Agoraphobia and Ecstasy Ch. 01-10

"You know how it would end, Lester."

"Ouch... Harsh."

Someone shouted for the barkeep and his dazzling blue eyes locked with mine for the briefest of moments, sucking my soul out my eyeballs and mesmerizing me with their electric glow. When he turned away I was almost in physical pain from the lack of his attention, my emotions betraying my own standards. I admit, I liked him. But relationships were a no-go, so before he returned and my will power crumbled to pieces, I moved away from the bar, glass in hand, waiting for the effects of the ecstasy to kick in.

I ventured across the crowded, loud space, toward the back of the dim room. The flashing lights from the stage bounced and flickered off the walls, dancing in beat to the music like a dozen or so scantily clad women I passed, gyrating and grinding on each other. It felt a bit too early in the evening for such lascivious behavior, but this was Utica, New York and just about anything could happen here. I once witnessed a couple having sex openly on the lawn in Candlelight Park, fully clothed, except the parts that needed bared, her in a skirt, him with his pants open in the front.

I found a seat in the corner of the room where I could watch the men pass by on their way to the toilets and sipped my drink, my clutch tucked beneath my armpit, the butt of my piece riding against my pelvic bone. It wasn't long until I had picked a few potential candidates. I didn't know their names, but I sure enjoyed the view. One had wavy dark hair. Probably of Latin descent, his brown skin and dark eyes made him incredibly attractive, and the way his shirt stretched across his pecs told me he had muscle to boot.

The next guy was a bit shorter than Latin Guy, probably under five feet. He was a bit fairer, his skin only tanned by the sun, not a natural complexion. Blond hair, blue eyes, scruff on his chin, just the way I like them. And the last guy, the one I would choose hands down if I hadn't already seen him flirting with one of the skanky brunettes twerking against each other, he was like chocolate thunder. Cut, clean shaven, skin like the darkest night, and hands big enough to, well... they were large; I'll say that.

When he noticed me noticing him, his eyes became hungry, devouring me from head to toe as he reclined against the bar, elbow propped there as he stared me down. Siphon came up behind him, and I watched as they spoke to one another for a moment before the man, looking discouraged but not fully dissuaded, headed my direction, two drinks in hand. I watched that drink as he came my direction, knowing Siphon hadn't put anything in it, but not fully trusting the man to keep his hands--or roofie--off. He walked with such grace it appeared he was floating, his eyes never leaving me for a second, though skank girl did bump into him and the liquid in the glasses he carried sloshed a bit.

"You're new around here," I said as he stopped at the high-top table I where was sitting.

He held out the drink and I took it, finishing mine in one gulp and setting the one he'd brought down beside it. My body began to feel tingly and warm. It was like every slight shift in air movement around me was a caress of a hand or a kiss of lips. I felt euphoric, and I also felt my heart pounding, a sure sign my blood pressure was creeping up from the drug.

"You bumping?" he asked as he sat down beside me.

"Nah, just one." I smiled. He could obviously tell I had taken the E, and it made me wonder if he was using too. A lot of young people used it, a growing trend after the latest bath salts debacle and the subsequent ridiculous acts of out-of-control twenty-somethings, the craziest being the man who chewed his own thumb off because he hallucinated it was a hot dog.

"You?" I asked, taking the glass to have another swig of the cinnamon whiskey.

"Only thing to do." He winked as he downed his drink. His words were slightly slurred, even better for me because it meant an easy sell. A man who played the field as much as I did was an easy lay and would not grow feelings and end up being attached to me.

"Daphne."

"Call me Crisp." He reached out his hand as if to shake mine, but I stood, taking his offered hand and holding it.

"Wanna get out of here, Crisp?" I backed away seductively, pulling him after me as I went. Each step I took made the Beretta between my legs rub on my sensitive lady parts, already teasing me to arousal before we made it out of the bar. I tipped up the glass in my hand and swallowed the rest of the fireball, and as we walked past the bar I slid it toward Siphon, his disappointed eyes telling me he had tried to keep the man away from me. I knew if I hadn't left the bar when I had, the molly would have kicked in and I would have been walking out on Siphon's arm instead of this strange handsome man's. I tore my gaze away from Siphon and fixated on the door as the room spun around, Crisp's hand now on my hip.

We barely made it to Crisp's car before he was tearing at my clothes. I knew it when I saw it which one was his, an old Chevy conversion van painted black with silver rims, a fuzzy die comically hanging from the rearview. When he opened the back doors, I expected to see it all decked out with carpet and a cheesy 70s-style disco ball complete with lights and shag carpet. What I did not expect was the twin-size mattress laid in the back, seats removed, and a small solar light glowing from where it sat on the floor of the van. Definitely not a way to treat a woman of my class, but at least it wasn't just the greasy floorboard.

The interior sides had hooks where I assumed he hung power tools or hammers and such; maybe he was an electrician? I tried to get a better view of what I was getting into, but the ecstasy had my vision a bit blurry, each touch of his hand on my skin exhilarating, sending shock waves across my skin. I was on that mattress with my dress hiked up around my waist, the top half lowered to reveal my breasts, and he was shutting the door. The gun holster had come off easily, now resting to the side with my clutch and my phone.

He towered over me as he worked at loosing his belt and undoing his pants, his shirt already being torn off and tossed to the side. My body pulsed with want as he rolled the condom on, me aching to be satisfied, and satisfy me he did. His massive hands closed around my tits, squeezing and teasing my nipples to firm peaks. His dick was huge, crashing into me furiously, filling me and pounding me into that horribly uncomfortable mattress over and over. It was the roughest sex I'd had in a while, me raising my hips to rub against him in just the right manner to stimulate my body to climax, exactly as I needed. There was no kissing. Lips were for love, and this was sheer no-strings-attached sort of fucking I needed. My body clenched around him and my nails sank into his velvety skin. The friction was glorious, scraping at my insides and rubbing every part of me that needed touched. He was long, pushing against my cervix and making me scream out every last ounce of energy I had. And when he finished and collapsed to the side of me I shuddered in sheer delight.

I faded in and out of consciousness as I yanked my dress top up, and the hem down, taking my phone, clutch, and gun with me as I climbed out the back door without so much as a word of thanks or goodbye. This is how these things worked, everyone knew that. You fuck, then run.

5

The evening sky was far less scary than the mid-afternoon sky, at least that is what I kept telling myself. The sun was lower on the horizon, much farther from me and less threatening. The birds were mostly nested in for the night. I even had to turn on my outdoor light just to see everything on the small fenced-in patio. Planters in check, small chair, everything where it should be. And I stood there, staring out that glass door, trying to will my feet to move, but they were like cement blocks that had been bolted to the ground and soldered in place. Unmovable.

I stood there for two whole hours before I realized I had to pee, and when I had relieved myself I was even more afraid to go down that hallway, so I stood in my office and pouted at how foolish my behavior was, sulking with my winter coat on, arms folded across my chest, nostrils flared. People went outside all the time, every day. It was a normal human thing to do, so why the fuck was I so terrified?

Angry with myself, I strengthened my resolve and marched down that dark hallway to the door that led to the now almost pitch-black back patio, but the moment I touched the handle I froze again. Like a deer caught in headlights, I stood there wide eyed, paralyzed with fear. A bug flew past the window outside and made my heart leap into my throat. I started coughing so hard I thought I would throw up there in the hallway and raced for the bathroom again, this time to empty my stomach and not my bladder.

Let me tell you, throwing up pizza is not pleasant. You should really chew your mushrooms thoroughly or you will end up getting one lodged in your nostril when it comes back up. Not a pleasant thing at all. And the stomach acid associated with the tomato sauce is enough to burn through your sinus cavity like how molten lava devours metal. Torturous.

I probably I brushed my teeth for a solid half hour and gave myself a nasal enemy with saline, and I was still gagging at my own breath until well past midnight, cursing myself for being such a child. I lay there well into the night lost in thought. That happened sometimes after a day of high anxiety, and it had been one of those days. The long kind. The kind of day where your entire body feels like you've run a marathon and tiny weights are tied to every single muscle, a squeezing weight sitting on your chest, your head heavy with fog, unable to even put together coherent thoughts.

The last time I'd had a day like this was before meeting Dr. Fox. The mailman had left my packages on the steps rather than in my mail chute, and I had to go out to get them. They were important work items, electronics and such, and I couldn't very well leave them there in the rain, so I did the thing. I went out and got them and raced back inside and nearly collapsed out of anxiety and the panic attack I was having. I vowed never to do that again, but here I was forcing myself to do it over again, only worse--to acclimate myself to doing it regularly, and for what? A job? Was it worth it?

I turned over, the blankets tangling around my legs as I did. I kicked at them to free my legs and then stretched out, one leg curled up the other straight, hugging my spare pillow like the baby I believed myself to be. I had been this way as long as I could remember too, and I hadn't the foggiest idea how to be any way else. Everything before Jessica was lost to me, unrecoverable, as if someone had used beta blockers to prevent me from remembering my birth parents or the circumstances surrounding their rejection of me. I didn't suffer from fear of rejection or abandonment issues for that reason--what's to fear when you don't remember being abandoned? No, the issues I had all stemmed from one day at Camp Loh-kah-tee, well not all of them. My fear of bugs and germs I think I always had, but the fear of being outside, the traumatizing terror of interacting with people in public places, and definitely my inability to communicate my desires, all those things came from the incident. I lay there remembering every single detail as it had been seared into my brain, the look on Jessica's face as the brick connected with the back of her skull, sending her stumbling forward into our mother, their heads smashing together with a loud pop, a sickening sound. The way it sounds when you drop a watermelon on a hard floor and it cracks open, only their skin stayed intact, blood coming from both of their nostrils and ears.

Mom died instantly, her concussed brain aggravating an aneurism no one even knew she'd had. Jessica hung on a few days, shunts in her skull draining fluids off, parts of her skull taken off to allow the swelling space. I remembered Daphne telling me something similar happened to her as a child; it was her way of connecting me to reality and the fact that bad things happen but that doesn't mean it's the end. Anyway, when Jessica passed, I was relieved for two reasons, one she wasn't suffering, and two the rumors could die too.

Cause of death had been determined to be an accident, young boys playing with the large water balloon slingshots on the camp battlefield, meant to send large water balloons soaring and soak your enemies. They'd loaded them with bricks instead, aiming for a pile of rubbish far beyond us, but undershooting their target, the bricks came crashing down on top of parent visit day, injuring three women, killing my Jessica and her mother. The boys ended up spending eight years in prison, involuntary manslaughter. Dad drank himself to death a few years later, and I was alone again, only this time I was an adult and on my own. I ended up with no family for the second time, and I was left with scars--mental ones.

That night was fraught with nightmares, cold sweats, and two trips to the bathroom, nearly vomiting again just from the smell of my own breath. I woke much later than I should have, though I had Mondays off, so it didn't affect much besides the routine I kept. Up at seven, showered and breakfast eaten by eight, working by 8:05 sharp. I reached for my phone which was on my nightstand next to the bottle of tums I'd carried in with me after a trip to the toilet in the middle of the night, lid still off, a few tablets out just in case. It was nearly eleven a.m., long past wakeup time. At least my body let me sleep in. I would need that rest if I was going to be successful at my task: Operation Sit in the Chair Outside.

Reluctantly, I sat up, slipping my feet into the fuzzy slippers by my bedside, right where I left them the night before, and I padded to the bathroom to relieve myself and brush my teeth. Then I headed down the hall toward the kitchen, figuring food might be a bad idea, so I passed through without taking my usual bowl of Branflakes, and stood in my office by the window, looking at that blasted chair.

As if to mock me, a squirrel had perched himself there and was facing me, holding something in its tiny little clawed hands, munching away. I could see the disdain in his eyes as he watched me move from my office through the kitchen and down the hallway, windows along every inch of the path. The realtor had said the owners made the wall-o-windows to open the house up, make it seem larger. It boasted an entire 1100 square foot of space, open-concept kitchen/living room/office with a short hall down the backside of the garage to the back door, and strange long hall to the bedroom on the opposite side of the kitchen.

I didn't understand why that hallway even existed, doing nothing but separating the bedroom from the office area by dead space, except that the original owners did not want their bedroom opening up to that space directly, so they took an extra four feet of space away from the size of the bedroom to make a hall to hide the door. Seemed kind of random and stupid, a problem I'd rectify as soon as I had the extra cashflow to remove the wall and extend the bedroom, adding that space back.

Now I stood by the back door again, hand on the knob, trembling. The squirrel scurried off and jumped the fence, and I was left with my fear again. The minute bit of antagonistic encouragement I'd found in the rodent now vanished with it up a tree outside my fence. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door. I thought for a split second about standing there and acclimating to the outside air, but I knew I would lose my nerve, so I did the unthinkable. I bounded right out that door, leaving it open behind me for a measure of safety and parked myself in that chair.

For the first few seconds I felt fine. I honestly felt really proud of myself, especially after tossing my cookies last night. I reveled in the victory and took a deep breath, but when the scent of someone's lunch barbeque wafted past me, my senses began to go into overload. A bird flew high in the sky overhead, its shadow causing me to flinch, and I heard the cackle of children from somewhere. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as a rush of adrenaline spiked my heartrate. I began to hear the raucous laughter of the kids at that camp, and the bird's shadow swooped me again, making my stomach roil with anxiety.

The door creaked as a stiff breeze blew in, moving it. In a panic I gripped the arms of the chair and began rocking quickly, my gut feeling ready to explode. My heart was racing; my mouth felt pasty, and I couldn't breathe. Then I felt something I'd not experienced since they'd let me out of the institution. I bolted to my feet knowing my bowels were about to spontaneously empty themselves, but it was too late. Before I'd even taken a step, I had diarrhea exploding from my body. The stench as the seat of my pants warmed and the sheer hatred of acid dribbled down my legs was so grotesque I had to stop breathing.

I raced to the bathroom, mortified, forgetting to even shut the door behind me, which I only remembered when I heard a loud crash coming from my kitchen as I yanked my pants down and plopped myself onto the toilet. I felt like I was in the swamps of Vietnam, the sweltering temperatures, the stench, the sardonic way my triggers mocked me as my stomach convulsed and cramped, violently ripping my internal organs out through my asshole. Feces trailed down my legs and across the tile all the way to the back door.

The mess was inconceivable, truly.

After showering in scalding water with bleach for nearly an hour--I have an in-line water heater, so my water never goes cold or runs out--I spent the rest of the day scrubbing floors, that is after I discovered the damn squirrel had followed me in the house, climbed on my countertop, tore open my Planter's nuts and knocked over my spice rack. And I bet he did it just to spite me, to mock my ridiculous fear and do a one-up. Not only did he own my chair, but he had the balls to come in my home and eat my nuts, all while I dealt with the aftereffects of forcing myself to do what came normal and natural to everyone else in this fucking world.

Squirrel-1

Kenji-0

***

I spent the better part of the rest of my day downloading the files Gary had emailed me and going over them, then researching as much as I could about police policies on information sharing and how they worked with the press on investigations like this. I'd called Detective States, the lead on the investigation, and we had a nice conversation.

I didn't know why people didn't like talking on the phone anymore; it was literally my lifeline. Of course, I wasn't not normal, and I didn't talk to people face to face very often, except the fuzzy-bearded pizza guy Burt. I specifically requested him when I ordered because he wasn't threatening, and I knew he worked every evening because he told me, and that made ordering take out a little less threatening. Plus, if he called in sick I always had a bag of pizza rolls in my deep freeze as a substitute.

From what I could tell, the investigators thought the disappearances were connected, but they had no evidence that actually pointed to that. Two men and one woman, all varying ages but all between twenty and forty-five. All of them lived in different neighborhoods. They all had random jobs. None of them had any connection to each other. My gut told me to search deeper, but it looked to me like Gary's hunch that this would be a career-making story was just that, a hunch and nothing more. Still, doing my due-diligence, I would go over everything thoroughly.

I sipped a cup of tea I'd made myself and watched as the damn squirrel pattered around the patio, picking up things and taking bites of them before throwing them back down. He was a worthy opponent, but I would claim my victory one way or another, even if it meant wearing an adult diaper so I didn't soil myself again.