Page 9 of The Vacancy In Room 10

“Yep. You could come over for a nightcap if you want to,” I say, and he smirks.

“Well,” he says, clearly surprised at this offer and not expecting me to have gone anywhere with him. “Sounds great.”

We walk out of the door and into the hot, still night air. He places his hand on my ass as we walk across the street, and I almost instinctively elbow him in the gut and then quickly remember that I can’t do that, so I pretend not to notice. I break into a brief jog to clear the busy road. He follows, and when we get to my front door, he kisses me and pushes me up against the wall as if we’re reenacting a scene from a romantic movie.

I want to gag from the sour taste of beer on his thick tongue and, God, the scratching from his goatee. It’s like he’s giving my face an exfoliation treatment. But I’m forced to giggle at this so I don’t scare him off, and I shift out from under his arm and unlock my door.

“Hold your horses, cowboy.” God, did I just say that?

When we get inside, he doesn’t seem put off by the repulsive interior. He doesn’t seem to notice what a dump it is at all. He’s here for one thing, of course.

“That nightcap,” I say. “Make yourself at home, I’ll grab the drinks. Maybe find some music or something.”

He flops down on the green sofa and turns on the TV. I hear the opening music to a Law & Order episode as I pull two beers out of the fridge, then short sound bites from commercials and sitcoms play as he scrolls through channels. My hands shake as I open the capsule of Rohypnol into his beer and swirl the bottle a few times to mix it in.

It wasn’t hard to get the roofies. The guy that hangs around outside Misty’s Cabaret on Ninth practically advertises he’s selling, so I asked him and he delivered for five bucks a pill, if you can believe it. So I’ll do this as quickly and practically as possible. He’ll pass out, I’ll take off his shirt, take off mine, but keep the bra on because I’m not a pervert, and take a handful of photos that make it look, undeniably, that we are in bed together. Then dress and wait.

And this is exactly what I do, but he doesn’t wake up. The last guy was only out a few hours, but this guy had more to drink, maybe. He’s not dead; I checked his pulse. I kicked him a couple times—not hard, just to see—and he twitched. He’s fine, he just won’t get the hell up and out of my apartment. I can’t have people see him leave in broad daylight.

I make a cup of peppermint tea and change into sweats, then I watch the last half of The Fugitive on TV and desperately want to go to sleep, but I wait some more until about 4:30 in the morning when the guy wakes, horrified. He swallows and looks around. He grabs for his T-shirt on the floor next to him and pulls it on, then weakly gets to his feet.

Showtime.

“Oh, hey, I...I’m sorry. I guess we... I must have... I must have passed out. I didn’t realize I had that much to drink.” He looks at his phone, and his eyes widen. “Shit, I gotta go. I’m sorry. It was—”

“Your wife’s been calling. Jenna? I assume it’s your wife anyway. Yeah, you should probably go.”

“Sorry?” he says, stuffing his phone in his pocket and moving toward the door. “How do you...?”

“Here’s the thing. I don’t enjoy doing this, but I need five hundred bucks. I’m going through a rough patch.”

“Uh...are you asking... I don’t even know you,” he stutters.

“Right, but I know you would be upset if this got back to Jenna.” I turn the phone and swipe the handful of photos I took of us. I know he doesn’t remember if we had sex or not. The panic in his eyes is really not something I like to see, even though he deserves it.

“You’re blackmailing me?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with you? Jenna’s photo pops up when she calls. She’s nice-looking. Probably a catch. She’s worried about you. You probably have kids worried about you, too, so who’s the psycho in this situation, really?”

He stares silently for a moment, taking it in. “Still you,” he says, and he pats around his pants and pulls out a small gun.

I can’t believe I didn’t think to look for that. I’m not cut out for this sort of thing. My heart leaps to my throat, but I try to act calmer than I feel.

“You’re gonna delete that, and... I don’t want to have to do anything here, so just...just delete it, and I was never here. Seriously. Do it.”

I can see his hands shaking. “Dude, you might be a cheating asshole, but you’re not gonna turn into a murderer over five hundred bucks. Don’t you think that would be a little nuts?” I ask, and his face flushes red.

“This whole thing is nuts! What the fuck? I...”

But I know he knows he’s screwed. “Listen, just go get five hundred bucks, bring it back, and you can watch me delete the photos. I’ll show you I didn’t back it up or send it out. You can look through my whole phone. I’d have no reason to. I don’t even know you. I just need the money. Like I said, I’m not proud of this, but you shouldn’t be proud of what you did, either. I feel sorry for poor Jenna. Jeez.” And with this I can tell he wants to lunge at me or pull the trigger or anything to lash out, but what can he do? Ruin his life over a relatively small amount of money? Lose his wife, go to jail? No way.

He does what I ask. He storms out and slams the door, and I can’t stop trembling from having a gun in my face. I sit down and take a couple of deep breaths to calm down the light floaty feeling in my head, and I worry that he won’t come back.

But he does come back. Twenty minutes later, he gives me an ATM envelope with five hundred in twenties, and I let him watch me delete the photos. Before he leaves, he turns back one more time, looks me up and down, and spits in my hair. And calls me a cunt.

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