Clubhouse - a Mickey Mouse story

57

Mickey Mouse woke up on gloomy white tiles, a pink toilet inches away. His head pounded as he lifted himself up on his hands. Struggling to stand, he looked at himself in the mirror. There were bags under his red eyes and a shallow gash along his forehead.
He stumbled out of the dim bathroom and into the dirty hall. It was littered with bottles, roses, and the smell of cheap cologne.
It took him a while to realize where he was. Clarabelle Cow's house. And her room was five feet away, the door open. Mickey found Clarabelle collapsed in her bed, wearing dirty lingerie, her paper-thin legs sprawled over the satin sheets. Her eyes were closed but she wasn't sleeping, he knew.
"How long have I been here?" he said, dazed.
At first Clarabelle said nothing, and then, "Weeks."
"Weeks," Mickey repeated weakly. "I've been...weeks! You didn't let me go home?"
She stretched out. It was then, for the first time, Mickey realized how sickly skinny she was. He'd never noticed it. He was always surrounded by bony supermodels, but she was beyond bony.
"You're free to go. You always were. You've been drunk all month."
"Are you okay?" Even he was surprised at that, coming from his mouth.
She closed her eyes and turned onto her back. "I'm the same," she said.
He inched closer to her. "The same?"
"As I always am."
"And how is that?" asked Mickey softly, slowly making his way closer until he was sitting on the bed beside her, their snouts nearly touching.
He watched Clarabelle's eyes fall into his, and she parted her lips to speak but he grabbed her jaw and pulled her mouth onto his, but it wasn't rough like it always was, it was soft and gentle and he felt as if he was holding an ancient relic in his hands. He noticed for the first time how delicate and fragile she was. Something shot through his stomach-something fluttery-he hadn't had butterflies since he met Minnie.
Minnie, he thought subconsciously, but it was distant, as if his own mind were underwater and his body wasn't, and he lost himself in Clarabelle's soft lips, wondering how he hadn't before.