I ran into Merry Grazier last month. He was dressed in expensive clothes and when he offered to buy me lunch, I accepted. While I enjoyed it, Merry seemed strange. Some of the references I made or stories I told, things we’d done together during school, it almost seemed like I was telling a stranger stories about things they had never known.

Then he started telling me about how he’d made his money. All in one night. One night and he got paid $4,000,000.00 in cash.

He said it was called the Kissing Booth.

A week later I was in a warehouse in the rotting heart of the city, being placed in what, to me at least, looked like an upright glass coffin. After I was locked inside, I was lowered down and down through a hole in the ground and into the dark. It seemed to go on forever, and I could feel my panic building as the endless night pushed in on me like the crushing weight of black ocean on a diving bell. Then there was light again—light and people, though in the distant dark they looked distorted and strange. When I was lowered closer I saw them more clearly, and then I began to scream.

They never tried to open the coffin. They just each took their turn, walking up to the front, staring at me for a moment before pressing the wet meat that passed for their toothless mouths against the glass. I was out of my head with terror, but I could still sense a change in me with every kiss.

There were hundreds of them, and by the time it was done, I was broken and weeping in the bottom of the booth. When they lifted me back up and opened the door, it took two of the women grabbing my arms to get me up and out to where Merry waited in his car.

He stared out the window. “They live down there in the dark. And while they know much, they see very little. All they took were some of your memories. Some of your best memories, but just a few.”

He was right. I still knew who I was and the outlines of my life, but much of the fine detail of my past was less distinct than before. “You…you bastard. You should have warned me.”

He shrugged, his expression unreadable. “Would it have stopped you? You’d want that money either way.” When I didn’t respond, he went on. “Besides, I have obligations.”

“What obligations?”

“They don’t care about money. They have all the money in the world. But the memories…they will pay you and the people that you bring them…but they have to have the memories. And if you refuse, they just take more from you instead.” Tears in his eyes, Merry gave a humorless laugh. “But cheer up. You’re rich now. Aren’t you happy?”