Wash Me

Forward:

After one alcohol induced night of frenzy, Sarah learned the value of taking care of herself.

WASH ME

A low growl filled the heavens around her sleepy head.

Sarah lay buried under an immensity of swaddling cloth, the air around her incredibly sultry; rich, and dark, and closely warm. She rolled over, finding herself constrained and unable to move, her attempt to shift her body into a more comfortable position blocked by the soft weight surrounding her on all six sides. Her mouth felt fuzzy and tasted of pennies, old pennies which had been allowed to ferment awhile in pomegranate juice that had gone bad.

She opened her bleary eyes and realized it wasn't actually as dark as all that. High, high above her she could see a faint light, just a glimmering where her constraints were less severe, a place where she might break free. But oh, the pounding in her head, the pain, an unremittent bludgeoning in the back of her scull as if she was being repetitively kicked by an angry midget goblin with a case of the trots and a belief that she hogged the only bathroom for miles around.

It hurt. To put it mildly.

A low growl filled her swaddled prison.

Groaning Sarah arched, body shifting so pins and needles stabbed through her from every angle. She breached, cresting toward the dim light seen so very high above, reaching for it, her fingers straining.

The mound shifted, a small peak stirred, rising into a high mount, engorging as it lifted slightly, curling upward. The peak formed a little hole, and from that small mouth a hand burst forth into the open air. The hand curled, stiffened fingers relenting in the freedom and the entire mound stirred, falling tenderly aside. Sarah birthed from the mounds of blankets, curling, falling off the edge of her bed to plunge with a grunt to the floor.

I knew I should have kept that remnant, no matter how ugly it was, she thought as she realized it hurt a lot more to fall bum-first upon the hardwood her father was so proud of, as opposed to the softly deep-piled carpet she had proudly bought herself with her own money when she was twelve, when she had complained the hardwood in her bedroom was too cold on her bare feet and her father had decided to teach her a lesson about the real world.

But, it was orange, bright orange like Garfield on an acid trip, and it was fucking shag; what I was thinking when I was twelve I don't know, but after Crissy laughed at me, I just couldn't keep it at fifteen.

Sarah groaned, hand weakly reaching out to clutch at the mound of blankets half hanging off her bed, her covers having formed into a ball during her night of thrashful drunken dreaming. Her mattress exposed, a mottled brown pattern of flowers, the blankets themselves having enwrapped the bedsheet during the night, drawing it into the mound and pulling it from the bed itself. She braced herself against the exposed mattress leaning her shoulder into it, and with a heave Sarah forced herself to her feet. She swayed unsteadily, a spike of pain lancing into her brain. God I am hungover, she complained to herself, knowing she had no one to blame but foolish she.

Sarah bent over her bed, burying her head into her mound of still warm blankets, bottom twitching tock-tock-tock side-to-side out to the room as she rested, the scent of her Vodka impregnated sweat rising from the darkened sheets. Her soft brown hair spread across the covers as she scrubbed her face into the warm goose-down, and she heaved a breathy sigh as she fought the urge to vomit. With a heave of weak arms she forced herself back straight, the pennies in her mouth had begun to burn, becoming acid and ash. I am going to vomit.

Slowly Sarah turned away from her bed and barefoot she padded across the hardwood floor towards the half-hidden pocket door and her small bathroom. She stunk of cheap alcohol and sweat, and once again she berated herself for her partying ways even as she knew she would continue them. It was the same old story it always was. But at least I don't smoke, Sarah congratulated herself sardonically, cigarettes at least.

In the bathroom she left the light off, allowing the dim illumination of the sun coming through her bedroom window to guide her, and even that made her head pound painfully. Grunting she swayed forward, catching herself on the bathroom sink. With trembling arms Sarah leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the small mirror. "Oh God I wish I could just die!" she muttered, wincing as her voice bounced back at her with a ki scream (dressed in black pajamas and a yellow headband with a sunburst for some reason) and buried an ice-pick of pain deeply into her right temple, just behind her eye.

She was still fully dressed in those cutesy stone-washed tight-ass jeans she had danced in last night, her bottom twitching so the boys all watched her. Her green blouse tucked into the pants so her belly appeared so trim, her waistline svelte and her hips accentuated to a point it drove them all wild. Her thick studded belt, so wide and shiny, making everything pop, drawing their eyes to her ass and making sure she was remembered. Except the belt itself was horrible to fall asleep in, she could feel the backs of the studs pressed into the bone of her hips, the metal having dug into her skin against the material of the jeans so it would leave little yellow bruise marks she knew, like some weird disease washing across her.

The need to vomit had retreated down her throat, leaving her belly hot and roily; but she knew it would not return, she hadn't vomited once in all her drunken partying. She turned the little white knob just a tiny bit, allowing only a thin stream of ice cold  water to trickle from the faucet, whining in turn at the tiny metal shriek the pipes emitted for a moment as the water flowed into her porcelain sink. A trembling hand cupped under the faucet she slowly filled with water, which she brought up to her lips, parting them just a tiny bit to tip her hand over her mouth and receive. The water cascaded in, filling all the soft crevices and warm moist flesh of her mouth with liquid, liquid which soaked into her very marrow to ease away the sting of the alcohol pooled there, a now stagnant lake of partying goodness.

Leaving the water running (environmentalism? So passé) Sarah drew open the vanity mirror to reveal the cubbyhole behind, in which she had removed all but the topmost shelf. What I need is a little hair of the dog, she thought; she knew that would fix her right up. The fifth of rum with the colorful pirate on the bottle wasn't exactly hidden, she didn't have to hide things from her parents after all. Sarah worked two part time jobs and went to school full time, taking honors classes, and at nineteen happily lived at home knowing how hard it was going to be to pay her way through medical school without taking a credit destroying, lifetime crippling student loan. Her parents knew she had sex, and partied hard on the weekends, she had no need to hide from them the fact that she also drank. So the rum was hardly hidden, it was simply placed out of sight so her parents could politely pretend they didn't know it was there, and wouldn't have to feel a need to comment on the off chance they stuck their head (either singularly or collectively) into her room. The Vodka and her wine coolers were placed in the far back and bottom of the second fridge out in the garage, but the rum she kept for emergencies such as these.

She opened the bottle and pulled back a shot right from it, throwing her head back and letting the burning sting of the alcohol trickle down into her throat and flow to her tummy, where it seemed to chase the just beginning trace of her hangover away with its violent burn. She took a second tiny sip and placed the rum back in her medicine cabinet, which is properly where it belonged. She filled her plastic cup with water from the sink and followed the rum with it, knowing hydration was the key to a proper hangover cure. She took two aspirins with a second cup of water and blessed the fact that she found it so easy to get rid of the symptoms of alcohol poisoning, what most people referred to as a hangover.

Won't be that easy when you're forty, she warned herself. Knowing she would cut down on her drinking as soon as she got into med school, and knowing too that she was no alcoholic. Not like her uncle in Winnipeg, in and out of A.A. all the time.

It hit her then, the hot rush in her groin, and she had been half expecting it. She had fallen asleep with all her clothes on, and her makeup still, now smeared she saw. Clearly, she hadn't used the toilet at all last night. Grunting half bent over Sarah ripped her belt loose, tearing at the zipper of her jeans as she threw up the Hello Kittytm pink lid of her toilet and threw herself down onto the seat, hastily lowering her sea-green panties - with the 'Hi Big Boy' greeting stitched in black thread across the seat - down around her knees. With a grunt and a cracking sound from the plastic seat she hurled herself down onto the toilet, pleased she had made it without dribbling. To reward herself she made no attempt to stifle her need. She peed in a hard steady rush, like a racehorse, her pee coming hard and fast for what seemed like several minutes but in reality was under thirty seconds.

When it finally slowed, and eased, and eventually stopped, she felt so very much better. It was amazing how having a good pee when your bladder was full could make you feel like a million bucks, as if her hard night of drinking and dancing and making out with the entire Hamilton football team had been nothing more than a light romp through the forest with a boyfriend as birds chirped and squirrels ran alongside… or, something like that.

When she had finished up on the toilet Sarah rose, and leaving her so tight fuck-me jeans and inviting panties down around her ankles, as she often did when she was still half drunk, she flushed and washed her hands and scrubbed off her make-up before capturing her elusive toothbrush from its hiding place… where was that? Oh yeah, I left it in the shower! After capturing her toothbrush from where she had stuck it after brushing her teeth yesterday in the shower, she slathered the slightly worn bristles in the minty-blue bacterial fighting fresh breath toothpaste she used when she had been drinking.

Barefoot, Sarah felt the coolness of the tiles under her feet as she stood before the bathroom sink, tight pants around her ankles, and scrubbed the taste out of her beautiful teeth, the stinging of the mint combating the aftertaste of the alcohol. A low growl came from behind her.

Toothbrush in her mouth Sarah swung around, nearly tripping as her pants snagged around her ankles, and she had to reach out and grab the wall to steady herself as her vision swam for an instant. She was shocked, vaguely recalling that it was a growl which had brought her out of sleep. Even at nineteen, Sarah didn't worry too much about her laundry. Laundry was some vague conception she knew she was one day going to have to worry about, when she was on her own, but for now her clothing just magically went from her bathroom floor back into her dresser, cleaned and folded neatly. It wasn't something she thought too much about. Oh sure, she knew her mother picked her clothes up and took them down into the basement and washed them and put them away for her. She had been doing that for almost twenty years, unvaryingly, without fail.

Only recently had Sarah begun to think about laundry. Sometimes, to help her mother, Sarah made an effort to fill that big white wicker thing her mother had given her several years ago as a 'birthday gift' the thing called a laundry hamper. Once or twice, she had even gone so far as to take the hamper downstairs and leave it in the basement, seeing it appear again in her room later that afternoon. Once, she had even done the laundry herself, when daddy had bought a new washing machine and her mother had wanted to make sure she knew how to use it. But laundry wasn't something she had to think about much, the closest she came to a worry about laundry was when she had to make sure her cutest outfit was clean so she could wear it to a party.

Vaguely Sarah had noticed that it had taken longer and longer for the stuffed full hamper to disappear for an afternoon and reappear empty in her bathroom with the clothes put away. Longer and longer between the times her fresh new clothes could be worn again. In recent months her mother had gone from doing the laundry twice a week, to twice a month. But it still wasn't something she had to think about too much, as there was always clean clothes hung up and ready for her to wear whenever she needed a new outfit; and she was far too busy with school and jobs and boys and friends and parties to worry about laundry. She thought about clothes only when she was naked before her mirror, or buying stuff in the store.

The growl had come from the wicker thing set beside the bathroom door. Filled to the brim with her dirty clothes its wide brimmed white lid hung askew, its depths exposed to the air. It sounded as if some small, but deucedly deadly creature had crawled in amongst her clothes and made itself a nest. Toothbrush dangling from her lips and minty-green foam crawling across her chin Sarah hesitantly, keeping her head up so she could keep an eye on her laundry hamper, bent down and quickly yanked her pants up, drawing up the zipper with a fast tug but not bothering with the snap.

Blindly she reached behind her, hand fumbling among her medicine chest until she found the reassuring weight of her mostly full bottle of rum. She gripped the neck in her hand, cocking it back like a club. Hesitantly she moved towards the hamper, tiptoeing like a cartoon character, expecting at any moment to hear picato strings like the old Tom & Jerrys she had watched as a kid. It crossed her mind that if it was growling at her, it knew damn well that she was there.

Alcohol leaves you brave, but stupid does as well. She wasn't hungover, so she couldn't blame the alcohol for her bravery. If I need to explain my rabies at the hospital, I can just say I was rescuing an injured raccoon who had been iniquitously run over in the street outside of my house, she told herself firmly, choking up on the neck of the bottle and feeling the sweat pop out under her armpits and the palms of her hands.

Leaning forward while still a good distance from the hamper, as if that would help, Sarah reached out and yanked off the lid, raising the bottle even higher to strike, the liquid within sloshing around so it was unsteady in her grasp. The bottle flashed down on a little ball of black fur, thumping into it with a satisfying dunk. She shrieked as she made contact, and she felt herself pass, her awkward half-leaning over half bending forward pose with her ankles braced far apart leaving her muscles in no position to even attempt to contain it. Oh good, more laundry then, the inane thought flashed across the edge of her mind and skittered back off into the darkness; she liked those panties.

NOTHING. It was nothing! Nothing except her charming sweater, which she had worn last night along with her tight shirt. The black sweater going nice with her too-tight jeans, and it was getting a little nippy out in the evenings. Sarah felt very, very silly, after all it was nothing except her sweater, which she had no memory of removing last night, but she must have, and then perhaps her mother had come in to check on her during the night and tossed the sweater in the hamper, leaving the lid slightly askew.

The growl came again, from UNDERNEATH THE SWEATER!

With a shriek Sarah raised the bottle once more and brought it crashing down into the hamper. Again and again she battered at the clothing, reducing anything inside it to mush and pulp and blood and fur, which she expected to see expectorating from the sides of the wicker hamper at any moment. Instead, there was still nothing.

Sarah's alcohol fueled exertions slowed, uncertainty crept in and her movements grew sluggish, then finally, halted altogether. She panted lightly, partly fear and excitement, and partly all the hard work of swinging that bottle. Which now dangled limply from her hand, twisting in her grasp so its pirate label seemed to be doing ballet. Within the hamper all was still, silent, innocent, at peace with itself and its bathroom surroundings.

It's a ruse, she thought. Not only possums can play possum. She wondered if opossums were dangerous, did they bite?

Hesitantly Sarah reached in with her bottle, slowly shifting aside the dark sweater to reveal further clothes within; she held the wicker lid in her other hand, ready to bring up as a shield should an alien face-hugger burst out at her, wrapping a monkey like tail around the softness of her young throat as it latched itself against her face and attempted to mate with her in a frenzied orgy of lust and instinct and unreasoning hatred. I watch far too much late night TV, she told herself.

Sarah could see nothing, she felt her belly notch tighter with the tension. She shifted more clothing aside, swirling the cloth around the bottle to form a maelstrom type hole within the hamper's contents, cloth piling ever higher along the sides as she dug deeper into the center of her laundry. She felt something that was not cloth brush against the bottle, seeming to slide up against it and then scuttle away. Quickly Sarah pulled the bottle back, her lid\shield coming up. At the bottom of the swirled hole she had created something shiny glinted back at her, like eyes, but larger. She squeaked, feeling her butt-cheeks slam so tight she thought she might need a crowbar to use the toilet later.

She brought the bottle up to strike but the eyes did not so much as twitch, there was no movement, not a blink, not a shift of the creature's weight. Hesitantly, holding her attack Sarah looked closer. The creature at the bottom of her hamper looked back at her unwaveringly. I am so stupid.

The glinting eyes looking back at her growled then, and she nearly laughed. Instead she chortled silently as she placed her bottle down on the floor. Somehow, last night when she was drunk, she had tossed her phone into her laundry basket, probably to smother under her sweater and make it silent. The constant growling was its low battery warning, she saw as she fished it out and looked at it. "I really am an idiot," she said to the privacy of her bathroom, wondering how many hits she would have received on you-space or my-tube if the phone had somehow been recording her antics.

She turned it off and stuck it in her back pocket, chortling silently to herself. But the antics with the laundry basket somehow left her with a chill. The basket drew her, seeming to command her attention with an aura of menace, the way a backpacker in the woods might suddenly look up to note the reason for his unease is the cougar lounging on a tree branch twenty feet overhead. Sarah found herself staring down into the basket full of dirty laundry, somehow feeling that the basket met and returned her regard with an intensity no human being could bear for long.

Sarah decided that she would help her mother out. She would just take the basket down into the basement and leave it there… just so, so my mother doesn’t have to carry it down the stairs herself, Sarah told herself firmly.

Quickly Sarah picked up the several pieces of laundry which had fallen out when she had first thrown open the basket, and she pitched them all back in, stuffing them down into the bulging basket so she could close the lid. As an afterthought, she pulled off her grungy green shirt - made black with her alcohol sickened dream-sweat - and threw that in as well. She had to use both hands to push clothing down into the basket in order to pop the lid back on, and still the lid rose a bit, cloth peeking out like a curious beast sticking its head up from its lair to survey its surroundings. With a huff she sat on it, the wicker squeaking as her toned (I'm wide hipped, not big) buttocks smooshed it down, the lid forcing its way firmly in place.

She suddenly felt safer, standing over the smooshed down laundry basket in her bra, as if she had driven away a dangerous beast, defeating it and taking back a lair it had claimed as its own. Between the lattice of the wickerwork Sarah had the uncanny feeling the laundry was gathering itself within the basket, preparatory to forcing the lid up again.

That's just silly. She told herself so, unconvincingly.

Sarah shook her head briskly and picked up the basket. It was light, lighter than it should have been she thought, but she paid that no mind. She carried it out into her room, pausing to toss her phone onto her desk, where she could plug it in in a moment, and pick up the bundle which was her sheets. These she piled atop the basket to carry down with her so her mother could wash those as well. Her sweat soaked sheets, smelling of rum and whisky and wine, would be a load in themselves.

Outside of her room the hallway was dark, the house quiet and still. Nothing moved, nothing breathed. It was as if the entire house held itself in silent wait, poised to see what foul beast would come into its midst. Which was also silly, mom and daddy are in their bedroom at the end of the hall, Sarah, an only child, told herself.

In her party clothes Sarah clumped her way down the stairs, holding the laundry basket tightly with her sheets piled atop it. It was still a good hour before her parents would get up, she could make her bed with fresh sheets and have a shower first this morning. For some reason she felt far too unsettled to go back to sleep.

The basement door gave her a bit of trouble, she had to press the basket up against the door and brace it against her stomach before she could let go of it enough to turn the knob and then, holding the knob turned, she had to back slowly, keeping herself tight against the basket and the door, while drawing the door back to disengage the lock plate. She managed it however, without having to put the basket, and the sheets which would topple from the slightly convex lid, down.

The basement was lit by a series of forty watt bulbs spaced around the perimeter of the walls, which together added up to pretty decent illumination. The stairs themselves however remained lost in shadow when she flicked the lights on, and so she had to feel her barefoot way down one tentative toehold at a time, any second hoping she would not topple over and tumble ass-over-teakettle down the stairs breaking her neck, or worse, bruising herself and having to go to the hospital and explain she was taking laundry downstairs inebriated and topless.

The concrete and plaster basement was an unremarkably standard contemporary of its ilk, a folding table beside the side-by-side five year old ***tag (tm…) washer & dryer. An orange shag throw rug in the middle of the bare concrete floor (yep, that one), which was slightly sloped and had a drain in the middle of it. Bare concrete block walls, a pair of small windows high on one side. A shelving unit against the back wall full of junk and various odds and ends. Nothing remarkable or unusual about it at all. And Sarah had been down there countless times, hanging out with friends… um,  boyfriends, talking, laughing - and other things she would never discuss with her parents. Except tonight, the room exuded silent menace.

Hesitantly Sara laid the laundry basket down beside the washing machine where her mother could easily pluck clothes and toss them directly into the machine later; because she was at hart, considerate and respectful of others. That was when she became aware it was not the room which exuded silent menace.

"Wershas mere."

It came from her laundry basket, and it was not the low battery warning of her cell. Sarah looked down at her hamper in sick horror, somehow feeling betrayed.

"Wershas mere."

It was slightly louder this time, and not some mistake, a trick of acoustics causing it to sound like water through a pipe in the ceiling above her was a gurgle emanating from her basket. No, it was the basket itself. No actually it was not, it was something IN the basket.

I am in such deep shite! Sarah told herself. Perhaps it’s the D.T.s, if I'm lucky.

Sarah's belly roiled, feeling like a molten hot spike of sheer terror had formed deep inside her and was now attempting to spear its fiery way out through the length of her esophagus. In her horror she stumbled away from the basket, knocking up against the dryer, its cold metal surface against the bare skin of her spine bringing her a measure of reality. Then her blankets fell off the laundry hamper and rolled around her feet, flowing around her ankles, grabbing at her. When she attempted to right herself thinking 'I am being silly, I didn't just hear that', her blankets wrapped around her ankles, tripping her with a scream so that she fell against the hamper itself, her palms sliding across the wicker top and she felt light scratches stinging the palms of her hands.

It's not real, it's not real, it's not real, she told herself, eyes closed, body ashiver, taking deep breathes to calm and reassure her trembling form. The blankets around her ankles were still now that the imputes of their fall had played out; lying still and quiet around her feet, waiting to be picked up and washed when her mother came for them. As if to dispute her it came again, a very low, very quiet growl which sounded almost, but not quite, like human speech. It appeared to come from within the darkest depths of the laundry hamper, somewhere in its midsection where all the light and the air would be hidden beneath mounds of a fashionable woman's dirty clothing.

I shouldn't I know I shouldn't. Sarah shouldn't, Sarah knew she shouldn't, but slowly she eased off the lid of the hamper. She held it there, just above the laundry so that she could not actually see inside. Nothing happened. Slowly, body tight with tension, waiting for something, anything to occur, Sarah eased the lid aside, leaning it down against the dryer. Nothing happened. I shouldn't do this. I may have brown hair but I am just like those big-boobed, cute assed blonds in the horror movies who stupidly pick up a dinky little candlestick and move toward the weird assed door with the ominously green light glowing from beneath its bottom crack while growls come from the other side, even as the audience screams 'no stupid! Run outside and call the cops. Your friends are dead! Your friends are already dead you stupid slut!' No, clearly I should do anything but lean over and look squarely down into the hamper full of my dirty clothes from which a weird-ass growl is coming.

Sarah leaned over her laundry hamper and looked squarely down into the pile of her dirty clothes, from within which, somewhere, a weird-ass growl emanated.

NO STUPID! RUN OUTSIDE AND CALL THE COPS. YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD! YOUR FRIENDS ARE ALREADY DEAD YOU STUPID SLUT!

Inside the hamper she could see nothing except her clothes, which lay haphazardly within, a swirling maelstrom of bright colors and nice textile fabrics and cute little logos and even cuter slogans and fuzzy little thingies hanging from them. (Thingy is a technical term, for anything you don't know the exact proper word of; it applies to everything from a carburetor in a '65 Mustang, to that little clampy thing on the space shuttle which physically causes the fuel pod to separate from the shuttle when Mission Control hits the release button in Huston.) J

For long tense seconds Sarah stared down at the familiar gestalt of her own clothes. Than she realized something odd. The clothes weren’t strewn haphazardly across the hamper, they seemed to form a pattern. Some pattern. There, there was her little black sweater, a slash of noir which appeared almost to smile. Above it, her nice purple sports bra seemed almost to wink at her. Her cream cambric shirt, the white pants she wore to her volunteer gig at the old folks home, her fuzzy socks with the alligator bottoms. Her clothes seemed to form a face, one which lay at the top of her hamper, looking at her.

"You're looking at me," Sarah accused, without thinking of the absurdity.

Her answer came, and it was chilling in its simplicity. Her clothes crawled across the hamper, moving, twisting in a crude imitation of real life. As if some alien creature was attempting to learn what being human involved re: the articulation of a face. The laundry opened its mouth and spoke to her.

"Wash me."

"Jesus Christ!" Sarah shrieked.

The laundry monster reached up with a hand made of her stockings, three mismatched socks protruding from it like claws. It latched onto the side of the hamper, attempting to lift itself up. Sarah stumbled backwards, tangling in the sheets again and falling flat on her rear (her cute rear). As she looked up at the hamper in horror the thing pulled itself up to perch on the edge of the basket. Socks were its mismatched talons, three on each of its four arms, made of her panties and stockings. Her stone washed jeans its head and her cute purple bra with the little red metallic caps for her nipples its glittering eyes. The dark slash of her sweater a giant maw from within which glinted, nothingness.

"Wash me."

It demanded.

Sarah scrambled to her feet, and that was when her sheets swirled, coming to malevolent life. The Laundry Beast exploded over her, enfolding her in its cottony embrace as she screamed. It bore her down under its fluffy weight, immense power entrapping her helplessly as she struggled until she was cocooned helplessly within the beast's implacable grasp.

"Wash me."

It towered in the small space of the basement, a head formed of her shirts and stockings brushing against the eight foot ceiling. Its head bowed over her, massive shoulders of t-shirts and sexy blouses hunched against the rafters. The sheets formed its massive chest, engirdled with belts for rigidity and suspended within a network of bras and those lost sweatpant cords which always seem to vanish when you wash a frayed pair of sweats. Its massive legs her jeans, thick columns of her stone washed blue jeans for one leg, her black and her white dress pants twining to form the other, a mottled pillar of support like a mismatched calico. The giant feet a network of socks and panties woven together to form clawed and cloven hooves.

"Wash me."

It screamed into her face as Sarah struggled, her breath huffing as her panties wrapped around her throat, claw\socks holding her securely and the beast hoisted her high into the air. She found her arms trapped against her sides, pinned there by her sheets which held her tight, having opened and flowed outward to engulf her, but did not crush her even though she could feel the beast's strength, its immense implacable power, and knew it could fold her like an accordion and slide her away into a drawer, a broken doll.

Its mothballed voice crashed against her ears, battering her again and again as it demanded to be washed. Sarah was too stunned to do anything, and she attempted to play possum in its hold as it gurgled into her face what it wanted.

This seemed to anger the Laundry Monster, and Sarah found herself turned upside down in mid air as the beast went down to one knee. It laid her down over its knee formed of her balled soccer shorts, and Sarah felt its hand crash against her upturned bottom. Pain arced into the seat of her jeans, the thing was powerful! Sarah had never been spanked before in her life… er, well, once, when a boyfriend had begged and insisted and drunkenly teased, but she hadn't put up with it for more than a few swats. She yelled as the Laundry Beast smacked her again and again, the smacks crashing into her rear-end like it held a bat instead of its hand, formed of her soft underwear and socks.

And it punctuated each blow with its screamed demand. "Wash me. Wash me. Wash me. Wash me. Wash me. Wash me. Wash me. Wash me. Wash me. Wash. Me. Wash. Me. Wash. Me. Wash. Me. Wash me. Wash me. Wash me. Wash me. Wash me. Wash me."

The stinging in her bottom increased until red faced, arms constrained against her naked sides, Sarah found herself crying, crying real tears. Tears of shame, and pain, and simple silliness at her situation. "Okay okay okay," she yelled. "I'll wash you, I'll wash you I promise."

Instantly she was released, gently placed upright standing before the washing machine. The Beast stood behind her, and she could hear the soft sishing of the clothing moving rhythmically, in a moment she realized it was the sound of the thing's breathing. Boy, the laundry sure has gotten out of control in this household, she thought sillily.

Behind her the beast reached over her shoulder and she flinched, but all it did was gently lift the lid on the washing machine with a massively clawed hand of her socks and underwear. Its other hand came against her seat again, but this time it was almost gentle, a reminder that's all.

"Wash me," it pleaded.

Breathing hard Sarah stood indecisively for a moment, and she felt that soft hand on her bottom again, this time easing down the seat of her jeans, worming its way into her panties to goose her intimately. The beast, ten feet tall, loomed over her as it goosed her with her own sock. "Wash me," it pleaded in a whisper, stroking her cleft.

Sarah switched the dials to warm-warm, thinking the beast might like a hot water bath. But then she thought of her clothes and all the colors and the fabrics, and she switched it to cold. It seemed not to care. As the water cascaded into the washing machine the Beast withdrew its hand from her intimate place, and it touched her shoulder, gently turning her.

"Fabric Softener," was all it said, in a wistful tone.

***

Sarah adds the fabric softener, not being at all stingy as the Laundry Beast growl's appreciatively behind her. Then she takes out the generic laundry detergent, but as it looks at her with a hurt expression, saying nothing but emanating 'why?' into the air, she pulls out the expensive stuff. Her scarf licks across its lips and it nods, just slightly, and she measures out a capful, adding it to the water. The beast swirls into the air, pouring itself into the machine with a grateful sigh, the clothes piling themselves neatly into the washing machine, flowing into the water, settling, lining themselves neatly. More clothes than should have been able to fit, far too many articles for the washing machine to ever handle, her jeans line the machine, her socks and her panties and her bras and still more. Her sweats go in, barely seeming to fill the machine even though it should already be beyond capacity. Still her sweaters, and her gym clothes, her jerseys and her tiny little shorts, the machine should be overflowing, but somehow, there is yet more room. Her little party dresses, red and black and purple and green and even those electric blue and yellow ones she knows men love even when they complain the colors are absurdly bright. The sheets and blankets throw themselves into the machine, at least a load and a half by themselves and yet they fit, neatly settling into the machine. The entire Laundry Monster settles itself within the metal tub of the washer, fits neatly, without trouble.

It settles, goes still in the filling water, and Sarah knows the job is done.

Until it needs to go into the dryer that is. Which might be a battle all its own.

Sarah woke in the comfort of her bed and for a moment she was confused. She wore her favorite pajamas, the blue ones with Alf on them which she had received as a birthday present just a few years ago. Vaguely she remembered collapsing face down across the bed, and it all came back to her. Her mother coming in an hour later, her mumbled replies to the questions if she was all right, had a good time, drank too much, as her mother slipped off her shoes and worked at her socks. Semi-coherent she had started when her mother smacked her bottom sharply and told her to get up and take off her clothes and get changed, as she couldn't sleep like that.

She had gone back to sleep, or tried to. Then her pj's landed in an enfolding warmth across her head, and her mother smacked her ass hard enough to make her squeal and shoot upright, kneeling on her bed. Get up and get changed, she was told in no uncertain terms.

She had gotten up and changed, and then her mother had given her a glass of warm milk, and tucked her back into bed, under her soft warm blankets. She had smiled as her mother kissed her on the head, and stroked her hair back from her face, and reminded her she had a test at school on Monday, so she would have to study all Sunday afternoon. Good thing it was Saturday, Sarah had replied, glancing at the clock which told her it was three in the morning. Her mother had laughed and told her goodnight.

Sarah looked at the clock now, it was only five in the morning, and she really, really had to PEE!

She was currently face-up on her bed and her arms were trapped against her sides in the wrapping of sheets she had somehow managed to wind around herself, as she thrashed and tossed in drunken dreamings. She hated it when she had alcohol induced dreams. The covers held her tightly constrained, and her ankle had ended up trapped behind her other knee so she couldn't move her leg, with the winding of sheets. Those same sheets had wedged themselves up between her forcibly spread legs, and a large knot of them forced themselves deeply into her crotch, making her pj's ride up her uncomfortably as their pressing weight made her need to pee all the more urgent, and yet somehow, also provided a weird kind of pleasure as well.

Thoughts of the Laundry Beast filled her mind. It was huge, and powerful, and terrifying in its determination. It wanted her to do its bidding, it demanded it, and as Sarah thought of her dream, I know it is a dream, just a dream damnit, she found herself growing moist, down where she was wedged apart and ridden by a knot of her blankets. Bound within the constriction of her sheets, without thinking about it Sarah grunted, thrashing, and managed - slowly - to inch her right arm over her belly, her hand worming beneath the knot, dipping under the waistband of her pj's. She was naked underneath, having removed her clothing under her mother's insistence, and so there was nothing to keep her from her moist softness. Sarah found the soft shell of her woman's pleasure and unselfconsciously, she began to masturbate. Her pert fingers fondled at the soft flesh of her sex, spreading her outer labia and exposing the rumpled hood of her clitoris, which had pulled back as her clit engorged. She stroked it, the Laundry Beast racing though her mind, and she fondled heavily, a thrill shooting deep inside her at the intense contact. She found herself arching beneath her tight wrappings, bottom rising off the bed, lifting her knotted sheets high into the air in the darkness of her bedroom. Sarah moaned, a low, guttural noise of sheer animalism. Her clit pulsed, and Sarah felt herself begin coming, spasms rocking her so that she cried, body held still within the intense wrapping of sheets. With a hard thud which resounded in her head, Sarah's ass slammed hard into her mattress as she spasmed herself into soft stillness, panting and spent.

Satiated, Sarah relaxed, a soft smile playing around her face. Then an intense need returned, made all the worse by her act of self-pleasure.

She shouldn't have drunk that entire glass of warm milk, clearly. God that was a freaky dream, she told herself as she extricated her body with some difficulty and slid out of her bed, swaying for a moment as her drunken equilibrium settled. She made her unsteady way to the bathroom and relieved herself, but as she did all she could do was stare at the wicker hamper wedged into the corner of the bathroom, against the wall and the end of the bathtub.

It sat there innocently, a coiled serpent pretending slumber, waiting for its opportunity to unfold and embrace her in its deadly hug. The wicker hamper seemed to stare back at her, something within it coiling, unseen in the darkness, malevolently waiting, watching from within the depths of the hamper. As she looked upon the hamper the hamper looked back upon her, into the depths of her, so Sarah found herself turning her head away, anything but to meet its gaze. But she found herself forced to turn back, forced to look at it, to watch it, waiting for any sign of life. Within its depths something seemed to coil, unfolding lazily. It sat there, looking back at her, watching her, waiting for a moment of indecision, a hesitation, a revealed weakness which would allow it to burst forth upon her, enfolding her and dragging her down, down to a restless cottony abode.

"Wash me."

No, Sarah shuddered, shaking her head. It was all a freaky dream.

***

Sarah crept across her parent's bedroom, trying hard not to wake her father, and gently shook her mother awake.

"Huh, what is it honey? Is something wrong?" her mother sleepily asked, eyes unfocused, not really awake.

"No mom," Sarah whispered as her father snored. "I just need to do some laundry, I didn't want you to wake up and worry."

Her mother glanced at her own bedside clock. "Sarah, it is five after five in the morning, not at night. Do you realize that? Are you sleepwalking or something?"

"Nope," Sarah replied with a grin, "I'm sleep laundering."

A jaunty swing to her hips, Sarah's mother watched her skip confidently out of her bedroom with a puzzled frown.

And that dear readers, is the story of how one young lady learned to do her own laundry. An epiphany of orgasmic proportions, allowing her to break free from the shell of adolescence, emerging from the washed out, confusing  verge of not-quite-almost-cusp-of-twenty-something, into full adultery… or um, I mean, adult hood. Yes, that is what I meant.

And IT WAS ALL THANKS TO ONE ALCOHOL FUELED NIGHT!!!

THE END

The author always appreciates constructive feedback; most especially criticism. Any reviews of this work would be most appreciated!