8/25/23

UNIVITED

pt. 3

The house on Riverside Drive was only a few blocks from Columbia, so late in the morning the next day, Matt and Foggy walked to the law school library and spent a good chunk of the day studying. Some of the other members of their graduating class were also there, so the group moved to one of the study rooms where they could loudly debate the minutia of case law.

By six o'clock, their brains bursting with legal knowledge, they headed back to the house for the evening. They were now comfortably ensconced in the "entertainment room" in the lower level of the house. This room had a pool table, an actual Pac-Man arcade game, a full-sized air-hockey table, and a huge flat-screen TV. They were seated at opposite ends of the long couch in front of the TV, with plenty of snacks on the cushions between them, drinking beer. Foggy had turned on the Rangers hockey game and while he watched, Matt followed along listening to the announcer's play-by-play commentary.

Jack Murdock had also been a big Rangers fan and Matt had grown up watching hockey. He had always wanted to learn to play, but that was not really an option. Not only was the sport simply too expensive, but since Jack had not wanted his son to fight, he had also not wanted him to play such an aggressive sport. Still, one of Matt's fondest memories as a kid was the time his father had been gifted a pair of tickets and he'd taken Matt to Madison Square Garden to watch the Rangers play.

He was sitting with his eyes closed, head reclining against the back of the couch, lost in the images the commentator's words conjured in his mind, when he heard Foggy gasp. Matt sat up quickly. "What is it? What'd I miss?" he asked, knowing that the commentators didn't always pick up everything that the cameras did, particularly peripheral action behind the play.

"Oh, uh, it's- it's nothing."

Matt's sensitive hearing easily picked up on the slight tremor in his friend's voice and now that he focused on it, he could hear Foggy's heart pounding in his chest and he didn't think this had anything to do with the action on the TV. "Foggy, what's going on?"

"I-it's nothing, don't worry about it."

"Foggy…" he repeated with a little more emphasis.

The other young man sighed. "Okay, I…I thought I saw something, but I'm sure it was just a shadow and my imagination. All those stories that Justin told us, just got to me more than I thought, I guess. Forget about it."

"Okay," Matt said, turning his attention back to the game, although he kept half an ear on his friend's heart rate and he noted that it seemed to take a long time for it to return to normal.

At the end of the game the two friends went their separate ways, going to their individual rooms. Matt lay in his bed listening to a book on CD on his laptop until he became drowsy. Stopping the CD, he rolled over and went to sleep. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep when he was awakened by the sound of the floorboards outside his room creaking. Instantly he was wide awake. Matt's room was further down the hall from both Foggy's room and the bathroom, so the sound wasn't his friend simply heading there.

Throwing off the covers, Matt climbed out of bed and went the door. Standing in the open doorway of his room, he heard a soft thumping sound and sensed Foggy off to his right. His friend was standing in front of the locked door at the end of the hall and lightly banging his head against the door. Matt moved slowly to stand beside Foggy. Judging by his friend's slow, steady heartrate, he seemed to still be asleep. Matt laid a gentle hand on Foggy's shoulder.

"Hey, Fog, you okay?"

The other man stopped his movements, but stood staring blankly at the door, apparently still asleep. Standing beside his friend, Matt once again felt that strange compulsion to touch the door and he brushed his fingertips lightly across its uncannily cold surface. He wasn't sure if it was his imagination or not, but he thought he could detect a slight vibration in the wood. He jerked his hand away, his heart inexplicably racing.

"Come on, Fog, let's get you back to bed." Grasping his friend's shoulders, he gently turned him around and steered him back in the direction of his room. Foggy went along willingly, as compliant as an automaton.

The next morning, Matt found Foggy already at the small kitchen table when he entered. The other man was eating a bowl of cereal and flipping through the newspaper. After his friend had told him where to find the bowls and silverware, Matt joined him with his own breakfast.

"So, what's happening in the world?" Matt asked, after a long moment of the two friends eating in silence.

"Oh, the usual, crime, death, taxes."

"Great…"

"Hey, look on the bright side, it's all good for our business."

"Always finding the silver lining, aren't you, Fog?"

"I am a freaking ray of sunshine."

"Well, somebody got a good night's sleep," Matt said, taking the opportunity to obliquely find out if Foggy remembered sleepwalking the night before.

"Actually, not really. I had some really weird dreams."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I don't fully remember them now, but I remember enough to know they were weird. They had something to do with that locked door upstairs. What is up with that room anyway? Why is it the only room in the whole house that's locked? I know it shouldn't, but it kind of bugs me. I wonder if we could pick the lock?"

"No, we can't," Matt said firmly. "We're guests here. Whatever the Forrester's have in that room, they didn't want us to know about it, and it's none of our business anyway."

Matt wasn't sure if he was saying these things to convince Foggy or himself, because if he were being honest, he understood his friend's curiosity. It had briefly occurred to him as well, to try and pick the lock.

"You're absolutely right," Foggy said. "The Forrester's have a right to their privacy. I'm just being nosy."

Wanting to change the subject, Matt asked, "So, what's on the agenda for today? Back to the library?"

"Eh, I don't think so. It snowed last night."

"Yeah? How much?"

"Just a few inches, but you know, maybe we should give the city time to clear all the sidewalks. I mean, I wouldn't want you to slip and fall."

"Aw, Foggy, your concern for me is truly touching," Matt said dryly.

"I am a good friend."

"You are, and a lazy one."

"That too."

"Okay, fine, we'll take the day off."

"Excellent idea, I'm so glad you thought of it!"

The two young men spent the majority of the day following their own pursuits. Matt napped off and on and read through his old class notes and tests in his room. Foggy spent most of his day at the dining room table, with this laptop and his notes strewn all over the table.

When Matt came down later, toward dark, he found Foggy lying with his head on the table, cradled in the crook of one arm, snoring softly. Matt touched his friend's shoulder lightly to wake him, but Foggy jerked up with a loud gasp. In his haste to get away from the perceived threat, he fell out of the chair and sprawled on the floor.

"Foggy, whoa, it's just me, Matt! Are you okay?"

"Oh, Jeez, Matt, you scared the crap out of me!"

"Sorry, sorry, I was just trying to wake you up," Matt said, holding a hand out to help the other man get to his feet.

Retaking his seat, but still sounding dazed and confused, Foggy said, "I was having another weird dream. There was all this blood, so much blood, everywhere. There was blood splattered all over the house, all over my hands, and… all over you."

"Me?"

"Yeah, it looked like someone had cut you over and over and… I…I think it might have been me." Foggy's voice had become small and scared.

"Foggy, it was dream, just a dream."

Matt could hear the slight rasp of Foggy's hands scraping over his face and the stubble on his chin. "I'm so sorry, Matt, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Forgive me." Foggy was starting to weep.

Starting to feel a little panicked at this reaction, Matt grabbed his friend by the shoulders and gave him a slight shake. "Foggy, look at me. I'm right here. I'm fine. See? I'm fine. It was just a dream…"

"Matt? You're okay? You promise?"

"Yeah, I promise, I'm fine," Matt said with a forced chuckle.

"Oh, man, I don't know what's the matter with me," the other man said with a sniffle, starting to regain his equilibrium. "That dream was so real…"

"Yeah, but it's okay. It was just a dream. Anyway, I don't know about you, but I'm getting hungry. That's why I woke you up. I was wondering if you wanted to start thinking about dinner."

"Yeah, yeah, food would be good. Food is always good."

Just off from the entertainment room, the Forrester's had a fully equipped weight room, complete with a heavy bag. Foggy had neglected to show this to Matt during their tour, but he'd found it anyway. After spending an hour working out, he returned to the TV room, to find Foggy playing some kind of video game. He moved to sit on the floor in front of the couch.

"You and your, oh so, manly sweat can stay over there," Foggy said, not taking his eyes off the screen.

"I was planning on it," Matt said with a chuckle and continued his cool down routine with a series of stretching exercises.

Foggy paused the game and turned to his friend. "You know, I didn't show you the weight room on purpose. We're supposed to be on vacation and studying for the Bar. Why are you wasting your time working out?"

"Why are you wasting your time playing video games?"

"They help me relax, unwind. You can't study all the time."

"Well, there you go," Matt said. "I can't play video games, but I can hit a heavy bag."

"I just don't see how hitting something can relax you."

"It's good for stress release… I don't know, I guess, it's the whole mind-body connection thing, endorphin release, something like that..."

"Are you sure it's not just a Type A Personality thing, Mr. I-graduated-law-school-Summa-cum-Laude?"

"Eh, maybe a little of that too."

"Maybe?"

"Okay, definitely," Matt said smiling.

As Foggy went back to his game, Matt returned to his stretching. When he'd finished, he stood and said, "Well, I think me and my manly sweat are going upstairs to take a shower."

"Godspeed," Foggy said with a distracted wave, still focused on the game.

Matt stood under the hot water, allowing the heat to ease his tired muscles. He hadn't been able to workout for a couple of weeks and he probably shouldn't have pushed himself so hard tonight, but he enjoyed the feeling of pushing his body to it's limits and now the shower was his reward. The steam, the warmth, and the force of the pounding water were relaxing him and making him drowsy. With his highly sensitive skin, there was an almost sexual feel to the water sliding over his body, almost like the caress of a warm hand gliding down his side, over his hip to cup one buttock.

"Matthew." The voice was little more than breath against his ear, but he still heard and felt it loud and clear.

Matt jerked around, throwing an arm out in a desperate punch, but there was no one there. He could hear no other heartbeats beside his own, which was pounding madly. He sensed no one else in the bathroom with him, let alone the shower stall, but he knew what he'd felt and what he'd heard. Someone… or something had touched him, intimately, and whispered his name. He felt frightened and violated. After hearing Justin's stories about the house, he thought he'd known what to expect. The fear he'd been prepared for, he'd not been prepared to be groped in the shower.

As the water was now growing cold, he left the shower stall, wrapped a thick towel around himself and dried off. He pulled on some clean, warm sweats and headed across the hall to his room. He suddenly found that he couldn't get warm enough. He was actually shivering. He climbed into bed and pulled the blankets up to his chin. He lay for a long time, his mind obsessing over the incident in the shower and eventually, he drifted off to sleep.

To be continued…