Sunday was the strangest of days this week, and the day where the moorings of normalcy finally snapped; like the last strings of meat connecting muscle to bone, your perceptions and understanding of your world were flayed clean, exposed to the glaring truth.
It began - rather you can only remember events clearly - from 11:11am precisely. You remember because suddenly you were staring at the nondescript alarm clock on Lana's bookshelf. The red LED lights blink and then shudder like bacteria under a scope, breaking into spidery runes that crawl in a bizarre marquee across the screen. Lana doesn't notice at all - she is intently focused on the twin stacks of cards on either side of the cardboard treasure chest occupying the center of the table; her long, black-painted fingernails dance between the both of them...she always took her time when you were playing Dweomerdelve.
Right...that's what you'd been doing - it had to have been...why couldn't you remember coming here? The last thing you recalled before this was Carmen leaving you malarial and exhausted...you'd stared up at your ceiling fan, the spinning blades consuming your field of view until...suddenly you were here. Your mouth tastes of hot blood, and there are bits of meat between your teeth; you're still ravenous, but not as much as before.
"Oh look. Yet another explorer," Lana grouses. She pinches the cardstock image of an unredoubtable Dwarven tunnel-delver between her fingers like a worthless lottery ticket.
The image turns its gaze upon you and scowls in harsh judgment.
You are almost growing used to the visuals - you didn't know what else to call them, as you'd been so feverish with lust that you'd forgotten to ask Carmen the right questions. You resist the urge to replay Friday's encounter in your mind's eye and instead play the game of normalcy. "They're the best cards, I'm telling you. You just aren't looking at how their score is calculated - " you start...autopilot, since you'd had this argument with her before.
"You know they're cursed," she returns, a reflexive response. Hers is a distinct voice; dripping with sardonic dismissal, flat in the face of a whole world of disappointment. "For some reason whenever
I
have ten of those little bastards I lose, but when
you
have ten you somehow win."
"It's because I synergize." It's the most obvious thing in the world, certain items you could snag from the treasury boosted your scores all around...but she was hopeless when it came to math beyond basic arithmetic.
"It's cuz you're full of shit. Play your round Arji." She leans back with a jangle of bangles and charms, crossing her pale legs and glaring at her deck
The two of you had a history...not one that was always peaceful, but even after months of separation and silence you inevitably drifted back together. Some people in your circle said it was because you were meant to be, your Dharma inevitably chaining you together through a bond that transcended your attempts to date in high school, your inseparable antics in college, and the disastrous fighting that broke you apart for twenty four whole months. You'd been hanging out again for the past three years, and it had proved a comfortable thing. It was familiar, replete with motions that were easy to go through; you understood each other well enough now to have settled into a sort of unnameable closeness that transcended the usual platonic connection.
Mostly because when neither of you were dating someone, you ended up fucking each other often enough.
Right. Play your round man.
You throw down a cardboard circle representing a copper coin, reaching for a card;
a coiled thing of green wisp and bits of paper, pursed lips and slurred muttering circles the both of you in the air, swooping in lazily at the thin trail of pungent marijuana smoke rising from a stubbed roach in her ash tray. It recites a chemical formula for synthetic THC dismissively.
Your left eye twitches at the sight, and you wrestle to keep your expression composed as you go through the ritual motions of the game...still, you're utterly distracted and focus is sparse as water in the Sahara.
The strange creatures, bizarre vistas, and alien sensations nobody else picks up on are bad enough...there are your appetites that you've been fighting, and they're rather intensely focused on Lana sitting across from you. You're so well acquainted with her that normally you take her valkyrie-like bearing for granted but you're finding it extremely hard not to stare. Fortunately she's also easily distracted by whatever is happening five stories down on the street.
Lana Ekholm is not a soft woman. She gives the impression of a being carved from ice, with piercing eyes of cerulean. Her thin lips are set in a sort of perpetual glower that softens into a quizzical pout in your presence. From a side profile, her face is severe but you've always found it singularly attractive.
"Colonel Bryan is stirring shit with the choirboys...that's the third time in a week." She leans forward, the low-cut black tank top doing little to hide the valley of her cleavage; your mind wanders to memories of her breasts filling your hands, of her soft nipples in your mouth...now isn't the time; it wasn't like there was a set moment where the 'benefits' part of your friendship kicked in, but when you were just trying to play a boardgame didn't seem right.
You tear your gaze from her collarbones, feminine softness of her
organ-rich
belly to look outside. Sure enough, down there in front of her apartment complex, the stooped figure of Bryan Platt with his green beret and ridiculous cane-sword is terrorizing a pair of high school boys wearing crisp collared shirts and too much hair gel. They're carrying neat little red-covered bibles.
A seven-armed thing of coral-red flesh wearing a filthy white robe floats above them, a golden halo spinning above the stump where its head might have been. It tugs marionette strings, hooked into their spines.
You had to check once more to make sure Lana wasn't seeing this either - yeah she's completely nonplussed, no way she's witnessing this madness. You find yourself staring at her jugular vein...you try to tell yourself that you never really noticed the way it pulsed before, beneath the pale pinkness of her skin - but that's not true. On Friday when she'd asked you to come over and 'scratch that itch' as she put it, you were very aware of it under your lips as you languidly massaged her from within.
Thmp. Thmp. Thmp. Thmp.
It's maddening, visible even when the tendons in her neck shift as she turns her head, you can practically
feel
it on your tongue -
"Arji. Bro." Her fingers snap twice in front of your face
throwing purple, guttering sparks
. "You're like...on the verge of drooling. You need a Monster from the fridge or something?"
Monster.
Why are you hiding the truth from your best friend, the one person in the world who understands you better than anyone else? You drag your nails up and down your arm, turning your gaze away from her...you're never able to keep your emotions under wrap with her; she'll know something is wrong with you and she'll press and pry until you leak it out, like she always does.
Why fight it? It's not like Carmen is going to meet her or something.
"I haven't been sleeping very well - "
"You never sleep well," she points out.
That was true. "Alright, then...so something really weird has been going on with me lately," you begin cautiously. Now her full attention is on you, there's no escaping the Swedish Inquisition as you've called her. "You know how I do that MMA thing? Y'know the one, with Tosh and Kiebler - "
"Meatball?" She picks the joint from the ashtray, sipping lightly at the smoke...her lips are terribly distracting.
"We don't call him that to his face," you point out flatly, tearing your eyes from her to look at an indistinct point on the next building over. "Yeah though, that down, just down the way from your place."
She gestures patiently for you to continue, so you do.
"I met a girl there." Oh now she's
really
