DREAMWORLD

My friends and I are slowly making our way through the throng of people in one of the many tiny corridors at the house party. With such dim lighting,  it feels as if I have traveled back in time to the days of mascarade balls and corsets, save for the red solo cup in my hand filled with Vodka.

We make our way throughout the house searching each and every room for that room. That room that everyone winds up in. The magical room of what I don’t know, but for the first time in my life I am part of the cool crowd and I am just going with the flow. Somehow we wind up outside almost at a loss as to where in the hell this “room’ is, if it even exists at all.

It is dark and has begun to rain yet the contrasting street lights make it much brighter outside than it was just moments go in the old Victorian with its secret passageways and haunted past. The modern cars lining the street are out of place in front of the home as it sits there shrouded in darkness beckoning me to discover its secrets.

Then out of nowhere, I see a light shining from underneath a hidden door around the side of the house. Must be some sort of eighteenth-century maids service entrance. As I get closer my reality begins to shift and I can faintly make out the lilting sultry sounds of a piano. I gather up what friends I had left that hadn’t gotten lost in the maze of the house and I show them the door. Someone produces a light from their cell phone and we all inspect the door closer. It is just a door. A weathered beaten down door that looks even older than the house if that is possible. Not even painted, the ugly brown wood seems to be warped in places and the only evidence that it has even been used is the single bolt lock on the outside. Now turned to bronze I am assuming from the same weather that has taken the doors youth. Nothing special this door, but the sounds coming from the other side is literally music to my ears.

I touch the door tentatively and it shows me just how old it is because pieces of it begin to disintegrate right before my eyes. What’s left of the door simply opens with one final creek before it hits the wall inside and splinters into a thousand tiny little pieces. I look at my friends and plaster on a bravery I know I don’t feel I step over the threshold and into the darkened room.

As if a thousand candles were lit suddenly there is light, even though it is still dim, dimmer in fact than when we were in the front part of the house I feel a chill wash over me. The room smells of tobacco and gin. Heavily laden with clouds of smoke and a perfume I didn’t know still existed. As I move through the room I know somehow “we are not in Kansas anymore Dorothy” I think to myself. I see thick crimson brocade drapes hanging on the walls from a time forgotten covering the walls. French furniture with rich and vibrant colors all appearing as if they belong in a museum. Leather couches the size of my car.  Crystal decanters filled with Port so fragrant you could almost smell the grapes from which they derived. It was beautiful in all its history.

Yet that is not what had me gaping in mock horror. It was the bodies. The bodies lying, sitting, and standing everywhere. Writhing on top of one another moaning in…exstasy!  There were countless men and women all in what I can only discern was period costume. Groups of them scattered about the room making love with an abandon so wild and free I was almost jealous of their obvious lust. Buxom plus sized women with their breasts hanging out. Nipples engorged from their suitor’s playful slap, fondle and suckle. The men all looked like maitre d’s  with their tux pressed just so, now wrinkled from their vigorous activities. Thier handlebar mustache’s slick with sweat and covered in toxic red rouge. I can smell the tonic they used as an after shave. Mingled in with the other scents in the room. The thrashing and screaming in pure unadulterated lust was almost overwhelming.

Their teeth clinking together like wine glasses as they kiss. Devouring one another mouths with a sickening pop, as they come up for air. I try to wrap my head around the scene playing out before me. I almost feel like a voyeur watching as the merriment continues without a hitch. As if I hadn’t just intruded in this live time capsule. The laughter rises to an unforgiving decibel as I watch. These women from a different time their hair now falling out of their makeshift buns. The tendrils that have escaped now curling in the wet heat of the room. Their rouge-stained lips now smeared, and in most cases, completely gone. Their cheeks now a rosy pink from being taken to the heights of passion. I spot the piano and notice for the first time the man is playing Beethoven’s fifth! Oh wait, is that actually Beethoven himself!

I can feel the passion in the room and I begin to sway to the hypnotic rhythm with a heated desire. I want to join in but I know somewhere in the back of my mind. I don’t belong here. I am too afraid to show my passion. I am not brave like these women. To let it all hang out so to speak and dive into the deep end, and this, this is the deep end. I look around the dark sultry room filled with the smell of sex and power and I know deep down inside if they notice me. I am in trouble. Then as if they read my mind one by one each head turned toward me and my friends. The intruders. A gleam in their eyes as if to say come, sit, join.

The music has stopped and I begin to back away. As if someone switched on a heavenly lightbulb the room is flooded with a blinding white light. I can see the look on their faces. Now contorted and almost, evil. They start to rise and as they reach out to me I can sense they are grasping for my soul. The room now stinks of foulness and stale alcohol. I can feel the drain on my body as I head for the door. I am in the den of iniquity and I know there will be a price to pay. I can feel their malicious intentions. I can feel their acid dripping off of me. A wickedness I have never known before. A bony finger rakes my arm and I scream a silent scream at the pain, that is the moment my alarm chose to cut through the dream and I shot out of bed with a “Thank God it was only a dream!”