Breathe

I have not slept the whole night. I just couldn't. I stayed awake until the morning daylight kissed the windowpane as my alarm clock struck a minute ahead of six, and before it could even ring, I rose to switch it off. Breathe in, breathe out. Just keep doing it so you won't feel anything. I looked around to see that the light in the room was excruciatingly blinding, like hisses of flames savagely waiting for its prey. And despite the warmth, it gave me these tingling chills. Breathe in, breathe out. Suddenly, it smelled like freshly cooked sausages.

I tied my hair in a lackadaisical knot then went straight out to the hallway. Breathe in, breathe out. "Mom, are you cooking breakfast?" I said with a yawn.

"Yes, darling. Are you famished?" Mom was in her tulip-print apron, and a tunic that I bought her when I had a job trip to Thailand - or was it Australia? Anyone could just tell she was my mother because we both had cinnamon hair and long, smooth fingers that Dad had said lured him to my her. "Darling, why do you have those black circles below your eyes? I thought you went to bed early last night?"

Breathe in, breathe out. "Just scratched them, that's all." My mother just doesn't know things.

I devoured whatever my plate had as fast as I could just before I started feeling nauseous. Took a shower, got my keys, and kissed my mum goodbye swiftly, hence, she could not nag me a word. She must not know anything about this. She shouldn't.

I promised to meet him early this morning. Breathe in, breathe out. He said he would check me up, to see if there was really anything in here. But I couldn't move. My hands were shaking. I just sat there in my car, looking across the empty street, and, like a shot of a rifle, I felt it again.

**********

I never wanted to go to this party. But it was Diane's birthday. She forced me and wouldn't stop giving me piercing glares, and so I unwillingly agreed. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad party at all. It looked pretty expensive, actually. Billiards, a bar, attractive people, a swimming pool and a campfire by the bushes.

I just don't get it how everyone could let loose their immaturity here - like Mike. He is the boss's favorite, but there he goes chugging down a bucket of beer shirtless in front of all the bare-legged girls and enjoying every second of it. Oh, there's Hellen. Engaged to Tim but ferociously kissing Alex. There's Matthew, thirty-two and getting it on with Samantha on the couch. And -

"Hey." A man sat down beside me and leaned his elbows on the counter. "Looks like you're not a drinker. Your beer's getting cold."

"Surely not." I looked at him, and remembered he was Jason, the guy I was introduced to earlier this evening. "So, you've been watching." I teasingly added.

He had a cleft chin and bright, green eyes that made him cockily handsome. "Maybe I was." Then he smiled. "Raleigh Smith, twenty-one, standoffish and a bookworm? Smack me if I'm wrong."

I smirked. "Jason, fifty, gay and a frustrated psychologist? I know I'm right."

He laughed. "It's James." I saw his eyes linger upon my fingers on its way up.

"God, I'm so sorry!" I laughed, too.

"That kinda hurt me, you know."

We talked for who knows how long. His name was James Freegun, age was the same as mine and he told me that he lives alone at his apartment down the street. He stopped talking about himself, then continuously asked things about me. He made me feel like I was worth talking about, but I bashfully changed the subject. Our conversation hopped from topic to topic that we ended up taking ourselves into a challenge. "Hey, Harry," he called the bartender, "two slammers here."

"Sure, James." Harry handed both of us two shots of tequila.

I took the shot in one swig. "Give me one more, Harry."

I kept drinking until I started seeing everything in doubles, and I felt my head spin, and started hearing sounds that weren't there before. I must have fallen sideways on the floor because I felt two, muscular arms lift me. "Hey, you okay?"

"Uhh.. Ofcourse! Hmm.."

I think I heard Harry say, "Careful with this babe, James."

I started seeing bright, neon colors everywhere. My head would not stop spinning, and voices became louder and more unfathomable. When my vision cleared a little, I saw that I was being carried outside, into the garden by the campfire where other people were also oblivious to anything.

I also saw that I was being brought to the bushes. The longer James walked, the farther we were from the house. And finally, he laid me on the grass. I laughed. "You do know how to have your way, don't you?"

When I thought he would chuckle along with me, instead, he gave me this malicious grin. "I do."

Then he started stripping off my clothes. "What the hell are you doing, James?" I struggled to resist him and felt a searing, sharp pain in my head.

"I won't be for long."

"Stop it! I don't want this!" His arms were too strong for my frail thrusts.

"Come on. Shhh..." He lay on top of me, then started kissing my neck. "I won't hurt you."

I was too weak and dizzy to fight back. I tried giving a scream, but then all that came out of my mouth was a hushed sigh and the faint scent of bitter liquor. I turned my eyes and noticed that all my clothes were already strewn all over the ground together with his.

"Breathe in, breathe out." His left arm went down between our crotches. "Just keep doing it so you won't feel anything." My eyes started becoming hazy, and everything around me was turning black. The last thing I saw was the distant campfire, a blurred juxtaposition of yellow and orange slowly dispersing.

"No..."

"Breathe in, breathe out..."