-like silhouette around a bedimmed hourglass figure.
“Are you Kevin? Hi, I’m Christine...”
The girl’s voice was soft but regal, filling the air with a slight opulence.
“But everyone calls me Chris,” she finished.
If her voice were an object it would have been a gold satin pillow.
"Kyle said we had a new neighbor. I thought I’d come by and welcome you to the neighborhood! I’m really sorry to hear about your divorce. If you need anything, I’m just next door.”
She pointed to her apartment with the entirety of her right arm, holding the pose until I glanced in the direction of her finger. Kyle, the owner and landlord of the building, hadn’t told me anything about her other than she was a quiet tenant. Given how beguiling Chris was, it was easy to imagine Kyle spilling all the intimate details of his tenants’ personal lives to the girl without second thought.
I invited Chris into a shambled living room, the apartment clearly belonging to someone once dependent on another for domestic chores. I cleared a few piles of legal papers and wrinkled t-shirts from the couch, offering the girl a seat. She plopped down like she’d been walking for days, suddenly collapsing from sheer exhaustion. As she landed, Chris smiled. Her smile was radiant in an almost bewitching way, and it sent a warm tingle through my entire body. I studied Chris’s face closer. She looked a few years younger than I’d originally pegged her as, but her face wasn’t concealed under makeup as it had been on the nights I’d seen her leaving the building. Chris’s eyes were a deep but translucent blue, and in the luminescence of the late afternoon light they reflected a glowing shimmer, like cat’s eyes at dusk. A girlish white top with wide pink and black stripes clung tight against to her torso, outlining large, round breasts in an exaggerated, almost cartoonish manner. The top’s short arm sleeves were embroidered with dainty red hearts, the left arm sleeve sporting a designer name. Cornflower-blue jeans hugged perfectly proportioned legs with the same snugness as the top to her chest. Gentle rips and tatters ran the length of her jeans, but were far from random in placement. The tatters and tears were obviously by design, these were no hiking or climbing jeans scarred from rugged use. A heavenly perfumed aura gently swirled around her. Only occasionally did it drift my way, but when it did, it titillated with a sensual flowery aroma enveloped in a misty musk-like essence. The scent teased me with the desire to bury my nose deep into her neck like a bee seeking nectar.

I pulled myself away from her mesmerizing beauty only long enough to open us a bottle of wine. Chris didn’t seem to mind my having served the wine in water glasses, the only glasses I’d brought in the move. Between sips she enthusiastically described the neighborhood and its merits. She spoke of the Valley with great fondness.
“It’s good to get away from the fast paced life of the other side. Here you can hear yourself think. This will be a positive move for you, Kevin, you’ll see!”
My personal bias against the Valley temporarily dropped away as I nodded my head in agreement. I couldn’t help but agree, as Chris had an inexplicable hold on me. If she had said living on the street would be the best for me, I would have agreed. I doubt anyone had ever disagreed with this enthralling creature.

That afternoon, I learned Chris worked as a hostess for a major Hollywood party and events company - hence the late nights - dinners with stars, award events, after-hour private parties. I, in turn, shared how I’d been an art director in the music industry until the growth of the internet left me an obsolete throw away.
I sat captivated as she divulged personal stories of drunken TV stars and self-centered movie stars. My lackluster stories of ego-maniacal rock stars paled in comparison to her compelling Hollywood anecdotes. When I began to detail my nasty slide into divorce hell, Chris reached over and gently placed her hand on mine. The feel of her soft, warm fingers on my skin gave my heart a shiver. It was incredibly galvanizing to feel a woman's touch again. As I related the unlucky events leading up to my abandonment, Chris showed genuine concern, her eyebrows arching downward so as to convey sadness. Although I relished the feel of her soft hand wrapping mine and the intense empathy directed my way, I didn’t want to bring the mood down any further, so I quickly changed the subject to that of our neighbors. Chris rolled her eyes and laughed. Her laugh was festive and bubbly, the kind one might hear on an old television sitcom soundtrack.
“What can I say, they’re old and stuffy. They don’t talk to me at all. Sometimes I hear them grumbling that I make too much noise when I come home from work. It’s mostly that crabby old lady who lives across from you.”
“That’s bullshit! You don’t make any noise when you come home from work.”
Chris again gave the bubbly laugh before asking how I knew that unless she had woken me. I explained that with the move, the divorce, and the ungodly heat, I’d become an insomniac. Often I was awake when she returned from work late at night.
“You know how quiet it is here at night, Chris. You don’t make any noise. Definitely nothing that would wake anyone.”
Unlike the city side, traffic in the Valley comes to a halt just hours after the sun drops. Although we lived on a busy artery street, it was like any other street in the Valley - with night, traffic fell to a quiet hush. It was in that hushed quiet that Chris’s return announced itself in the form of a muffled “goodnight” or in the light metallic resonance of a car door closing. Most often, her return was marked by the faint sound of heeled shoes slowly clacking their way up the building’s walkway and nothing more. Chris nodded and said most likely the old people simply didn’t want anyone as young as her living in the building.
“I think they’re afraid one day I’ll throw a huge, loud party. A party SO big, it turns the apartment building into a 24-hour nightclub full of nothing but young people!”
Again her laugh was bubbly.
We’d been lost in conversation and I hadn’t noticed the room had grown dark, until Chris said something about it getting late.
“I really should get back, I have to take care of a few things before tomorrow.”
A sadness fell over me. The visit had come to an end. Chris was the first person I’d talked to at any length for several weeks. Her visit was like a shot of strong coffee after an exhausting day; it had given me a needed lift. I walked her to the door, holding it open for the beautiful girl. As Chris walked past by, her arms suddenly draped me in an unfeigned hug. The feel of her chest against mine was both profound and mournful, like the soft melancholy of remembering a beloved lost pet. I had not held anyone in months, and the body contact radiated with a bitter sweetness.
The sun was in the final stages of an stunning but painful drop into full sunset - long rays of intense reds and golds stabbed at a blanket of dusk which rapidly dropped over the dying light - stubbornly filling the void between day and night. As Chris stepped into the darkening sunset of the evening’s sky, the colorful rays lit her face with a delicate glow. I savored the exquisiteness of this fleeting moment. I wasn’t sure when I’d see the elusive, beautiful girl again. I thanked her for the visit while trying hard to hide my disappointment over our parting.
I was pulling the door closed when Chris suddenly spurted out, “Hey, Kevin, wait! ... Do you have anything planned next Sunday? For dinner I mean...”
My heart skipped a beat.
“No, not a thing.”
“You do now! Let’s say... seven o’clock? My place? I’ll make us something easy, we’ll keep it super causal.”
The gods had thrown me a bone. I wanted to yell out in joy. I wanted to do a crazy happy dance. I wanted to throw my arms around the beautiful girl. Instead, I played it cool.
“I’d really like that. What can I bring?”
“Your call, I’m easy.”
“Well, it’s been awhile, but I used to make a pretty decent roast chicken.” It was true.
Like an over-joyed child, Chris bounced on the arches of her heels, clapping her hands hands together like some contestant on a daytime game show.
“PERFECT! I’ll make the rest. It’s a date! See you Sunday, Kevin!”
In the few minutes we’d been talking, the petticoat of night had fully engulfed the flamboyant sunset. Chris’s face no longer glowed with the plush reds and golds of a dying sun; a neighbor’s pale yellow porch light now replaced the soft warm glow with hard cold shadows. As I watched Chris walk the few feet back to her door, my face filled with a full smile. I was reeling from the unexpected turn of events. Just before Chris disappeared into her apartment I heard her call out, “Oh, and good luck with everything this week. But you won’t need it, I can see you’ll do great!”
That night I celebrated, finishing the bottle of wine we’d opened. The bottle marked my second of the day.

I found myself in a state of constant elation over the upcoming dinner with the young, beautiful girl. But, like everything good in life, elation never lasts long.
I now faced a sad truth; every aspect of my life had been affected by the pending divorce. Today, the mirror spoke for the visual toll. Until last year I had what many called a “baby face.” Although I hated the term, I was more than happy to look younger than I actually was. But now, with mounting stress and uncertainty weighing heavy on me, my face abruptly looked every year of its age and then some. Long hair had been replaced by a poorly executed conformist cut; the short hair a forced necessity for court hearings and the pending trial. Rouge gray hairs accentuated the humiliating cut. My dark brown eyes, at one time bright with a spark of enthusiasm and possibility, had grown dull and flat. My body had become incredibly thin, gauntness showing by way of a shrinking waistline, jeans hanging loose around thin legs like the skin on a Shar-Pei dog - the overwhelming stress of the forced circumstance killed a once healthy appetite. The only pre-divorce part of me still intact was a chin goatee - but it too was in decline, wisps of gray hair infiltrating like slugs in a garden. My wardrobe hadn’t changed much; it still consisted of ratty jeans and stained t-shirts. The majority of the shirts depicted vintage cars or band logos from happier punk rock days, but the designs had faded to ghostly images, ravished by years of harsh wash cycles. I looked myself over. At five-foot-ten-inches, my entire being, from clothing to wiry frame, looked like a ramshackle scarecrow time had stripped to the wooden bone.
Yet even with all that, Chris’s visit gave me hope for rebirth. Only in moments when my mind recounted Chris's visit did I glimpse the old Kevin within the strangers face glaring at me from the bathroom mirror. Soon, thoughts of the beautiful girl and her soft touch were revisited over and over, like a visual mantra.                                                   

The sun was slowly dripping over the horizon like golden honey poured from a jar. I stepped from my apartment and into a stream of soft golden light - a brown grocery bag cradled in my left arm. The air held a cold but welcomed nip. I was incredibly nervous, and although it was chilly out, my palms beaded with sweat. I rang the doorbell while holding in my breath.
Chris opened the door, a glowing smile formed from ruby red lips.
"Welcome, Stranger."
Tonight, the beautiful girl wore a dainty white tank top, the fabric stretched taunt against her flawless torso. From around her hips dropped a long, flowing, dark purple skirt adorned with silver sequined flower patterns, each twinkling with glittery flashes of light. Her arms were bare except for small stacks of silver bracelets hanging from each wrist. The bracelets clinked with a soft tin-like sound whenever she moved her arms. Chris’s dark hair was pulled back with a neon bright, almost psychedelic, purple hair clip. Long silver and turquoise earrings danced from dainty ear lobes and long strands of colorful beads hung from a soft neck. Chris looked like a born-again Grateful Dead follower, one who'd discovered them too late in life to have actually seen them play.
She gave me hug, the bag with the wine acting as an unintentional barrier between us. Chris then turned and started walking.
“Follow me, Kevin, I'll show you where the kitchen is…"
The room fell dark as I stepped in, shutting the door behind me. All the curtains were drawn; the only form of illumination came from a small, low-watt globe lamp off in the far corner of the living room. I followed Chris’s silhouetted figure into the kitchen area. We walked past a small round dining table set with white china plates and pink taper candles, each candle protruded stoically from a stubby ebony holder. A small wooden box, the top embellished with delicate mother of pearl inlay, sat in the tables center, along with a small black ashtray which held a bulky hand-rolled joint. I slid the bag on a counter top as Chris switched on the overhead lights. The kitchen was sparse; only a tiny microwave and a petite black expresso machine occupied a sea of glistening spotless counter tiles.
"All I have to do is nuke the potatoes and broccoli and we can eat.” She laughed. 
“I hope you don’t mind, I'm not what you'd call the domestic type.”
From the freezer she grabbed a bag of frozen broccoli and set it, bag and all, into the microwave. She then held upturned hands in front of the humming machine as if she were displaying the microwave to a crowd of people. I wanted to comment on Chris’s amusing imitation of a game show hostess, but the visit had me feeling anxious. Instead, I gave a timid smile, then pulled a bottle of wine from the bag along with the foil-wrapped chicken I’d cooked for the occasion. I was eager to get alcohol in my system to help cut the nervousness. Chris opened the wine and filled our glasses as I pulled a second, then third bottle from the bag.
"Shit, Kevin, you come prepared!”
“Can never have too much of a good thing.”
I was unsure if others would be joining us; I’d made that unfortunate mistake in the past. Soon the wine and Chris’s calm demeanor put me at ease.

Before long, tiny orange flames danced from pillars of pink candle and bone-white plates teemed with lukewarm chicken, microwaved mashed potatoes, and bag-poached broccoli. As we tacked our way through the meal, I drank several glasses of wine, my usual. With prompting from my end, Chris had me top-off her glass several times. Her face now glowed with a ceaseless smile.
After pushing an empty plate off to one side, Chris took the hand rolled joint from the ashtray and lit it. With a long pull inward, Chris’s lungs pushed her breasts taut against the sheer fabric of the white top, bumps of nipple threatening to rip forth. Her smile widened. Leaning back, she stuck her hand out, offering the joint my way. 

"No thanks, I don't smoke anymore, makes me feel paranoid.”

She laughed, but it was true. Marijuana wrapped me in a cloak of anxiety and self-consciousness. Pot was not a drug I classified as ‘fun’ by any means.
“These days I drink the reality away.” I shrugged.

Chris’s face tightened.

"You know that stuff is pure poison."

My retort was a quick one.

"Yeah, but it's not like we’ll live forever if we never inject poison into our life.”

I held my glass up with a mock toast gesture.

“Here’s to things that kill us slowly, but pleasantly...”
 I offered in toast.
Chris let out a wild laugh before tilting her head back, blue eyes scanning the ceiling. Her head quickly snapped into normal position, like she suddenly remembered something important.
“I suppose that IS what it’s about..”
“What, injecting poison into life?”
“No, what you said about drinking reality away. I guess that is why we get high. I never really thought about it before, I just get high!”
She laughed with the bubbly tone, her left hand thrusting an empty wine glass towards me.
“Please sir, pour me some more reality killer!”
Chris was laughing as I poured the last of the first bottle into her glass. There was only enough to fill it one-fifth of the way up. She drank that down as though it were grape juice.
“More please.” 
I rose and opened another bottle. As I filled her glass from the fresh bottle, Chris’s face twisted until it held a look of seriousness.

“Heeeeyyy, you trying to fuck me up, Kevin?”

I smiled and winked.
 “Would that be such a bad thing?” 
 
My face held a devilish grin. I couldn’t count all the times I’d fantasized about fucking this beautiful girl. I figured I may as well come clean about it.
Chris then leaned forward, her face still tense with seriousness, although both eyes had a slight droop to them. 

"What else you do, Kevin? Coke?”
 
Chris reached across the table and picked up the little wooden box. She held it open to show me the contents; a small round-edged mirror, a razor blade, a two inch silver pipe and a square packet of white powder. It had been a long time since I’d done any form of stimulant, especially cocaine.

"Not really. You have the pleasure, pretty much, I’m a ‘go-slow' guy.”

She gave a sharp loud laugh then looked at me with a puzzled gaze.

"A what?!?”

“A ‘go-slow' guy. I like a slow moving high, you know, like downers and booze…” 

I lifted my glass in another toasting gesture before taking a long sip. 

"Your loss, this is really good coke, if I told you who gave me this you'd shit your pants!”

Chris cut herself a short line, inhaling it with a loud snort. While sniffing the white powder to the back of her throat, she said, “You must like opiates then.
”
“Yeah, I love opiates, but these days I just pickle my liver. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper.”

Throwing back a thumb, she pointed behind her, “I’ve got Vicodin in the bathroom, took one before you came over. Go get yourself one.”

At this point I was too far into alcohol to toss in a painkiller, even one as docile as Vicodin.

"Next time, okay? But thank you!”

She shook her head disapprovingly like a mother to a child. Although I was comfortable with Chris’s unabashed drug streak, having lived through more than a few drug-binging years of my own, it still surprised me.


I followed Chris to the living room. She flipped on a small iPod which sat docked between two small speakers, music from a trendy radio station filled the air. The pop music instantly grated on me, but the upbeat tempo was a perfect fit for Chris. My eyes were now adjusted to the dim lighting and I saw the room as if it were fully lit. The entire apartment was impeccably decorated with high-end antique furniture. The iPod stereo sat atop a carved mahogany end table, the wood’s shiny dark veneer broken by delicate hand-carved ornamental flourishes. Large olive-green hand-molded glass vases, each in the shape of a funeral urn, lay tucked in the corners of the room. From the urns peeked colorful peacock feathers. Across from the couch sat an elaborate wooden art deco bar. It curved outward in a stretched half barrel shape. The bar’s exterior was made up of wooden inlay - hundreds of pieces of teakwood formed an intricate arch. In the center of the arch was a lacquered circle comprised of a blonde-colored, thinly striped wood, its grain mimicking tiger fur. It was unlike any bar I’d ever seen. I had to wonder if the lavish bar was fully stocked, or merely a sexy ornament for the room. On the walls hung exquisite woodblocks depicting elegant long legged birds in different poses, each print signed by the artist. Everything in the apartment was refined with sophistication and expense. It all looked out of place in the run-down building.

We sat close to each other on a dark emerald-green leather couch, the leather so soft, it felt more like fabric than animal hide. The room had everything except a coffee table, so I placed the bottle of wine at my feet. I was asking about the bird prints when Chris suddenly leaned over and kissed me. It took me by surprise, but I happily returned it. Chris then fell back laughing. She was stoned beyond the point of self-control. I wasn't sure if I should be mad at her teasing, or find it humorous.
"You seem cool, Kevin. I’ve been watching you...”
Before I could react, Chris stuck an index finger into my rib.
“There’s nobody here to talk to since the guy who lived in your apartment moved out. He was pretty cool too, we used to do lines together and play his X-box all night. You gotta X-box?"
"No, sorry, no X-box. I have a TV, though.”
She dropped her lower lip to mimic a pout.
"Oh, well, I'll have to buy us one then. I don't have a TV, so you'll be our X-box guy.”
For some reason this made her giggle.
“Sure, the X-box guy, I can be that.”
Actually, I was dumbfounded. Chris had not only been watching me, but in few short hours, I’d become the official X-box guy, and I didn’t even own one. Why this shockingly beautiful girl who boasted of major Hollywood contacts had no visitors, no boyfriend, no one to talk to at all, baffled me.

Excusing herself, she disappeared down a narrow hallway, returning with a mischievous grin spanning her face. I playfully grinned back in response. Sitting close, her leg pressed tightly against my thigh, she leaned forward and placed her lips gently on mine. Slowly, Chris opened her lips, sliding her tongue into the recess of my mouth. As our tongues touched, I felt a hard object drop onto mine. Chris broke the kiss and sat back, bubbly laughter filling the air.
“Misery loves company!” She laughed.
Using the kiss, she’d passed me a soggy pill.
“And DON'T spit it out! You have to swallow it!” A pointing finger hovered inches from my face.
I bit down, crumbling the pill. Instantly, I recognized the bitter taste. Vicodin.
“We’re even now - you fucked me up so I fucked you up!” 
After she stopped laughing, Chris gave me another sharp poke with her index finger. I was both shocked and amused by the unexpected pill drop. 
Before I could say anything, Chris began a rambling story which quickly splintered into a series of rambling stories, all involving movie stars she knew; random stories that sped up then abruptly stopped mid-sentence - hanging for a second as though she’d forgotten how to speak. It wasn’t long before her paused stories resumed with chunks missing. When ending a story, Chris fell back in silence, sitting perfectly still a few minutes before springing forward, starting yet another story. Each time she did this she’d poke a finger deep into my ribs.
It was obvious, she was officially 'fucked up." The choppy story telling had me nervous. The cocaine was fighting a dangerous cocktail of alcohol and Vicodin. I worried that Chris might have more drugs coursing through her system than I was aware of. My playful pouring of alcohol had now become cause for alarm. Paranoid thoughts ran though my head as I rocked my glass back and forth, wine swirling in rhythm to her stop and go storytelling. In one of the longer lulls, a frightened voice in back of my head said Chris had just slumped over dead. Apprehensively, I turned to look - at that very second, Chris lurched forward, popping up like a child’s Jack-in-the-box, her finger riveting deep into my rib-cage. It startled me so much, I decided it was better to have her die of an overdose than me of a heart attack, so I stopped looking over when she fell silent. 
After twenty minutes more of this, a Vicodin high crept over me like a light dusting of snow on a warm winter’s day. About the time the Vicodin hit, Chris’s stories began making sense. Paranoia soon fell away, and I sank into the soft leather cushion, settling in for the rest of the ride.

I’d finished the second bottle of wine while listening to fractured Hollywood reminiscences and getting my rib-cage peppered with painful finger-sized bruises. At this point I was long stoned and physically tired, so I told Chris it was time I headed home. She said I could go only if I promised to have dinner with her every Sunday night, next Sunday she would order us pizza. Without hesitation, I promised.

At the door we kissed, this time Chris lingered, resting her hands on my hips. Her lips softly grazed mine with the faintest of touch, my own lips frozen in paralysis by the incredibly delicate contact of warm flesh. The silky, almost ethereal kiss awoke feelings in me I’d all but forgotten. I was lost in the sensation when Chris unexpectedly pressed hard with a sudden hunger, grinding her lips into mine as if to lock us together. When I returned the frenzied kiss, Chris pulled back and took hold of my right hand, raising it to her face. Mesmesmerizing translucent-blue eyes locked on mine in a deep, penetrating stare as her smooth tongue slid over my palm - her tongue moving in a slow circular motion before tracing a path to the tip of a finger. With each finger she made the same moves, and as each finger met her damp, velvet-like lips, she’d push my hand until the finger penetrated the warmth of her mouth. Chris slowly lowered my hand to her breast, brushing my glistening wet fingers over a stiffened nipple.
Letting go of my hand, and with an impish smile, she whispered, “That’s so you won’t forget me.”