Unwrapped and Unraveling

I stumbled home that evening, sober enough I suppose, but still not feeling up to using the Text. True to Buck's promise, I wasn't sure I'd be able to read anyway. The Ghetto Romance was still buzzing in my brain, making it hard not to giggle at the slightest thing. I don't even want to think about what would happen to my mind if I put it through a combination of Buck's unholy herb and the disembodied nightmare colorscape of teleportation.

I considered this carefully, decided to walk, and had Buck recover my Text, which he'd hidden behind a shelf full of donated copies of Breaking Dawn. (I guess nobody liked that one.) He'd been right to hide it there; that was a shelf I wasn't going anywhere near. I'd laughed my a*s off at his choice of hiding place. Of course, I'd also laughed my a*s off at the texture of my reading chair, so I don't know how well my sense of humor should be trusted.

I shrugged into my army coat, carefully secreted the Text away in the inner pocket, and strolled home through a night that was beginning to feel the approaching winter's chill. I could actually see my breath, which at the time I thought was hilarious.

It was five past midnight when my phone rang, and I wasn't even halfway home. I looked at the screen and my stomach twisted. Beck. And I was still fairly high.

She'd be furious if I was stoned, but she was calling me. I couldn't just not pick up. Maybe, I reasoned, she wanted to get back together. I flipped my phone open and immediately screwed up.

"Hey lover. What's up?" I said cheerfully, then grimaced. She was silent for a second.

"Um... nothing, really. I just wanted to say... hi, I guess."

What? "Oh. Well... hi. How're you doing?"

"I'm fine," she said, and from the tone of her voice I knew she wasn't. I'd had this conversation with her at least a hundred times, and probably more. In fact I could see her in my mind, laying across her bed with her head hanging off the edge, her glorious dark hair brushing the rug. That was her favorite late night upset phone call position.

"What's the matter, Beck?"

"Nothing, I'm fine." She sighed. 

I waited.

She sighed again.

Any second now... 

"Have you heard from anyone from the Conclave?" she asked, clearly wishing she didn't have to speak first, and I smiled inwardly.

"Actually, yeah. Lee came by today. They've decided to make her my..." Babysitter? That didn't make me sound very responsible. I tried to put a positive spin on it. "...tutor. So I can learn how to be useful. Get ready for work."

A long pause. "That's cool."

"Yeah," I drawled, trying to sound casual. "I'm sure they'll have me on some assignment pretty soon. I've learned a lot already."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah. Today I blew something up with a fireball. Very cool stuff." 

"That's really neat," she sighed. I couldn't decide what kind of sigh it was. She brightened. "Hey, maybe could I come around tomorrow and watch? Start to get a feel for things... for when I get another Text?"

Crap. 'Uh... I'll have to ask Lee first. She didn't sound like she wanted visitors. She's kind of harsh."

"I think she's cool."

"Well... she's harsh to me. I mean, yeah, I sort of messed up the whole situation, so I probably deserve it." Accepting my faults. That was mature. I hoped Beck would notice. "She'll mellow out when I catch up. And hey, it'll be really cool when we're both in. We could be, like, a team, or something."

"That could be nice." Score! I wanted to high-five myself.

I rounded the corner onto my street, almost home. "Cool. So hey, why are you up so late?"

"I don't know. I can't sleep."

"Just wait till you start Reading. I've been wiped out ever since..." I stopped. Looked down at myself. I thought, perhaps, I'd figured something out. "... ever since I got the Text. It's an exhausting life."

I could hear her breathing. In my addled mind, she sounded very lonely. Finally, she spoke, almost a whisper.

"Can I come over?"

Really? I wasn't sure how I should react, although I knew how I wanted to. "Um."

"Oh, god. I shouldn't have asked... I'm sorry, I'm being crazy..."

"Wait, no, it's fine. Don't be upset. It's okay if you want to swing by. I'll be up for awhile. We can talk."

"I'd like that." she sniffled.

"Me, too." My head was spinning. "You've still got your key, right?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. I'm going to take a shower real quick, I feel kind of disgusting. If I'm not out yet, just let yourself in. But no rush."

"I'll be right there," she said, and I could hear the thumping of a person rolling off a high bed from an awkward position. "Thank you, Trick. Tyler. I'll see you soon."

"Yeah."

"Bye," she said, already concentrating on other things. We hung up as I reached my stairs. I didn't know what to think. Maybe a hot shower would clear my head.

I took my steps three at a time and made a beeline for the bathroom, feeling an unaccustomed flutter in my stomach. Beck was coming here. Had to be ready.

I was pretty sure ms. Dean had brought the water heater from 1930's Dublin and never had it replaced or maintained since. I figured I was lucky she didn't blow out the pilot light to save on oil and kill us all. 

I turned the squeaky lever all the way to 'scalding' and began the mental count, knowing I had, at the minimum, five or six minutes until the shower would be warm enough to tolerate. As I undressed, carefully placing the Text in a desk drawer, I caught a sight of my body in my hanging mirror. 

I'd lost at least fifteen, perhaps twenty pounds. Since Sunday.

"What the hell..." I muttered, moving closer to the mirror, gazing at my reflection. There was no doubt about it. I'd never been fat, exactly, but this was impossible. The small pudge at my waistline was gone, leaving my favorite, perfectly fitted jeans hanging off bony hips. My jawline was more clearly defined, my neck was visibly slimmer, and my cheekbones stood out visibly.

I hadn't missed that many meals, had I? In fact, thinking back, I'd eaten fattening, unhealthy, greasy, salty food for the past two days. Bacon cheeseburgers, salted cheese crackers, greasy pizza, quarts of soda... if anything I should have put on a few pounds. I got basically no exercise except for my walks, and I'd only done half the usual number of those since discovering the Text's power...

It was obvious now, but I had to be sure. 

I checked the temperature of the water, (still freezing) then went to my desk and pulled the Text out. Back into the bathroom, flipping pages, until I found what I was looking for. 

"Yayin Aayatana," I pronounced, gripping the Text, and a heartbeat later I'd flashed into the bedroom again. I landed rather gracefully on my feet, for once. 

Then my pants fell off. 

I tossed the Text onto my bed and pulled my jeans back up, but I no longer had the waistline to hold them in place. I was getting in the shower anyway, so I just stepped out of them and went back to the bathroom once again. Luckily, my boxers had an elastic waist, and I managed to hold onto those. I looked in my mirror again.

Amazing. My face was even more gaunt, my chest stretched over my ribs. Even my arms looked slimmer. 

So Reading burned body fat, and apparently it made me ravenously hungry as well. I felt dehydrated, and immediately started gulping water from the sink. It wasn't enough. I staggered into the kitchen, feeling weak, and found a Gatorade in the fridge. Beautiful. I downed the pint bottle in seconds, and looked around for more.

Beck. Beck would be here soon, and I was greasy, sweaty, and looked kind of like a vampire. I needed to take that shower. Food later. I looked around once more for something rejuvenating to drink, sighed, and went back to the bathroom, feeling slightly better. People think those Gatorade commercials are bullshit- those people have never been on the edge of collapse from malnutrition. A Gatorade will keep you alive when you ought to be dead. It's a wonderful thing. I resolved to keep more of it in the fridge. Perhaps two cases.

The water was almost up to room temperature. Good enough. I stepped into the shower, suppressed a shriek, and began frantically scrubbing myself. My hair immediately fell into my eyes, making them sting with oil. I groped for my shampoo, quickly lathered up the mop on my head, and stood under the shower, trying to relax. After a minute, I opened my eyes.

I immediately noticed my brand. Water beaded on the chromatic surface, just like the hood of a freshly waxed car. It wasn't just a mark, I realized. My flesh had been changed into some sort of organic metal. It flexed and stretched with my skin perfectly, but it was slightly numb, reflective, and apparently behaved like waxy steel. It was too weird to dwell on, so I stopped. 

I turned the shower off just as the water was beginning to warm up. I felt much cleaner and a little bit better about myself. My hair was soft and full, for once, instead of the lanky mess I usually wore. I wondered if I'd have to get some steel wool to polish my brand at some point.

Stepping out of the shower, toweling off, I looked in the mirror again. I was still eerily thin, of course, but I looked ten times better. I raked a hand through my hair, appreciating the miracle of chemistry that was Head & Shoulders, and grinned at myself. Beck would be here soon.

I wondered what to wear. I figured I probably had a belt somewhere, and my shirts would still fit. I was going to have to ask Lee how the Conclave managed not to kill themselves. Maybe they ate a lot of pasta. I chuckled at the idea of the Colonel's face if I were to walk in and ask for two pounds of ravioli. I thought I could probably finish it, too.

Still smiling, I wrapped a towel around my waist (with plenty to spare, for once) and went to my bedroom. I moved through the dark, found my rabbit's foot pull chain, and pulled.

There was a beautiful naked girl on my bed.

It took me a moment to process this, and for a long moment, Beck and I stared at each other, unsure of how to proceed. I took the initiative. I was trying to do that more, now.

"Um... hi there," I attempted, managing to sound like an idiot. 

She looked up at me, an expression on her face that was impossible to decipher. She was resting in the center of the bed, having apparently made it before undressing and laying down on top of my down comforter. Her arms were spread languidly across my pillows, and her legs were overlapping just enough that some tiny fraction of her modesty remained intact. Her familiar pale body was arched slightly, strained with seeming anticipation.

It would have been the very image of seduction and invitation... if it weren't for that look in her eyes. 

"I miss you," she purred, in a very, very different tone from last night. 

Oh, I missed her too. I would have missed this woman if I'd never seen her before. 

She arched her back a little more, crossed one leg in front of the other, seemed to ache with longing...

My towel was no longer the spacious place it had been when I got out of the shower. 

"I don't understand," I said weakly. I wasn't sure I needed to. I wasn't sure why I was saying anything. Still, something nagged at me.

"There's nothing to understand," she whispered, almost too quietly to hear. "Just be with me. Please." She ran a hand down her pale form, tracing her own lovely contours, lingering on her-

Wait a second.

Pale?

I crossed the room, still holding my towel tight, and took her wandering hand in mine. She was cold as ice... and trembling. Finally I realized what that look was all about.

"Beck..."

"Yes..." she tried to purr, but now I was paying attention. Her voice was shot through with anxiety.

"I..." I sat down next to her, trying really hard to ignore her gently writhing form. In the moment of surprise, she had appeared as a master seductress, demure and submissive, empowered with reckless sexuality...

Now she just looked like a frightened, confused, miserable girl. A girl who'd gotten hold of some dirty movies and was trying her best to mimic the supposedly irresistible posturing, without any of the desire or certainty that was supposed to accompany them.

She didn't really want me. She didn't want to be here. So what was this about?

I leaned down towards her and her breath caught. Her eyes widened, her breathing quickened, and for one precarious second I could have convinced myself that she was exactly what she appeared to be... but I very briefly kissed her forehead and sat back. 

"What are you doing here, Beck?"

She looked away for a second, bit her lip. Then looked at me again, sort of. She kept her eyes down. "Don't you want me?"

I followed her gaze, and for a moment I thought she was trying to see through my towel. Then I realized she was looking at my hand. 

My brand.

"This has something to do with the whole Conclave thing, doesn't it?" I said, as gently as I could, not wanting to sound accusatory. She looked on the edge of tears. "I don't understand the connection... but I'd like to."

"Can't you just... I don't know, take what I'm offering you?" Beck's voice rose, moving rapidly towards hysterical. "I thought this was what you'd want!" 

She sat up and gestured at herself, modesty forgotten. I had to admit... I wanted. My eyes were drawn to her petite form, crawling over all the soft and supple parts of her that I'd enjoyed so often, and missed so desperately for these past days...

But Beck wasn't some pretty thing from the bookstore. She was Beck. She was the person I'd loved for years, and still loved. And no matter how divine she looked, no matter how she begged me to take her like she'd die without my touch, no matter how frantically that little part of my mind was screaming at me to cave in and go for it, you fool!...

"I only want, if you want. I'm not going to... to take advantage of you like this."

She looked outraged, but I continued. "I know you, Beck. And I can tell when you're not being completely honest. And this... this isn't real. This isn't you wanting me. This has something to do with the Text, or with this whole fucked up situation, and if you're not going to explain it to me then you could at least not play with my f*****g head!" 

I didn't remember when I started shouting. "I get that you got sick of me being lazy and boring and not giving a s**t and all that, and I get why you dumped me. As miserable and angry as it made me, it made sense. I understood. But then you come in here and act like you want me when you clearly don't... I don't get it, Beck. It's stopped making sense. And I don't need one more mysterious subplot in my life. I just don't have the room in my brain for it."

I finally turned and looked at her again. There were tears trickling down her beautiful, heart-shaped face. I immediately felt like a terrible person. I hate how women can do that.

"I made a mistake," she whispered. "An awful mistake."

"Why?"

"Because... because I didn't know it would go this way." She started looking around, trying to hide her face, suddenly seeming to remember she was naked and sprawled and crying. I pulled a shirt from my nearby dresser and handed it to her. It was about eight sizes too big and only made her more adorable. "I thought I'd join the Conclave and have to leave here, and leave you behind, and never be able to tell you where I was, or what I was doing, and I knew..." she looked away from me, "I knew I'd hurt you. So I tried to make it easier on myself. On both of us, I guess, but really myself."

It made sense, in a sad way. Not what I would have done, but I could see the reasoning. "So what changed?"

She looked at my hand. "You're Conclave now. And as soon as I get my Text, I will be, too. We won't have to be apart. Nothing has to change. It can be all right."

Nothing has to change, I thought. Two days ago, those would have been the magic words.

It had been a long two days. And in a way, I'd started to appreciate the idea of making a positive change in my life. Now, here was the girl who'd started the whole madness, and she was telling me we could settle back into our familiar rotation. Beck and Tyler. Couple. Just doing our thing, though the thing would be different.

In my mind rose up the memory of Lee, scowling at me, disgusted by my torpor. Surprise us all... make something of yourself...

What did I want? I didn't know anymore. Losing Beck had spurred me to change, or at least the idea of it. Now, before I even had a chance to try, she was telling me I didn't have to and throwing her body at me. It didn't make sense.

I saw her gazing at my brand with something like jealousy on her face.

I had a thought that made me feel like an a*****e for even thinking it, and I tried to forget I'd even had it, but-

What if she just can't handle the idea of me growing up?

What if joining the Conclave was just another way for her to be... better?

Crazy.

But the way she was acting made no sense. It was as though she was discouraging me from self-improvement. It was annoying that I was so lazy and self-satisfied, sure, until suddenly I had something she didn't. Something she wanted and couldn't have yet.

It was a cynical thought, but in this particular race, I was ahead. Only I hadn't seen it that way until now. I hated myself a little for going there, but the more I dwelt on it, the more it started to come together...

I mentally shook myself. She's not like that! Snap out of it! 

She was still looking at me, eyes flicking to my brand every so often. Of course she'd be looking at it. I was, in the shower. It was pretty weird. I coughed. "If you'd like to... stay the night, it would be okay. I mean, I would like that."

"Me too. I miss you."

I tried to smile. "I miss you too."

She grinned, in bizarre contrast to her still-wet cheeks, and shuffled under my comforter. She turned away, curling up into a familiar position, ready for me to lie behind her and wrap one arm around her waist, press my body to hers, keep her warm. She always told me I made her feel safe.

I pulled on some shorts and a t-shirt and rolled into bed beside her. Flowers and lemon furniture polish, the faintest hint. Her familiar scent already lingered upon my comforter.

I pressed my body to hers, felt her soft smallness. Wrapped my arm around her, shielded her from the night. Made her safe. Her breathing slowed, became the quiet hissing cadence of her sleep, too small and lovely and endearing to call it snoring.

My other arm was wedged underneath my body, having no place to really comfortably go. With the weight I'd lost, my elbow was even more bony than usual. I wasn't used to going to sleep so soon. I wasn't really tired.

I listened to her breathing as I thought.

And thought.

After a while we slept, same as ever.

*

Reviews

[Vanessa]

Good chapter!! I found that I read it really fast, it kept me interested and I was sitting there wondering what Beck's intentions were...I'm glad that she wasn't seducing him for some reason related to the Conclave. It's so sad though that she didn't really want to break up with him...it seems like that should make Trick happy, but I can understand how you can get in your mind that someone doesn't want you for certain reasons, and then when they say those reasons weren't real then it can leave you feeling confused. I can't wait to see what happens with the two of them, besides what you've hinted at to me so far haha

[EarthExile]

The overall theme of Checkout, in my mind, is learning to take responsibility for your choices and actions. The idea that Reading takes such an extreme physical toll makes every action an important choice. Read back and count, he's only used the book five or six times, and he's already dangerously thin. I want him to reach the point where he thinks twice before taking a shortcut.

Like many people, like myself, Tyler finds something exciting and new and can't resist playing with it, having fun with it, just for the hell of it. He's now marked for life and rapidly deteriorating as a result of his actions.

Beck, although her choice made perfect sense initially, is regretting her decision to leave Trick. That choice was the catalyst for all of this, resulting in her losing her chance at the Conclave (for now) and being distanced, by the breakup, from the life she's earned. Now, as you can see, she's struggling with the ramifications.

This is no butterfly effect, where tiny choices have far-off consequences. Life isn't always like that. Sometimes your deliberate actions have immediate consequences that you'll regret. I personally find that much more dynamic.

[UponATyme]

This chapter was very well laid out. Trick is lucky he was able to sober up so quickly! You brought out a lot of questions, and didn't answer them, making the reader just as curious (and suspicious) as Trick. We also got to see a different side of Beck, and she's no longer the two dimensional superior-b***h she seemed to be. Now, she's a 3-dimensional, emotional, superior-b***h, who's just a little bit confused about what she wants.

I'm a little worried for Trick...I hope he figures out the weight loss thing soon. If he's been eating like a porker for days and still is super thin, what exactly counteracts the fat-burning effect of Reading?! I hope he doesn't fall into a coma!