by Clare Morgan
“Oh no! It’s night! We’re going to miss the ritual!”
“What?” I asked.
“The ritual! We have to get going!”
Suddenly the room was filled with light and six women began stretching and searching the room like they were looking for something to put on. But as far as I could tell, there wasn’t a stitch of clothing to be had in the room for the exception of a sodden looking sheet pushed to the end of the mattress we were all on.
“Where are my shoes?”
“They’re not in here! Remember, we left them at the front door.”
“Come on, we have to hurry!
Most of the women rushed out the door, all but the blonde I had first met when I woke up from my unintentional nap and who I had apparently woken up.
She stared at me and smiled.
“We need to get going.” She said while running her fingers through my stiff, sweat greasy hair.
“Where do we need to go?” I asked.
“We have to go see Rick for the nightly ritual.”
“Who’s Rick?”
Her smiled broadened and she blushed.
“Rick channels the Green Ruin, he was sent here to save us. If you want to stay, you should probably come and meet him.”
She stood up holding my hand and led me to my feet.
“I would love it if you stayed. You were sent here for a reason, I know it in my soul.”
She leaned in and kissed me. It was gentle and soft, welcoming.
“I want to stay.” I said, almost in a trance.
“Good, then come and meet Rick.”
She led me out of the room and through the house. It was stark with barely any furniture except for mattresses littering the floor. We came to the door I had apparently passed out at, and there were my clothes piled in a sweaty heap of stink.
I moved to put on my pants, but the blonde stopped me.
“You won’t need those to meet Rick. Just put on your boots.”
“But … um … ya know.” I stared down at my naked body and motioned with my hand indicating my nakedness. She laughed.
“It’s not like he hasn’t seen one of those before! So come on.”
I slid my feet into the work boot with out any socks and tightened the laces. I felt ridiculous, like a bashful little five-year-old kid running around in big boy shoes and nothing else. The girl had slipped into a pair of sandals and she took me by the hand and led me out into the dark.
Let me tell you a little bit about being out in the middle of the desert at night. If you ever want to feel small and insignificant, try going out to the desert and staring up at the black, cloudless sky. There’s this kind of moment of awe that takes your breath away for a second with the infiniteness of it. You realize you’re nothing more than a small piece of one of those silver specks up there staring back at you, and that maybe there’s someone up there in all that emptiness whose doing the exact thing that you’re doing right at that moment, but millions of miles away. But then you snap back into reality and just it just scares the crap out of you.
The girl tugged at my arm.
“It’s this way.”
She led me through the dark sure footed and confident, like she’d walked down this path a million times before, which I’m sure she had. In the distance I could hear the sounds of drums and singing and see the flicker of campfires. Within a few minutes, we came to a clearing lit by fire light. There was maybe fifty people there, all of them naked, and from what I could tell, most of them women. There were maybe a dozen men total and most of them were thumping on hand drums, their heads swaying to the beat. Most of the women danced, their arms flailing, their sandaled feet kicking up dust. A few that I recognized from the house and who had helped cause my second black out huddle together near the fires, stroking each others arms, kissing, holding one another. It was so much to take in that my head was spinning.
Suddenly, the drums and the dancing stopped as a large man followed by two older women carrying stone bowls entered the center of the clearing.
The blonde leaned into me and whispered, “That’s Rick. Isn’t he beautiful?”
I couldn’t exactly say that he was. You know, I can’t say that I’m a good judge of male beauty. I mean, I know when a guy is good looking. When I seen some hotshot actor like Brad Pitt, you can’t help but acknowledge that he’s a good looking dude. But being a heterosexual male, I’m not a good judge of just normal looking guys, and that’s really only how I could judge Rick, he was just a normal looking guy. And what I mean by normal looking, he fit the description of the average looking American white male to a tee. He looked to be in his late 20’s and was maybe 5’8 with thinning brownish hair and an adolescent, wispy looking beard. He wasn’t fat, but I would definitely describe him as chunky with a prominent belly hanging slightly over his waistline.
This was the other thing that set him apart from the group, he was wearing clothes. He had a lose fitting black Nirvana t-shirt on and a pair of track shorts. The women with the bowls also had clothes on. They both looked to be in their late 40’s and wore white flowing dresses, their expressions steely, their eyes scanning the crowd to see if they could catch anyone talking or continuing to dance.
Rick raised his flabby arms and the two older women broke away from them and began to circulate through the crowd, offering what was ever in the bowl as they went along.
“We’re taught from the time we are born to the time that we die that we came into this world alone and that we’ll die alone!” His voice was like thunder. I always thought that expression was bullshit because I’ve never heard anyone speak like that, but I’ll tell you, it was the perfect way to describe Rick’s voice. It BOOMED and sent a shiver down your spine.
“But I’m here to tell you that this is a lie! We are never alone and never will be! We are of one body! Of one mind! And we are all of single mother even after we’ve turned to dust!”
One of the clothed women stepped in front of me and the girl and offered the bowl. Her hair was jet black and she had the athletic frame of a lifelong runner. I felt her dark eyes scan my body as she offered the bowl, secretively smiling as she appraised me.
“Partake of the sacrament.” she said.
“Go ahead and take a piece.” The blonde said to me and I tentatively reached into the bowl and picked a hard, round shape. I held it up to my eyes to get a better look in the light. It was a marble sized chunk of the drug.
“Go ahead and eat it.” said the blonde.
I’m not a drug guy. Sure, I’ve smoked my fair share of pot and I’ve done a few lines of blow, but usually I’ve been drinking when I’ve done it and my inhibitions were out the door. But every time I’ve done it, it always makes me feel way worse the next morning, like I have two hangovers making me feel like a human garbage dump. But, you know, when in Rome and all that jazz. I put the chuck of drug in my mouth.
“Now just suck on it.” The blonde then leaned in and kissed me and then took her own green marble and put it in her mouth.
The drug was cloyingly sweet, like mint mixed with cinnamon, but with a slip metallic tang that made me want to spit it out. I sucked it though and just let rest in my cheek. I leaned into the blonde and whispered.
“I don’t know why haven’t asked, but what’s your name?”
“It doesn’t matter because we’re all one,” she said while lightly stroking my cheek. “But my name is Ila.”
No, it couldn’t be. No freaking way.
“And tonight, as we do every night, we will re-teach ourselves that we are one!” Rick continued as he stripped off his shirt. “And that our spirt is unbreakable!”
As Ila—who I was pretty sure was Ila Stills— continued stroking my face, the world started to go funny. The air started to feel fluid, like the air was being replaced with water and going a cloudy shade of green. Her hands started to move up and down my chest and she was smiling so broadly that it seemed like half her face was composed of nothing but brilliant per
fect white teeth, and I could feel her smile spreading to me as something hitched inside my chest and I felt a laugh bubbling up my throat.
“Tonight! Tonight we will once again go into the green and ruin all that was taught to us!” And with this, Rick slipped off his soccer shorts and was enveloped by three young women. At the time, I didn’t know if it was the drug or not, but before Rick became a tangle of limbs, I saw why Ila thought Rick was so beautiful, because this pudgy, kind of dumpy looking guy had the longest, thickest penis I had ever seen.
But it really didn’t matter, because before I knew it, I became nothing more than a braying hyena who wanted to do nothing more than screw as many women—or men—as I could get my hands on.
Chapter 21:
“So, my brother, what do they call you in the world of the false?”
It wasn’t the drug that made me think Rick had the biggest penis I had ever seen.
“Um … I … my name’s … Larry.”
We sat directly across from each other on a king size mattress back at the ranch house I had first come to. Ila was leaned into me under my arm, her body a soft weight. But as relaxed as she was, I could tell that she was intently fixated on the same thing I was.
Great, big, giant cock.
You know how most dopers say the whole night was a haze when they’ve been on a huge binge of coke or speed? Well, that wasn’t my night. I remembered the whole night with a kind of glassy clarity that I’m sure most marathon runners experience. I remembered everything in exacting detail, but sped up like a video stuck in fast forward. I remembered every face, every body I came in contact with. Ila and I had spent the bulk of the night together, only splitting up when another couple came along and we would switch out partners. Occasionally I found myself in a small mountain of bodies, limbs tangled and wet, a synchronized moan of ecstasy. My clearest memory—and to put it bluntly, my most horrifying—was when the older woman with the dark hair came for me.
She shoved Ila off of me and plunged herself on top. She was still wearing the white dress, but the top of it was bunched around her waist, and the skirt itself was so dust that it almost appeared red in the fire light.
She raked her fingers across my chest, drawing a little blood, and snarled:
“This is what I wanted!”
As she was bouncing on top of me and trying to drive my body into the dirt, Rick came for Ila. I thought he was going to rip her in half with his penis. She shrieked when he first entered her, but I could see from her smile that she was loving it. But, still, it was a shock see Rick’s … thing … in action.
He stayed close to me and Ila for the rest of the night and got to see it from every angle and position possible. The one thing I noticed was that after Rick was finished with a woman, the woman wouldn’t be able to continue and would collapse in an exhausted heap. The ‘ritual’ came to a close as the sun came up and the effect of the drug seemed to wane as well. As the sun rose, we all marched to the barn where a dozen makeshift showers had been sit up and we scrubbed away the dirt and fluids from the night before, and then we all moved into the house and collapsed on the first unoccupied mattress we could find.
I came awake with Ila next to me, her face radiant in the sunlight. I could feel the rest of the house moving around me and the smell of cinnamon and brown sugar wafting through the air. Ila opened her eyes, stretched and smiled at me.
“Let’s get some breakfast.” she said with a dopey grin.
We went to the kitchen and were served bowls of oatmeal and we moved into the main living area where we saw Rick, naked, and eating alone.
“I think it’s time you met Rick.” She said
And here we were, staring into the eye of the beast.
Rick’s penis was monstrous and even when it was flaccid, like it was as we sat talking, all three of us naked, but me feeling highly inadequate next to him. And I’ll tell you this, I haven’t felt inadequate a day in my life, but next to this guy, I was a mouse among men.
“It’s good to meet you, Larry. Tell me, what brought you to us?
Despite the buzz of endorphins my body was experiencing and what seemed to be the utter lack of drug hangover I was experiencing, I was very hot for the idea to lay my cards down on the table and let him know my real intentions. Yeah, the past twenty-four hours had been amazing, but I had a job to do, and hopefully it was a job that would get me completely out of debt with Junior if I could deliver it. Junior was going to want in on the Green Ruin big time.
“It was kind of by accident … But, I was wondering if I could speak to you alone for a minute?” I asked.
We both glanced at Ila and she stood up without saying anything and moved back towards the kitchen with her bowl of oatmeal, both of us watching her intently.
“She’s a beautiful girl, our Ila.” Rick said.
She truly was. Intact, I don’t think I’d ever been with anyone as wholly beautiful as her. Sure, I’ve been with plenty of beautiful women—and even more than a few who were only beer googles beautiful—but there was something about Ila. I don’t know if I would call it purity—because with all of the things I’d seen done to her and that I’d done in the past twenty-four hours, pure would be the last thing I would call her—but it was almost kind of an innocence that made you want to be around her all the time. I didn’t know if what I was feeling was love (which was something I’d never been lucky enough to run across.), but I imagine I was pretty close to it.
I turned my attention back to Rick, attempting to make eye contact instead of sliding down to his middle.
“So what did you want to talk to me about, Larry?” He asked while spooning a glop of oatmeal into his mouth. He looked like a little kid when he ate.
“Rick … It wasn’t an accident that I came hear. You see, I’m a private detective … “
He visibly stiffened and excitedly asked: “You’re not here to take one of us away are you?”
“No! No, no I’m from Chicago and I’m here in Arizona because my employer is interested in the drug.”
His body tension eased down a bit, but he was still on guard. I could tell my real intentions didn’t thrill him that much either.
“The sacrament? He wants me to make some for him?”
“Yeah, actually, I’m sure he would buy it from you, and he’d probably buy a lot of it.”
“What’s your employers name, Larry?”
“His name’s Junior. Junior Vecchio.”
As Rick started to speak, the dark haired woman who’d help hand out the dope and had torn me to shreds with her fingernails the night before rushed to Rick’s side and whispered into his ear. She left a second later, throwing a cold hard stare over her shoulder at me as she walked away.
Rick stood up and I was stuck staring at his one eyed monster.
“Let me think about what you’ve said, brother,” he said, patting me on the shoulder, “and we’ll talk about this later.”
And he walked out the front door of the house.
Chapter 22:
After breakfast, Ila didn’t rejoin me, saying that she had her daily chores to complete. She told me I could walk around the compound. I was starting to feel a bit self conscious about being naked—although no one else seemed to—so I found my clothes and put them back on and I decided to explore the compound and the areas around it.
It was truly some beautiful and impressive country to look at. When you think of the desert, you usually only think of flat, yellow expanses of burning nothing. And with certain deserts like Death Valley in California, you’d be right. But from what I’d seen of Arizona, it was nothing like I’d ever seen before. It was full of deep rocky valleys composed of reddish orange coper soil, and low mountains that seem to just spring up out of no where. I was beginning to understand why the old man wanted to retire out here. Hell, I was starting to think the same thing, that is if I could ever afford to retire.
As I stared out over the landscape near the edge of the GR’s property, Rick approache
d me. He’d put on the same outfit as he had the night before, which was a blessing.
“Walk with me, Larry.” He said.
We walked toward the hills just behind the house and headed towards the area where the ritual had happened the night before.
“You know, Larry, you’re not the first person who’s come to me asking about me making the sacrament for them.”
“Really?”
“Yes, about a month ago, a Mexican man came here looking for the exact same thing.”
Juan. Apparently he’d made it out this far as well.
“The problem was that instead of approaching me about it, he approached my mother. She was the one who led the ritual the night he came to us.”
“Who’s your mother? And what do you mean by ‘problem’, Rick?” I asked.
“She’s the older woman with the long black hair,” Jesus, the kid had watched me get annihilated by her last night. Obviously they were one twisted little family. “Well, my mother, she’s very protective of me … Actually, she’s very protective of the sacrament. Personally, if I wasn’t the only one who knew how to make it, she probably would’ve killed me years ago. But I won’t give her the formula. So she tolerates my little ‘thing’ as she calls it, out here and sells just a little bit of the extra I make. It’s mostly the leftovers, but it helps support all of this.”
He swept his hands across the landscape and smiled.
“Which, as you experienced last night, is pretty goddamn great, isn’t it?” A smile erupted across his face and made him look like a five-year-old. “But, you know, it starts to get a little old after awhile. And you know, mom and her girlfriend, Carole, they keep pressuring to make more and more. And as far as the ‘problem’ with the Mexican man. Well, I think my mom and Carole killed him.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah, and if I had told them about what you said to me this morning, there’s a better chance than not they’d kill you, too, and probably, Ila, too, for letting you stay.”