Grammaticaster

Last night’s entertainment:

Two or three members of my accounting firm and I are auditing a rural high school — nothing out of the ordinary there. Only at this school we have to trudge through a cold, grey swamp to get to our designated work area, the gymnasium. Although we are out in the sticks, the community is extremely inner-city. In fact, the students pretty much have the run of the place. As we are setting up our equipment and going through the motions — filling out forms, trying to figure out where the bathrooms are, etcetera — one of the administrators comes up to us and warns us that the students will be arriving soon. When one of us asks what the big deal is, the admin reveals that the students are extremely violent with newcomers and that we would likely be subjected to some gang initiation rituals before being accepted at the school.

Before we have time to start worrying about that, the bell rings and the students begin to slowly trickle into the gym. It is an odd mix of guys that look like they should be starting for the Chicago Bulls and young, nubile, Catholic-schoolgirl-esque girls. Basketballs are being thrown around, the boys are yelling obscenities at each other, and the girls are hanging out in the bleachers and along the walls. We try our best not to be too noticeable, but it isn’t long before the students see us and try to engage us in conversation. We try to exchange niceties, but are soon being harassed by a group of large, menacing thugs. I attempt to laugh it off and avoid escalating the confrontation, but another auditor tries to explain that we are not going to be in their way and that they would hardly know we were there. The boys are unmoved, and the unfortunate auditor begins to get shoved around. He tries in vain to reason with them but it is no use. They hit him. They throw him against the wall and rip his clothes. It is a feeding frenzy. The climax comes as the largest thug picks up the now-limp auditor and launches him toward the basketball goal. My friend crumples into the basket — nearly lifeless.

Day two. I return to the gym knowing that today is my turn to be harassed. Sure enough, as soon as we get set up, the guys are encircling me menacingly. After a bit of shoving, though, they decide it would be more fun if they let the girls torture me. So three of the schoolgirls saunter over and begin giving me the business. They are making fun of my clothes and my hair, picking at me and laughing. Then one of them gets the idea that it would be really embarrassing for me if they stripped all my clothes off. And so they do. And it is a bit embarrassing. Then, for the next step in the initiation, a girls starts — shall we say… pleasuring me. First manually and then orally. As my colleagues look on (the poor sap from yesterday wearing a mask of astonishment that could only mean "I get bones broken and he gets a blowjob!!?"), the girl… well… completes the task. It is incredibly (and ecstatically) realistic.  Not sure why they thought that was some form of torture.  It was quite ecstasiating, come to think of it. 

And then the scene shifts. Instead of a gymnasium we are at a three-story mansion. We are hiding from a large older woman who is some sort of headmistress here. This house is being used almost like a prison for some six to eight girls. The details of the story are sketchy, but since I just finished The Handmaid’s Tale I am assuming a militaristic, male-centric society has taken over and that these women are little more than things. Why we are there I have no idea, but there is one girl in particular who is seen by the headmistress as a troublemaker. Indeed, she seems to be trying to organize some sort of prison break from the very beginning. We observe. The girls know we are there, but the headmistress and the guards are in the dark. I am seeing things through the troublemaker’s eyes now.

Several days and nights go by with various amounts of activity. Details are sketchy now, but everything reinforced the notion that while these girls lived in a plush house, their lives were strictly controlled. A dark-haired girl tries to escape one night. She has gone up to the third floor and has been caught trying to open a window. The guards on the ground outside alert the headmistress, who ascends the stairs, takes a small pistol out of a box on a bedroom dresser, and executes the offender on the spot. The girls cower and weep, but soon fall silent and return to their rooms, not wanting to suffer the same fate.

Now I… or should I say — the troublesome girl is more determined than ever to escape. She feigns forcing the upstairs window open like the first girl, but when the headmistress catches her and goes for her gun, it is gone. I have the gun. I aim at her head and fire. The entrance wound is tiny, but the shot is true. She is dead before she hits the floor. I make a break for it, taking all the remaining girls with me. We run out the back of the house and into the dark, rainy streets. I do not know where we are going, but we run to get far away from that place. And then……

We are back in the mansion. Everything that just occurred has not happened. The headmistress is still alive. I am no longer the girl, but she is there. This time she wants me — the actual me — to help her kill the headmistress. Having watched the last scenario unfold in the first person, I assume it will be no problem to simply recreate the same scenario. I am on the third floor with the troublemaker. She forces the window open and the guards and headmistress storm the house and begin to ascend the stairs. I leap out of the bedroom with the pistol in my hand, point it at the advancing madam, and pull the trigger. Nothing but a hollow click. I have not loaded the gun. The headmistress grabs the girl and the guards drag me to the floor.
The troublemaker is executed in the same fashion as the first, dark-haired girl. I am confined inside the house while the higher-ups decide what is to be done with me. I do not have much time. The next morning I see a large number of uniformed guards marching toward the house. The remaining girls have caused a disturbance in order to distract the guards long enough for me to escape. When I reach the back door, however, I find more guards waiting outside. I rush up the stairs and look for a place to hide, knowing that they will kill me if they find me. I think I have bought myself time by retreating to the third floor, but that is the first place the headmistress looks when she enters the house. I am trapped. She climbs the stairs, pistol drawn. There is nowhere for me to run.

…

This was one of the most lucid dreams I have had in recent memory. It was like being in a high-def movie. Everything was sharp and colorful. With the exception of the random time and location shifts, it would have been hard to tell the dream from reality. Well, that and most of the time our high school audits do not turn out that way. I had a Whole Foods chocolate truffle around 2:15 last night — about fifteen minutes before I went to bed. I think I will be having the same thing tonight.