Free Set This House in Order by Matt Ruff Page B

Navigator detaches itself, rises above her fright and self-loathing and becomes coolly analytical, seeking to reorient her in place and time. It feels like morning; dim gray light seeps through the window of this tiny bedroom, suggesting dawn. Just which morning is harder to figure. Monday morning, she hopes; that would mean she’s only lost a night. But subjectively, there’s no difference between losing a single night and losing a whole week—and she has lost whole weeks before, even whole months. Once, when she was younger, she lost an entire year. No matter the duration, all missing time feels exactly the same: like no time at all.
    There are ways to tell, though. With her free hand she touches her scalp to see if her hair has grown. Mouse likes to keep her hair short and as plain as possible, but during her blackout periods she forgets this; the sudden development of a hairstyle is often her first clue that she has lost significant time. This time her hair length doesn’t seem to have changed. Then she remembers that she bit the inside of her cheek during lunch on Sunday. Her tongue probes the spot and finds the wound still there, still fresh.
    Monday morning, then. Most likely. And if it has only been one night, and if she spent most of that night… being with …the stranger beside her, she can’t have traveled far. She must still be in the Seattle area, close to home. That’s both good and bad: good, because finding her way back shouldn’t be too difficult; bad, because she might have told him where she lives.
    She tugs at her captive hand. It pulls loose easily, but as she withdraws it her forearm brushes the cold rubbery lump of a used condom lying on the bed sheet. A cry of disgust passes her lips before she can stop it.
    The stranger’s eyes move beneath still-closed lids; his own hand comes up, pawing at his mouth and nose. He snorts. And then, as Mouse holds her breath, he rolls over, turns his back to her. He settles again into sleep; but the sound of his snoring has changed now, becoming shallower, closer to true waking.
    The Navigator gets her moving before fear can paralyze her. She’s light;the bedsprings hardly notice as she slips off the edge of the mattress. She ends up in a crouch on the floor beside the bed and freezes there, listening, but this time the stranger doesn’t react.
    Her clothes are over by the bedroom door. Her shoes and jeans are, anyway; she doesn’t actually recognize the black lace panties or the pink tank top, but as they are part of the same pile it seems reasonable to assume they belong to her too. She notes with passing annoyance that there’s no bra. Though she’s small enough that she doesn’t actually need to wear one, she thinks it looks slutty not to. Not that she’s in a position to complain about looking slutty.
    She dresses as quickly and quietly as possible. As she does so, she scans the room for other possessions. When you don’t know what you brought with you, you can’t be sure you aren’t forgetting something, but she finally concludes that there is nothing else—and if there is, she can only hope that it’s not irreplaceable.
    Dressed and ready to leave, she checks herself in the mirror that hangs on the back of the bedroom door, and notices for the first time the obscene phrase printed across the front of the tank top. At first she thinks it’s a trick—the words must be written on the mirror somehow, as a curse or an admonition to the kind of woman who would find herself sneaking out of this room at dawn. But no—she looks down—the words are on her clothing, on her.
    She cannot go outside like this. Her anxiety rising in a tight spiral, she turns and scans the room again. A carelessly discarded sweater lies draped over the top of a dresser beside the bed. It’s not her sweater—it’s too big—but it will serve to cover her until she gets home. She