My name is Michael Cinagra. I know that probably doesn’t mean much to anyone anymore, but once upon a time, I was a pretty famous author. Well, in some circles at least. Anyway, this particular story takes place around the time I was in my late twenties. Twenty-Seven to be exact.

Now most people, at that point in their life, would have some kind of normal career or even just work at a fucking convenience store. I lived in Baltimore City, relatively close to Patterson Park. Our house was old as hell, literally hadn’t had much renovations since my family moved in, and that had been about ten years prior. Sometimes you had to worry about falling through the upstairs bathroom floor, at least until my father finally fixed that.

Yep, I lived with my parents. Also had my brother and his boyfriend there for a while, but they eventually moved on with their lives I guess. I, on the other hand, had no plans of doing anything too complicated. Maybe if we won the lottery or I managed to write a bestseller, things would have changed dramatically.

The world doesn’t really work that way though. It’s more likely that there will be an Apocalypse, than you specifically winning the lottery… But I digress, whatever the fuck that means.

I hadn’t left the house in at least two years, and for the few years before that, I had only left a total of maybe five times. Mostly for dentist appointments, a single family get-together, and a Slave Duty or two… By Slave Duty, I mean Jury Duty, because it’s fucking slavery. If you don’t believe that, then you’ve never been forced to do it before. Literally almost killed myself. Would have preferred if they just like tied us up and flogged us or some shit. At least that would have been bearable.

Anyway, my main problems are really intense Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Laziness. Like extreme Laziness. I’m not agoraphobic, I just had no reason to leave the house. I was an author, so technically, I made money by staying home and using my computer. If my parents didn’t own the house and pay the bills, I would have been unable to keep doing what I did. But fortunately, I was able to keep writing, or thousands of people wouldn’t be able to read my stories anymore. Of course, we were all just barely getting by. I hardly made any money, and my parents had trouble not spending all the money they earned. I couldn’t criticize them on it though, because it was their money. If they wanted to buy more food than we could eat, it was their prerogative. Ironically, that ended up working out in my favor.

I know you’re probably wondering, “What the fuck is this story actually about? Another Apocalypse? Haven’t you written like a thousand of them?”

No, I usually go with really grand or Epic Fantasies. Often starting as Apocalypse stories, or at least leading into that. This is my first Non-Fiction work. But it’s pretty damn weird regardless. 

This most definitely ain’t a love story.

***

It all began on a pretty average day. I woke up on the far side of my shitty bed, almost rolling off onto the floor. I used to have this big wooden frame queen-sized bed that my father built, but then it broke. I kept using it for a long time, until finally, we got rid of it. Unfortunately, what I got next wasn’t much better.

It was basically a twin-sized metal frame, with a mattress on it. Then I put my queen-sized mattress on top of that. It wasn’t a spring mattress, but one of those squishy ones. Yeah, it was weird and stupid. But hey, I was the only one using it, so it didn’t really matter. I had been single for… About eight years at that point. I really didn’t think I’d ever fall in love again, or at the very least, have sex with someone in my basement again.

Don’t get me wrong, I went through all the phases of weird shit before finally giving up on the dream of fucking another human being again. Hell, I remember in the early years, when I drew a pentagram with my own blood and jerked off onto it in order to hopefully summon a demon. That obviously didn’t do anything at all. Maybe I shouldn’t have used acne blood? Who knows? The moral of the story is that I gave up.

*Ehu-ehha*

I coughed a few times as I wobbly walked over to my computer, pressing the button to turn it on, then doing the same for the remote that turned on my relatively large screen. It was like forty-inches or something, I can’t remember and I probably never knew in the first place. All I know is that it was a few inches wider than the desk it was sitting on.

As I left the room, I felt weird. Maybe a bit lighter than usual. I was wearing boxers, but they were black, so I couldn’t really see them in the dark. My tits kinda hurt, however, I did work out a lot the night before. It was still winter, so it was fucking freezing. Oil was expensive, so we usually just used the stove to boil water and space heaters to keep from freezing to death. While my parents wore tons of clothes, I always just stuck with my trusty boxers and t-shirts. Then I worked out in order to keep warm.

When I got upstairs, I was immediately in the kitchen. I could tell that it was dark out by just looking through the window at the back of the house, so I wasn’t too surprised that my father was unconscious on the couch in the living room to my left. Regardless, I got a glass out of the cabinet next to the sink, then washed it off thoroughly. You never know if anything is actually ‘clean’ unless you run it under water. Sometimes soap gets stuck in or on things too.

I poured some lemonade into the glass, then drank it, while coughing intermittently. I also sniffled constantly. I wasn’t sick, probably, it was just the way I was. Before I ate my first meal of the day, I always coughed a lot. And I can’t remember a time I didn’t sniffle or have sinus problems.

“Raah~! Rew~!” That wasn’t me making weird noises, but the black cat that was staring warily up at me. He didn’t hiss or anything, yet he was definitely afraid. Obviously because he was a pussy. Midnight glared at me for a moment, before jumping up on one of the kitchen chairs. Specifically, the one that was up against the cabinets and was almost impossible for us to reach. It was his ‘safe-space’.

Anyway, knowing that the cat was inside, I had to close my door. It wasn’t a real door, but more like a flimsy piece of plastic that slides open and closes with a magnet on the side of the archway. It was kind of folded up when it was closed, but unfolded as I slid it over to the right.

After that I put my glass on the right side of the sink, with all the other dirty dishes, then walked over to the gate. This was basically just one of those cheap, plastic gates for keeping small dogs and children from entering or leaving a room. We used that one for the cat. Midnight could easily jump or climb over it, but he was a surprisingly ‘polite’ cat. We didn’t want him wandering the house and accidentally getting stuck to a sticky pad or something, so we would put that up to ‘lock’ him in the kitchen.

Given that I had extreme OCD, I made sure to only just barely touch it with the fingers on my right hand, as I walked through and put it back where it was. Then I quickly went up the stairs, surprised at how quiet my footsteps were. When I reached the second floor, I heard ‘Misty’ the African Grey parrot, saying “My Kool~?” Then some annoying clicks. I quickly rushed into the bathroom to my left, before the bird could start screeching. Everything was dark, unsurprisingly. But I knew my way around well enough to turn on the lights with my left hand, as I closed the door with my right.

Of course, the lights didn’t actually come on all the way. It was more like a tiny orange glow above the shower region, while I couldn’t even see my reflection in the mirror in front of me. I casually took off my boxers, then used my right hand to turn on the cold knob of the sink. After washing my hands with soap, I used my right hand to turn it off again. Keeping my left hand relatively clean.

As I walked over towards the toilet at the end of the cramped room, I looked up and saw that there were only three scraggly towels left on the rack above it. After sighing, I walked into the shower and turned the hot water on with my left hand. Then I got the body-soap and washed both my hands in the bottom faucet, before closing the curtain with my left hand and then turning the middle and right knobs with my right hand. The scalding shower water shot out in a painfully strong stream, almost blinding me. Thus I needed to adjust the shower-head, so that it would run on the softer setting that I preferred.

I couldn’t really see anything, but I had done the same thing so many times, that I could find the body-soap on the middle-corner shelf and the shampoo, on the lower corner-shelf without much effort. I used the shampoo-conditioner to wash my short black hair first, I had just gotten it cut recently, so it was still kinda spiky. Then I moved onto the bodywash. 

First I started with my chest, that was really sensitive for some reason. Then I noticed that my arms and legs seemed way less bulky than I remembered. Though that wasn’t so weird, since I’ve gained and lost a lot of muscle over the course of my life. Sometimes I forget how in shape I am or have dreams that I’m really ripped.

“What the fuck?!” My voice cracked, no, it was way higher than usual. I got out of the water and wiped my face off with my right hand, then I looked down as the lights suddenly turned on. Nearly blinding me from the brightness.

“Hah~! Hahahah~! You’ve gotta be kidding me… No wait, I guess I’ve had dreams like this before. So it ain’t that strange. Maybe I’m dreaming right now?”

I hadn’t trimmed my pubes for a month or two, so that black bush was getting a little out of hand. But it was soaking wet and I could easily see that underneath it, there was no dick. I reached around and confirmed my suspicion: I had a vagina.