Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis — Read

I woke up in the guest bedroom with no idea of how I'd gotten there, but I didn't panic-I took this in stride-because the guest bedroom was something that had been happening with a regularity I hadn't found alarming yet. Victor was barking from somewhere inside the house, and the clock on the nightstand said 7: 15. I groaned and pushed my face deep into a pillow (it was damp; I had been crying in my sleep again) but then sat up quickly, with the realization that I needed to prove something this morning: that I was responsible, that I wasn't an addict, that I was clean. But I couldn't rouse myself because the hangover was intense and accompanied by its usual horniness: a painfully hard erection was sticking out of my boxers, which I stared at futilely, doing nothing with it. Finally I was gazing at myself in the mirror of the guest bathroom. I had the dehydrated and haggard face of a man ten years older, and my eyes were so red that you couldn't see the irises. I guzzled water from the tap, then decided to make myself halfway presentable by pulling off the T-shirt with the marijuana leaf on it and then putting it back on inside out. Since I couldn't find my jeans I tore the top sheet off the bed and draped myself in it. I walked out of the room a ghost.

Trudging toward the kitchen, I passed the housekeeper, Rosa, vacuuming the living room and I followed large footprints that seemed to have been stamped in ash onto the beige carpeting, which this morning seemed shaggier and darker than normal. As the ghost padded through the living room it stopped when it noticed the odd formation of the furniture. The sectional couch, the Le Corbusier chairs and the Eames tables had been rearranged for the party, yet this new setup now seemed weirdly familiar to me. I wanted to figure out why, but the sound of the vacuum merging with Victor's barking forced the ghost to move quickly toward the kitchen.