Elvendude Read Online Free

That's all it would take, he knew from experience, before he was up and somewhat coherent, ready to do it all over again.

    Once he sat up, he made a disturbing discovery. He was sitting in someone's backyard, near a kidney-bean swimming pool, with the beginnings of a sunburn glowing pinkly on his chest, wearing nothing but a pair of red Lee Wright briefs.

    His clothes were nowhere to be seen on the finely manicured lawn. Instead, he found a trail of about four empty wine coolers, leading from his present location to the back door of a three-story mansion. A rhythmic heartbeat pounded away somewhere, mixed with the low electric whine of the pool pump.

    Time to get into the house. Time to figure out where I am. Time to get out of this sun, he thought foggily. With every footstep, blood vessels threatened to rupture in his forehead. He hoped it wasn't too late in the day. And he hoped the day was either Saturday or Sunday. If today was a school day, he'd be up shit creek without a paddle, canoe or a life vest.

    As he opened a set of French doors, a wall of new sound knocked him over. "Let the Good Times Roll" by Sheep on Drugs threatened to complete the microwaved-egg number on his head. Bone-jarring bass thundered through Earthquake woofers, plucking at his intestines with salad tongs. This was the heartbeat he'd heard earlier, muted by the mansion's architecture. Darkness, blessed darkness, as he closed the French doors behind him.

    The music jogged his memory. Steve threw the party. This is Steve's house. Steve's parents are in Cancun, slumming.

    Then, This was my birthday party. I'm eighteen.

    I'm hung over.

    Daryl burped.

    Where the hell's Steve?

    The phone rang. An irritating, wimpy, chirping sound. His eyes adjusted to the gloom, took in a high-tech kitchen with three hundred copper pots and pans hanging from a ceiling rack, a bank of microwave ovens, an intercom system, halogen track lighting dimmed to almost nothing. It reminded him of a biology lab: clean, sterile, and smelling of antiseptic. The music originated from the living room, a short hike down a marble hall. Thick black drapes concealed windows and French doors. Steve's parents must like it dark, too.

    He padded across cold tile, chilled by air-conditioning turned down way too low. Then collided with a waist-high pyramid of empty and half empty beer cans, a carefully constructed work of art taking up a three-by-three-foot square of floor. The sudden and unexpected noise of tumbling aluminum and sloshing, stale Budweiser reminded him his bladder was about to burst.

    "Hhmmmmph," he said, with little emotion. And suddenly he didn't want to answer the phone. Why should I? It's not my phone. It's Steve's phone. But it's probably not for Steve, it's for his parents, and they're not even here. Probably some bitchy neighbor bitching about the noise last night. Hell, what about right now? Though he didn't recall much of the evening, he assumed they had made enough noise to wake the dead. The condition of his central nervous system suggested as much. Do they have a housekeeper? The prospect made him uncomfortable, as he stood in the middle of the kitchen in his skivvies. If they had a maid, how could we have a party? They must have sent her away or something.

    I gotta take a leak .

    The phone continued to ring. If Steve was anywhere in the house, he was either unwilling to answer the phone, or unable to. He suspected the host was upstairs in his king-sized waterbed, with the girl or girls of his choice, passed out in never-never land.

    In spite of the pressure in his groin, he felt strongly compelled to pick up the remote handset.

    "Hello," he said tentatively, and began wandering through the house, looking for a rest room.

    "This is Adam," said a voice on the other end. "Is Steve around?"

    "Don't know. He's . . . I just got up."

    A long pause. "Daryl, is that you? Are you okay?" Adam said, clearly concerned.

    "Yeah, I'm fine. Just looking for the