The Thing In The Pool

Esther sat on the creaky wooden office chair next to the tiny desk in the cabin, feeling the ship rock all around her. Rough seas.

Her therapist, Dr. Sheenie Freundlich, sat on Esther's berth, her face urgent, her frizzy red hair reverse-haloed by the dark porthole behind her. So it's night? Esther thought. Maybe her cabin was far below the surface of the water. She didn't remember.

"What you're experiencing is called a dissociative fugue, Esther," Sheenie breathed in her nasal soprano squeak. Esther only looked at her, but did not respond. Since there was no way Esther's therapist was here on this cruise ship - she was probably drinking a glass of Pinot in her tasteful Santa Monica condo and browsing streaming movies on the Hallmark channel - obviously Sheenie was a hallucination produced by Esther's disordered mind. Given that simple fact, it probably wasn't necessary to speak to her own hallucination. Esther was unsure. "The gaps in your memory? Forgetting where you are? These elaborate hallucinations? It all fits the diagnosis."

Esther shrugged, lifting the jeweled straps of her elaborately decorated evening gown. She looked down at the glistening jewels on the gown. She couldn't remember having put it on. Great, a dissociative fugue, she thought.

"Don't be dismissive, Esther, this is important!" Sheenie squeaked. Esther attempted to focus on her face, which kept dissolving and reforming in her vision. Focusing was hard. "You're having some kind of psychotic break. The things you've been seeing on this ship - they're not possible. They defy the laws of physics and, frankly, the tenets of reality."

So I didn't have sex with three people at once on the banquet table at the Feast last night? Esther thought.

Sheenie sighed. "I think your own body will tell you that you did. But the things you saw around you while you were doing that? The crew growing goat legs and horns? Those people... dying? Those things can't have happened. Those things weren't real."

She had a hazy memory from the Feast, the previous night of being fucked by two men and a woman in masks on the banquet table, her naked ass squashed against a roasted turkey, of seeing the strangest things while she sucked one man's hard cock, the head of it fucking her throat, a second man's cock deep within her wet pussy, squatting on the woman's masked face as the woman licked her ass. She saw the banquet food coming to life and jumping into an obese man's mouth until he choked, a woman with a gas mask inhaling a cloudy substance until her head exploded, a man with a blood filled tube, connected to a slot machine that pulled his blood every time he pulled the lever, and he wouldn't stop pulling it. Why would I imagine such horrible things?

"Don't you see what they had in common? They're addictions, Esther. Food, drugs, gambling. You're projecting your own addiction to sex onto avatars that show you the deadly danger of giving in to your addiction. Your actions last night were, obviously... deeply concerning, but this is hopeful, not a thing to be frightened of - it shows you're beginning to realize that your addiction is causing you harm."

Am I even on a boat? Esther wondered.

"You are, but I'm sure it isn't this bizarre hellscape you've worked up in your head," Sheenie said. "It's probably just a normal cruise ship, and you're... embellishing it. But the thing is, Esther: you have to get off this ship. Find the doctor on board, and tell him you're having a psychotic break. You need to be brought back to the mainland and institutionalized, immediately. If this continues, I can't imagine what..."

Sheenie was gone. Esther's chauffeur with the sparkling blue eyes was standing in the cabin with her, just next to the desk, close enough for her to reach out and touch the shiny brass buttons on his double-breasted uniform jacket.

"Hello," Esther said, giggling. "Nice jodhpurs."

Her chauffeur grinned at her warmly. What was his name again? Something with an R. Why did she have a chauffeur and a jewel-encrusted gown? She was a production assistant for a struggling production company. She mostly ate rice and beans that she made herself at home in her tiny Echo Park apartment. Rice and beans were cheap.

"Ma'am. That joke is funnier every time you tell it. Delivery for you, ma'am." He held out a creamy thick envelope to her. The outside said, "Miss Esther Saxl" in black cursive letters.

She opened it carefully, her fingers were a little shaky. Inside was a thick yellow card, the cursive letters embossed on its surface. It read:

Mr. Lefteris is delighted to invite you to

A POOL PARTY

Esther, you shall be the main attraction!

Pavilion Pool, Deck 12

9pm

Come as you are!

Esther looked up at the chauffeur. "What time is it now?"

"It's 8:45, ma'am. I do wish I could've given you more notice, ma'am, more time to prepare, but we really must leave now. I have just received the invitation and I came straight here. As my employer planned, Mr. Lefteris did find you very... appealing. Last night. Everything is falling into place. If you're ready, we may go."

She stood up, swaying with the motion of the ship. "Do I need a bathing suit?"

"Ah. It's not exactly that kind of pool party. Come as you are, it says." He opened the door to the corridor and stood at attention. "After you, ma'am."

She stood, and walked out before him into the corridor. She stopped and looked back at him, pointing her fingers in opposite directions, the question on her face. "This way, ma'am. Please follow me." It was difficult to walk in shoes with spikes taller than the Converses she usually wore, especially with the entire ship rolling from side to side. Esther held the railing and walked slowly.

"What kind of a pool party is it, exactly?"

Her chauffeur (Romeo?) looked back over his shoulder as he walked before her, matching her pace. "I'll be blunt, ma'am. There will be no water in the pool. There will be an audience, Mr. Lefteris among them. He never misses the pool party. You will be stripped of your gown, and lowered into the pool. A thing will be lowered into the pool after you. And the thing... it will have you."

"I don't understand. Have me?"

"Sexually, Esther. In every way you can imagine. It is a very... malleable thing."

He stopped walking and turned to face her. His face was serious.

"My employer and I will need you to keep the show going as long as possible," he said. "During this show is the only time Mr. Lefteris' attention is absorbed enough for me to perform the task the two of us were sent here, by my employer, to do, without Mr. Lefteris becoming aware of it."

A warm bloom broke out across Esther's cheeks and chest. "This thing, it's going to... fuck me?"

"Yes," he said simply. "And this is important, Esther: Sheenie was wrong. About everything."

Esther wondered how her chauffeur could have overheard her hallucinations.

"The things you're seeing, they're very real, Esther. Mr. Lefteris is a very dangerous being, and he is killing people with their own addictions. It brings him pleasure. Your holding his attention in the pool long enough for me to take the necessary steps to stop him... I'm afraid it's the only way. My employer selected you, specifically, for his belief in your ability to endure this long enough for me to do what must be done."

Esther laughed shakily, feeling her mind yaw back and forth with the motion of the ship.

"Because I really like fucking?" she giggled.

"Yes. We can leave right now," her chauffeur said, staring seriously into her jittering eyes with his piercing blue eyes. Was it Randolph? Ricky? Rigoberto? No... "I will get you off this ship immediately if you say the word. And Mr. Lefteris will continue to kill the weak and innocent, unimpeded. But if you wish to proceed, your willingness is vital. Say the word, and we'll leave. Or we stay. Entirely up to you."

Esther sighed. The unreality of the entire situation was becoming ridiculous. She was dreaming. She had to be. She was going to see where it went. Could be fun. Shaping up to be a real banger. "I don't mind doing a little fucking for no reason at all, usually the only reason I need is, 'I'm bored,' but if it's for the greater good, sure" she shrugged. "How long will you need to do... What Must Be Done?" she intoned, with mock portent.

"Three quarters of an hour should suffice."

"Forty-five minutes of fucking a... thing, to stop a killer, huh? No sweat."

"The previous record for a pool party is twenty-five minutes," her chauffeur said. "And she died shortly after."

They took the elevator down in silence, and walked down a hall. They stood before a wooden door with the words "Pavilion Pool" painted in gold on its surface. Her chauffeur opened the door. "Here is where I leave you, Esther," he said. "When I've succeeded, you'll know. Best of luck." She stepped into the room, and he closed her in, shutting the door behind her.

There had been the murmur of many voices from inside when he'd opened the door, but the moment she set foot in the room, all the talk ceased.

It was about the size of her high school gymnasium back in Cleveland. The room was lit by torches in sconces on the walls around the room casting a gloomy flickering orange light. The walls, floor and ceiling, every surface was covered with chipped and grimy tiles that had once been white, many years before. There was a gallery of balconies up one flight of stairs. The room was warm, steamy. It smelled of mold, creosote and salt water.

In the center of the room was an empty swimming pool, uniformly twelve feet deep. The walls and bottom of it were streaked with old dirt. There were wooden folding chairs surrounding the edge of the pool, and every seat was occupied by men and women in fancy dress, tuxedos, glittering ball gowns like her own. They were all looking at her, solemn, silent. One woman held a pair of opera glasses on a little golden stick, and peered at Esther through them. The elderly man in a tuxedo first seated to Esther's left was wearing an actual monocle, the first she'd seen outside of an old movie. "There she is," he whispered to the matronly woman in a black dress and a fascinator next to him.

This dream is maybe the most bonkers I've ever had, Esther thought.

Mr. Lefteris in his white tuxedo was leaning over the balcony in the gallery. His long, waving hair shone. He lifted a golden cup in one hand in a toast.

"Let the ceremony begin!" he shouted.

The bizarre multitonal and mellifluous quality of his voice had the same effect on her as it had had the previous night at the Feast. She felt a wild abandon stir in her heart and spread to her body, and her mind became even fuzzier than it already was. Rational thought moved to the back burner, maybe the back burner of another stove in a distant kitchen. Her muscles began to twitch and she felt that only dancing wildly would relieve them. She was instantly prepared to do anything, make any sacrifice of future plans or goals or responsibilities, all to achieve a pleasurable now, now, now.

The audience clapped faintly, but politely.

A spotlight lit the air above her head, dust motes swirling within the beam, and a simple wooden swing on two rough ropes descended from the ceiling and came to rest by her knees.

Two figures in hooded robes stepped from the shadows behind her and stood close, at either side of her. "Arms straight out, miss," one of them whispered hoarsely. She held her arms straight out. Each figure grasped a shoulder strap and pulled. Her evening gown tore straight down the center and fell away. She saw one of the jewels pop off and roll to a rest at the edge of the pool.

She stood before a few dozen people naked, her chest heaving, her right leg trembling uncontrollably with the sudden shock of being exhibited to all of them. She pushed down an impulse to cover her bush with one hand and her nipples with the other, and kept her arms out.

"The shoes, miss," the other hooded figure muttered. She kicked them off to the side. She felt the gritty cold tiles against the soles of her feet. Odd, she thought, I usually don't feel things this vividly in dreams.

"On the swing, miss," the first hooded figure ordered. She walked in front of it, grabbed the rough hempen robe with each hand, and lowered her ass to the board.

There was a rush of air against her naked skin as the swing lifted quickly, then tracked out to hover above the center of the pool, the spotlight following her. "Aaaaah," the watching crowd breathed. Esther held tight to the ropes. The swing began to lower. She descended into the empty pool on the swing. The boundary just above where the waterline would have been was lined with decorative tiles. She squinted at them as the swing lowered past them in the torchlit gloom. The tiles appeared to be decorated with pictures of people fucking each other in imaginative and unlikely positions.

The swing came to a stop three feet above the floor of the empty pool. So what now, Esther thought, do I just... swing naked while all these people watch? The swing bounced hard, twice. The message was clear: get off. She placed her bare feet on the grimy surface of the pool and stood. In less than a second, the swing lifted quickly away and disappeared into the darkness above.

Four spotlights, from each of the four corners, switched on and bathed the interior of the pool with yellow light. Esther could see rust-colored stains on the walls of the pool, where the ladders had been removed. No way out.

Esther heard two things at the same time, a wordless chanting from the crowd, and a metallic creaking noise. At the lip of the far side of the pool, the front end of a massive wooden crate entered her view. The side she could see was huge, the size of a door to a castle, thick rough pine beams with a diagonal crossbar. There was a thumping sound coming from within it. Whatever was inside wanted out.

The front end of the crate fell forward, hinged at its base, and whacked against the floor of the pool with a loud echoing noise, forming a diagonal ramp from the crate to the floor.

Esther pressed both her fists against her mouth and tried not to scream.

The thing inside the crate was a gigantic blob of hot pink goo. Its mass would have filled her entire bedroom of her apartment in Echo Park, with some of it squeezing out the windows and door. It had a shiny surface the color and brilliance of a strawberry Jolly Rancher. It was halfway between a liquid and a solid. It rippled. It reached out two pseudopods and gripped the sides of the crate with them, and hoisted itself out onto the ramp. There was a wet flapping noise as it rolled, somersaulting, down the ramp, hitting the floor of the pool with a slap. Two tentacles sprang from the top of it and the tips of them pointed forward and rotated in small circles. It was sniffing the air. It was looking for her.

Esther's naked shoulder blades hit the rear wall of the pool. She must have been backing away without realizing it.

"Start the clock!" she heard Mr. Lefteris' bizarre voice intone. "Esther, the magic word is 'Leeuwenhoek.' Say the word and your ordeal ends. But PLEASE... for the sake of your adoring audience, don't say the word too soon! We want a SHOW!"

The huge hot pink amoeba rippled across the floor in waves, moving with alarming speed from one side of the pool, slapping wet pseudopods on the wall, to the opposite side. It made a high pitched chirruping noise as it moved.

Esther tried to slow her breathing to make less noise, but couldn't accomplish even that simple task. She was gasping for air, stepping slowly on the balls of her feet in the opposite direction from whatever direction the thing was moving. As it neared her, she felt the heat pulsing out from it. It was warm, almost hot...

The scraping of the wall of the pool against her shoulder blades, the grit of the dirt on the floor against the balls of her feet, the heat from the massive pink amoeba's flesh: Esther came to the terrifying realization that this was not a dream, and not a hallucination. This was happening.

She'd been keeping her eyes on the main mass of the thing as it flopped around the empty pool, looking for her, so she hadn't noticed it was snaking a thick tube of a pseudopod across the floor towards her feet. She jumped when she felt the slick, hot surface of it touch the big toe of her left foot, and she lifted that foot from the floor quickly to escape it.

It was quicker. The pseudopod snaked around her lifted ankle and coiled around it three times. The flesh of it was hot, pulsing. She felt the fleshy manacle around her ankle change, harden, into a muscle, and then it tore her leg to the side, and she fell to the floor on her ass. The rest of it flopped across the floor toward her with urgency.

Shuddering, she realized that the creature touching her with its slimy, firming flesh gave her access to its mind - such as it was - and, she assumed, it to hers. She was instantly tuned in to its ravenous hunger, its need, its desire. It would have her, and it would never stop... The magic word to stop it had already evaporated from her mind.

Looking up, she saw the heads of all the audience members ringing the edges of the pool. They were leaning far over in their wooden chairs, watching the scene.

It drove a triangular wedge of flesh between her knees and forced them apart. A tentacle flopped over her chest and pulsed there, once, before it became heavy, holding her back to the floor of the pool.

It was hovering over her prone body in a stilled wave. She felt its moist flesh gliding slickly up both of the insides of her thighs. It touched her labia and pressed on them, vibrating as it nudged them apart. It rolled against her clit in wet ripples. Her breath hitched in her throat and she moaned aloud. Her pussy was seeping. She could feel its thoughts. All it was thinking was "Need need need." She was beginning to feel the same way.

Its hot flesh rolled under her ass and lifted it from the pool. She felt it wrap around her body from the navel down, holding her legs apart, wrapping hot tentacles around her arms, leaving only her head, her shoulders, and her heaving chest visible, floating on its surface. As more of its body touched more of her naked skin, the sense of its need intensified in her mind. It was desperate to have her, to feed on her pleasure. It pulsed around her, its skin sliding against hers.

"Unnnnngggh," she groaned as it pressed inside her, sliding easily in. Her entire body spasmed twice, straining against the warm pink flesh holding her tight. It swelled inside her and she gasped, feeling more full than she ever had. It kept expanding.

"GUH!" she gasped as she felt it smack into the spongey flesh of her cervix and lodge there. She began to vibrate all over. It continued to grow, moving more of its mass inside her. "No," she gasped, "that's too much, too much." It didn't stop. Either it didn't understand her, or it did, and didn't care. She suspected the latter. When her inner walls were strained to the limit, when she thought any more would rip her in half, it stopped growing. It began to pulse.

"Aaaaaah!" she screamed. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!"

It kept another tentacle against her clit, vibrating, as its pseudopod thrummed and hummed inside her wet pussy, pushing against her walls from the top to the bottom, then back, and again, and again.

"Oh my god oh my god oh my GAAAAAAAAH!"

Her orgasm grabbed her and flung her into limbo.

She blinked, gasping for air. She was sitting on her ass, her legs bent before her, leaning back on her hands. The thing had formed a thin carpet below her ass, her palms, the soles of her feet, that pulsed. It was no longer inside her, but,"need more need more," she could feel it thinking.