Free Darknet by John R. Little Page B

flip the “Please Come In!” sign around so that it said, “Sorry We Missed You!”
     
    * * *
     
    Deb could feel her heart beating as she followed Tony into the hotel room. She knew his name only because she’d Googled Summer Drive after he sang it in the store that other time he came in. She knew he was almost twice her age, he didn’t wear a wedding ring, and . . . well, pretty much nothing else. It wasn’t like she expected to ever see him again. She’d just been a little curious about the stranger who had come into her life and then left just as suddenly.
    But now he was back. And they were going into a strange hotel room. She’d never done anything like that in her life.
    They’d driven in Tony’s car and barely said a word on the way. It was a good thing the hotel was close to the store, because she knew she’d lose her nerve if she had too much time to think about things.
    Deb wasn’t a virgin, but she was close. She’d only had one other lover, several years ago.
    From the time she was about six years old, Deb knew she was different from other kids. She wasn’t just shy; she was terrified of meeting other people. If somebody came to visit her home, she’d hide in her bedroom or behind a chair or in a closet. In school she couldn’t speak a word. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to talk . . . she was just too afraid of people. When she was alone with her parents or her older sister, she’d talk non-stop, as if making up for lost time, but when she was with anybody else, she froze and didn’t know what to do.
    The first time she spoke in class at school was when she was eleven years old. It was a monumental day in her life, one she still remembered vividly, somehow managing to overcome the intense fear.
    Her parents chided her for being stupid. Sometimes they called her retarded or an idiot. That only made it harder, but they never understood that.
    When she was fifteen, she searched the Internet and found out her problem. She had something called selective mutism. It was a phobia that caused sheer terror when talking to strangers, and sometimes even with people she knew.
    Selective mutism causes intense anxiety and fear. One of the articles she read compared it to somebody with an intense fear of heights who decided to try skydiving. The fear sucked the life right out of you. When Deb read this, she started to cry. Somebody understood.
    The only difference was that people could choose to skydive or to not. She didn’t have that same luxury with her fear because she lived in a world where people socialized, and she hated not being able to be a part of that society.
    When she was 18, her older sister, Mary, thought she could help Deb by taking her to a sorority party with her. Deb was a freshman and Mary was a senior. The party was at a private home just outside the campus of the University of Washington. There were dozens of students there, celebrating the last day of class before Christmas.
    Mary got Deb a beer, her first ever, and it tasted like shit, but she drank it. And another.
    “If you just loosen up, it’ll be a lot easier to talk to people,” Mary said.
    Deb wanted to believe her and she kept guzzling the beer. She never felt brave enough to talk to anybody, though, and she ended up hiding in a bedroom. She’d lost track of the number of beers she’d had. All she knew was that her head was spinning and she needed to lie down. She’d also lost Mary.
    Deb had no idea how long she’d been passed out when she woke up groggily, some guy fondling her breasts. Her clothes were off. She wanted to tell him to stop, but she was too afraid.
    She wanted to fight but then stopped. Why not? It’s supposed to be fun. Who knows when I’ll have another chance?
    She tried to let it happen and enjoy it. She wanted to lean up to kiss the stranger, but she didn’t have the nerve. He had his own agenda and timing.
    It wasn’t fun. It just hurt.
    After the guy left, Deb put her clothes back on