“What is happening?” asked Lo in her host’s ear.
“You saw the dessert table and, before I could stop you, you ate a large slice of cake. More THC infused chocolate cake. You had forgotten what I told you – all the sweets are full of pot! You are going to be ok. But things will seem weird for a while.”
Art by Jana Brike
Her voice was so gentle and calm that Lo felt transported out of her body to some ethereal place where she met the Brike. The Brike are, according to Lola, small, beautiful, Alice-in-Wonderland-type creatures. They are of no gender because there is only one gender. At birth, they all look like girls. They all have the same anatomy of girls, that is. But when they begin to hit puberty, an odd thing happens to them – they develop tail-like structures at the top of their butt-crack, that is, right by their tailbone. The growth begins as merely a small bump – like a wart or boil, or like their nipples just budding. But then it continues to grow like a long flap of skin. That’s how it is most of the time, but when these “girls” or creatures get sexually aroused, which is often, the flap of tail grows. They get erections. Their tails point in the air and then they copulate. Usually one sits atop the back of the other, either cowgirl style or reverse cowgirl, letting the erect tail penetrate either the vagina or the anus. The copulation is not for procreation purposes. They procreate parthenogenically. When they feel the need for reproduction, their “tail” grows to an enormous length – perhaps two feet in some – and enters their own vagina. It is said to be the best sex they will ever experience. The tail ejaculates and then, after a recovery period of about two hours, it is shed. The “girl” goes back to being a-sexual as the baby gestates in her. She dies in childbirth. No exceptions. The newborn Brike baby is then raised on Chimera Milk of the mystical Chimera Matron – a griffin sort or creature with four breasts hanging below that are ever-full and lactating. Then the cycle begins again.
Art by Jana Brike
Lo was feeling not herself.
Gathering Griffin Milk
Tara recommended that Lo try some deep breathing exercises and a little meditation to ground her. They sat on Tara’s bed, both naked, and as Lo looked at Tara, sitting in the lotus position, Tara transformed from the present-day host of a drug-infused kink party to a timeless goddess of Theravada or Tantric Buddhism. She sat serenely in a landscape beyond time and space, infusing all living things with her beauty, grace, life, and love.
Tara
As Lo witnessed this, a change occurred in herself whereby she suddenly felt her entire being metamorphosize from flesh-and-blood into a porcelain statue. She became timeless herself, but in a way that was beyond the vicissitudes of life. She became still and immobile like stone. Impervious to all things. But, thereby, beyond pleasure and pain. She did not like it. She did not like it at all!
Mystical Tara
Lo as a statue, art by Boom Beach
She heard Tara speak to her, but without moving her lips. It was mind-to-mind communication. Tara encouragingly, sweetly whispered to her, “Let go of all illusions – of me, of yourself, of the world, of your mind. Pleasure, pain, pure, impure, sacred, profane, divine, debased – these are all the same.” The sound of her disembodied voice sparkled and glittered like the sound she heard before of the windchime in the breeze.
Fragile Lo, art by Boom Beach
Opening her eyes, she saw Tara suddenly split into many pieces that hovered in the air. It was terrifying at first, but then Lo saw that this was just her illusion breaking apart.
Tara Goes to Pieces
The next thing she knew, she was being dropped off at home by Mr. Biggs, who, as she looked back at the car, appeared to be the fat, jolly Buddha known as Hotei, naked and cheerful behind the wheel.
Art of Lo and Tara by Rigs Usually Hidden Drawings