I wake up in a bed.

I smell sex.

I am naked.

A cat is looking at me disapprovingly.

My back and knees scream as though they have been locked for hours.  I feel dried up and used.  I feel dirty.

Last thing I remember is...what?  Passing out?  Getting shrapnel in Iraq.

No that last thing was a dream.  But it seemed so real.

I hear breathing.  I look to my left and see a woman wrapped up in a sheet.  There is a sheen of sweat on her naked shoulders and back. 

Where am I?

Moonlight is coming through a window but a tree branch is attempting to block it.

A branch covers the girl's face.

I fling the covers off of me and discover I'm naked as well.  I assume that explains the sex in the air.

Great, first time for sex in a long time and I wasn't even present.

Why did I blackout again?

Last thing I saw...was that camera picture.  Me, an African-American.  I wouldn't mind except that I until that moment always saw a white guy in pictures and the mirror.

I get out of the bed and bash my knee against a dresser.  Somehow I navigate tossed clothing and baby toys and that judgemental cat and make it into the bathroom.

The woman is mumbling on the bed, she is waking up.

"Ricky?"

That was Deborah Conners voice.  Ricky is the person she thinks I am, and the person I was in my dream.  

I flick on the lights and in the mirror is a black haired white guy.  The me I remember.  Sam the bartender.  Not Sam Conners, not his friend and certainly not Ricky Davidson, the black solider killed in Iraq.

"If you are going to take a shit, light a match.  And come back to bed, Ricky, I'm getting cold."

Her purse is just outside the bathroom door, I grab it and look inside for her camera.

I take a picture of myself and I am white in the picture. 

This is so weird.

I have to get out of this bedroom.

I turn off the bathroom light and try to walk carefully.  My clothes appear to be near the bedroom exit, but that damn branch is making it hard to see.

"Ricky?"

A lamp clicks on.  

The woman screams.

I go to calm her down, try to explain.

Just to shut her up for a moment.  I picture in her head her confusion.  She sleeps with Ricky and wakes up to a naked white guy pinning her down.

She screams rape.

Her arms flail around, clawing at a nightstand.

I feel panic and pity for her.  

She rakes her hand down my face.  

I feel a sharp pain in my side.

I fall to the floor.

She stands over me with a pair of scissors.  

The branch moves and I see blood in the moonlight.