DISCLAIMER: Not my sand box, but I would like to think the sandcastle is mine (i.e. the plot).
A/N: This chapter…was problematic. :/ Not only does it not contain the daily recommended dose of Beetlejuice, it also starts off with the closest thing to lemonade that this story will probably get with a T rating. If you like the card, go read "Writer's Block" by Dystopiac – tres hilarious!
Feel free to skip this next part if you don't see your name:
Heighway, badkidoh, and LizzySkellington – thanks! Even just a few words like 'good story' or 'please update' make me ridiculously happy!
Shiona Acitiu – I'm glad you think its funny XD
Charm Shadow – I wasn't offended, just curious. The : | smiley is really…blank? Hard to read? lol.
TheBlackxRabbit – I think you have reviewed before (but don't let that stop you from reviewing again!), but I usually only go through the latest reviews when writing the note on a new chapter. It's kind of weird, but I have the opposite problem – I can't get these two to stop fighting for five minutes and make with the smoochies without extreme measures!
And the ridiculously long author's note ends! :O
PREVIOUSLY:
Shuffling back into the bedroom, she flung the stifling quilt aside and wrapped up in a marginally cooler sheet, tying the ends together in a huge knot to make it stay on by itself. Then she flung herself face down on the bed and just screamed her heart out into a pillow which smelled excessively of cheap hotel. Eventually the screaming dissolved into tears, which softened into sleep.
She dreamed of Beetlejuice getting eaten by a sandworm, and smiled.
-SCENE BREAK-
Mind made up, he decisively thumped his invisible fist on his invisible palm, ignoring the fact that they went through each other instead of colliding when he was like this. He vanished again, this time from vicinity of the island (and also the entire hemisphere the island was in). He did have some errands to run, after all.
AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!
Chapter Four: In Which There Are Flowers, Chocolates, Incense, And Photography
After the sandworm, which was orange and blue for some reason, had devoured Beetlejuice, she barely had time to smile before it ate her too. Inside its stomach was very dark and squishy, although strangely spacious and empty. Lydia knew that HE was in here somewhere, but she couldn't find him.
"Hellooooooo?"
No answer.
The world tilted as the sandworm moved, and she fell off the floor onto the ceiling, which was more soft and bouncy than squishy. In fact, there were pillows and sheets. She wondered why the sandworm had swallowed a bed. Perhaps it needed glasses.
Wondering how long being digested was going to take, she fluffed a pillow and flopped down on it, propping her chin on her hands in the traditional thinking pose of teenage girls everywhere.
A hand ghosted over her ankle, making her jump. She rolled onto her back to stare into the darkness, propped on her elbows. "Beetlejuice?"
"That's once," echoed around the room.
This time the phantom touch groped her chest, making her gasp. "Beetlejuice!"
"That's twice!" He sounded closer, and for a blink of an eye she saw two glowing green orbs.
"Where are you?!" She sat up angrily.
An icy finger trailed down her spine and she realized she wasn't wearing her usual nightgown, not to mention anything at all.
"Say it! Just one more time…" he rumbled in her ear, but when she reached out no one was there.
"Show yourself!" she shouted.
He blew in her other ear. "Just say it!"
"Beetlejuice, you stop-"
And then his mouth was on hers and he was easing her down onto the pillow and sliding a knee between her thighs.
Sometime later two sandworms sitting around a tea table floated by.
"Would you like a biscuit?" the blue and orange one said.
The green and pink one said, "Those aren't biscuits, Ferdinand, they're furniture! How many times do I have to tell you to put on your glasses?"
"No…ah! thanks," Lydia said with some difficulty as Beetlejuice had not stopped whatever he was doing down there that made her stomach fluttery and her knees weak.
A loud crash jerked her awake, wild-eyed and sweating.
Her dresser was now rocking to a stop against the wall, but there was no sign of the poltergeist who was surely responsible. She was all by her lonesome in the big bed.
Flopping back down she flung her arm over her eyes to block out the overhead light. Her heartbeat throbbed at the juncture of her thighs but the details of the incredibly weird dream were already hazy. Where the hell had it come from? She'd never even seen a sandworm, but doubted they were British and had tea time or nibbled on chaise lounges that had a sort of chocolate chip pattern.
She blamed Beetlejuice. It was all his fault, especially since he wasn't there to deny it.
How long had she been asleep, anyway? There weren't any windows or even a clock. It barely felt like any time at all, but in any case she was too wired to just go back to sleep now.
Getting up, she padded over to her dresser, mysteriously transplanted from her room in Winter River. She didn't keep a lot of stuff in it, preferring to hang up her dresses, but it did contain several important things. Her p.j.'s and underwear, of course, which figured. But also all of those things which had to be hidden from parents in an underwear drawer, like her chocolate stash or incense – and her camera equipment.
If this was a peace offering, it was a good one.
Pulling open the bottom drawer, she dragged out her camera bag to check for damage due to its unorthodox method of delivery. She could have sworn she heard a disappointed huff from the ceiling, and she was no longer certain that Beetlejuice was not there if she couldn't see him. The Maitlands had never been able to go invisible to her, but she was dealing with an entirely different class of ghost here, wasn't she? If there was a ghost trick to spy on unsuspecting women, this Grade A pervert probably knew it.
Deciding to test her theory, she casually set out her laciest black bra and black panties (all of her underwear was black – it made shopping difficult in a world full of white-wearing conformists). She also took out a shapeless black nightgown (in fact, all of her clothing, period, was black). Then she ever-so-nonchalantly undid the knot holding her sheet toga together.
Quickly throwing the sheet over her head like a tent, she changed into the new underwear underneath. There was a definite disappointed "Awwwwwwww…" coming from the direction of the ceiling.
Whirling around, she pointed dramatically at the source of the sound through the sheet. "Aha! I knew it! You jerk!"
Something tugged at the back of the sheet, sliding it off her shoulders, but she quickly dropped her accusing pose to clutch the fabric to her chest. Turning again, expecting him to be there, she saw no one. In fact, the room seemed to get ten degrees hotter, as if it wasn't a sauna before. Warily, she pulled her nightgown on over the sheet, then let it drop to the floor where she kicked it into a pile with the comforter.
There was no sound of disappointment this time, and she told herself that she didn't care that he'd left her alone again. Also, the polka-dotted, heart-shaped panties that she had been wearing had disappeared, which she didn't even want to think about.
A cacophony of noise suddenly erupted from the other room, like someone jerking open cupboards and slamming them closed, accompanied by muffled cursing and an, 'I know I put it around here somewhere!'
Hurrying out of the bedroom, she headed for the one room her two bit tour had not included. The kitchen. The noise stopped just as she pushed aside the beaded curtain, and she was bombarded by images of pink and red farmyard animals – on the wallpaper, as paper-towel dispensers, as salt and pepper shakers, everywhere. However, the one animal there was no sign of was Beetlejuice. The cupboards, of which there were many, all stuck in odd corners, were all shut.
She cringed and was about to retreat, spooked by the little beady staring eyes, when she noticed the flowers on the table. Gingerly walking into the room, she picked up the card. It read:
To my darling wife –
I want to do you under the moonlight, or in candlelight,
or sunlight, maybe as an afternoon delight…
It went on, in increasingly tiny handwriting. She tore it up and threw the pieces away in the gaping mouth of a pig shaped wastebasket. It looked at her reproachfully, and she almost expected it to spit the pieces back out. Apparently even inanimate objects found the words unpalatable.
The flowers, however, were a profusion of deep purple hyacinths and peonies stuck haphazardly around a single thornless black rose. She cradled the blooms in her hands and buried her nose in them – they smelled so good. It was strangely perceptive of him to give her flowers in some of her favorite non-colors. Didn't they mean something, though? She'd looked it up once, fascinated with the concept. A thornless rose was love at first sight, but black meant death. Purple hyacinths were…I'm sorry? She didn't believe a word of that. And peonies were…an aphrodisiac, 'happy marriage.' Of course he would learn the language of flowers in order to say, 'let's screw.'
One of the cupboards creaked open, apparently not shut all the way. Or had an invisible hand opened it? She went and closed it, peeking inside first at the dishes emblazoned with various fowl, including heart-shaped chickens. Where in the world had he gotten those, and more importantly, why?
If he was still here, how could she tell? She didn't want to have to take her clothes off all the time. And a cold spot in this climate was more like a slightly-less-hot spot.
She began taking the flowers one by one out of the hippo pitcher serving as an impromptu vase (at least it wasn't another farm animal), and stripping off the tangled leaves into the garbage so they wouldn't rot in the water. The pig didn't seem any happier about this offering. She then arranged the flowers more carefully in the plastic hippo.
Hoping she sounded sincere, she said, "I wish Beetlejuice was here – I'd thank him with a BIG KISS." She looked around expectantly, but no poltergeist materialized with arms wide open and moldy lips puckered, so she figured he wasn't here anymore, although he obviously had been.
Shaking her head, she smelled the flowers one last time. She was, surprisingly, kind of hungry. Perhaps it wasn't that surprising, considering the last time she ate was at least a day ago, but it had really begun to seem like the angry-sick pit in her stomach was here to stay and she'd never be hungry again. She grabbed a grapefruit from the bowl of fruit on the counter, next to an entire branch of banana bunches. Seriously, who was going to eat all of those? She hoped he liked bananas, 'cause she didn't.
Watched by dozens of pairs of beady farmyard eyes, she left the kitchen with a shudder. She had to get out of this horror-fest for a while! Retrieving her camera bag she headed out onto the beach. It was dark out, and millions of unfamiliar stars twinkled overhead. A gibbous moon bathed everything in silver. Appreciating the scenery much more at night (not least because there was no sun), she walked until the light spilling out of the tumbledown shack was blotted out, then settled down in the sand.
Peeling the grapefruit, she threw the rind at the ocean because it felt good to throw something, even if it wasn't at a certain poltergeist's head like she wanted. The ocean didn't care. Eating the sweet-sour wedges, she pondered when he'd show up next. When the fruit was gone her hands were too sticky for working with delicate equipment, so she headed back to the shack to wash her hands, taking the bag with her.
After a few steps, she laughed, and set the heavy bag back down. She could see it easily enough, black against the bleached out sand. And who was around to mess with it? Just in case, she said loudly, "If anything happens to my camera, I take a vow of celibacy."
Nothing happened.
When she came back, hands cleaner even though there was no soap anywhere she looked, everything was like she left it. Did that mean he listened to her, or that…he just wasn't here? She wasn't sure if she should be relieved or worried that he hadn't popped up and propositioned her by now.
She set about the routine tasks of caring for her equipment, frowning a little. She took some pictures, trying to hold everything steady for the longer exposure night time photography needed and wishing for her tripod, stuck in her closet back home along with all her real clothes. She doubted any of the pictures would turn out.
When he came back, she'd have to ask if he'd go get a few things. Like soap.
Dawn crept slowly across the horizon. Without any further sign of him, her certainty that it would be WHEN he came back melted into a nebulous IF. After all, why would he come back? She was his wife, but she hadn't been very accepting of his advances (make that: flat out refused). Maybe he'd gone looking for someone more agreeable? Never mind that he was dead and molding – whores could be paid and drunks were unobservant.
As the sun blazed across the sky, she took refuge in the shade of the jungle and finally got all the way to the waterfall, which she photographed. There were no frogs.
She took to saying outrageous things, like, "Maybe I should go skinny-dipping!" half hoping for and half dreading a lecherous chuckle and an offer to join her. It was late afternoon when she announced, "I'm going to take a shower – now taking applicants for the position of back washer," before she scrubbed off sweat, sand, dirt, sweaty sand, sandy dirt, and all the combinations thereof as best she could with water and a washcloth.
She put on a clean nightgown and plain underwear, leaving the dirty clothes in a pile in the bathroom. She used the pink toothbrush from the Mrs. side of a labeled Mr. and Mrs. toothbrush holder (the Mr. toothbrush was conspicuously absent), but there wasn't any toothpaste so she just brushed extra long. She couldn't find the light switch in the bedroom, either, so she climbed up on her dresser to unscrew the lightbulb. It came out, but didn't turn off. It gave off light, but it didn't get hot. Finally she stuffed it under the pile of discarded bed things. Laying down, she turned her back on the light from the living room and tried to go to sleep.
He would come back, right? You didn't stock up on bananas like that if you weren't coming back to eat them. Or maybe it was so that he didn't have to come back for weeks with new bananas! But then…you didn't give a girl a bouquet, and then abandon her to a hellish tropical paradise, right?
God, she really wished he'd come back. She was bored to tears! There was only so much to do alone on a small, deserted island, even with chocolate, incense, and a camera. Out loud, she said, "If Beetlejuice were here we'd make sweet, sweet," she paused for a moment, waiting morosely, then yawned, "pancakes."