“He’s a big old bottom once he gets to know you.” She punctuates her words by playfully nibbling at my earlobe.  A reassuring hand on my naked hip leads me back towards the bed.  There a muscular man, bare chest laced with swathes of black ink, sits with his back against the wall.  He is trying to hide his nerves behind a stern posture and broad shoulders.  “You just need to lead him into it a bit.” Her voice glides up over my shoulder in a loud whisper so he can hear.  As I kneel down onto the mattress, her fingers run through the hair at the back of my neck, gently guiding my head forward into the darkness of the man’s lap.​

My nostrils fill with musk and heat.  My head swims.  I try to steady myself, planting my hands on each of his muscular thighs.  Then, just before I surrender to the moment, I try to remember their names.  It is an old habit pilfered from a long forgotten one-night stand.  My fevered mind rushes with images.  I can see the introductions clearly, his firm yet inviting handshake, her friendly embrace held just a moment too long, but their names escape me.

I tense up.  He senses my hesitation and tenderly runs the back of his hand along my cheek.  I feel her breath on the back of my neck.  Her hand snakes around my hip and slides deep between my thighs.  I give up thought for action.  My ears fill with the sound of quickened breaths and frantic heartbeats as we surrender to our more reptilian instincts.

My point of view floats upward, a stray party balloon hovering in the room’s vaulted eaves.  I watch my actions from afar, body running on desire and intuition.  It becomes harder to differentiate my flesh from that of my partners.  We become a writhing, slippery mass of groans, muscles and sweat grinding its way towards dawn.  Each of us faceless and nameless at least until the sun rises.

Sometime later, I am perched on the edge of the floor laid mattress, knees pulled to my chest, listening to my hosts coo and whisper to each other.  I feel much like a discarded child’s toy, overused and abused until all the mystery and magic is emptied out and then cast aside.  I try to reel my mind in through the long night’s haze.

  Exhausted eyes strain to conjure detail from the shadows.  Piles of dirty laundry rise from the far corners.  Nearer to me, clothes peek from the crooked drawers of a battered antique dresser.  Faded, dog-eared photographs are tucked into the corners of a large wood framed mirror; generic shots of beach vacations and family holidays.  Cheap jewelry drapes across the dark luminous surface and spills across the dresser top from a broken hinged cameo box.  All this clutter, devoid of distinguishing features, could belong to anyone.  I could be anywhere.

            I take a deep measured breath and try to shake off the melancholy creeping over me.  My lungs fill with air, thick, humid and laced with stale sex.  My stomach turns violently and I am quick to my feet, one hand over my mouth and the other reaching for the doorknob.  I hear faint, sleepily spoken directions from behind me as I stumble out into the hall.

Surprised by the sudden weight of my body, my legs give out just a few steps down the corridor.  My shoulder impacts the wall with a solid thud breaking my fall.  Determined, I push myself forward on numb legs dragging my sore shoulder along the wood paneling.  Eventually I reach the far end where two doors stand opposite each other.  I try the door nearest me but it is locked tight.  With an inelegant heave, I throw my body across the hall at the opposing door; grasping for the handle as I fall.  Mercifully, the door opens and I tumble through the entryway and into darkness.  

My knees scream as they hit the cold tile.  I scramble around in the dark, on my hands and knees, searching for the toilet.  Finding it, I pull myself up, hang my head over the rim and prepare for the worst.  But, nothing happens.  I open my mouth wide but my insides settle, my mouth goes dry and the sweat on my cheeks cools and evaporates.

After a few moments, I manage to close the door and prop my sore naked body up on the seat.  My burning cheek smears across the soothing tile wall.  My eyes slowly adjust to the dark.   The cobalt glow of pre-dawn light creeps around a pair of floral curtains and gives the room an underwater hue.  I can hear birds in the distance along with the rustle of leaves. 

I must be in the suburbs.  I know with certainty that I am far from my apartment in the city.  I can see the front door to my building, nestled mid-block on a busy street.  But the apartment number eludes me, as does the street or even the name of the city. 

The sink across from me is covered with his and hers toiletries in various states of use.  However, there are no monogrammed towels, no engraved brushes or labeled pill bottles.  I close my eyes and again try to run back the events of the previous night.  Just as before, the images are crisp but where the names of people and places should be there is only confusion and noise.  I must be nomenclature impaired I think.  I laugh gently at the idea that I can remember a term like nomenclature but not my own name.  Then I cringe at the reality of my situation.  I do not remember my own name.  

A panic rushes over me.  My head is awash in nondescript images and abstract emotions adrift without detail, without proper names.  I catch a glimpse of my face in the over-sink mirror.  My skin is creased and gray.  Dark purple flesh pools around my eye sockets.  I am overcome by the conviction that the eyes staring back at me are not my own.  The foreign sounds of waking birds and rustling leaves become so loud as to be unbearable.     A deafening absence echoes against the bathroom tile.   My vision frays and narrows.  I feel my head and limbs go slack as I slide helplessly forward, off of the toilet and into the abyss. 

An icy breeze chills the sweat trickling along my spine.  My eyes flutter open greeted by the late morning sun.  A burst of pain ricochets around my skull.  As I strain through the confusion towards sense, I realize quickly that I am not at home.  However, it takes a few more cluttered moments for me to reconcile my surroundings.  I am laying face down, prone and naked in the small room with the high slanted ceiling from the night before.  At least I believe it is the same room.  The mattress has been stripped save a clean fitted sheet and a single freshly cased pillow from which I slowly unbury my face.  The dresser remains but all of the clutter, jewelry and photos are gone.  Open drawers bursting with clothes are now neatly closed and the discarded laundry once piled high in the corners is missing.  All signs of life, including my hosts, have disappeared in the night.  I feel uneasy as I turn on to my back and replay the previous night’s events.  My breath falls shallow and my cold naked body clenches up at the graphic memory of my actions.  However, after a few minutes, I move through the guilt of the past and into the present situation.

I again attempt to remember the couple’s names but they still escape me.  I look around for my clothes or anything to cover myself.  The room is immaculate with the exception of my cell phone, which sits solitary on the dresser top.  I slowly get to my feet and make for the door.  I am not entirely comfortable entering the rest of the house naked in the light of day but by now my hosts are more than familiar with my naked body.  Another string of obscene images flutters behind my eyes but I fight off the battling impulses of arousal and shame and poke my head out into the hall.

The corridor is different from the night before.  Sunlight pours in from a large uncurtained window at the far end.  I consider calling out to my hosts but, still at a loss for names, I do not know what to shout.  Instead, I decide to walk to the bathroom and fix myself up; perhaps find some clothes.  I switch the light on even though the room is awash in sunlight.  It is empty and spotless.  Just as in the other room, all signs of life have been wiped away.  The scattered toiletries, the nasty ring around the sink, even the mirror itself is gone.  The curtains that kept out the sun earlier have also been removed and the glare of sunlight on the spotless white tile stings my eyes. 

My head swims and my limbs feel weak.  I exit the bathroom struggling to keep my composure.  As I open the door, I come face to face with the locked door from earlier.  Assuming that leads to the master bedroom, I knock gently. “Hello, it’s…me, umm are you awake yet, I’d like my clothes is all and…”  I put my ear to the door but there is no sound from inside.  I wait a few more minutes and decide to venture downstairs. 

Coming down the stairs, my steps are slow and deliberate. I glance over the railing as I go.  It would be quite embarrassing if they had guests, or worse children.  As I reach the bottom stair, I hesitate for a moment, but with little other options I step onto the landing in front of a large smoked glass front door.  The slate tile is cold on my bare feet.  The lower level, like the upper, is bathed in sunlight and silence.

I make my way through several rooms.  Each one is spotless, possibly freshly painted and containing only the most essential furnishings.  I find myself darting about, hugging the walls, to avoid being seen through the undressed windows.  Turning each corner, my unease grows.  Each new vacant, pristine room confirms the bizarre nature of my situation.  I reach the kitchen and instinctively begin opening cabinets.  There is no food, only a perfectly matched and stacked set of dishes and a drawer’s worth of neatly assembled silverware.  In the dinning room, four individual places have been set with geometric precision.  I stand for a time, marveling at the table settings.  I cannot shake the   notion that this incredibly mundane scene is concealing some unseen menace.  My heart races and sweat drips from my fingers.

I taste blood and realize I have bitten through my lower lip.  Closing each of the cabinet doors, I trace my way back through the empty house. I am no longer cautious of the windows.  Once upstairs, I return to the other door and begin to knock forcefully.  I am muttering unintelligibly.  I can feel my faculties coming unhinged. My strange surroundings are falling away into the distance.  After a full few minutes banging, I stop and again put my ear to the door, listening for a sign of life.  I hear nothing and reach for the doorknob.  To my surprise, it turns.

I try to prepare for the unnerving disappointment of yet another stark vacant room but what I find is much more unsettling.  This room should be the mirror image of the other bedroom.  However, it is so cluttered it feels small to the point of claustrophobia.  The room is dark with the exception of two bare red light bulbs placed in opposite corners of the room.  Camouflage netting hangs from the ceiling.  The walls are covered in magazine and newspaper clippings. There are so many clippings, one on top of the other, that they are unintelligible.  My sinuses fill with the thick musk of men’s locker rooms and teenage boys’ bedrooms.  A solitary cot sits along the far wall with a wool blanket neatly rolled up at its foot.  Next to the cot, an ancient set of dumbbells and several vicious looking hunting knives lie scattered about the floor.  I stand motionless in the center of the room until the heavy stench in the air overcomes me and I back out into the hallway retching. 

I return to the other bedroom, thankful to find my cell phone lying on the dresser.  My hands are shaking so violently it takes two hands to pick the phone up.  My mind floods with the faces of friends and family but their names are still lost to me.  I decide to dial at random and hope someone will recognize my voice.  My thumbs instinctively pull up the contacts list but there are no names listed, only one number repeated again and again. 

I hit send.  The phone rings.  It rings repeatedly, until eventually a recording answers.  No human voice, only a computer reading the number back to me and then the tone.  I stammer.  “H…hello?  If you recognize my voice or this number, please call me back as soon as possible… I’m in a bit of trouble and could really use some help… please.”  After a lengthy pause, I hang up discouraged. 

My overworked brain begins to boil over.  My thumbs carry on, instinctively scrolling through menus in search of information.  Eventually I pull up the photo gallery.  The first image shows my unconscious body, lying in the same room, face down and naked just as I had woken up.  The second image is nearly identical, though the light angles and my position are changed slightly.  The next is similar again, same room, same position.  And so on, dozens of similar photos taken by someone who stood in the same spot I was now standing and watched me sleep. 

Then an icon appears.  I have voice mail.  My fingers pull it up, running without thought through a series of menus and a password until the message begins to play.  “H…hello? If you recognize…”  Something deep in my psyche snaps and turns to dust.  I fall against the open doorway and sink to the floor clutching the useless phone for comfort.

After some time lying in a despondent heap on the floor, I hear a stern knock from downstairs.  At first, I assume I am hearing things but then it comes again, this time with more urgency.  I crawl to the stairs and surreptitiously peek around the corner.  Through the smoked glass, I can make out the figure of a man and perhaps several other men behind him.  He accompanies the next knock on the door with a shout.  Startled, I start down the stairs but after three steps, I am suddenly very aware of my nakedness.  I consider going into the red room to look for clothing, but a deep revulsion keeps me away.  Instead, I run back into the other bedroom and strip the fitted sheet from the mattress, trying my best to tie it around me.

I take the stairs with care, trying not to trip over the cumbersome sheet.  The shouting voice grows louder and terser as it fights its way through the reinforced glass.  I recognize some of the words while others are not English.  They reach my ears as dissonant, angular syllables comprised of repeated consonants.  My feet hit the slate of the front foyer sending a shiver the length of my spine.  My shaking hand reaches for the handle and pulls the door open.  A stream of blinding daylight floods in.

Along the wide cement stairs leading up to the front door are four police officers, each with his gun drawn and pointed at me.  A fifth man, the one who was shouting, stands in front of me.  He has an air of authority even though he is not in uniform.  He is still shouting, in a slightly lower tone but in the same mixture of English and gibberish.  Clenched In his right hand, are a rather official looking document and a badge.  These he holds out towards me shaking them for effect.  I can see the boxes on the form where names and vital information should be. 

I can make out a signature at the bottom.  The words are blurry at a distance, seeming to move around the page as I struggle to focus my eyes.  I take a step forward and reach out for the piece of paper.  The officers, their guns still drawn, bristle with tension.  Out on the front lawn, behind the man with the papers, a flock of birds takes flight.  The sound of wings fills the air.  The birds cut a dark silhouette against the stark gray sky.  For this one moment, suspended in time, no one dares to breathe.

____

Kelcey Wells is the author of Music For End Times, a chapbook of poetry and prose.

His work has recently appeared in New Ink, Troubadour 21 and Popshot Magazine. He

lives in Brooklyn with his cat like a dreadful literary cliché.