Author's Note: Another short chapter. I had to chop a long chapter in two, so you have two shorter chapters as a result. Thank you to all of you reviewing, you really make me smile, you do.
When he crossed the threshold into Camellia's home, the living room was filled with smoke. Looking around, Greg felt as if he had never left. Everyone was pretty much exactly where they had been when he had last seen them, except Gemini was missing.
"Rabbit!" chimed Misty eagerly, bouncing up and down. "Good to see you!"
"Hey there, G-man," Lyle purred from the couch, his arm around Misty. "How's it hanging?"
"Hola, Conejo," greeted Frank calmly from his usual armchair. "You look like shit."
"You know, I really wish everyone would stop telling me that," Greg sighed, feeling oddly at ease with this crowd, although it may have been the smoke. He slid comfortably into an armchair, his armchair, the one he had spent four hours in the last time he was there. It felt like home.
"Want a joint?" Toxic offered, still by the coffee table rolling them.
"Rabbit is just going to have some tea today," said Camellia, her hands kneading Greg's shoulders. "Deus mio, cariño, your shoulders are incredibly knotted."
"You could probably benefit from Cam's tea," said Toxic. "It's cleared up a shitload for me in the past. Withdrawal?"
"Uh huh," said Greg.
"I hear ya," said Toxic, nodding. "Did some Diazepam in the past. Wasn't pretty."
"You do it anymore?" Greg asked.
"Nah," Toxic replied, dismissively. "Switched to Prozac. Much more effective."
"Hey, guys, I made brownies!" said someone entering from another room. Looking up, Greg saw the familiar purple head of Gemini, who stopped and waved at him. "New guy?" she asked. She set the brownies down on the coffee table. "I'm Gemini."
"Yeah, we met before..." Greg said with a small smile.
"Fuck, did we?" She laughed. "Oh yeah, I thought you were Jesus. Damn, that was some good shit. So what's your real name, Jesus?"
"We call him Rabbit," Frank informed her. "On account of how he fucks. Quick and often."
"Bullshit!" Misty laughed. "How do you know how he fucks?"
"Ah, querida, did you miss the sounds coming from my apartment last night?" He winked at Greg, who was not sure if he wanted to play along with this game or not. "Like a rabbit, I tell you."
Gemini laughed. "That's funny, Jesus. Do you really fuck like a rabbit?"
"Er... not that I've been told..." Greg said slowly. "Except, of course, by Frank over here."
"Bet you fuck like a dolphin," Lyle chimed. "Long and satisfying."
Greg tossed a grateful nod Lyle's way. "Thanks, man."
"Alright, here we go," said Camellia, entering from the same place Gemini had come from. Greg hadn't even realized that she'd left. He presumed that the fumes in the room were beginning to get to him, as his body was also beginning to tingle. Camellia was carrying an odd looking cup on a saucer, and handed it to Greg, who peered inside.
"There you are, Conejo," she said. "Drink that and everything will be sunshine and roses, cross my heart."
"What's in it?" Greg asked.
"All natural herbs, my special blend," she assured him, but there was something odd about her smile. Then again, there was always something odd about Camellia's smile. "If you like it, I can sell it to you. For a price, of course."
"That reminds me, bro..." said Lyle from the couch. "You still owe me twenty for that cab."
"Right!" Greg cried. "Shit, uh..." he dug in his back pocket. "Sorry, man, I don't have it on me today..."
"S'OK," Lyle sighed. "We're buds now, everything's cool. I just remembered it is all. Aw, Jesus, hey, Cam, you got any—"
"Of course, sugar, I've got some in the kitchen."
"Thanks, you're a doll..." sighed Lyle.
Greg looked at his tea again ominously as Camellia retrieved whatever it was Lyle had asked for and slid between him and Misty on the couch, tossing it to Lyle.
"Tha-ha-hank you," Lyle cried gratefully, pouring the substance onto the coffee table. He pulled a razor seemingly out of nowhere and began dividing it up. He looked back at Camellia again. "You got a—"
But she was already holding out a short straw, which he took.
"You are an angel, babe, an angel," he said, putting one end of the straw to his nose.
Camellia leaned back on the couch as a strange sucking sound of inhaled air ripped through the room twice and then Lyle was leaning back on the couch again, sliding Camellia some money, which she tucked under the collar of her blue halter top.
"Drink your tea, silly Rabbit!" Camellia ordered as her arm draped around Lyle's neck, stroking his hair even has his hand ran up and down her thigh, his body trembling slightly.
But Greg was far more interested in watching them, the tea still clutched in his hand, his mind reeling from the marijuana contact high. Soon enough, casual touching evolved into casual groping, and casual groping evolved into casual kissing. Lyle's arms were sloppily and hastily wrapped around Camellia as their lips danced. She moved her hands gracefully down his toned biceps, onto his stomach, up and down the side of his thigh, while his was clumsier, needier, much more distracted.
"Didn't your mother ever tell you it's not polite to stare?" Frank asked teasingly.
Greg blinked. "What? Oh, no, I—"
"Hey, it's all good," said Gemini. "I mean, hell, they're hot, aren't they?"
"I guess..." said Greg, blushing slightly.
Lyle broke away from Camellia's mouth, planting sloppy kisses down her neck and her gaze turned to Greg. "Conejo! Drink your fucking tea! I don't make that shit for just anyone, alright?"
"OK, OK..." Greg muttered, taking a tentative sip. It tasted strange, not like any tea he'd ever drank before, and the herbs were ones he could not identify, but at first, it did have the soothing effect Camellia had promised.
"You and, uh... Lyle do this often?" Greg asked conversationally.
"We do it when we feel like it," said Camellia, tenderly stroking Lyle's hair as his mouth reached the very low neckline of her shirt. "I do whatever I want when I feel like it."
Greg noticed then that Lyle was not the only one whose attentions were on Camellia. Misty had decided that she was interested in rubbing the New Yorker's shoulders and back, and this confused him slightly, lights dancing around them, and they were enveloped in a strange glow. The aura was fairly warm to Greg and it left him intrigued.
He took another sip of his tea.
The lights seemed to get darker but the colors seemed to get much brighter. Camellia turned her head to meet Misty's lips.
"Whoa..." Greg murmured, leaning back in his chair. "That's... you..."
He saw Camellia's lips curl, even as they were pressed against Misty's. She broke away to look at Greg as Misty continued her quest down Camellia's neck, while Lyle moved lower still.
"There is a popular theory that all human beings are inherently bisexual," she explained. "Most just tend to gravitate towards one side of the spectrum or the other. Me, I would say I land pretty much in the middle. Lyle and Misty both have similar tastes in sexual partners, namely women."
"Mm..." Misty intoned as she gently sucked Camellia's neck.
Greg took another sip of his tea. The room was beginning to dance. His headache was gone and his muscles were relaxing. The outlines of the people he watched grew wavy, as if he were looking at their reflections in water.
"I hear that..." Greg hoped he actually said, trying to express his agreement. "I myself have... that is... what?"
"Drink your tea, Conejo pequiño."
Her voice echoed in his head as he took a large gulp of his tea and he imagined that he was watching a television set, cable porn, or maybe more than cable porn, he wasn't sure, because he couldn't exactly distinguish what was going on anymore. Misty, Camellia, and Lyle had turned into a very vague blob, a three-headed, six-armed, six-legged fornicating monster that melted on top of her couch.
Melting—that was it—everything was melting. Greg felt as if he were smack dab in the middle of a Salvador Dali painting, or maybe in a microwave with a marshmallow that was about to explode from the radiation. But it wasn't a bad sensation, merely a strange one, slightly frightening, but he was too intrigued to dwell on his fear.
"What team do you play for?"
He wasn't sure who had asked him this question, though the voice seemed deeper than Camellia's, although that didn't mean she hadn't said it. Greg had heard distorted voices before on Valium, so it wouldn't be the first time.
"Any one that'll have me," Greg muttered, hopefully coherently.
A hand was on his knee. Whose hand, he couldn't tell you, and the world was beginning to rock back and forth as if he were on an ocean. Stars blinked in and out of his vision and butterflies flitted across the ceiling.
The hand crawled up his knee, under his shirt, and something like a spider crept over him, straddling him, hands suddenly on his shoulders, so many hands Greg couldn't keep up, eight of them he thought, a mighty spider and his magical limbs. Glancing up, he saw black mountains with yellow peaks, a pale face smiling down at him, soft hands like fur moving up and down the side of his neck, like his cat Liver, or a fur stole. Greg was wearing a stole made out of Liver, and onions, maybe, if there was liver there had to be onions, and food, and he was hungry, but not for long, because someone was feeding him, someone's lips were on his, gruff and ravenous themselves, a slithery serpent's tongue sliding effortlessly into Greg's mouth.
The paws on his shoulder had claws, and they dug into his skin, taking control, but Greg rose to the challenge, embracing the chimera on top of him, hands roaming up beneath the beast's shirt to feel a scrawny, flat chest, his fingers moving up the ribs like the metal skeleton of an umbrella, thumbs rolling over two knobs he imagined were switches on a machine, a mechanical bull he would ride until he got bucked off.
Everything was yellow, and illogical and yet made perfect sense, and bestiality seemed so attractive to him, Greg just wanted to capture the animal that had so casually scuttled on top of him in a net and then fuck it senseless, fuck himself senseless, but, but, but, oh, what was it? What was going on? Who was this strange creature that was inspiring such disconnected thoughts in him?
But then, the mouth of the great chimera withdrew, leaving Greg's mouth to open and close, not immediately recognizing its absence. He wanted more, needed more, and reached out, opened his eyes, saw the black-and-white haired beast climb off of him with a hyena-like grin and move backwards.
And then, an angel obstructed his vision, clad in white, her brown hair glowing with a warm golden aura, her eyes a sparkle and she moved onto her knees, her hands sliding up the tops of his thighs, unbuckling his jeans, and he was ready to die, to be taken to heaven in the arms of this magical fairy, whose hands wrapped adeptly around him, whose hands began to move back and forth and Greg's head rolled back on his shoulders, unaware of the wild sounds that were escaping his lips.
Soon enough, she was ascending, hovering over him, whispering words in a dead tongue in his ear, her eyes so perfect they almost seemed cartoonish as she planted real butterfly kisses on his forehead—the kind from which actual winged insects spring—and they floated into the air and turned to stars in a celestial dance, swirling to create galaxies born of the union between an angel and a mortal.
She moved carefully up and down and with every rise and decent, Greg grew closer and closer to Nirvana, being blessed by some unearthly being, whose hair seemed like autumn spun into silk, whose face was a mask of majesty, whose demeanor was an entire symphony of lullabies of a cartoon masquerade.
And then, it exploded, he exploded, and the firmament above him shattered and came crashing down in shards of mirrored glass and he cried out, every last ounce of pleasure, his entire soul being drawn out of him, stolen by the angel, taken in her hands, and she ascended higher, abandoning him cold, alone, naked, and the sky kept falling and Greg ducked to shield himself from the tumbling glass and cried out desperately, frightened, but the angel was gone, transformed into a melting abomination, some disgusting merge between a nymph and a minotaur, or maybe it was a centaur, he couldn't be sure, but it was the most hideous chimera he'd ever seen.
He wanted the old one back.
Needed it back, he—
"Drink..."
But he didn't want to drink, still liquid poured into his mouth all the same, like rain, and he didn't know where it was coming from, because they sky had tumbled back down to earth and now there was nothing above them to shield them from the wrath of God, or gods, whatever the case may be, they were there, poking their heads up over the edge of the shattered sky and watching down condemningly, knowing every sin, every secret hidden shame, every dirty thought that you hide from everyone else because you know it isn't normal, is in fact deviant, maybe even criminal, if you ever acted on it, and Greg knew with a startling clarity that no one was spared from damnation, that everyone was going to Hell, and he would burn with all the rapists and pedophiles and murderers and he would be there right along with them, because there's no escaping the darkness, not for anyone, not even the fucking Pope.
There may not be a heaven, there might not even be a God, but there most definitely was a Hell, Greg was staring right into it, and he was horrified again, aghast, and no one else could see, or maybe they didn't care, but the Girl Made of Mist said something along the lines of, "Fucking hell, oh yes, baby, there!" and Greg knew it was an affirmation, a condemnation, yes, he was going to Fucking Hell, in fact, he was already there, and the Devil With The Spanish Accent cooed in his ear, "Fuck fast, fuck often, fast and often, fast, fast, fast—"
And somewhere in the distance, there was the sound of a train, but Greg didn't know where it was coming from, or why the walls looked like they were crumbling, or why the Poisonous One's mouth was on his knee, but he was scared, he wanted to go home, but he couldn't find the way back, he was scared, and he didn't understand, and the Demon With The Angel's Face was stroking—more like clawing—at his hair, whispering lies in his ear, quick fixes, contracts with the Devil—not the Spanish one, the Other One—sign here, and you can have all the drugs you want, all the quick fixes, all the fake happiness you could need, and all it'll cost you is your friends, your health, your life, your soul—your soul especially, even if somehow you manage to bargain everything away, keep the friends, keep the health, keep the life, you still lose your soul, because in a game of poker with the Devil, the house always wins.
He didn't want to sign the contract, but his blood was already on the paper, his name shining in red on the dotted line, and it was done, the deal was made, and it was over, his soul was gone, she had taken it from him in that last burst of intensity that he had left, and he was spent, and he was tired, and he wanted to die again, but this time he knew he wouldn't ascend. He whimpered, begged them to stop, begged to go home, begged for solace, and the Violet Twins were dancing on the table, and there were more than two of them, and they were laughing, singing, spinning themselves into oblivion, and then the False Angel said something incomprehensible before the visions and the fear and the epiphanies proved too much and his mind couldn't take it, and then he was dead.