Putting the Lame in Flame

Story Sent in by Jerry:

Laura was a college friend to whom I was irresistibly attracted. She was into me just as a friend, at first, but after a good amount of persistence on my part, she agreed to a date. And wouldn't you know it, she had a good time. So two dates later, I wound up in her dorm room. Jackpot, I thought.

We watched a movie together on her bed, but while I tried to nudge closer to her, she kept nudging away. Finally, she rolled off the bed and crawled under it.

At first I was concerned. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"I'm fine," she said, "Just playing. Errrgh... mmmmf..."

I wasn't sure why we couldn't play atop the bed, but I followed her down to the floor and discovered the unfortunate fact that she was stuck under the bed. Somehow, her head and chest were wedged between the mattress and the floor. She screamed and thrashed, which seemed to only make it worse.

Clicking into hero mode, I jumped up from the floor and picked up her bed, smashing over her lamp in the process. It crashed to the floor and shattered. That in and of itself might have been only slightly problematic, but she also had candles lit and the lamp, in its fall, took them out, too. One of them remained lit on the floor and caught on the carpet.

Laura screamed and pointed. I ran out of the room to the hall, where there was a fire extinguisher. But before I could return to her room, she had slammed and locked the door.

"Laura!" I yelled, banging on the door, "I have an extinguisher! Open up!"

The screaming abruptly stopped. A few of Laura's dorm-mates, who I didn't know, came out to the hallway to see what was going on. I knocked a bit more and called for her, but there was only silence on the other side. I waited around a few minutes, didn't smell burning flesh, and so I replaced the extinguisher and went home.

She didn't reply to any of my subsequent messages and when I saw her thereafter (I was genuinely relieved that she wasn't dead), she'd scamper away like a mouse from a cat.