39. Incense and Peppermints

39

INCENSE AND PEPPERMINTS

DAISY

"There's blood on my feet. There's blood everywhere!" I scream as I jump up and down into the puddle like I'm a little kid again, getting dirty with my pink rainboots on. But as opposed to when I was young, this time I'm not just jumping around in the mud.

This time it's blood. And my feet are bare, my toes wiggling in the wetness.

The carpet is no longer breathing and the flowers are no longer moving. I can't even see the flowers anymore―the whole ground is covered with bright, sticky blood that rapidly rises and fills the room.

I squeeze my eyes to get back in touch with reality, but it's not working. "There's blood everywhere, Lester," I choke out, trying to find him in the room. But I can't see him―I only find my own reflection in the countless mirrors. When I look inside of one, it seems like millions of little Daisies stare back at me.

The terror I feel reminds me of one of those nightmares I used to have, the ones about my birthmother in Crimson Manor. Those dreams where I'd turn into a helpless baby with all those prisoners reaching for me from behind the bars.

I force my eyes wide by use of my forefingers and thumbs, exposing all the whites of my eyeballs. They're bloodshot, and that makes me panic even more.

I'm scared. Why am I scared?

Letting out a cry, I instantly force myself to stop when instead of tears, blood leaks out of my eyes, all the way over my cheeks. I hug my own chest, wrapping my arms around it to soothe myself.

A sudden presence enters behind me and when he walks into the frame of the mirror, I take a breath of relief when I find my handsome professor.

He's here now. So it will all be okay.

"Little nymph," he says, reaching for me. I'm ready to happily accept his embrace when his face suddenly distorts into something dark. "Don't be afraid…"

"Professor?" I squeak with a fearful tremble in my voice. "What happened to your face? Why do you look like that?"

Where his kind face should be is a mask with wide, scary eyes, brownish skin with a rugged texture, with an open mouth that creates a black hole. I recognize it. It's the same mask the Sculptor of Death wore during his kill last year.

"What are you talking about, angel? This is my true face." The black hole where his mouth should be enlarges, turning bigger than his head.

Oh, no… It's going to suck me up and take me into the darkness!

It feels like I'm tittering on the edge of an abyss, with no one there to catch me. "Lester!" I scream again.

I need him. He will make it all okay. But he's still not here. This scary man behind me is not Lester.

I cry out at the top of my lungs as I turn and run away, my feet stomping through the bloodied floor. Droplets of blood fly everywhere as I go and the man with the mask follows me through every mirror. Until I feel like I can no longer breathe.

Right when I tear open the door and try to make my way to freedom, an arm shoots out from behind me, wrapping around my waist as he pulls me back inside the room. I gasp out my protest, swinging my arms and legs hysterically. "No! No !"

" Shhhh ." A soothing hum enters my ear, and my vision instantly seems to return to where it was before the ground filled with blood. "It's okay. I'm here. You're having a bad trip. Let me pull you out of it, okay?"

"Lester?" A desperate wail leaves me, the panic flowing out of my body at once. "Where were you? You told me I wouldn't lose you, and you weren't there!"

He presses rough kisses on my cheeks, grounding me as he squeezes my shoulders tight. "You were spaced out on the chair. I went to my studio for just a few moments to grab some art supplies, because I felt so inspired all of a sudden. I shouldn't have left you alone. I'm sorry. I didn't think you would realize I was gone. But then again, I'm still pretty far out myself. Maybe the minutes I thought I was gone were in fact a lot longer. The hallway seemed endless. It was a bad idea."

I nod against his chest. "Don't leave me again, please."

"I promise, Arcadia. I'm here. It's okay." He gives me one last kiss before he picks me up from the floor and carries me to the mattress. He drops me onto the soft sheets and reaches for something from a side table. "I think we've both had some fractions of a bad trip. This'll help." He holds up a joint before he puts it between his lips and lights it.

He inhales a deep drag of the weed before blowing it out, and I watch the smoke with amazement as it moves through the air, like tiny particles that swim away from each other until they dissolve into nothingness.

He lays his head down onto the mattress and hands it to me. Taking a drag myself, I keep it inside my lungs until I lay down my head beside him. "Ah…" I exhale with satisfaction. "That helps."

We continue smoking it until the tip, and he puts it out in an ashtray beside us. "I think we both feel a lot better now, don't we?" he asks, trailing his fingers over my bare chest, moving them in intricate shapes that make my skin cover with goosebumps.

"Definitely." I look at the ceiling, the room a vibrant, peaceful place again. "A lot better." The darkness is gone, and I'm back to the headspace that I was in before the fear took over. In the back of my mind, I know that weed enhances the effects of LSD, so Lester made a good call.

"Do you believe there is a god?" I wonder, a sudden curiosity about the unknown hitting me like a brick.

"I don't know," he answers, his eyebrows furrowed. "Maybe you're God."

I sit up straight, my eyes widening as I think about that. "Oh, no!" I gasp out of nowhere, my hands slipping in my hair. I tear the strands at my scalp and rock myself back and forth. "What if I am God? I don't want that responsibility! I'm just a girl!"

He comes up from the mattress and wraps his arms back around me. " Shh . Don't worry. God isn't real. Or he's dead. No one knows." He chuckles suddenly as he points his finger at me. "Your ears are melting."

I cover them right after he says it. "No, they're not!"

His laugh turns into a burst of giggles and I can't help following behind in his moment of happiness, uncaring if they truly are melting.

"Are the carpets breathing again?" he asks, nodding to the ground beside us. I lean back on my elbows as I watch over the edge of the mattress. The flowers and intricate shapes are moving again and I watch in wonder as they do.

"Yes. They're so beautiful. They're alive." My words are dragged out, kind of like I'm talking in slow motion. That fluffy, happy feeling that I felt at the start of the trip is back and I fall back onto the mattress. Loud laughter fills the warm air around us as I climb on top of Lester and cover his chest with hundreds of kisses.

"You're tickling me!" he yells as he tries to push me off him, but his strength seems to be gone.

"Your voice is so high now." I cackle, trying to tickle him underneath his armpits with my fingers. "You're like a squeaky toy."

When he catches my wrists, I can no longer torture him. I plant a kiss on his lips instead, then roll off him and into the breathing flowers on the ground.

"Now the flowers are tickling me !" I laugh at the top of my lungs, trying to get up. My limbs are too heavy, so I start crawling instead, on the way to the camera.

Once I've straightened my back and I'm high enough to reach for it, I take it off the tripod. "We need to continue our movie, Lester. We can do a lot better. Let's make the best porno ever."

The music has long since stopped playing, and Lester makes his way to the turntable to start another record. L'America by The Doors begins, the familiar tune only bringing us deeper into the insanity of it all.

"Dance for me, Professor." I point the lens at him from across the room.

Instantly, he starts swinging his arms in front of his torso, crouching before he jumps up and down, switching between legs, along to the sound of the music. His head rolls on his neck, his hair swooshing in the wind that the movements create.

He's all the way into it, not even noticing my loud laughter as I watch him.

Is he really dancing like this? Or is it all part of my fucked-up imagination? I've never seen him this free before. There's always an edge to him, always something he holds back.

The man behind the mask.

I love the man behind the mask… Why doesn't he know it yet? Should I tell him? Should I let him know the real me, just like I want him to show me the real him ?

He jumps through the room and I follow him with the camera. His bare ass stares at me from every angle when he passes the mirrors and that makes me laugh so hard that I fall backward onto my own ass.

When he faces me as his dance comes to its end, my eyes widen as I point at him. Something large swings in front of his crotch, going in circles as he thrusts his hips forward.

"It's a snake!" I yell loudly. "It's a snake, Lester! I'm going to eat it!" I crawl toward him on my knees, pointing the lens straight at it. "It looks friendly. Maybe I shouldn't eat it after all…"

He grabs the white snake by its throat, shaking it before tapping it against my cheek. "Eat the snake, angel. Let it slither through your throat…" He takes the camera out of my hand and holds it up against his chest, the lens facing me. "Let it fill you with its poison. It will open your mind…"

Eagerly opening my mouth, I grab the serpent by its throat with my own hand and take it inside. "Hmm…" I hum out in pleasure. "The friendly snake tastes good."

"The snake likes you. You're so good to him…" His words seem to drag out at the end each time he speaks, and it sounds so melodic, as if he's singing like a shaman in the desert. "Ah…" he moans. "The snake wants to paint you with its venom… Will you let it? It might make you delirious for more… Addicted…"

"I want it!" I yelp eagerly as I come up for breath, then go back to bobbing my head so hard that I gag. "Poison me…" Drool leaks out of the corners of my mouth, and I gather it up before I use it on myself, forcing my fingers inside of my cunt, where I need them. "Poison me, and then love me to death."

A loud growl sounds above me, and suddenly the snake is gone from my mouth. Its head stares straight at me instead and I open my lips on instinct.

"Fuck…" A familiar voice groans. "Fuck, angel… Take it. Take it all…"

I watch in awe at the white droplets that shoot out of the snake's mouth and they land on my forehead, my cheeks, even the tip of my nose.

More groans of pleasure are a beautiful song in my ears, and once the snake moves away from my face, I take my hands up and rub the sticky venom everywhere. The serum contains life, and something inside me tells me that my skin needs it. I need it to survive.

"Holy fuck, little nymph." I open my eyes to find Lester, and the snake is gone. "Look at you. You're filthy. You're rubbing my cum everywhere, angel."

"Ah," I moan, shoving my fingers inside my mouth to taste it, looking into the lens of the camera. "It tastes so good, Lester. I love the taste of you. I love everything about you. I love… you."

He sinks down to his knees instantly, putting the camera down on the chair beside us, facing our way. Crowding over me, he kisses me on the lips before he starts licking my face. It makes me giggle again, and before I know it, his throbbing cock is back inside of my starved pussy. His thrusts are slow and delicate at first, before they move on to being ragged and hard.

I come apart before I know what's happening and my release pours out all over the carpet as he keeps thrusting to drag it out. "Lester…" I cry out. "My ass, now. I need you to fuck my ass. Please."

There's never one sliver of reluctance in Lester when I ask him to do something. He's just always so keen to give me anything I desire. So he pulls out of me, then tells me to turn around and get to my knees on the mattress.

Arching my back, I look over my shoulder to find him nodding with approval. His face is clear now, no longer distorted by my trip, and his thick cock no longer looks like a serpent. When I look behind him, the walls are moving and the mirrors are curling and swinging from side to side.

Squeezing my eyes shut to regain a sense of normality, they shoot open when something wet circles my asshole. I look over my shoulder again, finding his face buried between my butt cheeks. He eats me up like a starved man, and I reach backward to push on the back of his head with my hand, adding pressure so his tongue goes deeper.

"Lester!" I cry out, my voice catching midway. "Yes! Oh, fuck. Yes, fuck me with your tongue…"

He presses two fingers inside of my pussy at once, and I scream when my whole world spins off its axis. My release blasts out of me as stars detonate behind my eyelids, and when I bend my head down to look underneath me, I find Lester lying there with his mouth wide, drinking up my cum as if my cunt is a fountain of life.

I shakingly squeeze out every drop I have to offer him as my clit is a throbbing ache that begs for more.

I can't get enough of him. I just can't. It's impossible. I need his touch every second of every fucking day.

Lying my cheek down on the soft mattress, I try to catch my breath as I ride out my climax, but I don't get the chance. Because before I know it, something warm and wet drips over my asshole. I rapidly find out that it's oil, and flashes of time slip past me with every blink my eyes take.

He's buried inside of me when I open my eyes back up, seeming like I missed a flicker of time. My body is so relaxed that he probably barely had to stretch me out.

"Fuck, yes!" I scream when the euphoric feeling of his giant cock inside of me hits, and I look behind me to find him filming where we connect from up close. "How does it look, Lester?"

The notion that he's filming me so closely is enough to send me over the edge again, as our bodies twine together like a rope.

"Like we're making the most pulchritudinous piece of art in the world, just by using the skinsuits that contain our souls. The way we connect is a masterpiece of the flesh, my Arcadia. The way we fit so perfectly together is a masterstroke of the ages. With our cum as our paint and our limbs as our brushes and sculpting tools. Our bodies, our canvasses. We enrich each other, Daisy."

He moves his free hand to his face, rubbing his eyes. "Fuck, I don't know what the hell I'm saying. I just feel too much when I'm with you."

A burst of overwhelming love courses through my veins, warmth spreading through my every nerve.

I feel like I could die from happiness.

He's mine.

Lester Gilbert is all I've ever wanted and he's mine . He hasn't said those words explicitly yet, but this evening has proved to me that he is.

Thrusting deep inside my ass, he keeps the camera pointed at where he goes in and out.

"Maybe all I've been searching for is for someone to understand me," I choke out. "To understand the need, the endless hunger for the depravity. For the first time in so long, I feel seen."

"I see you, angel," he groans as he thrusts harder. "I see it all." He wraps my hair around his fist with his free hand to make my back arch even more. "Look around you at all the mirrors. Watch me fuck you from every angle. Do you see it?"

I look with wide eyes at the angles he aims my head at, seeing him fuck me from about forty different sides, seeming endless. I don't know if my vision is still doubled from the LSD or if it's only the mirrors. But it doesn't matter anyway.

Because I see it. I see the way he looks at me when he fucks me. I see the way admiration is painted on his handsome face when he forces himself deeper inside.

"Yes, Lester. I see it!" I cry out.

The world around us seems like one big kaleidoscope as the vibrant colors move around. I see our bodies connect from infinite, twirling flares and edges.

This must be what heaven is like.

That's the last thought that goes through my mind before I come again, and Lester follows behind.

We fall asleep shortly after, both of us drained from every shred of energy we had at the start of the night. We sleep until the sun comes up, and once we've had breakfast and recharged a bit, we head back to the Red Room, where Lester puts on our sex tape with a projector, letting it play out on the creamy white wall.

Seeing us fuck each other on film gets both of us going again and we fuck until our limbs give out. And despite the LSD having worn off entirely, some revelations still haven't left my mind.

This truly is heaven.

Lester Gilbert is my heaven. And pretty soon, when the truth comes out, I will become his hell.