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She rolled over and slapped the alarm clock. "Fuck, noon already?" She drug herself out of bed and made her way into her robe, down the hall, and to the balcony for the first cigarette of the morning. She sat down heavily in the worn wicker chair and put her feet up on the paint-splattered coffee table - her "work table" for various art projects that couldn't be done inside. Fumbling with the pack of Capris Slims, she managed to get one out, then realized that the only lighter in her posession was by the bathtub from the night before. With a groan, she got up and shuffled her way into the bedroom, then to the bathroom where, beside the glorious garden tub with jacuzzi jets, sat a half-emptied bottle of zinfandel, a wine glass lying on its side with accompanying pink stain stretching out before it on the tile, a book of hispanic poetry, an empty box of cigarrettes, an ashtray filled to overflowing, and a pink Bic lighter. She snatched the lighter and turned to leave, but on impulse reached down and grabbed the zinfandel as well. After she was comfortably in her balcony chair, feet up, cigarrette lit, and bottle slightly less full than it had been when she picked it up, she sighed and closed her eyes, letting out a little groan. |
He pushed the cold pasta around his plate with his fork, glancing at his watch. "Dad, it's almost noon, I've got to get back." "Mmmm," his father replied, an affirmative gesture around a mouthfull of food. "Let me drive you." He gently placed his fork on his plate beside the remnants of dressing-less salad and patted his mouth meticulously with the napkin that had been in his lap. "That's alright, I can walk." And that way he could smoke. His dad looked up with classic fatherly condecendsion and gently placed his napkin on the table beside him. "Jay, you've been in college for almost six years. You're only two semesters away from your Psychology degree. After your..." He paused here. "Incident..." "Dad, I lost my driver's license. I lost my job. I had to go to court. I still have to go to court!" He pushed his plate away in exasperation, then looked at the table. "I'm not going to fuck this up." The last was almost mumbled. His father merely nodded in the tense silence that followed. "Good," he said. After he was on the sidewalk and his father's car was safely out of sight, he lit a Marlboro and took a long drag. |
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After going through almost half a pack and the rest of the wine, she rubbed her eyes and finally felt well enough to face the world. The mirror in the bathroom told another story. It had been days since she'd gone out, so her hair was a tangled mass of neglect. There were also bags under her eyes. Noon was the earliest she had gotten up in at least a week. She couldn't remember when the last time she was out in the sun was. While drawing a bath, the phone rang. It was Courtney, her friend-turned-business partner. She sensed that Courtney would hear the effects of the alcohol in her voice, so she asked if the kiosks and "the girls" were alright, then cut the conversation short. Easing herself down into the water, she let smiled. "And this is the luxury that selling expensive French perfume to suburban soccer moms in the mall bought." She and Courtney grew up together, and after graduation worked at a linen store in one of the malls together. Courtney's parents were independently wealthy, so when Courtney came to her with the proposition that they start a business together, she jumped at the idea. Courtney didn't have an ounce of sense in her, but that's why she would need a partner so badly, and if they lost the money it would just be chalked up to another one of Courtney's expensive adventures. They started with one kiosk, working the shifts themselves, until they started making a profit. It didn't take long. Soon they had hired an accountant, two assistant managers, and expanded to every mall in Vegas. Now Courtney mostly took care of things (which meant flirting with their assistant managers and hiring girls she thought were pretty enough to sell perfume), leaving her partner to wallow in alcoholism and swingers' clubs. "The partying has got to stop," she said, and dried off to get dressed. One pony-tail to contain her wild curls, a quick make-up job, and a chic grey pants suit later, she was ready to go. She went out to the new Grand Am those soccer moms helped pay for, and started driving, several times nearly turning around and just going home. She was 25, nearly 26, and her first attempt at college had been a miserable one. She'd lasted a pitiful half a semester. "I am 25," she said to herself, "and I am taking a course on the paranormal and drinking myself to death. I don't know why I'm going back to |
The walk from the restaurant to the apartment wasn't a long one - he had to stand outside of his apartment to finish his cigarrette - but from the apartment to the campus was nearly two miles, and the campus itself was almost a mile wide. He glanced at the bike propped up against the wall near the door. It was a Christmas present from his parents after he had been pulled over for a DUI in the middle of the fall semester and lost his driver's license, along with getting booked for drug posession and a host of other charges. "The partying has got to stop." He shook his head and made his way to the bathroom, shedding clothes along the way. He paused briefly in front of the door to the empty bedroom where his roommate and lover had slept. But that was before the "incident," as his father put it. He kicked her out near the beginning of the semester, after a year long relationship. She was getting between him and his weed. He shook his head again in the shower at her memory. She was the best lay he'd ever had, but it was probably due to the amount of practice she got. The nights his friends would come over and he'd get too wasted to move, she'd drag one of them off to the bedroom and they wouldn't emurge until early morning. He knew she was doing it, and she must have known it would get around to him even if she hadn't done it in his face, but he kept sleeping with her anyway. At least until her bitching about his weed got to him. It pained him to think that maybe she had been right, maybe he could have salvaged some kind of relationship out of her But even if he hadn't been stoned all the time, he doubted he could have satisfied her sexual appetite. Memories of her body in the dark, the feel of her nails on his back, the sound of her sweet moaning in his ear, stirred something in him. After the DUI he had to go sober, and all of his "friends" stopped coming around because his apartment was no longer a place to get high and crash out. He hadn't had a girl since before he was arrested, which was almost two months ago. Letting the water run down his pale body, he closed his eyes and heard her moaning again, finding his hand moving of its own accord. The orgasm came quickly and wasn't extraordinary, but it would keep him from raping a coed on the way to class. His eyes snapped open. "I've got to get to |
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She pulled easily into the huge parking lot and found a spot that was only about two football fields away from the nearest building and turned off the engine. |
He jumped out of the shower, pulled on the jeans and t-shirt he had laid out for the first day of classes, grabbed his bulky black jacket, and checked his watch. |
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She still had twenty minutes to get to class. Pulling a small bottle from the glove compartment, she had a little nip of Jack Daniels. "Wish me luck, Jack." |
He only had twenty minutes to get to class. He imagined his father's condemning look as he shouldered his bag and locked the door behind him. "I can't fuck this up." |
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"Welcome to Paranormal Studies, PAR117, in lecture hall 18b. If you don't belong here, get out." No one moved. She sighed. "Let me set a few ground rules before I introduce myself. First of all, I don't care if you come to class or not. Your grades are test-based, and next week I'll be announcing the dates of all the tests. In fact, I'd prefer it if you didn't come to class if you don't feel like it." At this, there were a few rustlings among the students. "But keep in mind, that I don't teach this material because I need to learn it. This is my life, and I'll be teaching some of my unpublished theories. Giving this class is a way for me to sort of work things out. And if you pay attention, keep an open mind, and participate, I'm sure you'll find it as interesting as I do." He actually sounded sincere. Her optimism about this whole college business rose a bit. "Now, with that out of the way, I'm | |
What an ass, | |
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she tought. And he almost had me fooled. She rolled her eyes and hoped that her grade wouldn't depend on her ever having to be with "Danny" alone. |
he thought, slamming the lock into place and gently easing the door open. He slid quietly inside and saw the professor writing something on the board, then the door slammed behind him. He winced. |
"Taking advantage of my charity already, Mr...?" "Boyer... Jason Boyer" | |
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she heard him reply. He was kind of cute, and he seemed familiar to him somehow. She turned her attention back to "Danny" while the class let out a smattering of nervous giggles. |
he replied, then tried to slide as inconspicuously as possible to the back of the hall to take a seat while the class laughed at Dr. Carlyon's joke. Luckily Carlyon himself seemed done haggling his students and had returned to the board. |