in her company

"And just what the fuck was I doing here?" I recoiled in horror, I was speaking out loud, and I was staring just beyond my reflection in the recently broken mirror. The situation needed to be assesed. "There is no-" and I stopped myself because I do not think out loud in my own company. There is no, I continued, just to myself and only to myself, good reason for me to be here. I should leave. And I should've left before things started breaking, but I didn't reprimand myself, not at the time. It was not what I needed, though I've called my judgement in what I need into question since then. I should've done it sooner. I should've always done it. But you know what they say about hindsight. Makes an ass out of you and me both. So, what I did was decided to wash my face, maybe the cold, I reasoned, would help. I ran the faucet, looked down, and that's when I started thinking out loud again. "Broken fucking glass." I held my hands to my face, checked them over, front, back, and I wasn't cut anywhere. Of course, a great sign. But if I wasn't cut anywhere, whose blood had just finished washing down the drain? "This is all too much." The best course of action in this type of situation, as I knew it, was to leave, taking as many valuables with you as you can since you are not going to be seeing these people again, at least not for a long time. To make it easier, I found the bathroom was connected to the master bedroom, a very dark room, horribly green and plush. It wasn't dark just because the only light was coming in through the windows, from the...party below. "Party," I said, and thought about the implications of all this, noticing for the first time that my tie knot was slid very far down and the topmost shirt buttons were undone. That I was in formal attire, really. And that I was sinking into the carpet, slowly.

"Some more? And here I was thinking you had enough."

I made a noise of not understanding, and looked at where the very feminine voice had come, underneath heavy blankets on the bed. They had the same deep green, but also had crisscrossing bars of gold that made diamonds, or x's depending on how you looked at it. Thinking back now, there was something creepy about the green that was everywhere. It was the same green that had been in my nightmares for years, the same gilded iron lattices, too. I can only place it back to a room I used to be scared of. I don't know where this room is, or whose room it was. It was just a room that scared me as a child.

A bathroom.

It was wallpapered, even on the ceiling, with a heavy, unnatural green colour and gold diagonal bars that revealed patches of black. Why was it on the ceiling? On the toilet and the black marble sink counter were dead flowers. Not flowers that had died, but dried out flowers. Flowers that were killed. And hanging on the walls............seven walls.There were seven walls, and three paintings, and they were still lifes of flowers that were alive. On the matting was an elegant, illegible script in gold ink,scrunched,lineafterline, all of it unread a ble. There was a gargoyle door knocker on the inside of thedoor. The room seemedto grow and shrink when you were in there, contracting,expanding,contorting. It scared the shit outof me. I was frightened. It had an angelnightlight whichseemed tomakeit evenworse Though I don'tknowhy it wouldothat Maybecauseitwaso low nearlytouchingthedarktilethatsometimesee

medbottomlessYoucouldloseyourselfinthatroomIknowIdidIwascaredofiteveninto"No, I haven't had enough yet," I managed to say to her. "I'm just going downstairs to get another glass."

She mm'd at me. "Don't be too long."

Being poetic, I kept her waiting forever. I forgot about valuables and all I wanted to do was get out. The party was still going, and strong. I slipped out. And my car wasn't anywhere. I walked up and down an unfamiliar gated community street, ten minutes, a half hour, almost an hour. A security guard in a nicely painted Bronco stopped me.

"Excuse me, are you a guest?"

"On my way out. My ride decided to stay at the big party, and well, I'm all partied out. Mind if you get me a ride to the gate so I can call a taxi?"

"Sure, hop in."

His nametag said Roscoe, and I asked him about this.

"It's just a lark. I'm Jim."

"Hello Jim. My name is Roscoe."

"No shittin'?"

"I don't shit."

And then we laughed. A large part of the hut-management fund, as Jim called it, went to high quality reefer, which he was kind enough to share while I waited for the Taxi. I was somewhere near the coast.

"So whose rich-bastard house did you trash tonight?"

"To tell you the truth, Jim, I don't know. I can't remember the past few hours at all."

"Ha. That sounds like the kinds a' parties Wendi throws."

"Wendi?" The phone began to ring. The taxi was pulling up.

"Yeah, the actress. Wendi da Capo."

"Oh wow. In her company?"

"Maybe," he said, answering the phone.

I got into the taxi, asking to be taken, as fast as he can, to LA. I could hear Jim screaming part of a sentence, "a body," and told the driver to leave. I looked straight ahead, while the cabbie looked into the rearview mirror. "Your friend is running after you." "It's okay," I said, "he'd call if it was really important."

Luckily for me, there were pills involved. But now, I'm not sure that really solves anything.