Trouble

Chapter 1

Leon sat at his desk. Nothing interesting was going on and he'd finished his work early, so he was bored. He knew the boss would be watching if he left early, and it made sense to just sit and soak up money anyway. Looking out the window he saw someone walking near his car and looking in through the windshield. He was concerned, but waiting to make a decision on what to do based on whether the guy was about to put a flyer for Chinese food under his wiper.

"Hey, stranger," came a voice from behind Leon, startling him.

He turned around to see that it was Amrita. "Hey! You scared me!" he said and started laughing.

She came into his office and sat down. A slight breeze followed her and reached Leon's nose. Sandalwood and curry, and the woman's natural, alluring scent.

"Well, what's up?" asked Leon.

"Nothing, really. Got done with everything already, killing time. You?" she leaned forward, smiling.

"Same," returned Leon, setting up an awkward silence.

Amrita's smile was beautiful and white. She batted her long eyelashes, flashing her large, gorgeous brown eyes at him. Yet something about the way she looked at him made him feel...

"Have you met the new hire? She's a friend of mine," asked Amrita, breaking in on his thoughts.

Leon leaned on his elbow and thought for a second. Then he said, hesitantly, "Sar- Sar.. avisi?"

Amrita laughed, leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. "Leon, you tried, honey, but it's Sarasvi."

Leon laughed out loud. "Fuck me, Amrita, I don't know Indian names!"

Amrita chuckled and batted her eyes at him again. He registered this, and then his eyes wandered to her curvaceous figure, hugged nicely by her white blouse and grey slacks.

"I'll text her and see if she will come in and say hi," said Amrita as she tossed her silky, straight black hair back with one hand and typed with the other on her phone.

Two minutes later a bright eyed beauty poked her head through the doorway. Her soft skin and several large freckles on her face, all framed in slightly wavy, gently curled, beautiful, shiny black hair, immediately struck Leon and he was a bit taken aback by her beauty.

"Hi, Saravas, come in," said Leon, waving her in.

Sarasvi stepped in, revealing a voluptuous figure wrapped in a sari. As she walked over and sat down she and Amrita shared a conspiratorial look, smiling at each other.

"Shit, I said it wrong didn't I?" asked Leon.

Both women looked at each other and then started laughing. Judging by her wearing the more traditional garb and her thicker accent Leon wondered if Sarasvi was new to the country, but didn't want to seem rude by prying, so he kept his thoughts to himself. Amrita dressed like a typical American business woman, and her accent was very faint. She still had the lovely Indian lilt in her speech patterns, though.

Leon rolled his eyes and smiled. Then he said, "So, Sarasvi, how are you liking the job?"

Sarasvi leaned forward in her seat. Her breasts strained against the fabric containing them tantalizingly. Seeing her next to Amrita Leon noted that her skin tone was twice as dark as Amrita's. He found the beautiful, silky darkness of her complexion intensely alluring.

Sarasvi said, "It's ok. Amrita oversold it though. What she told me about you is much more interesting than this place. She said you have horses and live on a farm?"

Leon busted up laughing again. After recovering his composure he replied, "I live on some property, yes, and have a small garden. Most of my property is forested, other than the large clearing where my house is, and I don't have any horses. My neighbors a few miles away have some, though."

Sarasvi looked accusingly at Amrita, who shrugged and said, "I only came out the one time when you had that party, Leon. Garden, neighbor's horses seem a lot like living on a farm!"

"Can I see it?" said Sarasvi.

Oddly, she was hushed by Amrita. Leon didn't know what to make of this.

"I mean, sure," responded Leon.

"Tonight after work?" blurted Sarasvi.

Amrit elbowed her this time. Leon furrowed his brow in confusion.

"Tonight's not great. Let's see how the week turns out." He looked at his watch and said, "Actually, it's time ladies! Let's get out of here!" With that he stood up, grabbed his jacket and briefcase and smiled widely at the women.

He walked past them and out the door as they were still standing up. Suddenly it had hit him that he needed to check on his car! He quickly walked out of the office and took the two flights of concrete steps down and stepped out the exit to the parking lot. The black decorative rocks crunched under his feet as he turned the corner of the building, anxious to find out what was on the other side. To his relief his car sat untouched.

He drove home that night, watched some TV, showered, and went to sleep. The next day at work Amrita appeared next to him in the break room as he ate his lunch and said, "So, can Sarasvi and I come see that farm tonight?"

Leon chuckled at her deliberately incorrect description of his property, but then he realized that she was only joking about the farm part of it. Her serious look in the face of his laughter made that clear.

"Oh, for real? I'm sorry, I was so tired last night I didn't clean up. I'd be embarrassed to have anyone over tonight," said Leon as he twisted in his chair to face the woman more directly.

"What about tomorrow? I promised Sarasvi I'd show her fun things, don't make me a liar!" she smiled and winked at him.

"Maybe. Let me see if I can get it clean tonight. By the way, though, my house isn't exactly fun unless she wants to pick green beans and lay in a hammock."

Amrita sat down in the chair across from Leon. She looked oddly serious and said, "Leon, we don't care, we just want to see it and hang out."

"I promise I'll try to get it in shape tonight!" he said as he stood up and packed up his lunch containers back into his lunch box.

He left Amrita sitting in the brightly lit, white walled, white tiled break room, framed, as he looked back at her, by the stark contrasting brown faux wooden cabinets on the far wall. As he walked back to his office he felt strange, though he still couldn't put his finger on what bothered him. Amrita was stunningly beautiful, and so was Sarasvi, perhaps even more so. Yet...

Chapter 2

Leon was startled on the way into the building the next morning when both women were suddenly flanking him.

He tried to cover his reaction by saying, "Good morning ladies!"

As they walked in the morning light through the black top parking lot and across the innumerable white lined parking spots Amrita said, "So..." leaving the word hanging in the air.

Leon felt a pang of guilt and embarrassment. "You're going to kill me, but I forgot!"

"Ha! Kill you..." said Sarasvi.

Amrita glared at her across Leon's chest. It made him feel uneasy.

"Well, just let us know when it's ready," said Amrita.

The rest of the walk inside was an uncomfortable silence.

Later, as he sat alone in his office, Leon couldn't concentrate. What was with these women? Did they have a thing for him? He certainly had a thing for them! So why was he pushing back against them? He thought for a moment. He liked them, and he wanted to spend time with them, but he realized that the way they were acting, and seeming so desperate to see his property was giving him strange vibes.

Now what?, he thought. Should he just keep putting them off? What if that ruined some kind of amazing thing for him? Was he being paranoid and unnecessarily hurting their feelings?

"Sorry about Sarasvi," Amrita's voice surprised him yet again.

He looked up from his computer to see her standing in front of his desk. "What?" he said dumbly.

"Talking about killing you," said Amrita with a nervous, cracking, high pitched laugh.

That was it, Leon decided this was weird. He didn't want these women at his house.

Seemingly reading his mind Amrita suddenly looked desperate and blurted out, "She was joking," as she put a hand out to accentuate her point.

Leon jumped slightly. This woman was freaking him out. Images of the women drugging him and murdering him flashed through his mind.

"Ha ha, it's okay. Don't worry about it," he said, waving his hand in the air between them. "I've got to get back to this project I'm working on, though, so I'll talk to you later."

Amrita looked crestfallen and slumped away through the doorway out of his office.

Alone, now, the tension was relieved. Leon wondered again: was he being paranoid? Were Amrita and Sarasvi simply awkward? Was it a cultural difference setting him off? Some kind of linguistic quirk that he wasn't familiar with? A normal desire to see a coworkers house in their country that seemed pushy and bizarre in his?

He shook his head and tried to let it all go and focused on his work.

Chapter 3

Leon sat watching TV at home that night as usual. The front door camera chimed on his phone. He picked it up and looked at it. Deer had set off the camera. This happened a lot. He went to the window and looked outside into the darkness. He could just make out two sets of eyes and bodies out there of deer eating grass. He walked back to his couch, sat back and cracked open a beer.

Ten minutes later the front door camera chimed again. Leon got out his phone to watch another typical live feed of deer walking around outside his house. The feed pulled up and loaded, but there was distortion for some reason. He waited for it to clear as he watched the feed pixelate and clear in clumps. Two deer seemed to be coming into view. The pixels cleared and Leon's blood ran cold: it was Amrita and Sarasvi!

The image pixelated again, and when it cleared there was only Amrita alone walking toward the front of the house. Where had Sarasvi gone? He brought his camera feeds up but his phone lost signal.

"Fuck," he said out loud, realizing the router must have been knocked offline.

The doorbell sounded. Leon was sweating. Why was he so afraid? He walked over to the front door and opened it and was utterly befuddled by what waited for him there.

"Hi, stranger," said Amrita.

She was completely naked.

"Amrita? What- I mean, how- What's happening? What happened to Sarasvi?" stuttered Leon. Before Amrita could respond a large crashing sound came from behind the house causing Leon to jump.

"What the fuck was that?" He asked and walked back through the inside of the house to the back windows.

Amrita stumbled after him. She grabbed his hand and said, "Leon, wait! Please!"

Leon was full of adrenaline at this point and snatched his hand away from the woman. He crossed the rear living room in several wide steps but stopped short when he heard another crash, this time from the front of the house again. He turned and looked past Amrita.

"Leon! Listen to me!" she pleaded.

Leon couldn't concentrate on what she was saying, though, as shadows danced all over her face and body suddenly. A chilly tendril of cold ran up Leon's back and sunk into his skull. His subconscious mind knew exactly what those shadows meant before his conscious mind could catch up and was sending out fear signals.

Slowly he turned around and looked out the back window at a massive fire blazing outside, fifty feet from the house.

He whipped back around to Amrita and demanded, "What is that? What's happening? What did she do?"

Leon walked forward, shouldering Amrita out of his way in the process. "I'm calling the fucking cops," he said. This was some fucked up shit and he wasn't having it any longer.

Just as the words escaped his lips, though, he heard the front door slam shut, and Sarasvi stepped into the light. The shadows from the fire outside played on her nudity in a way that sent Leon's heart racing with horror as she said, "Calling the cops? We can't have that," and showed him his router that she'd unplugged. Without that, he had no cell service out here.

"No! We're done with this!" shouted Leon as he walked toward her, preparing to wrestle the device back from her.

"You didn't tell him?" shouted Sarasvi to Amrita behind Leon.

"He won't listen!" responded Amrita.

Sarasvi's eye's widened and she darted out the front door.

Leon ran after her. Through the wet grass. She ran into the trees and he followed. No thoughts, now, just instinct. He was going to get back the router. Faster. He was gaining on her. He would catch her.

Then, pain. Searing pain in his right foot, and he fell forward onto his hands and knees. He started to get up, but the pain radiated through his leg and he fell onto his side. He saw Sarasvi slow ahead of him and start to walk back. He tried to get up again but fell even harder this time, feeling sluggish.

Amrita came up behind him and said, "What's happening? What did you do?" to Sarasvi.

"Nothing," said Sarasvi as she walked carefully behind Leon.

Leon was feeling fuzzy. Everything was taking on a hazy overtone.

"Here it is. It's Somnium Viridis," said Sarasvi as she reached down and picked something up.

Leon watched the two women talking. Horror filled him as he realized he couldn't himself speak.

"This is your fault," said Amrita.

"Well, he's not going to be able to move, which helps us!" said Sarasvi looking down at the prone Leon.

He could see Sarasvi chewing something dark that looked like plant matter. His vision clouded further arounded the edges, but began to brighten. It looked as if he was viewing the world through a sheet of tinted glass that was pink around the edges. No, not pink, he realized, but a shade of red, sparkling like frost. Ah yes, the window was covered in frost, that was why things looked so strange.

"You're eating that? Tell me you're not going to-" said Amrita. "I mean, you can't!"

Sarvasti walked over and looked down at Leon, turned her head and said, "Amrita, if I don't he could die, and its not like our names are on the deed for the property." she looked down at Leon, smiled broadly, and said, "Yet."

Leon could only see rippling, abstract shapes for some time. Becoming aware of movement he shook his head roughly. Stars appeared above him and both women could be seen on either side, dragging him by his arms.

Chapter 4

A river. Flowing, strong. Ambrosia. The smell of green plants. A mountain stream trying to make its way through a rock. Stopped by the flat stone surface. So much thirst. Thousands of years the rock had sat there, yearning, needing the water, but closed off to its healing powers. The stream finding its way through a tiny crack. The rock is quenched, finally. Finally.

The world faded into place. A fuzzy canopy of mist covered tree tops. He was in the trees. What a beautiful sight.

smack

Leon came to and looked around. He felt numb and couldn't move. Amrita was standing next to the bed to his right. On his left was Sarasvi sitting on the bed on her knees. His cheek stung on that side. She had slapped him. He tried to speak but his throat was dry and his brain wasn't cooperating.

"Relax Leon. You just don't understand," said Amrita.

Leon coughed and cleared his throat. "What the fuck did you do to me?" he croaked.

Sarasvi laughed. "What did we do to you? We didn't do anything! You brought this on yourself!"

Mind clearing a bit, Leon realized they must have drugged him. "You, you poisoned me!"

Sarasvi rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, pushing against her ample breasts.

"Leon, you have to-" began Amrita, but Sarasvi cut her off.

"You wouldn't fucking listen to Amrita! So you chased after me like a psychopath, and stepped on a thorny plant that is a powerful, and sometimes fatal, hallucinogen!" said Sarasvi.

"Why did you take my router? What's happening?" asked Leon.

"The only way we could get onto your property, and stay here, was to get you away from your phone," said Amrita.

Panic set in again for Leon as his senses returned more fully. He could move his limbs, but realized he was tied to the bed.

"You trapped me here and cut me off from the outside world! You're trying to kill me so you can take over this property! Why?" demanded Leon.

Both women looked at each other and laughed. Then Amrita sat on the bed and said, "Leon, calm down! If you would have just listened from the beginning we wouldn't be in this situation! We just want to stay here, with you!"

"Bull shit! I heard what you were saying as you dragged me in here! You were saying the only reason to keep me alive was so that I could put you on the deed! Well, that's never going to happen!"

Amrita put a hand on his chest gently and smiled sadly, tears in her eyes. This seemed to confirm what he was saying, but at least she seemed to feel guilty about it.

Sarasvi grabbed Leon's face by his cheeks and turned his head toward her. "You stepped on a poisonous plant and we saved you! We want to be with you and heal you, not kill you!"

"Save me? Yeah right! You dragged me in here and tied me to a bed and waited for me to wake up! Probably so I can tell you where the deed is!" snapped Leon.

"That's not all she did..." said Amrita, arching her eyebrows and pursing her lips.

Leon was confused. "What do you mean?"

Sarasvi guided his face back to looking at her again and said, "Think about what was happening just before you woke up, you silly man."

Leon thought quietly. He closed his eyes. The mountain. The stream. The thirsty, desperate rock. The crack and the rock at last drinking. All at once his mind broke through the hallucinations and he remembered flashes of himself feeling like he was dying of thirst. Then brown thighs on either side of his head. A neatly trimmed pussy pressed against his lips. Soft feminine voices gently urging him to open his mouth. The pussy squirting onto his face and splattering all over his chin and neck. Then, opening his mouth, and the stream flowing in. Finally, he remembered drinking, drinking. Deeply. Swallowing every drop he could. Yet he was confused by remembering very clearly it tasting like delicious water.

"Oh fuck! You pissed in my mouth while I was drugged up? You're sick!" he said to Sarasvi, somehow knowing it was her for certain.

"Piss?" said Sarvasi sharply and loudly. She slapped his face again, obviously finding his statement outrageous and ridiculous.

"Sarasvi!" broke in Amrita, catching Sarasvi's wrist as she wound up to give Leon another smack.

Amrita scooted closer to Leon's face, looked down at him, and said, in a pleading voice, "Please, if you would just listen to me, you would understand."

"Give me one good reason to believe anything you say," demanded Leon coldly.

Again, Amrita looked truly hurt. She produced a cell phone and dialed a number. Showing him the phone Leon could see that it was calling their office. Sarasvi put a hand over his mouth as the line connected and Amrita put it on speaker phone.

"Smith-Weiss holdings, can I help you?" said a voice on the other end.

"Yes, can I speak to Leon?" said Amrita.

"Sorry, he called in sick today."

"Thanks." Amrita hung up the phone.

"See? We called into work for you so you wouldn't get in trouble!" said Amrita.

"So no one would come looking for me, you mean!" returned Leon venomously.

"Fuck! We can't win!" interjected Sarasvi, shaking her head and throwing her hands in the air.

Leon took in the situation for a moment. Something about Sarasvi's exasperation, and Amrita's sad tone was making him doubt his vehement position. He looked around at the green walls of his guest room. The deep brown, almost black dresser, behind Amrita the door and the small painting of a dark forest with a deer in it behind her on the wall. The familiar sights calmed him slightly.

"Fine, tell me what's going on," he said, and waited.

To be continued...