Free Infinite Rooms: a gripping psychological thriller that follows one man's descent into madness by David John Griffin Page B

as smooth as cream. This space can be an art gallery with dimmed spotlights, white wine trickling down granite walls and over gilded picture frames. Entrances at either end are sealed with large cubes of red wax. A string quartet’s lilting melodies emanate from the chandeliers with the aroma of lavender.
    I will lay down beside Bernadette and hold my cheek against hers. This simple contact fills my being with elation. Our lips meet and I stroke her hair, touch her skin turned a glowing pink. My own skin is tingling through excitement as I undress her – this mindroom is private, doctor. You’ll have to stay outside for a while.
    I’ll sprinkle you with kisses, my palms tenderly moving over you before the union.
    A delicious fragrance while me make love. I can believe in the divided soul of self for I’m split into two entities. It seemsas if the effort required to leave my body and stand on the other side of the room as an observer wouldn’t be much. Then the potential has passed, having been seduced to remain with the physical aspects of being. As I encircle, breathe you in and in, we blend; I see you made of glass. Melt into this sensual domain, a plunging communion as strong as prayer, speaking with fragrant spears and knowing you sweetly burn with my glorious burning; entangled within a secret paralysis while the moment revolves, evolves until the suspended empty space yields too soon, becoming the final surrender. Sensual peeling of skin, jolts of electric ecstasy, one after the other, time after time after time. And as you cry out a name, it’s easily ignored as an unknown dialect, while I’m ripped apart like a tissue, an escape from mind to body that has been captured, concentrated and released.
    I’m energized. I have repaired. A religious revelation could never compare. Cast up onto the beach of sublime lethargy while I’m left simply holding you, both of us silent.
    We belong to each other, the crucial and elemental parts having become inseparable, moulded into a single entity. My treasure, you I worship, be with me forever.
    Already the wax blocks are melting to reveal a key and a lock, one opening the other for the benefit of the rhapsody.
    The true now. I have been flaming – able to steer destiny to avoid any obstacle, any tragedy – yes, here on the bed with my wife stretched out beside me, the summer held in an early evening. I only imagine sitting on a train, going somewherealone and cold, an emptiness inside. And the repetitious clatter of wheels on the tracks, distracting buzz of voices. How quickly my Bernadette fades. As I open my eyes, I find that they’re already open but somehow had been blinded. And there are those other eyes burrowing into me like jabbing rods.
    ‘Are you listening?’
    Clement focused. The woman before him had her legs crossed and arms severely folded. She had wrapped her cape back over her. Two young men and an older man dressed in a heavy overcoat had turned their attention to him. One of the men was smirking, the other curling his lip, the third appearing worried or serious.
    ‘I said, are you listening to me?’ the woman repeated.
    ‘Pardon?’ Clement was feeling disoriented as though he had been aroused from sleep. ‘Apologies,’ he replied above the train’s rhythm, ‘I wasn’t aware you were talking.’
    ‘Why do you keep on looking at me? Are you a pervert, dressed up like a clown gone wrong? Staring at me in that … way.’ Saliva had caught in her throat and the last word had been spoken unnaturally.
    ‘Come out of your coma, have you?’ snapped one of the young men from the other side of the compartment. He turned to the woman. ‘If you need any help, give me a shout. And as for you,’ he continued, waving a finger at Clement, ‘you definitely need expert help. You’d better get out at the next station or I’ll call a guard. Then you’ll be in a lot oftrouble, believe me.’
    ‘No really, don’t worry about it,’ the woman replied,