His Favorite Girl

by Steph Sweeney

  In the shower room, I stepped up onto the ledge at the corner of the pool and walked it up to the space behind the tropical plants. I scooted the heavy vent cover to the right and sat on my shins in front of the open duct, peering inside.

  Mustering the courage to crawl inside was less difficult when I had another huge worry to distract myself. Images of a threesome between Flora, Liu, and James kept flashing through my mind, filling me with confusing feelings of insecurity, anger, and jealousy. Then, of course, guilt. Some sinister part of me wanted Flora all to myself, wanted to preserve her delicate innocence, like trying to guard a sand castle from the tide simply because I wanted to be the one to smash it.

  I took the flashlight out, clicked the button, and pointed it into the darkness. The air duct was plenty wide enough for me, but I had a hard time imagining Clifton squeezing himself through. If nothing else, that smelly sack of shit had determination.

  I took a deep breath and crawled inside, holding the flashlight between my teeth. I was maybe six feet in when I could no longer hear the splashing of the waterfall. Silence so absolute all I heard was a ringing in my ears.

  Up ahead I saw an intersection. I approached it slowly, already entertaining thoughts of tentacles slithering around the corner, giant rats barreling down on me like a fighting bull, or, worse than anything, squishing a big sack of freshly hatched spiders with my palm.

  I crawled on my hands and knees, surveying the floor with the flashlight, keeping my legs locked into the corners so as not to put weight in the center. I’d seen enough movies to know air duct floors can pop like the seal tester on the lid of a jar, information I never thought I’d need.

  But here I was, breathing dust and sweating my ass off, despite the cool air drifting past me.

  When I came to the intersection I stopped to study each direction. The right came to a dead end. Light filtered in through a vent cover on either side. These were dorms. Lodging for Level C employees, including James and the cafeteria workers.

  The left duct looked exactly the same, only down at the end was an opening leading upward.

  Straight ahead, I could see another intersection. I also noticed something about the walls and floor. The ducts to the left and right were carpeted on all sides by years and years of dust buildup. Behind me and ahead of me, though, Clifton’s travels had swept away much of the dust—or he himself kept his favorite paths clean.

  I decided to follow his lead. Otherwise I was likely to get lost.

  As I crawled slowly up the shaft, I began to imagine what I might encounter, what rooms I might peek into, what conversations I might hear—and from whom. And the deeper I crawled, the more afraid of getting caught I became.

  Clifton’s path took me all the way to the end of the duct where it went right and left. The right side ended as abruptly as those before it. Its sides and floor were dusty but I could see tracks where Clifton had crawled through it before.

  To the left was his most common route, but I decided to go right and peek through the only vent cover.

  It was no bigger than a college dorm room. Tile floor, bluish-gray walls, a twin-size bed and a small desk against one wall, a dresser with a nineteen-inch television on top against the other, right next to a closed bathroom door.

  It was clearly a girl’s room, which explained Clifton’s occasional voyeurism here. A set of clothes was laid out neatly on the bed: long cream-colored skirt, white collar top, white panties, white socks, and a white bra.

  I realized I could hear the shower running in the bathroom only when it suddenly turned off. Then suddenly I became Clifton for a moment, excited to be spying on someone whom I might very soon see naked.

  As I waited, I studied the room for any indication of its occupant, and right before the bathroom door opened I spotted the perfect clue. A pair of glasses on the desk.

  Judy’s glasses.

  She emerged from the bathroom in a towel, wiping her face and walking slowly, almost tiptoeing.

  It took me a moment to realize she was crying.

  I almost called out to her but then remembered where I was. She was already upset. Something this strange might frighten her to death.

  Judy removed her bathrobe and I drew in a sharp breath, covering my mouth quickly for fear that she’d heard me. She hadn’t. She was weeping now as she toweled her face and her hair. And I could clearly see why.

  Her entire back was blue and purple. Someone had been beating her in places where no one would notice. She wasn’t just upset. She was in pain.

  I had to tell Patton about this.

  But then, how would I explain it to him? Judy wasn’t allowed to talk to me.

  A lump formed in my throat and my eyes started to water. I had no choice but to back up to the intersection before I started crying.

  I headed the other direction, following Clifton’s route, deliberating in the darkness which of these bastards had hurt Judy. Sean? Mr. Shriver? The nameless guard whose penis Judy had bitten off? Brian?

  Up ahead was a grate with a large fan behind it. I felt the breeze from it growing stronger and stronger, cooling my face and drying the sweat. It looked like a dead end but I continued on, trusting in Clifton’s track marks. Sure enough, about ten feet shy of the fan was another vent, only this one didn’t have a cover. Whatever room it led to was pitch black. I pointed the flashlight down there and found, to my amazement, a crude wooden staircase erected from two-by-fours and two-by-sixes.

  I had to crawl past the vent and flip over on my back so I could get my legs through first. It took quite a bit of maneuvering and as I slipped out of the air duct and onto the staircase I couldn’t help but wonder how Clifton could manage to birth himself from there when it was such a tight squeeze for me.

  Unsure of the staircase’s stability, I crab-walked down it slowly, lighting my way with the flashlight. When my feet touched the ground, I paced around the room looking for a light switch. I had to do two laps before I realized something very peculiar about this room. I had trouble finding the light switch because light switches are normally next to the door.

  This room had no door.

  I flipped the switch.

  “Holy shit.”

  The wall was bare sheetrock, the tiles below powdered with white residue from sanded drywall mud. Clifton had closed off part of a larger room without anyone noticing. He must have spent years secretly forging his own secret passageway through this facility. The dimwitted half-brother stowed away on the utility floor, clearly more intelligent than anyone credited him.

  It didn’t take long to come upon the most amazing part of Clifton’s work: underneath the wooden staircase, he’d installed a trap door in the floor.

  Above the staircase, a tile from the dropped ceiled was missing right above the vent. These were hatches leading to Level B and Level D.

  The only question was where did they lead to? Did Clifton have a secret room on every floor, all directly above and below the others, from which he accessed the air ducts? That would mean a lot of planning, studying blueprints, working under false pretense, and outsmarting his brothers—even Brian, whom I’d come to look upon as the smartest among them.

  I approached the trap door under the staircase and knelt to study it. It looked like he’d taken a normal wooden door and cut it into a three-by-three square, equally above and below the knob.

  I couldn’t bring myself to open it. Suddenly I wanted to go back. There would be plenty of time to explore Clifton’s labyrinth. I had a date tonight.

  I started back up the wooden staircase and only made it a few steps before coming back down and shutting off the light. Only a meticulous person would have the patience and insight to do what Clifton had done, and a meticulous person would not forget to turn a light off.

  When I reached the top of the steps, I pointed my flashlight up through the hole in the ceiling and jumped so hard it left me with a sense of vertigo. Dangling above me was a rope ladder—my immediate impression being two snakes.
>
  I took a moment to breath, then gripped the bottom rung and used it to steady myself while I stood up through the hole in the dropped ceiling. I pointed the flashlight up again and illuminated a concrete slab with a hole busted through it large enough for Clifton to squeeze through. Just above the hole, a trap door identical to the other.

  The rope ladder hung from metal rings attached to bolts driven into the concrete. The sight of it made me nervous, even when I considered that it supported Clifton’s weight. My heart was still pounding, and the darkness only perpetuated my fear.

  Yet somehow I found myself climbing the rope ladder—not an easy task to go at completely blind. The rungs were rounded lengths of wood, like sawed-off pieces of broom handle, and the ropes creaked each time I took a step.

  By the time my head touched the trap door I was exhausted. I hadn’t exercised regularly since high school, and then only in gym class. If I planned on climbing and crawling through this building, it might be time to take advantage of the home gym in my room.

  I held tight to the top rung with one hand and used the other to turn the knob and fling the trap door open, ducking when it crested, teetered for a moment, and then slammed shut just over my head. I tried again, giving it everything I had. This time it fell the other way, crashing into the floor of whatever room stood above me.

  Climbing up through the hole in the floor was the biggest challenge yet. I had to step up the final rungs of the ladder with my hands on the concrete. One little slip and I would crash through the dropped ceiling and probably break my legs on Clifton’s makeshift staircase. Then I would lie there in the dark, alone, in agony, and die a slow death. Best case scenario would be Clifton finding me and putting me out of my misery early.

  But I made it, and the first thing I did was close the door.

  Next I found the light switch. Luckily this room was nearly identical to the one below. The same splintery staircase leading up to the same uncovered vent. The only difference I could find was the absence of another trap door in the ceiling. Either Clifton couldn’t access Level E—Mr. Shriver’s floor—due to a difference in the floor plan, or he had simply chosen not to take the risk.

  I also considered the possibility that this was still a work in progress.

  In any case, I hurried up the stairs and crawled into the air duct, shining my flashlight ahead as I slowly and carefully crawled along his path.

  The first junction I came to gave me the option of going on ahead or taking a right. From the pattern of dust on the walls and floor, Clifton seemed to enjoy both directions.

  I went straight ahead, passing two vents that led into rooms with the lights shut off and unable to muster the courage to shine my flashlight inside.

  Soon I came to another junction—again a right turn, and again I kept going straight. Up ahead I could see another vent with light spilling through.

  I slowed my pace, afraid someone might hear me and utterly terrified that I would stumble upon something I didn’t want to see. On any other level I expected atrocity, but here on Level D these young girls lived simple but relatively happy lives until being chewed up and spat out by the company. If I discovered something sinister happening here … if Patton wasn’t who I thought he was …

  A few feet shy of the vent, I heard his voice. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I peered down into what looked like an examination room in a doctor’s office.

  On the matted table sat the eldest Flora, the next up for graduation. She had her arms crossed over her stomach, her head down.

  Patton sat on a rolling stool, elbows on his knees, looking up at her.

  My first impression was that she’d fallen ill. A stomach ache, maybe.

  Until she spoke.

  “I can’t help it, Mr. Patton,” she said, raising her face to look him in the eyes. “I’m in love with you.”

  I took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly through my nose.

  Patton did the same.

  “Flora, you’re not in love with me,” he said. “I know you believe that, but it’s just because I’m the only man you’ve ever met.”

  “You’re the only one I want to meet!” Her voice broke and she covered her face with her hands for a moment, sobbing. “When I graduate I’m gonna have to marry someone I don’t know. I don’t want to. I want to marry you.”

  “I’m sorry, Flora. I’m with Melissa now.”

  Flora nodded. She seemed to calm down a bit. “I d-don’t want to hurt anyone. I can’t help how I feel. Please don’t tell Melissa.”

  “I won’t. I promise.” He stood and put an arm around her. When he spoke, I could hear a hitch in his voice. “You know I’m here for you, right?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “You and the others. We’re a family, and nothing will ever change that.”

  Flora broke down in tears again. She slid off the table slowly, as though she’d suffered an injury, and hugged Patton around his waist, crying into his shirt. He hugged her back, petting the top of her head.

  “I hope my husband is just like you.”

  Patton grimaced and wiped his reddened cheek.

  “I hope so too,” he said.

  ─A Date─

  “BEFORE YOU go trying to pull some shit, keep in mind this is your only chance. If any of you breaks even one rule, James will lose his job and the two of you won’t see the other side of this door for a long time.”

  James put his hands in the air like a criminal surrendering, giving me that annoying smirk of his. He thought he was the coolest guy around—pretty much the exact opposite of Pete, whom I could have left alone with the girls without giving it a second thought—and Flora in particular was clearly falling for it. She stood there with her fingers interlocked over her stomach, hair freshly combed with a little white bow on her temple, looking like the cutest, most innocent thing in the world in her textured white sundress.

  Liu was smitten as well, but I got the feeling she was just putting on a show to mask her jealousy. She really wanted Flora.

  In contrast, Liu didn’t look so innocent. She’d also raided Kate’s wardrobe today, coming out with a tightly fitted red dress that rode way too high on her hips and, with no bra, formed a distinct outline of her nipples.

  It’s funny how girls fall for the cocky, over-confident personality types as teenagers but find the same men pathetic by the time they hit their mid-twenties.

  All I wanted to say was, He’s just trying to get his dick wet. Stay away from him.

  But that’s a slippery slope. Girls need to make their own decisions when it comes to dating and sex. Once you start cock-blocking because you don’t like the guy, you quickly find yourself deciding no one is good enough for your daughter—or sex slave, in my case.

  I stood between James and the girls like a referee before a fight explaining the rules. A self-appointed mother figure with no real experience to back up my play. I had no problem bossing James around—I even enjoyed it—but doing so to Liu and especially Flora made me feel like nothing more than a bitchy older sister.

  I was trying to keep this brief. The girls had already asked why I was wearing a duster. I felt awkward enough sporting Kate’s lingerie—a white see-through top with a white thong—and the only thing I could find to wear from here to Patton’s apartment was this long black coat that looked like it had belonged to a man.

  Kate must have been screwing someone.

  Now, with James here, I felt awkward and exposed. I’d been sweating since he walked through the door. I just wanted to get the hell out of here.

  “We’ll be good,” Flora said, breaking a long silence. “I promise.”

  “I know you’ll be good, Flora,” I replied with immediate regret when I saw the embarrassed look on Liu’s face.

  Trying as she was on my patience, Liu was still a young, tender girl with a crush, and I’d just made her sound like a slut.

  “I know you’ll both be good,” I corrected. Then I turned to James. “All of you, ri
ght?”

  “Yes ma’am,” James said. “I mean Melissa—yes, Melissa.”

  An awkward moment passed. Suddenly I felt like everyone was just waiting for me to leave, which didn’t bode well for the prospect of a harmless, innocent evening, but I couldn’t take this anymore.

  In an impatient, deadpan voice, Liu said, “Have fun on your big date.”

  My guilt for insulting her drove me out the door, but along the way I snatched James by the arm and dragged him into the hall, pulling the door closed behind me.

  “Listen,” I said, pointing my finger in his face, “if you so much as touch either one of them, I’m going to have Sean cut your dick off and stuff it down your throat. Got it? I’m not fucking around.”

  James sighed and rolled his eyes, no doubt lighting mine up with fury. “Melissa, you’re just beating a dead horse at this point,” he said. “I know the rules and I know how to follow them. I’m not an animal. If you’d at least give me a chance you’d see that.”

  “I am giving you a chance, dipshit. This is it, right here.”

  I saw Patton coming around the corner, so I opened the door, waved to the girls, and, giving James one final glare, hurried up the hallway to intercept my date.

  Patton had a goofy grin on his face and was holding his arms out for a hug.

  “Why are you wearing a coat? You cold or something?”

  “Mind your own business.”

  “What are you wearing under there?”

  “Nothing that concerns you.”

  This had become our routine. Patton attempts to annoy me with prying questions and I pretend to bull up about it. Then I pinch his nipple hard and he tickles me, evoking loud shrieks that echo down the hallway, just so he can warn me somberly to keep my volume down, all the while continuing to tickle me.

  By the time we reached the elevator I was ready to attack him, but when I tried to kiss him he backed away.

  “Dinner first.”

  I laughed and tried to grab his dick, but he jumped back from that, too.

  “Melissa,” he said sternly.

  “Patton,” I mocked, sticking my tongue out at him, but his grave expression remained.