Read Games People Play for Free Online Page B

state, I could tell he was taking the mickey.
    ‘I’ll be fine from here,’ I said, promptly falling out of the car on to the sidewalk. Ivan didn’t even try to disguise his laughter, and I decided that I was rapidly going off him. Nonetheless, I permitted him to escort me up the path and help me with my key in the lock, which suddenly seemed much too large for it. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. ‘Drink me,’ I muttered, and Ivan gazed at me. We stood there on the threshold, staring at each other for what I was convinced was at least twenty-five minutes, and then he leaned forward and kissed me, so gently that I thought I’d float away.
    ‘Come on. I’ll make you a cup of tea and you’ll feel better,’ he said with authority, opening the door and ushering me inside. ‘Go and have a lie down.’
    I did as I was told, but two hours later, there was no sign of him. I began to worry. What if he had stolen all our things and run away? Not that we had anything to steal, beyond our passports and clothes. But where was he? Perhaps he’d gone to the grocery store to buy some milk – although something must have happened to him. Maybe he’d been hit by a truck on the way back! Oh no, I thought, struggling to sit up. I’d have to call the police, and I was really in no fit state. Plus I didn’t even know Ivan’s surname ...Alarmingly, the bed suddenly took off, with a force which pushed me flat on my back again. It was whizzing through the wide Kansas night sky and stars were rushing past me on either side of the bed. I felt freshly sick. I knew it wasn’t real, but I couldn’t stop it. At least with a nightmare you could stop it. I cried out. The bed juddered to a halt, and Ivan appeared in the doorway carrying a mug of something steaming. ‘Are you all right?’
    I was sobbing now. ‘The bed was flying ...I can’t stand it. How can I make it stop?’
    He sat down, putting the mug on the carpet (since our furniture rental budget hadn’t stretched far enough for bedside tables) and patted my hand awkwardly.
    ‘You can’t make it stop. It will stop when it stops. This is a very extreme reaction for a couple of hits – maybe that grass had some PCP, you know, angel dust, sprinkled on it. It makes you hallucinate.’
    ‘Was everyone else having the same thing?’ I asked weakly, sniffing. When I’d left, none of the others looked as if they were struggling to focus on wavy fences and popping-out eyeballs. I was glad for Corinna’s sake that she hadn’t partaken. It was terrifying. And now, to add insult to injury, waterfalls appeared to be gushing from my nose.
    Ivan handed me a Kleenex. ‘They’re used to it. They smoke all the time, morning, noon and night. It probably only gave them a little buzz. Also, it’s a very bad idea to smoke in the morning, especially when you never normally smoke at all.’
    How do you know so much about it? I thought crossly, Mr ‘Drugs Are For Morons’. I became aware of some mellow music, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks , which Ivan must have put on the cassette player in my room, although I hadn’t noticed him doing it.
    ‘But it’s night time now. I should be getting over it.’
    He laughed and pointed out of the window. ‘Wow, you are in a bad way, aren’t you? It’s two o’clock in the afternoon.’
    I closed my eyes and lay back, willing the bed not to move. It did move, but I realized belatedly that this was because Ivan had climbed on to the mattress and lain down next to me. I felt his hand slip under my lacy charity-shop blouse, and gently rub my stomach.
    The sweat which had burst out all over my skin after sitting outside on the porch had chilled, and appeared to be coating me with jelly, like the sort found around the sausage in a pork pie. ‘Why is he singing about oil drains?’ I muttered.
    ‘What?’ Ivan propped himself up on one elbow and looked at me, amused. I thought I ought to remove his hand, but it was comforting; anchoring. I hoped he