Extend the Story - Add a Room

"Aw, Mom!" comes the screech from downstairs. You are thirteen years old, sitting on your bed playing some top-down SNES helicopter game, and your mother is going out. Your brother tries desperately to get out of a babysitting job, but you know your mom: she wants something, and she is going to get it. You hear the two-toned clatter of her high heels: she'll be coming back late. Already you're familiar with the scent of bourbon on silk evening dresses, of the thirty-seven-year-old stink of your mother's failure and desperation.

Your father died when you were very young. You keep the last bottle of his aftershave in your dresser, under your Samurai Pizza Cats socks.

You remain up there a while, shooting at some three-headed baboon with about six different frames of animation, when you hear the door close again - not your mother's agitated slam, but a slower, more careful click. A high female giggle, half-drunk. "Jeffrey?" a voice sounds.

"Oh, no," you murmur. Your brother's girlfriend, Felicia. The girl who thinks you're "cute as a kitten", and enjoys giving you long hugs. By the neck.

Maybe if you stay upstairs she won't find you, you think. You turn the volume down on your television and concentrate on shooting the second of the baboon's poorly-pixellized heads. It's a tough fight, interrupted only occasionally by the booted thump, occasional crash and giggle of Felicia downstairs, half-drunkenly trying to locate your older brother.

You are about to deal the final blow when the door to your room is pushed open. She's standing there, her sixteen-year-old dancer's body slim in a long t-shirt and silk tai chi pants. She blinks at you a moment, then grins - wide and uncomfortable. You have the presence of mind to pause.

"Well, look who I found," she says, before entering your room and closing the door. You have purposely made your room into a sort of boy-shrine: Star Wars toys, video games, socks and underwear flung everywhere, Nerf guns and Super Soakers stuck to the wall by plastercine and suction cups, even your glorious three-foot-high animatronic Darth Vader coin bank, which you have faithfully filled halfway with nickes and quarters. She doesn't seem fazed, and walks past all the girl-repellant as if it doesn't exist.

"I can't find your brother," she says, "so I'll wait for him to come find me. You're company." She sits beside you, her body muscular and slim, her legs a thin bone and tight meat through her white silk pants. She smells of orange brandy and some unnameable perfume. Her hair is blonde and thin, lightly teased in a 'do that reminds you of the 80's.

She is breathing heavily, and the back of her hand is pressed against your left thigh. She seems uncomfortably aware of this fact.

NO NO NO! GIRLS ARE ICKY!!