Cosmic Bullying

Sunday morning arrived with all the subtlety of a hammer to the forehead.

Craig lay face-down across the bed, cheek mashed into a pink satin pillowcase, while his brain attempted to remember how consciousness worked.

Hungover.

Not catastrophically hungover. He'd certainly felt worse. There had been a New Year's party in his twenties that had left him convinced he'd suffered permanent brain damage. Compared to that, this was manageable.

Still unpleasant, though. Every pulse of blood through his skull felt like somebody tapping a spoon against the inside of his head.

Eyes remained closed. Thinking was difficult. Memory was worse.

There had been a bar. Basketball. Celebrating. Lots of celebrating.

Craig vaguely remembered an Uber ride home. Himself and Frank squeezed into the back seat laughing at something that probably hadn't been remotely funny. One of them had nearly fallen getting out of the car. Maybe both of them.

They'd staggered into the apartment building supporting each other like wounded soldiers returning from battle. Or drunks. Definitely drunks.

Craig remembered fumbling with keys. Remembered hugging Frank. Actually hugging Frank. Then separating. Then disappearing into their respective apartments.

After that?

Nothing.

Fog.

A thick alcoholic haze obscuring the details.

He groaned into the pillow. Maybe he needed to be more careful. Eros was already busy dismantling his reality one pink accent at a time. Getting drunk enough to lose chunks of memory probably wasn't helping matters.

Still...

For one evening things had almost felt normal. Guys at a bar. Drinks. Basketball. Celebrating a win. Normal. Except...

Memories started drifting back. Autographs. People recognizing him. Fashion advice. Streaming. Women thanking him for makeup tutorials. Dancing. Twerking. Grinding his backside into some poor stranger's crotch. Lipstick. Eyeliner. The ladies' room.

Not normal.

Not even remotely normal.

Craig shoved those memories aside.

No.

He'd gone out with the guys. His team. Totally normal. Not the team he'd actually played on, sure, but the team he'd cheered for.

In a pleated skirt.

NORMAL.

With considerable effort Craig pushed himself upright. Immediately regretted it. Sunlight poured through pink curtains and stabbed directly into his eyeballs.

"Oh God."

His voice sounded rough enough to sand wood. His stomach felt like a roiling sea.

Painkillers.

Water.

Coffee.

Possibly divine intervention.

Those all belonged on the list of things to help him survive the morning.

Looking downward only added another problem. At some point during the night Eros had apparently decided Craig required a wardrobe adjustment. Fishnet stockings covered his legs. A yellow garter belt hugged his hips. Yellow thong panties. Yellow lace bra. Bright. Cheerful. Revealing. Humiliating.

Craig stared for several seconds.

"Damn."

Apparently he'd either forgotten to change before bed or passed out entirely. Eros had taken liberties. Again.

Beside the bed rested a pair of glossy yellow heels. Tall. Very tall. The sort of heels that would've looked less out of place in a fashion magazine than beside a hungover man trying desperately to reconnect with reality.

Still...

His feet wanted them. Needed them. Craved them.

Craig sighed.

"Fine."

One shoe. Then the other. Buckles fastened. He stood. The room spun. The shoes helped a bit. Which somehow made everything worse.

Before Eros had invaded his life, footwear like this would've qualified as a medieval torture device. Now? Now they felt supportive. Comfortable. Grounding. Like slipping into a favourite pair of slippers. He hated that. And he hated that he loved them.

A new sensation hit his body. He needed the bathroom. Immediately. Another necessity on the list.

Craig shuffled toward it in his towering heels, one hand pressed against the wall as his hangover continued its assault. This one couldn't wait. He stepped up to the toilet, ignoring the fact that the bathroom had somehow gotten bigger, reached down, slid the yellow thong to his ankles, took hold of his penis and waited.

Nothing happened.

Craig frowned.

Come on.

His bladder certainly felt full enough. He shifted his weight. Waited. Still nothing. Odd. Maybe the alcohol had dehydrated him more than he'd thought.

Another few seconds passed. Nothing.

The urge remained. The need was definitely there. Yet standing in front of the toilet, his body simply refused to cooperate. Confusion slowly replaced impatience.

"What now?" he muttered.

Despite his shoes giving him more stability, the room still spun around him. If he was going to have to wait, he was going to have to sit. With a sigh of resignation, Craig turned, lowered himself onto the seat and relaxed.

Relief immediately washed through him as his bladder emptied into the toilet bowl.

"Oh."

Apparently that was all it had taken. His body had made the decision for him. Wonderful. Just wonderful. As if fishnets, garters, lipstick, streaming contracts, and pole dancing lessons weren't enough, now he apparently couldn't pee standing up anymore. At least the hangover made it difficult to care as much as he probably should have. For the moment, relief outweighed existential dread.

It was Sunday, so there was no work that day. That didn't mean he didn't have things to do. He needed to retrieve his car. His cute pink car. Groceries. Cleaning. Checking on Frank, making sure his best friend hadn't died of alcohol poisoning overnight.

And then...

Streaming.

Craig frowned.

Streaming.

Frank had shown him the contract. There were sponsors to appease. Obligations. Daily uploads. Penalties. Expectations.

And money. So much money. The increase in salary from his job was peanuts compared to the amount of money that was coming his way in his streaming contract.

Reality apparently insisted Craig was some sort of online personality. An influencer. A creator. A dancer. A makeup expert. A fashion consultant.

All things Craig most certainly was not.

He reached down, adjusted himself, gave things a shake, then stood and pulled his panties back into place.

Content.

He needed content. But what? Pole dancing? Fashion tips? Makeup tutorials? He knew absolutely nothing about makeup. Then he caught sight of himself in the mirror.

Red lipstick: still there.

Eyeliner: perfectly applied.

"Oh right."

Apparently he knew plenty about makeup.

Thanks, Eros.

Hands washed. Tylenol swallowed. Two large glasses of water consumed. Breakfast seemed like the logical next step.

The kitchen immediately disagreed. Everything smelled wrong. Coffee? Disgusting. Eggs? Absolutely not. Toast? Questionable. The hangover was doing a number on him, making him doubt everything in the fridge. Craig settled for another glass of water and sat heavily at the table.

The table was white now. It definitely hadn't always been white. Pink chairs surrounded it. Pink flowers sat in a vase. Floral dishes. Floral mugs. Floral everything. Pink had infiltrated every corner of his existence. Every day another change. Another adjustment. Another piece of his former life quietly disappearing.

And still no soulmate. No explanation. No reward.

Just more skirts.

More heels.

More makeup.

More confusion.

Maybe she'd been at the bar. One of the women who'd recognized him. One of the fans. One of the strangers. Maybe Eros was using this new fame as an avenue to bring the two of them together. Craig desperately hoped so. Because otherwise this felt increasingly like cosmic bullying.

Glass emptied, Craig stood and tried again to find something to eat. There, on the counter, was his fruit bowl. Sure, before Eros had renovated his kitchen, Craig hadn't been in the habit of leaving a fruit bowl on the counter, but that didn't change the fact that he now had one. And in it was an assortment of fruit. Apples. Oranges. Plums. Bananas.

Yes. That would probably do. A banana. The thought didn't turn his stomach.

Pulling it from the bowl, he leaned against the counter and peeled it, then stared at the yellow fruit. Yellow like his outfit. He chuckled. Fitting.

He slid it into his mouth, not biting down, just enjoying the taste for a moment. Not bad. Actually pretty good.

Sliding it back out, he held it in front of his face. When was the last time he had a banana? Not as an ingredient in a dessert, but just raw, out of the peel. For some reason it felt like it had been a long time. That eating it that morning might be special. Something to be savoured.

Maybe he could try something new, something his fans hadn't mentioned. He wondered how difficult it would be to set his streaming rig up to watch him play video games. Plenty of famous streamers just played games online. Would that work? Would that satisfy his sponsors?

Then again, would he even have the expertise to set something like that up?

Well, he'd have to try something. He would put it off as long as he could, but by the end of the day he'd have to be online, broadcasting himself to his followers to appease his new corporate masters.

He went to lick his painted lips, but found his tongue running down the length of something in his mouth. The banana. He'd forgotten that he was eating it. Well, sucking on it, more like.

He paused, realizing what he was doing, what it looked like.

Pulling the offending fruit from his mouth, he dropped it into the garbage under the sink. He didn't need to eat right now. Not like that. It was bad enough that he was set up to humiliate himself online later, but alone, in his own kitchen, being tricked into sucking on a banana like it was some sort of sex toy? Eros had gone far enough.

Craig would do what he had to do that day, but once he was done, he was going to light a candle. It was time he and Eros had a talk.