My nightmares are sweaty and vivid, the kind where you don't know what's real anymore until you slam back into your body, the bed sheets clinging to your clammy skin. Except I can't seem to escape. Just when I think I begin to surface, something pulls me back. As much as I strain to open my eyes, I can only see a feeble stripe of light that fades away, vanishes out of my reach.
I dream of a long time ago, of someone on top of me, weight pinning me, squeezing my ribcage till I can barely draw a breath. I grit my teeth because I'm going through with this, I said I would and I'm going to, no discussion, no going back. You don't want her to think you're a tease, do you? Or a prude?
Someone else's sticky skin on mine, my sweat mingling with her, and for a moment it makes me nauseous. I try not to think of anything right now. We were making out two nights ago when she stuck her hand in my pants. Girls like her can have anyone, but it's me she wants and the least I can do is—
Then I'm stretched in bed, and I still can't get my eyes to open but I feel tears stubbornly escaping from underneath my eyelids, running a short trail down my temples till they sink in my hair. I roll over and somehow, without opening my eyes, I see clothes scattered around and I think I'm going to be sick.
I have absolutely no reason to be mad. No reason to hate her deep down the way I hate her now. I said yes, she asked are you sure and I still said yes because I wanted her to stay with me, to like me, to love me. I was ready to do anything.
I glimpse red rings on the sheets.
I lean over the side of the bed and start to retch. Hands hold me up, and I'm dimly aware that someone is holding back my hair, then stroking my back. A voice murmurs something soothing, but I'm too far away, too far in the past, to make out the words.
The more I surface, the more a fresh wave of panic rises, replacing the old one with a new, much more vivid terror: where am I? What did she do to me? Did she—oh God, did she?
This is what happens to stupid whores like that, says a voice. It's my mother's voice—her smug voice like when she says, I told you nothing would come from those art school applications, Alaska. Maybe you should apply to Finance, if they'll have you, with those grades.
Stupid drunk whores pass out and get raped. And then no one believes them.
Am I going to have to report my teacher? The thought alone is enough to send me over the side of the bed again. I struggle and push away her hands.
The dream sucks me back in.
It's clearer now, brighter, but somehow less real—I have a very good inkling that it's a dream, which is not to say I can find a way to escape it. I'm at work, at the club, except all the lights are on like at three AM at the end of the shift. And my mother is there. She's standing right in front of me, her mouth in a scowl. I spin around, but I'm slowed down like I'm trying to move through a vat of molasses. She won't recognize me, I have a wig on, I think.
Even my thoughts are slow.
She grabs my wig from behind and pulls it off my head. The bobby pins that hold it in place come out, dragging alarmingly thick pieces of hair from my scalp along with them. I see them clearly in front of my eyes as they fall to the floor in slow motion.
She drags me out of the club by my hair. I'm screaming my head off, but everyone we pass by just stands there, keeps doing whatever they were doing. Like they see right through me, and her. And then everything goes dark and I'm huddled in a corner somewhere. I can't see anything except her silhouette looming over me, and she has something in her hand, something shiny. She reaches out to grab and handful of my pastel hair and starts to snip it off in huge chunks, right at the roots.
I want to scream, but I have no voice.
I'll show you how to whore around. "Sky." Who do you think you are?
Everything goes dark and I'm suspended in emptiness. My body is still paralyzed, numb, but slowly my fingers and toes start to tingle and come back to life. Then I realize I'm lying on something soft. I raise my hand, which is asleep below the wrist, a limp puppet-hand, and clumsily try to feel my head. Sweat pools in the hollow between my collarbones. A small river of it between my breasts. The sheets under and over me are literally drenched. They cling to my arm, making it even harder to move.
I manage to extricate my hand; sensation comes back with pins and needles. I feel around my hair: it's all there, in sweaty, matted strands flat against my head and stuck to my forehead.
But it's all there.
It was a dream. Of course it was a dream.
Thank God. Thank God thank God thank God....
And then the rest of it comes back. I wonder if I'm going to throw up again.
"Alaska." The voice is familiar and soothing, but I jump up like someone jolted me with a defibrillator. I clench my teeth against the tide of nausea.
"Alaska. God, you scared the hell out of me. I was about to call an ambulance."
My vision swims with a swarm of black motes, more motes than actual vision, but I can see her silhouette. The room is dark except for a soft orange light in the corner.
"How are you feeling? Are you okay?"
I'm panting. My mouth is so dry my tongue is stuck to my palate. But the first thing I do is stick my hand into my underwear—God, at least I still have underwear on. I feel between my legs. I'm dry, not sore.
Then I realize what I'm doing, and pull my hand away.
I can't look at her.
"You're okay," she says, answering her own question. "You're safe. I took you straight to my place."
I gape at her in numb horror. In the soft light her face looks oddly serene.
"I didn't do anything to you," she adds. and her gaze doesn't leave mine, doesn't even flicker—she's not lying, but I already knew that. Something about her expression cracks for just a fraction of a second, and I glimpse sadness—crushing, heartbreaking. Sadness—and pity. For me.
For me.
I sink my hands in my matted hair. The sound that comes from me isn't quite human, a hoarse half-groan-half-sob. My vision explodes with black spots again and I double over, pressing the heels of my hands into my aching eyes.
This is a nightmare. Please let me wake up, for real this time, in my own bed at home without her here, without her soothing voice and her hands and the pitying look in her eyes.
"Alaska, it's going to be okay," she says. She rubs my back in circles, and I let her. Mostly because I have no energy left to fight or resist. "I'd never hurt you. Don't ever even think I'd do something like that."
"What..." I finally manage to make a human-like-sound. "What happened?"
"What do you remember?"
What do I remember? The after-hours, the sidewalk, my senses turning themselves off one by one.
The pill. I took a pill I bought from a stranger.
Too stupid to live.
I sink my fingernails into my scalp. I want to howl.
"You took something," she reminds. Thank you, Captain Obvious. "A tranquilizer of some kind?"
I try to shake my head, but only manage a weird, jerky motion. I want to tell him it was supposed to be X.
"Look, I'm not here to give you the drugs-are-bad lecture," she says. I listen for notes of judgment in her voice, but there's nothing of the sort. She sounds kind of hoarse herself, I realize. Tired.
This sets off a chain reaction of other questions that tumble like dominos. What time is it? How long was I out for?
Did she stay up this whole time?
For me.
"It's not my place to do that anyway. And I know too well that you probably won't listen, so..." she trails off. She never stops rubbing my back. Her hands, God, they're so warm. The air chills the sweat along the groove of my spine and I start to shiver, but her hands keep me grounded. Their warmth radiates into my bones and muscles, into the pit of my clenched, sour stomach. In spite of myself, I feel my body start to calm down, to yield.
"But at least try to buy your stuff from reliable contacts. Can you do that?"
"I..." I gulp, which is about as effective as trying to drink beach sand. "I don't do drugs."
I expect her to chuckle, to shake her head. But if she does, I don't notice.
"I just—I needed..." this is where I fizzle out. I can't get another word out. Frustration and anger fill me, hot and useless.
I shouldn't have to explain myself to her. This whole thing happened because of her. Because of her I broke my rules. When I went to desperate lengths to get trashed, it was her I was escaping.
And she—she showed up at the club, like she was following me. She cornered me. She made me run out in the street alone.
And then she saved my life.
None of it fits together into the proper archetype I've been taught since middle school, of the guy dropping roofies in your drink and raping your unconscious body. Of the stalker-creep. Of the evil teacher taking advantage of the naïve student.
Well, the naïve student was a dumb stripper and the teacher dragged her stoned ass home and kept her out of harm's way. That's all, Your Honor.
It makes me even angrier. My eyes start to burn—it takes me a moment to realize I'm crying, surprised that I still have enough water in my body to make tears.
Elizabeth reaches aside, and her touch, her warm, grounding touch, vanishes. She comes back with a glass of water. She puts het hand behind my head like I'm a baby, delicately but firmly, and puts the glass to my lips.
"I mixed in some electrolytes," she says. "I know it tastes kind of awful, but I didn't want to leave you alone to go out and get a Gatorade or something more palatable."
I look up at her, with only my eyes. Dunking my lips into the water is enough: it's weird and salty and tingly like Perrier but worse. Tiny knives stab the raw membranes inside my nose. I make a motion to turn my head away, but her hand on the back of my neck is firm.
"You're really dehydrated. Drink up."
I force a couple of gulps. My taste buds scream and writhe. I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.
"Drink." She tips the glass and some of that awful stuff trickles down from the corners of my mouth, drips from my chin onto my chest and the sheet I've pulled over myself.
It goes the wrong way. I choke, sputter, double over and start to cough until I think my lungs are about to turn themselves inside out. My ears are ringing, the inside of my nose is on fire.
She pats my back, murmurs something that's supposed to be calming. Tears run down my cheeks.
"Dammit. Alaska, I'm sorry. Easy now. Breathe."
I hate that it makes me feel better. I hate that her touch makes the coughing ease, just like that. I look up at her with bloodshot eyes.
"I know it tastes awful, but you really need to drink up. It'll replace all the minerals you've lost. So just hold your breath and gulp it, okay?"
She takes my hand and wraps it around the glass. I grip with all my might until I think the glass might burst into a million shards—except I have about as much strength as a moth. I can barely hold up the damn thing. My hands are shaking and some more liquid splashes out over the sides.
I close my eyes and bring the glass to my lips, where it clinks against my teeth. I tip it over and gulp, gulp, gulp until I need to stop for a breath.
I'm panting, my mouth twists into a grimace, but more than half of it is gone.
And I hate to admit it, but as soon as my breathing settles and the black motes clear out of my vision, I feel a little better. I finish the glass in a few more agonizing gulps and hand it back to her. My hands are a bit steadier already, and I pull the sheet higher up on my chest, self-conscious. Deep down I realize how stupid this is. She's already seen that and then some.
Well, that will have been the first time and the last. Realization hits me, making me grit my teeth as a new wave of nausea wells up in the back of my throat.
"Did you take my clothes off?" She chuckles. God, I want to strangle her with my bare hands.
"You, uh—you were sick on the way over. So I put them in the washer."
Heat rises into my face. Now I just want to curl up and die of humiliation.
"And I was going to call an ambulance, Alaska. Or take you to the ER. At the sign of the slightest thing going wrong, I swear."
I think throwing up all over myself and passing out was more than enough to qualify as "something going wrong." I glower at her, and she lowers her gaze.
"Well, at the ER they'd just stick us in the waiting room till dawn. And I didn't want to risk getting you into legal trouble. I think you wouldn't have liked me for that."
"I only took one stupid pill," I groan. "I thought—the girl told me it was X."
Although now that I think of it, of course, she didn't tell me any such thing. We barely exchanged two words of broken French. God, I am such a moron. Why am I even still alive? I didn't deserve to wake up.
"Hey, it's okay," she says, but even she doesn't sound very convincing.
"I never do this. Not normally."
She nods, but I can tell she doesn't believe me.
"Luckily, I know how to deal with this sort of thing," she adds.
I don't even want to know what that's supposed to mean.
"Why were you there?" my thoughts are finally clear enough to ask a coherent question.
"I already told you. You don't remember?"
"Oh, I remember. What I mean is, tell me the truth."
"It was the truth. I'm a normal human being. I don't live in a box and only come out for two hours a day to teach a class, you know."
I know that all right.
"And let's say I needed to take my mind off some stuff." She lowers her gaze again. Her eyelashes cast long shadows down her cheeks.
"I had all night to think about what I wanted to say to you, and—"
"All night? You were up all night?"
"I wanted to make sure you were okay." She reaches out and tentatively puts her hand on top of mine. I want to pull away, but at the same time I don't want to move. Her touch is hot and soft. "But I don't mind. Either way I couldn't sleep, hence the after-hours." She grimaces. "But what I wanted to say is, I'm so sorry I was such a dick to you last class. It was petty and childish and vindictive. That's not me. I just wanted you to know that."
I have no idea what to say. A lump forms in my throat, which is just as well because at least it might keep me from blurting out something stupid.
"You realize how ridiculous this is," I say hoarsely. "After what happened. I'm naked in your bed."
She gives a soft, bitter laugh. "Look, I'm just glad I was at the right place at the right time."
I gulp. I should be too. Who the fuck knows what could have happened if I started bad-tripping at that club with no one to help me. Sure, Maryse and others might have taken care of me, but I'm not one to nurture wishful thinking.
"How are you feeling? You want some water? Normal water. No electrolytes," she amends when she sees me shudder. "Maybe some orange juice. Or something to eat?"
At the thought of food my stomach ties into a knot. I clutch my hands below my ribcage and double over.
"Okay, okay, no food then."
"A shower," I croak. I swing my feet off the bed, wrapping the sheet around me, and close my eyes while the rush of dizziness passes.
"Are you okay by yourself?"
Am I? Well, that doesn't matter. She already mopped up my puke and stripped me down to my panties, all while I was unconscious. I'm not about to let her get in the shower with me too.
"I'll manage."
Still, I have no choice but to let her help me get up. She holds me when I sway on my feet; it takes me five minutes just to make it to the threshold.
The apartment is a big, bright condo. I can see blinding sunlight through the gaps in the thick, drawn curtains. She has one of those huge TVs, with the surround-sound speakers. There's artwork on the walls, enormous, minimalistic glass frames holding black-and-white photos, but I can only distinguish shapes and silhouettes: something that might be a woman's curved back, a blurry close-up on a face. A skyline.
I don't linger. She shows me to the bathroom and I close the door behind me, leaning on it for a few seconds while the floor steadies beneath my feet. The bathroom is the size of the entire dorm room where I lived when I first moved to the city. The floor is warm, rustic-looking tiles—probably heated, I think as I make my way to the gleaming shower stall. The huge oval bath in the corner is tempting but I have no intention to spend any more time in here than I have to.
It takes me a moment to figure out the controls, but finally, a thick, hot mist rushes out of the metal plates above my head, enveloping me in its steaming embrace. She has that grainy natural soap that smells faintly of lavender, not the fake perfumey stuff like the shower gels I have at home but the real thing, clean and astringent.
Somehow the smell sets off a chain reaction in my mind. It's her scent, I realize. I've come to associate it with her by now.
It's strange and should be disturbing, but isn't. I like it. I soap myself up thoroughly, taking much longer than I need to. There's shampoo and conditioner, also organic and all-natural, and I feel kind of bad for using it because it's expensive—but I don't like the thought of being so clean and still having disgusting sweaty hair.
I don't want her to see me with sweaty hair.
I'm an idiot. She's already seen me not just at my worst, but at an absolute, ultimate low.
I wrap myself in her towels from head to toe. One around my hair, another around my torso, and it's so long it reaches past my knees. Cautiously, I open the door just a crack and peek out.
My clothes are sitting on the floor right outside, neatly folded. I snatch them up and close the door again. I hold them up to my face; they're still warm from the dryer—and scented faintly with the same lavender aroma, just a hint of it. I rub my cheek on my shirt like one of those women in a fabric softener commercial, taking solace in the fact that no one can see me.
Putting on clean clothes makes me feel like a normal human being again. When I wipe the steam from the mirror and look at myself, my skin looks almost transparent and the circles under my eyes are the color of ripe plums. I think of my backpack with my work clothes and makeup bag, back in the locker in the club's changing room.
Oh, for fuck's sake. Who am I showing off to? Why do I even care what she thinks?
But I do. Maybe because I feel utterly humiliated, and dumb as a rock on top of that. I'm ashamed that she's seen me like this.
When I exit, there's a hissing sound coming from the kitchen, and the unmistakable, heavenly aroma wakes me up instantly. Coffee. And the good stuff too, espresso.
I emerge into the kitchen and have to shield my eyes from the bright sun. The window takes up nearly the entire wall and it's facing south. I half expect myself to burst into flames like a vampire.
"Tell me you'll take some coffee, at least." Elizabeth looks up from the gleaming espresso machine she's operating with the flair of an experienced barista. "I only have soy milk though. I hope it's okay."
I take my coffee black, but I don't say a thing. I just walk over to the counter and perch myself on one of the tall chairs. My bare feet dangle a foot off the floor. I remember I hadn't gotten my toes done in quite a while.
Subtly, I tuck my feet under.
She puts a cup of coffee in front of me. "Americano," she says.
"Huh?"
"Espresso with lots of hot water in it," she explains. "How Americans take it in Europe, because their taste buds aren't used to the bitterness of real coffee, only that filter crap they serve at Tim's."
I don't know if it's true or she just made it up on the spot. Frankly, with the aroma of coffee filling my head, I couldn't care less. Picking up my cup, I sniff it, then sip. It jolts me awake like a hit of speed and the bitterness of it makes my mouth curl—but a moment later the impact dissipates and from there on it's just velvety coffee bliss.
"I'm sorry to bring it up again," Elizabeth says. Her voice becomes somber as she sets her cup down on the counter and takes a seat across from me. This is too much like the awkward aftermath of a one-night-stand that never was. All the awkward, none of the good times. "But can I ask you something? Were you there alone?"
She means the club. "Yeah... no. Sort of." I stare at the patterns of fine beige foam swirling on top of my coffee.
"What do you mean, sort of?"
"I was with some girls from work," I blurt.
"Okay? We're not close friends or anything. They were going out and I decided to come with."
She doesn't say anything, taking a thoughtful sip of her coffee. She doesn't even flinch, even though hers is a straight-up double espresso.
"So you go out with people you don't really know, who won't look out for you. And you take a pill from a random stranger?"
"I know how it sounds," I snarl. My mouth twists, and it has nothing to do with the bitter taste of coffee. "Like I'm a fucking moron with a death wish and I'm too dumb to be alive."
"That's not true," she says gently.
"Oh yeah? What do you know?"
"No one deserves to have bad things happen to them."
That's generic enough. Who'd she steal it from, Gandhi? "You don't know. Maybe I do."
"I seriously doubt it. And before you ask, I don't think you deserve bad things to happen to you because of your job or how you dress or because you decide to go out."
"Well, that's big of you. But for all you know, I'm a terrible person and I did deserve it."
She shakes her head. "Aska," she says softly. She forgot and dropped the LA again.
I scoff. "I told you. I don't normally do drugs, but you don't believe me because of course I'd say that. Every pathetic junkie in the world and every petty criminal says that, the same fucking thing over and over: I'm not like that, it was an accident, I was just holding it for a friend. You have no reason not to think the worst of me, and I understand that." I blurt it all out in one breath and have to pause to draw some air into my lungs.
"I don't think the worst of you," she says simply. "And I have no reason not to believe you either."
"But I'm a stripper," I say with a scowl. "We're all pathetic junkies. We snort coke all the time, and we have daddy issues, don't you know."
She only shrugs. "If that's what you believe."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're the one who said it. Not me."
I eye my cooling coffee with sudden loathing. I wish she didn't put on airs. It's almost worse than if she'd actually gone out and said it herself. The hypocrisy is the worst.
I let the silence linger; the sunshine fades a little, then returns in full force. Dust motes dance in the hot rays.
"What time is it?" I ask.
"Quarter to two." She starts to put away the coffee cups. "Do you have to be somewhere? Do you need me to drive you?"
I bristle. "I have no class on Friday. And I doubt I'll be going to work."
"Then I can drive you home."
"I can take the subway home just fine."
She half-turns so I can see the corner of her lips inch up. "Do you know where you are?"
"Where am I?" I sound pathetic.
"Ville St-Laurent. You need to take the bus to the nearest metro stop. Do you know which bus?"
I tense. What is she playing at? Is she enjoying this, having me here at her whim and mercy?
"I'll drive you home. Or, if you don't want me to know where home is, I'll drive you to the Metro stop."
"I—I'm sorry, Elizabeth." The words escape from me before I even realize what I'm saying.
"What for?"
"For all this. I'm sorry you saw me like that. And I keep thinking the worst of you and you keep proving me wrong."
She doesn't answer for a while.
"I wonder what happened," she says softly.
I'm not even sure if she's talking to me or at me or what.
"Huh?"
"What happened to make you like this. To make you think everyone you meet is an asshole."
I draw in a breath to answer, but she grabs a jacket from the back of a nearby chair. "Okay. Enough talking, I bet you're dying to get out of here, so how about we just go."
I get up in a rush as she shrugs on the jacket.
"Wait."
What the hell am I doing.
"Wait. One more thing."
"Yeah?"
"About... about the class. Today was the deadline. At noon."
"Deadline?" she sounds tired.
"Yeah. The deadline to drop it. And like you said, it's two in the afternoon, and I missed it."
"You can still do academic withdrawal."
I bite back whatever I was about to say. She seems so indifferent about it. She's not even looking at me, and I start to suspect that it's exactly what she wants me to do. It's impossible to go on like nothing happened, not after this. She probably wants me out of her class at least as much as I want out.
"I can't do that. I need the credits for full-time status."
She gives me a look as if to say, well, what do you want me to do about it.
"I need to pass the class, Elizabeth."
She sighs and sits down again, her hands on her thighs.
"So. What is this about? Just spit it out, 'Aska, don't waste time. You want me to pass you without you ever showing up? Or what, you're going to go to the school board and tell them I raped you?" 1
Her words are like a slap. I sit up straight, the remaining fog of the hangover knocked right out of my head. "Is that what you think I'm going to do?"
"Well, I don't see another way out of this situation. But if I pass you like that, I might get fired. Just so you know."
"I was never—why would you think I would do such a thing?" I blather.
"Didn't you just say so yourself, about a hundred times—you're a terrible person and you deserve whatever awful thing happens to you?"
"I'm not going to tell anyone anything," I say. My gaze doesn't leave her face, gauging her reaction.
She sighs and runs her hands through her hair. "Then what do you want?"
"I... I want the camera back. I want to learn how to use it."
She gives me a look I can't read, careful and apprehensive—but the corners of her lips turn up, unmistakably. She's weighing the risks. Evaluating, in her mind, just how crazy I am and how far I'll go to ruin her life if she says no.
She must decide I'd go pretty far. Because she says yes.