We walked through the fog and soon realized that we were no longer outside. The fog formed into walls and the earth turned into floor and soon we were walking down a long hallway. There were doors on either side with strange numbers on them, numbers that seemed to swim in my mind. I looked away from them and towards the center of the hall.
At the end of the hall was a door.
"Where does that lead?" Tulip asked.
"To the center of the Hell of Love," Omega said. "Appropriately enough, it looks like a motel, right?"
It did look like a motel. The wallpaper was cheap and peeling, the floor was carpeted with a beige rug, and there was a strange odor in the air.
The door at the end of the hall grew larger in our sights until it looked before us. It must have been some trick of perception, since it had looked like a normal door before, but now I could see it was large, at least ten feet high. Or perhaps the door had simply grown as we approached it.
Omega went to open the door, but the writer stopped him. Instead, the writer knocked twice.
"Come on," a female voice called. Omega and the writer shared a glance and then opened the door.
The only word that could describe it would be a boudoir. There were silk curtains over the windows and a brick fireplace with a roaring fire, along with a four-poster bed. And on the bed was a woman.
I blinked and the person on the bed was now a man. He smiled at me with a lecherous grin. I blinked and she was a woman again.
"Please forgive us, God of Love and Lust," the writer said. "We only wish to pass through."
"Oh, please, don't be so formal," the man/woman said. "Call me Al Basti. And you can certainly pass through if you like, though I hope you'll stay a little bit first."
"We would," the writer said, "but we don't have much time."
"Oh nonsense," Al Basti said. S/he winked at me. "You have all the time in the world here. My brothel caters to all tastes, all types. We have girls and boys just for you."
"I'm sorry," the writer said, "but..."
"He lusts," Al Basti said and s/he was looking at me. His/her eyes were pools of red. "He lusts after you, girl." S/he looked at Tulip. Tulip said nothing, hypnotized by those red eyes. "Go on, you can give in. You lust after him, too, don't you? Give in and everything will be fine."
The need to touch Tulip swelled within me. I wanted to grab her, to kiss her, to throw her onto that bed, to fuck her. She turned to look at me and I knew she wanted to do the same to me.
We raised our hands and touched one another and it felt like an electric current passed through us. Her face drew nearer to mine own and her mouth grew larger in my vision and I went to kiss her and...
There was a splitting in my head, an ache that made me cry out and fall to the ground. My vision swam and I saw the ORACLE in front of me, her beautiful face shaking in disappointment. I had failed her.
Al Basti stood up from his/her bed and approached the swimming vision of the ORACLE. S/he waved her arm and the vision disappeared, but my headache remained. "What a tightass," s/he said. "Very well. You've already seen what the Hell of Love does. Just remember: you will never experience anything like that ever again. You may go now."
We walked through the other door of the boudoir and out into another hallway. The fog returned and I was more relieved than I had ever been.
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