The Woman Who Made Me Feel Strange

by Anna Ferrara

  When I looked up again, Paul was looking a little stunned, for some reason. She stared right into my eyes—pupils completely dilated, cheeks thoroughly flushed—and pecked me lightly on the lips. “Let’s do it again,” she whispered before I could even say a word. “But go deeper.”

  I grinned and struggled to catch my breath. “Can’t we just take a min—”

  “No.” Her eyes glistened with anticipation as she pulled me over her knees and placed my hand between her legs. “Please.”

  The look on her face made my groin throb. I put two fingers together and inserted them, very slowly, into her vagina. Paul gasped and clutched at my arm when I did.

  “Tell me where to go,” I whispered as I explored her depths with both fingers.

  She heaved sharply and writhed. “Left…”

  I did as she said and came upon a familiar rough patch in the middle of the void of smooth flesh. I rubbed down on it. Hard.

  Paul gasped again, louder this time, and arched her back against the wall. She closed her eyes but her mouth remained wide open.

  I stroked the rough patch until it ballooned and became terribly swollen. Paul moaned and began taking deep, difficult breaths which resulted in me seeping wetness all over her knee. I found myself rubbing myself against her and moaning along with her when the right amount of pressure hit my groin. When her moans became louder and her breaths became more shallow, I found myself riding her knee more furiously and making the most pornographic of sounds.

  I don’t know why I suddenly found myself wishing Arden Villeneuve would see us. Perhaps because the beautiful room looked like something out of an arthouse film? Perhaps I wanted Arden Villeneuve to know I was happy without her? I don’t know, I really don’t, but somehow, I just suddenly wished Arden Villeneuve were there.

  I imagined her seated on the carpet right next to us with her fluffy golden hair glowing under light like it always did, watching our faces contort and our bodies squirm. I imagined her long, naked body rocking against her own feet; her face—with those cherubic rounded eyes and impeccably perfect features—losing their composure as she fingered her own full breasts. I imagined her body melting under pleasure, the way it always did every time I made love to her, and saw her mouth let loose desperate gasps as if she was about to die from the delightful sensations building within her. I imagined her reaching orgasm and crying out as she always used to—loud and unrestrained—and I—

  —felt the most pleasurable of sensations crest over my groin. I gasped, rocked and lurched backwards when the sensation burst into prominent pulsations of ecstasy that made my whole body shudder and go warm. I felt myself melt into Paul’s knee and lose all control of the muscles on my face and eyes right as—

  —Paul began crying out helplessly. Her body shook as a thick wetness appeared all over my thrusting fingers and her thighs and knee began to tremble. Together, we made such a racket, I was certain the neighbours would be able to hear but I couldn’t stop nor did I want to stop her. We simply screamed and clutched at each other while our bodies went wild until we, at last, both became limp and quiet again.

  When I opened my eyes, I found blood on my fingers and Paul staring down at them as if in shock.

  Without looking at or saying a single word to me, Paul picked herself up and went to take a shower.

  Chapter 13

  22 June 2030

  At 3pm the next afternoon, Paul and I found ourselves back at the same long communal table at the same industrial eatery we had been eating lunch at the day before. This time, however, the energy between us was different.

  Paul had on a solemn expression the whole time. She kept her head angled towards her cheese-covered marinara pizza and put bites in her mouth so mechanically, it almost looked as if she were a robot programmed to wipe food off the face of the planet.

  In the seat opposite her, I nursed a pounding hangover headache by kneading the side of my forehead between three fingers. The two bottles of wine at dinner the night before had definitely been a bad idea, I realised, when I found myself also hardly able to swallow the hot-smoked salmon bagel in front of me. Finishing food was the least of my problems though.

  “Is everything alright?” I decided to ask when the silence between Paul and I became too unbearable. It clearly wasn’t—Paul hadn’t said a word to me all day—but I didn’t know how else to ease her into talking about it, especially since she wouldn’t even look at me.

  “Yes,” she said to her food.

  Damn. “Was... last night... okay?”

  “No.” Paul looked up for one humourless second and turned her eyes away from mine before I could even register them there. “You’re not the type of person I’m looking for.”

  Okay. My cheeks began to burn as if I got myself too much sun so I stuffed a chunk of bagel into my mouth and tried to look busy until my cheeks calmed down.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled when the dry clump of dough went down my throat at last. I didn’t know what else to say. I could tell I had done something horribly wrong and wished my pounding brain would just wake up and tell me exactly what—

  Paul slammed a ball of cash and the keycard to Room 103 onto the table. “Look, we should get some time alone and think about where we really want to go from here. I’ll see you back at the room tonight.” She abruptly got up, made a cringe-inducing screech with her chair as she pushed it out, and walked away.

  I panicked. If Paul never came back, what would I do with myself? I grabbed the two items on the table and ran after her. “Paul! Wait—”

  A passing waitress holding a pot of coffee extended an arm and blocked me. “Would you like the check?” she asked with eyes full of suspicion.

  “It’s to be billed to Room 103,” I said. I tried to move past her arm but she found a way to keep it in front of me anyhow.

  “Still requires your signature. I’ll get it for you right away if you’ll just stay right here, okay?”

  “Fine!”

  By the time I turned my eyes from the waitress’ stern ones, Paul was already halfway across the lobby.

  “Paul!” I shouted as loudly as I could. “Can we do dinner? See you at seven? At the lobby?”

  Every single person between me and Paul turned to me and stared in amusement. But Paul did not.

  She went right out the main doors of The Canned Food Factory Hotel without turning back even once.

  Without Paul by my side, downtown Brooklyn wasn’t in the least fun at all.

  I got some aspirin for my heavy head but didn’t dare spend the rest of the money, lest I never saw Paul again. With shopping, cafe-hopping and practically everything else we had been doing the day before no longer an option, the three hours and fifteen minutes I had before seven in the evening began to feel more like a burden than a blessing. I found myself dragging my feet amidst excited tourists and purposeful locals, feeling very much left out of things again, as I had been for most of my life. I found myself thinking a lot about Paul, or, more specifically, Paul’s sudden change of attitude.

  Was I a drunken mistake she regretted? Was she simply heterosexual, upset because she knew she had too carelessly given up her virginity to a woman? Maybe what she really wanted was many men and babies and was just afraid I might come in the way of that? Maybe all I needed to do was let her know I didn’t expect a relationship with her? After all, I really didn’t. I did like her and enjoyed the sex immensely, true, but if all Paul wanted was a platonic relationship, I would be perfectly fine with that too! All I needed from her was, to be very blunt, the infinite cash only she would give me—the cash which allowed me to do whatever I wanted without having to worry, go back to Wonderdrug or, worse, work.

  That was the real reason I was so afraid of losing her, I realised. The real reason I wanted to have dinner with her so badly. I wanted to find out what she really wanted of me. Whatever Paul needed me to be, I would be, no problem. I just needed to make sure she was aware of that.


  In the meantime, the free public library was the only place I dared to—could afford to—be.

  The Brooklyn Public Library, a four-storey brick structure, was well lit and airy on the inside. It would have been a really pleasant place to spend an afternoon had there not been children and teens capering about the first two floors, destroying the quiet with their high-pitched murmurs and thumping footsteps.

  I didn’t know where to go to find a chair to sit in. I hadn’t been to a library since middle school. The consensus was that only major nerds and those who couldn’t afford to buy their own books ever visited libraries so, because I didn’t want to be seen as poor or uncool, I actually refused to step into any library to get the books I couldn’t get digitally, even when the consequence was flunking out. Unfortunately, on that particular afternoon in Brooklyn, I no longer had that much of a choice.

  I found myself staring at a sign hanging from the ceiling for a good few minutes trying to figure out where to go. ‘Non-fiction - L4. Fiction - L3. Young Adult - L2. Children’s Library - L1. Information Commons - B1.’ Next to the words ‘Information Commons’ was the icon of a computer and an arrow pointing down at the flight of stairs right under the sign.

  I didn’t actually want to read anything—I thought paper books smelled dirty, like mould, and preferred not to have to touch any—so I ended up taking the stairs to the basement. On the way down, I thought of a way to make my three hours fly by.

  There were only six computers at the Information Commons which was really a small, barely decorated space with a few instructional posters pasted on the walls. Four of the computers were taken by teens working on school papers (I think), one was taken by an elderly woman writing a resume of some sort (again, I presume) but there was one computer that wasn’t taken, so I took that.

  I opened a web browser, brought up a search engine’s homepage and stared at it while tapping my fingernail repeatedly against the keyboard’s trackpad.

  Should I search for news about the falling incident? Or shouldn’t I? Should I? Or shouldn’t I? Should I or shouldn’t I?

  What if the truth about the falling incident was that I had fallen from five storeys and not fifty? What if I found out I wasn’t actually dead? What if I really had been admitted to the Wonderdrug Psychiatric Centre because I was simply mentally ill? Then what? Would all the freedom I now possessed vanish in an instant? Was knowing the truth really worth losing freedom for?

  Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Should I or shouldn’t I? Should I or shouldn’t I? Should I or shouldn’t I? Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap—

  “Are you gonna use it or not?” a gruff male voice said.

  I turned and found a middle-aged man standing next to me with five books stacked in his hands. A translucent file containing a thick stack of papers sat atop the stack. He was balding, smelled like a stale deli, and stared at me in a manner that couldn’t be considered friendly.

  “Make way if you aren’t,” he added. Firmly.

  I looked around and saw the five other individuals at the Information Commons typing furiously on the computers in front of them with thoughtful expressions on their faces.

  I was the only one who had been staring at a screen without typing a single letter. I guess the balding man thought he deserved the computer more than me because he was going to type more on it than I ever would. As if only productive people deserved to get to use free things.

  “I am using it,” I said through gritted teeth. The balding man looked terribly hostile so I decided to be hostile as well. “I need some information and I lost my phone.”

  Just to prove a point, I typed ‘lane thompson death’ into the computer’s search field with loud, dramatic clicks of the keyboard. I smashed the enter button so hard when I was done, everyone looked over in my direction.

  The search engine delivered results in the blink of an eye. Six news articles in total.

  I turned to the balding man and stared till he felt uncomfortable enough to move away. Then, I turned back to the screen as if I really wanted to know what the search results said, even though I didn’t really. Not entirely.

  Five of the six articles in the search engine’s results I had read before. They were about my parents’ and uncle’s deaths. There was only one new one, titled ‘Shanty Apartment Death Ruled A Suicide’.

  A suicide? Not a murder? Did that mean Dr Clark hadn’t been lying? Tap, tap, tap, tap... Should I? Shouldn’t I? Should I? Shouldn’t I?

  The balding man standing at the corner with his stack of books sighed loudly enough for me to hear and watched me with some sort of snarl on his face.

  Fucking hell, I thought. I clicked on the article and prayed it would be enough to make the darned balding man take his darned eyes off me.

  ‘Shanty Apartment Death Ruled A Suicide by blah blah blah.

  30-year-old Lane Thompson stunned residents of Far Rockaway early last Sunday when she fell from the roof of her rented home—a 50-storey tenement already plagued by a sordid history of murder and forced burglary. The freelance masseuse crashed onto the tarmac below where she lay in a pool of her own blood until paramedics arrived.

  Against the odds, Thompson survived the fall but failed to thrive and died the very next day at St John’s Hospital where she was being treated in intensive care.

  Foul play and gang violence were initially thought to have contributed to her death but cameras around the building revealed Thompson alone on the roof right up to the moment of the fall. Further investigation revealed an unmarried individual with poor academic credentials, zero assets and no history of stable employment. Colleagues at her last known place of freelance engagement, The Gentlemen’s Dinner Club, speculate that her troubled relationships or lack thereof might have taken their toll on her.

  Thompson’s body was not claimed and has since been taken care of by the state.

  The New York Police Department recommends everyone look out for those with symptoms of depression and lead them to doctors for treatment before it becomes too late. Those who recognise symptoms in themselves should also get help as soon as they can.

  Depression can cause difficulty with concentration, detail recall and decision-making. Sufferers may also experience decreased energy, feelings of guilt, worthlessness, hopelessness or pessimism, persistent sad, anxious or ‘empty’ feelings and persistent thoughts of suicide.

  Early use of prescription medication and psychotherapy could help prevent depression from worsening further. Talk to your doctor for more information.’

  My heart felt as if it were chugging along as fast as a moving train by the time I was done reading. Suicide? Death? And depression? I was dead from an ailment I hadn’t realised I had? From an action I hadn’t realised I had taken? And yet I wasn’t really dead at all? What the fuck was really going on? I threw myself back into the chair, buried my nose and lips under the front of my t-shirt and tried my very best to remain calm.

  The article was dated ‘12 May 2030’. Seven days, exactly one week, after the falling incident. The date that day? ‘22 June 2030’, the computer said. Just a month and a half after the falling incident, not three years.

  I heaved a sigh of relief, thankful that the year the computer said it was matched the year Paul said it was. If the years matched up, everything else she had ever said—amazing regenerative abilities, CRO, not having to ever work for money—would also be true, wouldn’t it?

  There was only one problem. Why in the world did I think I got pushed by a blond person with red lipstick when there hadn’t been anyone else with me on the roof? And why did the police and my colleagues think I was depressed when I hadn’t realised I was? The smell of a stale deli entered my nostrils.

  “You look done,” a familiar gruff voice said.

  Dammit. Without Paul, I was once again the type of person who needed to fight for everything at every moment in time. The type of person who got thrown into an unmarked mass grave in death. The type of person who di
dn’t even get to use a public computer in peace. I pushed back the chair as rudely as I could, stood, and gave the stinking, balding man the coldest of stares. “Have. It.” Asshole.

  I walked away, back up the stairs to the first floor, but heard the balding man make a sexist comment about me anyway. Fucker. Good thing I had better things to think of.

  Like... Why in the world couldn’t I remember wanting to jump, or even the actual jump itself? It wasn’t like I had no memories of that night, like it was with the nights my parents and uncle died. I did have a memory of the night of the falling incident; I remembered calmly dealing with being dumped by Arden Villeneuve and getting pushed. That was always the memory my mind gave me. Why?

  Some kid shorter than my armpits rammed right into my legs and nearly knocked me off the stairs. She dashed off without a word of apology just as her friend, equally short, stepped on my new sneakers as he ran by me as well. I wished them both the worst of lives, grabbed the handrail next to me for added support and stopped in the middle of the staircase to properly think.

  I had to find out what I was really like right before the falling incident, I realised. I had to know if I was really depressed, or even suicidal. That was the only way I was going to be able to know what really happened on the night of the falling incident. And who would know best? There was only one person who would properly know.

  Arden Villeneuve.

  At the library’s check out counter on the first floor, I asked to borrow a phone. I said I lost mine and needed to call my husband to arrange where we were going to meet later on.

  The two ladies behind the check out counter were elderly with greying hair but had thoroughly powdered faces and lipstick that was thicker than mine. They nodded sympathetically and put the desk phone that had been sitting between them onto the counter for me.