The Interruption

Spoiler

Warning: This story contains references to sex, drugs, alcohol, and suicide. If that freaks you out, you may prefer to read a different story.

Notes: Hurray! I uploaded my first story today. This is my first creative piece in a few years, sadly. It's just a short bit to get the muses back to work. Purple, my protagonist, will probably appear again in a few other short stories since I've decided that I like him and the not-quite-right world that I made for him. Thanks so much for taking the time to read and review!

The party was in full swing. There were three floors full of young, beautiful, and happy people just dancing, drinking, and loving life. That is, with the exception of this one girl. She moved through the crowds with a confused and purposeful expression, like she was looking for someone and not finding them. Finally, when she reached the third floor, she leaned over the banister overlooking the atrium. Below her was a sea of young men and women, their features distorted by shadows and bright flickering lights. The music was blasting from the speakers downstairs as the bodies weaved, twisted, and leapt together as one massive euphoric ocean beating against an eroding shore of sanity. Above them, she was preparing to dive in. The girl climbed upon the banister, hanging onto a nearby column for balance. She did not seem extravagantly distressed. She did not appear desperate or frightened. She didn’t even seem to be in a great hurry. She only looked as if she were weighing her options in order to come to the most rational conclusion.

For a while, she stood there with no one noticing, no one even looking in her direction. Then, a young man nearby turned his head and casually walked over to her, accompanied by one friend. He took a sip of his drink, looked up at the girl, and then down at the floor she was staring at. “What are you doing?” the young man asked innocently.

The girl glanced down at him for a moment, her expression curious and yet strangely detached. “I’m going to kill myself,” the girl explained patiently. “I’m dreaming, and I can’t wake up. This is the only way I know that will make me awake.” But the girl didn’t seem sure. She kept gazing down at the floor with a touch of apprehension. Maybe she wasn’t completely sure that she was dreaming, or maybe she was worried that the fall wouldn’t kill her. What if, even a killing fall didn’t wake her up and she just dreamed of dying? Or what if she just floated or flew around the room? That would never do.

The young man nodded sagely as though he thought this a perfectly good reason to commit suicide. “Why do you need to wake up?” the young man asked. He didn’t know her, but he didn’t want her to jump. Unless she landed on her head, he didn’t think the fall would kill her anyway. It would probably just injure her horribly, and it would definitely ruin the party. Aside from that, she seemed nice enough and she was even a little pretty. Her eyes and hair were dark brown, and her skin was a color that reminded him of sweet caramel. She was dressed in a loose white blouse and blue jeans with a long red scarf tied around her hips instead of a belt. He thought he’d like to get to know her more, that is, if she decided to keep on living.

“I have a different life,” the girl explained and her brows bunched slightly as the first touch of worry crossed her face. Her resolve seemed to be disintegrating. “I have a family at home, a father who is sick and needs me to care for him. I need to wake up.”

“Everyone needs to sleep though. Surely, your dad and the rest of your family will be fine while you sleep,” the young man responded logically. The girl stared at him a moment with suspicion in her dark eyes, and then seemed to decide that his argument was sound. Carefully, she climbed down from the banister with the young man’s help.

“What’s your name?” the girl asked, never taking her eyes away from his face. Suddenly, the young man felt unnerved. Her gaze was strangely intense, and he felt as if she could see into him, and she could know things about him that even he didn’t know. Talking her out of suicide was easy, but remembering his own name…this took him two tries.

“Nick,” he blurted out at her.

“Nick, your name is Nick?”

“Wait, no, my friend’s name is Nick!” the young man panicked and pointed to the friend standing next to him. Nick was shorter and stouter than him and had simply looked on as the girl prepared to leap to her demise. Even now, Nick looked utterly uninterested.

“But what’s your name?” the girl said, a bit slowly as if the young man was a very small, shy child. She spared Nick a glance and a nod but did not smile.

“I’m…Purple,” the young man finally managed. The girl tilted her head slightly as if she thought this was an odd name. However strange it may have seemed to her, the girl didn’t comment or even ask any questions. Instead, she moved rather close to Purple, examining him with the fascination and delight of an explorer who has discovered a new species. Purple was very tall with a head of very neat blonde hair. His irises were blue, but they could hardly be seen behind hugely dialated black pupils. The girl decided that this was probably due to his not being completely human, since he was a part of her dream.

“Would you like me to show you around?” Purple asked, and the girl nodded. Purple handed his drink over to Nick before taking the girl’s hand and leading her away down one of the hallways. The girl thought she knew what was coming next and welcomed it. Normally, she would never walk off alone with a guy she just met at a party. She was much too cautious, too aware of the consequences and possibilities. But this was different, this was her dream. Purple was her dream man and she could do with him what she liked.

As she expected, Purple led her into a deserted bedroom. It was almost deserted anyway. There were two extremely thin girls lying on the floor. They looked unconscious, probably burnt out from some drug or another. To the girl, they looked skeletal. She grabbed one of them beneath her arms and dragged her out into the hallway. “The girls in your world are so skinny!” she complained to Purple as she propped the girl up against a wall. The girls groaned and moved slightly as they were disturbed, and Purple was happy to be reassured that they were alive. Once the unconscious pair were removed, Purple had the room and the girl to himself.

She seemed to know exactly what she wanted, and she crawled onto the bed with some urgency. Purple climbed in with her, straddled her, and kissed her repeatedly. “Take off my clothes,” the girl ordered. She wanted to do this before she woke up. Already, she thought she could feel true consciousness coming on, intruding on her otherwise private moment with Purple. The young man obediently began to unbutton her blouse as she lay beneath him. As he moved onto her jeans, he could feel her breaths coming quicker, her temperature increasing, and his own appetite rose to meet hers.

When at last they were both undressed, he was happy that she didn’t want to waste any time. He held onto her as he began, plunging into her, listening to her gasps and moans of pleasure, and he wondered how he could have possibly been able to wait. The girl locked her legs tight around his middle, moving with him in a rhythm that rocked the entire bed. She was enthusiastic and utterly fearless. The experience was bordering on overwhelming until it happened. Gradually, the pleasure became less acute. His senses surrounding the girl slowly became fuzzy. It was strange to him, as though she were growing further away or he was forgetting her. He couldn’t hold onto her. She was growing intangible. Her breaths became more like faint echoes of a sound heard across a chasm. Her scent dissipated and vanished. At last, there was no evidence at all of the girl except for a residual heat that may have been his own. Purple was in a big bed in a huge house, supposedly having sex by himself.

He felt very annoyed and wondered what he should do. Eventually, he decided to go back to the party and pretend that nothing had happened. His buddy Nick was probably too drunk to remember much anyway. He wouldn't repeat this story to anyone. They would just think he was crazy.

Spoiler

Before you review, I just wanted to talk about some of my own concerns with the story. Concern number one is sex. I was uncomfortable writing it, but I would be even more uncomfortable excluding it. I didn't want to make it the centerpiece or main focus of the story, but it includes important details about the characters that I would be unhappy eliminating. So please, I would especially appreciate advice on how to improve the last three paragraphs of this story. Thanks so much for your time!

Hey, I was lurking your progress thread and thought I might help you out by reviewing something for you. :3

It was interesting! I had to read it over a second time just because it seemed a bit jumpy and confusing, but I think that worked well with the story any way. The girl's part in all of this was especially curious, the idea of being caught in your own dream is sort of a creepy one, especially one like that.

The description was very good, I got a good sense of everything that was going on very quickly. Nice job! The two going to the bedroom seemed a bit rushed though, even for a short story. I dont think you'd have to elongate it by much, but maybe just a little more.

On to the messy stuff, last three paragraphs. All in all, you did better than I've seen some people do. All I've ever done is read sex scenes, never written one myself, so I'm not even going to pretend I'm more knowledgeable, just personal presence I guess.
Some people love to go into the gory details of everything, but you did good by just talking about the feelings and emotions, In my opinion that works much better. It could be better, but seems like you just need some more practice, not much else.
The one thing that I can specifically pick on is,

He held onto her as he began, plunging into her . . .

'plugging in' somehow brought up the mental image of computers or power supply chords, which you probably dont want going on in the readers head at that moment.

Hope this helped some! But over all it was really good for something that short. :3

Hello there.

like she was looking for someone and did not find them.

I think this flows better.

“I’m dreaming, and I can’t wake up. This is the only way I know that will wake me.”

Purple was very tall with a head of very neat blond hair.

When you talk about a guy, blond doesn't need an e.

The story is good, and I don't think you have to worry about the sex scene. It was pretty clean, with enough details for our taste without being disturbing. At first, I thought you could erase it, but then you said there were details you didn't want to take off... Keep it there. You mentioned above that there was some explicit stuff, so readers are informed. That's good, because now, the responsibility is transferred to the reader, not the writer.
The rest was good, keep writing!

-Other One

...eh, it was pretty good.

>.>

<.<

What, you wanted more?

...

Okay, fine.

First thing I'd like to note is that you put your warning into a spoiler. If you really wanted people to be warned about the content, I'd put it outside of a spoiler, in big, bold, red text. Now, of course people should pay attention to the 18+ rating in the first place, but those that don't, deserve to be warned of the story's contents beforehand.

The story proper, then. Not going to do a full text critique because your grammar / spelling were either perfect or good enough for me not to notice anything, but there are a few issues with style. In at least one place, you repeat words fairly close together - "young" comes to mind. Lush metaphors such as "one massive euphoric ocean beating against an eroding shore of sanity" come in sharp contrast against the rest of the fairly minimalistic story. Unlike poetry and visual art, I don't think this works in prose such as yours.

The sex scene wasn't as cringe-worthy as the garbage I happened to have the misfortune to come across some of these days, but one part still stood out. The word "plunging" (ah, that word again. I see you've already gotten some heat for it in a previous review) makes me think of the word "plunger", which, furthermore, makes me think of unpleasant smells and loud "schlopp!" noises. Now, while this may be (on a technical level) accurate, I like my sex non-disgusting and non-comedic.

I appreciated the way you duped me into thinking that the girl was the one who was real, and the way she vanished actually took me by surprise. When the pivotal sentence started, I expected the next one to be about her waking up in her bed and feeling like she needs a change of underwear, but, again, you surprised me. That part is responsible for the "good" bit of my initial judgment. The not-so-good bits are the questions left over. Questions like, "Was the girl real to begin with, or was she a hallucination caused by whatever wonderful substance doing rounds at the party?" or "At the end of the day, whose dream was it?", or the really meta stuff like "If it was the girl's dream, and she woke up, why did the party not disappear into blackness?". There are stories which leave questions that are nothing but solid pleasure for the reader to answer, and then there are stories like this, where they simply leave the reader with a headache and a strong craving for weed to try and make sense of it. Or maybe I'm overthinking it, and should just be appreciating the twist. Whatever the case may be, I like the moral of the story to leave me with a nice, solid thread of thought that will keep me intellectually occupied over the next few hours. Yours ends like a very used thread, with lots of frayed fibers going left and right, and is very difficult to make any sense of.

At the end of the day, this was still a well-written, intriguing, and overall pleasant piece, and ended with a very nice twist. Incidentally, I think you'd be a great contestant in my contest (link in my signature) which may grant you lots and lots of points. Either way, whether your next piece will be an entry in my contest or a stand-alone story, I can't wait to read more of your work.

Your servant,
cC

Hey Amissa!

I think you have an interesting story here. The plot itself wasn't very original - boy meets girl at a party and they hook up. But you managed to add in some really great twists that made it stand apart fom the other stories that use the same setting, really turning the story into your own! I liked the twist

The characters were interesting and I liked the fact that the boys name was Purple - it added even more origniality to the story.

I loved the way you described the party. I could really imagine myself there.

As for the last three paragraphs, I think they're fine as they are. You didn't go into too much detail during the sex scene which was good as you managed not to gross out your readers. Also, the focus wasn't on what they were doing, but that the girl was slowly disappearing, back to her real world that she'd mentioned before. Or was she ever there at all? You've got me thinking on this one

One thing -

Even now, Nick looked utterly uninterested.

I think 'uninterested' would be better as 'disinterested'

Thanks for the read!

xDudettex