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CALLUM
MARBELLA, COSTA RICA
Summer was almost gone, and I wanted to spend these last few weeks in the same spot as usual. I loved the sleepy, surf destination of Marbella, located along Costa Rica’s famed “Gold Coast” and luckily for me, I actually owned a home there. Technically, my parents had bought it a decade ago, but I had full use of it whenever I wanted it. Morgan and Remington Meyers were retired now, and were currently spending their time on a two hundred and something day luxury cruise around the world. In a couple of decades, I would also reach retirement, although I doubted that I’d spend mine the way they were spending theirs.
I currently taught Senior Lit at the University of Chicago. It was normally something reserved for those much older than me, but I was about to start my second year in that role in just a few weeks. As one of the youngest professors in school history, I owed a lot of it to my status as a Titan. Born and raised as one, the title opened doors for me that usually didn’t get opened for others. I would never complain about it, though. I enjoyed the perks that came with being one of the Meyers’ and this luxury estate in paradise was one of them.
I’d been here for over two weeks, and with just seven more days left before I returned to Chicago to get ready for the Fall semester, I decided to do something I’d never done before. There was a local retreat that catered to intimate groups of ten to twelve, and would serve a psychedelic brew nicknamed the “little death.” I’d heard about it through friends and even a few students I taught last year at school. The drink itself was part of a tribal ritual that was supposed to promote spiritual enlightenment.
“Hell, I’ve got nothing better to do,” I’d told a friend from Chicago who’d flown down here to spend time with me. He’d suggested it, and I was usually down for whatever.
We booked the retreat which would take place over the course of a weekend. I had no idea what I hoped to accomplish by doing it, but I forced myself to keep an open mind, especially when we arrived and were given a blanket and pillow and made to sit on mats on the floor. I wouldn’t consider myself a snob, but I did grow up in penthouses and had access to a private jet. I was used to basic luxuries like high thread count sheets and air conditioning, neither of which would be found in this place.
I’d had higher hopes for this experience until we arrived and I took in the surroundings. The small house was dwarfed by tropical foliage and near enough to both the beach and rainforest. The building from the outside had looked much more inviting than it did on the inside, but I supposed it was meant to be plain and unwelcoming. If it looked like the mansion my parents owned, the view alone would distract from the mission.
“This is supposed to be the equivalent of a decade of therapy in a matter of nights,” Aaron told me, and I shook my head.
I suspected that Daxon Faulkner, one of my best friends, and a fellow Titan himself, would disagree, especially since he owned his own psychiatric practice right off the Magnificent Mile.
“I’m pretty sure I might need to see a shrink after this. What’s this shit called again?”
I’d briefly read over the pamphlets, and to be honest, not a lot of it made sense to me. I would’ve jumped in both feet first anyway, even if I had thought, because it was the type of person I was. I acted on impulse and dealt with consequences afterward. I loved adventure. I never backed down from a dare, and I was a self-proclaimed adrenaline junkie. I liked speed, heights, and anything others would consider death-defying. My father used to joke about me having a death wish, but it wasn’t that. I just liked to live life to the fullest. Who knew? This ritual tonight might shed some light as to why.
“It’s ayahuasca,” he answered.
I read that the cocktail was a combination of the ayahuasca vine and chacruna, which was a shrub of some sort. The vine itself had similar properties to LSD, and it was known to cause hallucinations amongst other things. It was in those hallucinations where one was to find out about themselves, and the only reason I was in this godforsaken place to begin with.
I opened my mouth to say something else to Aaron, but stopped before a single word came out. Beside me, a young woman took her place on the mat and her beauty alone caught my eye. She had long, dark hair and when she glanced over at me, I noticed her eyes were nearly the same shade as her hair. She was fucking gorgeous. She assessed me momentarily, then she turned away from me altogether and finished getting settled in. I continued to stare at her, only stopping once or twice when she would sense my gaze and look over her shoulder in my direction.
She had full lips which she pursed together in annoyance. While they could’ve been a result of lip fillers, I liked to think they were natural, not that it would matter either way once that hot mouth of hers was wrapped around my cock. It hardened as I continued to picture her on her knees in front of me. I smirked and when she arched her brow at me, I cleared my throat.
“What’s your name?”
“Nicole,” she replied. “And yours?”
“Callum,” I responded.
The conversation ended there as the facilitator began to speak. I planned to pick this back up later, so I turned my attention away from her and to the man beginning to give a high overview of what to expect. We would be there tonight, as well as one full day. We’d already been told to not eat anything after a certain time, and I was glad I had listened to him. Evidently, it was important to the process. There were other rules which were all put in place to make one vulnerable. We were to surrender to the experience, and as my gaze drifted to the woman beside me, I was already picturing her surrender, only not to this process, but to me.
Soon, we were given a brew to drink. It was very bitter, and most of us gagged as we forced ourselves to drink it. While we were doing that, the facilitator told us that it would take about a half hour to kick in, and while we were sent to meditate, small buckets were set down beside each person. The reason why became known not long after. Outside of the temporary issues that came with it, the small group of us spent the next several hours cleansing our bodies of all toxins, and negative energy. We were purging our bodies, both physically and spiritually, the facilitator explained until we all fell asleep.
The ritual continued the next day, and started off a lot like the night before had, and while a few still got sick after ingesting today’s brew, many of us didn’t. Even if nothing else came from this retreat, the fact that I was able to stomach the thick-as-molasses brew without throwing up this time was an accomplishment. We all took our places on our mattresses, and despite the nervous energy in the room, we sat there while a shaman was across the room singing some Costa Rican song. Music, we were told, was an important part of the journey, so I tried to focus on it until a movement to my left caught my eye.
Nicole was removing her T-shirt and she now had on nothing but a tank top. As I stared at her, I noticed her nipples getting hard. I was so focused on her that I was able to ignore some of the beginning hallucinations, but eventually they became too strong. There were large circles and squares floating around me which would pop like balloons once they hit the wall. At least all except the triangular ones. I titled my head in fascination as it was the only one that stayed intact. I felt over toward Aaron to show him, but then the whole room began to spin.
“Don’t fight the medicine,” the facilitator told us, and I realized she was staring directly at me.
We were then instructed to lay down, and this time I did and turned toward Nicole. She was truly fucking stunning, and completely out of it. Her body twitched as if she was being poked with something sharp. A few cries escaped, and just when I was about to see if she needed help, I noticed a single black reptile. The long snake slithered over her body, but she didn’t pay it any mind. Within seconds, it came directly over to me. I tried to scurry upward to escape it, but the reptile wrapped its long body around me and squeezed.
I thought I would lose my breath, but the tighter it wrapped around me, the freer I felt. It wasn’t long before my entire life literally unfolded in front of me. I could see a younger Callum, then one who was approaching his teen years. It was like looking into a mirror as I stood on the sidelines and saw myself in all these different stages of life. I could see the different women I’d been with, and each one was a scale falling from the snake attached to me. I’d heard people talk about out-of-body experiences, but nothing prepared me for what I saw.
“What do you see?” The facilitator asked me.
“Nothing good,” I promised her. “I’m here, but I’m also in a mirror of sorts. My reflection isn’t the same as the one I’m used to seeing.”
“You’re seeing yourself the way that others sometimes perceive you,” she replied, and it was an eye opening experience for sure.
I lay there and continued to watch my life flash before my eyes. Some things were familiar and others were not. By the time the hallucinations stopped, I fell listlessly against the mattress, and was struck with a bone-deep exhaustion. Over the course of the day and night, many others began to describe the things they were seeing, including Nicole. She talked about how she felt pinned under tons of concrete, the vision showing how she carried the weight of the world on her chest.
