Holly and Her Naughty eReader (11 page)

But that’s what I was doing.
Vivian was holding it in her lap now, and it was all I could do not to go
Gollum on her and hiss “
My precious!”
as I snatched it away.

“You’re under a lot of stress,”
Vivian continued, gently placing my Kindle on the table. “And you are desperate
for an escape from it all. But what you need right now isn’t to run and hide
from your problems. You need to face them. You need to take ownership of them.”

With the speed of a striking
snake, I snatched my Kindle off the table and turned it on.

“Holly, really? Can you see that
you have a problem?”

I swiped the yellow arrow across
the screen to bring up the carousel of books, then I clicked on the cover for
His Golden Shackles
.

“Read this,” I said, pushing the
Kindle across the table.

Vivian looked at me with pity in
her eyes.

“Just one screen. Read it and
when you’re done I’ll talk about my feelings.”

She shook her head.
“Negotiating. You still have a long way to go to get through this.”

“Just read it!”

“Okay, okay,” Vivian said. “But
remember your promise. I read. You talk.”

“Yes, that’s the deal,” I said.

Vivian picked up the Kindle with
two hands and began to read. She sat very still as she read. She was quiet. Her
breathing was normal.

Nothing was happening.

So it is me
, I thought
. It’s
all in my mind. I’ve lost it.

The thoughts were both
frightening and a comfort. I was almost eager to accept the idea that I was
crazy. At least it was an explanation that made sense.

And so what if I was nuts? I
could still function in normal society, couldn’t I? Holly Pritchett, High
School English Teacher by Day; Nutty Psycho Who Can’t Tell Reality From Fantasy
by Night. I imagined myself waking up in the morning, going to school, teaching
classes, grading assignments, coming home, and disappearing into the land of
books every night. Was it any different than my life right now? All that had
changed was my books were more vivid. No longer were they words on a page
creating a scene in my mind. Now they were immersive worlds where I could get
lost in the characters, living my life in their minds, changing things as I saw
fit.

I was already comparing myself
to other crazy people who did alright by themselves: Van Gogh, Rain Man, Russel
Crowe in
A Beautiful Mind
, when
Vivian took a huge gasp of air and practically jumped out of her seat.

“Oh my God,” she said. “That was
the most outrageous thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“What?” I said. “What happened?”

She was breathing heavy, like
she’d just run a race. “It was like you said. I was in the book!”

I leaned forward in my chair.
“What did you see? Tell me what happened.”

“I was Annabelle Stone,” she
said. “I was in Christophe’s room, his Den of Decadence. I was wearing big
rubber boots and nothing else. He was tying me up to a wooden X on his wall.”

“The St. Andrew’s cross,” I
said, feeling a wee bit jealous.

“Yes, and he was about to have
his way with me,” Vivian said. “I wanted it. I wanted it so bad I almost let it
happen, but then I got scared. I freaked. It was too much, and I knew you were
right here and it wasn’t real. But it felt so real! Holly, what is this thing?”

I saw the same mix of shock and
excitement in her face that I felt the first time I went in the book. It was
thrilling to have all your fantasies come true before your eyes. But it was
also a bit scary.

“I wanted out,” Vivian said,
“and it let me out. Is that how it works?”

“That’s how it works,” I said.
“When you’re in the book, the real world completely melts away. I’ve come out
to find that my phone was ringing, that day has turned to night, that my foot’s
asleep, and I’ve never noticed. The book becomes reality. But the minute you
decide you want out, it’s like…”

“Like changing the channel on a
TV,” Vivian said. “That’s what it felt like to me. Like my life was something
you could click on and off. What happened to me? What did I do while I was
reading?”

“You just sat there,” I said.

“Really? Did I say anything? Did
I shiver with excitement when he tickled me with that whip?”

I shook my head.

“Oh Holly. That was
unbelievable! He had like a riding crop or something, and he ran it across my
chest and--”

“Over your nipples,” I said,
remembering the scene well. “Christoph knows exactly how to touch you when
you’re Annabelle.”

“All the nerve endings in my
body,” Vivian said, her breathing getting more rapid as she spoke. “It was like
they were singing! Why didn’t I stay in the book?”

“Maybe it was too much for you,”
I said, reaching for the Kindle.

Vivian pulled the Kindle to her
chest, out of my reach.

“I want to go back,” she said.

“No, I don’t know if--”

“Why not, Holly?”

“Well, I…”

“You don’t want me to go back,
do you? You want to have Christoph all to yourself.”

“No, it’s not that.”

But it was.

“Then I’ll just start reading
again,” Vivian said. “I need to see more.”

“Vivian, this Kindle….it can
be…you have to be careful because it can change you.”

“Holly, I’m not taking no for an
answer,” Vivian said. “A few more minutes inside and then you can have it
back.”

“Okay, but you have to read a
different book,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because, that’s a better test,”
I said. “And there are lots of books just as hot as His Golden Shackles. Here,
let me find you another good one.”

I reached for the Kindle and
Vivian turned away.

“I can find another good one
myself. Just tell me the title,” she said.

“Try Mane of the Werewolf,” I
said.

“Okay, I can do that.”

“So….go ahead.”

“I’d like you to step out for a
minute first,” Vivian said.

“How come?”

“Holly, if I’m about to get my
freak on with--”

“It’s all in your mind.”

“I don’t care if it’s all in my
mind! A girl’s got to have some privacy! Just give me fifteen minutes.”

“Okay fine. Fifteen minutes,
then I’m coming back.”

I watched to make sure Vivian
flipped to a different book, then I walked out of the office, closing the door
behind me.

Chapter 12

After I have my seniors read
Wuthering Heights
, I’ll often move on to
The Time Machine
by HG Wells. It’s a
nice contrast, I think, and gives us a chance to talk about themes in
literature, as both
Wuthering Heights
and
The Time Machine
tackle the
challenging issue of class in society.

In
The Time Machine
, Wells has his main character visit the future to
find the earth populated by two races of people. There are the peaceful Eloi
who live a quiet, idyllic life on the surface, and there are the ape-like
Morlocks who live underground, slaving away to allow the Eloi to enjoy a life
of leisure.

As I roamed through Vivian’s
office while she spent some private time with my Kindle, it was clear to me
that she and the other lawyers were the Eloi in this world, and the cubicles
dwellers were the grunting Morlocks, slaving away in the dark to keep the place
afloat.

I pulled out a chair at
someone’s desk and sat. Vivian’s experience with the Kindle made clear that
what was happening wasn’t in my mind. But what, then, was happening? I had very
vague memories of a ridiculous ceremony in Vivian’s basement, with Vivian
reciting bad poetry and me singing the theme song to Mr. Ed. Could it be that
Vivian’s witchcraft had worked? Could my Kindle have crossed over into the
realm of the supernatural, acting as some gateway to the great beyond?

Or might this still be some sort
of strange hallucination brought about by Vivian’s unique mix of herbs?

As I listened to my own
thoughts, I pondered the tack Vivian was trying to take with me before she
discovered the truth of my Kindle for herself. At first, she thought I had
cracked. She thought I was in such need of escape from real life that I had
imagined the fantasy worlds on my eReader as reality.

Her own sojourn into
His Golden Shackles
was proof that
whatever was happening was more than my need for escape. Still, Vivian had a
point when she was lecturing me about how I wasn’t dealing with my feelings.
Derek’s decision to get busy with a nineteen-year-old had thrown my whole life
up in the air, and maybe I had been in denial of what it meant for me. Rather
than try to face my feelings, I’d been saying to myself, over and over again,
that all of this was for the best, that even though it hurt, it was better that
it happened now.

He’s an asshole
. That had been my mantra with my girlfriends and my
own thoughts.
I’m too good for him and I
deserve better. As painful as it is, that nineteen-year-old slut has done me a
favor.

I said these things over the
phone and over coffee and at the bar and with a glass of wine in my hand. I
said them to the other teachers in the lounge, to my sister, to my boss, and to
my best friends. And every time I spoke the words, I was rewarded.
Yes, Holly. That’s exactly right. You
are
too good for him. He
is
an asshole.

 
But was that really what I was feeling?
Walking alone through the cubicles of Crackhow, Shoenberg, and Shinko, with no
students to teach or papers to grade or music to jam out to or Kindle to read,
I had the luxury of thinking more deeply on what had happened to me, and I
couldn’t help but wonder if I had been deceiving myself.

Yes, Derek is an asshole, but I
loved him. I cried tears of joy when he got down on one knee and proposed to
me.

Yes, I am too good for him, but
I hadn’t felt that way ever since I caught him with another woman. Funny how
that works. When the man you love, the man you think loves you, is sleeping
with someone else, you don’t feel like you’re better than him. You feel like he
was too good for you and that’s why he strayed.

Yes, that nineteen-year-old slut
has done me a favor, but I still wanted to bash her face with a sledgehammer.

It was getting dark outside. I
decided Vivian had been with my Kindle for long enough. I went to her office,
opened the door, and found her in exactly the position I’d left her. She was
hunched over in the chair at the table, staring at the Kindle.

“Vivian,” I said. “Vivian, come
out.”

Nothing from her.

“Vivian,” I said louder.

I went up to her and shook her
shoulder a bit. She didn’t respond. I got right next to her face and said,
“Vivian, it’s me, Holly. I want you to come back now.”

Still nothing. This was going to
be tricky.

I tugged on her hair. Nothing.

I blew on her face. Nothing.

I poked her on the cheek.
Nothing.

I poked her on the other cheek.
I don’t know why I did that.

I tried putting my hand between
her face and the Kindle. She didn’t notice. Instead of staring at the Kindle,
she just stared at my hand. Then I put both of my hands over her eyes. I was
like someone standing behind her getting ready to say, ‘Guess who?’

She didn’t respond.

“Vivian, please wake up!” I
pleaded. I was getting worried that this was more than being lost in the
Kindle. Was I ever this far gone? Had something gone wrong this time, and
Vivian was stuck in there?

I grabbed the Kindle and tried
to pull it from her hands, but her fingers had a vise-grip on that thing, and
her arms were oddly strong at holding it in place.

“What in the world?” I
whispered.

Grabbing the Kindle again, with
one foot up on the table for leverage, I gave a big heave-ho to try and get it
loose, but she wouldn’t let go, and I ended up falling on my ass.

“This is ridiculous,” I
muttered. Then I did something that, in the back of my mind, I knew was kind of
risky, but I charged ahead with it anyway. I think I was mad at Vivian for
commandeering my Kindle like this. I wanted it back. I wanted to go to my hotel
and get lost in
His Golden Shackles
all night and let Christoph use his whips and chains and magic Ben Wa balls to
wash away any thoughts of Derek. I wasn’t thinking about all the unknowns
surrounding this Kindle. I didn’t consider that when presented with a device
that violates all basic precepts of time and space, it’s probably wise to treat
it with care. I didn’t consider that this frozen-in-place woman who was holding
onto the Kindle like a puppy on a chew toy was actually a human being with a
life that was precariously balanced somewhere between reality and fantasy.

I didn’t think of any of these
things, and I reached underneath the Kindle and pressed the button to turn it
off.

The screen went black.

Instantly, Vivian’s eyes closed
and her body fell forward. I’m embarrassed to say that, my hands were so
excited to jar the Kindle loose from her fingers that I didn’t even bother to
catch her on the way down, and her head landed hard on the tabletop.

“Oh shit,” I said. “Vivian?
Vivian, are you okay?”

Of course she’s not okay you stupid twit. Look at her!
I thought.

Look at her I did. Even more so
than the moment when my hands rescued the Kindle rather than Vivian’s head,
this moment was probably my worst of all. This was when I really turned into
Gollum, prepared to bite Frodo’s finger off and jump into the fire for
My Precious
. Rather than race to help
her, rather than check for a pulse or call 911, I sat down in the chair
opposite Vivian and turned on the Kindle.

What the hell was I doing? Was I
going to sit there and read a book? Was I going to go in and see if I could
find her there? Was I going to enjoy another evening with Christoph while my
friend lay comatose on the table?