Pizza Time

Raising my head lightly, I looked at pillow with some surprise, since it smelled sweet, and covered with cute little stitched hearts. What the hell, I thought, I don't remember owning this, or even seeing this before. Why was it in my house? Was it a reverse robbery? I gently rolled over and stared at the ceiling. Stars?! Where am I? A gentle rustle of fabric drew my attention to a pajama clothed female sitting on the other bed, regarding me curiously under a thick brown mane of sleep tousled hair, a pair of thick orange earmuffs perched incongruously over her ears.

"Who are you?" I croaked, my throat dry, my disorientation quickly reaching epic levels.

The woman pulled her earmuffs off and tossed them into a corner, before answering cryptically, "The better question is who are you?"

"I'm..." I said, momentarily blanking before the oily sea of my memory started pulling me back in with a vicious riptide. "I'm Sean. I'm...here."

"Yes, you are here." She agreed pleasantly.

"Where is...here?"

"Morning amnesia, huh?" she said sympathetically as she massaged her ears, "That's a bitch. The Kat's got it too."

"Am I at Ekataren's?"

"Well, actually, the apartment is in my name, but close enough." She stuck out her hand, "Hi, my name's Samantha. Nice to meet you."

I sat up carefully, the clothing I barely remember borrowing before falling asleep was made for a shorter, but thicker person. Not wanting to expose too much skin, kept self-consciously tugging on the drawstring of the pants with one hand, as I shook her hand with the other. "Nice to meet you. Are you roommates?" I asked politely.

She quirked an eyebrow, "As if there's any other reason for two stunningly attractive females to be in the same house?" My reptile brain gurgled in lazy amusement as it flashed a few daring reasons why, but I ruthlessly suppressed the lurid fantasies as she forged on, "The Kat left a few minutes ago to get some groceries. Are you going to sleep anymore?"

I ran a hand through my hair, I didn't feel particularly sleepy, "No, not any more, why?"

"Well, I only ask because I'm trying to get some sleep, and you snore like an aggravated banshee."

"Ah. Sorry." I said meekly as I stood and stretched.

"There's a cans of soda in the 'fridge, have at it. Keep the noise down to a dull roar, 'kay?" she said and burrowed under the thick covers.

"Okay." I said, and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind me.

The fridge was filled with cans of cheap cola and perishable foodstuffs. I snagged a can, and wandered into the living room, which looked like it was in a state of partial devastation as magazines, books, old paper newspapers, and a few one-off plastic message sheets were scattered around the room in layers of varying thickness over most of the flat surfaces. My clothes were neatly folded in a small pile on the low table in front of one of the couches, and as I opened the top of the can, I debated putting on my old clothes. I took a gulp of cola before I sniffed my shirt gingerly before wrinkling my nose at the odor; the pile reeked of rotting blood, pungent sweat, and acrid fear. It smelled almost exactly like what I thought a slaughterhouse would smell like.

Rubbing my nose to clear the stench, I decided to wait until I could get home and get some new clothes. In the meantime, I wandered sifted through the piles of magazines and other personal rubbish like an archeologist while I searched for some type of telephone. I was still looking as the door opened with a whoosh of air, and Ekataren trundling through, her arms awkwardly wrapped around two bulging grocery bags as a tidal wave of icy air surged past her and slowly flooded the room. I shivered from the cold as I became awash in goose pimples as I waded towards her, ankle deep in a meager lake of freezing air that teasingly swirled around my ankles.

"Blasted bloody cold!" Ekataren yelled, her voice muffled by the bags, and the thick, almost blindingly colored striped muffler wrapped around her head securely. Hefting the bags, she turned and kicked the door close as steadily rising tide rose to claim my bare calves.

"Here, let me help you." I offered politely, holding my arms out, ready to grapple with a bag. She dumped one of them into my hands absently, swiped a space clear with her free hand on the modestly sized kitchen table before plunking her bag down, and shrugging off the parka and muffler, putting both on a metal coat rack by the door. I put the other bag next to the first and asked, as she started to rub her hands together briskly, "Do you have a phone I could use? I can't seem to find it."

Ekataren stopped trying to warm her hands and searched through her pockets for a moment before she tossed a cell phone at me, and jammed her hands under her arms. I caught it delicately, fearing I might break it, before I flipped it open and stared at the complicated keypad looking for the widget that turned the thing on.

"You do know how to activate, and operate, this piece of electronic equipment, correct?" She asked dryly after a minute passed, and I still couldn't find the power button.

"Uhh... no." I said sheepishly, "Could you help me?" I offered the phone back to her, cradled in my cupped hands, as if offering something to a deity.

She smiled slightly and asked, "Well, I could, but I want something in return."

"Anything."

"Let me warm my hands on your back." She said holding out her pale, thin hands.

I smiled brightly. "Done."

She smiled even brighter, pressed a few buttons, and handed me the phone. "And done, turn around."

I turned and started punching in numbers. The phone on the other end started to ring, just as two icy brands crept up the ill-fitting shirt and pressed themselves against my shoulder blades. I just gasped and jerked reflexively as I heard Ekataren hum appreciably and murmur, "...just like a blast furnace."

As I strugged to draw breath, Darren picked up the other phone and rasped cheerfully, "Papa Mezito's Pizza & Taco's, how may I help you?"

"Darren?!"

"Sean, Pappy! How're you doin'?"

"Um, fine. I'm calling in for today, and maybe tomorrow."

"I saw the tv, about your sister. That was very bad. Is she okay?"

"Yeah, it was. She is. She's under observation right now, and maybe for the next few days."

"They said she was wounded..." he trailed off, afraid to directly broach the subject.

"Nothing a little surgical glue and a gallon of blood couldn't solve," I said glibly, callously suppressing fresh memories of gnawing fear and borderline panic as the doctor went to work on her back as the blood kept flowing out in thin rivulets. "No, she's fine physically. They're worried about her mind. It was kind of traumatic, y'know."

"I understand. Well, come back to us, when you're ready, pappy."

"Can do."

"Goodbye."

"Later!" I said, and hung up.

"I was surprised at your glib reply to an awful situation." She said quietly, her hands, no longer skin flaying knives of ice, gently spanned my shoulder blades. Her touch was light, and feeling was starting to come back to where she touched.

I snorted wryly, an over-tired laugh from an over-tired person. God, I thought, when did I become so old so young? I turned my head and gazed at her out of the corner of my eye. While she wasn't frowning, she looked... troubled. I handed her phone back as I slipped a smile on for her, "I want to curl up into a ball and ignore the world for a few hours. I want a lot of things, but I know I won't get half of them. Forward momentum. I keep moving forward, and keep the momentum, and I just might get to the end of this rat-race in one piece."

"Sounds... exhausting." She said, made the phone disappear, and her hands slid back up under my shirt. It was not an unpleasant feeling.

"It is. I'll admit that there was a few low points." My lips stilled as memories flashed behind my eyes for a moment.

"Sean?"

"Eh?" I said, blinking to drive away the memory fog, and chuckled humorlessly. "That's the problem with a near eidetic memory: you remembered everything. Everything." Including all the stuff you really want to forget.

"You have an eidetic memory?" She asked politely, her hands slowly gliding over my shoulders, tracing the edge of my shoulder blades with a light touch, almost a shy caress.

I smiled wryly, and said self-deprecatingly, "Not quite. Close, but not quite."

The strength of her touch increased as her hands wandered over my back freely. Staring at my back now, she paused for a moment before her fingers started to idly trace shapes over my spine. "Your voice sounds pained. Is it not a great gift to remember almost everything?"

"'There are times when it is a wonderful gift, and times when it is a heavy burden'. To paraphrase DuGlase." I said as she smiled slightly, a quick flashing smile, with a lilting tilt to the eyes for a moment before she steered me, pushing gently on my back, to the couch, and with a gentile tug pulled me to sit beside her.

"Time to be honest, I think." She said, capturing my hand in hers and leaning close. I merely raised an eyebrow. I could think of several mild reproofs to say, but I didn't want to. Something was odd. Why did she care about me? I could be a mass murderer for all she knew. She smiled gently, soothingly. "Tell me about yourself." She said, lightly tracing complicated designs on the back of my hand with a blunt fingernail.

Paranoia raised its head, and spoke sharply, quickly, its words mingled into an impossible to ignore verbal deluge. I shouldn't tell her. She doesn't need to know. It's my problem. What can she possibly do? Keep the secrets. Keep the secrets?! Enough! It's time, and past time to tell someone, anyone. Liz is in the hospital because of that silly need to keep a revolting secret. Tell someone Sean, tell someone before you are wholly consumed by this nonsense. Fresh memories of blood flashed behind my eyes. Could this have never happened if I just said something? It was an impossible question to answer, and I think I would carry that question to my grave.

Gathering a breath, and staring the voices down again, I told her everything in one great rush, taking hours to carefully tell my story, without interruptions, except the constant pressure of the moving finger, and the supporting warmth of her hand. Two distinctly different sensations that I drew my strength from to finish the last part in a great whoosh, before my nerve deserted me entirely and I was struck mute by ages old paranoia. At the end, I sat, slumped warily, tiredly, feeling as if I had unstoppered the bottle nearly bursting with the tension that kept me up and moving and then watched emotionlessly, as the bottle shot its contents high in the air, emptying itself in one explosive reach into the heavens.

Then the feelings came. Long dammed up emotions held in check, buried deep, except for the time they were needed to act as catalysts to keep me moving. I don't know how long I sat there, talking to her, or blank faced and ragged as long pent up pressures released themselves, leaving little behind. I was amazed at how... empty I was. Or how much of me was carefully stoppered bottles of pressure. I almost fell asleep again. Not out of willing choice, but as an odd lassitude swept me from consciousness, I gripped tightly my sensations, unwilling to fall into the abyss reaching out to claim me wholly. Cocooning myself in them: Ekataren's hand tracing those odd designs on my hand, the clean smell of her, or the quiet soothing sing song of her voice as time detoured around me for an immeasurably long moment or two.

"Is this love?" I whispered, half asleep.

"Have you ever been in love?"

"Not that I know of."

"What do you feel?"

"Happy. Excited. Fulfilled. Content. Whole. All of these, and so much more."

A smile quirked her lips, "Well, so do I."

Did she just say what I thought she said? I thought bewilderedly as my brain mushily tried to understand what she meant.

She rolled here eyes openly, before stating loudly, "I love you, you great fool!"

"I ...ah?" I said, caught off-guard as my first thought was: What in the hell was I supposed to say?

"What you are supposed to say is 'I love you too' followed by some sort of endearment," she said, before dramatically pouting, and saying in a small, wavering voice, her bottom lip artistically trembling, "...unless you don't love me."

"I love you!" I protested as her a smile slowly blossomed, tinged with a touch of slyness.

"Really?"

"At least... I think I do." I said with a nearly straight face.

Ekataren looked indignant for a moment before my serious expression cracked, and I started to chuckle quietly. She looked annoyed and amused, more amused than annoyed, thankfully, as her hands darted in, rubbed my sides briskly.

The chuckles turned into a squeal of laughter as I playfully struggled against her tickling, but quickly found her a little stronger, and a lot more practiced at using leverage. We rolled around on the couch, laughing like children, the world forgotten for a moment. We ended up face-to-face, a few inches apart, my plain eyes looking into her perfect eyes.

"Well, Sean," Ekataren said seriously, her eyes twinkling, "I must ask, have you ever kissed a girl?"

"A girl? Yes. A woman, like you? No."

"Ooh, suave, very suave. I like it." She smiled sweetly; her incisors glinted in the dim light.

"I thought it seemed apropos."

"So you have truly never kissed a woman like me?" She said as she quirked a warm smile, "What kind of woman could I be, I wonder?" She innocently wondered aloud.

"Well, someone of your radiant beauty, your impeccable grace, your flawless skin, your wonderful eyes, your silky hair, your perfect lips..." I trailed off as I felt myself approach a hair-thin line, an invisible demarcation between something old, and something new. I skidded to a stop on the razor-thin edge and clumsily teetered there, uncertain. An abyss of the unknown lay before me, filling the horizon, and I didn't know if I should go, or stay on my side of the line on ground I already knew.

I teetered there uncertainly, as Ekataren's head ducked forward brushing our lips together before retreating a few inches, hesitant. I could feel her heartbeat, her breaths, her...warmth.Why not? A voice asked as I ducked forward and kissed her, longer this time, her lips parting, and our tongues dueling slowly, unhurriedly as I jumped across that invisible line, diving cleanly into the abyss, and claimed it as my own.

Why survive, when you can live?

Indeed.