No Regrets

Bennie didn’t dare open his eyes. They throbbed with every heartbeat, and he genuinely believed that if he opened them, they might just burst out of their sockets. He groaned, and the sound rattled around in his skull like a ricocheting bullet. His whole body hurt. His arms and legs were dead weight. His tongue felt like a dusty, shrivelled bit of meat that had spent a few months down the back of the sofa.

A hangover, he thought. Which means I was drinking last night.

Thinking was too painful and too difficult, so Bennie left it at that and tried to just be as quiet and still as possible for a while. But, he realised, there was a very urgent pressure on his bladder. He thought about just letting himself go right there, wherever he was. He really did. But some vestigial glimmer of responsibility must have broken through the fog, because he got up, with great effort, and shuffled to the bathroom.

As he peed, Bennie’s mind played a nonlinear sequence of faded, fragmented memories: Singing. Dancing. Ordering several pizzas. Marjorie’s weird cousin turning up - the one who dressed like a trainspotter and talked like an Iron Maiden song.

Doing shots with Twila.

So there was a party, Bennie thought. That explains the drinking.

But thinking still hurt, so Bennie flushed and zipped and splashed cool, cool water on his greasy face. He thought about rinsing some of the tongue-fluff away with mouthwash, but the alcoholic smell of it nearly outright killed him.

He groaned, and heard an answering groan from the bathtub. Bennie shuffled over and gently, quietly, pulled aside the shower curtain. There was a woman in there, lying on her back with her arms and legs curled up like a dead spider. She had bits of pepperoni tangled in her hair, and a long, shiny trail of drool down one cheek.

She was the most beautiful woman Bennie had ever seen.

“Crazy night,” said Bennie. Every syllable was like a hot dagger in each ear.

The woman - Twila, of the many shots - tentatively opened one eye and looked him up and down. She grunted at him, and closed the eye again. Bennie nodded. He understood completely. He sat down by the bathtub and rested his head against his roommate’s arm.

Twila didn’t dare open her eyes. Not again. The light was like a scouring pad on her corneas. Bright, white, fluorescent light...

I’m in the bathroom, she thought. And then: Again.

Every time. Every single time. What was it about the bathtub that looked so inviting to her drunken self? Twila knew she had to get up. The longer she stayed in the tub, the worse it would be. She could already tell that her right foot would start to cramp as soon as she straightened it out, that her neck would probably be stuck at an odd angle for the rest of the day. She would be sore for a week.

It’s your own fault, you silly girl. Next time try harder to make it to your bed.

Then, through the pain, there was another sensation. Something brushing against her limp hand. Something clammy and bristly and sickly warm. And she remembered seeing Bennie’s hunched form looming over her as she peeked through one heavy eyelid.

She smiled.

A sliver of memory stabbed through the fuzz, then. Just a brief fragment, little more than a single image, but it turned Twila’s blood to ice. She saw herself, leaning drunkenly against Bennie, who was pressed against the kitchen door. And she was kissing him.

Twila snatched her hand away and sat bolt upright.

“This is a lost cause,” said Bennie, surveying the desolation in the living room. “We need fire. Lots of fire.”

“It’s nothing a good vacuum and some Febreze can’t fix,” said Twila, picking up the shattered remains of a lamp.

The smell was the worst thing. Like a brewery fallen on hard times and infested with old, wet dogs. The TV was smashed. Someone had ripped one of the lights out of the ceiling. There was a suspiciously wet patch on the carpet. And there were bodies everywhere, like broken dolls, twisted and contorted into unnatural shapes. One of them - Bennie thought it was Gary from work - was completely naked, curled into a ball in the corner, pale and lumpy like a raw chicken. They all snored gently, still deep in drunken stupor, an atonal chorus that set Bennie’s teeth on edge.

It seemed to Bennie that you could gorge on human contact, just as you could gorge on alcohol, and both left you feeling drained and hungover. He wished he could just open a window and waft them all out. Then it would be quiet.

Then it would just be the two of them.

He glanced sidelong at Twila. He remembered kissing her, right there against the living room door. The image of it was as bright and clear as a Renaissance painting in his muddy mind, and the thought of it made his heart beat dangerously fast. He was sure that if his blood hadn’t turned to sludge overnight, he would have been blushing furiously.

You should say something, he thought. She’s your roommate. A great roommate, in fact, and those are in very short supply. And if you don’t say something it’s going to get weird and awkward and then she’ll leave and you’ll never see her again.

But what if she doesn’t remember?

If you tell her, and she doesn’t remember it, it’s going to be even more weird and awkward.

Bennie felt himself spiralling, so he forced his brain to be quiet and went to find a binbag.

There was something weird scrawled on the living room wall. Twila stared at it, trying to make sense of it. She even tipped her head to one side - ignoring the pain in her stiff neck - but that didn’t seem to help.

It was a big, crude circle, with a sort of many-pointed star in the middle, and all sorts of funny hieroglyphics. Whatever paint had been used had dried into a ruddy brown crust that flaked away under Twila’s fingernail.

“What is this?” she said.

“Oh,” said Bennie. “That rings a bell.”

He dropped the binbag he was filling with empty bottles, which clattered hideously, and shuffled over to her. He squinted at the drawing, visibly struggling with his memory.

What else does he remember? thought Twila. This is going to get weird, isn’t it? Weird and awkward. Ugh, why do you always have to ruin everything, you silly girl? Bennie is a great roommate, and those are in very short supply, and now he’s going to get all awkward and leave and you’ll never see him again.

“Yeah...” said Bennie. He nodded and pointed at the drawing, as if to say ‘gotcha’. “Yeah, I remember now. This was Marjorie’s cousin. You know, the weird one.”

“The one who looks like a trainspotter and talks like an Iron Maiden song?” said Twila.

“That’s the one.”

“Well… shit,” said Twila. “Who does that? Who just draws on someone’s wall? I mean, it’s just rude isn’t it?”

“I’ve seen worse things smeared on the wall after a party,” said Bennie. “I think we should consider ourselves lucky.”

But Twila wasn’t so convinced. She rubbed the flaky brown stuff between two fingers, creating a dark red smear. Then, operating on a level of hungover curiosity that steamrolled all common sense, she dabbed a bit on the very tip of her tongue.

“Bennie, I think this is blood,” she said. Then spat furiously to get it out of her mouth.

Bennie grimaced. “I stand corrected.”

Bennie unearthed Marjorie’s cousin from a pile of slumbering bodies in the kitchen and sat him up against the wall. He was younger than Bennie remembered, his bony face smattered with angry red spots. Bennie thought his long, lank hair was pretty ill-advised, but when you took into account the black clothes and excessive piercing, supposed he was going for a certain look.

“Hey!” said Bennie, gently patting the kid’s clammy cheek. “Hey, wake up!” Marjorie’s cousin snored loudly, and a thin strip of drool rolled out from between his lips. Bennie turned to Twila: “Do you remember this guy’s name?”

Twila thought about it, absently twirling a matted strand of hair, as she always did when deep in thought. A bit of pepperoni fell out and landed on her shoulder, and Bennie really, really wanted to brush it off. And then, he decided, he really, really wanted to kiss her again. And take her in his arms and carry her to his room, where they could shut away all this smelly chaos and spend the day in darkness. And maybe order a pizza.

“I think it was Darren,” said Twila. “Or Damon. Or Dave. Something beginning with D”

Bennie thought that was about right. He grabbed the guy by his narrow shoulders and shook, hard.

“Wake up, Darren!” he said. “We need to have a word with you.”

Darren only snored. Twila sighed, reeled back and cracked the pale waif across the cheek with a ringing slap. His eyes snapped open instantly, and he slobbered a few unintelligible words of confusion.

“Whas gon?” he said.

“There he is,” said Bennie. “Listen mate, the party last night seems to have gone a bit… off the rails, and now there’s some weird thing painted on the living room wall - ”

“In blood!” said Twila.

“Which may or may not be painted in blood,” said Bennie. “Thing is, we sort of remember you doing the painting.”

“Pntn?” said Darren.

Bennie sighed and stood up and stretched his aching back. “It’s no use,” he said. “He’s going to be completely useless until we get some coffee into him.”

“Then put the kettle on, Bennie,” said Twila. “We need this kid functional enough to hold a mop.”

Twila poured Darren his second cup of coffee with a deep scowl.

Honestly, I’m never hosting a party again, she thought. The next time Marjorie or Bennie suggests one, I’m just going to hide out in my room until it’s over.

Except some obnoxiously vocal part of her knew that wasn’t true. If Bennie was going to be there, she would be too. She couldn’t help it. It was like there was this magnet, dragging the two of them together, whether they liked it or not.

But you do like it, don’t you? You like it a lot.

And, she thought, she liked it even more when they were both drunk, and all inhibition was out the window. When they didn’t have to worry about being roommates or ruining friendships, and they could just have fun together.

This is exactly the sort of thinking that leads to situations like last night, Twila scolded. And then she realised that Darren had been talking this whole time, and tried to focus.

“...used by occultists and demonologists for centuries,” he was saying. “Some say it even dates back to King Solomon, but there’s a lot of debate on the necromancy subreddits about that.”

“Darren,” said Bennie, through gritted teeth. “We’re all far too hungover for a lecture. Just tell us what it is.”

“Oh, I thought that was obvious,” said Darren, taking a sip of coffee. “It’s a summoning circle.”

Twila exchanged glances with Bennie. “This is a heavy metal thing isn’t it?”

“You guys really don’t remember do you?” said Darren, with a little laugh. “Last night? Man, you really were wasted.”

Twila exchanged that glance with Bennie again. And was there something more in it this time? Some recognition?

He remembers the kiss, Twila thought. Shit.

Darren was laughing - a strange, hacking laugh that was almost a cough. Twila winced at the noise.

“What’s so funny, Darren?” said Bennie.

“It was your idea,” he said, training his big, wet eyes on Twila. “Both of you, really. You know, you totally egg each other on when you’re drunk.”

“What are you talking about?” said Twila, but there was something, some big, shapeless blob of memory starting to squeeze in around the edges.

“You insisted I do a shot of tequila with you,” said Darren. “In fact, you insisted that everyone do a shot with you.”

That explains the memory issues, thought Twila.

“Afterwards, we got chatting,” Darren continued. Twila couldn’t believe she could ever do anything so friendly and casual as ‘chat’ with this wan creature, but… Drink makes fools of us all. “I told you all about my studies. My exploration of the dark arts. Necromancy, black magicks, demonology. We discussed at length my recent efforts to summon one of the legion dukes of Hell and bend him to my will.”

“Of course we did,” said Twila.

“Oh crap,” said Bennie. His face had turned wan. Even more wan that it already had been all morning. “Some of this is starting to ring a bell.”

Right then a great, ripping snore, like a lion with a chainsaw and twice as loud, burst forth from Twila’s bedroom. Her eyes went wide, and a cool shiver ran down her aching spine. She exchanged a third glance with Bennie, whose mouth was hanging slack.

“I’ve been trying for months, you know,” Darren said, as Twila and Bennie crept side-by-side towards Twila’s closed bedroom door. “On my own, in my room at home. I tried everything. Everything. And had no success until last night. Until you two joined in.”

Twila reached a trembling hand for the doorknob. The metal was as cold as a winter’s night.

“I don’t know what it is about you two,” said Darren. “But he latched onto it. Couldn’t get enough of it. It was like he was feeding on it, feeding it back to you in return. To all of us. Man, things got nuts after he turned up.”

Twila turned the icy knob and opened the door, and there he was.

The air was thick with sex and tequila. Twila’s bed had been smashed to splinters, and scattered on the torn mattress were even more slumbering bodies, all completely naked. Entangled in them was a huge, hulking figure with bright red skin. Two huge black horns curved out from his high forehead. His legs were black and hairy and bent backwards, like those of a goat. He was also naked - and, Twila couldn’t help but notice, shockingly well-endowed - save for a thin, unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and a pair of thick, black sunglasses. The demon snored again, rattling the windows.

Bennie sat down, hard.

“Behold!” Darren said grandly, sweeping into the room. “The seventy-seventh duke of Pandemonium! The prince of debauchery, master of the drunken arts! He is Rauderazoth the Uninhibited! Witness his majesty and despair!”

It all came back to Twila in a flash. She nodded grimly. “Rowdy,” she said. “He insisted we call him Rowdy.”

“Twila,” said Bennie, looking up forlornly from the floor. “I think we did something bad last night.”

Bennie and Twila regrouped at the kitchen table over a mug of lukewarm coffee. They sat in relative silence for a long time, trying to ignore Darren’s excited babbling.

We finally went too far this time, thought Bennie. This party got way out of hand. Just look around. The flat is completely trashed. We can say goodbye to our deposit. There’s blood all over the walls, and we summoned a demon. An actual demon. We literally partied so hard that we attracted the ‘prince of debauchery’.

And yet…

Bennie looked up from his coffee, across the table at his roommate. There was still pepperoni in her hair, still heavy, dark bags under her eyes. She was staring into space, either deep in thought or completely catatonic, but she must have felt his eyes on her because before long she looked up and met them.

He smiled, and Twila smiled.

“Crazy night,” said Bennie.

“Insane,” said Twila. “I just wish I could remember all of it.”

“Same,” said Bennie. “But… all things considered, I think I actually do remember all the important bits.”

Twila said nothing for a moment. She was trying to read him, he could tell, but there was the ghost of a smile on her lips. “Me too,” she said.

“Twila, there’s an actual demon in your bed,” said Bennie.

Twila laughed. “Oh god, what are we going to do? Do you think he wants breakfast?”

“Maybe we should pop to Tesco.”

“Or just leave this place and never come back.”

They fell into silence again, punctuated only by Darren’s insane rambling and Rowdy’s monstrous snores. But, strangely, it was a comfortable silence.

“Hey Twila,” said Bennie. “No regrets?”

“No regrets,” she agreed.