by Teresa Lamai
(04/14/2004)

I wake at dawn. Vedma’s curly head is backlit by the hallway’s naked bulb. Her hair is so deeply red I want to warm my hands at it. The silver heart on her choker dances, sparkling.

"Maddy, you’re up!" She waves a gracious palm towards me, and glances behind her at the shuddering, massive shadow looming up the stairs.

Two young men stumble in, exhaling sharply when they let drop an imposing, glossy cabinet. I don’t know how they could have carried it so far; they’re both so slender. They turn to Vedma and she hugs them fondly, nudging them out to the hall.

When they’ve gone, she leans back against the door.

"Maddy, look." Like a game show hostess, she sashays over to the cabinet and glides her fingertips across the top. Her smile becomes manic.

I walk over. It’s cool and slick to the touch. Its ebony finish shines like licorice, inlaid with yellowed mother-of-pearl. I can’t help smiling. Our student loft is the top floor of an abandoned gasworks, just barely made habitable by a heap of velour cushions and a hot plate. I wonder if spring’s brought out Vedma’s domestic side.

"I found it. The enchanted cabinet."

My smile sours. "Vedma, what are you on?"

She cheerily ignores me, opening the double doors.

"I’ve searched for years -- auctions, estate sales, dumps," she coos. "Then, in a thrift shop, there it was. My white whale, my Holy Grail."

Vedma is my best friend, but I can’t help recoiling.

"It transports you inside a book!" Her whisper is a deranged hiss.

She skips to her bookcase, squealing. Vedma displays her adult recreational reading on a red lacquer shelf. I hide mine in my sock drawer. That pretty much sums up how different we are.

"I cannot wait. Maddy, you have class until 11, right? Get me out when you come home?"

She’s clutching her newest purchase, an ominous hardcover entitled That’s a Piggy Pony!

"Yes, lord, gonna be here a while." She clambers into the cabinet, slamming the doors shut.

I stand gaping in the eerie silence. I finally leave, quietly.

But I can’t concentrate in class. Vedma’s always been eccentric; I love her for it. But my god, she’s absolutely gone round the bend this time. I rush home early.

When I open the cabinet, her eyes are dilated. She tumbles to the dusty floor, laughing, dazed, writhing slowly like a starfish.

"Ahh," she purrs. "The ultimate getaway."

She sits up, rubbing her jaw.

"What’s that look, Maddy? Noble, earnest Maddy, do you doubt the cabinet? You shall see."

Around the goddamn bend. I’ll have to call her parents.

She fumbles through her paperbacks until she finds a well-worn pastel book. I squint at its rococo cover art: Every Little Kiss.

It’s probably safest to humor her. I squirm into the cabinet, clasping the book to my chest.

Her smile is dazzling.

As soon as the doors close, a scent overwhelms me, filling my head until I can hardly think. Fresh roses. My eyes narrow with bliss. Then there’s suddenly so much space around my shoulders. I whimper. I’m having a delusion. Now I’ve gone mad too!

I open my eyes. For a psychotic episode, this is distinctly pleasant. Golden candlelight from countless ivory tapers. Gossamer drapes. A crackling fire.

I’m perched high on a petal-strewn bed. Its frothy pink coverlet tickles my bare legs. I look down and giggle at my nightie, short and fire-engine red.

I’m admiring my crimson toenails when the door slams open. Its frame is filled with a broad-shouldered man. His almond-shaped eyes are velvety brown, his freakishly beautiful face is edged with gleaming mahogany curls. My palms tingle.

He strides in, chin lowered. He wears only a pair of black shorts; the rest of him is lush olive flesh. The amber firelight laps up his trembling belly. I look away politely until I realize I’m supposed to stare. And admire.

When he falls to his knees by the bed, I cover my mouth.

"You may fear you’re my prisoner of love," he begins.

"Uh-oh!" A flower tumbles out of my hair.

"But it’s I, I, whose heart languishes in a gaol! My cold, proud beauty!"

"Me?"

I’m at a loss until he leaps on the bed, grabbing me to his alarming chest, flattening his palms against my back. He smells like musk and cinnamon. He stretches out on top of me. Our flushed skin clings wherever it touches – thighs, cheeks. His kiss is so thorough that a rush of sweetness cascades down my spine. I moan into his apple-fresh mouth.

When I finally draw one palm over his sweat-slick shoulders, he sighs and lets himself fall on me. I feel his cock nuzzling my hip – taut, searing heat. My cunt pulses to life. Its inner lips unfurl, wetting my panties with a brief, delicate kiss.

"How’s it going in there, Maddy?"

The scene dissolves in a spiral of blackness. All I see now is Vedma’s face at the cabinet door.

"Oh my god." My heart is racing like a rabbit’s.

"I’m sorry, hon. Those romance novels are too cheesy for words."

I blink, lightheaded. She approaches with an armful of paperbacks.

"How about...a sexy noir tale, The Harbor Lights Motel?" She lifts one vampy shoulder towards her chin.

"No."

"Whatever." She paws through the stack, finally pausing on a short, chubby novel. Disembodied scarlet lips pout on its stark white cover, just under the title: Zanzibar.

I shrug, defeated.

Again the doors close. I squeeze my eyes shut and fight a wave of nausea when movement overtakes me. I stretch my arms out, tentatively. A leather seat. A car? I open one eye. A limo.

I’m wearing a careless wisp of a dress, shimmering with plastic beads. The scene outside is a fantasy of New York, circa perhaps 1985. Pristine streets, a blithe bustle of gorgeous people.

I look forward again and bite back a scream at my reflection. My hair is a shellacked poof, easily four inches high. I’m afraid to touch it.

The compartment door opens and my image is replaced by the driver’s dimpled smirk.

"How is Manhattan’s most famous interior designer this evening?" He sounds like a DJ. "I know your fabulously wealthy parents were disappointed that you gave up your career as a concert cellist to follow your true gift, but look at you now! En route to an exclusive soiree at your lover’s penthouse suite."

"Indeed." I must have landed at the beginning of a chapter. This writer doesn’t skimp on the exposition.

The driver adjusts his cap, chuckling. He casts a perfunctory glance at the road before handing a fizzy glass back to me.

"Another Moet-and-Snow cocktail, Miss Zanzibar?"

The foam spills over my fingers. Penthouse suite? This could get very bad.

We stop at a red light. In the brief pulse of stillness, a melody, stinging and disconsolate, pushes at the tinted glass. I roll down the window. It’s coming from a foul box of a club. The marquee reads Spider Fingers, No Cover.

The music waves over us, heavy and soothing like a swath of dark satin. It’s dreamy, opulent, full of raw pain -- oddly incongruous with this whole scene.

It tugs at me till my insides ache.

"Could you pull over?"

The driver glares. His face clenches with alarm. "B-but the soiree!"

My eyes dart about. Can I change the course of the novel? I’m going to find out. I have to hear that music again.

I shove my shoulder into the door. It bursts open on the second try. I roll onto the gritty pavement, tearing my dress.

The set’s ending as I enter the club. A haze of tangy steam hangs just under the ceiling. The musician catches my eye immediately, glimmering uneasily like a firefly in the gloom. He descends from the stage to the murky floor. His eyes are crystalline teal.

He sees me and jumps, glancing around in a sudden panic. He nears quickly, his lean shoulders slanting though the crowd.

We stare in silence. His lashes are long and light. His hair is autumn-gold, the kind that darkens to auburn with age.

I’m about to speak but I stop short when he grabs my wrist. He scowls into my face as if nearsighted. "What are you doing here?"

I sputter and he turns abruptly, still holding my wrist. I stumble in his agitated wake. The nearest door opens on a strangely clean alley. It’s starting to rain.

He cradles my skull in his hands. I feel a spike of adrenaline. My spine shudders and I finally find my voice. "Hey!"

"Sorry, sorry." His hands drop and my skin feels lonely. "It’s just the first time in ages I’ve seen someone new, something different."

He bites his lip. His eyelids flutter. "I -- I don’t know how long I’ve been here," he murmurs. "At first it was fun. I mean, a rock star fantasy, who wouldn’t want to experience that?"

His shoulders heave. "But now I'm stuck in this nightmare that never ends."

Is he going to cry? I throw my arms around his neck.

He tightens the embrace, gathering my dress in his hands. His burning forehead rests on mine. He smells like fresh grass and pine sap.

"You just feel so real, I’m sorry." His fingers close around my shoulders and he pulls back, stammering.

"It’s all right." I lift my chin to his pale face. His lips taste sweet and metallic.

He breathes deep and fits his palms low over my hips. I roll my belly against his and let my fingers trace the spare, hard lines of his chest. A wave of furious desire makes me grab his shirt, working it out of his jeans. He lifts my dress and my naked ass twitches helplessly in the warm rain.

Without breaking the kiss he reaches to unzip, then cups my bare pussy in his palm. I feel the swollen labia straining to kiss his fingertips. He traces a lazy circle around my clit. My nipples burn like coals.

I slap his hand away. Bracing my palms on the dank mossy wall, I lift one leg to his waist and press my breasts into his heaving ribcage. My scent rises and I feel the satiny swell of his cock, a thick bulb against my inner lips. My cunt clutches at him but he pauses, kissing my neck before slowly lifting his hips. He seems to be entering me endlessly, filling a secret miserable emptiness.

I break my nails on the wall over his head, my pussy spasming over him again and again. He lifts his chin to the sky and thrusts, grunting, pushing into my guts and heart.

A flash of light makes us both cry out. He tries to shield me but we lose hold of each other in a gust of whistling darkness.

Then he’s falling backwards out of the cabinet. I land on his chest, knocking the wind out of him.

Vedma’s shriek explodes over our heads and we scream in response, rolling away from each other.

The room is flooded with late-afternoon sunlight. He sits up, looking at his hands. He's wearing a faded suit.

His smile warms my heart. "I’m out. You saved me!"

I gasp up at Vedma, stupefied, when he kisses my hands.

But she’s fidgeting, distracted. "Hey, you two can fill me in tomorrow morning. Get me out in time for breakfast, would you?"

She tears the wrapper off a new book as she curls into the cabinet. She flashes the cover at us, bobbing to some merry tune only she can hear. Pony Girl, Come Home. The cabinet rattles when she closes the doors.

His grateful head nestles in my lap. "How can I ever thank you?"

I hold his gaze for a breathless moment. Then we scramble, laughing, to my futon.

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