Author's Notes
No, no, what follows does not mirror the show. I can't be that nice and throw that into the mix just yet, can I? Of course not. I've got to complicate things and make them crazy. This chapter was a blast to write, and I know the next one will be, too.
Warnings: serious drug use, incessant giggling, and glow sticks.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin
Chapter 4: Don't Go In If You Are…
By Persephone's Nautical Nun
"God, I love this song," Emily says, swaying slightly to the music as she takes her next hit.
I listen to it for a minute, start bobbing my head to it. It felt heavy, and dark. "Who is it?" I ask her some time after the first chorus, passing the spliff back to her. I had to admit, it was good shit. I already had a decent head change.
She inhales the smoke in her mouth with a pop and grins at me. A pause, then she exhales. "Jack Off Jill," she says, passing the joint back to me yet again. "Almost old enough to be considered classic."
"I like them," I say, getting even higher. I wasn't lying. They played with abandon, and that kind of recklessness was intriguing. Sometimes, I wish I could be more like that.
Contrary to initial belief, I did manage to relax after the blowback. Just being that close to her, knowing she feels the way she does, was a little unnerving.
No. That's not it. But it's a good enough explanation as anything.
But I don't know why I've avoided hanging out with Emily for so long. This isn't nearly as awkward and tense as I thought it would be.
"I'd better get ready for tonight," she says once we've finished smoking. I don't know what she's talking about. She looks like she's ready for a night out. Cargo pants hang loosely from her hip bones, and she's got an electric blue shirt on with intricate black designs on it. It's surprisingly eye catching.
Hell, even I'd hit that.
Wait a minute.
No, I wouldn't.
Fuck.
She bounces, yes, bounces, off to her bathroom, and I'm left in her bare living room. It wouldn't even be fun to snoop, because I really don't think she owns enough stuff to have anything embarrassing.
I guess that's what it's like for a while when you strike out on your own. I don't think she's gotten any help from her family since leaving home. If she had, I'm sure she'd have a couch. Though, I find it interesting that a guitar is higher on Emily's priority list than actual furniture.
There's a knock on the door and I decide to go ahead and answer it, letting Emily get ready uninterrupted.
"Hey, Naomi!" Cook exclaims, clearly surprised to see me. "Good to see you, here."
"Hey, Cook," I say, stepping aside to let him in. I purposefully don't respond to his comment, or offer explanation. "Emily's just getting ready. I didn't know you were picking her up," I explain.
"I'm picking everybody up," he says, leaning against the metal pillar. "You were next, and last on my list. Saves me the trip, though."
I move over to the stereo and turn the music off, and Cook yells towards the bathroom. "Come on, we've got to go!"
Well, what did you expect? You just showed up, without warning.
"You know, patience is a virtue," Emily says as she steps out of the bathroom. She's put on a white long sleeved shirt underneath her blue one, and added a bright red belt to her waste. She's run a brush through her hair, and darkened her eye makeup.
It's not much of a change, but it's a great one.
"Yeah, yeah," Cook says, waving her off. "Let's get this party started." He throws an arm around me shoulder and leads me over to Emily, throwing his other arm around hers, before directing us both towards the door.
"Why do you have to live on the top floor again?" Cook asks Emily, when we're about halfway down the stairs.
"I like the bell tower feel," she says. "Besides, how else would I keep these fantastic legs?" she asks, smiling widely.
Then explain the arms.
Cook's managed to acquire a van from somewhere. I don't bother asking him, because I'm fairly certain I don't want to know. I can't testify against him if I don't know anything, right? It looked like a normal van on the outside, but the interior was something to write home about.
Cook was driving, and Effy was in the passenger seat. Freddie, Katie, and JJ were squished in the back seat. The two middle seats were separate, and while the one closest the door was facing the right direction, the one opposite was facing backwards, and was reclined at a forty-five degree angle. There were white fairy lights trimming the floor and windows, which had sliding blinds on them. The ceiling had an oval cut out of it with a mirror installed, also lined with the fairy lights, and encased in glass. The carpet was soft and thick. It almost looked like a retro space ship. I noticed there was a tray that folded down from the wall that Freddie was currently using to break up weed on.
I had no idea why he was continuing. He already had five spliffs rolled and laid out in front of him.
Emily's quick to grab the seat facing backwards, so I climb in after her, shutting the door behind me. Cook let's Freddie finish rolling the spliff he's working on before moving again. Though it doesn't look like Freddie's done, yet. He's already started work on another one. "What are all those for?" I ask.
"Oh," Cook says, laughing from behind the wheel. "One for each of us," he explains. "But hold onto it throughout the night. You'll need it in the wee hours of the morning."
Emily nods sagely at his words, but I ignore her. "What do you mean?" I ask.
"You'll see," he says, and I can't get anything else out of him.
Freddie finishes rolling the last spliff, and hands one to each of us. I look about on my person, looking for somewhere to put it where it won't get crushed or come unrolled. Emily sees this and takes my spliff from me, sliding it into a small wooden box she's pulled out of one of the pockets in her pants.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Freddie asks her when he sees.
"Don't worry," she tells him, smiling softly. "I'll take care of her."
Excuse me?
Freddie just shrugs, and I notice Katie glare out the window. I wonder if Emily saw it, or even cares. She doesn't appear to.
The place we were going to sure was out of the way. We had left civilization a while back, and have been turning down smaller and smaller roads. Finally, he turns down a tiny gravel road that twists and turns its way through hills until we reach a great stone church. It looks like it's been here forever, and is set into the hills behind it. I imagine it being the kind with old catacombs in it. There's a red light shining through the stained glass, making it look almost satanic.
"Whoa," JJ says, and I find myself agreeing with him.
"Alright, now there is a rule of conduct," Cook says, turning around from the driver's seat. "Once you're in, no one leaves the church until we all leave together tomorrow morning. Got it?" He seems to be dead serious.
We all vocalize our understanding in some form or fashion, and pile out of the van.
"Alright, get ready for the adventure of your life," he says, rubbing his hands together. He looks just like a little kid on Christmas. I look over at Emily and can tell she's excited as well.
When we get inside we're stopped by a plastic table blockade. There are things for tea set out on them, with really large sugar bowls. I watch as Cook reaches into one of them and brings out two sugar cubes, tossing them both in his mouth. He chews them quickly and swallows, shaking his head and howling in triumph. Emily smiles at him and follows his lead, popping two cubes into her own mouth as though she were popping pills.
I've got a funny feeling about this.
Everyone else follows suit before they're allowed past the tables. I'm fairly certain I have to partake if I'm going to get into this party. I toss two in my own mouth, and let them dissolve, and I know I've just taken LSD for the first time.
"You should have only had one," Emily says, leaning towards my ear so that I can hear it over the bass. "Those are double drops."
Great. First time out and I've dropped four hits. Go me.
The main hall is huge, and is lit up in red. There are speakers set up along the walls, and the pews have been ripped out. There's a balcony on the wall with the front door, for extra congregation seating, I suppose, and a balcony at the front, for the choir. It looks like the altar's been transformed into a bar.
I get the feeling that "renovations" like these have been made to the whole church.
There are people dancing in the middle of the room, but it's not packed. I noticed there weren't an insane amount of people earlier, and now I know why. Too many people tripping in a confined space is potentially very dangerous.
The music is slow, and dark, and crawling, and almost makes me want to writhe against someone. I look around me to find that everyone I came here with is gone. Emily's around, but she's across the room, dancing with some brunette chick. I get the sense that she's keeping an eye on me, though.
I make my way up to the altar, and realize it's not so much a bar as it is a drug accessory buffet. There was a guy dispensing bottles of water, and he handed one to me as soon as I got up there. I looked at a few things laid out on the table. "Pacifiers?" I ask him, incredulous.
He looks me up and down before handing me one. "Take it," he tells me, and I do. "You'll be thankful later." He says.
"Thanks," I say, and turn around. I quickly shove the pacifier into my pocket and forget about it.
Soon I started to feel light, and the red felt imposing. Everywhere I looked I saw ghosts of couples that didn't belong together. It was heavy, and I needed to get away from it. There were a few doors and hallways leading out of the room, so I just chose the one closest to me. It was a dark hallway, and I had no idea where it went.
The music coming from behind me muted itself a few feet in. It was now just a dull thud coming from somewhere far away, and I felt much better. I was getting kind of claustrophobic, though. The hallway was hot and musky, almost as though there were people having sex in it.
That's a funny thought.
I feel something wash over me as I start to giggle. I giggle, and I giggle, and it feels so good that I just have to keep on.
"Ow," I say between giggles as my knees hit the stone floor. It doesn't hurt for long. I'm too busy laughing.
I laugh so good and so long that I forget how long I carried on. Suddenly, I notice that my sides really hurt and I should probably calm down.
By this time, I've completely forgotten where I am.
As I'm lying on the floor, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time, I notice a thin strip of dark blue light. It looks like it's coming from nowhere, and I'm overtaken with the need to figure out what it is. It's just that it looks so refreshing. I make my way over to it, not bothering to stand up since it's on the floor anyway, and reach my hand out to touch it.
My hand goes into it, and I realize it's a door.
Wow, I'm a fucking idiot.
I stand up and lean against the wall, groping in the darkness for the door handle. I find it and lean, opening the door and stumbling into the room. It's cooler in here, and it feels nice.
It looks like somebody's split open a bunch of those glow necklaces and splattered the walls with their insides. There are splatters of various neon colors all over the walls and surfaces of everything in the room. Even the mattress on the floor. Hmm. That looks comfy.
I make my way over to it, and practically fall on top of it. The cloth feels strange against my skin. I roll onto the back and start to look at the neon splatters around the room. The music in here is different than the music earlier. It's electronic, but it's not techno. It's slower, and more ambient. It's almost trance like, though not quite.
Regardless, I like it. I like it here, in this room, with the black light and the neon paint. It's nice.
The door opens, and someone walks in, but they turn out the lights before I can figure out who it is. I think it was female, though. That sure narrows it down.
I'm not afraid though, and I'm too fucked up to wonder why. The paint splatters glow brighter in the darkness. I stare at a particularly intricate accident, and I can almost feel myself falling into the fall.
A blue cylinder of light appears over by the door, followed by a red one. They start to move, slowly at first, but picking up momentum, slowing down and speeding up with the music. Their tracers are extremely long.
The blue light runs. It makes intricate patterns, and sweeping arches, speeding faster and faster away from the red light, but the red light's relentless. It follows the blue light no matter where it goes, no matter how hard it struggles to keep up. Sometimes, the blue light will stop suddenly, and the red one will whiz past it, only to backtrack and try and catch up all over again.
It's one of the saddest things I've ever seen.
Until suddenly the two lights start to move together. The blue light is letting the red light keep pace, and they start to create beautiful patterns and shapes together. They twist and turn around one another, and it becomes difficult to spot exactly where one ends and the other begins, and know I've never seen anything more beautiful in my life.
It causes me to cry out when they're finally still, because it was all too much to take. I don't think humans are meant to experience something like that.
The lights begin to move again in response, but slowly. After a few minutes, they start to move toward me. I can't help but smile as they come ever closer to me, bathing me in light. Closer and closer they come, until they right up at my face, dancing with each other and making me squint. One of them moves to one side of my face, while the other moves to the opposite side. They start to beat in time to the music, moving past my face and back with every beat, creating blinders of light so that I can only see ahead.
A face comes into view, and the lights make me feel as though this is all there is. The rest of the world that I thought existed outside of this column of light is fake, and imaginary, and this person must be nothing short of God. How else could they control these pure light creatures? I swear, they were souls in their own right, each one.
Except it's Emily and I gasp.
The lights fall from beside my face and go back to where I think the door is. Emily turns the light on, and her white sleeves are blinding in the black light. I have to squint. She turns her glow sticks off and comes to sit next to me on the bed.
"How are you feeling?" she asks, but when she talks, a soft green light comes out of her mouth. I find myself staring at her lips when she speaks. She smiles when I don't answer her. "Naomi," she says firmly, but still gently.
"Yeah," I say, breaking out of my trance. "I'm alright." My eyes have caught sight of the intricate black pattern on her shirt. It starts to breathe after a few seconds.
She moves, and the patterns shifts and I don't want to look at it anymore. "How are your teeth?" she asks me.
What?
I work my jaw once or twice to discover that I've been clenching my teeth and sucking my cheeks. I run my tongue along the inside of my cheek to discover that it does, indeed, feel like a denture mold. I hadn't even noticed I was doing it.
"You're probably dehydrated, too," she says, handing me her bottle of water and making me drink. It's room temperature, but feels good nonetheless. "Where's your pacifier?" she asks me, when I've handed her water back to her.
I have absolutely no idea what she's talking about.
She sighs and reaches into one of my pockets, producing a pacifier by magic. Hey, she should take JJ's shtick. I start to giggle, forgetting that I didn't say that out loud, and wonder why she doesn't join in. My mind completely skims over the fact that there's no way she should have known where that pacifier was, especially since I didn't even remember I had it.
She doesn't seem to mind, though. She is, however, patiently trying to get me to suck on a pacifier. Why do I feel like an infant? "Come on," she saying gently, and it sounds like I'd break her heart if I don't do it.
I open my mouth, and she slides the pacifier between my lips. Now, I understand. It feels really good to have something to chew on, to keep me from sucking on my cheeks, and it keeps the saliva flowing.
I take it out when my dry-mouth is cured and look at Emily. "Why don't you have one of these?" I ask, before sticking it back in my mouth and sucking on it.
She turns to face me and opens her mouth. Whoa. I forgot about the green light that comes out of it. I see her slide her tongue between her upper row of teeth and cheek, and she fishes out a miniature glow stick, shoving it vertically against her teeth with her tongue for display. "It functions essentially the same way the pacifier does," she explains. "And it looks really cool when I talk."
She's kept her voice low and gentle the whole time, and I have to admit that I enjoy the sound of it. It's soothing. I remove the pacifier again so that I can talk. "It does," I agree. "You should do it more."
She smiles and looks shyly away. It's kind of cute. She digs into one of her pockets for something and produces two small pieces of plastic, only about three centimeters in length. She snaps them, and they glow a soft pink. She starts to tell a story, using them as props. Sometimes, she'd just wave them and make pretty patterns. Sometimes, she'd do coin tricks with them, letting them fall across fingers and knuckles. Sometimes, she'd act out part of the story with them.
I can't even remember what the story was about, but I know I was enthralled. I lay down to watch her, curling up in the corner. She sat cross legged at the opposite end of the mattress, facing me so that I could see her and her movements clearly.
It was really cool what she could do with those tiny little lights.
"Hey, you want to see something really cool?" she asks, and I can hear the excitement in her voice.
"Yeah," I say, feeling like I was young, and it was my birthday. I sat up in anticipation, mirroring her position.
She dug around in her pocket once more and produced another pink glow stick. She wove hand patterns for a minute, passing it from hand to hand. It was all very fluid and complicated. She could make it tumble through both sets of fingers, while the original two lined its path.
And then she started juggling them. At first, I was amazed with how well she could juggle such tiny objects, but the more I stared at her, and the tiny pink lights, the more I got taken away to some other place, some mystical forest where magic exists, and people bond around campfires, and shoot stars into the sky.
I gasp, and can feel my eyes start to water. This is what dreams are made of, after all.
"What is it?" she asks, worried, but she doesn't stop juggling, and I'm ever thankful for that.
"It's like you're playing with fireflies," I whisper.