Read Online Exhibit by Stella Noir, Aria Frost - Free Book Online

like perhaps we should both just walk away now and forget all about it.
    This better not remind me of them. Of the Christmas I'm desperate to forget.
    Violet doesn’t leave us with that option. She places her hand around the door handle and gives it a twist. A moment later, the door yawns open.
    The red light of the corridor gives way to the clean, bright, yellow light bathing us now, as we enter the room one by one, and close the real world behind us. When my eyes adjust, I'm absolutely fucking stunned by what I see.
    “Fuck”, is all I can say, repeatedly, while Violet steps slowly around what we've found.
    Inside, is my bedroom.
    I mean, it's not my bedroom of course, but it is, it's just that it's no longer in my house, it's here. This is it exactly, my bedroom, just how I left it this afternoon.
    “This is my room”, I say. “I don’t believe this. Fuck. How the fuck?”
    Violet isn't looking at the room so much as the wall, I hadn't noticed it until I notice her over there looking at it. A video is being projected onto the wall of a series of different images of me, from various different stages of my life.
    “Is that you?” she asks.
    I go over. “Fuck me”, I say, shaking my head. “What kind of weird shit is this?”
    “This is your thing not mine, you tell me. I was expecting a sex show or something a little bit more normal. This is pretty fucked up. Even for here.”
    I look around the room in astonishment. I go to the drawers of the bedside cabinet, open them and find my books, my magazines, my fucking watch. It's like they've taken my bedroom out of my apartment and somehow reinstalled it here. It's impossible, of course. I sit on the bed, lean over and smell the duvet. It even smells of me.
    “This is fucked up”, I say. Violet is still watching the images, which seem to be playing out at random.
    “Hey”, she says suddenly, “that's tonight.”
    I join her again by the wall, and we both stand there open mouthed and watch my car leave Aces and nearly crash into Violet. “How the fuck have they got that?”
    We watch the projected image of Violet stood on the sidewalk looking up into the sky, around to the side, and then eventually getting into the car. We look at each other, eyes wide. Now she reaches out and holds my hand, squeezing it tightly.
    “What the fuck is this?” she asks me.
    “You tell me”, I say. “I don't know whether it's supposed to be an art installation or whether it's meant to freak us out.”
    “Maybe both.” Violet says. “It’s definitely freaking me out.”
    “What would the point be?”, I ask, sitting down on the bed to try and work it out myself.
    “Maybe it's a game”, Violet says, running her finger along an imaginary line on the wall, where the video breaks. “Do you think they are watching us now?”
    She comes over to the bed.
    “Probably”, I say. “They’ve probably been watching us all night.”
    She sits down next to me, and her hand goes between my legs, snaking slowly, fingers walking, to my inner thigh. It’s a little unexpected. “Maybe we should give them something to watch”, she says. “You know, it's always been a fantasy of mine to be on camera.”
    “Is that so?” I ask, forcing myself to concentrate.
    “That's so”, Violet says, pushing me further onto the bed, encouraging me to sit up on it, like I would do at home.
    Without any further encouragement, she snakes her leg around my waist so she's sat on top of me, and then begins to attack my tie. I don't stop her. Fuck it. If they have my bed, they can see whatever they want, whenever they want. I bite her neck, then I kiss where my teeth have left marks. Violet pushes me so I'm flat down on the bed. I swing my legs up and spread out my arms.
    “Who are you?” I ask. “Where the fuck did you come from?”
    The answer to my question is playing on the ceiling above me on repeat. My car nearly hitting Violet. Violet standing in the snow. Violet getting into the car. Violet