the smell of you on the stale air is irresistible

You ever go wandering somewhere and you're not terribly paying attention to going somewhere you know you shouldn't? Say, you just passed an "employees only" sign, and sure, the lights overhead seemed to change from a soft track lighting, strategically placed to maximize ambiance, into a harsher, more industrial florescent light, with its subtle buzz as you stroll through kitchens and back offices, walls painted white, but an off-white, as though they were painted many years ago?

And there's the random employee back there, milling around and getting work done, maybe one of them tells you that you shouldn't be back there, but by and large they just pay you no mind, as you keep on wandering, starting to get vaguely interested, a type of urban exploration of sorts, about what the behind the scenes of places look like. 

Exploration proceeding on, a slow dawning occurs that you haven't seen one of those "the law" posters detailing workers rights for a half hour, or any other type of poster. Or even any doors. Everywhere you look, it's just the buzz of florescent lights, the off-white walls laid out in a meandering, nonsensical pattern, an industrial carpet that might pass for something between gray and brown and yellow, and rarely even a door to be found.

Eventually you're not sure how you got back here, and it's been hours, the buzz of the lights growing stronger, occasionally flickering. Just a half second of darkness in half this room. But it's enough to make you wonder. Was it close to you? Further away? Did you hear it? Was that a licking sound?

 
The lights start to give with more frequency. A second here and there, as you're dashing to the buzzing glow of the lights, so loud it's all you can hear. Stumbling on a break room of sorts occasionally, the signs posted in it are no longer coherent but the food is edible enough, just enough to keep going, but you can't stay in a break room for very long, regardless of how safe they feel, it's back to the hallways after just a couple of minutes. 

Sometimes the lights overhead go out for five seconds or more, and you can feel it rushing up behind you, a fetid stench that suddenly disappears the moment the lights turn on, the sound of salivating abruptly cutting out the moment the lights come back on. 

Some hallways and rooms don't have working lights. You never go into those. 

You hope you can get out soon.

Good night.

Word had come to us through the grapevine. A leftist was about to blow a nut down by the lake. It was three o'clock in the morning. We were up and ready in three minutes.

There were six of us. Five of us were counselors and the sixth was a camper named Tommy. He was actually twenty-six and had been left back nine times in school. He mostly came to camp to absolutely pummel the other kids. We have at least two deaths and six major hospitalizations (not to mention what we triage at camp) each year he is with us. We look forward to it. Really helps straighten some of these kids out. They are so coddled at home. Time for them to see what life is really like. Tommy is coming to see you, boy.

We caught our first glimpse of the leftist from Mama Tulane's cabin. She has a great view of where counselors go nude swimming and a masturbatory perch (someone ought to node that) set up in a viewing area. Quite a woman, that Mama Tulane. Knows how to get her jollies.

The leftist was in his swim trunks. We could see some literature in his left hand, which he appeared to be perusing, but his right hand was dug deeply into his swim trunks. We did not believe that he was reading a book entitled "Kant's Proverbs."

"I go shug his ass," offered Tommy, his blood-caked cricket bat always ready to go.

"No, stay back," retorted the calm and resourceful Peter Maggot, head counselor. "Why don't we see what the leftist does?"

"He's going to jack himself off reading that book!"

"Not in a standing position. In this setting, achieving the standing, self-induced orgasm is highly improbable. He'll sit down once his warm up act is complete."

"This is sick."

"Just keep your bat at the ready. We might need to whale on this motherfucker. Coming to camp all leftisted out and shit. Pisses me off."

"You and me both, brother."

We crept in closer, just as the leftist did what Peter Maggot predicted. He shimmied his trunks down to his knees and sat down on a rock after placing a towel on top of it first. He was going to go full-blown at any minute.

"Give him a beat-down," Peter Maggot told Tommy. "Can't have these campers stirring up trouble. Only one thing sets them right. Hospitalization."

"Hold on a minute!" I called out. "Let me go down and talk to him."

"What? Are you noots? He's down there, hog in hand, raring to go."

"Just let me talk to him."

At that point, an unmarked police car came plowing through the woods. It had a flashing blue light on the dash and when it reached the leftist's location, it stopped.

"Hold back!" Peter Maggot told us, using his arm like the gate at a toll booth.

We got down in the brush and listened as two cops in suits got out of the car and began talking to the leftist.

"There have been a strange series of crimes happening in my mind for the past few weeks," one of the police said to the leftist.

"We have an inkling that you might be responsible," said the other.

"What?" asked the leftist, who had hurriedly pulled up his swim trunks. "Crimes in your mind?"

"Yeah, he imagines they are happening. These imaginings of his are so real, so very, very real, that they can be prosecuted. The state attorney general made that ruling."

"Crimes in his mind?"

"Yes, we're going to need you to come with us."

"For crimes in your mind?"

"Come on, upsey-daisy, into the car now jack-off pervert."

"I'm fourteen."

"In the car, now."

I had fallen in love with that boy. It was inappropriate, for sure, and I would only be able to tease him mercilessly until he turned eighteen, at which point I would have shoved my ripe melons right into his mouth. The leftist was abhorrent, that was for damn sure, but there was something about the smell of him. He had that something. It was powerful. It cut through the summer humidity like George Jefferson coming through the living room after Weezie has damn well done something again. This was serious.

"Take me to the police station, Jerry," I told the only counselor with a decent car.

"But..."

"I need to see that boy. Something ain't right. He may be a young god in development."

"I admit, he had nice abs..."

"Fuck you, Jerry."

When we turned around to head back, Mama Tulane was in her masturbatory perch, her legs up and over the arms of the perch, her fingers going full-speed on that oversized clitoris of hers. We looked away, best as we could. It was traumatic.

It took some work to convince Jerry to give me a ride to the police station. My convertible is getting detailed over at Wee Long Larry's, so I gave him a half-assed handjob, and we got into his car.

The leftist's parents were somehow already at the police station. Apparently, the chief of police is in a swingers group with them. So, he gave them a courtesy call.

I stopped to see his parents in the waiting area. I sat down like I knew them.

"I have strong feelings for your son. I do not intend to act on them until he is eighteen, but up until then I would like to viciously, and aggressively, taunt him with my sexuality."

"Young lady, please sit somewhere else."

"It is his strong manly scent. I can't get enough of it."

"Adam does have that strong manly scent, David," the wife told the husband (I assume they were married because they were fucking acting like it).

"I am a noted cougar in this state. I am listed on many, many boards."

"We are swingers."

"Ah, so that is how you know the chief. I've banged his brother."

"The chief just likes to watch his wife with Black men."

"Oh, I did not know that. He always seemed very conservative until I found out he was a swinger."

"It takes all types, dear."

"Can I have your permission to talk to your son?"

"Of couse, dear. You have a gorgeous body and you are very beautiful."

"I know. I know."

The desk sargeant called out to us.

"Is anyone here that leftist's lawyer? Counselor?"

"I am a counselor," I told him.

"Okay, come with me. He's being brutally interrogated in three."

"Three?"

"That's the number of the room that he is being brutally interrogated in."

"I see. What is he accused of?"

"Office Stapcheck imagined him committing a heinous series of rapes throughout the state over the past five years."

"I see. So this is definitely going to become brutal then."

"No doubt. No doubt."

"Ever see them in concert?"

"Who?"

"Never mind. Where is room three?"

"Just down the hall and to the left."

Officer Stapcheck was yelling directly into the face of the leftist when I walked into the room.

"Are you appropriate counsel?"

"I am. Registered to counsel in a campground setting for 22 years, sir."

"In what? Campground law?"

"We are in the woods, sir."

"Point taken."

"So, you imagine that my client has committed a series of heinous rapes?"

"Brutal rapes."

"Your interrogation is said to be brutal. The rapes cannot also be brutal."

"Are you sure?"

"Overuse of a modifier. Bothers people."

"What people?"

"Different kinds of people. People people."

"I see."

"Continue your interrogation. I will sit next to my client. He smells very manly, don't you think?"

"Unusually so. I thought it was because of the perverse nature of his woodland activity."

"Not that perverse. Seen worse."

"Sure have. Sure have. Now, these rapes... they were heinous."

"I see. Tell me about them."

"Well, I imagined the first of these about three years ago--"

"Excuse me. Can I see some evidence?"

"Evidence of what? These crimes happened in my mind."

"Maybe a 3D printout of the inside of your brain?"

"What?"

"Without evidence, you cannot hold my client. Without proof that your mind matters, there is no crime. You need to prove to me that your brain matters in a world filled with seven billion brains, some functional."

"How do I..."

"Talk to that woman desk sargeant. The one the rest of you treat like dog shit. She'll tell you how to do it, asswipe."

With that, we walked out of the police station. The leftist's parents were so grateful, that they promised to allow me to sexually taunt him until he turned eighteen. And the beat goes on.