“I’ll meet you on the other side of tomorrow?” I whisper, crying for reasons I cannot comprehend.
“Yes,” he mumbles against my lips. “Always. Now, let me take you to get your fortune read!”
“Do we have time?”
“We have as much time as you want,” he assures, lacing his fingers with mine. “This is yours…all of it.”
“But, Sig and The Mistress…”
“They’ll be fine.” He smiles. “This isn’t our first-time dancing with The Queen.”
The path to the cave veers into the mist, and a scintillating fauna enshrouds us. Glowing plants sprinkled amongst glittering ones provides a romantic atmosphere. I’m mesmerized in the splendor. “It’s so pretty…”
“Don’t be seduced by the environment or the worm,” Twig warns, opening the door to the cavity set within the mountain. “He can be quite…charming.”
A slinky beat hypnotizes the air as I step inside and see the grotesquely large grub sitting on a carved marble mushroom throne. The fluorescent walls jump out at me, and I wonder how anyone can live here until I notice the haze in his eyes. The fat psychic, Moth, is blind.
“What is it…you…seek?” he questions, smoking on his hookah. “Tell me.”
“I want to know the future,” I anxiously reply. “Please.”
“The…future…is not what you want,” he contends, puffing a cloud of aromatic toxins in my face. “Come closer, child.” I scoot forward a tiny step. “Closer.” I move again, and he leans forward. His rolls of skin are mere inches from mine. “You want the present.”
“No,” I argue. “I don’t. The present is bleak and full of misfortune.”
“Yasssss…you do…” He hits the pipe and exhales as I breathe in the blanket of hallucinogens. “Learn you.” He fills his lungs, and I shotgun like a pro. I exhale rings to his delight. “The rest will fall into place.”
His eyes shutter closed, and I twist towards Twig in my delirious state. I giggle and swerve as we exit the portal. I’m still laughing when he chafes, “What the hell was that about?”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you to behave!” Twig is furiously angry with me. My eyes widen as he treks away from the mountain. I follow only to find him propped against a midnight blue boulder. The crystalline texture twinkles like diamonds, and I run my fingertips over it. He grabs my wrist and pulls my body over his lap. Within seconds, my boxers come down, and his hand strikes my bare bottom.
“What are you doing?” I cry, swallowing down my tears and kicking my legs. “Twig!”
“I’m disciplining you for not listening to me.”
His hand feels amazing, striking my bottom, as I get turned on. The rise of his cock pushes against my belly as his open palm comes barreling down again. I think this could be lots of fun if I weren’t so fucked up. I should’ve listened to him.
“Stop! Stop!” I slur as my vision blurs, and my words turn harsh. “You aren’t anything to me, and I don’t have to listen to you!”
Immediately, he lifts my body and pushes me away. “If you aren’t willing to listen to me, then why am I even bothering to help you? You can get to the kingdom on your own since you’re such a big girl.”
I slump to the ground and lean against the rock as he walks off. “I’ve ruined everything, just like I always do.” I topple over and fall prey to the slumber of the Moth.
I’m a little girl in my parents’ house that day. The only day that has mattered in eighteen years. I can hear their fighting as my father comes into my room.
Wait.
Back up.
“I hate you!” my mother bellowed. Another dish, photo, or lamp crashed to the wall. “You’re an egotistical bastard who only cares about himself!”
“You’re so full of yourself!” The roar of my father shook my very core until tears streamed down my cheeks. “And you’re the tramp fucking my best friend!”
“Fuck off!”
“No, sweetheart, fuck you!”
The closet door closes, and I hear the roll of the chamber, the cock of the gun. He’s going to shoot my mother and me.
I think I’m still dreaming when I hear his voice, “You’re so much stronger than you want to believe.” Twig touches my cheek. “So much braver than you’ll ever believe.”
With my head cradled in his lap and the soft strokes of his fingers in my hair, I try and stay awake, but I end up drifting off again.
“… You like watching, don’t you, Lys? You can be next, little girl. I’ll take real good care of you.”
I feel the torment of his rape…the what if I hadn’t killed him…the agony of his violation as he claimed every piece of me and made me his. I feel my demise as he assaults and kills me with his bare hands. I see it all with clarity. “I don’t want to be yours!”
“I don’t want to be yours! I don’t want to be yours!” I awake, soaked in sweat, and staring at the blue oceans of Twig. “I had a nightmare.”
“I know,” he whispers, holding me close. “I know.” His hands brush over my hair. “I couldn’t leave you here. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I made a promise to get you to the kingdom, and I intend to do just that whether you want me or not.”
“You should finish punishing me,” I suggest, sleepily. “I warned you I was a bad girl.”
“When I punish you next time, I won’t be using my hand.”
“I’m counting on it.” I smirk and curl into his arms. “I don’t much feel like walking now.”
“Because you didn’t listen,” he reminds with a snarl.
“I know, I didn’t listen, and I should’ve,” I acknowledge. “I won’t do it again. I promise.”
“Oh,” he says, licking his lips and petting my head laying on his chest. “You probably will, El. You’re young.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re going to take a lot of training.” He kisses the top of my head. “And I’d enjoy every second of it.”
“But you still don’t believe I’ll choose you in the end…”
“No,” he replies, shaking his head. “I can’t wrap my heart around that, for fear of having it broken.”
“If you always fear your heart—breaking—you’ll never know what true love can do.”
“That might be true,” he concedes. “But I’ve had it broken before. Two times was enough.”
I listen to the beat of his heart as my body is tangled between his legs. “Third time might be a charm.”
“… With an eighteen-year-old girl?” He snorts. “I may be too old for that.”
“I’ll keep you young.” I glance up and grin with a wink. “I’ll let you chase me all over the place.”
“… With a belt?” He wickedly snarls.
“With anything your heart desires, Twig.”
We fall asleep with my head on his chest and his arms wrapped around me. It’s not safe here in the underground, but I’m safe with him. And that matters.
It is everything.
“They must be here somewhere!” The loud voice of one of The Queen’s soldiers awakens me. Twig peers down and presses a finger to my lips. “Find them! I want the girl dead! And that heathen beheaded on sight!”
“We’re going to get up,” he whispers. “And run as fast as we can around the mountain. There is another road to the kingdom along the shoreline. If we get separated, follow that road.”
“But…”
“No,” Twig reprimands. “No arguing. Stay low when you stand up.”
“You should know,” the soldier yells again. “We have your Mistress and her betrothed.” My eyes hastily blink to Twig. “We know you are nothing more than a cavalier servant to her whimsical notions. Come out on your own and testify against the rebellion. You can save yourself and the girl!”
His jaw sharpens, and his nostrils flare. “Go… I’m following you…”
“You’re not going to,” I plead, sobbing. “You’re sending me off alone.”
; “I wouldn’t do that, now go!” he demands as I sprint for the side of the mountain. The thorns in the vines slash at my bare skin as I run faster.
The soldier warns, “Her betrothed has already been neutered!”
I stop to look around. Twig is nowhere to be found. “You left me,” I mumble, turning and smacking into his chest.
“I didn’t fucking leave you,” he snaps, grabbing my hand as we run for cover. “We can’t stop.”
“I need to catch my breath.”
He ducks down. “Hop on.”
“Twig, you can’t…”
“I swear to fuck I am blistering your ass as soon as we stop.”
I do as I’m told and leap onto his back. We seem to move twice as fast this way, which sends a twinge of envy into my heart. I want to be able to compete against these boys and play as hard as they do.
The foliage changes to lighter shades of blue and purple until we almost reach the shore, and the dark evergreen leaves return. I’m captivated by this place and want to discover every nook and cranny. And I will when I become queen. I’ll make Twig and Sig take me out to explore…
“Sig…” I mutter as the facts smack me sane. “They severed his…”
“He isn’t dead yet.”
“But The Mistress won’t want to marry him now,” I somberly whisper as he lowers me to my feet. “She’ll want to marry her cavalier servant.”
“You’re assuming way too much.”
“But I’m not Twig. I read so many books… I know how this goes… I will lose you to The Mistress.”
He sits against a rock, on the edge of the cliff, overlooking the sea. The crystal clear water laps with waves beneath a gloomy gray sky. “If they have truly taken his nuts, then I don’t know what will happen. But I can’t worry about that right now, El. All I care about is getting you to the castle. I have her whip and riding crop. And with those, you will rule the kingdom.”
“Why couldn’t she?”
“This isn’t her dream.”
“Oh,” I mutter. “Then, if this is my dream… Sig’s sack is massive and full of thousands of seeds.”
Twig gives a blank stare. “O—kay. You’re going a bit far down the rabbit hole.”
“I already did that via a swat to my ass from a hare, Mr. Dare.”
“Hey, do you still have his ears?”
I pull them—magically—from my pocket. They’re folded and slightly wrinkled. Twig snatches the filthy things from me and stomps on them. I dust the grime from my hands. “Where do you think he is?”
“Probably sipping chamomile tea and giving a blowjob to Sisyphus Mott.”
“Who is that?”
“You don’t want to know,” he replies, smacking his thigh. “Come here.”
I blink. “You want my head or my rear because you’ve had both.”
“Decide.”
“Me?” I ask, placing my hand on my heart. “How can I answer such a difficult question?”
“Because you are the Ellison.”
“If I give you my head, you’ll pet my hair. But if I give you my rear, you’ll spank my ass red.”
“And I’ll probably, admittedly, end up fucking you senseless.”
“I never had much sense, anyway,” I mutter, standing up and hooking my thumbs into my shorts. I pull them down and kick them away. “I know I deserve this.”
He takes in the sight of my naked bits, framed by the hoodie and boots. I’m on display, a toy for his boy, and I welcome his advances. I lean over his body, in an A-frame shape, and lower my body down to his lap. “You’re going to regret this.”
“Only if you stop,” I mention as thunder pounds in the rolling clouds. “You realize it’s going to storm soon, and we’re being chased.”
“Just like I like it.”
“You’re a dirty one,” I giggle as his hand eases over my ass. “And I like it.”
“I like the adrenaline rush,” he smugly states, dipping his fingers low. One finger tickles around in the wet, threatening to submerge into my hollow. “You like this.”
“I do, I really do,” I moan, growing accustomed to this man and his insatiable needs. “I want to hate it, but I can’t. I like you way too much. And I hate how much I love you.”
“I love you, El…and whoever you choose, that will never change.”
I don’t know how I feel about his admission. Twig drives my mind to maddeningly dark places where I no longer matter, and I’m built purely to serve his needs. He slips deep inside of me, finger fucking me hard, and urging my orgasmic elation. He’s a rock beneath me, built to withstand my sway, and all I want is to be a part of him…even briefly, but for a little while…to calm his demons and prove angels exist in hell.
“Don’t come, baby,” he sternly commands. “Ride through the waves of pleasure. Avoid the end. It’s not the goal. It’s just another line to cross—starting and finish lines—they’re both the same. Avoid them. Stay in the mid-section. Bask in all its wonder. That’s where the good stuff stays.”
Through every passage with this man, he teaches me another lesson and provides me with another truth. Maybe our age difference comes into play, but I believe there is some greater enigma at work. He moves fast and slow, deep and shallow, changing his strum of me to coincide with the rhythm of his spirit. And I know then; this is more than loving another. I am in love, tormenting, and blissful love.
He is the drug guiding me through the dream.
And he isn’t real at all.
6
Pink Overdrive
After we surrender to the passion, Twig dozes off, and I decide to run. He’s nothing more than a figment of my wild imagination exacerbated by my neuroses, and I cannot continue to fall in love with a mirage of a man.
This is too close to making out with a pillow.
“He doesn’t exist,” I repeat as I steadily march into the thick of the forest. I stay away from the beach and the battle with The Queen because those don’t exist, either. “He doesn’t exist. He doesn’t exist. None of this exists!”
I refuse to go back underground. I wasn’t that fond of it the first go-round. But I have no map or navigational skills to know where I am or where I am going. I am losing myself in the dark thicket, which is something akin to giving up any hope for my continued survival. I cannot heal or recover from the losses in my past, even if they weren’t for the reasons I initially believed them to be.
Daddy had a gun…
Dick was hurting Maddy…my Maddy…my precious sister.
I’m more than a little off as I succumb to the instability of my ever-flashing frame rate. If I hide, far away from where anyone can ever see or hear from me, then I won’t harm another being. By running, I excuse, I place the straight jacket upon myself.
“I should’ve just gone to prison,” I mutter, dreaming of solitary confinement where I could be alone. “None of this exists. I’m being performed on like a lab rat. They’re probably zapping my mind and filling my veins with toxic chemicals. This is all induced to find my sanity, but what they don’t know is that it never existed. None of this is real. Twig isn’t real. And Twig cannot love me. Because I am simply unlovable.”
In a copse, I note a couple of squirrels playing as another rumble of thunder vibrates the lands beneath my feet. The flash of lightning startles with an overhead arc, and shortly after that, I feel the sprinkling of raindrops. I toss the hood up over my head and find a small burrow in the brush for which to escape.
Wedging in low on my back, I bend my knees up and barely fit the space. It isn’t a perfect tent and leaks like a sieve, but it will provide some shelter until the storm passes. “You’re rather like the box I belong in for safekeeping. For everyone else’s safety, not my own. I care little about myself.”
I hope Twig got out of the rain and away from the soldiers. I would hate to think anything bad happened to him. But what would it really matter? He is not here, and I am not there. We’re neither here nor there but trapped within my brai
n sludge.
“Hoot. Hoot.” The owl’s raspy voice draws my eyes to take a gander into the tree limbs. I don’t see him. “Hoot. Hoot.”
Apparently, this particular owl isn’t blessed with more than a one-word vocabulary. I did a book report on owls when I was a child because I wanted to believe they were my spirit animal. But an owl couldn’t save me from the violence of my father. And an owl couldn’t save me from the ruthlessness of a man I despised. And an owl couldn’t keep me from having these pretty little thoughts of make-believe where pretend friends became my only friends.
“Hoot. Hoot.”
“Oh, shut up! You overgrown crow!”
“I resent that, Ellison,” his voice fills my head. “You should be ashamed of yourself for giving up.”
“I’m not giving up,” I insist, lying. “But there is nothing left to fight for…”
“Bullshit…”
I furrow my brow. “Wait! Shouldn’t that be owlshit?”
“Why?” he asks. “You don’t ever say aww, humanshit. Why would I say owlshit?”
“I’m losing it.”
“No,” he replies. “You only think you are. And if you think it, you become it.”
I take a minute and reflect on his theory. “Does that mean if I think I’m a famous ballerina, I will become it?”
“Don’t be silly. There are limitations to the law. You aren’t practicing anything which would behoove your stability, so why should the universe help you out? You change the journey, not the other way around.”
I don’t know if I buy what the old owl is dishing out. “The journey changes me, too.”
“Incorrect!” he reprimands. “The journey only changes you if you allow it to do such.”
I watch the rain showering the ground. “… If I put in the work, could I have a Twig?”
“Yes, I imagine you could,” he replies with a pearl of wisdom. “But his name probably wouldn’t be Twig. And if it is, please be certain he doesn’t deal drugs. You’ve had enough troubles with seedy types.”
The skies open to a deluge, and I briefly fear I may drown. The unrelenting rains doubt my resilience as my clothes soak through with an icy chill. I must decide what to do. If I stay, it may only get worse. But if I leave, where will I go? “Stay or go, Feathers?”
Madness Page 7
