"Wake up!" commanded a Voice.

My eyes jerked open. Harsh white light blinded me, and I closed my eyes again, recoiling from the intensity of the glare. Electric blue blobs swam in the red haze behind my eyelids. My first thoughts: Nitrous oxide. Root canal. The chair under me felt like a dentist's torture rack, and the overhead light had that same retina-scorching quality…

A slap across the face jarred me out of my thoughts.

I opened my eyes again, squinting this time.

"What?" I tried to ask. I say "tried" because my mouth wouldn't cooperate. Had my jaw been wired shut? When I probed with my tongue, I couldn't feel wires or stitches, nothing to indicate the aftermath of dental work.

"I know you can hear me, Neil." The Voice belonged to a man, and it sounded amplified or reverbed, not quite lifelike. I could hear but not identify an accent.

When dread and horror first begin to course through your veins, you seem to relax a bit, to sink into your chair as the initial dose of apprehension takes hold. This is the opposite of what's really happening, because every muscle then snaps to rigid attention. My name is not Neil. It's David. Possibilities — grim ones — flooded my mind.

"I want you to listen very carefully."

To my left, a shape hovered. With the light in my eyes and my head unwilling or unable to turn, I couldn't make out details. I assumed the person speaking to me — the Voice — and the shape to my left were the same individual, but this was not a given. The shape could have been a man or a woman. I couldn't tell.

My name is David Gustavsen and I am a graduate student at American University in DC and I… umm… I couldn't remember the rest, which increased the terror threshold 1000 percent. My name is not Neil.

If I had been confused with somebody else, and operated on somehow… I had seen TV shows about that. Mistaken identities, medical mistakes. Some hapless bastard goes to the hospital for a mundane procedure like a hernia repair, and wakes up to discover he has had a heart transplant or an unnecessary amputation. I couldn't say what scared me more, the idea that there might be less of me now than before I had been commanded to wake up, or the inability to recall what had come before that.

I tried to move. My limbs tingled, pins and needles rioting below the surface of the skin (At least I still have limbs), as if I had been sitting or lying in the wrong position too long. Even my lips felt prickly.

"I'm not sure I have your undivided attention. You're becoming aware of your body again, slowly, and you may experience some confusion and discomfort. Neil, it is very important that you listen carefully. You were in a car crash three days ago, and you have been in a coma. This is important. Remember this."

I froze.

Christ, what if I had been paralyzed? My blood felt like a thin, cold broth congealing in my veins. It formed clumps and clots, starving my brain of oxygen; my head felt hollow inside, foggy.

The shape at the periphery of my vision retreated. I could not turn to see where it (he) went. My insides roiled.

My name is David. Not Neil.

Car crash? Did I even own a car? I couldn't be sure. Maybe I did.

I closed my eyes and kept them closed.

Sometime later I woke up again. This time, the light had been turned off, and I could feel my hands and feet. This was the good news. The bad news, I found, took the form of thick straps fastening my wrists and ankles to this chair. I strained against them: leather, from the texture and the creaks they made, tight enough to hold me in place but not so tight as to cut off circulation.

I looked around the room. The light I'd seen before, far bigger than the ones in dentist's offices, hung from the ceiling on an articulated boom. The room confused me. Equipment I could not fully see lay on shelves just above eye level. The points and handles unnerved me, though. Perhaps I didn't want to see the rest. If these implements were going to be used on me, or already had been, I didn't think I could handle knowing. In one corner stood monitors, a pair of IV racks, and other medical gadgets — hospital stuff. But the room was too big to be an examination room, and not sterile enough to be an operating theater. The carpeted floor (beige) and potted palms by the (barred) window attested to that.

Would shouting for help get me saved or killed?

I thought for a moment. I couldn't see a door; it must have been behind my head. Through the window I could only see cloudless silver-white sky. No buildings; nothing to indicate where I might be. I couldn't hear a thing beyond the creaks my body made against its restraints as I shifted in the chair. The leather sounded much like my black jacket did, when I moved a certain way. I squirmed a little, just to hear that creak. There was nothing else to listen to: no susurrus of an air conditioner pumping frigid air into the room, no birds singing outside, no heels clicking on a tile floor. Nothing.

At least I wasn't naked. They — whoever had bought me here — had covered me with a white blanket. As nearly as I could tell, there were no telltale blood spatters or seepage spots on it. None of my body parts felt amputated, and, well, the blanket bulged about halfway down the length of me, where it was supposed to, suggesting I hadn't been bobbittized. A good sign. I couldn't get my hopes (or anything else) up, knowing that, but it beat waking up to discover a freshly-installed vagina oozing between my legs. Stranger things have happened. It would make a great urban legend, as long as it happened to someone else and not me.

I took stock of my aches and pains, starting at the top:

My head, now that I had begun paying attention, throbbed. The pain didn't debilitate me like my migraines did; instead it pulsated, subtle and persistent, like a stalker. My head still felt hollow. Another apex of misery sat at the base of my skull, at the spot where my neck met my head. Flashes of pain raced across the top of my head starting from that point in the back. What I wouldn't have given for some Vicodin.

The crook of my left elbow ached dully. That one, I could label easily: IV. It must have been removed before I came to. Just as well — I hate them.

My wrists chafed under those leather straps.

My stomach hurt in a low-grade but obstinate way, and again, I had no trouble identifying the cause: hunger. Three days since I had eaten, possibly longer? The next Shape to appear at my side would be in danger, I decided. I'd take a bite out of his or her arm if it got close enough, and not out of spite.

The next pain I observed unnerved me almost as much as the headaches, because it bloomed in such a personal location: my backside. My anus and rectum, not to put too fine a point on it, ached. I recognized the pain of hasty penetration and felt cold all over at the idea of someone forcing something up my ass while I was bound and unconscious. In fact — I squirmed, to bring things into clearer focus — whatever had been put inside me… was probably still there. Was still there, period. I had trouble gauging its size. Instantly I visualized one of those forearm-sized dildos you see in the sex shops and catalogs, and had to fight off a panic attack. Calm down, I told myself. There's no way anything that big is in your butt. The business end of it would have been protruding from my nose. It was hard to say, but I guessed the diameter to be somewhere between a thick finger and a smallish dick.

This had to be the worst time and place imaginable for me to get hard.

OK, worst-case scenario, someone ravaged my ass while I was out cold. Worse things could have happened.

My legs ached from hours of immobility, and my ankles…

The unmistakable sound of a door opening behind my head brought me to full attention. I lay absolutely still, eyes shut, faking sleep.

"I know you're awake," said a different man's voice, not the hard-edged, computerized Voice from before, but a quiet, authoritative, crisply articulated voice. What was that accent? British? Australian? South African? Hell, I could never tell. "The drugs you were given will have been eliminated by your system. There's no way you are unconscious right now, Neil. It's time to open your eyes and confront the reality of your situation."

Oh Jesus, I thought, I'm gruesomely injured and this is a doctor come to tell me I'll never walk again.

No, I could feel my arms and legs.

He put one hand on my forehead and told me to open my eyes.

I obeyed.

Before I could get a good look at him, the hand on my forehead slid over my eyes, covering them. My eyelashes must have tickled his palm, but the man seemed impervious. I couldn't say how I had reached that conclusion. Something about his bearing.

"Prepare yourself for what I am about to tell you," he said.

The flood of panic surged through my veins once again. Sweat trickled itchily down my forehead.

"Physically, apart from some minor bruises and lacerations, you are unharmed. It's a miracle that you survived the wreck. I wanted you to be aware of that, first and foremost."

"Have I really been in a coma?" I asked.

"I'm not finished speaking," was the reply. He tightened his hand around my face slightly. "But I'll answer your question. Yes, you were unconscious for almost three days. Now, I'll come to the real point: the outside world believes you died in the wreck along with your passengers. Your car burned, and you only survived because you were thrown clear. My employees happened to be behind you at the time, and were able to bring you here, to my private clinic."

I reeled. This was like being drunk to the point of nausea and disorientation, only without the alcohol. My passengers died? Did I know who they were, and should I be devastated? And what the hell was this about the outside world thinking I had died in the crash? If there was an outside world, where was I now?

When I opened my mouth to ask, two fingers were thrust deep into my mouth, gagging me.

"You are not to speak until I give you permission. Was that not clear?" The fingers withdrew, leaving me gasping. I shook my head No. "Let me put it to you another way. I arranged for you to be brought here. You are here for me. You belong to me."

What?

"From your frown, I can see that you want to ask me a question. Go ahead."

He seemed to be the sort of man who would appreciate succinctness. I asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Let me explain a few more things about your situation, and perhaps everything will become clear. While you were in your coma, I arranged for the installation of a small device at the base of your skull. I know you can feel it. No doubt the spot is somewhat tender now. That will pass. The device acts as an electronic leash. If I press a button on a modified pager I keep with me at all times, the device fires an electronic pulse directly into your brain, disrupting all activity briefly, knocking you unconscious. Attempting to remove it yourself will accomplish two things: rendering you helpless and activating an alarm. Simultaneously. Instantly. If you were having thoughts of tampering with my device, forget them. Next point: my clinic is armed with a security system, and the device is tied into that network. If you cross the perimeter, the same thing happens. You are knocked unconscious, and an alarm will sound."

"Jesus Chr…" I started to say. The fingers plunged. I would have vomited but my stomach was empty.

"You will not speak until I give you leave to do so," he said. His voice evinced no anger, just a dispassionate resolve that I found even more terrifying.

I tried to nod. Nodding is difficult when a strong man has one hand clamped across your eyes and two fingers of the other hand as deep in your mouth as they will go.

The fingers subsided. I gasped for air.

"Now. Neil. You have plenty to think about. I want you to think very carefully about your circumstances. You can attempt to fight me, or you can serve the purpose for which you were brought here. Remember, you are dead to the rest of the world. I effectively brought you back. I named you. I created you, in sum."

I blinked into his palm.

This must be what Jeffrey Dahmer's victims felt in the last murky seconds before the drugs kicked in, as they slid into a haze from which they would never awaken.

I'm dead, I thought. I'm alive, nominally, but he could change that any time he feels like taking some of those instruments I can't quite see off their shelves and doing things to me.

I wondered how much it would hurt. For how long.

"I can see wheels turning in that handsome head of yours already. Let me leave you with two last things. One piece of information you may interpret any way you see fit, and, somewhat unfortunately, a small show of force."

The hand covering my eyes withdrew, and, blinking, I got my first look at my captor.

I hadn't expected him to be handsome.

From the voice, I would have expected a dead-eyed, pasty academician, intense and scholarly, wearing a faded blazer with snowdrifts of dandruff on the shoulders. Not so. Mischievous blue eyes sparkled in a face with features similar to a couple of Hollywood leading men: Selleck came to mind first, Kevin Kline a moment later. Dark, wavy hair mussed as if he had just driven here fast, in a convertible. Towering cheekbones. Ruddy skin, weathered and suggestive of the outdoors. Thick moustache. Small birthmark beside his mouth. From what I could see, the rest of him looked solid, powerful… suggestive of a brick shithouse. If he was your Dad you'd look for reasons to sit in his lap, well into your teens.

"The information," he repeated, gesturing at himself. "Interpret it any way you see fit." He smiled, and nothing in his face suggested harm.

The smile faded.

"Now, unfortunately, the show of force." He held up a pager. My eyes widened, and I pushed myself back against the chair, as if it would shield me. "I'm sure you would prefer to take me on faith, but I think you should learn exactly what the stakes are." He pressed the button.

I'm not sure how much time passed before I woke up again, or came to.

I had been moved to another room, uncovered, and unstrapped.

He was there, reclining shirtless on a black leather sofa. Thick silver rings in his nipples glinted, and as I watched him watching me watching him, I noticed the instrument in my rectum was still very much there. I tightened against it. How the hell could my dick be getting hard at a time like this? I don't know… but it was. Painfully so.

"You're awake," he said.

I nodded.

"You're probably hungry."

I nodded again.

"Crawl over to me, if you want to eat."

From behind the leather sofa he picked up a tray of food: fruit, a glass each of orange juice and water, bread, slices of turkey or chicken. "You need to eat." He selected a perfect red apple, sliced it into segments, offered one.

"Crawl."

I crawled. At first I wasn't sure whether my body would comply, but the sight of food gave me strength I didn't think I had. I crawled. Naked across the floor. To him.

"Ask for it," he said. "I know how hungry you are. You haven't eaten in days, and your stomach hurts." He held my face with one enormous hand, and looked directly into my eyes. "Just ask."

In that pivotal moment, I wish I could say that castles fell, cities burned, mobs rampaged, and tornadoes swooped. I can't. Nothing inside me broke down and began to sob. My stomach gave a loud rending growl, and I knelt in front of him and kissed his bare feet. I wrapped my arms around his legs — which were encased in aromatic black leather chaps — and kissed him up and down his calves.

"Please," I said.

He fed me as I knelt on the floor by his feet, occasionally stroking my hair and patting my head. I considered panting for effect. The grateful looks I gave him were not affected. He broke the segments of apple into smaller pieces, and put them inside my mouth. After I chewed and swallowed the fruit, he handed me the glass of water. This went on for a few minutes, but not long enough — once I began to eat, my stomach demanded more and more food, but he interrupted. It wouldn't be wise to let me continue eating after going hungry for several days. I would get sick. And there were other things for which I was needed.

"I think you've had enough," he told me. "Now, do you see that door to your left? Crawl across the floor to it. When you get there, open it but do not step into the next room. I want you to look inside, then turn around and look at me. Is that clear?"

I nodded. Now that my stomach was full, a rosy contentment coursed through my system. More drugs? Could have been. I crawled across new-smelling deep pile carpet, oyster grey and soft under my raw knees, to open the door. On some level a small voice screamed in my head, What are you doing? What the fuck are you doing? Another voice, tired but still powerful, answered, Shut up and just get on with it. The din of this interior argument subsided when I reached the door and stood to open it.

As instructed, I looked inside.

And staggered back a couple of steps.

I'd heard of this kind of thing but never expected to see one for myself…

"Do you like my dungeon?" He stood behind me.

"I… umm… I…" I broke off, expecting another hand down my throat. Besides, I couldn't just blurt, "Why, it's swell!"

What are dungeons supposed to look like? When I imagined them, I thought of what I had seen in movies: dripping stone walls, cobwebs drifting in corners, rusting manacles hanging at intervals, heaps of bones, instruments of torture flecked with gore. Even my fantasies about big strong men having their way with me didn't delve too far into the technical details.

"Why are you smiling?"

"I've never been in a dungeon."

"There's a first time for everything. Kneel."

"My name is David."

He gave me a tremendous shove; I lacked the strength to resist, and fell to the floor in a sprawl. Under me, a drain gleamed, a silver circle in the middle of clean white tile. I glanced up at him. He loomed over me, and from this angle the bulge in the front of the jeans beneath his chaps looked even more enormous than it had before. When he planted one boot-clad foot square in the center of my back and crushed me against the floor, I felt the tile beneath me imprinting a grid on my chest.

"When I said kneel, Neil, that was a command, and you were meant to obey it. You did not. Second, your name is now Neil. N-E-I-L. A constant reminder of your station. Your prior life is gone. This is who and what you are now. Mine. You'll eat when I feed you. You'll drink when I bring you water. You'll sleep when I push a button. Do you understand that? I'm not sure you do."

I gulped, and nodded. My eyes smarted with tears. I didn't want to start crying but it didn't look like I had a choice. My chest hitched.

"Stay absolutely still. If you move, I'll make you wish you hadn't."

I shut my eyes and tried not to budge. The tears trickling down my cheeks itched, but I couldn't risk scratching them.

Back: "I'm going to give you another small example of how your body is mine to do with as I see fit."

I heard a buzz.

He straddled me and started on my hair, shaving it off in black, gleaming hanks. I stayed absolutely still, now, clenched tight and trembling with rage, shock, and horror as he shaved my head bald, stripe by stripe. I had always been proud of my hair — the memory surfaced somehow. With him laying my scalp bare, I wondered how many more layers of debasement I was facing. In the hands of a professional like this, I couldn't begin to guess. A few minutes after starting on my scalp, he had rendered me completely bald. My hair lay in itchy clumps under my head. He ordered me to roll over, and he commenced to shave my chest, taking care with the nipples (he stopped, in fact, to pinch them, with a thoughtful look on his face). With one hand he shaved, and with the other, he brushed away stray hair.

He didn't stop there.

When he started shaving my groin, I embarrassed myself by growing erect again. He held my cock in one hand and spread my legs to shave the hair between my scrotum and my thighs, then pulled my scrotum taut against the base of my cock to shave the hair there, too.

"Don't even think about coming," He cautioned me, not even pausing. He gave my dick a vicious squeeze and started shaving the hair on my legs.

The mortifying erection faded, but returned when he rolled me over to shave the one hairy area remaining, my ass. Whatever he had wedged inside of me must not have taken up much space, because he spread my buttocks and took out every remaining hair, from the feel of it.

I noticed at this point that I wasn't the only one sporting a boner. I could feel his against my left leg.

"Done," he said, standing up. "Stay right there."

Next thing I knew, he was hosing me down with a spray of cold water. My erection, and every other part of me, seemed to shrink to nothing at once.

"Stand up."

I thought of the old Stallone movie, First Blood, and complied. I bit my lip as he sluiced away my hair. He directed me to turn around, bend over, lean forward, spread my butt-cheeks… all right there, in the middle of the floor. Tile has its advantages, I supposed. The cleansing took a few minutes and left me spluttering and shivering, every square inch of my skin covered with goosebumps, blushing furiously.

"While I get you a towel, I want you to move to that low platform and kneel on it with your eyes closed. If you understand me, say Yes, Sir."

I hesitated.

"Yes, Sir," he prompted, an edge in his voice.

"Yes, Sir."

I stepped carefully around the hair on the floor and took my place on the platform he had indicated. The surface seemed a little springy, like the mats used for calisthenics in gyms. On my way, I stole furtive looks around the room again: no windows, four clean white walls, one with a number of shelves and cabinets. The overhead lights were angled to create shadows on that side of the room and make it difficult to see what was kept there. The only other things I could see were a couple of doors. No manacles hung from bolts on the walls, and no corpses mouldered in a corner. I didn't smell anything putrescent to suggest bodies buried under the floor.

I knelt. I shut my eyes. I shivered and waited.

He returned, and surprised me by towelling me dry, himself, almost tenderly. With extra care and attention to my crotch. He lifted up my cock (it was standing on its own in seconds) with one hand and dried it, then spread my legs to continue what he was doing.

When he finished, he said, "Unbutton my jeans, take out my cock, and suck it."
I hesitated, not quite believing he had said what he did.

He clouted me one on the side of my head, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to jar me back to the here and now.

"Unbutton my…"

I bent forward to comply. He had a tremendous boner behind his jeans: from the outline it looked like more than I was used to handling, but I figured I'd do my best. Was there any other choice? I knew where else he probably intended to put it, and, well… I didn't have time to debate the logistics of my situation, either. The denim of his jeans felt soft and pliable; he'd had them a while. They unbuttoned easily. No underwear, of course. I pulled them down just enough to free his dick — it was massive, and uncut; the seawater smell of it flooded through my system, made my own cock that much harder — and secure a grip on it with one hand.

"Now."

My heart started pounding. I didn't know whether I was enjoying this or not; I couldn't separate the emotions. On the one hand this terrified me — no control. He could kill me. He could torture me. He could rape me and make it really hurt, if he wanted to, and I wouldn't be able to do a damn thing to stop him. And — this may sound stupid — but I'm a man. This doesn't happen to us alpha-male types; we do it to others. And yet… I was as turned on as I had ever been in my life, sucking his dick as if I had been born to do that and nothing else, losing myself in it, the salty, tangy taste of it, pre-come leaking down my chin already, the way the thing made my jaws ache. He clamped his hands around my head to hold me still and began to fuck my face, grunting a little…

"You like that? You like that? You want more? You want me to give you more?"

He kept pounding away at my face, and I forced myself to relax, not to choke on him or — God forbid — bite down. He'd kill me. I knew he would.

It seemed like he was about to come, when he abruptly pulled away from me and forced me down on the platform. He spread my legs.

"Shut your eyes," he told me. "Try to relax."

He knelt over me and seized one end of the thing he had inserted into my anus. I winced at the searing sensation when he withdrew it; it felt bigger than I had first suspected.

Not as big as his cock, though. He didn't shove it in, but he didn't take his time, either. Seemed like he'd lubricated it — or me — with something, or maybe it was just my spit and his juices, but I couldn't focus on that while he was driving into me. I could feel the ring of muscle stretching as wide as it would go, impossibly huge, and I loved it. I could barely breathe. He forced my face down against the black padding of the dais we were on and lifted my ass into the air, fucking me like a dog, like a barnyard animal, like the guys from Deliverance, whatever, he was fucking me in half and I was scared shitless and at the same time I didn't want to be anywhere else but here, doing this, with him.

I didn't dare to make a sound.

I wanted to moan and swear and grunt, and I kept my mouth shut except to gasp for air.

Now and then he'd slow down, as if he were about to come, and slide back and forth with painfully delicious slowness. Then he'd speed up again and ram himself into me like a jackhammer.

How I avoided coming, I don't know. Probably the same way I avoided saying a single word, to egg him on or call him names or take the name of the Lord in vain or whatever I'd have done: Fear. Obedience. (Is there a difference?) I didn't want to displease him. I didn't want to take risks, either. He had me balancing on a very fine line between pleasure and pain, submission and annihilation.

The pleasure began to coalesce in my balls and at the base of my cock, and I knew I was about to come. There would be no holding it back this time.

When he made a noise that was half-shout and half-groan, gripped me in a vise-like embrace, and spurted gallons of semen into me, I let go and came, myself. The orgasm was so intense it hurt. My entire body thrummed as if a live wire had been thrust up my ass.

What happened after this was the most difficult part to deal with, because a side of me wanted tenderness from him but got none.

He pulled out of me right away — that same searing sensation as when he had withdrawn the dildo, but more so — and began to towel himself off. Without speaking, he crossed the room to the hose and commanded me to hold still. I lay prone on the dais, legs spread slightly, feeling his come seeping out of my ass, while he hosed me down. For a minute I thought he would ram the hose into me to rinse out my insides, but he stopped short of doing that. Once he had cleaned me — and the platform — off to his satisfaction, he threw me the same towel. Damp, it barely served to dry me off, but I did what I could, noticed him picking up the little pager-like device from a shelf, and…

Woke up sometime later.

I don't know how I knew it was night, as the room had no windows, but I knew. The bed, perhaps? Someone had tucked me into a bed and pulled the sheets up to my chest. I switched on the lamp next to me and looked around. The room held only the basics: a bed, a desk, a chair. Who was the painter who said a room required nothing more? Van Gogh? Toulouse-Lautrec? I don't remember. Maybe it was a poet. Rimbaud? Some dead European or other, who knows? The furniture was clean and nondescript. I looked for a clock and couldn't find one. No radio, either, and nothing to play music. No books. If Heaven is an enormous library, it isn't hard to figure out you're in Hell by process of elimination. A faint lemony smell prickled my nose: some cleaning product, I guessed. Pledge. Carpet Fresh. One of those. An open doorway led into a small bathroom; I could see the sink and toilet from my bed.

How long I stayed there, and even where I was, I have no idea.

A pattern developed:

I'd wake up in the dungeon and he'd fuck me. He would keep the dildo in my ass for various periods of time, to open me up. I appreciated the fact that he didn't want to tear me when he pushed himself inside. Other times, he'd leave it out, though, and when he entered me I sometimes had to bite my tongue to keep from whimpering or crying out. When he was done, whether I had come or not, he'd hose me clean and press the button, knocking me out.

I made no attempt to escape.

Then I met Martin, his… servant? Assistant?

Martin saved me, in the sense that he crept into my room one night and woke me up. He had originally awakened me here after the wreck — in which nobody was killed, he said. Yes, my family and friends thought I was dead. He had to get me out of here, because if the thing on the back of my head wasn't removed soon, it would cause irreversible brain damage. He could play into the fantasy for only so long, but then he had to take action. Disloyalty to (he said a name but I won't repeat it) would carry a high price, but he'd rather pay that than risk having me turned into a drooling vegetable or get killed. It had happened to others before me.

Martin pressed the button after telling me this, turning me off one last time.

I woke up in the emergency room at a DC hospital with a well-known neurology department. Emergency surgery had been done; the device was removed and studied. Specialists were brought in from various agencies. I couldn't keep track of all the names. I talked to doctors and police officers. Social workers hovered helpfully (if I had been an egg they'd have sat on me to keep me warm); they told me the media were slavering for interviews. Did I think there was a sex slave ring? Did I know who had done it to me? I couldn't tell them anything.

The doctors let me go after a week.

My family handled me gingerly, as if they couldn't look at me without imagining what I had been subjected to, and perhaps wondering if I had enjoyed it.

I'll tell you a secret: I did.

The furor has died down. A few months have passed.

I'll tell you one last thing.

I'm trying to date. I'm trying to get out, and have a social life again, but it isn't easy. The sex part is especially messy, because I can't get off. I know what I used to like, and now that I've crossed over to the other side, I can't enjoy myself in bed. And then I found Luke.

He glues a computer chip to the back of my head. He uses his pager. He turns me on, and he turns me off afterward. He also slaps me around some, and he makes me do things… I come and come and come.

I've started taking long drives out the highway where I wrecked, looking for familiar cars, familiar faces. I keep hoping something will jog my memory. Perhaps I'll see a face in a crowd. Maybe an ad in the personals section of the paper or on the Internet will resonate just so, and I'll call the number at the bottom of the little paragraph, or I'll click and send an e-mail. I've heard you can't go home again, and I'm not trying to do that. But when you belong somewhere — to someone — nothing is ever really right until you return.

 

©2001 Marshall Moore - Contributor's Bio