And that's when I knew. I really meant it as a half joke. I don't even have a foot fetish kind of.

But then she sent me a video of her clapping her feet and laughing and blushing fully clothed in an old sweater with her hair in a messy ponytail with no make-up with her roommate standing bewildered behind her. And that's when I knew.

I asked.

She sent a picture of a gimp outfit.

There was no other option, really, no other option. Fate was standing directly in front of me, at this point, completely naked. Literally. She sent me a picture of her perfect breasts. I'd have to be absolutely so completely stupidly blind not to see it, not to see the signs. The sexy signs. Brown haired brown eyed pale skinned long legged angel voiced mole on her right cheek misshapen left nippled weird eared ugly footed Miss Fate. Naked. Bearing for me her big and beautiful breasts. With a whip. Threatening harm onto my house and city and life and soul. Threatening all these things, all these things that I love, with her whip and nails. And she would whip me and brand her name on my inner thigh with a hot prong if I didn't do exactly as she asked. And I did not want to be whipped and or branded kind of.

As any young and beautiful man does, I went into the bathroom and flexed a little in the mirror. I slapped my face and chest a few times until slightly rare and, given the context of the situation, I gave myself a little pep talk. Look at you, I told myself. Tall, gorgeous, so tall, excellent vascularity, prime hair to scalp ratio. If you were a cow you'd be Helios very own white and golden calfs. Only wagyu. I washed my face and bent over to smell my balls and then washed my balls and penis.

Gods, it was a hot day. I'm not talking about the weather. But yeah it was a hot fucking day.

As soon as I opened my door the illusion of paradise that is an air conditioned apartment shattered and I began to sweat immediately. My neighbor's dog was lounging out in the sun on the grass, tanning and thoroughly enjoying his easy life. He's a big bastard of a thing, a big beautiful boy. If you know anything about Bernese mountain dogs you'd know they have these tiny brown spots over their eyes that look like eyebrows. And as he looked at me those little brown spots above his eyes raised slightly. What a cute, big, motherfucker.

I was locking my door and all I could see was a blur of fur in my periphery. When you're thinking about sex and beautiful women and sex with beautiful women you don't notice certain beautiful dogs running very quickly full force with their entire weight toward you. When your nervous system is accelerating into the future, careening through the cosmos in an astral state leaving behind your mortal and fragile body on the limited and physical plane, you tend to forget about your surroundings. Your mind is Apollo's arrow, armed with the tip of a compass, pointing and racing innately towards what you want most in life. What I want most in life? A beautiful asian woman in silk pink panties. I want all her words and all her fears and dreams and ambitions rolled into a sexy burrito, a sexy burrito of sweat, and silk bedsheets, forged in the heat of our bodies. And I want to eat that burrito. With all the rich salsas of her rich expressions and emotions. Not in an emotional way, though. A purely sexually expressive and not in any way emotionally attached but very passionate relationship.

I'm not in love.

Filling my head were visions of her in silk rainbow hued lingerie yet the sensitive and soft and sweet and ripened sulci of my delicate and oversized brain were processing a deep and languorous pain. Searing pain, a very sensual pain. All pain is sensual. It were as if a black belt, a silk and revealing belt with lace detail, in jiu jitsu (she's a black belt in jiu jitsu) had grappled and tossed me to the ground and had me locked in her web of very sexy agony, between her soft honeyed legs between those long and exposed and Hesperidian branches she calls legs. But, no, a wet tongue on my face and the faintness of an allergic reaction betrayed my not-at-all sexual fantasy.

"Cash Money, no. Good boy, but no. Not today. Can't play. Not today. I've got to have very angry sex with a very angry woman." I struggled beneath the weight of the mountain behemoth. "C'mon, Cashey boy. Beautiful boy." He must have confused my aggressive patting and petting and scratching of his ears and face and chin and back and sides as a form of affection and he licked my face very lovingly. "Money Millionaire, if only you understood.

"She's got these long legs like a greyhound."

He stopped licking my face and locked his big black mirror eyes onto mine and he raised his eyebrows.

"I knew you'd understand me!" He laid his heavy body onto mine and rested his face onto my forehead. Small birds chirped, and bugs and bees around us continued their beautiful working routines. I continued softly as the sun bathed and gifted us its love. "She's so beautiful, mate. She's got the mind of a pure bred poodle. And the ADHD too." Cash grunted softly. "And the talons of a hawk and I'm her prey. And when she's upset she stomps on the ground like a hippopotamus. What's a hippopotamus? It's this huge and muscled beast not unlike yourself. Though you're much more handsome. And she's got the memory of an elephant, a very beautiful Yale alumni elephant. And at night she hunts me with her cat eyes. I'm her little boy mouse with my little rodent teeth and she's like my cheese. She's like the perfect wedge of parmigiano reggiano. She stalks me in the bushes with her sexy cat-eye-night-time-vision. She has a very sexy, very very sexy cat body. Sleek lines, perfect musculature. Very sexy feline cat body. If only you could see it.

"If she bit me... The rivers of pleasure that might to course through my heavenly body. Don't tell anybody, but I think I might be in lo-"

"You're into cats now? Like sexually? That's weird. Even for you."

"Sandy." The mountain dog looked happily at its owner. All I could see in the summer sun was her wonderful silhouette that looked nothing like a cat's but was wonderful still.

"Virgil." She said my name very excitedly and not at all like a greeting at the DMV. "I saw you two cuddling outside and had to find out for myself what was going on." She pet Cash Money, I pet Cash Money. Cash Money looked very happy. "You're already over that girl you've been talking about forever now and you're seducing cats and hawks and hippopotamusus?"

"Hippopotami. Hippopotamus is translated from Greek and so the pluralisation should be too. No. No, I'm talking about her. Daisy cat. I mean, Daisy is the cat. Could you help get Cash off of me?"

"She's a cat?"

"It's a metaphor." Sandy stared at me. Cash stared at me. The Gods above stared at me. "It was a private conversation. You'd have to hear it in whole to understand."

"I heard the whole conversation. I was here the whole time. It was funny at first but I had to stop you when you started talking about rivers of pleasure. So, Cash understands? Cash Money, remember, the mountain dog, understands?" I nodded. Cash licked my face. Somewhere, deep into the near future, Daisy licked my face. We laughed and Sandy began walking back to her apartment. She called out for the behemoth and he regrettably stood and trotted home. Sandy stood by her door. "Sorry about your pants, by the way." I looked down to find my jeans covered in mud. Mud and maybe even dog shit. "Have fun with Catwoman, Bruce Wayne." These weren't just any pair of pants, Sandy. They weren't even pants. They were my leftwards loomed Japanese denim jeans. My sexy-time jeans. It was very anti-cash-money of Cash Money to get dirt onto my rare and vintage selvedge denim imported all the way from Japan. I haven't washed these jeans in years. They were my special sex jeans.

The shipping alone was two hundred dollars.

I stood in the small pathway, vigorously jumping up and down to loose any gravel then walked to my car and unlocked the rear hatch. I pulled out my fantastic looking bike and slammed down the large door. I slipped on my sports sunglasses, polarized and a perfect golden yellow, and rode off beyond the gate of the small complex. I looked back and Cash was standing where I had left him, watching me leave, wagging his perfect tail.

Godspeed, Cash Money, Godspeed.

The bike was smooth. The ceramic ball bearing crank rotated peacefully under the duress and power of my titan legs. The wind was at my back. It was Fate at work yet again. The last time there was a tailwind so tantalizing was when Agamemnon's army sailed against the beaches and battlements of Troy.

Achilles had his spear and his Phthian warriors, Virgil has his bike and Japanese jeans.

Biking down the road I was the dictionarian vision of largess. Today, the Gods of old smiled on me. I was a hero and undoubtedly looked the part. To further prove my point, a young girl was sitting on a curb and she must have seen me and my largess and in her succor, by the means of some ethereal draft and visions divined from Apollo, she called unto me.

"Mr. Homeless Man, my cat is stuck in that tree." Ah, the fabled nemean lion stranded. Me, a hulk of Herculean make. What delicious irony the Fates design. My stars, even in the scorching light of Helios, shone bright. I was bemused. I was moved by her sorrow and despair and answered heroically to her hapless cries.

"I'm not homeless, little child girl."

"You smell homeless."

"My neighbor's dog jumped on me. A fearsome beast. The guardian to a lesser goddess. Paws larger than your head, teeth much sharper than the barbes you attempt against me. He could very easily swallow you whole."

"Okay."

Her general and peaceful and quite pleasant and happy tone tempted me to continue my defensive onslaught.

"This is Japanese denim, small girl child. It's very rare, very sturdy. A true warrior's garb; I'm not homeless. I live in a temple at the top of a great mountain."

"Your bike looks old."

"This is a vintage Italian steel frame with a modern Italian drivetrain, tiny armed human. See these shifters? Wireless. Very cool, very new, very expensive. See these carbon wheels? Very chic. This exact model won the Giro d'Italia before you were even born. This is Daedalus hewn, mortal."

"Yeah, but Henry is in that tree." She pointed at the very giant I was leaning my towering frame against. My tree, as it were, my Herculean club. It would be an easy effort. I scaled the side of the dilapidated and very ancient tree and climbed into its main branches. I did not look awkward at all.

"Where is it?"

"There."

"There where."

"Up!"

"I don't see anything. Can you call out to him?"

"Henry!"

"Henri."

"Henry, a homeless man is here to help. He looks scary but he won't hurt you."

"What color is his fur?"

"Pink with blue spots."

"I don't see any pink cats with blue spots, repugnant youth. All I see is a stuffed animal deep in the great tree's branches tangled in a thicket of auburn-"

"That's Henry. Help! Get Henry! She's scared!"

"I pushed my face past a throng of leaves and climbed higher into the tree. I plucked from the branches a toy. I was the very reflection of Hercules reaching for the golden apples of the Hesperides.

"Be careful. She's fragile!"

"I'm trying."

"You have to go higher."

"I don't want my hair to get messed up."

"Mr. Short Homeless Man, hurry! Help Henry! She's scared and alone and you're too short and you're taking too long!"

Henry was a small giraffe stuffed animal with pink fur and blue spots. I pulled her loose from the fabric of the old tree and the small child yelped with a form of irreverent glee. Her happiness was reward alone for this great and huge and nearly impossible effort. I carefully tossed it into her small hands and she screamed viscerally with plenty of energy. The apparent guardian and mother of the screaming youth ran out of the house wielding a cast iron pan as I cascaded gracefully onto the grass below. Levitating downwards as an angel does on any given day descending from the heavens. I definitely didn't fall and scrape my knee. As I was rubbing my scraped knee I felt a hard and hot smack against my arm. The guardian screamed, "Get away from my daughter, vile creature, handsome and tall man, public masturbator, heathen, overworn and misshapen thug, scagmouth, penny whore!" I, too, in the surge and heat of masculine poison, screamed. Morely, a warrior's roar. The young girl delighted at the violence and judgement cast upon me from the Gods.

"Mommy, this homeless man rescued Henry."

Though, thankful as I was for salvation, this was no time to spend dawdling with common folk. This young and very handsome and very tall and very sexually virile Menelaus had every intention of being reunited with his Helen.

"I'm coming, Helen!"

My clear and bright and uninterrupted travels were the evocation and will of Nature.

The gas station was in my sights as I rounded a corner of the street. The monument marked a halfway point to Daisy's temple. Though, unlike Odysseus, it would not take me ten years to stretch my tired hands on the golden and soft sands of her words and lose myself in the tempest of her hair.

"Do you have any small packs of trojans?"

"Only magnums."

"Right, right. Right. Yeah, yeah. I'll take about, maybe, perhaps, four or two or, yeah, a few. Ten. Who knows. Fifteen, maybe."

"We have boxes in the back. Regular sized but much larger packs. Where the personal hygiene is."

"Cool, cool. Yeah, in the back. I'll take a look just in case, you know." The cashier was very thoroughly convinced.

The shelf for trojans was largely empty save for a carton pack of one hundred. In my desperation, I hunched down and grabbed the box of one hundred individually wrapped candy flavored colorful condoms and heard a gunshot.

"Give me all the cash in your register, bitch!" Another gunshot. "In the bag, hurry! And some menthols!"

The Gods were testing me. First trial was Hercules' nemean lion. And now a thief and a robber; Paris of a different sort. Another easy trifle as I pressed forward to certain victory. To have my face etched into the cosmos, this was but a simple effort and a menial task at best. Utilizing my unique gift of stealth, gifted to me by Nyx herself, he wouldn't notice my heavenly presence as I pilfered a can of motor oil. And upon application of enough force to concuss and dismantle his mantle, upon his creamy fontanels, my vigor would set to ensure the demolition of his will. Sourcing from the hethen's limp body the sweet nectar of Ajax's envy. Reluctantly, I'd drown him in the viscous and black oil. Purging him of his evils with the sweet taste of tar. As the medicine to his nefarious endeavors bubbles in his evil lungs, while he confesses his sins to me at the rising meniscus of his fatal breath, I'd honor him in the ritual and birthright of any soul brave enough to attempt tribulation against my prophesied heroics: a quick death. Perhaps then the Gods would forgive his crimes and I would thusly be elevated to my rightful Godhood.

"You in the back!" He wasn't talking to me as he pointed his gun at me. "Yeah, you! Holding the bite sized candy condoms! Come here and don't do anything fucking dumb." I approached the masked Paris. "Your wallet, your phone, those glasses too, in the bag. Hurry the fuck up." He held the gun steady, pointed at my beautiful face. I looked at the barrell of the gun, my eyes crossed at the smoke emanating from the tip. Behind him the cashier was filling the bag. "And take off your pants. I like those pants."

This is when I would say something very clever. A bafflement of wit. An exercise of an oft engorged intelligence.

"These aren't pants."

"Why are you buying so many trojans anyways?"

"I was heading to a girl's place."

"Girlfriend?"

"No."

"I see how it is. She's out of your league, huh. She'd fuck you but wouldn't make you a husband, huh?"

"What? Listen, scoundrel."

"I heard her ex-boyfriend, Brad, has a huge penis." Perhaps he didn't say this and I remember it only in the fever of dreams. "How the fuck you about to have sex covered in dirt and smelling like shit? Brad would never look so distressed. Daisy won't be impressed."

"It's a long story."

"This gun is long in your face, bitch."

"My neighbor's dog, Cerberus, a great and huge beast with black velvet fur, attacked me as I left my mansion. Then a young girl asked me to rescue her cat from the canopy of an ancient redwoood."

"Then you shit your pants when I pointed my gun at you, huh?" The villain snorted, revealing his identity: one of Circe's many thugs.

"Can I at least text her real quick saying I'm almost there but currently being held at gunpoint before I give you my phone?"

"Hell no. You'll just call the police."

"Look. I've known her for a few years now and this moment is everything to me. We talk everyday and we never get bored. She's literally so beautiful. This might be my one chance to-"

"Okay, okay. Shut the fuck up and show me a picture of her and we'll see. God damn, yeah. She hot as hell. She got some nice flat feet too. Long toes. Smooth heel, petite Achilles' tendon. Damn, I might just steal her from you too." He laughed. "Keep your phone unlocked and put it in my pocket or I'll blow your dick off and you'll never get to fuck her. I'm going to look at her pictures and maybe give her a call tonight. Hurry up and take off your pants, loverboy, I wanna see what you're working with compared to Brad's giant dick." I handed my jeans over to the assailant. He took them in his limbering arms and there was a splash of heat against my face and body. Through the black balaclava his eyes went grey and rolled into the back of his head. There was a second spraying of blood as the cashier unloaded a second round of shotgun slugs into Pig Paris' side.

"What were you doing when the burglar came into the store?" The officer asked me. There was a torrent of them. Five squad cars pulled into the station halting all surrounding traffic, shutting down the area for investigation and safety precautions.

"I was about to purchase a few magnum sized condoms at the register." She looked at me very plainly in a very convinced manner.

"Well, the good news is that we were able to find the gunman's accomplice speeding away from the scene. But, unfortunately, we'll have to take your pants as evidence since they're covered in blood and what seems to be fecal matter. Do you have an extra pair available to you?"

"There are no extras. They're imported from Nihon."

"Okay. You sure you don't want to stick around for a little? Relax? Let the paramedics have a look at you? What happened in there is pretty traumatic. I'm sure your girlfriend will understand if you're a little late."

"Daisy cat is not my girlfriend and I'm not in love with her."

I washed what mess of blood I could from my face, neck, and arms in one of the gas station's soapy basins. The owner gave me the box of condoms and a spare shirt, a crop top, for free due to the inconvenience. After texting Daisy that there was a small detour, a tiny mishap, keen to leave out any gruesome and un-sexy detail, I hopped onto my bike and my bare and pale legs in the scorching heat reddened within a few seconds of riding down the road.

Finally, there it was, shining in its glory: The Gates of Troy: Daisy's high-rise apartment complex. The sun reflected directly off of Daisy's window and shone directly into my eye. The pain was bliss. I saw, for a brief moment, the silhouette of a Goddess. Goddess with a capital G, standing in the polished windows of her suite. I knew exactly where her apartment was located on the tall building. Every time I dropped Daisy off, I'd look up at her floor as I drove away. I'd look up to ensure that she arrived safely. The shadow in the window had beautiful and long and slender legs akin to the perfectly shaped bow wielded by Odysseus. Oh, how I wished to be the fingers upon that bow. My pupils dilated at the gilded figure, I rose my arms into the air to wave.

"You're an absolute psychopath." The shrill groans of a siren called to me, "You're an absolute psychopath. My parents were right to tell me to break up with you. Look at you."

"Alondra." The Goddess Circe warned me of this scene. That I was fated to sail upon a monster in the sea at a rocky shore towards my destination. A beast that ate any ship unfortunate enough to pass through her cove. The Gods sent me visions of her tentacles, with sharp spines and teeth, reaching out to end me. Perhaps to run me over with her car. Alondra leaned from the driver's seat to scream at me through her open window.

"You think you can just ride down the road without any pants carrying a box of candy condoms in what may very well be one of my old crop tops on your ugly bike? You pervert."

"It's not what it looks like."

"So, you're not biking down a busy road downtown half-naked with a huge box of tiny condoms waving at the sky like a freak?"

"My bike is not ugly."

"Oh, do keep going on about your stupid bike and your love for bikes. Oh, do keep going on about it and avoiding the question." She drove next to me slowing down traffic behind her. She swallowed their rage and impatience in her violent wake. They honked. She only spoke louder to reach her barbed, loose words beyond the noise.

"The gas station on fifth was just robbed. I was inside."

She opened her passenger door at a red light.

"Get in."

"No, I can't. I've somewhere to be. Grave importance. More important than you."

"You cannot possibly be going anywhere looking like that."

"Yes. I'm going to go have passionate sex with a woman that isn't you."

"Who? Daisy?" She laughed. Her waves thrashing about my stalwart ego. "She would never have sex with you. She told me herself, you know. Back when she was dating her ex-boyfriend Brad. Remember Brad? That six foot five freak? He was a real man. He had a huge penis, remember?"

"Nobody remembers Brad. Brad who?"

"Everyone remembers Brad."

"Of course I remember Brad. Blue-eyed Brad. You were always in love with him even when we were dating."

"Everyone is in love with Brad. You're in love with Brad. He's tall, gorgeous, charismatic. Everything you're not. Brad got laser hair removal on his legs, you know." I looked down at my unshaven legs. The Greeks shaved their legs before battle. I should have maybe shaved my legs. "Daisy is still in love with Brad. She told me the other day."

"She did?"

"We get coffee every once in awhile and talk about our ex-boyfriend's penises. When I told her about the scar you have on your balls she choked on her coffee with laughter."

"A bee stung me when I was a kid and it never healed properly. I was bed ridden for days, I couldn't walk because of the swelling."

"You're just a short freak with weird balls and an ugly bike."

"Daisy appreciates my body and my penis. I have proof."

"Have you seen Brad's penis?"

"Everyone has seen Brad's penis."

"Brad has a nice penis." Brad does have a nice penis.

"Brad's penis is a six at best. And only in the right lighting. The cosmetic circumcision he had is subpar at best." She laughed. We pulled up next to the entrance of the building. I hopped off my bike and she stopped her car illegally holding up traffic.

"Let's get coffee sometime." I leaned into the open window.

"Yeah, I'd like that. Bring Daisy."

"Only if you bring Brad."

"But seriously. You two are cute together."

"We're not dating. I'm not in love with her."

"You'll have to tell me the full story."

"Of my appearance?"

"Of everything."

I watched her drive off and I waved and wheeled my bike into the building. The air conditioning greeted me before the doorman. The hub of the carbon wheels clicked softly, a whisper hidden within the commotion of the grand lobby. The white marble floors and pillars of stone shone bright. All guests floated on levitating plinths made of clouds in linen gowns and crowns of gilded golden leaves and wild flowers. As I approached the large stone desk the very kind looking very handsome man greeted me with a look of absolute disgust and bewildered contempt.

"Security, we have a Code Nine in the lobby. Standby." He spoke loudly into the mic attached at his lapel. "I'm sorry sir and or madame, we don't allow homeless people in the building."

"I'm not homeless."

"Or solicitors. I'm going to have to ask you to vacate the property immediately."

"I'm a guest of one of your residents." He eyed me in a convinced manner, "I have condoms."

"I can see that."

There was a long and fantastic pause. He didnt move or blink.

"I was robbed at a gas station - the one on Fifth. You might have heard the sirens. That's why I'm not wearing my sexy-time jeans."

"Excuse me?"

"I punched the robber in the face and the blow was so devastating his nose broke and bled all over me. When he tried shooting at me, with my superhuman reflexes and speed, I jumped over him and broke his arm in a standing backflip arm-bar suplex. The cashier threw me a shotgun and I blew his head clean off. That's why there's blood on my arms still."

"I thought that was poop."

"Nope. None of that."

"And the condoms?"

"I'm here to have sex with a beautiful woman."

"And is she aware of this attempted sexual encounter?" His hand rose to his lapel.

"Yes. Very aware. It was her idea."

"And she's sober? A sober, willful participant?"

"Yes. Very sober. She only ever drinks water. She's very superbly willing." He was very thoroughly convinced. "Daisy cat. I'm here to see Daisy. You might have seen me before. Sometimes we eat together alone at dimly lit and expensive restaurants and I open and close all her doors and drop her off late at night. I drive a little black japanese hybrid hatchback with enough space in the trunk to fit a legendary road bike."

"You're Virgil? The Virgil Daisy doesn't stop talking about?"

"She talks about me?"

"Nevermind that."

"You know that feeling? After you have an intimate few hours with someone?"

"Love."

"Horniness. Horny horniness. Pure unadulterated sexual and emotional desire."

"You said emotional desire."

"Very very sexual and not in any way emotionally driven very sexual desire. When your heart beats really fast when she looks into your eyes and when she laughs at her own jokes or small mistakes you can't help but feel the back of your neck rise in temperature and when your hands kind of touch but they don't and when you're sitting close together and your knees are resting on each other's and you sweat because you're so horny with horniness. And everytime you schedule to hang out with her and her friends they never show up because they get stuck in the air while skydiving so it's always just the two of you and you're at dinner then the movies then a long walk through a dark park and she looks very beautiful in her favorite dress and in your favorite jacket because she got very cold and you even forget to eat or breathe or rest because you can't stop talking. Very sexual."

He looked at me very handsomely and I couldn't discern the intention behind the baffled and nauseated look on his face.

Nevertheless, he permitted my passage beyond the superficial fortress gates. I took on the trojan horse appearance of someone very deeply in love with the most beautiful woman in the world and decieved the very guard preventing my entry. The large metal doors of the elevator opened with a soft hiss and a cloud of ethereal dust. I could hear my heart beating rapidly as the metal cage climbed. I checked my appearance in the reflection of my phone and quickly put it away. In the few seconds it took to get to her floor, lifetimes of scenarios streamed through my consciousness.

The hallway to her door was lavish and long and filled with a wonderful natural lighting of the setting sun.

Apartment 1009.

The gyrating sound of a blender came into the hallway through her already open door. I peered my head in and her roommate was in the kitchen eating peeled slices of persimmon.

"Hi, Zelda."

"Hi, Virgil. Hey, holy shit. You look like you just fought in a battle to the death."

"Thank you."

"That wasn't... Well, come in and close the door."

"Daisy in her room?"

"No she's not here. Yeah, she left about fifteen minutes ago."

"I thought she was waiting for me." I wasn't sad at all.

"Why do you look so sad. She heard gunshots around where the gas station was that you were supposed to be and went out looking for you like a crazy person. I told her you'd be fine but she insisted on running to find you. You know how she gets. Irritable, impatient. You just going to stand there or are you going to explain why you look the way you do?"

"Have you heard of The Trials of Heracles?"

"Yes. You always find a way to bring them up."

"I was called to fight in a great war. To avoid conscription I feigned insanity. But a pack of wolves attacked me. They trampled me, fighting for the thick muscle on my tight body. Then I took a thorn out from the pad of a lion's paw. It was a restless and poor thing. I saved her and she remains my companion for life. Then a young girl called out to me. She called me in her succor upon seeing my largess begged me to save her mother from her burning abode. Upon rescuing the mother, she offered me her hand in marriage and the sacrifice of our first-born son. And at the gas station, well, let's just say that tonight when you gaze upon the black canvas don't be surprised to spy my very visage, my likeness in full, reflected in the great expanse of twinkling orbs."

"Yeah. You're both insane. You look exhausted, just relax. I'm making mango smoothies." I sat in the middle of their living room in the exact spot Daisy had taken the video she sent earlier and found her phone on the floor."

"She forgot this."

"I told you. She literally ran out of here like a crazy person. Didn't even wait for the elevator. Just ran down the stairs yelling that she would rescue you."

"Do you know when she'll be back?"

"Nope. She could be looking for you the rest of the night. Who knows with her. But, well, hold on." Zelda walked into her room and I shut my eyes for a second. She tapped my shoulder and handed me a towel. "You can shower, if you'd like. No, you definitely should if you're going to wait."

"Thank you, Zelda. You're very kind." I pushed up and my body felt very heavy. She asked me if I was okay as I wobbled away and nodded.

"When you're done come get a smoothie."

Zelda's smoothies were notoriously delicious. Akin to and golden like the Gods' very ambrosia.

The warm water was a boon.

It washed over me, stampeding against the worries of the hour past. With the steam in my nose I felt fantastic and polished. I massaged the floral shampoo into my scalp hoping to scrape away the raw images of the man's death and pollinate in its place a new verdance. The dried blood on my arms and neck came off easily and I watched silently as the remnants of someone's existence withered into the drain. Daisy's bodywash smelled so wonderful. Being emulsified in her scent I felt rescued. I decided then and there that when I'm to be mummified, this simple and white iridescent fluid would be choice for my embalming. I rested my head against the smooth tile and allowed the waterful to sedate me. After drying, I found my enleadened body on Daisy's rug. My encumbered limbs and joints, composed of granite and concrete paste, sprawled themselves on the thick pile. It smelled of use and I wondered if that's what her perfect feet smelled like. With the scent of her feet stepping on my face and deep in my nose and the ceiling fan circling hypnotically above, the floor was a wonderful and the only place to be. Zelda came in laughing at the composition and set a smoothie down on the desk. I felt a pair of eyes watching me from a bookshelf. There was a soft welcoming meow, the whirr of a blender fading softly and slowly away, and then there was all silence and calm.

When my eyes opened next, the room was dark and cool. The late city lights escaped through the large windows. An arm was wrapped around my torso, a pair of feet rested themselves on my legs, a perfect cheek pressed against my chest, and a wonderful nose was buried into my neck. On top of our bodies was a warm blanket and beneath our heads was a singular and comfortable pillow. Daisy twitched lightly in her sleep, likely reaching out desperately for me in some distant dream realm and her slender fingers clinched onto my tender skin. Her nails scratched me very slightly and lightly and it was very lovely.

There was nothing left to do, no other option, but smile and deeply sleep.

A very sexual sleep.