No More Room in the Basement

Author's note: I am reposting this story with a different title and description, as the originals were...well, just plain awful. So, if you have already read Marilyn Chambers Comes to Roanoke, please feel free to hit the back button (unless you'd like to read it again.)

This story is a tribute to two classic movies: one mainstream, and one X-rated. It is also a tribute to the Loving Wives authors and readers.

*

"Goddamn, it's good to see you out of the house!" Frank exclaimed as he raised his pint. Harry smashed his own mug against it with a loud clank, spilling some of its contents on the bar.

"Well, it's a special night," Harry explained with a grimace. "Today is the third anniversary of my divorce."

"Well, okay, then," Frank responded with a shrug. "Glad I could be here to help you celebrate."

They spent the next several minutes in silence, huddled over their beers, transfixed on the ballgame displayed on the flat screen behind the bar. It was indeed a rare occasion for Harry to venture outside of his home. Since his divorce, he had drifted further and further away from his friends and family. Most of them had been friendly with his ex-wife, Melinda, and he felt as though they had clearly chosen her side.

Frank was the only person whose loyalty Harry never questioned. They had been friends since grade school. They grew up together in the same neighborhood, attended the same schools, and more than forty years after they first met, they still lived only a block away from each other in the same hometown where they were raised.

"Have you heard from her lately?" Frank asked, breaking the silence.

Harry took an extended swig of beer. "No," he responded. "Not in a long time. She's moved on. I heard she's seeing someone. Younger guy. I saw him driving around town in his old Mustang. Guy must have a prick the size of a Tootsie Roll to be driving that piece of shit."

"Man," Frank said, "I really thought you two would be together forever. You were so in love with each other. Quite frankly, it was sickening."

"Yeah, well, it was all a lie," Harry said, taking another swig of beer. "In the end, she proved to be just another cheating whore."

He emptied his beer, and then signaled to the bartender for two more.

"Yeah, well, at least she told you right away," Frank offered. "She got drunk, and did something stupid. We all do stupid shit that we later regret."

"Yeah, well, you know what I always say," Harry spat. "Once a cheating cunt, always a cheating cunt."

Harry's gaze fell to the flyer posted on the bulletin board below the TV. It showed an arrogant-looking asshole, wearing an expensive suit, pointing at the camera. Below the photo it read: "Do U Need Assistance?" The asshole looked a lot like Melinda's divorce lawyer, but it wasn't the same guy. Same beady eyes, same arrogant smirk, but the guy in the photo had more hair.

"I just think maybe she just made one stupid mistake, that's all," Frank said after a long pause. "Humans make mistakes."

"What, are you on her side, then?"

Frank raised both hands in defense. "Harry...man, I've always been on your side. You know that. It's just that you two were so happy together, and you've been miserable since the day you threw her out of the house. Just listen to yourself. You weren't like this before."

"That's because my eyes are wide open now ," Harry responded with a self-satisfied smirk. He slurped the rim of the fresh beer placed in front of him. "One strike, and you're out. We made a promise: 'til death do us part.' And she broke that promise. You break that vow, you don't deserve a second chance. Period. I was betrayed by love, and I can't abide by it."

Frank turned his attention back to the game and slowly shook his head.

***

The clock radio blared at a volume that was intentionally irritating. Harry flipped over with a loud groan and smacked the snooze button, temporarily ending the incessant chatter of the radio hosts. Through bleary, bloodshot eyes, he managed to discern the time on the clock. He groaned in response, and turned to his side in an effort to relieve the pressure he felt on his bladder. But it was pointless. He had to take a piss. Which meant it was time to start the day.

There was no reason for him to be awake at that hour. In fact, he could have slept through the entire day if he chose. But from the day he first became unemployed, he vowed to begin his day at seven o'clock each morning, regardless of whether or not he had anything scheduled. He felt that it was important to maintain some semblance of discipline.

Eight months prior, he sat in his office at the machine shop when the owner made an unexpected visit. When he entered Harry's office and shut the door behind him, it was a harbinger of bad news. Usually, the closed door meant that downsizing was coming, and Harry would be tasked with selecting the unlucky bastards who would be let go. But on this day, that unlucky bastard was Harry -- along with every other worker in the building. The machine shop was closing, and Harry found himself out of work for the first time since high school.

He trudged into the kitchen, followed closely by his loyal dog, Colin. Melinda was devastated when she found out she couldn't have any children. They were practically newlyweds at the time. Harry brought Colin home from the kennel one day, hoping that he would cheer her up, and the little mutt wormed his way into their hearts. At the divorce proceedings, Harry was shocked when Melinda gave him not only the house, but the dog as well. All she had asked for was half of their joint savings account.

Harry thought he was getting a bargain at the time, but as he peered around at the dilapidated state of the house, and the aging dog with the expensive medical conditions at his feet, he couldn't help but feel that he had been screwed yet again. Despite the fact that the house was falling apart, he still owed more on the mortgage than it was worth on the open market. And with his unemployment check as his only source of income for the past eight months, paying that mortgage bill had become a monthly struggle.

He opened the back door, and Colin scampered out into the yard. Both he and the dog seemed to be moving in slow motion on this lazy morning. As Harry poured himself a cup of coffee, he glanced at the calendar. It took him a moment to remember what day of the week it was, as all of his days seemed to blend together. Not that it mattered. The calendar was all but empty.

He raised the coffee mug to his lips and couldn't help but notice the tattoo on his forearm. He had it permanently etched into his skin on the day of his divorce. It displayed a naked woman with a devil's horns and red eyes, holding a ripped-apart half of a bloody heart in each hand. Blood dripped from its mouth. Subtlety, he felt, was highly overrated.

Harry sat at his kitchen table and listened to the sound of the ticking clock mounted on the wall. He mentally reviewed the list of household chores in his mind as he sipped his coffee. The dishes had already been cleaned, the rugs were vacuumed, and all of the furniture had been dusted. He looked at the clock. It read 7:14.

***

Harry watched the sunset from his seat at the kitchen table. A single-serving frozen dinner sat before him, half-eaten, and Colin lay dutifully at his feet as Harry emptied his glass. He arose on wobbly legs and stumbled to the counter to pour another round, only to discover that there was barely enough whiskey left for half a glass. He emptied the remainder of the bottle and tossed it into the garbage can.

He turned to the opened laptop and clicked through to another story. In recent months, he had grown tired of watching porn, and instead found erotic stories to be more interesting. He especially enjoyed the stories of men who exacted revenge on their cheating wives in one form or another, and he chuckled as he read another story from one of his favorite authors.

The lightbulb above the table flickered and died with an audible pop, and Harry cursed under his breath. Just another part of the house falling apart, he grumbled to himself. He grunted as he rose from his chair and opened the door to the basement. As he descended the stairs, a cold chill crept up his spine.

The basement was littered with cardboard boxes, which were filled with various holiday ornaments he no longer needed and knick-knacks left behind by Melinda. He rummaged through one of the boxes in search of a replacement bulb, and came upon several souvenirs that had been purchased during their many vacations together. Melinda loved to travel. With two incomes and no children, they had the opportunity and the means to explore the world.

Although those souvenirs once evoked happy memories, they now only brought pain. He couldn't stand to look at them any longer, so he boxed them up, leaving empty shelves and tables throughout the house. Anything that reminded him of Melinda was boxed up and shoved into the basement. Hell, if he could box up the house itself, he would.

He swallowed hard and pushed the box aside, nearly falling over in the process. He made a mental note to load up his truck in the morning and haul all of that garbage to the dump. At last, in the third box he opened, he found what he was looking for. When the government decided to ban the good, old-fashioned lightbulbs, he had stocked up on them. He figured he had enough to last a decade, and he smiled as he came across his stash.

"If you build it, she will cum."

Harry leapt backward, and nearly dropped the lightbulb he was holding. He spun around wildly, searching for the voice. It was a woman's voice, and it was barely audible, but he was absolutely certain that he heard it.

"Who's there?" he called out with wide eyes.

No response came, and after standing, frozen on the spot, and scanning the dark corners of the cellar, he surmised that he must have imagined the voice. As he walked toward the stairs, he continued to peer behind the boxes and scan the room. He ascended the steps, and reached the top when he heard the voice again.

"If you build it, she will cum."

"Okay, that's it," he yelled, and stomped back down the stairs. He looked around and grabbed the nearest blunt object he could find: a two-by-four. "I have a weapon!" he yelled.

The room before him grew darker and became pitch-black. A frigid breeze made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Suddenly, the basement light flickered. Harry's jaw dropped, and his hands shook as he gripped the wooden plank.

In the blink of an eye, the room revealed before him had been completely transformed. Several plush, velvet chairs and couches surrounded a large stage area that extended to the opposite end of the basement. In the center of the stage was a thin, white mattress decorated with several throw pillows. Suspended above this mattress were a series of ropes that resembled a trapeze. Curtains lined the perimeter of the room, and were broken only by the framing of the door at the opposite end of the stage, which was painted a deep lime green.

He blinked his eyes and stood frozen in place. He could feel the pounding of his heart, and his heavy breathing caused his throat to dry. A wave of dizziness and nausea overcame him, and his knees buckled beneath him. In an instant, the room went black.

***

The alarm clock beside his bed blared at an obnoxiously high volume, and Harry jolted awake, startled and disoriented. He leapt out of bed and nearly tripped over Colin as he made his way through the kitchen to the basement door. He flicked on the light switch and descended a few steps.

The room was filled with boxes, just as it had appeared for months. Harry stood for a moment and attempted to reconstruct the events of the previous evening, but his memory was a cloudy and scattered mess.

He slowly crept back up the steps and re-entered the kitchen. He noticed his laptop resting on the table. It had been closed and shut down. He then spied a lightbulb lying beside the laptop. He picked it up and shook it, and heard the telltale rattle of the broken filament inside. He looked at the light above the table and saw a new lightbulb had been screwed into place. He flicked the light switch, just to verify that the bulb had been changed, and the bulb illuminated.

Colin stood at Harry's feet and looked up at his owner in anticipation.

"This is fucked up," Harry told his pet.

As he sat at the kitchen table sipping his coffee, he desperately tried to recall what had happened. Ultimately, he concluded that he must have blacked out at some point. It was not an unfamiliar feeling to wake up in the morning with no memory of how he made it to bed. But the memory of that voice and that vision in the basement was so vivid, and seemed so real, he couldn't shake it.

The room he saw in his vision was instantly familiar to him, and had been permanently etched into his memory. Behind the Green Door was the first X-rated movie he had ever seen. It was his introduction to women and sex. The climactic scene in that movie took place in a room that looked exactly like the one he had envisioned -- or, more than likely, imagined -- the night before.

He fired up his laptop and performed a search. Within moments, he found a site that allowed him to watch the entire movie from beginning to end. When the action moved beyond the green door and into the main room, Harry nodded his head. That was definitely the same room he had seen the night before. The question he could not answer was why. He hadn't seen that movie in over thirty years. There was no explanation as to why his mind had returned to that particular film.

On the screen, Marilyn Chambers, starring in her very first X-rated film at the tender age of nineteen, was stripped of her robe by six women wearing black robes. From the first moment he laid eyes on her, Harry developed the biggest crush on Marilyn Chambers. With her gorgeous face, bright blue eyes, luscious lips, and long, wavy, golden hair, she had that unique look of a Greek goddess while also appearing "approachable."

She had small, but amazingly firm and perky breasts, and a slim and athletic body. As the women in the movie simultaneously kissed, rubbed, licked and fondled Marilyn, Harry felt himself stiffen. He unzipped his fly, produced his hardening cock, and stroked himself as he watched.

The resemblance between Marilyn Chambers and his ex-wife was not lost on him. They both had the same blue eyes and dirty-blonde hair, and the same athletic figure. They even had the same initials -- at least, after Melinda married Harry. Of course, Melinda wasn't nearly as beautiful as Marilyn, but she certainly turned more than a few heads -- especially in her younger days. At times, he wondered whether he was attracted to Melinda because she reminded him of his first crush, Marilyn.

The alarm on his cellphone sounded, and Harry picked it up and saw the reminder he had left for himself. Colin had been limping around the house for weeks, and when Harry finally took him to the vet, a follow-up appointment had been scheduled in an hour. Harry shut down the laptop. The rest of the movie would have to wait.

***

That night, and every night thereafter for the next two weeks, Harry experienced the same dream over and over. Marilyn Chambers visited him at his home and performed a slow striptease for him. She wouldn't allow him to touch her. And the only words she spoke, and repeated over and over, were: "Do it for me."

He awoke each morning stiff as a board and on the precipice of orgasm. The dream haunted him throughout the day, no matter what he did to keep himself occupied and distracted. He visited his basement each day, and passed hours simply standing there, feeling like a fool, waiting to hear the voice again, or to see the vision of the room. But neither the voice nor the vision came to him again.

He needed to get away from that house, and decided to give his friend, Frank, a call. He invited himself over, and arrived at his door with a six pack of beer. They grilled a couple of steaks and shared some laughs over dinner. For a while, the distraction worked, but eventually thoughts of Marilyn crept back into Harry's mind once again.

"Frank, let me ask you something," Harry said with some hesitance. "Do you remember back in the day when we'd go to your place after school? Your folks were working, and we'd break into your old man's video collection?"

Frank shook his head and laughed. "Yeah, we were quite the little perverts."

"Do you remember the first video we ever saw?"

"Behind the Green Door," Frank responded immediately. "I'll never forget it. But, man, what a fucked up movie that was! I mean, all those weird people in the audience, and the masks, and the psychedelic camera work...and that cumshot that lasted, like, ten minutes!"

"Yeah, it was pretty bizarre," Harry agreed. "But Marilyn Chambers..."

"Oh, hell yeah!" Frank shouted. "She was fucking amazing. I had the hots for her so bad. You know she died a few years ago, right?"

"Yeah, I know," Harry said. He took a long sip of his beer.

"You know, it's funny you mentioned her, actually," Frank said. "I had a dream about her last night."

Harry's eyes widened. "You're kidding me," he said.

"No, seriously," Frank responded. "She mentioned you, actually."

Harry set his beer on the table with a thud and stared at his friend.

"She told me to give you a message: do it for me. She said if I gave you that message, she'd have sex with me!"

Harry sat, motionless, with his mouth open.

"So I guess since I filled my end of the bargain, I'll have sweet dreams tonight!" Frank said with a laugh.

"Did she say what I need to do?" Harry said.

Frank gave him a strange look. "She just said you know what to do," he said. "Cryptic, huh?"

***

The project had taken months to complete, but Harry was proud of what he had accomplished. The basement had been fully transformed into a near replica of the room he had envisioned. All of the old boxes had been either tossed away or moved into storage, the walls were draped with curtains, carpeting now covered the floor, a stage had been erected in the center of the room, and couches and chairs lined the perimeter.

Harry cracked open a beer and reclined in one of the chairs. "Okay, Marilyn!" he shouted to the empty room. "You can come out now!"

He smiled and shook his head. He knew it was crazy. He knew that Marilyn Chambers wouldn't really come back from the dead and make an appearance in his basement. He hadn't told anyone about this project because he knew just how crazy it was. But it had been a relaxing distraction to build this replica, and it had given him a sense of purpose and a way to pass the time. He actually felt depressed that the project had ended.

He awoke in the middle of the night, still seated in the chair. He gathered the empty beer cans surrounding him and shuffled up the stairs. He spent the following evening seated in the same chair, overlooking the same empty stage. He focused on the green door at the rear of the stage, and chided himself for expecting it to open. He knew there was nothing behind that door but a concrete wall; nevertheless he couldn't deny that somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind he expected something to happen in that room.

As the weeks turned into months, Harry visited his basement shrine less and less often. After a while, instead of feeling pride over what he had built, the room only made him feel foolish. His unemployment checks ran out long ago, and the money he spent building that room could have been spent much more prudently. If he didn't find work soon, it was inevitable that he would lose the house.

***

He sat at his kitchen table, picking at yet another re-heated meal. Winter had arrived, and it was already dark outside. The shortness of daylight only seemed to add to the weight of the depression he felt. He misjudged how deeply the loneliness would penetrate his life. Years ago, he savored the rare opportunities when he could simply be alone with his thoughts. Now, it was all he knew.