Part One:
Sleep was not a gift readily afforded those spiraling down the rabbit hole of heroine withdrawal. So it was no surprise to Jo that she had awoken several times, her mind beleaguered by voices and her body sodden with a persistent sweat no cold shower could subdue. The first night was always the worst.
But as the days progressed, the physical pains waned and things settled back into a more normal state of being. But the voices, however, did not stop and seemed intent on driving her insane.
If Jo had learned anything during her three years of addiction, it was that you should never waive your Miranda rights and rehab was just like high school, complete with idiots who had nothing better to do than fuck with people. So it was now imperative she discern the target of this ongoing prank. Find the victim, find the culprit. It was a simple equation.
With rapt focus she strained to isolate the words, pulling apart the syllables, concentrating on the vowels, parsing and reconnecting the components, until the pieces fell into place.
"Jo," she repeated, "come find me." Jo tossed the covers from her legs and shot up from her pillow. "Me? What the fuck did I do? I just got here!"
This is precisely why jail doesn't work, she thought to herself, see what happens when you toss a bunch of miscreants together.
"You can't mush people of the same ilk into one place!" derisively she snarled, pounding her fists against the mattress. "It breeds chaos!"
There was no denying that rehab was boring as hell. But driving people bat shit crazy didn't seem an appropriate way to quench one's thirst for entertainment.
"Seriously? Do you have nothing better to do? This is fucking ridiculous!" Jo rolled from her bed and scudded across the tatty wood floor, throwing open her door. "Where are you?" she hissed. "Stop fucking with me!"
She honed in on the chatter, following it down the vaulted corridor to a garishly carved door at its conclusion.
Fucker, she thought mindlessly as she shoved it open, intent on finding the joker responsible for keeping her up.
"Where are you?" she barked, her fists clenching to the point of numbness, her fingernails digging deep into her palms. "I swear, you are so dead when I find you!" she snarled as she skittered down the wide stone steps to the cellar.
No sooner had she reached the bottom, than she noticed something stir within the shadows and when her eyes shot up, the chatting abruptly stopped. The figure of a man loomed steeped within the darkness, his face obscured by the charcoal cowl of a short crinoline coat, and he made no effort to reveal himself.
"Was it you?" she demanded, jabbing an accusatory finger through the air.
"Was what me?" he asked, the warm dulcet tones of his voice momentarily quelling her agitation.
Jo's shoulders relaxed as she watched his long fingers twining together in hypnotic repetition. "Was it you... calling my name?" her voice softened.
A soft chuckle escaped his unseen lips. "I can assure you, I haven't heard a thing."
Her eyes narrowed as the anger resurfaced. "So why are you down here?" she clamored.
Ignoring her demand, he continued without pause, "I recommend you go back to your room. But if you're intent on your pursuit, then perhaps you should try down the hall... the lights will guide you there." Genteelly he tipped his head before disappearing fully into ebony shadow.
"'The lights will guide you there'," she mocked as she pattered down the corridor, the lights leading her deeper into the belly of the cellar. "Who says shit like that?"
The voice began again and with each passing step it grew stronger, drawing her toward a tall oak door at the very end of the wide, arched corridor.
"Come out you coward!" she barked, while pushing purposefully through the door. But the room appeared empty. Nothing adorned it vastness but a dimly lit chandelier, trickling from the high domed ceiling and a stone cathedra, centered squarely beneath the apex of the room's arched ribs.
"This is ridiculous, I'm ridiculous," she muttered, plopping into the colossal seat and sweeping her bare feet across the cold slate floor. "I'm crazy."
That was the only alternate theory. Insanity. Strange shadow man didn't hear anything, no one else was pacing the halls wracked with frustration and she was now sitting alone in a room after chasing a voice that concluded there.
So this was life, she assessed. Her mind was now driftwood in a wasted sea of perpetual delirium, no doubt induced by years of junk.
"You came," the deep, gravelly voice ricocheted throughout the room, bouncing against the unclad walls and clattering against her ears.
"Where are you?" Jo demanded, her eyes panning the empty room.
With a voice as calming as Xanax he answered, "Beside you."
She flailed her arms through the empty expanse of air. "Bullshit," she spat, "there's no one there, where are you?"
Fluttering heat, like the caress of fingertips, traced the length of her arms, creating ceaseless waves of goose bumps.
A whisper of fabric brushed first her left shoulder and then her right. Jo glanced and noticed the thin straps of her nightgown slipping down her arms as her gown spilled easily to her waist, nestling in soft pools of cotton against her thighs. There was a moment of panic, a fraction of a second in which she felt flooded with terror, yet she sat frozen and made no move to reclaim her gown.
The delicate hint of a sweet, earthy breeze swept her cheek, bringing with it a soothing calm that washed over her tensed muscles, relaxing her rigid body.
It was amazing how detached she now felt, as if the fear was lingering somewhere beyond her, still there yet completely inaccessible, leaving only physical sensation.
For reasons that made very little sense, Jo slipped her arms from the fetters of her gown, no longer harboring any desire to conceal herself. The remnants of fabric were quickly replaced by the unmistakable warmth of hands, sliding beneath her breasts and she watched in awe as the flesh of her nipples grew taut, perking shamelessly between unseen fingers.
"What are you?" Jo marveled as she felt an arrhythmic flutter climb like ivy up her thighs, slowly peeling them apart. "Seriously," she gasped as her hips jerked to the edge of the chair. "Who are you?"
"I promise I'll be kind," the voice purred.
What? Who says that?
A pulsing heat insinuated itself between her thighs, pressing hard against her pelvis. An unseen weight bore down against her stomach as the feel of velvety lips swept against the soft flesh of her breast. A supple tongue slowly laved her nipple, followed by a delicately teasing nip against her skin. She could see the traces of saliva against her flesh and yet its origin was still unclear.
"I can't see you." This was utterly insane, there was no one there. "I'm crazy, that's it. That crap rotted my brain and I've completely lost my mind. They all told me this would happen. And my mom always said it was better to be a drunk than a junkie," she gasped, as the weight lifted from her body.
"You're not honestly going to prattle on about that are you?"
"I won't prattle if you tell me what you are," she blurted.
