Sloth Read online

“I can’t help it if Marissa dumped me, Mom,” Mercy said.

  “Help it? The fact you jumped into a relationship with that woman was enough. I told you she was trouble. When she wasn’t pulling you around by the hair, she was embarrassing your grandmother at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Remember what she said about your grandmother’s green bean casserole? I had never heard such disrespect from someone you brought home. You expect that from callous men. From women? Only you would know how to pick such a winner.”

  “Mom.”

  The wind blew away the word on the table. Wind Mercy couldn’t feel with her own skin. It’s a dream. That’s why. Can’t feel something that’s not actually there.

  “It’s a good thing your father isn’t around anymore. He would have blown a gasket.”

  “Mom!” Mercy didn’t need this. Her father wasn’t dead. He was a deadbeat. Two years into their sham of a marriage, Mercy’s father packed up his shit and left in the middle of the night. Moved down the street, into the house of a neighbor he was banging on the side. Right there for God and everyone to see. Dina’s shame had been so great that she was almost excommunicated. In the end, Mercy’s grandmother convinced the congregation to let Dina stay – for the sake of the baby’s soul.

  All the good it did everyone. They should see the state of Mercy’s soul now.

  No one. I have no one in my family. Mercy stepped around the table without making further eye contact with her mother, a woman she hadn’t spoken to in real life since… my grandma died. That had been a short conversation over the phone. Mercy didn’t go to the funeral. There had been no love lost, and she couldn’t stand the thought of stepping into that church with all those people again.

  She put the image of her mother behind her, but the smell of cigarette smoke never faded. Not until Mercy pushed forward into the darkening fog, where she heard indiscernible voices all the way to the end of her sanity.

  “…Did you meet her girlfriend yet? A real piece of work. Why would she go out with someone like that? Doesn’t she love herself?”

  Mercy gasped. That was the voice of her old best friend, Trish. Trish! Where have you been? For being so inseparable from college to internship, there had been something that drove them apart, and it wasn’t only entering their thirties and going about their own lives. Right. I started dating Marissa, and Trish hated her. Trish had made her distrust of Marissa known from the very beginning, too. Always telling me that there was something dark behind Marissa’s eyes… I thought she was jealous. Trish had dating troubles for as long as Mercy knew her. Hell, Trish had been engaged until discovering her fiancé had an affair with a coworker. Someone as insecure as Mercy naturally thought it was jealousy. I can’t believe I let someone come between me and my best friend. When Marissa left Mercy in nothing but shambles, Mercy had naturally reached out to her old best friend. Except Trish was no longer there to answer.

  “Trish?” Mercy was on to this game now. Nobody, least of all the wispy appearance of Trish’s dark, outlined form speaking to two other nameless women, could hear her. “I’m sorry.”

  Trish turned around, not that she looked in Mercy’s direction. Yet her foot kicked the dust, the spiraling matter causing Mercy to shield her eyes. When she opened them again, she beheld the word “Forget.”

  Forget Trish? Forgive my mom, but forget Trish? That sounded backward. Were Mercy’s inner thoughts playing tricks on her?

  “I’ll never get over her stupid ass not choosing me, her oldest best friend, over a skank like that,” the shadow of Trish continued to say to her faceless audience. “She still owed me a couple hundred bucks from when she drank herself shitfaced and ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere. I had to PayPal her two-hundred-and-some-odd dollars to take a taxi because she didn’t have her wallet on her. Can you believe it? What a fucking mess. What a joke.”

  Mercy swallowed. This may have all been in her head, but it still hurt to hear.

  My friends are gone… That had been a bitter pill to swallow when Mercy came out of her breakup and realized that everyone she ever relied on had moved on without her. That’s what happened when she picked someone as toxic as Marissa over them. When Marissa isolated Mercy from her entire social group and convinced her that there was only room for her in their intimate relationship. Mercy had gone along with it, too. She thought it was natural. When a woman in her thirties found her soulmate, it was natural to shut out everyone else. Didn’t everyone talk about it whenever they had the chance? People naturally drifted apart once they were established in their adulthoods. Children, marriage, homebuying… there were a myriad of reasons to no longer talk to one’s best friend. That’s what Mercy had told herself over a year into her relationship with Marissa, when she realized she hadn’t talked to Trish in too many months.

  Eventually, they stopped talking altogether. After Mercy accepted the fate of her friendship, she attempted to move on. Get new friends. Unfortunately, Marissa was always there to hurry her away from strangers or, God forbid, a friendly neighbor who simply wanted to talk about the gardens in the neighborhood. When they broke up? Mercy only had the energy to go to work and the supermarket. Occasionally, she hit up a bar, but she was rarely in the mood to strike up conversations with other people in the room. Her aura must have said the same thing, for nobody talked to her, either.

  I wonder what Trish is up to right now. Mercy pushed past the shadows of her lowest moments and pressed forward. She hadn’t heard Sloth’s voice for a while, but she had been told to keep pushing forward. What else could she do when facing the sad memories she had attempted to purge from her memory?

  “…She’s not exactly the hottest piece of ass in the office,” a haughty male voice said only a few feet away. “That honor goes to Lucia, of course. But Devereux is easy, huh? I’ve heard she’s gone out with you a couple of times, isn’t that right?”

  Where sadness had taken hold only a few seconds ago, anger now caused Mercy to see red. Before her stood three of her male coworkers who were somehow always in her business. Bill, with his cocky way of conducting himself; Arnold, whose tie was never askew and who never looked beyond his own nose when Mercy was in his view; Rashid, who sighed every time someone brought up Mercy’s name.

  “You keep saying she’s easy,” Bill said with a wag of his finger, “but I’ve been working on her ever since she was promoted to my floor. You know they only promoted her because it didn’t look good to have all men in management, but if she’s really the best they had to offer… sheesh, it’s no wonder we don’t have more females on our floors. They really gotta step it up if they want to bust through that glass ceiling. Then again, I don’t think Devereux is prepared to be a little hausfrau. Not that I’m looking for one, but know what you’re getting into, right, boys?”

  Arnold cleared his throat. Rashid looked away. Neither of them acknowledged Mercy’s presence as she stepped closer.

  “I suppose she gets her work done,” Arnold said, “but there are certainly some unsavory rumors about her. I don’t know how much stock I put in them, though. She is a lesbian, after all.”

  “Pfft! It’s the twenty-first century, man! Women aren’t just lesbians anymore! Most of them are looking for the right guy to save them from such a sad dating life. It’s all about the bi babe now. Let me tell you, most of my girlfriends are bisexual. They’re the only ones to fool around with if you ask me. How about you, Rashid? You ever date a queer girl?”

  Rashid wrinkled his nose. That’s right. Rashid is the one most likely to be on my side. Dare Mercy say he often looked after her in his own way? He was really concerned about my health, right?

  “You’re saying she’s single now?” Rashid asked Bill. “Because then I might have to try her out for myself.”

  Arnold smirked at that. “Good luck. She doesn’t go out with anyone.”

  It was getting harder to write this all off as merely in her head. After all, these sounded like real conversations the people Mercy knew could be having. Is this
what they talk about behind my back? How to date me? Deriding me? Disowning me? Mercy shoved herself past the men standing in their circle. They paid her no mind, like in real life. They only notice me when they want something from me. At least Bill was honest about it. Mercy may have officially complained about him more than once, but nothing was ever done. Why would it be? Everything was rotten from the inside out. Even HR was mostly men who probably wanted to go out with her. Out of desperation, since she was the only woman in the whole department who might give them the time of day. Lucia was too young. Honestly, way out of their league. Except maybe Arnold, whose paycheck had to be big enough to get Lucia’s attention.

  Mercy briefly remembered when someone else sat in Lucia’s seat. Someone who was supposed to be a source of comfort right now.

  Acedia…

  Where was she? When could Mercy see that holy light again?

  Where was Sloth? Mercy had to continue forward. She had to continue to walk this path of healing, no matter what insecurities attempted to hold her back.

  She closed her eyes and covered her ears to anything else in her subconscious attempting to drag her down. She didn’t need that right now. I’m supposed to be getting better. Right? That’s why I’m going through all this crazy shit!

  Mercy didn’t know if anyone else loudly talked about her. She didn’t see them. She didn’t hear them. Every step brought her closer to peace. Every breath she inhaled was another weight lifted from her lungs. If she held herself to a higher standard than what she had before…

  Maybe she could finally feel free. Maybe she could finally start making important changes to her life. Before, she told herself that it was too late. She was too old to overhaul herself. What was the point? Old dogs couldn’t be taught new tricks, hm? Her mother once said that a woman who made it to forty was one set in her ways. That was always her excuse for whenever Mercy asked her to do something different in her life.

  Now, Mercy realized she was taught so many wrong messages. Was it possible for her to relearn? To move on from her bad habits?

  I have so many bad habits. I don’t know where to begin.

  That’s what the Seven Sinners were for, after all. That’s why she had to find them.

  I have to find Sloth. A phrase she never thought she would have in her life.

  Mercy slowly opened her eyes. When she realized where she was, she took a step back. Everywhere else had been dark, of course, as the fog closed in and obscured her inner eye, but now? Mercy looked upon a room of total darkness. The only minute source of light was an unseen fixture somewhere high above. The yellow light filtered through the darkness and twinkled upon a bed surrounded by sheer purple curtains.

  She took another step forward. Mercy couldn’t say she knew exactly what to expect, but she had a good idea. Or, at least, she hoped to God that she was right. She wanted to wake up from this strange dream sooner rather than later.

  4

  Mercy tried to get up the moment she hit the bed, but soon discovered herself drowning in throw pillows covered in silk and satin. A giggle emerged behind her. A giggle that was much more inviting than any of the heinous whispers or threatening gossip to have haunted her only a few minutes ago.

  “This seems the kind of place you would like, Mercy.” A hand snaked down her chest, hovering above her breast. She steeled herself for the touch. When it came, it was with a gasp shooting between Mercy’s lips. Here comes another shot of adrenaline as lust courses through my veins. “Does this do it for you? How about we get a little… cozy?”

  None of this was what Mercy expected with a lethargic woman like Sloth. Here, in this dream word, she was a purring vixen, licking Mercy’s ear and attempting to seduce her. It almost worked, too. The lust simmered in Mercy’s loins, and the avarice pressed her to take. Both willed Mercy over to Sloth’s tender care.

  “It feels so real.” Mercy didn’t shake Sloth off her as the touching recommenced. Although the deity was gentle in her manhandling, there was a naughty side to it. Should we not be doing this? “I mean… I’ve had some pretty lucid sex dreams before,” like the ones she always had of the cute barista at her favorite coffee shop, “but this is insane. I can’t tell the difference between this and dreaming.”

  “You will, soon enough.” Sloth kissed Mercy’s cheek with another giggle. “This is no ordinary dream. This is where my powers are the strongest. I can make you feel whatever you want.” Her hand slipped between Mercy’s legs and stroked her through her trousers. “Whatever you want.”

  Mercy could not ignore those chills rushing down her spine. “Like… what?”

  “You’ll see.” Sloth crawled in front of Mercy, the purple curtains clashing with the gold of her dress. Yet it was a beautiful clash, making the deity stand out in this overly sensual world, where everything held the potential to be the most striking thing. Sloth knelt at the end of the bed before Mercy, hands in her lap as she puffed out her chest.

  For the first time, Mercy noticed the cleavage sprouting from the goddess’s bust. My eyes always go there. It’s like I can’t help myself. Did these celestial women manifest these tantalizing displays for Mercy’s benefit? It certainly seemed like it now. I can’t stop looking at it. Jesus. Somebody send me an intervention before I make a huge ass out of myself. Good thing her coworkers weren’t with her now. They would be devastated to know that Mercy Devereux loved breasts so damn much. And thighs. And hips. And butts and tummies. Ugh! Then they would probably join her in the perving. Tell her it was how coworkers bonded now. She was one of the boys! She should be so happy!

  “First, I want to give you a little treat for being so patient with me.” Sloth hooked her fingers beneath the straps of her dress and lowered them.

  It could have been the dream world making Mercy see such perfection. Or it could have been Sloth’s status as a beautiful goddess – even if her name were not the most attractive. In the end, though, it didn’t matter what made Mercy stare at this woman’s breasts as they were revealed. The bust of the dress fell to Sloth’s waist, leaving her completely bare up top. Mercy swallowed. “I don’t know what it is about you and your sisters,” she said, heart pumping in her chest – pumping blood to her burdened erogenous zones, “but you all have amazing bodies.” Like they were exactly her type. Go figure!

  “You think so?” Sloth crept forward, breasts bouncing now that it was established gravity worked as it should in Mercy’s dream world. If Sloth made love like her sister, then Mercy…

  Mercy could not take her eyes off Sloth’s nipples – the rest of her thoughts disappeared.

  “You misjudged me, Mercy.” Sloth sat up again, this time leaning against Mercy’s torso. Those breasts leaned onto Mercy’s chest, bumping into the outline of her own. A hand cupped her cheek. “You took me for a sleepy fool and underestimated me. I assure you, I go as hard as my sisters. In fact, I want to fuck you quite hard. Like them, I haven’t had good sex for an eternity.” Back between Mercy’s legs went that hand, caressing the seam of her pants and making her whimper. Lust burned inside her. Avarice made her want to steal the dress off this woman’s body, to see her naked and exposed. Greed and desire went so well together. “Tell me, what kind of things do you like? I can make any of your desires come true in the dream world.” Sloth opened Mercy’s blouse and stroked her nipple through the thin fabric of her bra.

  “Oh, shit.” Mercy leaned back, a pillow cushioning her spine. “Naturally, I love beautiful women.”

  “But what do you like to do to those beautiful women? Lick their sweet little holes?” Sloth flicked her tongue against Mercy’s ear. “Tie them up and spank them?” She grabbed the inside of Mercy’s thigh and massaged it. “Fuck them deep with your strap-on?”

  Mercy tightened.

  “My, my, I think you like that one.” Sloth swung one leg over Mercy’s lap, skirt flying through the air, seemingly longer than before as it spilled over the sides of the bed like a golden sunset descending upon their land. Her bust remained
down, and her breasts taunted Mercy with two pretty-tipped spheres. Every movement Sloth made brought perfect resistance to her skin. If I didn’t know she was a goddess who could look however she wanted, I’d think this really was nothing but a regular dream. Only a woman like her can exist in a dream! “So happens I like it, too. We’re a good match.”

  The silk sheets crumpled in Mercy’s hands as she watched the deity lift her skirt and show off her slit, ready for Mercy’s touch. “I’m not sure how I can help you there,” she said, entranced by what Sloth offered. “I didn’t bring a strap-on to my subconscious.”

  “Don’t worry about the details.” Sloth swayed, the fabric of her skin sliding against Mercy and the bed she lay upon. “I can take care of anything in this world.” She kissed Mercy, nibbling her lips.

  Intoxicating. Especially as Sloth continued to kiss Mercy while ripping apart her blouse and fingering her sensitive nipples. Mercy groaned, her skin on fire, every nerve in her breasts responding to this glorious test. She attempted to move her hands but found them too lethargic to care. Although she wanted to stroke the goddess’s flesh; although her body begged for orgasmic relief.

  When Sloth reached for Mercy’s trousers, another gasp took hold of the mortal’s chest.

  Something strained against Mercy’s clothes. She tried to peek between her legs, but all she could see was a bulge in her damned pants. “What is that?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Sloth insisted. “In a lucid dream, you can control anything. Sprout a strap-on. Go on. I don’t care. Make it fake, take it away, whatever you want to do to me in your dream is up to you. I’m only here for the ride.”

  The way she stressed that word was too much for Mercy, who was instantly bombarded by erotic visions that often haunted her dreams – and dissipated much too soon before she awoke.

  “I…” What did Mercy want to do? Fuck her? That’s a given. How? Perhaps she could truly manifest what taunted her imagination right now. Wasn’t it silly, though? Mercy didn’t like to masturbate to images of real women, let alone dream about what she’d like to do to them. As nice as it would be to shove her fingers inside this goddess, there were other things she could grab. Like those beautiful breasts. A happy medium would surely suffice.