All the World's a Stage

Karen didn't give a flying fuck about safety. She loved the feeling of walking across dark pavement on a chilly night. She wore long sleeves, to her fingertips, just fashionable enough to not raise questions. Beneath the fabric old raised scar tissue crisscrossed her skin.

She wasn't emo, and she hated the term. Nobody knew about her issues with herself, and no one knew about her plans. She didn't listen to music that screamed, she didn't write morbid poems. Her apartment was a vibrant, painful pink and she did her best to look like all the other happy sheep. Life was a play.

Karen was ready to drop the curtains.

The funny thing about wanting to die is how much it frees you. Karen could do anything, now, when no one was looking. She could take risks sane people wouldn't have the balls to take. Sounds sounded clearer, feelings felt more intense, and everything looked more beautiful. She could live harder, faster, quicker, knowing that soon she'd just be an erasure smudge on the concrete.

So tonight Karen was on Baytown Blvd. There were few cars, and she'd shrink back into the landscaping or alleyways whenever they passed. The moon was out, a pale sliver in the sky, and the city smog blotted out what stars might be shining. It was a perfect night for a walk.

She didn't know where she was going, but she loved how she was getting there. Everything was fine until she noticed another body a ways behind her. Karen was good at disappearing, so she shrank into the nearest alleyway and wandered further into the semi-residential maze to put a few turns in between her and the stranger. Probably no one. Probably someone who couldn't sleep, or just needed some fresh air.

The alley she'd wound her way into suddenly curved and ejected her back on Baytown. She looked left and right to see if he'd passed yet, couldn't see him anywhere, and wandered back out onto the sidewalk. He must have passed her already, but the hairs on her neck prickled up and an exciting, nauseating feeling grew in her middle. Then someone shouted "Hey!"

Karen practically jumped out of her skin. She looked all around, trying to pinpoint the source of the shout, but it wasn't until the male voice repeated the call that she saw the shadow moving in the alley she'd just left. Chills ran up her arms, and she tugged at her sleeves. "What do you want?" She called back, her voice trembling a little more than her bravado preferred.

A tan skinned fellow stepped out around the corner and walked the few paces toward her. It took her several seconds to recognize him as the guy she occasionally talked to where she volunteered. She sighed, "Oh, it's you."

"What kind of a hello is that?" The man, she thought she remembered his name was Jeremy, cocked his head to the side. He wasn't an especially attractive fellow, but he was a bit awkward around women, which was somewhat endearing. She'd walked over to his messy apartment on lunch breaks before, since it was right next to where they volunteered on the weekends, but she'd never thought too hard on it. His hair looked greasy in the little available light, and he smelled like cheap beer. Karen would rather be alone.

She took a few paces backwards and said, "Sorry about that. I'm just kind of in my own world right now. See you this weekend?"

Jeremy frowned, "I thought we could walk together. You want to come back to my place and have a drink? I'm right there," he pointed a few blocks over. He was right - this was the street he lived on. It was also where they spent their weekends, and also where a local bar drew huge crowds every evening until 2 AM. Karen had to guess that was the source of his condition.

"You've already had something to drink, right? I think the evening's probably over. I want to get home, anyways." She started walking homeward, but his place was in between.

He caught up to her, begging for her company. He promised just a few matches on smash brothers, a couple of drinks, and she could walk home. She kept walking, trying to ignore him, but when he grabbed her arm and got a little too rough she conceded, "Fine, but chill out. Two matches, that's all you get."

Karen wasn't positive how she felt about this, but she had to figure that once they were at his place he'd probably pass out fairly quickly and she'd be free to go home. She didn't even really feel like walking anymore. Something about Jeremy gave her the creeps, and she just wanted to be on the opposite side of a locked door from him.

They walked up the steps to his place and he let her in. The small apartment stank of weed, and there was trash and dirty laundry everywhere. A television and game system propped on a lopsided cardboard box were the main feature, a stained couch across from it. There were panties across the arm, and a pizza box and several wrinkled papers scattered across it. He shoved everything off and gestured for her to sit while he disappeared into the kitchen, presumably to make her a drink. In the meantime she flipped on the game system and picked up a sticky controller, wiping it on her shirt and wrinkling her nose.

Jeremy returned shortly with a glass of something orange-brown that smelled bitter and probably shouldn't have been ingested. To be polite, Karen took a small sip and set the cup down by her foot. Jeremy jumped up and started lighting candles, and Karen reminded him "weren't you going to game?"

"Yeah," Jeremy muttered, "but you look delicious."

"What? Don't be a fuck, play or let me go home." Karen frowned at him. Flattery was one thing, but she was getting a creepy vibe. Jeremy paced back to the candles and blew them out again.

"Okay, okay, who are you going to be?" Jeremy's voice was jittery and fast, a contrast to his slow movements. Karen sipped her drink if only to get rid of the weird atmosphere. Jeremy relit the candles.

Two re-lightings later she convinced him to pick up a damned controller and start playing. He sat unnervingly close to her on the couch, occasionally reaching over to fuck with her shirt or brush his fingers through her hair. She kicked his ass in the video game, and it was pretty easy to do considering his condition. Halfway through her drink, Karen began to feel a little out of it.

"Hey...what exactly am I drinking, by the way?" She asked. It sounded like she was trying to talk through a heavy blanket. Nothing sounded quite right, and her mouth felt really dry. "Hey," she slurred suddenly, "I have to piss. Where's the john..."

She thought Jeremy pointed to a door, so she tripped over the crud on the floor and let herself into the bathroom. It took her three tries to get her jeans undone, and she didn't bother trying to button them back when she was done. She wandered back into his living room as he was blowing out the candles again. The TV was off, her drink was spilled across the floor, and he was relighting the damned candles.

Jeremy had been oddly quiet, and all Karen could think about was why he kept lighting those dumb candles. He came over and sat next to Karen, and started to pull off her jeans. Karen couldn't remember how to make her mouth work, so she let him. She was working her jaw and thinking about wax when she felt him slide into her. It stung, and he didn't get a good angle, so she whimpered for a few seconds until he fell into a rhythm. She was watching herself get pounded from across the room and shaking her head. She was whispering "no" from the doorway while he squeezed her tits and drove into her pussy. She was touching herself halfway down the street and moaning in delirious sensation as he shouted out and spurted hot cum into her tight hole. She was curled up on her own doorstep when he blew out the candles and went to bed.

Karen had no idea what had happened, why her pants were off, or why her breasts were bruised when she woke late in the afternoon.

All she knew was that it was finally time to let the curtain fall.