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Mercedes' Author Survey
"Room service," the slightly high-falsetto voice called as her knuckles rapped against the mahogany wood of the door marked "243" in gold lettering. Her knees felt shaky, legs as though they knew she was about to parachute out of a plane.
"Just a moment," replied the boy-ish voice she only knew too well. Her mouth seemed to quaver as though his lips had just crashed upon her own and trailed down her neck, the ethereal taste of his mouth stinging her own like a dream filled with hypnogogic imagery. She had thought of this ravishment many a time, the blissful fantasy that seemed to go on forever, falling asleep to the distant thought of his fingers tangling in her hair as he pulled her towards him. Whispers garbled to hopeless inarticulacies that had never been murmured against her cheek in the first place -- and here she stood. With only a door to separate them.
The clicks of latches interrupted her nervous nostalgia, and the singing as the brass knob slicked against its frame, the light creak that emitted as he pulled the door open -- and then there he was. Elijah Jordan Wood. Smiling curiously at her.
Curiously, because at that instant he could see that this was no hotel maid, dressed down in jeans, sneakers, and a blue hooded sweater. His first thought was, "Oh. This isn't right." His second came too late as the realization, "Oh shit. Another stalker!" Thus he was down to his instant reflexes, which had slowed down over the course of video game indulgence.
An instant prior to Elijah's attempt at slamming the door closed, the girl's leg shot between the door-jam, and she soon over powered the young man. Shoving her hip against his as she deliberately knocked him off balance, he fell to the floor and she took the advantage to slip inside the room and lock the door behind her.
He lay gasping on the amethyst carpet, "I take it you want something?"
Her back was pressed against the door as she stared down at him. Mildly shocked at herself for getting this far.
"Er... this is going to sound a little strange," she started.
Elijah coiled up into a sitting position and smiled wryly. "Oh really? Well that's good, I wouldn't want to hear something ordinary and insipid after having a random teenage girl physically force her way into my hotel room."
She laughed, "Yeah, sorry about that. But I didn't know how else I could get a hold of you."
"Yeah, me neither, what with all the fans I have to deal with coming to the Thumbsucker set every day and pining for autographs, radio interviews -- which has an autograph-session I might add --, Powell's wanted me to come down and sign books! Books that I haven't even read but have my face on the covers of!" He paused. "And then there are the sporadic ambushes. But I won't go into those."
Joining Elijah on the carpet, the girl argued, "But those are all so impersonal. And I have a serious dilemma that I was hoping you might be able to help me with."
He raised his eyebrows, "Oh? And what might that be?"
She took a deep breath, "I don't have a date to my school homecoming dance and I was wondering if you'd be so charitable as to donate your time to be my date?" She bit her lip and had one eyebrow raised, that combined with the current situation caused Elijah to chuckle.
Oh my god. You are such an idiot! Stupid, stupid, shit, shit, shit!
"Look--"
"No, now you look! You are in a potentially dangerous situation with a stranger in a locked hotel room. I could easily overpower you and have my way with you -- but no! I'm being rational and serious."
"A potentially dangerous stranger who I could sue for breaking and entering, assault, and stalking, who has just asked me to come to a little school dance with her!" His eyes widened, "I don't even know your name! I don't even know how old you are!"
She smiled. "My name is Lila and I'm fifteen. I enjoy tennis, ballet, Middle Eastern food, Arizona sunsets and walks on the beach."
Elijah glanced over at the window which framed the gloomy city of Portland, Oregon: overcast, dark, and gushing down rain. "You're fifteen?" She nodded. "And why don't you have a date?"
"Because the guy I like has a crush on my friend who I can't, like, chop into little bits and throw into the Willamette."
"Willamette?"
"It's that nasty-ass, polluted river."
"Oh." He paused, thinking things over. "So... you can't backstab your friend who's taking the attention off you... but you can break into my hotel room. Hm. Makes sense."
"Well... I'm a vegetarian."
He laughed, "Makes perfect sense then!"
"Well, I don't like blood!" she clarified.
"Good. Makes me feel a little bit safer."
She scoffed, "I'm fifteen! What am I gonna do to you?"
"Oh I don't know... maybe rape me!"
A nostalgic smile floated onto her face, "Ya know there's a really good Nirvana song called 'Rape Me'. I was at this party once, and my mom's friend's son, who's your age, was like, 'Hey do you wanna listen to some music?' and I was like, 'Yeah, do you have that one Nirvana CD with Heart-Shaped Box on it?' and he was like 'Yeah,' so he gets it, right, and is like, 'Ya know it'd be funny if we put on Rape Me. I wonder what all the moms'd say.'"
"Erm, what relevance did that have?"
"Zip."
"That's what I thought."
"Anyway," she made a motion with her hand so as to wave away the former distracted conversation. "Would you like to go with me? I have a great dress, it's pink and long and sort of fluffy, but not with fluff, fluffy with gauze. I was going to make some faery wings to go on it, but if I'm not going to have a date I won't waste my time." She looked at him pleadingly. Her eyes bugging slightly, eyebrows quirked together to form a pathetic-puppy face or, as a friend had once called it, her "love eyes" face.
It usually worked. Unless they looked away, which Elijah was now deciding whether or not to do.
Jesus! They tell me I have big blue eyes, hers are freakin' ... Jesus!
Lila could see him crumbling from her gaze, careful not to crack a smile, she pouted and added solemnly: "Please, just do this for me and I'll never watch another movie you're in ever again."
He sighed, "What day is it?" He asked, not intending to go just yet.
"Saturday night, from seven till midnight."
"Oh I'm sorry, I can't make it. I have to go to dinner with my PR director and my agent, who're flying all the way up here from Los Angeles, so we can go over schedules and posters, Mattel trying to finagle us into signing a contract for Lord of the Rings Barbie companions, etcetera."
Lila glared, "You're lying to me! I'm trying to be reasonable and serious, and I had the guts to squirm my way in here past the freaking security in the most expensive hotel in this whole repressing city -- the sidewalk has glitter in it for Christ sakes! And you have the audacity to lie to me and tell me you can't make it, that my whole plan for leaping to the top of the popularity charts has been foiled! That my favorite movie star doesn't want to go to a fucking dance with me."
By now she was bordering hysterical and Elijah's pulse was quickening, trying to think of something consoling to say, but all that came out was, "Hey, I never said that. I said I'm busy. I have a very busy life, and you have to understand that."
"You're fucking lying, Mattel would never make a Destroy the One Ring Barbie doll. They'd never make a doll that had hairy-ass clown feet."
"Hey! Do not diss the feet. They're fucking awesome," Lila didn't react to the comment, he could see she was straining to fight the tears, grappling to regain control over the situation. Feeling sympathetic and seeing the distrust in her face, Elijah said softly, "I can call my agent and she can tell you, maybe Josh Hartnet can take you. Huh? Would that be okay? I'll go get my cell phone, don't go anywhere."
He raised himself from the floor and stumbled into the bedroom, piles of clothes and gym bags covered the ground along with a ridiculous amount of CD books -- he'd begun throwing away the cases, so naturally, there was also an abnormally large amount of plastic CD cases overflowing from the wastebasket. A foot-long receipt from Music Millennium sat on his pillow like those complimentary chocolate mints that he hated. He saw the room phone peeking out from underneath his tattered navy sweater, checking behind him to see if Lila was in the doorway watching him (she wasn't), then snatching the phone up and quietly dialing 9-1-1.
Needless to say, Lila didn't get a chance to go to her school's homecoming dance. She was charged with breaking and entering, invasion of privacy, stalking, assault, trespassing, ransom and holding Elijah Jordan Wood hostage in his own hotel room. In her jail cell, she exchanged her story with a forty-three year-old woman who was recently charged with man-slaughter and human mutilation from stabbing her husband six times after slicing the skin of his palm off his right hand with a potato peeler.
The moral: We all live in a yellow submarine, and your actions will affect you.
The End.
