DRAKE~THE SCORCH TRIALS

I just want some h--d in a comfortable bed, it could all be so simple. Well I've got a 5 ft 9 brunette on a 5 by 4 king size. There's some Don Perion champagne in a cauldron of ice; compliments of the hotel manager. My top floor room has a sky line of the better half of New York and if I squint a little, I can see the streets below, everything and everyone that is beneath me; that's a lot of people.

The brunette stirs. She's prettier than I remember, with high cheekbones and legs for days. For a second or two I consider going in for a second helping, but then, it's the morning after a one night stand, no need to ruin things.

So far it's a slow morning and I'm winging it. For the first time in a while I don't know what I want to do next. Not that there aren't events and schedules-I've got things to do, but nothing I want to do. Perhaps the brunette will make for some fine conversation.

Hey, I say and panic for a bit. What if she doesn't speak English?

Hey, she says back with a wry smile, like she had read my mind.

How'd you sleep? I ask.

Like a baby, you?

Nightmares.

Gangsters have nightmares too? She says, shocked. A moment passes and then there's a paroxysm of laughter.

You're funny. I say.

Funnier than you. She quips. So what was the dream about?

It's weird.

Spill.

Well I was standing over this pond, a real big pond. A pond that has all these twists and turns like one of them water park rides, only it's flat not vertical.

Interesting she says. Pretending  not to be amused, all the while making it obvious that she is

No, the interesting thing is what was inside the pond.

Pray tell.

Sharks. Big ones and little ones and some medium sized ones.

Fascinating!

No, what's fascinating is it felt like I was rearing them. Like they were pets or something, and the ironic thing is, I hate sharks! Literally AND figuratively. I mean, their survival is based on hunting after the weak. So one minute your swimming side by side, fin to fin in perfect harmony, next thing you're injured and just when you need help the most they turn on you.

Wow, what did sharks ever do to you?

Let's just say I've known some walking, talking sharks in my time.

Hm.A dangerous game...

What? I ask, snapped out of my reveriè.

A dangerous game. She gets off the bed then, and prances off to the bathroom.

When she returns I ask her. What's a dangerous game?

She gets back under the covers, swinging one unending leg after the other till she's swallowed in a river of white. Well, she begins, I spent the first dozen years of my life growing up on a quaint little street in Russia.

Russia? I didn't spot an accent.

Shut up. As I was saying. There was an old woman who lived a couple houses down from us. One of those really old sagacious types that read palms and can tell a witch from a cat.

I see.

Shut up. She was really nice and sweet and I used to go over to her place a lot. On one of those days she sits me down and tells me a story about some old slavers who used to live up north. They sold and bought women until one day, the girls formed a union and rebelled.

Awn, that's a nice human rights story. I say half mocking. What's it got to do with my dream though?

I wasn't finished. When the girls got liberated, they made a good life for themselves, and it was legal too. They thrived for so long and they kept in touch.

Sweet, sweet, sweet. Still looking for relevance.

Have you no chill? One day they had a full scale reunion. And after the drinks, and the laughs and the tears. You know what these middle aged upper middle class women decided?

What?

To open a brothel.

Wow. Why?

That's the same thing I asked her, and she said sometimes we exorcise our demons, only to become them.

I don't get it.

She called it the scorch trials. You get exposed to some fire, you flinch, you recoil, but even though you're scalded a part of you liked the warmth, and it's a trial in that you must decide whether to stay away, or to return...

Like a moth to a flame. I interject.

Yes, like a moth to a flame. She concurs.

So you're saying I've become a shark.

I'm saying just because you got away from something, doesn't mean you got over it and it's a beautiful thing to go from being tormented by a thing to becoming master of it, despite the consequences.

At this I turn aside and a silence creeps upon us.

Get out, I say gravelly, finally.

What? She's shocked. She sits up on the bed, but only a little.

I said, please leave. I turn back to her now. She looks in my eyes and determines I'm serious. She gets up and slowly starts to pick her things off of the ground-trails of clothing that lead away from the bed and towards the door. After she's done she begins dressing up, till finally she's clutching her matching bag and heels to her chest and boring a hole in the back of my head.

Why? She asks after she's done glaring.

Because I still really hate sharks.

"When a defiling evil spirit is expelled from someone, it drifts along through the desert looking for an oasis, some unsuspecting soul it can bedevil. When it doesn't find anyone, it says, 'I'll go back to my old haunt.' On return it finds the person spotlessly clean, but vacant. It then runs out and rounds up seven other spirits more evil than itself and they all move in, whooping it up. That person ends up far worse off than if he'd never gotten cleaned up in the first place."- Jesus Christ.