I feel alone...
Alone with what seems like a hundred other people.
Despite the crowd it is as if I am in total solitude, trapped inside myself watching something I am not part of. I'm not entirely sure how I got here but I don't care enough to try to remember.
For a few moments I cannot feel anything much, just a gentle buzzing through my body. My head seems impossibly light as though it may float off my shoulders at any moment but the rest of my body is weighed down by an unseen force.
The room is dark, humid and swarming with strangers. I breathe in the thick air and it filters warm clouds down my throat and into my lungs, filling me up.
The walls are stark white and give of a fluorescent glow beneath the velvet black motif that curls itself around the room, I trace its path with my eyes. It pauses at the glowing fireplace before snaking its way to the other side.
The fireplace is bigger than any I have seen. It is painted glossy red outside to match the raging fire inside resembling something like the gates of hell and I find it hard to tear my gaze away from the mesmerizing blaze inside.
I find myself positioned on a deep seated red velvet arm chair. Unsure if it is curiously large or I am extremely small, the scale of everything in the room seems skewed. The plush softness of the fabric bristles gently into the bare skin beneath me and feel like a caress more than a seat.
The music is so loud that its rhythm has replaced my pulse and the vibrations pump so strongly that I can feel them pass through the floor, enter at my feet and strobe their way up my legs making my entire body feels alive with energy.
I am involuntarily motionless, sitting as if I am part of the throne beneath me but on the inside I am anything but still it's as if I am caught in my own body, my energy bursting to get out. I gradually absorb my surroundings as they present themselves, drinking them in.
The people I can see are shrouded in a gentle haze, making them appear like part of a dream and just like a dream the further away they are the hazier they become, more like shadows than people.
I notice that some of them are trying to talk, finding themselves caught in a very intimate position to be heard, lips pressed to ears and hands to faces to catch any escaping words, a closeness usually reserved for lovers... perhaps they are?
As I take a wider view I realise most people seem tangled in some way like tree roots in the forest as if they have been here so long that they have begun to grow into one another. Some are swaying gently, like a metrical breeze was compelling them to do so while others are intertwined in a more aggressive motion grinding against the other but somehow they all seem to keep the same beat, the same beat that is throbbing through my entire body.
I want to stand but everything is heavy and unresponsive, I sense someone close to me but cannot turn my head to see. I lower my eyes and observe the rise and fall of my breath, the rhythm is slow but so deep that my chest is expanding to the point that it looks like my breasts will spill over the unfamiliar looking corset style dress below me, black and strapless, I am certain it does not belong to me.
I wonder if I am really here or if perhaps it is a dream after all?
Suddenly there is a voice, so close I can feel it before I can hear it, the scratch of stubble on my cheek and soft moist lips grazing my ear. The smell of musky cologne penetrates my senses and draws me further out of my altered state. The energy that courses from within seems to find its way to the edges of my body, bringing with it a tingling sensation in my fingers and toes. They are waking up!
This is not a dream...
"You cannot move, not yet. You cannot speak either. You can just watch... and be watched."
The voice is so deep it is almost inaudible. With each word comes a rush of breath that slides down my neck and causes a chill to rise leaving a trail of goose bumps behind it. Then they are eaten up by the warm lips and the wet tongue held between them, as the voice licks a path from my ear to my shoulder. Then the guttural voice comes again, so impossibly close to my ear that it feels like its inside my head, like part of my own internal dialogue.
"Very soon you will be able to move but only in response to my commands, you will do exactly as you are instructed."
I shift my eyes to the left trying to glimpse the face that belongs to the voice but all I see is my bare arm and the large tanned muscular hand of the man who's presence I find myself in. It rests upon my forearm and I observe as he gently turns it over, exposing the pale flesh inside of my wrist and elbow. I am aware that my breathing has become more rapid and the bodice feels like a cage across my chest. I feel imprisoned.
"This won't hurt as much as you think."
A sharp sting registers with some delay as the strong hand plunges the tiny syringe into my exposed vein. It is like watching a movie as I see the pretty amber liquid disappear from within the vile and it takes a moment before I remember it is me I am watching. Suddenly the warmth and humidity in the room seems to wrap me up in its suffocating embrace and the pain quickly subsides.
My eyes close softly and it is as if I am falling away in to a deep sleep then without warning they spring open again and all of the energy that was being held inside my captive body erupts, overflowing into my every fiber, I have the overwhelming urge to run but my limbs continue to remain defiant. It is torturous.
"You can move... now."
