By this time my warning signals were clamoring. I decided I was not going to sleep there. This guy was acting weird. But the physical comfort of a warm room, in from the rain, the chance to spread and stretch, to get out of my boots for a couple hours - these were very precious things on that cold wet night. The trade-off so far as I could tell was having to listen to this guy trying to scare me with his ghost stories. I could deal with that. Talking compulsively, he began yet another story. This one about a roomate.

"We got this acid, it was sunshine, and we decided to trip together. We were peaking at midnight, and Dan says, `Let's do it.' I was horny too, so I say `Yeah,' but he had an idea. `Pretend you're dead,' he said.

"See, we got a new refrigerator and hadn't thrown out the packing box yet. Dan said it looked like a coffin. He said he wanted to know what it was like to fuck a corpse. We turned off all the lights, just had candles everywhere. We musta put up a hundred candles around our place. I got naked and climbed into the box and laid down with my hands crossed over my chest. But I didn't look dead enough so he got some makeup - we had some powder and mascara, some shit like that, and he put powder on my face, and I'm lying there like I was dead. I got really hard and the acid, the music and the lights were driving me insane. Dan was reading this ashes to ashes stuff, and then he got naked and laid down on top of me, and then he shoved me around and humped me hard."

He paused in his story. "Bet you think that's pretty sick, don't you?"

"I've heard of weirder things."

"I didn't tell you the worst part. It gets worse."

"What?" I asked, not really caring. This story was repulsive.

"It was my turn. I wanted to fuck him like he was dead, too. So we switched places. I painted him up, lipstick, eyeshadow. I pretended he was dead and I was going to fuck him and bring him back to life. This got me really hot. He looked just like a corpse. So I went down on him. Fucked him for an hour. Still really wired from the acid. Then I noticed his chest wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing. I felt for his heart, but nothing. He's dead. He died while I was fucking him."

That was the end of this particular story. He of course gave me all the details about telling his housemate's relatives, his friends, the services (cause of death? heart attack) and how he left that city and came here, to Denver, to start over. It was because of this experience he decided to become `non-sexual', as he put it.

Now all I wanted was silence and the psycho seemed to be loosing steam rapidly too. He was quiet for half an hour. The apartment was dim. My mind drifted and I lost track of where I was. Eyes open but I was not sure exactly which room this was - was this my bedroom at my grandparents house? Room in Oregon, where I once lived? Maybe Paul's dorm room in L.A.? My bedroom back in San Clemente? Lansing?

"You asleep?"

"Hmmm?"

"Are you asleep?"

"Just dozing. What time is it?"

"Two o'clock. I gotta tell you something. Do you mind if I turn the light on?"

"Go ahead."

I covered my eyes with my hands but the sudden light was still sharp and blinding.

"You gotta help me. I'm in trouble. I'm in serious trouble."

"What?"

"I gotta tell somebody. I don't know what to do."

"Ah... well..."

"Lemme just tell you what happened. I got a problem. I went out drinking with some friends the other night. We went to this bar, this gay bar."

(He gave me the details and brief life story of each of his companions, one of them a transvestite.)

"This salesman was there from outta town. He didn't even know he was in a gay bar! Can you believe that? He thought Sherry was a woman. We got to talking with him, and we all came back here to party. What Ted and Bill wanted, ah..., well, we were going to get him drunk, roll him and dump him. He paid for the drinks at the bar and was flashing his money `cause he was trying to impress Sherry. We saw he had a wad. Anyone that stupid, flashing that money around strangers, well... teach him a lesson, you know?"

"Hm," I replied.

"I know it wasn't right but that's what we did. We weren't going to hurt him. We just wanted to get him drunk, lift his wallet, and dump him. So, we get back here, drinking and partying, and, well..."

He paused and looked at me with some sort of `please just hear me out' look on his face.

"This isn't easy. But I'm in real trouble. I know it was wrong but you gotta help me."

"What happened?"

"An argument. We didn't mean trouble. This guy found out that Sherry wasn't a woman, and he got pissed off and made some remarks. Then he realized we were all gay. Well, Ted... this guy started getting loud, and, well, so, Ted clubbed him on the back of his head with a nightstick."

He paused again, went to the dresser, and pulled a black police stick from a drawer. "This is it," he explained, smacking it in the palm of his hand. He made some remarks about how it would open my skull `like a grape'. He caressed the stick then rubbed it against the side of my face. "Feel that!" he said.

"Ted just wanted to knock the guy out... he didn't mean to hurt him, just knock him out."

He stopped, gave me a long look, searching my face for a signal.

"He killed him. Ted killed him. The guy died right here in my apartment."

My stomach sank. A carsick feeling in my throat. I said nothing, gave no response. "We took his wallet and divided the money. It wasn't as much as we thought. Fifty bucks apiece. And then everybody cut out on me. And here I am stuck with a corpse in my apartment. You gotta help me. You gotta help me git rid of it."