The sticky substance expelled from my throat like a torrent. Visions began again. This time I was prepared for them, knowing that although the pain might have felt real they were only dreams and they wouldn’t leave any lasting damage, other than the quick tearing of the Band-Aid from my mind. My fingers covered my mouth, trying to hide my shame but the substance pushed them away, my eyes watered, and my arms were pulled back behind me, from my own…stomach bile?

No, this was something new, like string or twine. I attempted to rend my hands free but the webbing was too strong. The more I struggled, the more my arms grew taut. It surrounded me, it held my entire body in place. Webbing like…like…

A trickle of green fluid dripped passed my eye and cheek, landing on my thigh. Green fluid turned red as it melted my flesh away. I screamed once more, tilting my head upward and saw the fangs of a giant mouth above me. Two fangs came out of the darkness, and then several smaller hairy rows followed, and then several green and shimmering eyes. More toxic fluid dripped down and burned my shoulder and chest. I regretted, with much pain, the choice I had made to follow the woman. But that did nothing to make me forget that I was a man, trapped in a spider’s web.

The gigantic black face with acidic teeth descended, its bulbous and chitin thorax coming into view. The wound in my leg turned black, the toxin was turning my flesh necrotic. If the toxin touched other parts of my body…

A sickening skitter came from the spider’s quivering mouth. It was hungry. Long, thin legs stretched out eagerly around me. Closing my eyes I kept telling myself this wasn’t real, that I was back in the bar, passed out on the floor. Those green creeping eyes consumed me like a cold shower. I had seen hell, or at least a vision of hell, I told myself I could survive this too. Using every ouch of testosterone and strength I squirmed and fought against the stringy bounds, begging my insect captor for release, to stop this nightmare, for anything else but this.

Acid flooded from the spider’s mouth and before I could anticipate the pain it washed over me, hitting my face and shoulders first. I winced and screamed from the sudden warmth and shook and shivered in tearing pain as the acid flooded over every part of my flesh, searing and stabbing. The warmth gave way to numbing heat until I gave in, eyes rolling back, and tried to open my eyes. Burning pain washed over me in a terrible stream of erasure. If my body had been a canvas the acid was the paint thinner, turning me into a jumble of red, brown, and black. Pouring, leaking, my gore dripped and fell down.

“Let’s get this over with.” The agony subsided except for the faint memory of it when I heard her speak in a nonchalant passionless tone.

I lifted my head and saw the tiled floor and realized my throat was intact. “Who…are you?” Earthy smells filled my nostrils. I collected myself and stood, finding myself in a night meadow.

The voice came from behind, “No one you’d know. I could be another figment of your imagination, which I have to say is pretty impressive.” followed by scoffing laughter, “Just kidding. You must be an artist or somebody famous. Are you a celebrity? Deeva has an affinity for torturing celebrities, people who need to be relevant.”

Slowly I turned, expecting another horrible vision, but instead found a tree, tall and full of creases in the bark, and a woman wearing a green gown, her red hair was blinding even in the dark. Amethyst crystals hung down from the boughs of the tree on strings and a cauldron sat in the circular clearing, steam rising from the swirling broth. A gentle breeze touched my cheek and I could have cried, thankful for the gentle touch even if by some natural happenstance, thankful to look upon such a beautiful and kind face. Her presence elicited a deep rooted humility in my being, a humble honor that I should bow at her feet, or beg for forgiveness. Everything that came before, it was almost worth being so close to such a goddess. I wanted to swim in her dark skin, be absorbed by it, and swallowed by her embrace.

“What’s the matter? Never seen a black woman with ginger hair?”

“Deeva…” She could only mean the red demoness, whose heat and finger were still fresh in my mind. The three women were indeed connected. They didn’t seem like sisters but even if they were their relationship to me was still a mystery. “Is this a game? To keep giving me these hallucinogenic drugs? I stayed away from women my whole life and never once thought of abusing them.”

I thought I saw a halo above her head but it could have been horns. At this point though, it wouldn’t have mattered. Either would have been fine with me. “Don’t you ever wonder why you do that? Hide away? Keep the dark thoughts locked up? Don’t act so innocent. You’re no virgin.”

How could she have known that? When I stared into the cauldron the same bile-inducing salt taste came back, the same fluid that this Deeva poured down my throat. “If you know so much about me then you already know why. My anxieties prevent me from enjoying physical pleasure.”

“Why?” Her eyes were unblinking.

“Because I have abnormal fears and insecurities.”

“Why?”

“Because I feel pressured to live up to masculine expectations, imposed by humanity’s primitive need to procreate with someone with better genes.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” I shouted, having enough of this. “I was never meant to be someone important. I was never meant to procreate. I’m nobody!”

The green witch reached towards the hanging crystals and traced the string. “Ironic you don’t want to embrace your fate yet you deny its very existence. You were compelled to follow me and now you are here.”

“My destiny is my own. I wanted answers and so far you’re giving me abstraction.” This entire conversation was becoming emotionally draining, not to mention the mental drain I had already.

“My name is Shaina. That is more than I have ever given to any human, let alone a man. If you do not give yourself over to the ethereal dreamscape, these dreams that are floating around your mind, then you will die, and die alone, afraid, like all the men before you, who have come in contact with us.”

“Contact.” It occurred to me I was no longer being tortured. “What is this place?  Why aren’t you killing me now, or maiming me in some horrible nightmare?”

“Mmm” her moan was soothing. “I sometimes forget myself. Lapse in judgement, perhaps. Or maybe I hate being brought along on these slipstreams. Consider it a rebellion against Deeva. She chose you. She thinks you have potential.”

“Potential for what?”

“As a being of pure desire and sexuality. She tasted you in the dreamscape, your mind overflowing with human desire. She couldn’t resist. I, on the other hand, have become indifferent to it all.” Her eyes stared off into space. “There were four of us in the beginning, when we were birthed by Gaia, as you would call her, and over the centuries only three of us remain, three that were strong enough to survive the changing societal human subconscious. Sexuality has changed so drastically, becoming the focal point for so many minds. Deeva has become addicted to it. It’s like air to her. To me though, it’s like dust in the wind. You wanted to know who we are. The closest thing that I can offer you is that we are transcendental beings, born when humanity reached an age of intelligence and non-reproductive sex, flowing from the subconscious ether. It was humanity that gave us names, not truly understanding what we were. We were once called nymphs, fairies, mermaids, satyrs, paramours of passion and lust, divinities of sexual energy. In modern times we’ve been relegated to more derisive terms: succubi, banshees, nightmares, sirens, jinn, and, to an exaggerated sense, vampires.”

Everything felt so unreal. I hadn’t even noticed that my clothes had been returned to me, being so consumed by the out of body experience. She continued, her silky breath leaving me speechless, “For generations the ascension of man has only made us stronger. Each century pushes the boundaries of what was taboo. I’ve had enough energy to last a thousand centuries and a thousand eons. Intolerable actions became tolerable. The human body was celebrated in art and entertainment, sexual acts becoming less and less condemned. Like everything stemming from the Mother’s essence, sexual desire ebbed and flowed and became a torrent of ideas, thoughts, dreams, alternate realities, motivations, desires, fears, and nightmares. We have the fortunate responsibility of being the embodiment of those things, in one beautiful package.” She spoke low again, distracted. I couldn’t help but express empathy to her expression, which oddly filled me with sadness. “Well, three. Three…for so long.”

It suddenly occurred to me that Shaina, this sexual divinity, wanted more from me then I could give. Once more the vision of the witches’ circle flashed before my eyes. How could she expect me to be one of them? “In this world, there are so many hands that want to undress you but so very few that actually want to hold you. And you want to pull me under completely, drown me in this ethereal wasteland of human repression, disturbing fantasies, and secret urges. I can’t do this. Drain me if you have to. Kill me if you want. I won’t be a part of this sadistic acid trip.”

“So it’s like that? Then it’s true. You’re not ready.” She pointed an angry finger at me. A smile crossed her lips, a smile of recognition that she knew all along. “Back in the oven with you.”

Before I could object my vision blurred as I was flung backwards through the walls of the metaphysical reality and then darkness, like a book slamming shut. Rejection. But from what? I was never a person who needed validation but as I fell into the blackness, wind rushing by me, I gritted my teeth in confused anger. The constant pain of not being wanted. The isolation of being afraid of being wanted. Particles swirled in front of my face, changing direction like a rainstorm.

I was walking in a forest. No, a graveyard. Shadows formed shapes in the dark. Again I was naked. The bitter chill drew daggers across my skin. I held myself and took notes of my surroundings. The gravestones were ancient and moss-covered, fragmented shells of the past were laid about me. Around the edge of the small cemetery was an early morning dew fog that created a ghostly wall around it. What was the nightmare this time? What would I need to endure now?

And then I heard rumbling on my exposed feet. Dirt trickled over my toes. A pair of leathery hands reached out and grabbed my leg, sending me backwards onto a three-foot stone, the roughness stabbing me in the back. With all my energy I kicked at the undead torso that surfaced from the grave. Obscured by the dark I could still see that the face of the corpse was partially skeletal while the rest of its flesh was melting away from decomposition. The body fell backwards with a thud, the legs being ripped from the half-covered grave. Seeing my penis dangle there was even more disconcerting than it normally was. I covered my shame but was grabbed from behind by another set of soulless, slender fingers. Nails cut into my shoulder as I twisted around, not able to free myself. The jagged edge of the gravestone dug further into my back, leaving me stretched out and helpless. Leaves rustled under the weight of the crawling corpse that was back at my feet, decrepit and emaciated hands touching my calves, my thighs and then…

I screamed, yelling with as much testosterone as I could. The corpse’s mouth was open, serrated and broken teeth making gesticulation movements, hungry, its one eye staring at my member like a starving peasant. Thrashing I tried to push against it but it crawled up my body inch by inch, the strands of dry hair on its mangled head brushing against my skin. Oddly it was only later that I recalled not feeling the phantom sensation of lips about to touch me, I didn’t feel anything, only intense fear and revulsion. I had hoped I would die soon, at least to not feel what it was like to have my penis bitten off. Anything but that.

My wish came true. In a heartbeat the scene changed. Another cold slab on my back, this time I had been transported to a surgery room, surrounded, like the witches dream, by several doctors in white frocks, my arms restrained. Their anonymity wasn’t the unnerving part. It was the sensation of a monstrous girth between my legs, hidden under a white sheet. The male surgeon spoke in an echoed tone, “We have to remove the growth before he goes into shock.” He held a scalpel up to the single surgery light above. “He won’t survive if it gets any bigger.”

I tried to resist and found my mouth gagged. The growth brought sensation back to that region of my body and I could tell that it had become so large that it extended to the floor, and a few feet further away, behind…another white sheet standing adjacent from the surgical table. I could feel the pulsing veins, the elongated skin, a burning itch, the mutant size, the fact that it was moving on its own. The lead surgeon moved the sheet back from my groin, the mass of skin was revealed to me. The nightmare behind the standing sheet was what drove me to struggle even harder. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to know what was behind it. A scalpel held by shaky hands came down to my groin and I could almost hear myself begging for the surgeon to cut it off, take it away, make me a eunuch, so that I never have to feel this way again.

Metal clinking came from behind the standing sheet and it fell, exposing the one-eyed and jagged teeth monster behind it. I think my soul tried to leave its body. The bulbous head drooled and leaked fluid onto the floor, its skin, my skin, glistened in a disgusting film. The monster was a mockery of myself for sure but in that moment I only saw it as a threat. With my eyes I begged the surgeon to continue his work, gesturing at the monster’s place of origin at my crotch. The monster thrashed and shook in its restraints, another surgical table standing up. Pulsing and aching the long flesh snake snapped at the doctors and I could feel every twisting gyration. Kill it! I wanted to cry. Get it off me! But no one listened.

“Stop! You bitches! Stop this!” my eyes shut tightly as I heard my own voice and realized how pathetic and girly it sounded. “I give up. I’ll do whatever you want. Just stop it please.”

A long sigh came from a silky throat. “Open your eyes, Everett. You’re still not quite ready yet. But I can only take so much suffering. I’m more self-serving than the others. I will grant respite but only if you aid me in mine.”

We were in the dark, just the two of us, she, sitting in a chair, less like a throne than Deeva’s, and more like an intricately-designed Victorian chair. She wasn’t sitting like a woman however, despite her elegant beauty. She was sitting like a man, her legs spread wide, the green dress covering her intimacy. The change in scenery was more than pleasant. If this was the eye of the storm then I could never anticipate what would come next. Would I be ripped apart as soon as I left here, or returned home, and slowly fade into obscurity? A slow death or a fast one.

She opened her supple lips. “Crawl to me and you will find your respite under here.” A slender hand lifted her dress. All I could see was a dark entrance, a craggy cave I thought, under that gown.

But, as I was prepared to do anything for her, including worship, I did as instructed and crawled with haste, compelled by curiosity. My approach was met with a sudden movement that I took as anticipation but Shaina was only removing a book from the side of the chair. I hesitated. Perhaps she had a change of heart. She opened the book, the cover appeared clearly. “Fairy Tales.” From the grotto of her gown I could smell lavender, jasmine, and sugar nectar, hitting my face all at once.

“At the beginning of time,” she read. “There was only the cosmic dust that stretched throughout an infinity of black. These elements, this dust, were aimless and useless. But over time they began to form into intelligent beings and intelligent and generous worlds. Each world had been a product of the pre-ancient beings that came before.” She paused and her iris motioned downward.

I stuck my head inside, the scent of flowers and shrubbery was even stronger. But I saw nothing. “The cosmic being of Earth became the Mother of all things, including the sky, the sea, the land, the birds, the bees, the monkeys, and the fleas.” It seemed so absurd that I wondered if she was making it up as she went. But as I crawled deeper I only wanted her to continue, the soft hum putting me at ease. “The Great Mother gave birth to tangible things and to intangible things as well, such as thoughts and ideas; hatred, anxiety, logic, anger, stupidity, lust, desire, and many more emotions. These thoughts swirled with life and became figments and constructs within the meta universe, trapped solely in the collective subconscious. Creatures of the earth had many of these same thoughts but it was only until humans stepped out of the primordial muck that the figments began to seethe to life. It was humans who embraced their intelligence, humans who pulled themselves from the primitive instincts and tried to understand themselves.” I came to the crevice of a tree, feeling the rough knots and seeping nectar. The scent was alluring and as I tasted it could feel a warmth inside me growing, a salty sweetness opposing the bitter fluid that had been poured down my throat by Deeva’s herself. A shiver trickled across the bark. “But…it was only a matter of time before these figments had aspirations of their own. They wished to exist in the real world, without the bounds of the collective ether. Curiosity got the better of them and they invaded men’s minds, taking over their consciousness, and leaving their ethereal prisons behind.” 

Shaina turned the page and as I urged forward I began to drink from the nectar, the hard wood becoming softer. “The Great Mother gave birth to the Great Crisis, destroying the constructs that disobeyed and rebelled against her rule. From the ashes of these figments came new thoughts, new figments, that coalesced with mankind’s ever-advancing society. Some of these figments, monsters and fairies mostly, went into hiding, only rarely appearing in man’s mind again. 

Persecution became Tolerance. Discipline became Ambition. Shame became nonexistent. New ideas for new ages. Mother ended the Crisis with optimism. She saw what had transpired. Her little figments, although a nuisance, created a storm that yielded fresh flowers and clear skies. An Age of Enlightenment descended upon man. The creatures of myth and the ideas that spawned them subsided from society. Cherubs, cupids, demons, angels, they were reduced to figments in the slipstream, a morose desert of our celestial past. Oh, cherubs…”  The tree walls opened wider, shook and vibrated, and blurred against my brain. Suicidal thoughts, like the ones I felt lying on that surgical table, dissipated. I was only left with guilt, the guilt of only wanting to take what wasn’t mine, to discover for myself some ancient truth that lay deeper, to discover what lay beyond, to take her pleasure and turn it into my own. “The Mother, in her glorious light, discovered that the greatest way to elicit change was to allow some of her figments to run wild, to play, to frolic in the real. A few were chosen for this privilege and be the rain clouds of change. She came…” A low soft breath expelled from her throat. “–to the conclusion that humanity would be bolstered by love, compassion, lust, and desire.”

The tree bark became even softer and opened up into the willowy lips of petals, the engorged flowers were heavy with the scent of jasmine, lavender, and lilac. For the first time in possibly my whole life I felt wanted, needed, even if it meant being used, as it meant I wasn’t entirely useless. She moaned but this time it came to me like a distant thunder. That thunder rumbled into words, “We are the divinities. We are the daughters of Mother. We are the winds of change.” In my mind I saw the glass window of the bus and felt the constant murmur of the engine, that nagging doubt that I didn’t belong here and wondering why I came. But the thunder turned to lightning and it struck me as I pressed into the flowers even further, my head becoming engulfed. “Furies. Unstoppable. We are the only ones left that walk the earth.” The quivering grew stronger. Her voice boomed, like a deep roar. “We are…splendor. We are immortal…and have lived too–” She let out a massive breath that sounded like a passing train. “–searching for–” The gust was so loud, powerful, towering above me. Piercing, unforgiving…

And then I opened my eyes to find myself lying in a pool of my own vomit.