The sound of Dreams - Consciousness

The first part of the story. Hasn't been divided into chapters yet, only parts. I haven't fully decided how I'm going to split the book up yet in the end.

Dedicated, in loving memory, to Zachary Y. Person

If you need someone to talk to, call your friends. Call your family. Knock on your neighbor’s door or call 1-800-273-8255

There’s more to live for than you think there is.

Suicide is never the answer.

Part One: Consciousness

Or in this case, a lengthy introduction.   

Around lunch time March 11th, Evanston Illinois. In an office cubicle. That’s where it all started ending for me. My birth certificate says John Ulysses Kinnick, which is derived from Algonquin culture, A president, and an easy name to find on a souvenir, and this story is about me. A five-foot-seven, 164 pound man of very toned build, with shoulder length wavy blonde-ish salt and pepper hair and admittedly nerdy glasses… A very average man on a very unlikely journey.

...But it began with a giant black man.

His voice broke over literally everything, as it always did. “You daydreamin again? Tired a*s white boy. You needa quit binge watching Crunchyroll and get you some… y’know,” Ike was standing over my cubicle, having noticed me staring off into space. The man was pelvic thrusting.

“I have absolutely no interest in anime, Ike,” I groaned back at him.

“Prolly why you can’t get any.” He snapped back at me as if it was common knowledge that anime gets you laid or something. “Anyhow, here’s the negatives from your shoot with Amanda.” Ike licked his fingers for grip and pulled a few film sheets off the top of a stack of papers and plopped them on my desk. “You need to get some damn sleep. That’s what I prescribe.” He blinked a few times while speaking, overdramatizing like he had something in his eye, “I still got a blind spot from holding those up to the light for so long, you know what I mean? HA! Really had to ensure quality… John, you know why you needa go talk to her?” he asked, way too jolly and looking like he was braced for a punchline. I moved my head to look directly at him at the speed of a sloth and blankly stared at him, knowing he’d tell me anyway. “Cuz she need a man. Duh,” he spouted with immense satisfaction and strutted off to terrorize someone else. “Z-Z-quil, John. Walgreens. Go get you some. And wear something from the era,” he yelled from down the hall a ways.

I was in a grey polo shirt, khaki cargo shorts, and white Nikes. I’m not sure what was wrong with what I was wearing. In any case, I’d known Ike since 6th grade. He befriended me involuntarily on the first bus ride to school that year and for the life of me I’ve never been able to get him to go away ever since. Not that I’d want him to, but I’m sure if I tried he wouldn’t go anywhere anyway. It’d be futile. He’s somehow attached to me, it seems. We’d both studied sort of the same things in school: photography, English, editing, proofreading, both worked for the school newspaper… But eventually split off in different directions. I ended up photographing people, he ended up photographing products. Occasionally I’d let him “quality check” my work, i.e., ogle the models, even back in school. It was no different here.

We both work for Urbane magazine now. In keeping with the hipster theme of the magazine, the owner insists on keeping things old-school, and shooting on film. Ike and I both learned on film, which gave us the edge in an interview. I got the job first, right out of high school and kinda rose through the ranks. When they needed a guy to shoot for their advertising spots, I knew just the man for the job. He was working construction when I found him - We’d drifted apart for about 6 years. Working labor can change a man, apparently. He got a hell of a lot bigger than he was in school. In school, you might picture Steve Urkel but fat. Nowadays, Ike was a walking paradox. He’s part Cherokee, so on top of being an already intimidating big black guy, he’s got this giant beard and moustache and this incredibly long hair, so you’d think he must be a biker or something at first glance. However, he’s got these stupid little librarian glasses attached at the ends of the earpieces by a silver chain that he wears like you’d think a rap star would wear his bling chain or whatever, and a lanyard made out of chained together miniature plastic tardises from Dr. Who and they’re always tangled in one another. He’s always fighting it. But he’s covered in tattoos and grooms himself like a natural born underwear model.

He’s got huge arms that barely fit in his shirt, he’s in peak physical condition, and he looks like he could stop a charging Volkswagen dead in its tracks… But he can’t talk to women, despite all of his many delusions about being suave. He’s got to be the single most awkward thing you can imagine whenever he’s in any conversation with anything that grew a pair of breasts at some point in its life. He can barely talk to our boss, but that’s understandable because Urbane magazine is the brainchild of one Vanessa Swenther.

This woman… Vanessa actually goes by Van because it sounds more like a man’s name in an email and she loves the sound of anyone’s voice when they figure out that the magazine is run by a woman. It’s basically Playboy for the modern, metrosexual, v-neck-wearing, diet-lumberjack-looking, overly spiritual, vegan, self-involved douchebag. Everybody thinks something like that would be invented by a man, but no.

It was conceived by a terrifyingly fiery red-headed ballbuster who felt that it was her calling in life to make something that would empower women, entice men, and flush the neanderthal archetype down the toilet forever through creatively deceptive smut which parades around like it isn’t smut, obnoxiously vintage shaving kit ads, and progressive, eco-green, “save the common squirrel from extinction, reduce your carbon footprint today” garbage articles.

The nudes are more artistic and tasteful, softer and more left to the imagination. The articles are generally about things like daytrading, grooming, fine craft beers, cooking, and independent music festivals. You get ads for things like whalebone straight razor shaving kits and wristwatches that are unnecessarily big and sophisticated-looking. It’s seriously made of all the things that people picture in their mind when they watch a guy come out of a pedicure salon, with his hair perfectly slicked back and his beard frighteningly symmetrical, a tattoo visible on his neck under his V-neck T-shirt, and wonder where the actual men in this country ever disappeared to.

If I were Ike, I’d be afraid of Van, too. She wears heels like a seasoned soldier wears combat boots. She’s so disturbingly clean all the time that I’ve considered surrounding her in red velvet rope like a museum exhibit while sits at her desk. She gets off on bashing on feminists because she thinks the best way to stick it to a man is to go out and beat them in their own world. If she walks into a meeting with anyone who’s got an opinion that differs from hers, their spine just falls right out of them within a few seconds of Van beginning to talk, and Van gets what she wants.

She’s not a big woman, about 5’5” and probably a whopping one hundred pounds if she were in a rainstorm with her pockets filled with change. Incredibly beautiful, but not in a leggy bombshell sort of way. She had short legs and a lot of torso, but she used it like a champion. She doesn’t like me much, or see much in me because I have no interest in really keeping up with my desk work, but I’m the best photographer for about 100 miles in any direction, so she doesn’t complain much.

In the middle of my inner rant against the modern male and my place of employment, my open Sprite went flying from my desk onto my lap. Vanessa walked by, having thrown a pack of index cards I’d asked for at the bottle. “If the lid was on, per policy, you’d be dry right now.” she snapped with a smirk as she walked by to her office and slammed her door shut.

“Oh… I do not like her, Sam I am,” I muttered to myself.

I looked for a napkin from the white paper bag my lunch came in a few hours ago. That’d be Satan, the creator of the propaganda. CEO of Urbane Magazine, Vanessa, or “Van” as she preferred - She always enjoys situations she can set up where she can dole out punishment in a way that retaliation would be wrong on your part. She’s got it down to an art. I hate it.

She chooses to work among her subordinates because “it helps her keep her finger on the pulse”. No 80 billionth floor loft office. She’s right down here with the grunts and we report directly to her, face-to-face.

Which reminded me, I’d needed to request some time off, but there sat the time off request form, filled out and resting in the top shelf of a set of document organization trays I’d set up on my desk. The one marked “Urgent”. It’d only been there for about 2 months, so you can really tell that the labeling system is working. I grabbed it and knocked on her door.

“Already saw it, would have approved it if you’d brought it to me, too late now. Better luck next time,” she snapped and smirked again. She didn’t even look up. What was I supposed to do? Argue with her? I was clearly in the dead wrong. This is how she is. Its infuriating. There’s no way I could ever hope to be a move ahead of her in anything, so here I am completely under her finger and she loves it. How did she even know I’d choose today to bring it to her? Jesus… Goddamn superpowers.

I balled my fist in frustration and gently shut her door without even barely having entered the threshold before my answer was rendered. There is zero reason for her to be so condescending or proud of winning with zero shame, but you can't question her on it because she IS better than you and she ALWAYS wins.

I went back to my desk and stared at my computer, which I just realized Ike had changed to an anime wallpaper while I was in Vanessa’s office. I looked down the hall to see him wave and wink and be on his way to whatever else he had going on today. I opened my drawer and played with my little zen sand garden for a second, having a small pity party and pretending for a moment that this is the only damn thing in this place that hasn’t attacked me in some way yet today. Just then I accidentally clipped the rim of it a little too hard with the tiny rake thing that came with it and spewed sand out of the drawer and all over the floor in my cubicle. I put the negatives in an envelope and had them sent down to the labs to be digitized so I could edit them. Why we don’t shoot DSLR is beyond me - Van is pretty bent on the idea of film.

Ike and I were walking down Davis Street after work for no particular reason. The route we took wasn’t even remotely efficient, but we were in a wandering kind of mood and, Agreed upon by both of us, there’s no better place for wandering than Chicago in the springtime.

“Why in the hell did you not talk to that girl?” Ike pried at me.

“Because I’ve got about 5 million years of uphill ahead of me before I even get to a point where I can start saying I’m proud of my life. I don’t need the complications right now,” I replied. He was moving his lips along with me as I spoke. He always does this.

“How many times do you wanna have this conversation, man?” I shot at him. “I mean if you already know it all, why do we even talk about this s**t?”

“As many times as it takes for you to admit you’re just too damn shy to talk to them. Enough times for you to stop coming across self righteous with some ‘holier than thou’ agenda. You just can’t talk to women, man. That’s it,” Ike retorted loudly and bug-eyed, mocking me and encouraging me in the same phrase.

Now he gets to the part where he goes on for a few blocks about how he’s incredibly masterful in the lost art of picking women up, he should be listened to as a student listens to a sage, and he’s banged every gorgeous woman we walk past - But ONLY once we’ve walked a ways past them. I’ve daydreamed a few times about running and catching one of the women he points out and making an introduction. “But he said you two had sexual relations… You say you don’t know each other?” I’d be positively beaming. You’d be able to cook an egg on the radiating sense of vindication. Ike is so full of s**t.

It was about this time in my inner cynical defiant rant that I realized Ike was looking at me waiting for a response to something he said, which was profound I’m sure of it. “You’re super full of s**t, Ike.” I offered blankly.

He replied with a pause, “Even so, man, you gotta admit that Summer Glau was possibly one of the hottest women on TV in her heyday.” ...What in God’s name had he forked off and gone on about?

Ike likes to pretend he’s God’s gift to women, but the truth is that I’m actually more likely to talk to them than he is. “Where’s your girlfriend, Ike, if you’re so damn good at this?”

He stared at me like a mom stares at a kid that just took a cookie without asking. It’s always a blast watching Ike get that look on his face, because you know you just hit a nerve, ground zero. Point blank. Got ‘im, coach.

“You know I gotta take care of my mom. I don’t have time for that or I’d be out there killin’ it. Showing you everything you’re doing so very, very, very wrong John,” the look persisting as he made his excuses. Whenever his head moved during this bit, his eyes stayed locked on me like gyroscopes, I don’t know how he does that.

“Dude the only time women talk to you is when they need to walk out to the parking lot at night, so they find the biggest, scariest black dude in the building and bam. They’re safe. Or at least they feel like they are.” We continued poking back and forth.

“That’s racist, John, and I didn’t know you felt that way when you asked me to walk you to your car last Tuesday night.” He spouted.

“I had 3 computer monitors to carry. They were just throwing them away. I couldn’t take all 3 in one trip so I asked you to help me carry them,” I replied, one eye cocked because his jab had nothing to do with the banter.

“To your car John. Helped you. To your car.” He smiled at me, with a smile whiter than… well… anything. Especially against his dark skin. He was so satisfied with himself. You know what they say about playing chess with pigeons.

“Wasn’t even my car, Ike. Wasn’t even a car. I borrowed Eddie’s truck.”

“Doesn’t matter, John. Anywho, Greaser reds. Paper pack. You come out here with any sort of cardboard box I’m just letting you know now, ahead of time, that I’m gonna slap you,” Ike spouted at me. He hated hard packs of smokes because against his undeniably firm chest, they left a pointy outline in his shirt pocket. Whereas the paper packs just sort of nicely settle without as much of a noticeable protrusion.

We were in front of our usual smoke shop. I owed him a pack of cigarettes because I bet that the model in question, Amanda, was high-maintenance enough to want a break to fix her makeup before we hit half a roll of film. I lost decisively when she farted as soon as the shoot started and exclaimed, “Was holding that since I got off the train!”

Ike about died laughing,  snorting, pointing at me, and then pointing at the model and slapping his thigh - and nobody knew what the hell he found so funny. I’m the winner, though, because now everyone thinks he loses his mind laughing at farts like some kind of child.

I went inside. I made my transaction and turned around, running straight into the hollow chest of Amardad Gardener.

Most people call him The Gardener, it’s a bit of a pen name for his business ventures. Ike and I know him a bit better though, and we call him Army because it kinda sounds like it could be a nickname from his name, and because he’s all about telling military stories. He’s also my dealer and my neighbor. I’m not sure either one of us has ever called him The Gardener.

Army is an older gentleman - 61 this November, if memory serves. A man covered in sagged war tattoos because he was a hell of a lot bigger when he got them than he is now. He’s scrawny, gangly, and a bit unkempt. He’s got huge lips covered in moles and freckles, and he has enough facial hair to make it look like his face has been half engulfed by a killer wig monster whenever he looks down to read his paper. Ike and I snort and chuckle about it once in a while, and we never tell Army why.

He grabbed me by my shirt and pulled my nose to his, putting a knife tip up against the meat of my shoulder “Where’s my goddamn money Kinnick?” he muttered.

I produced it immediately “You were the next stop, Army. Calm the f**k down. The hell are you doing?” I snapped, meeting his eyes. I’m not afraid of this guy. He’s good people, really. He’s just messed up from being in the war. He gets a little pushy sometimes, but he never hurts anybody.

“Take it outside, guys, c'mon!” the owner shoved us towards the door with his shout. Very sharp tone he had, the guy is obviously used to riffraff.

“Army let go of me and take a breath, man. Let me and Ike walk you home.” I spoke quietly but assertively, and right into his eyes.

He shook a little, but he let go of me. I put an arm around him, grabbed his bag of beer off the ground, grabbed Ike’s smokes and mine, and walked out.

“Sorry about the noise boss.” I called out to the shop guy.

Ike met me at the door “A knife, Army? F*****g really? Are you…” He choked on his words, frustrated. He abruptly slung Army over his shoulder and got some pretty good hoof going towards my apartment complex. It’s at least a good 3 miles from the smoke shop.

I jogged to keep up, Ike was power walking. Amardad loses his mind like this sometimes. You’d think he’s on drugs, but no. He just sells them. The man doesn’t touch a single thing he sells.

“Why the hurry, Ike?” I huffed, trying to keep up.

“Shopkeeper was way up by the register when he said to take it outside, John. After he saw a knife.” Ike rattled back at me.

“So?” I inquired.

“So if he was scared like he shoulda been, he’d have ran to the back. Means he hit the alarm, John. Right up under the register. Cops are comin’, John.” He continued.

“You watch way too many cop shows. You’re an idiot. Slow down.” I panted and wheezed, but somehow chuckled out my words.

“Put me down, Clement.” Army yelled at Ike. Pretty much directly into his ear. However, it does need clarification that when Army “yells” he actually just gets very level-volumed and uses his voice in such a way that makes you want to evacuate your entire excretory system. He doesn’t need to yell, necessarily.

What is with military people and jocks and their habit of only using last names, anyway? From what Army says, he was both of those things... Back in the day at least.

Ike didn’t stop. I did. I shouted at him “Dude I worked at that Smokies last summer. I know for a fact that they don’t have a damned alarm.”

He stopped, breathed for a second, and then as if just now remembering that he had a retired vet on his back, his eyes widened in some sort of revelatory way, and he put Army down.

We were about a block from the complex now; Ike and I got our cardio in, and Army will probably have brain damage from being jostled on Ike’s back. Ike already has brain damage, I’m sure of it. It’s a good thing the man got himself into much more impressive physical shape, because I just don’t see him surviving on mental prowess alone.

Ike wasn’t even out of breath - It was still so weird to see. You’d have to understand how Ike was the last time I saw him before he started working at Urbane with me. You’d have never thought this guy would be a cut up laborer someday, it’s totally surreal. Ike’s been working at Urbane with me for something like 8 months and I’m still not used to him, physically, being the way he is now. I seriously hope he doesn’t kidnap one of the models to the rooftop someday and start chucking barrels at whoever tries to climb this building to stop him.

“You boys are off early today.” Army choked out, obviously fighting a belch. The man drinks.

He stared at us in wait for a reply with one eye wide open and the other squinted shut, his lower lip protruding past his top - like every stereotypical crooked-spined paranoid drug dealer in every story ever.

“You know you’d get bugged by the cops less if you occasionally looked remotely innocent?” I quipped at him. He spit at the remark.

“Not much going on this week” Ike offered. It gets like this every year at the magazine. Boss offers early outs for whoever wants to volunteer for them to cut man hours, which is usually just about everyone. Only a few get to leave on a first come, first served basis. Of course, Ike and I were the first to raise our hands.

My apartment complex, which was also Army’s, was in a very old building. Ivy crawling up the walls and the wooden window frames were definitely a stand-out feature on a building surrounded on every side by much more modern versions. We had a cargo elevator that everyone used because the actual elevator broke a long time ago. There is a front desk in the lobby that suggests that at one point, this place may have been a hotel, but no one uses it anymore. The office is off-site, nobody does any clerical anything here. Hell, even the mailman sucks at making sure mail goes in the right boxes.

We usually take the stairs if we’ve got Army with us. Not great to jam him into a box that makes unsettling noises and lock the door behind you. The man has some pretty wild PTSD going on. Despite what a s**t hole this place is, the winding wooden staircase that traverses the floors of the building is… surprisingly eloquent.

Amardad’s place is basically what you’d expect from a disabled veteran that the system has all but forgotten about. He’s got a futon, a tiny obsolete TV, an old beat up laptop, a microwave, a folding card table with some folding metal chairs, and his fridge has two things in it. Beer and discarded taco bell sauce packets. Army moved here after the war, and he is probably more patriotic than most Americans. He’s a recovered addict and he’s retired. He lives off of SSI checks and deals drugs for just a little extra income.

He actually had a copy of that dogs playing poker painting on his wall, and I’m not sure it gets a lot more cliche than that. I always give him grief about it whenever I visit. I do it so often, in fact, that I don’t even say anything anymore. All I do is tap on it as I walk by and he gives me a very “go f**k yourself” look.

“What was that all about, Army? What happened?” I glared at him out of nowhere, but in a protective sort of way. Like a parent looks at a kid.

“Oh f**k you for real, kid, I’m old enough to be your dad. Square away that tone. And that look. Get that look off your face,” he snapped back. “It was a misunderstanding and not your damn business.”

“When I got there you were obviously already fired up. You put a knife in my shoulder, Army.” I wasn’t having the whole respect your elders position from him.

“You… You…. Uh You… I saw you at the store buying stuff and you hadn’t paid me yet. Just wanted to make sure you had your priorities on straight,” he replied, trying to sound tough and like he meant what he did. I opened his drawer in the end table next to him and checked his med box while he spoke.

“He’s four days unmedicated, Ike,” I shook my head.

“Dude, you can’t be skipping your pills, Army,” Ike agreed.

Army looked at the two of us, squint-eyed and disapproving, in total disbelief that we’d call him out in his own place. Yeah, maybe it wasn’t our right to be doing any of this, sure. But to us, this guy was just the sad old guy that lives in the building that nobody really ever comes to visit. We saw him selling a bag of weed one day and introduced ourselves. When we bought a bag from him, he regaled us with war stories and fed us. Weed and food, the way to our heart. We just sorta come around now and again and hang out with him. In doing so over time, we kinda became like his kids (which he has, actually, but they don’t come around).

We look out for him a lot. He’s got some mental issues but his family won’t put him in a home and we don’t want the family drama that would come with trying to get him put into one ourselves. He gets on just fine most days, but some days he loses it pretty hard.

Neither one of us flinched our gaze at him. “Honestly the first thing I remember is pointing the knife at you.” He suddenly was washed over with humility, head to toe. He collapsed into his chair. These little episodes he has scare the hell out of him. He’s tough as nails, sure, but I don’t know anybody that’s going to be totally fearless in the face of losing control like Army does sometimes.

He tries to play it off like whatever he did was intentional. Usually it's superfluous stuff that he does. Like walking right past the bus driver for a bus ride. No payment, no ticket, nothing. Just got on and walked to a seat like a badass; or ordering a hot dog from a cart and then just walking off eating it, without paying. He’s walked right face first into somebody before and didn’t even stop to apologize. It’s usually just episodes of blankness, or forgetting a step of a process. You can always tell he’s unmedicated if he continues beyond a certain line.

He says he doesn’t like his medication because it makes it difficult for him to get an erection, and there’s a cute little ol’ lady in the unit catty corner from him that occasionally, shall we say, trades money for good times. Darla O’Bryant. She’s a retired chef, and former owner of several outstanding Irish pubs. These days, she’s a working girl, finding herself too restless for a retiree’s life.

“She can fix a man a drink and dinner like nobody’s business, and she’ll curl your toes so hard that your feet will feel like you just marched a coastline with a full backpack.” - That was always Army’s review of Darla’s “services”. Super hard to believe that a woman her age is still making money answering calls but she pays rent just fine, and had been long before I moved here and probably will be long after I move away.

“Army, you can’t stop taking your meds just because you want to get your dick wet,” I lectured.

“Excuse me for jumping at the opportunity. What about you, hotshot? You’re stuck in a room with gorgeous nude women for hours every day and can’t bag a single one of em. How does that not keep you awake at night with wonder?” he lashed back at me with a crooked grin and gave a little chortle.

Ike, at this point, was essentially hyperventilating with laughter. As soon as Army threw his words out at me, Ike about died because Army was making the very same point Ike was making towards me on the way here. A serious moment, and yet I’ve become the butt of the joke.

“What the hell is the problem anyway, Kinnick? Can’t get the race started?” Army continued through a slightly judgemental smile.

“The problem is that you haven’t been taking your meds, and if those medical folks that your kids send to check on you come by, there’s gonna be problems.” I wouldn’t let him off topic.

“Not what I was talking about and you know it,” he replied.

I threw the pills he hadn’t taken out the window into a dumpster that lived beneath it a few floors down. “You know how to cover your tracks better and you’re not doing it, Army, it’s like you want to get caught.” I accused.

“What do I care if they find out that I don’t wanna take their f****n’ pills? Real simple. I don’t wanna take them, there’s no secret to be kept.” He popped a beer.

“Yeah, but they keep you from doing dumb s**t, so...” I shouted back, mockingly and condescendingly on purpose.

“Your problem is that you need to do more dumb s**t, Kinnick.” He wouldn’t let it go either. We were having two entirely different conversations. “Just goddamn talk to one of em. Start with hello.” He couldn’t possibly care less about the meds topic. I just gave it up, it was pointless. Not my problem anyway. I tried.

Fast forward an hour or so. An impressively large blunt had gone back and forth between Ike and me more than a few times. Army doesn’t smoke weed, he just sells it.

I’d been on the receiving end of a barrage of dating advice from a 60+ year old war nut and a man I’m pretty positive has never even had a date, let alone gotten laid. A formal intervention was being held, and every time a hand came down on a table in an effort to make a point with punctuation, it sounded like a gavel falling. I was on trial, and losing.

“Your problem is that you’re too passive and too nice. You gotta be a bit of an a*****e or they’ll walk right over you,” one offered

“Yeah, like you wanna be firm and assertive and that’s how you win em and... blah blah blah...” they droned on.

All the same stuff any idiot can read on the internet on any self-help dating website. All stuff I bet neither of them have ever really put into much practice. One uses the phone for call girls, and one calls for pizza. That’s about all I’ve ever seen of their “game”. I was too high to move off the couch or I’d have walked away from these guys long before. The conversation went on for hours until a bit of it broke the monotony.

“What’s the worst that’s gonna happen, man?” The words cut through my mind and for some reason, a switch flipped. I wasn’t even into the conversation enough to have really heard it. I was in my own head pretty deep.

My eyes wandered around the room trying to come back to reality and at least figure out which of these two had offered those particular words. It was Ike. My glazed eyes fixated on him.

“What’s the worst that’s gonna happen?” I stood up off the couch, to my surprise. “I dunno man, another judgemental look from someone that doesn’t even know me? Another total dismissal from someone who hasn’t even bothered to allow me more than a hello? Another human being excusing themselves from an interaction with me purely based on appearance, because I don’t look like those jackasses at work, Derrick or Chase? I don’t look like I have ten grand in my pocket for random spending money at any given time?” I wove my hands up in the air with the cash amount for emphasis and popped my eyes.

“I’m tired of the women in this industry, man. Unless I roll up with a goddamn Bentley, I’m always gonna be second in line to anybody that does have one. I bust my a*s every single day to make sure that the magazine’s got the best damn spreads in the industry. I’m damn good at my job. I literally create the meat that pays the butcher,” I continued.

“Chase works HR, dude. He’s the HR director. You know what he does? Nothing. All the HR ladies do all the work. He walks by and verifies that they’re still doing the job they were hired to do 10 years before he even started working here. His job is fluff. And he makes six figures. You know why? Because he’s Van’s f*****g cousin.” I was shouting at this point.

“Kinnick you need to chill, we were only pokin’ ya,” Army intervened.

“Oh, c'mon - You literally sell drugs to make money to supplement the disability you receive for sitting on your a*s. What do you know about getting screwed at work?” I snapped back at him. Woah. That was way beyond necessary.

“That was an a*****e thing to say,” I immediately offered. Army understood the piss poor choice of words and knew I didn’t mean anything serious by it. The man served in a war, he knows plenty about getting screwed.

“Watch your f****n mouth,” he calmly warned.

“Yes sir,” I agreed. “It’s just… Ugh… Derrick is head of security. He sits in a box all day and tells the other guys what to do. Never responds to a damn thing himself. Makes almost ninety grand a year. Why? Because he’s Van’s brother. You gotta know somebody. Doesn’t matter how hard you work, if you don’t know the guys at the top you just get taken advantage of. Magazine literally couldn’t survive without me.”

I paused for a sec. The other guys must have thought I was done ranting. I could see them shift in their seats like they were going to go fix a snack or grab a drink or something. But they plopped right back down when I started back up, and both audibly sighed.

“These girls you want me to go after, they want THOSE guys. With the perfect hair, the ahead-of-fashion suits, the godly cars, and the ability to speak without saying ‘um’, ‘like’, or ‘dude’.” I seemed to have found a stopping point. “They don’t want me, and I don’t even feel like its productive to try.” I plopped down.

“Holy… You’re like a little f****n… After all these years you still like an emo kid. Or somethin’.” Ike went full-on big black dude on me and got to yelling aggressively as soon as my rear end hit the couch. “Derrick busted his a*s from a grunt cop position to get where he is, and Chase runs more numbers and reports and answers more contacts, by phone and email, than your little pea brain can probably even compute.” Ike laid into me.

“You’re throwing the same ol’ pity party. For years, man. You think that just because you aint got yours, everybody else should lose theirs. You a bitter-a*s hater and I’m tired of listening to this same rant. For f****n years.” He threw an uneaten portion of a hot pocket right at my face. “That’s why you never go anywhere, man. Because they can smell the bitter on you. Because you cut out early whenever the chance comes up. Because you speak like you’re equals to people way the f**k above you in paygrade. Because you spread dissention. You’re too damn proud to admit when other people beat you. So instead of watching and learning from a master playing the game that you wanna win, you mentally decide they always cheated or screwed their way up to the top. Nobody could have possibly got theirs honestly, just because you haven’t. You gotta learn to drink the motherfuckin kool-aid, dude. Put on the monkey suit, play nice, and wait your gottdamn turn. Get your facts straight while you’re at it. Ain't nobody out to get you, except that you damn sure out to get yourself.” The rest of the hot pocket came flying at me as well. Ike got up and walked out the door.

I lost that argument, it seems. That went entirely differently than I saw in my head. I was imagining some comfort and some “I know man, it’s rough”, but instead I was totally blindsided by just having my a*s handed to me by my best friend in the most vicious and unapologetic manner…

But I didn’t even finish that thought. I pulled myself together, nodded at Army who was also in shock, and went for the door. “Uhhh… You guys take care I guess, I’ll see you… when….ever…” He trailed off as I walked out.

“Ike wait up!” I shouted. Surprisingly, he actually wasn’t even around to hear me. Either I got off the couch way slower than I thought, or he really booked it off into the night. Probably both. He was definitely gone.

It was raining a bit, so he probably took off at a good pace. He lives a little ways from here and neither of us owns a car.  As I walked to go look for him, I stared just for a second up at a street light surging which caused it to blink like a camera flash. In that exact moment I ran into a woman.

“Oh Christ, excuse me” escaped me. I’d barely even budged her, actually. I need to hit the gym.

“Are you John Kinnick?” she asked.

“Uh…” My lips pursed in a baffled manner and my eyes narrowed “Yes?” I was hesitant to answer, but she was cute. Realistically, if she asked for my social, I’d probably give it to her.

“I was just headed to your place. I got your address from Amanda; it was on your card,” she explained. I gave Amanda my card because it had my phone number on it, and maybe she’d call if I willed it strongly enough aloud to the universe for a while. I’m totally not as big a wuss as the guys think I am, and definitely didn’t walk away from that interaction as quickly as humanly possible.

“Mr. Kinnick?” she’d noticed me spacing off.

“Yeah sorry. Uh… What did you need?” I asked her with a shaky voice.

“Well, I’ve got a side job that I can’t really contract. It pays cash under the table. We have a model who isn’t exactly a legal citizen, and she needs to be shot for promotional material. She’s willing to pay $5000 for your time. We’re looking for something a bit more hardcore than what you usually do for work,” she explained. The whole thing reeked.

“Where’s the model from?” I pried, folding my arms. I wanted to see if I could stop her up.

“She’s from Hamburg.” she answered right off the bat, no hesitation.

“Ah, Africa,” I replied, nodding.

“Germany,” she smiled cynically.

I’m awful at geography, damn. “Why me? And what’s your name anyhow?” I asked.

“Because the airport is right next to your building. I know Amanda personally, and it was close and convenient. You were the first local photographer I stumbled on.” She was still quick to answer. Except for the part where I asked for her name. That question flew off over lake Michigan somewhere never to be seen again.

Great. I was the first leaf the wind touched. What a great honor to be chosen this way. Not my professionalism, not my reputation, not the quality of my work, just… I happened to be close by. Neato.

“When and where?” I asked.

“Just be in this hotel room at this time. If you keep the cash and you don’t show up, things get hairy.” She reached out her hand to give me an envelope.

My eyes widened, looking at her, then widened some more, looking down at the envelope, and then narrowed with cynicism looking back at her. “Do you realize how this pretty much sounds like I’m signing on with the mafia or something, lady? You can’t possibly be this oblivious to how bad all of this sounds.” I continued. I didn’t even bother reaching for the envelope.

“I’m sure there are other photographers in Chicago...” She didn’t seem to care much.

“Wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wait…” I stammered to stop her from walking away. “How can you promise me that this isn’t going to bite me in the a*s? Like, how airtight is this? I’m not a criminal, I don’t do these things. It sounds a little weasley, you know?”

She glared back at me. “Have you ever been paid $5000 for a shoot? One shoot? One roll of film? Have you ever even seen that much money at once?” the lady spouted off.

“Well now you’re talking to me like a charity case,” I retorted. “Of course I’ve seen -” I started. She had a look in her eyes like she didn’t believe me for a hot second. My face dropped. “No, I’ve never seen that much money at once before, but this is a bit daunting.”

She started to walk away again, rolling her eyes.

“Nonononononono.” I got in front of her.

“Take it or leave it, John. I’m not here for hugs and reassurance.” I was nobody to her. It was show time or no time at all. Balls to the wall or whatever.

I suddenly felt a very small amount of courage from somewhere. Or stupidity. How often they’re the same thing. “Make it eight grand and I’ll do it.”

Her eyebrow lifted. She paused and dropped her arms in disbelief. I just nearly doubled her price. I obviously looked like a huge tool and massive idiot.

I smiled charmingly as if to say “Yup. I just said that. That was a thing that came out of my mouth.”

“Done,” she said. “You’ll be paid the other 3k after the shoot.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I shouted. I was so surprised that the thought just came right out of my mouth, no brain filter involved whatsoever. Now it just seems that much shadier. Nobody needs photographs that badly. But holy god, $8000 for a single roll of film? Even if I get busted for something, I can pay whatever court costs come with it and still come out with thousands. I think... Who cares. The odds of getting busted shooting photos in a closed hotel room are absurdly small. No sexual acts are being exchanged, no goods are being provided, I’m being paid by an American citizen… I think.

“Hey wait up lady!” I shouted and ran after her. “Can I see your ID?” I asked her, per Army’s suggestion. Army always says if it doesn’t seem legitimate, at least make sure everybody checks out. I didn’t actually pay attention to her name or anything, I just wanted to make sure she had one, and she did. If I got paid by an alien, I think that’s a worse crime. I have no idea what the laws are. It just sounds worse. This is what it sounds like when I justify doing stupid s**t in my head. I probably didn’t even need to see her ID. Who knows? Who cares?

The envelope had $5000 in cash in it. It said to meet at the Highlander Inn at 1945 the next day. Room 417.

I basically kicked Army’s door in. He was passed out on his couch and had a gun pointed at me. This was standard procedure.

“Army it’s me, put it away” I sort of shouted.

“I could have…” he started.

“Killed me, I’ve got no business barging in here like this, it’s dangerous, you’re a messed up vet. Yeah. Whatever,” I finished his usual warning speech. I showed him the cash.

Without a nanosecond of pause, he threw a slipper at the light switch, turning it on, sat up and pulled out a lockbox with assorted baggies and put his glasses on and started rifling through it. “What do you need, guy? I’ve got a little of…”

I closed his lockbox. “This lady just gave this to me to do an illegal photo shoot. Told me if I don't do it, things get hairy. It’s like a bad mob movie. I’m kinda scared shitless.”

His eyes met with mine. I had a feeling he could tell I wasn’t being entirely truthful, but he didn’t seem interested in making it a big deal.

“Like holllyyy s**t, dude, what did I just do?” I slumped onto the couch.

“Sounds like you just dug in deep, Kinnick.” He lit up a cigarette. “Was it just her?”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t see anybody else around?”

“Didn’t really look.”

We went back and forth, he tried to paint the situation for himself, trying to see it through his military goggles. He got all the details. Well, all the ones I paid attention to. He scolded me for being too inattentive to my surroundings.

“As long as you checked ID’s, don't drink anything you didn’t pour yourself, and make sure you get paid up front, it seems like a small time operation. Even if you get burned, I don’t think it will be too badly. The risk seems worth the reward. Be f*****g careful, Kinnick,” he advised.

“I don’t know, maybe she’s got connections to something bigger. I’m just gonna get in, do it, and get the hell out. There’s no backing out now anyway,” I remarked.

“Maybe it’s a load of s**t, and there’s no consequences for backing out?” Army commented.

“Yeah, but if there are…?” I questioned.

“You need to go get some sleep, man. It’s almost midnight, and you’ve got work in less than six hours.” Army pretended to be worried about me, when really this was more like “If you aren’t buying anything you need to let me sleep.” How thoughtful of him.

“Yeah you’re right, I should definitely go sleep after essentially taking on the closest thing to a covert mission that a professional porn photographer is ever going to get offered. I bet I’ll doze right off.” I joked.

“Regardless, I’m tired and you haven’t even been home yet today, man. You and Ike are seriously amped up tonight for whatever reason and it’s one thing after another today, and you’ve dragged me into all of it. Enough is enough. Let an old man sleep.”

He wasn’t wrong. I kinda felt bad in that moment. I kinda forgot. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that Army isn’t just one of the guys we hang out with. He really is an old, messed up man, even though a lot of the time he acts like he’s not.

Work dragged on like crazy. I think I probably had some of the worst shots of my career come out of the film today. Way too distracted. I saw Ike in passing a few times and he didn’t say a word to me. I really didn’t care to deal with it right now anyway. I was way too busy wondering if I’d made some grave mistake.

The Highlander Inn isn’t exactly the classiest place around. And if I get off at 7 and it’s 30 minutes away, it’s going to be a tight squeeze getting there to be sure. Can you guess what muggers look for in a place like that? People who are in too big a hurry to realize they’re being ambushed. My mind was whirring with thoughts like this.

I looked at the clock and was startled. I could have sworn I’d only been here a little while, but it was over halfway through my shift. The minutes seemed to fly by in groups. I was dreading what was coming, and so it was coming faster. Quite the opposite effect as when you are excited for something and it seems to take three weeks to get from Friday to saturday. This was more like when it takes 5 minutes to get from Sunday morning to Monday morning.

Van walked into my office and offered me an early out in the middle of a pen-to-desk drum solo of nervous anxiety. I took it and moved almost fast enough to blow her skirt up on the way out of my office. Even if I’m dreading this evening, I’d rather not dread it from here. She grabbed my messenger bag as I went to the door threshold, and it fell off and spilled on the floor.

“I was trying to get your attention, I actually didn’t mean to make you drop your bag,” she muttered sounding almost apologetic. She still didn’t bend down to help pick anything up. As she loomed over me, she reprimanded me. “This is the last time you’re getting off early for a while. Your shots from today were garbage and I need you focused. Clearly you’ve got something going on at home that makes you want to rush out the door whenever the opportunity comes up, and so the opportunity won’t be coming up anymore. Whatever you’re continually hurrying home for can wait until you’re off work. Am I understood?” She looked over her glasses at me sternly. I’m not sure she even needs them for anything but doing this to people. She doesn’t even wear them all the time.

I stuttered a bit, “Y-yes ma’am,” and I then was out the door and off, beelining for my apartment, the clock reading 4:00.

I had 45 minutes until showtime. I’d been sitting on my bed, watching the clock the entire time. I was so stuck in my head that there wasn’t even so much as a yawn or deep breath; for that matter, there wasn’t even much blinking. I realized this as my eyes started to burn and I blinked about 40 times to try and wet them and rubbed at my tear ducts with my finger. I ran my hand through my hair backwards and cleared my throat, for the sole purpose of making some noise to break up the soundtrack of the cinema playing in my head. All the different ways this might go wrong.

“She’s going to kill me. Or rape me. Or drug me,” I internally remarked. I gasped, “She’s going to have a very large man do all of those things.’

I shook my head and wiped the sweat from my face that wasn’t really there. My skin was just warm and flushed with anxiety. I looked down at my shoes and fixed the laces because they were uneven. That’s how meticulous my nervous mind is making me. I also checked my phone about 30 times to make sure it said the same time as my wall clock and my microwave clock… In case something was off.

I grabbed my car keys and left, figuring at least sitting in front of the Inn, I’d have a few less clocks to stress about since there’s no remaining drive time. F**k it, right? “I am losing my mind,” I muttered during the drive over and over. About 8 minutes before I was supposed to show up, I went up to the top floor and knocked on the door.

If there’s something to be said for patience, I wasn’t aware of it at the moment. I knocked sharply, much as a cop would, without any consideration that such a thing might be the last thing anyone would want to do around here. The door knob turned and I felt tingling in the bottoms of my feet and my fingers from adrenaline. Turns out, the room was a penthouse room. Quite large, actually. I had no idea that this place even had penthouses available, considering that the rooms on the first floor can be rented monthly and all the doors here open to the parking lot. Great for accessibility to night time company and drug deliveries.

My jaw dropped. The woman who answered was not the mystery woman who’d lined me up for this shoot, but a different woman. A much older woman. A very large woman, she seemed structured for grand success in the “enforcement” industry. For a moment I thought I had the wrong room. My legs shook a little bit, but it wasn’t visible because my jeans were a tiny bit baggy. Relaxed fit. At least, I hoped nobody saw…

“You must be the help,” she said. Although she didn’t say it like you or I would say it. She said it as if she’d just realized I was solely responsible for cancer worldwide and I stole her lunch from the break room. Both of those revelations happened the moment she addressed me as the help. What a charming woman she was, with sarcasm of course. So now there are two mystery women. Old mystery woman and young mystery woman. I resisted the urge to ask her “where is the younger mystery woman?”

I collected myself from the inner mental overuse of the word “woman” and proceeded.

“Hi, I’m John Kinnick. You uh… You wouldn’t happen to know where the woman who set all of this stuff up is, would you?” I asked her. I was feigning politeness. It’s something you learn to do when you work around high-maintenance, judgemental, bitchy models all day. I faked as if I looked past her and eye-swept the room, just to drive the point home that I was over this conversation in the most professional way possible.

“Dannika is in the sitting area, you’ll be shooting in the master bedroom. Your model will be arriving shortly. Do not speak to her, do not touch her.”

I stood in the doorway as she finished her sentence. I looked at her, then at the floor, then inside, and then back at her perplexed with an eyebrow cocked, silently requesting an explanation. She wasn’t moving in any way to let me in. After a decently long session of doing this little number, the one where I wonder how I’m getting in and she does an uncanny impression of a statue, she leaned towards me and put the tip of her nose almost to mine. I’d have thought she was trying to kiss me if I wasn’t already painfully aware that I was less than a gnat to her.

“If you speak to the model, you will be paying back your fee,” she warned.

“Don’t talk to the model. Got it,” I nervously answered back.

She moved out of the way, finally. As I walked past her I could feel the intimidating aura coming off of her as if it was something you could see and touch in the room. It was thick and intense. Something about her eyes looked like she’d catch a bullet in her teeth if someone shot at her right now.

I’ve never seen a woman look so tough as nails in my life. And she looked great doing it. She had to be in her 50’s, but she was in ridiculously good shape, to the point where I wondered for a moment who’d win in a fight between her and Ike. She was in a very conservative black 50’s style pinup dress and heels and her hair was raven black and in victory rolls. Obviously dyed, because you could see her roots, but still. She wore all of it, even the splashes of white in her hair, like a champion. If she put a headband on and flexed like “We can do it” I doubt anybody would have any issue believing her. I don’t even think the heels she wore would slow her down one bit from kicking someone’s a*s.

“S-so… The mystery contact’s name is Dannika, I’m not allowed to talk to the model,” I murmured as I cowered past her. She nodded in agreement. There was a bit of curiosity in that nod, too. As if to wonder why someone would casually address her.

“So what do they call you, if I’m not being too nosey? It’s just… You look amazing for your age, and if I’m gonna tell my friends a story later about the hot bodyguard… A name would be helpful.” My voice mildly stabilized.

She chuckled a bit and turned away, shaking her head. She walked out front and closed the door behind her. I could tell she’d lit up a smoke from the brief flash on the wall outside the window. I think she thought I was hitting on her. I meant exactly what I said, I just hate referring to people descriptively. A name is more concise. “Apparently they don’t give women names on whatever planet she’s from,” I mumbled. It was something Ike said back in high school after getting turned down. I chuckled nostalgically to myself and proceeded to look for the sitting area.

After walking in and subsequently right back out of the bathroom, which was large enough that I unwittingly included it in my search for a sitting room, I took the correct turn and found it. On the way past, I did happen to get a glimpse at the master bedroom, which was very seductively lit with candles and had a water feature on each side of the bed. Hanging above it was a shimmering red silk canopy which looked to have Native American feather designs stitched right into them, matching the spread of the bed itself. It was definitely an intensely romantic setting, not like you’d generally see in a hardcore shoot. “All it’s missing is a fireplace and a wah pedal” I said under my breath. A lot went into this, actually. Usually they just throw some plastic sheeting down to catch money shots and shoot some cheap hotel room as-is... Actually a lot of the time they don’t even do the sheeting.

Dannika, as was apparently her name, was sitting in the sitting room just as expected. She was on a corny red plush loveseat, legs crossed, shoulders back, and arms along the back of the couch. Well, perhaps not just as expected. She was in a very sheer, long, flowing, white lace robe. Nothing else. And the robe wasn’t even closed. Definitely a lot less clothing than she had on in the parking lot I met her in before. Her hair was big and dramatic rather than in a messy bun, her makeup was done better than any human being should be able to accomplish instead of barely done at all, she was accessorized to the nines rather than just a nerdy set of glasses, and she smelled like heaven. She was cute before - She was fantastically gorgeous now.

“Do you mind if I set up some additional lighting? Candles are wonderful for ambience, but they suck for photography. Unless you want me doing long exposures on every shot, in which case I hope your model can sit really still,” I clarified. I think she was a bit shaken by my ignoring her seduction efforts.

“Most guys are a little more starstruck.” she bragged.

“I’ve been doing this for years.” I brushed her off.

Her eyes slowly lowered down towards my belt line and froze there.

Curious, my eyes lowered to my belt line to follow hers.

“JESUS!” I shouted. My pants were fitting quite interestingly at the moment. I awkwardly adjusted myself.

Her eyes lifted up, and by the look on her face she was clearly taking these events as a victory. “You can do whatever you like with the lighting, our guys can make it look like candlelight later if we need them to.”

I was slowly headed for the door to get set up, but she hadn’t moved yet.

“You aren’t the model, are you? Because I’m not supposed to…” I stammered.

“No, I’m the dom,” she replied as if that’s just a normal thing people say in conversations. She’s been in the business a while, I gather.

She stood, and got closer to me.

“Dom like… BDSM? Like bondage and stuff?” I asked, face crinkled and therefore broadcasting loudly that I’m not exactly a kink.

“Will there be any issue?” she asked.

We both walked towards the master bedroom. I began to unpack a few little lights from my bag.

“No, I’ve just never shot anything like it before,” I said. “Anything specific you want me capturing?”

“Make sure you get her face when she cums, make sure you shoot any fluids whatsoever that leave her, and make sure you get where they came from. Other than that, it’s action shots and dramatic poses.” she explained.

She wasn’t kidding when she said this was gonna be a bit more hardcore than what I generally shoot. As I pondered that, I also began to compute another part of what she’d said.

“Fluids?!” I yelped.

“If she squirts, if she drools from being gagged…” Dannika explained.

“So we’re not doing anything with piss or puke or…?”

“Oh, hell no,” she chuckled. “I’m not getting paid enough for this session for that.”

I didn’t bother to find out if that meant she’d done it before.

“Don’t doms generally dress in… I don’t know… Black? Like leather and stuff?” I pried.

She smiled, and it pulled at the corner of her red lips in a way that could kill a greater man than myself dead at 100 yards. She opened a standing armoire in the corner of the room. The thing was ornate and probably stood 7 feet tall. It had to weigh a ton. It was off camera, so it must not just be a prop. As she opened it, I was surprised nothing fell out of it. It was absolutely stuffed with various outfits side to side, and the open bottom space below where the outfits hung was packed just as tightly with sexual doodads and whatnots. A few I recognized, a few I was glad I didn’t.

She reached in and pulled out an outfit with a devious smile that positively dripped with sex. I’d never really seen anything quite like it. I knew it was meant to drive me wild, and that it was ingenuine. It was all for show and it was all bullshit. But nonetheless, it was sexy. I did definitely find it interesting that she was trying to get me to bite her hook, though, and I wondered what her angle was.

I watched her get dressed, every second without even blinking. I’d never been that awe-struck by a model the entire time I’ve worked this gig.

She made every minute of it an intentional show, putting every item on slowly. All the way up to the slow and deliberate stepping into stockings and heels, buttoning them to the attached garter straps of her skirt. She also took her sweet time in getting her hands into elbow length black satin gloves and tying her hair up in a black bow with red lace trim. Piece by piece she assembled her outfit.

It was a corset and knee length skirt. The corset was black satin in finish, with leather accents and sheer lace portions over her breasts, leaving them practically exposed. The top was interesting, the way it flowed in design, it certainly directed attention forcefully to the shoulders to emphasize a powerful stance of confidence like Dannika’s, even doing so without any straps whatsoever. However, the lines and lace plunged to ensure a certain enticing and innocent femininity at the breasts and hugged the hourglass dives of her waist and knee-buckling apex of her hips in a way that would have made a man wince with just a hint of shame at what he’d do to those curves. It ended just above the belly button, but the lace accented bottom directed the eyes past the stomach and to the skirt flawlessly.

The skirt was also largely black satin, though with much more prevalent leather. A lot of the structure of it was in fact, leather. She must have ironed it onto herself and I’m not entirely sure how she planned to walk in it. Logic would have it that the satin areas stretched somehow. The outline of each individual a*s cheek was plain as day and hugged upwards in a way that generously showed off a woman who certainly stays active. It ran down her legs like paint poured on a canvas to about mid thigh, and flared out in a blood red tulled interior of a slit, running nearly high enough make you wonder why she bothered wearing anything at all, and dove in a high-low style to the back, which was dramatically simulated to be in tatters. A bit of a bitter gothic garnish to what was otherwise a very sweet dessert of an outfit. It was mesmerizing.

She took black lipstick and stared right at me as she darkened the corners of her lips, leaving the middle the same red she had on before. The same red as her outfit’s accents. A bit of a gradient effect.

Now she looked the part.

Here I started out thinking I’d be unaffected. She was definitely a professional entertainer, and not just a model. She’s definitely practiced at turning men on as a profession. I’d go as far as to assume she’s a prostitute, or has been at some point. I’m a cynic when it comes to this kind of act and even I was helpless. Utterly hypnotized. She moved to bait every breath, and there was no escaping it.

“Should we get started with the shoot?” She grinned and whispered right in my ear, too closely to warrant simply not wanting to be overheard and what she spoke wasn’t a secret anyway. What a tease, this woman.

She smiled victoriously and went and sat on the bed.

“Y-yeah sure.” I tripped over my own tongue. I grumbled in pride and collected myself. I shook it off and pretended I was totally put together and started assembling my equipment with shaky hands. My heart was beating in my head.

“Where’s the model, anyway?’ I inquired.

She grinned but didn’t answer me. I wasn’t done putting my equipment together and I think she was already in the dom mindset or whatever. Maybe she’s some kind of method actor, because I felt like she was just trying to assert dominance over me, even though I’m just the photographer. I mean why would she…

My face dropped and I fumbled my camera lens cover to the floor. I looked back at her in shock. “Did you want me… to…?” I stuttered and sort of pointed awkwardly at myself. I was sitting there slack jawed wondering if I’d missed an invitation just by being overly cynical. She laughed in response a little too easily. That was refreshingly nourishing for my ego…

“No, just having fun dear.” She said it as if she was speaking to a first grader. Couldn’t have possibly been more patronizing, I felt like ants were probably larger than me at the moment. How mortifying.

She stood up, still smiling and with a bit of spring in her step now. She’d noticed she’d got under my skin a bit and it was making her day. What a sadist. I guess she’s in the right line of work.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is going to have to be one hell of a cliffhanger.

Because I want you to imagine that here, we fast forward to the present. We fast forward to me with a smoke hanging from my lip. In my office. Where smoking isn’t allowed.

I would love to share the details of the photography session with you. I’ll tell you that the model was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. Which just makes all of this more difficult. I’ll tell you I watched her get shackled into a pillory and whipped and prodded and spread apart and gagged. With fingers, lips, tongue, and tools. I’ll tell you that I watched her clothes strategically cut off of her body with very large knives.

I can tell you that I watched her take toys so far down her throat that she was choking up mucus through her nose gagging on them. I’ll tell you I watched her get fucked by Dannika so hard that I was sure she’d be bruised later. There was a safe word, “Violet”, and she never used it. She was silent the entire time.

My head was stuck in a daydream. Or daymare, if there’s such a thing.

I had just left Van’s office. The police were asking her to investigate Urbane photographers. One of them had taken photos of a woman who had escaped a sex trafficking ring and turned up on lower Wacker drive flagging down a cop car. They struggled to find a translator to understand her. A human trafficking  group tortured and abused this girl, and rented her off to sadists worldwide.

She didn’t speak English and she was ordered not to say a word to anyone for the entire session under threat of penalty and consequence.

She didn’t… speak… English.

As soon as I got to my office and slumped into my chair, I bashed my head on the filing cabinet behind my chair in frustration.

I wasn’t allowed to talk to her, that was a condition of the shoot. It made sense now.

She never said a safe word, even though I watched them tell her what it was. Because nobody wants anyone to know that she can’t speak the language they told her the safe word in.

Turns out that my dumbass left one of my lights behind, which had an Urbane logo on it. The same logo plastered on the side of the building we work in downtown, visible from pretty much anywhere. It’s a damn good thing she was blindfolded the entire time the session was happening. The victim mentioned to the cops that someone present that evening worked where I work, but declined a line up for now. The police had mentioned that one might be court ordered later.

So… Would I love to tell you about the absolutely astounding sexual session I witnessed? Hell no. Because what I witnessed wasn’t sexy. It was nauseating. Even more so, now that I realize what I admit I was so drunk with and aroused by while it was happening, was so appalling.

I remember all the thoughts that passed me by.

“I’ve never liked this stuff, but its so hot to watch in real life.”

“I wonder if they’d invite me in if I asked?”

“Hell, I’d take them one at a time.”

“Hell, I’d be happy with just one of them.”

I’m disgusting.

The model had long straight brown hair, dark brown eyes, tan skin, she was petite, innocent looking, and youthful. She was pre-dressed when she entered in a white lace mini dress, and once she was undressed of that, she had a white lace bra on and white underwear. Nothing even all that special. Likely to add to the ambience of innocence.

But I had no idea how innocent. She was 16. She was done up with makeup and accessorized to look much older. I truly had no idea. Not even for a second.

I shot up out of my seat and paraded around my office in an anxious, rushed wander. Suddenly, falling to my knees, I looked over my garbage can, eyes glazed in deep thought, and vomited easily 6 or 7 times. An intern walked by and saw me doing this. He knocked.

“You okay in here?”

I had to get out of this place, so I began to wing it. I began to try and get sent home. I told the intern I needed to leave because I was ill, but I was very dizzy. Too dizzy to walk the halls. I asked him if he’d take me to Van’s office so I could prove to her I was sick. “You know Van. If you don’t prove it, it’s unexcused,” I joked with him.

“If your arm’s been ripped off by a farm combine, ice it up and bring it in with you,” he joked back, impersonating Van. I say joked, but she uses that line a lot in attendance meetings.

I was doing a piss poor job of acting way more incapacitated than I was, but this guy was dense and he was buying it.

We walked to Van’s office, I asked her to go home, and she rolled her eyes but she granted my request. I believe she was still in denial that any of her photographers would freelance behind her back, and so my sudden onset of sickness didn’t even seem to strike her as odd. I’d pulled this crap act once or twice before on a few gorgeous summer days.

I immediately ran to Army’s house.

“Army I am absolutely FUCKED.” I shouted, barging in his front door. After the usual routine of threats with a gun and warnings of danger, Army settled, and seemed nonplussed to my obvious hysterics.

He sipped his tea and watched me, puzzled as I paced around his living room for a few seconds. When I ran into his bathroom, he knew something was wrong. He wandered back to the bathroom and stood over me.

“The shoot was bogus, Army. I shot an underage girl,” I groaned, hanging over his toilet.

“Where’s the body?” he asked.

“Wha… Body? No no no, shot… like photographed. And she’s tied up in sex trafficking… Like a… a… a victim or something. They tricked me.” I winced. Every word was taking an incredible amount of effort to speak clearly because of what a mess I was mentally. It irked me to have to repeat any of them or clarify anything.

“Cops involved?” he asked

“They were at the office. They talked to Van. Said that the girl mentioned the magazine but she was blindfolded the whole time. I may have left one of my lights there, though, which has Urbane’s logo on it.”

“You did… WHAT?” he almost fell off the doorframe he was leaning on.

I looked up at him wondering why the mention of underage pornographic photography hadn’t phased him, but this did.

“Kiddo there’s no way in hell they’re not gonna find you, you gotta not be here… Er… For f**k’s sake what did Van tell em?” he panicked.

“She said nobody at the company is allowed to do freelance work. We all signed no contest orders upon hire, but she’ll investigate it internally and she’ll investigate it diligently.”

He nodded blankly like I should go on. I’m not sure how he knew it got worse.

“She said she won’t allow anyone on her staff to be questioned until her investigation is complete because of the legal implications and what it could to do the company image to let this go public before anyone knows for sure. They said they’d give her 24 hours and then it goes public. She also said she’ll find the b*****d because she wants to get to take her shot at the guy before the system does. Says she’s gonna pursue the breach of no contest to the fullest extent she can. There’s no way she won’t figure out it’s me, there’s a log of who checks out what.”

Army slumped down to sit on the laundry bin across the hall, depleted.

“So the cops are gonna want me, Urbane is gonna want me... “ I mumbled.

“No pressure then, huh kiddo?” he sighed.

He put his hand on my shoulder.

“I’m going down for this, Army,” I quivered.

Army didn’t seem like he had any argument at all.

He put his hands on his hips and looked me up and down with incredible concern. “Well, there’s nothing that can be done tonight. Ike’s supposed to be coming over. If you wanna stay and you boys hang out here, I guess you can tonight. But listen, man… If the cops show up, I can’t lie to them. I’m too old for this sort of an adventure,” he furrowed his eyebrows at me at the end. “If you don’t like that, you’re welcome to find yourself elsewhere.” There was a hint of apology in his eyes. He didn’t want to say it to me, he had to.

“I think I’ll stay here tonight and catch up with Ike… I want to talk to him. After that, I’ll make sure you stay out of this, Army. You’ve always been cool to me, so I don’t wanna mess you up in this.”

I couldn’t expect the man to get mixed up in all of this.

We both paused for a good long time, both derailed from being too deep in thought. A moment later, the weight of reality crashed back down onto me.

“What am I supposed to do, Army?” I begged him.

“No idea kiddo, this isn’t something I’ve got many comments on.”

We spent the afternoon going back and forth with half-baked ideas about how to get out of all of this, how to hide, whether or not what I did would even be considered a crime. We were just throwing s**t to the wall to see what would conceivably stick, neither one of us having any idea what any kind of laws about this would say.

We played spades, a favorite of Army’s, and we had the news on. Urbane is a large and publicly traded company that’s only a few share slots below Playboy, which is essentially our only competitor. On the world’s stage, we’re kind of a major player. The company stands to lose a lot from all of this if it gets huge on the news. The sex ring story was also major world news at the moment. I had found myself at the center of a news scandal, and nobody even knew who I was yet.

There were a two times while watching the news I had to leave the table to step away and vomit again. Once when they mentioned that this woman had been in the company of actual sadists who beat her within inches of her life, doused her in varying bodily fluids, tied her into contorted positions and suspended her from the ceiling while not allowing her restroom rights, raped her repeatedly, and tormented her mentally.

I got sick because I basically advertised for these people to make sure her situation continues. I had no idea that I’d done it, but I had a strong feeling that given the horrid nature of what this girl was dealing with, nobody was going to care that “I’m otherwise a pretty good guy.”

The news was allowed some of the details of the case, but they were under strict orders not to mention Urbane or its employees, and they weren’t allowed access to company documents. That meant Van’s name wasn’t out there yet and she wasn’t yet working with the police, and so nobody on the force could arrive at my name just yet. But if the police already know a light was left behind, eventually someone is going to check the logs and find my name.

Which is why the second clip made me sick. It was right before Ike walked in. The story played out at such a perfect timing that it caught his eye before he even set anything down.

When they showed Amanda, the model from only days ago - had it only been a couple of days? It felt like weeks - on TV. They had determined her connection with the group and brought her into custody. It was exactly what I didn’t want. There went my time to think. So now there were actually two parties potentially looking at me. My employer… and the police in a little while, once Amanda talks and fills in the missing pieces on the crime board.

“What a piece of s**t human being. How could somebody be involved in something like this?” Ike said. His eyes were cocked anrgrily towards the TV and he had beers in a grocery bag and a carton of smokes in the other hand.

Piece of s**t, he says. How great to hear that.

I grabbed a carton of smokes from his bag and ripped the end of it open so hard that the carton was in tatters at the end, completely unnecessarily. It was a bit aggressive, and it’s not great manners to do that to somebody’s carton. “It’s not as f*****g hard as you think it is to get involved,” I snipped at him.

“Good to know you’re still an a*****e,” Ike shot right back. He snatched the pack of smokes I’d busted out of his carton out of my hand and began packing them. I grabbed them back.

He dropped everything he was carrying on the floor like he wasn’t f*****g around anymore and reached for them again. I jerked the smokes far out of his reach, raised up a fist to hit him and didn’t back down one bit.

“Woah woah woah,” Ike put his hands up to slow me down. “You serious? Playa, look at you, look at me.”

He motioned to himself proudly. Sure he was warning me, but it was also a shameless plug. A brag.

So in case the mental image isn’t clear by now, I’m not a big guy, and Ike is. I’m about five-foot-seven, a buck sixty in weight. Stocky but not stacked. I’ve got salt and pepper hair that I keep a little too long, nerdy glasses, and I dress like a middle aged dad. I’m in damn good shape for my age but I mean that in a fit sort of sense, not a ripped sort of sense. My facial hair configuration generally leaves a bit to be desired. I’m trying to say I’m nothing in the way of a fighter.

Ike is 6’10” and built like the business end of a buick. Ike is every damn bit of a fighter in appearance. The entire interaction was like watching a chihuahua jockey for high ground against a great dane.

“Why the f**k are you two so goddamn bickery lately?” Army said. He snatched the pack out of my hand as I was too focused on Ike. He lit one up. “Every time you guys meet you’re on the verge of killing each other and you’re supposed to be best friends or something.”

He exhaled his drag.

“It is completely buzz killingly intense. Take it outside or drop it. Whatever marital problems the two of you are having don’t need to be handled right this goddamn second, wouldn’t you agree, Kinnick?” He glared at me.

His face reconfigured in an instant as if to order me to explain what he meant. I glared back at him as if to say “Why me?” and he cracked me upside the back of the head. This meant “Do it NOW.”

A whole conversation with almost nothing spoken. Army can be a very persuasive man.

“Ike I’m in deep s**t, man,” I started.

“Hope it explains why you bein’ such a lil b***h!” he threw in at the first chance he got.

I took a deep breath and decided not to engage with him in order to focus on what was more important.

“That ring they’re talking about used an Urbane employee. Van is investigating the the entire staff. Making sure it was one of hers before she lets the police in on it,” I continued on.

“Good I hope they catch him,” Ike smirked

I met his eyes. “I’m that employee, Ike. I shot the photos.”

He basically blue-screened and rebooted mentally, you could see it happen right before your eyes. He put his hands on his head and sort of chicken-walked back and forth up and down the hallway and ending in a U-turn in the kitchen or back bedroom, depending on what side of the route he was on. He was throwing his arms up and down, mouthing words, uttering half syllables, computing what he’d heard. Time stretched as he ignored us. One minute and forty-two seconds. I counted.

“I had no clue what I was shooting. They offered me eight grand to shoot a foreign girl that was here illegally and didn’t have proper papers or ID. Despite how bad that sounds, the way it was all explained it seemed airtight,” I explained. He didn’t look like he saw it my way, so I continued.

“I got the job from somebody that knew Amanda. I got there and it all seemed pretty well put together. The model looked old enough. Before the shoot, they told me not to talk to her at all or I wouldn’t get paid and I’d run into problems, Ike. The kind of problems you run into when you piss off crime rings. So obviously I didn’t speak to her at all. They told her a safe word and they did the shoot. She never said the safe word, so nobody stopped. DUDE I DIDN’T F*****G KNOW.”

He looked at me, radiating disapproval.

“Not one bit of the bad stuff, man, I didn’t know any of it. Just thought it was a risky freelance shoot. Thought the worst I’d get was some kind of ticket or something for not reporting an illegal alien. The risk seemed worth it.” My voice broke almost in tears. I was a pawn, an idiot, and got caught in a shitstorm against my will and without my knowledge; and instead of any sort of compassion, all of my friends are distancing themselves from me like a fugitive.

I suppose I shouldn’t blame them. Soon I’ll be one.

Ike walked out into the back yard to light up a smoke. I followed suit. Ike dragged deep on his cigarette as I lit mine.

“You have got to be the dumbest m**********r I ever met,” he spoke through a cloud of smoke. His voice was slightly distorted trying to regulate his exhale of smoke and speak at the same time.

I looked over at him, my eyes slightly squinted to hide from the smoke coming from the cigarette hanging out of my mouth.

“How’s the view from that high horse, man?” I asked him. I snorted and shook my head, I couldn’t believe I wasn’t asleep right now, this all seemed like a bad dream.

“You think I would have done anything like this if I knew the details? Really? Nine times out of ten, I’m the brains between us, man. We’ve been friends since we could talk, basically, and the s**t hits the fan and you just back out right off the bat.” I punctuated this by dragging my smoke.

“I was pissed at you for being such a victim, man. Like you always are. I stayed away from you so I didn’t beat some sense into your head. I didn’t even want to talk to you, but you showed up here tonight. Then I find out you went and made yourself an actual victim, and you’re sitting over here throwing yourself a pity party trying to become even more of a victim. I should just call you ‘Victim’. Like a nickname.” He threw back. He sucked a healthy hit off of his smoke and almost choked on it.

I bit my tongue and shook my head again. “This is basically it for me, man, and you’d rather sit on an ivory tower than sit in my corner,” I jabbed at him.

“It is not basically it, man. You need to turn yourself in. Explain the situation. You’re just accepting defeat before it even happens.”

“The hell he does, Clement. They’ll throw the book at him in seconds flat. This is already a news story and he’ll be a pariah. Nobody is gonna show any heart when all of the media has already painted whoever did this as a monster. They’ve already been told how to think,” Army immediately interjected.

“Doesn’t make it a crime to get conned and be in the wrong place in the wrong time,” Ike replied

“Son, perception is everything.”

Army walked over to Ike and stared at him as if to plea.

“I know you see grand, happy, milk and honey things happening in your mind, Clement, but you can’t delude yourself into thinking that the general public isn’t going to want your friend crucified,” he continued. Army tends to get a bit of a lunatic look in his eyes whenever it comes to matters of the media and the general public. Army is a horrendously paranoid man.

Regardless, Ike didn’t take long to realize Army had a point.

I looked Ike cold in the eyes, “If I turn myself in they’re gonna eat me alive.”

“Amanda is gonna talk and you’re gonna come up. There’s no running from any of this,” Ike spoke to the night sky, not at me, after a moment of reflecting on what Army said.

“I’m fucked any which way it spins, man,” my voice cracked. “It’s a matter of when they come, not if.”

Ike turned and looked in my direction, avoiding eye contact.  “What are you gonna do, man? What’s the plan?”

“Not a damn thought comes to mind.” I finished the final drag of my cigarette and stomped it out.

I went inside and I grabbed a beer from the fridge and walked right back outside, heading down an alley across from the apartment complex. I flagged Ike to follow me.

He grabbed a beer and followed. He knew that I was headed to the liquor store by the direction I took. There’s really nothing else interesting off in this direction. There wasn’t a word exchanged on the way there. Ike and I have known each other long enough that one of us knows when the other one is doing some heavy duty thinking. We grabbed an irresponsibly large bottle of cheap bourbon, a few inexpensive blueberry cigars, and a bottle of sours mix. Ike and I quite enjoy a good bourbon sour with a blueberry blunt.

On the way home Ike spoke up to break the silence, “Why do I feel like the plan is to celebrate?”

“Might be the last time we get a decent evening together, man.” I turned and looked back at Ike walking behind me. “Do we want to spend it freaked out about what might happen? Or do we make the most of it?” I tried to sound like I was in good spirits.

The fact is that I was dying inside. I’m a good man, a good person. I go out of my way to help anyone I can, I never do anything that would intentionally hurt anyone. In fact, sometimes I’ll hurt myself in order to lift somebody else up just a bit. There’s not much in me besides goodwill. Sure, I’m cynical, tough, stubborn, and blunt. I’m not a warm person to be around. Even so, I’m no monster and I’m no criminal.

It looked all wrong from the outside and there was no fixing it. It all went down in such a specific way and all the right mistakes were made. I looked guilty. Hell, as far as I know I am legally guilty of some crime. There’s really no way for me to know without stopping a local cop and asking him, which seems like an idiotic idea.

Just walk right up to Johnny Law and ask him, “Hey, I’m the guy that helped the little girl get raped. Do you know if I’m guilty or not?” It ought to work out well.

We got back to Army’s and he was sleeping on the couch, emulating the sounds of a lumber mill with his hands down his pants. There is an alarming number of people on the planet that sleeps with their hands in their pants and I just don’t understand what sort of genetic glitch makes us do it.

So I guess he’s out of the picture for the evening. We walked over to my apartment instead. My apartment is a single bedroom. I’m not sure why I pay for this instead of a studio, as I’m the only person living here thanks to having apparently faulty pheromones. I flipped on the little TV I had mounted up on top of the bar island between my living room and kitchen and I flipped on the larger TV in my entertainment stand. Ike and I generally watch TV while we play video games, so there are usually two screens going at any given time. I flipped the smaller one to the news.

“You gonna do that to yourself?” Ike asked.

“I think it’s important to keep up with what’s going on,” I responded.

“Well, before you start a game, I’m gonna grab dinner,” He declared. It was almost 9:00 at night, and I was definitely hungry. He’d been looking at his phone since we got inside.

“Jasper’s is doing a deal on carryout pizza, 2 toppings for 75% off because it’s Pi Day.” Ike put his phone in his pocket and started heading for the door visibly licking his lips. He’s a huge fan of Jasper’s, I’m not. I think their sauce is too savory and I hate thin crust pizza. It should be deep dish with a sweeter sauce. I’ll eat it if it’s put in front of me, but I’d never seek it out myself if it were left up to me.

I especially avoid Jasper’s because it’s almost 5 miles away and neither Ike nor I have a car. Lorenzo’s is closer, they’ve got better sauce, and they have the best damn cookies in town. The difference between the two is that Ike won’t even try and choke down Lorenzo’s because he absolutely hates it, but I can tolerate Jasper’s. So Jasper’s makes more sense, but the deal is that he’s gotta pick it up every time, hoofing it. We never bother to pay delivery fees, it’s just a thing Ike and I have never done. We figure “If you want a pizza, go get one.”

It was basically the exact moment that Ike left that the news came on.

I remember it being so sudden after Ike left because I remember muttering his name hoping he was still within earshot. My voice was so weak that even if he’d just closed the door, he wouldn’t have heard me. However, the way it felt to me I’d yelled down the block for him with a roar like a lion. I was out of breath from speaking his name and barely a squeak came out.

Ike wouldn’t be back for almost an hour. I was in this alone. I grabbed the bottle of bourbon and swigged back about a quarter of the bottle as if I’d just returned home from a long stint in some barren desert… And I’m no heavyweight drinker.

“Authorities search for John Kinnick, photographer, 33,” the headline read.

“After speaking with in house IT experts within Urbane, security did determine that contact was made with a child trafficking ring several times from within their network. These transmissions were made via laptop during the visiting hours of one Amanda Heimerink. They contacted authorities who were able to collect Amanda after she was lured to the premise on the pretense of discussing her photos. In interrogation, we were able to determine the involvement of Dannika Arlamov, who disclosed the identity of Jonathan Kinnick, an employee of Urbane magazine. Mr Kinnick is wanted for the crimes of production of child pornography and involvement in human trafficking,” read the chief of police from some kind of prepared statement.

Next on the train of events that ran over John Kinnick on the night of Pi Day, Van took the mic. On live television.

“Urbane magazine will release whatever information, records, and resources it can to assist police in bringing this man into custody, and Mr. Kinnick will be released from his position with the company, effective immediately. It is Urbane’s intention to cater to the modern and refined man, not to the perverse neanderthal mind that so badly needs to be retired,” She droned on and on like a politician, she really reeled in the crowd. I was waiting for the pitchforks to raise up and for people to start lighting torches.

I put my hands on my head and took a deep breath in. I couldn’t believe it. I’m dumb enough to leave equipment at the scene and instead some ditzy model and her greasy digital fingerprint ends up being my downfall. The news was still going but I wasn’t hearing a single word of it anymore. The room began to spin. I began to feel as if I was suffocating and I collapsed to the floor. I threw the remote for the TV across the room so hard that it tore my lampshade.

I swigged another healthy helping of bourbon.

I rocked myself back and forth. Something inside me snapped and I just started laughing. I’d kept calm through almost everything, but that was over.

I didn’t do this because I wanted to, I did this because I was tricked… And nobody seems to care to hear my side of things. Less than 12 hours is all it took for Van and the police to get to the bottom of everything. That’s how long it took for everything to fly out of hand. How long it took for my entire life to crumble from under me.

Looking at the phone in my hands, I immediately pondered calling the cops and turning myself in, and then imagined what prison must be like for a guy sent there for stuff involving a kid. An underage girl. Somebody’s daughter. I dropped the phone on the floor, my hands shaking violently.

I laughed again as tears began to find their way down the curves of my cheek. I didn’t even know I’d begun crying, this was the first I’d noticed it. I wiped my cheek and looked at my wet hand and laughed just a bit harder. I curled myself as close to the floor as I could, trying to somehow avoid the pressure of the ten billion pounds of weight that felt as if it was on top of me.

The voices of the news reporters murmured in the background. It just floated through the house unnoticed by me. Every wall it reverberated off of was wasting it’s time replicating the sounds. I was far, far away from anywhere that was capable of caring. Millions of apocalyptic sounds and images and possibilities crashed through my head like a machine gun, this particular one stuck going off in a window factory. Shards of glass, copper, and mull flying everywhere in total chaos.

I had to drown out the sounds in my head. I stumbled towards my room, pulling on clumps of hair as if to pull myself off the ground and lead myself to another room. Trying to escape the gravity hanging over me so heavily. The more I moved, the more a massive hole tore right into my chest.

I could feel it, burning and empty. Unfillable. The feeling of panic, fear, pain, and despair all compressed into the cavity my heart is supposed to be in. I wanted to scream loud enough to hurt my own ears, but my lungs and throat had given up on me. They were just as dazed and paralyzed as any other part of me. I felt violently nauseous but nothing was moving. I felt so nauseous that I just wanted any way to escape it.

I reached up and turned my stereo on. When my stereo turns on, it defaults to the last thing it was set to and just begins to play, which in this case was the CD player, which held a copy of Deloused in the Comatorium by the Mars Volta in the tray. It whirred into motion and I pressed the play button.

In a daze, I put my wireless headphones on. Noise canceling and wonderful for getting yourself out of the real world for a spell. Everything dies except your music. I wandered out the front door as if my feet were propelling me on their own agenda, I wasn’t even fully sure I understood where I was going. There was no music in my ears, either. I’d just realized that my music automatically starts when I turn things on, and by pressing the play button, I’d paused it. I shrugged and continued outside, mindlessly, towards Army’s place.

I opened his door. He was still right where we left him. Oddly enough, he didn’t move. I hadn’t woken him up. I wandered through his house, impressed by how well I could see in the dark at the moment. It was as if I was operating off of memory, navigating by a photograph in my mind. I didn’t particularly need light to know where I was going. I remembered where I’d been pacing earlier in the day and just blankly retraced my steps.

I was pacing in my neighbor’s house while he slept. I smirked to myself and chuckled loudly. I covered my mouth with a grin, almost amused that I could get caught and maybe even shot. Obviously the bourbon had become my tour guide. I tripped forward and fell, but I caught myself on the dresser in the back bedroom. My hand landed on a night light of sorts, one you could tap on and tap off, and it sprang to life. I immediately squinted and looked around the corner of the door threshold to see if Army was still out cold.

He was.

My heartbeat was so loud in my head that it was actually and legitimately hurting my ears. Pulling the headphones away from my ears for a moment, I put my fingers up to and into my ears trying to get something to pop or equalize or shake loose, or something. Anything to stop the throbbing. I gave up when nothing worked. As my eyes wandered around the vicinity just from moving my head around because of my ears, I noticed a piece of paper with numbers scrawled on it sticking in the corner of the mirror at the back of the dresser.

I knew where Army’s safe was, I just never knew the combination. I never even wondered about it actually, and now I was pretty sure I’d just learned it. I figured I’d go test it out, because normal reasoning and discernment of right and wrong was escaping me at the moment. My hands fumbled to get the piece of paper out of the corner of the mirror without ripping it.

I grabbed it, tightened my grip on it, and pulled with a purpose. It wasn’t even remotely stuck or difficult to get out of where it was, I’d massively overcompensated and almost threw myself across the room when it came free with almost no real effort. I stumbled backwards off balance. Alcohol is a hell of a substance.

The safe opened very easily. They aren’t very secure when somebody knows the combination. Inside was stacks of money, lock boxes full of change, others full of varying drugs, all very clearly labeled and organized by price point. He also had a clipboard filled with IOU’s, the ones paid off were struck with a line. I smirked after noticing Ike owed him money.

I recognized most of what I saw. Heroin, weed, cocaine, acid, mushrooms. But there were these little green vials that didn’t look like anything at all. Even of all the different club drugs in there, I couldn’t have told you what most of them were, but I could at least, at a glance, tell you that they were the kind of thing that some pillbug or raver would probably love. These vials, though, they weren’t like anything I’d ever seen anybody have, use, or distribute.

I personally stick with weed and alcohol, the occasional peyote. He had that, too. But I’ve never seen this vial. Part of me wanted to wake Army up and ask him what this was. I decided against it, should he decide to question me too much.

“F**k it, right?” I muttered to myself and shoved the baggy of them into my hoodie pocket. I figured I knew a hell of a way to figure out what they did. I closed the safe, apologized to Army simply by moving my mouth and not making a sound so as not to wake him, and closed his door behind me as quietly as I could. I was so obviously off the deep end and I knew it. I shook my head at myself as I walked back to my apartment.

“I won’t remember any of this anyway, right?” I muttered as I lit up a smoke and stood just outside my door. I immediately wondered why I could break into someone’s apartment and steal drugs, but I was afraid I might piss off my landlord if I smoke inside my apartment. So I went inside with my smoke.

The baggy had a small piece of paper in it, so I took it out. It read “Gardener, try moving these. They call it OS3. See if your deadhead customers will buy it. Tell them it’s the same s**t Garcia used to trip on,” I googled the drug OS3 on my phone. I got all the information I wanted, but it was spread all over the place. It must be pretty unknown, because information on it is pretty scarce.

It was a hallucinogenic drug, it was becoming a problem in the Chicagoland area, nobody has been able to nail down a distribution line or stop the influx, and it’s incredibly potent. Generally the high consists of an onset of absolutely breathtaking euphoria which can often leave the user in tears of joy, followed by a comfortable numbness and calmness, and this slowly transitions into a generally enjoyable trip akin to LSD. They say it’s like the best parts of weed, cocaine, and alcohol in one drug.

The drug is addictive, and with heavy use it can cause irreversible brain damage and dementia. An overdose nearly always leads to brain death and doses are generally poorly metered because of the newness and lack of understanding of the drug.

I set the bag down and out of a morbid sense of curiosity, I googled what the prison sentence is for photographing a minor in any sexual way. I immediately felt nauseous again and the room returned to spinning out of control. I had to get up and walk back outside. There was no air in here all of a sudden.

Here I was thinking I might be doing a quick stint once I get taken in.

The federal sentence for being involved with child pornography in any way is 15 years, mandatory minimum sentence, or up to thirty years if they want to. I threw my phone out into the road and watched it shatter and bounce and flip like a truck speeding into a ravine. In the same motion I returned my hands to the top of my head, where they’d visited a few times already.

I’m going to be nearly 50 by the time I get out, and that’s if they take it easy on me. Within the next few days, my life is completely over and not just for a little bit.

God I’d really fucked up. No amount of drunkenness was making it any less real. I briefly stepped inside to grab half of an impressively fat blunt Ike and I hadn’t finished when he visited late last week. I sat outside and nursed it down to such a nub that it was burning my lips. Nobody really comes out at this hour, so I didn’t worry about being caught.

I was now drunk out of my mind and more stoned than I needed to be at the moment. Generally this would be enough to numb anything.

Tonight it did nothing. I was still very aware of my reality, and I wanted out.

My entire mind was playing like a film reel in front of me and it was all catastrophic. There was no getting the images to stop or slow down. The motor for the reels was out of control and the projection light was unstoppable.

I walked inside, closing the door behind me, and into my room, grabbing the baggy of vials on my way past. I locked my room’s door behind me and chuckled to myself when I realized I hadn’t taken my headphones off through all of that nonsense.

“I’m done,” I thought to myself, “I’m not going to prison, I’m not being made into a pariah just because of an accident.”

I hated everything about what had happened, and refused to be lumped in with the true pedophiles. “I won't let anyone else end my life, and especially not in such an inhumane and slow way,” I reasoned with myself as I started removing vials from the baggy.

The fact was that I was definitely going to be assaulted, and maybe even killed before my time was up in there. The inmates weren’t gonna differentiate me from the kid fuckers in there. I was essentially being sentenced to hell. I unlocked and flung my door open.

I wandered, shaking, into the living room and grabbed the bottle of bourbon. I guzzled about half of what was left of it. About midway through that task I choked, splashing some of the bourbon out of my mouth, past the bottle opening which was still to my lips, and onto the floor. I didn’t stop, I just kept choking it down as it stung its way into my system, feeling like battery acid as it traveled down my throat. As if I was trying to drown myself in alcohol.

I went back into my room and re-locked the door. I unpaused my music and listened to the first track as it began to play. I pulled the stop out of the first vial. I stared at it at eye level, squaring up with it like boxers weighing for the big fight. Down the hatch it went.

It tasted mild and earthy, like water mixed with a small bit of dirt, but it burned worse than the alcohol did. It was also thick, like an oil. I had expected a water-like viscosity, but it was closer to cough syrup.

I pulled the stop from the next bottle, and another after. One more for good luck. Four of the half-dozen bottles in the baggy seemed like enough to silence the unending armageddon cinema in my head.

I downed each of the bottles like shots of whiskey. Who knows how many doses were intended to be in each bottle? Who cares? I didn’t have to think about anything at all for much longer. Nothing actually mattered anymore, once the sand stops falling through the hourglass, nothing matters. It was cathartic knowing the lights would all be off soon.

I felt absurdly happy. I had a massive smile on my face and I felt like I wanted to just go find a line of puppies to kiss. The drugs were kicking in and it had only been about 10 seconds. Before I knew it I was on the ground, I could feel slobber coming out of my mouth without being able to swallow it. I felt it begin to run over my cheek all it wanted to. None if it felt like it mattered to me. I was aware that it should, but it certainly didn’t. I was paralyzed and it was wonderful.

It very quickly became very much less wonderful. I started coughing, but I couldn’t move to adjust my body or put my hand to my mouth or swallow or do anything really to try and ward off the fit. My muscles were quite simply not doing anything I asked them to. It became very difficult to breathe through the fluids and bubbles building up in my mouth and throat.

I started to realize that the high was killing me, and began to panic. I was wondering what I’d done. The adrenaline response in my body was lifting the impaired judgement of the alcohol and weed, and I was suddenly much more aware of the fact that I was headed towards the end of the mortal coil. I was much more aware of the ramifications and probable irreversibility of my actions. I was suddenly aware that I was afraid to die.

There was no getting up. There was no calling anyone. There was no yelling for help. There was no unlocking my door. I was completely paralyzed and drowning in my own saliva. Even my lungs weren’t really expanding and contracting the way I wanted them to. I’d send the signal with my brain, but the organ only sometimes responded. It was the strangest feeling to be aware of these things happening.

Then, all at once, reality began crumbling. I felt mobility return to all of my body and I bolted up. The walls began cracking away, falling apart like glass and exposing pure blackness behind them. I could feel the blackness spinning around me behind the veil of reality, like I was suspended in the middle of a spinning cylinder. I screamed, loud enough to cause a crackling in my ears, for help.

It reverberated off of the walls so hard that the walls bent and warped, and it just expedited the slow crumbling of glass-like shards of the edge of my reality breaking away like pieces of a broken window in a tornado. “Am I still awake? I think I’m dreaming…” I spoke towards the nothingness growing around me.

“WOULD SOMEBODY F*****G HELP ME?” I screamed at the illusion. I slammed my fist into the locked door of my room and it rippled like a lake struck by a rock, and cleared away with reality returning to normal so suddenly that it was disorienting. My eyes darted around, my body felt as if it had been startled awake.

I saw Ike kick my bedroom door down, and a few police officers and paramedics followed him inside. The loud crashing must have woke me up. I must have fallen asleep under the effects of the drug.

Was all of it a dream? My eyes answered my question when they wandered to empty vials across the room and I laid on the ground and choked on my saliva, but couldn’t swallow it. I choked and gasped for breath and Ike scooped me into his arms.

I moaned into his shoulder helplessly, scared, and as close as my body would currently allow me to be to sobbing. I couldn’t speak.

“Sir put him down, do not move him!” A paramedic shouted at Ike. They loosened his grip on me and I slumped to the ground, assisted there gently by a few of the other men present on the scene. Sirens changed the light in the house from reds to blues, the flashing was causing my eyes to glaze over and blur out of focus, then return to normal, and then repeat being so far off of normal. It was dizzying me and making me feel sick.

It didn’t help matters when a paramedic shone a flashlight in my eyes. He said something, but I’d noticed everyone’s voice turning to mumbles, even when they were shouting. My brain was beginning to have a hard time making sense of language. It just sounded like empty echoes. I knew in my mind that I knew exactly what this man was shouting in front of me, but no matter how familiar it was, my brain wasn’t turning it into anything useful.

When he removed his flashlight from my line of sight, my vision didn’t return. It was stuck being blinded by bright white light. I could tell he wasn’t there anymore, and I heard him turn his flashlight off, but according to my eyes, that light was still on and shining right into my pupils.

It was so strange to be readily aware of all of these discrepancies, and knowing things aren’t working right, but still perceive everything as being so real. I felt a needle enter my skin and I felt every drop of liquid inside it as it traveled through my veins. If I wasn’t paralyzed, I could have followed the medicine with my finger as it coursed through me. I could feel the insides of my veins as if they were as sensitive as fingertips.

Paralyzed, choking, blinded by non-existent light, unable to comprehend what was being said, and now aware of my circulatory system in a tactile way, I felt reality start to break apart again. I felt coldness take over my entire body, but I felt like I was burning alive at the same time. I blinked a few times, and the light faded. In blinking I also realized I could move. I felt myself falling through empty space, even the floor I was laying on had broken away, and now all there was around me was blackness and very sharp looking glass shards of what was my reality.

Oddly, I felt no fear in falling.

One of the shards passed by my side and to my surprise, it cut me like a knife would, and I started bleeding from the wound where it clipped me. My blood wasn’t the usual deep crimson red, though, it was much closer to a pink. My heart started to flutter and I began to wildly flail, now that I realized I was falling among things that could tear me to ribbons.

I hadn’t even finished that thought when suddenly my hand involuntarily flew up to my eye as it suddenly felt as if it had lit on fire. I pulled it away quickly to check the severity of whatever injury my hand had darted up to look for, and  my hand was coated in the same pink blood. I reached up and poked around the area of my eye, horrified at the realization that my eye socket was a gaping hole. The pain was incredible.

I suddenly snapped back to reality. Ike was picking me up off the floor, and he moved a broken lamp with a broken light bulb away from my face before scooping me up. The carpet was saturated in blood for about 2 feet in distance from me and my window was broken.

A paramedic grabbed my legs, and another grabbed one of my arms. After shoving Ike away from me, the second paramedic grabbed my other arm, and the two paramedics loaded me onto a stretcher. They began trying to strap me down.

I fought them, and I fought them hard. I don’t know why.

“You have to sedate him, he’s going to hurt himself,” a strange voice ordered.

“He’s overdosing on something, are you sure?!” another voice yelled, struggling against me. As I kicked him into the wall, I heard the first voice again.

“F*****g sedate him!” and then I heard the person behind the second voice scrambling to his feet and digging through a bag for something and I felt the pinch of a needle breaking my skin again.

My face contorted and I began to weep uncontrollably. My body relaxed and I felt Ike run his hand over my forehead in a very comforting way.

“Where are you guys taking him?” is the last thing I heard Ike say.

The paramedic’s voice faded out into something inaudible. His voice trailed off into something that sounded like a drunk person’s voice distorted and struggling through the word “Genetisis”.

I felt rain on my face as they brought me outside, the flashing lights got brighter and I could hear the grumbling of a diesel engine. As it all got closer and more intense, I felt everything visual start to blur together into a smudge of a dark, dirty looking shade of green and all the sounds faded out into odd, echoey reverb that all became one distant droning buzz.

Once again I couldn’t breathe, and I felt like I was surrounded in liquid and sinking.

I swam up, broke a surface, and found myself treading in murky water. The sound suddenly made more sense to me, the sound of being underwater. The visual made sense as well, it was what it looks like having your eyes open under murky water. There was a large stonework platform in the distance, dimly lit blue with a large grandfather clock in the middle of it. The whole area reeked of mildew. Creatures that looked like an odd and evolutionarily impractical mix of bat and swallow frantically flapped by and about once in a while. The creatures didn’t make much sense at a glance. Their wings seemed too small to carry them. They seemed to be dropping in and flying back towards a ceiling of some sort, but I couldn’t see one.

The water burned the wounds on my face and my side, and before even a few moments passed the pain was intense enough to cause me to be nearly unable to swim. The murk around me was tinted in the pink of my own blood. It was clear to me that the water was messing up my vision worse and worse the more it lapped blood into my eyes. I was certainly not in good shape and I had no idea where I’d ended up. I was, for some reason, aware that I wouldn’t be snapping back to reality again any time soon. This place was much too real now to be fleeting. I struggled in utter agony to reach the edge of the platform.

Author's Note

Feel free to point anything out