Perceptions (7) ‘Great. So, that’s me sorted out,’ I said.’ Where are you two sleeping tonight?’ A well-aimed pillow found its way to my face. ‘You will be sleeping on the balcony, if you get too cocky, mate,’ Lizzie said, laughing. Teri opened the balcony doors and let in the warm, salty air. It smelled good, reminding me of bygone Mediterranean holidays. We all stepped outside, the floor of the balcony creaking lightly as we stood to stare seaward. ‘Fabulous,’ Lizzie breathed. ‘Why haven’t we been here before?’ The sun was setting and the sea was smeared with a yellow tinge. Below, not far away, we could hear the sound of gently rolling waves. It put us in a mood for sex. As the light faded, the bedroom began to change colour, intensifying its sensual aura, and increasing our mutual libido. Lizzie was the first to pull off her top, and she threw it over the railing. I didn’t look to see where it would land; I was observing the beauty of her now immaculately tanned body. Usually, she didn’t tan so easily or quickly, but that didn’t stop me admiring her flesh before, and it would certainly stimulate me now. I’d always adored olive skin. Somehow, in the muted light, that was exactly what Lizzie seemed to have. Her skin appeared flawless, and I knew that to be untrue. Smiling lips beckoned me, and I leaned closer to kiss them. She took me in her arms after I followed her act of throwing my T-shirt over the side, feeling on my chest the hard nipples of her crushed breasts. We kissed long and tenderly, the type of kiss that had long been vanquished by marital familiarity. Magically, the sun set directly in front of the balcony, bathing us in a surreal orange light that fuelled our brimming passionate desire. We surrendered ourselves to this engulfing energy and began to undress each other slowly, driven on by kisses and caressing; losing ourselves to the mystic monster craving. Here, locked in embrace, my love for Lizzie was re-born. I only wanted her tonight. It might have been psychic or plain obvious, because I heard Teri say: ‘I’ll leave you two lovebirds to it. I’ll take a bath.’ We didn’t hear her leave. Lizzie and I had thoughts and eyes only for each other Naked in the cooling evening air, we dropped to the floor in an entwined dream world, Lizzie’s thighs invitingly parting for me to take her with my throbbing penis. It slid into her fully lubricated chamber directed by an influence of steamy seduction, swelling immensely as it reached the end of the shaft. A gentle thrust propelled us both into a higher orbit and I heard myself say: ‘I love you, Lizzie.’ Then I shoved twice, and amidst her moans of pleasure, I came hard, inside of her. Immediately I knew that Lizzie would be pregnant. ‘Wake up now, or you will die.’ The whispered warning roused me cold. Sitting up in fright and clenching the duvet, I looked around the bedroom. Nothing stirred in the haunting darkness that was pierced by the silvery shards of moonlight, and the only sound came from Lizzie lying in the bed next to me, fast asleep. In the background I registered the distant breaking of the waves. Now I shivered, recollecting the terse message. But who had spoken? Had I dreamt it? With no answers, I shaped myself to curl up back to sleep, still fatigued after our long day out and the fabulous sex with Lizzie. Both of us had bathed and eaten later with Teri, who seemed harmoniously chatty and unaffected at having to play gooseberry for the first time. Brightly, she had come to bed with us, I suddenly remembered, cranking round to see her. The empty space in the bed caused me to shudder, but that was brief as I glanced a moving shadow by the door leading to the hall. I went pale at the sight of a woman’s face. It was Teri, watching me from the shadows. ‘What’s wrong?’ I whispered, and her sole response was a beckoning wave of her arm. Alarmed but equally drained of energy and resistance, I got out of bed, careful not disturb Lizzie. Teri didn’t wait for me to join her. She disappeared naked into the hall and, likewise, I dutifully followed, padding along barefoot on the carpet behind her, somewhat miffed at her reticence so late at night. ‘Where are we going?’ I called quietly. She wouldn’t answer, but keeping abreast of me, she disappeared into a room farther down the murky corridor. ‘Teri?’ I stood at the doorway, not particularly anxious to go in, but when she failed to come out, I felt I ought to at least investigate her mysterious behaviour. The puff of a billowing white cloud at my feet delayed my action. It was more like a mist, thickening as it rose to my knees. Now I was really worried. Sensing danger, I dashed in to find out what Teri was playing at, only to discover the room was awash with the stuff. Teri stood somewhere in the middle of the gaseous cloud enveloped up to her midriff, apparently undisturbed by the phenomenon, her nude body tantalisingly illuminated in its incandescence. She turned her face to me with a transfixed smile and a lewd gaze, reaching out for me with open arms, silently willing me towards her. As if hypnotised, I stepped forwards, aware I was doing so but strangely induced to comply. Teri clasped me and forced her lips into mine. Her kiss was like a drug, instantly robbing me of my conscious control. I succumbed at her touch, allowing her to arouse me with her tongue and lips along my neck and down my chest. Brain-dead, I stared over Teri’s head as she sucked my nipples, feeling wonderfully at ease, enjoying the feel of her teeth as they nibbled, unperturbed even as the room began to assume new characteristics; changing its size, it’s shape. Fires began to dance on the walls. I watched as the mist turned blood red and then a fiery orange as it warmed and funnelled skywards. Above us, the roof no longer existed, and it seemed normal, non-threatening, in my befuddled mind. The clink of a chain and the sensitive pressure on my wrists made me look down, where Teri’s eyes made contact with mine and bade me to look at my hands. She rose slowly, bringing them up for me to look at closely. They were manacled. It seemed to please her. I wanted to speak but failed, for suddenly the chain was whisked into the air forcing me to grunt as my arms were stretched with a jolt, yanking me to the tip of my toes. My feet barely touching the ground, I looked up into the air and saw the chain disappearing into a swirling void. Instead of panic I felt a pivotal surge of excitement. I was her prisoner, powerless, at her mercy. Now Teri grinned and pinched my hardened nipples between her thumb and forefinger, prising a wince from me and delighting in her authority with a wicked smirk. Then she sank to her knees and took my swollen penis into her mouth, drumming it with her salivating tongue, finding raw nerve-ends that she eagerly exploited. The dual combination of pain and pleasure made me groan loudly, serving to inspire her. Encouraged, her voracious mouth proceeded to gorge on my pulsating head, taking me to the brink then, deliciously, holding me back; doing this several times with her fingers now bunched tightly on my buttocks and her nails embedded in my flesh. I was flying high, skyrocketing, hurtling to the sun. Surging to the threshold one more time, my juices fully harnessed, she let me explode. Through moistened eyes I looked down at Teri. As she drew away and watched the cream spew venomously onto her sweat-beaded breasts, I bucked violently on the end of my bonds until the flow ebbed. Exhausted by this sumptuous torture, my head flopped forward, and I dangled limply, breathing heavily. When growing pain summoned my attention, I moved again. It could have been minutes, or maybe half an hour. My throat was parched and so was my wracked body. Every muscle in my arms and shoulders was aching. I really wanted to get down from here. ‘Teri?’ The clinging orange mist was up to my waist, but it wasn’t so thick any more that I couldn’t see the ground; and Teri was nowhere in sight. ‘Teri?’ Shit. Where is she? ‘Teri! Get me down! Release me!’ There was only a ghostly silence. I looked up at the chain, wondering if I could break it with sheer weight even though up to now it had held me up as if it was embedded in invisible concrete. Grabbing tightly on the chain as best as I could, despite my pain, I tested my theory by lifting my legs from the ground. My best attempts may not have given me a score of 10 in any gymnastic event, but my weight should have been enough to put pressure on the chain somewhere along its length. Come on, you bastard. Give! The strain on my arms was killing me and I could only hold the position for a minute, such was my condition. The skin around my wrists was already flaking and I could feel a trickle of blood running down my arms. I was in a real mess, and I was getting angry now, too. ‘Shit!’ I straightened up again and balanced precariously on my toes, fatigue strangling my ability to hold out much longer. ‘Teri, for fucks sake! Help!’ Where the fuck was she now that I desperately needed her? After giving me that fantastic blowjob, where had she gone? Back to bed? No! Fuck, no. Powerless to help myself, I thought about Lizzie. Maybe she would hear me if I yelled loud enough. What time was it? Possibly she was awake. I screamed her name. Nothing. ‘Lizzie!’ The same. ‘Bollocks!’ Here, alone, I was going to die unless somebody helped me. My senses rapidly cleared in the clammy air. It was baking, stifling. The fires were everywhere, but not raging out of control, I noted. What the hell was going on? Teri couldn’t be responsible for all this. I peered around once more for her, but the orange hue and shifting soup made it difficult to see anything useful. Then I heard a nearby scream, followed by another, and the sound of people crying. I was no longer alone, but I didn’t like the sound of what I was hearing. Frightened, I became very alert. I shifted my weight and grabbed the restraining chain in the hope of raising myself to a better viewpoint. I needn’t have bothered. A cold shiver ran down my spine as I glanced a figure moving in the murky shadows. The screams intensified, and then I almost broke out with a murdered cry, myself. Out of the mist appeared a foul red-skinned creature, a thing very similar to what I’d seen on the beach earlier in the day, hauling across the floor by her hair, some naked fat woman with her arms tied behind her back and shrieking for mercy. The imp glanced across at me and, without breaking stride, disappeared back into the mist, taking his female captive with him. I was horrified, but that wasn’t the worst of it. As the mist dispersed I became witness to a whole host of atrocities. All around me, behind me, too, were imps industriously tormenting human beings - men, women, and even children, all of them naked. Some of them were bound to stakes; others were hanging on chains by their ankles. A man, sobbing and dragging a huge ball chained to each foot, passed me by, his back lacerated by the constant prodding spear of a brutal imp tagging along behind him. A woman, lashed to a rack, was howling in agony as another sadistic imp holding a sharp spike periodically gouged her in the breasts. Two others were playing catch the man with a tubby bald-headed guy as they threw him to each other through one of the fires. Yet another man was remorselessly garrotted, only to be implausibly resurrected and suffer the same torment all over again. It was horrible. I struggled furiously with my chain, but like every other person here, I couldn’t free myself. This was hell. True hell. The last straw came with the full execution of a naked woman who, having been attached bent backward and screaming to a giant cotton reel, with her thighs wide apart and each wrist tied to one of her ankles, underwent a despicable rape by an imp with a huge cock, before he raised a fearsome blade above her head and stabbed her barbarically in the throat. The woman was my beloved Teri. ‘Nooooooooooooo!’ I hollered in revulsion, my voice echoing throughout the chamber of horrors. Incredibly everything came to a standstill and all the imps looked at me with curiosity creasing each of their faces. ‘I’m dreaming! I’m asleep! This isn’t real!’ I floundered lamely trying to break free. ‘It’s a sick nightmare!’ Ignoring my outburst, they continued with their tasks. The screaming restarted. ‘Oh God,’ I groaned under my breath. ‘You killed her, you fucking bastard shit.’ ‘You do not believe in God,’ said the gentle voice of a man, sounding suspiciously like my own. I spun around on the end of my chain like a macabre, deranged puppet on a string, my eyes darting everywhere. ‘Who said that?’ ‘You did.’ I froze. ‘What?’ ‘You are a non-believer, Mark Draper.’ The voice seemed to emanate from all around. Embittered, I risked profanity in responding. ‘Why shouldn’t I be? He’s never around when people need Him. Where was He just now? Why didn’t He stop that? What kind of a God is He?’ No answer. ‘Where is this place? Is this Hell?’ ‘It is what you believe it to be,’ spoke the disembodied voice. ‘That’s it? I’m in Hell because I deny the existence of God? You can’t be serious! Show yourself! Let me see you!’ ‘You believe in Hell but not the existence of God?’ ‘I didn’t say that!’ There was no response save the background of screams, goading me to keep on talking, afraid of what might come next if I stopped. ‘I’ve seen Hell in a million pictures,’ I growled, openly hostile. ‘Hell is everywhere in Creation. People and animals have suffered for Millennia, and where is God? Where is heaven? If He exists why is He letting these vile things happen? And if you tell me God works in mysterious ways, so help me I’ll fucking scream!’ Having got that off my chest I waited for a verdict as I spun like a lighthouse, angry and piss-scared. Even so, a figure managed to emerge from nowhere, seemingly. A familiar figure dressed in black. I was stunned. The old woman was back, only this time I saw her in close, distressing detail. The deep lines on her rutted face were prominent in the sprightly firelight; her age and ugliness accentuated. Granite-faced, she could have been a thousand years old. She stood before me, about an arms-length away, with her arms taut at her hips like a tall statue, silently observing my face, my reactions. ‘Are you here to help me or kill me?’ I asked her. She wasn’t an ideal beauty contest candidate, this modern answer to the Grim Reaper. Death radiated from her cold, dark, eminently evil eyes, setting off a tingle on my flesh through her corrosive stare. Unblinking eyes betrayed no emotion as she stretched out with an extended finger, causing me to flinch and wail aloud in helpless woe as an eroded nail scraped my drooping, still dripping penis, bringing a blob of my sperm up to my nose. ‘This represents your future, Mark Draper,’ she spoke, at once subduing me using that same benign and harmonious man’s voice - my voice - without moving her mouth. It was as though the words were projected into my head. ‘Here on my finger is your son, your grandson, the entire family tree of your descendents.’ And leaning forward she smeared my semen on my cheek. ‘Now you have no future.’ Rattled, I responded with an angry jangle of the chain. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ She remained silent. ‘I want to wake up!’ I yelled over her head. ‘This isn’t real!’ It didn’t work. I couldn’t force the belief that I was having a nightmare, even after closing and re-opening my eyes. She was still there, waiting for me to calm down. ‘I know who you are, Mark Draper, better than you know yourself.’ ‘How?’ I replied, glumly, refusing to look again into her lifeless eyes and unable to look over at Teri’s desecrated corpse. ‘I am the voice of your conscience, your innermost thoughts, the voice that often guides you, aids you, insults and castigates you, praises or berates you. I am the voice of your mind, the harmony, the temper, the wisdom, the loving and the loathing. I am your fury, resentment, your passion, and your desires. I am, in summary, you.’ Now I stared directly at the old woman, wide-eyed. ‘You are me? I’m an old woman?’ ‘No, stupid!’ ‘What then? I don’t understand!’ Tears were awash in my eyes. ‘I am years of suppressed memory, Mark.’ The voice softened, and began to change. ‘You are living here inside your own world, closed off from society. You see what you want to see; and you feel what you want to feel. Nobody can harm you any more. Not in here. You have what you wanted. You’re free now. The burden is lifted. You locked me in your subconscious all of your life, buried me to prevent the cruelty of emotions - emotions that you obviously couldn’t or didn’t want to handle. But that’s all over now.’ ‘I still don’t understand. Why am I here? What have I done to deserve this?’ ‘You’re here because you want to die, that’s why.’ ‘Who said I wanted to die!’ I exclaimed. ‘You did, and not only once.’ ‘When? I said no such thing! Listen! It’s a mistake! You’ve got it wrong!’ ‘Your subconscious has it wrong? I don’t think so! You can lie to anyone you want, but not to me. I’m where your deepest wishes go. This is where it’s all stored, Mark. Everything you think and want and hide away - it’s all here. If I’ve got it wrong it’s because you are wrong. So prove it then. Fight for your life.’ ‘Fight who? One of them?’ The imps had stopped the terrorising to stand and watch the unfolding events, as if inevitability depended on me. ‘Your fight is with yourself.’ ‘Don’t you get it yet, Mark?’ Lizzie appeared from behind me, wearing her lemon cotton dressing gown. She kissed me on the lips and stood back as my arms fell to my sides, suddenly free of the shackles. ‘Lizzie? What’s happening here?’ ‘All of this is in your mind, Mark. None of it is real, except in your mind.’ She saw me glance at Teri’s dead body. ‘Go to her and see.’ Still at a loss, I ran over to Teri, stopped to look at her briefly, and leaned forward to stroke her white face. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, preparing to release her from her bonds, when a smile crossed her face and she raised her head. With a start, I jumped back and watched as she calmly stood up, free and totally unscathed. ‘You’re hurting, Mark,’ she said. ‘It’s time to let me go. We can be friends, but that’s all. You didn’t have sex with me all those years ago, but stop regretting your mistakes and get on with your life. Time has moved on. People and feelings have changed.’ I shot a scathing look at the old woman, then at Lizzie, Teri and all the imps around me. ‘Your life has been punctuated by a miserable desire to cease your existence,’ Lizzie continued, as if instructing the class dunce. ‘You have no children because the world appals you. Fine. When you die your bloodline will terminate with you, unless your brother does something about it.’ My head was reeling. ‘But we had sex last night! You’re pregnant! We’re going to have a baby! Slowly she shook her head. ‘Too late.’ ‘It’s not too late! How can it be too late! Things have changed! We’re still young enough; and the world’s not the same any more! It’s all right to have children. Without me the human race is finished. Something happened the other day, remember? All the people vanished. I’m the only man left on Earth.’ ‘You’re happy about that?’ ‘I’m not ecstatic, no.’ ‘Is it what you really wanted?’ I hesitated. ‘No.’ ‘You see, even now you doubt what you really want. So why don’t you die and get it over with?’ ‘Lizzie!’ I cried. ‘They’re waiting for you. They want to pull the plug. Do them a favour, if you can make up your mind.’ ‘Okay. I’m confused now.’ I looked at all the faces that were watching me. ‘What plug? Who’s going to pull it?’ Lizzie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Listen carefully, Mark, and try to understand what’s happening to you. The world hasn’t changed. Nothing has, except you. Your body is damaged. Your brain is dying. You were involved in a car crash four days ago and you’ve lapsed into a coma. The Doctors are trying to save you, but you’re not showing any signs of hope. They think you want to die. Do you?’ I was speechless. ‘Those are your demons, Mark. Look at them. Thriving in your darkest memories.’ I glanced at the nearest imps. ‘You created them and they’ve been getting stronger all of your life. You blame yourself and you blame the world; and this is where you punish everyone - in your head. Then you bury it all in your subconscious to keep it out of the way. Your demons are pulling you down, Mark, and you’re going to die unless you release them. They’re killing you right now. Do you want to die?’ ‘What’s that noise?’ I asked nervously, becoming aware of a throbbing beat in the background. All the fires were going out and the dungeon was beginning to dematerialise. ‘The sound of your heart. Your life is fading, Mark. Do something.’ I glanced at Teri. ‘Live your life. You don’t need me. Tell Lizzie that you love only her.’ ‘I can feel something happening,’ I said. ‘I see a white light. A tunnel? Is this it? Is that Heaven’s Gate?’ ‘You don’t believe in Heaven, remember?’ Lizzie said. ‘I’ve always had an open mind, deep down. I’ve never said Never. I only wanted proof.’ ‘Do you want to live, Mark? Say it.’ The sound of my heartbeat was getting louder, but also slower. ‘I love you, Liz. But I’ve always believed there has to be something, somewhere, better than this. Aliens never came for me; some form of advanced saviour. I sometimes wished they would. But if life is such anguish, maybe death is for the best. I don’t know about God or the Afterlife, but maybe I’m about to.’ ‘Please, Mark. Are you sure?’
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