Leonard Monroe doesn’t like making decisions. It tears him to bits. The process of making decisions, to Leonard, is akin to sucking his brains through his nose, only to squish them back into his ear, until what’s left is a sinewy, gray slop.

Leonard makes his political, social, and moral decisions based upon which decision will, now or in the future, assist in rendering his life decision-less. He formulates complex sentimental, intellectual, and emotional equations to make decisions, such as: data – time + philosophy x religion / exhaustion = decision.

Needless to say, Leonard Monroe is not a Supreme Court justice (if he were, time itself might stop). But he did vote Republican.

It was a Republican judge, in 2027, who ruled to make all abortions federally illegal—and make the punishment equivalent to that of murder, even under circumstance of rape or miscarriage. He signed the law into effect with little deliberation. Then he went to Punta Cana on a S.C.U.B.A. diving trip.

***

No, Mr. Moreland is not a Supreme Court justice: he is an intuitional masseur.

He never gives the same massage twice. And for this reason, he believes himself to be one of the best in town. Though that much is yet to be decided with any authority.

It’s not like he’s the talk of the neighborhood, or anything (people hardly talk in the neighborhood anymore). But when somebody calls him asking for a massage, Leonard Moreland takes what he can get.

“Are you available at 7:13 on Tuesday?” a feminine voice asks. “I’ve recently sealed the deal on a major project, and I am in need of a release.”

Leonard arrives outside the woman’s house—a two-story, cubic, vinyl-wrapped shack on the South Side Slopes near Bandi Schaum Community Garden—at 7:13 pm. Neighborhoods in Pittsburgh are generally appropriately labeled: Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Northside… The South Side Slopes are no exception. Every house is built into the superseding slope, and, naturally, it is located to the South.

 An arrangement of glass bottles and mostly melted candles litter the porch. He detects the scent of lavender and roasted vegetables, mostly onions and garlic. There is a pile of oily latex gloves outside the door. The neighbor, a tired-looking lady, is just getting home. She stares at Leonard, who waves pathetically, but she doesn’t wave back to him in the after-Christmas mist. Nobody in the city expects a white Christmas anymore. Leonard sets down his heavy padded table and knocks.

“You came,” she says when she opens the door. “And so punctual.” She’s short—maybe 5’ 4’’—her hair is dishwater blonde and padded with thin dreadlocks in places. She’s probably in her early thirties. She’s wearing layers of thrifted textures that leave the tops of her boobs exposed, and delicate make up that makes her look like a forest witch. She immediately reaches for his hand. “Come in. It’s too cold for you out here.”

Leonard does as he is told. He can appreciate her energy. He likes to work with clients who know exactly what they want from him. It removes the responsibility of deciding things from his hands.

He also doesn’t feel like himself, per se, in her presence. But it is a self he doesn’t mind trying on.

“I want to keep our expectations aligned,” she says. “Energy balance is very important. I am a practitioner of consent culture. Here, sit.” She plops him on a furry couch and leaves the room.

The living room is decorated as Leonard imagines a modern Mongolian yurt might be. A modern Mongolian yurt belonging to a modern nomadic princess, no less. There are expensive-looking ornaments, tools, and toys everywhere he looks. The room is glowing pinkish. The scent of lavender has shifted into something heavier: honey or rose. There is a heady, genuine quiet that makes Leonard feel like it is snowing outside. But it hasn’t snowed in Pittsburgh since 2025.

 “Can I get you something to drink?”  the girl calls from the kitchen.

 “What are my options?”

“Tea, kombucha, spring water…” She appears at the door frame, holding an electric tea kettle.

“What kind of tea?” he asks, fiddling with his massage table latches, attempting to make it clear he intends to begin soon, without saying it.

“Oh, a little blend my friend makes. Tulsi basil, rose hips, honey, Amanita muscaria…”

“I’ll give it a try.”

“Great,” she says, grinning.

By the time she returns, Leonard has already set up the massage table, towels, placed his oils on the side table, and has his sleeves rolled up.

“Oh, you’re ready to go,” she says. “Okay. Here’s your tea. Be careful, it’s hot.”

“Thank you. Lay down whenever you feel ready. I’ll drink my tea.”

***

So, he drinks his tea. It is certainly hot, rootsy, aromatic, and sweet. There are small flecks of pink petals and some white sticks floating at the bottom of his mug. She sits on the floor beside the couch, stretching, making gentle moaning sounds.

“Should I put on some music?” she asks. “My friends just released a new album.”

“Sure, you can throw it on. I like local music.” Leonard isn’t sure if he had just lied or not.

She finds the track on Spotify and hits play on her laptop. To Leonard’s dismay, the song emanates from the laptop speakers. He doesn’t see the point of listening to music if it doesn’t come from decent speakers. Moreover, the song—a mildly talented woman singing over a mildly talented guitarist—immediately displeases him.

“Okay, are you ready?” asks Leonard, rolling out his hands, wiggling his fingers. “Uh—I’m sorry. I should have asked. What is your name?”

“Naomi,” she says. “It’s okay. I can be quite overcoming at times. It’s a trait we all share.”

“We?”

“Psychics.”

“Like, crystal balls and stuff?” Leonard retorts, jokingly.

“Balls, rods, wands, rings, dildos. I like them all.”

“Dildos?” Her answer startles him. He’s more accustomed to Squirrel Hill housewives. Who gave him this referral again?

“Do you want to see?” she asks, wiggling her toes on the carpet, her ankles covered in fuzzy calf-length stockings. She bites her bottom lip and stretches her thin, muscular arms. Leonard feels his heart pounding and an icy chill run down his shoulders and forearms. He takes a deep breath.

“Well, now I think I’d rather just do the massage. It’s just that my— (Leonard pauses to consider if he should share the fact that he has a caring and supportive girlfriend at home)— “I might have another client tomorrow, early.”

“That’s possible,” she says, wryly. “Okay. Fine. How do you want me?”

“You said it was your neck that was bothering you?”

“Really, it’s everywhere. I should probably see a chiropractor. But you’ll have to do for tonight.” She rolls her eyes and smirks. 

“Okay. I’ll turn around. You can remove any clothes you’re comfortable with removing and lay face down. Here’s a towel to cover up.”

“Okay,” she says. “But you don’t have to turn around. I’d prefer it if you didn’t. We should get to know each other a little better, don’t you think? Since you’ll be helping me so much.”

At this point, Naomi is standing inches from Leonard, holding one of his hands up to her waist, moving it as if to help her take off the soft mesh shirt that was already only barely covering up her muscular torso.

A thick saliva is forming in Leonard’s mouth. He can feel himself sweating beneath his black slacks. He whips to the side. “I’m, uh, okay. I’ll just do the massage. You do have the money, right?”

Naomi yields. “Alright, jumpy. I can do it myself. There’s a hundred-dollar bill in that envelope.” She points to a folded envelope sitting below a lamp on a wood table. “Do you trust me?”

Leonard can’t even trust himself, but he says yes. He feels like he can trust other people, sometimes.

“Good,” Naomi says. “Give me a minute.” The music on her laptop has shuffled to an indigenous chant, of sorts.

Leonard watches in a small mirror hung on the wall as Naomi peels her layers of clothes to the floor. He isn’t sure if she knows he’s watching her. Then, at the top of the stairwell heading to the basement, Leonard notices the face of a small man who appears to be in his early forties, sneering directly at him in the mirror’s reflection. The man’s face is grayish, his eyes are not lackadaisical, and his grin is fiercely attentive.

“What in the f—” says Leonard, spinning on Naomi, who, half nude, doesn’t flinch.

“I knew you couldn’t resist,” she says, parting her lips.

“No, I mean—” but the little man’s face was gone, a darkness in its place at the foot of the steps. He doesn’t want her to think he’s genuinely crazy, so he ignores what he saw. “Please, if you’re ready.” He motions to the table.

Naomi takes off the rest of her clothes and lays face down like a corpse awaiting autopsy.

***

Frankly just happy to have his client on the table, finally, Leonard gets right to work. He rubs his hands together, oiling them. He moves Naomi’s stringy hair to the side and presses his thumbs into the nape of her neck, rotating gradually toward her shoulders. She breathes slowly and hums. It’s all Leonard can do to remain professional; he doesn’t let on that his knees are basically about to give out. There is a particular electrified tingle which transmits from her and causes every cell in his body to quiver.

Leonard spends extra time at the nape of her neck. She releases soft moans and is apparently entering some kind of pleasurable state. There is a moment when Leonard glances up at the mirror and again there is the little man’s face in the stairwell, this time standing with his slim, muscular, goblin-like body exposed in the doorway.

Leonard releases an embarrassing shriek and stumbles backward toward the little man. But when he scrambles, turns, the space above the stairwell is empty again.

“Woah, honey?” says Naomi, breaking from her trance to address Leonard’s sudden freak out. “What’s the matter?” She sounds sincere, but there’s a subtly sarcastic tone to her voice. It could be that she’s never truly worried about anything. It could be that she’s hiding something and doesn’t have Leonard’s best interests at heart.

“You’ve got a goddamn Oompa Loompa in your basement!”                

“An Oompa Loompa? No…”

“Some kind of tiny pervert. I swear.”

Leonard creeps up to the stairwell, and as he does so, feels his steps sink into the carpet, his limbs grow heavy, as though they might fall off.

“Oh no,” says Naomi. “You’re really sensitive, aren’t you.”

“What?” asks Leonard, shaking, becoming rather nervous. Peering down the dark stairwell.

“It’s got to be the Amanita. I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. It affects everybody differently. Here, come sit.”

“Leonard, feeling dizzy, still not wanting to admit delusion, does as he is told.

“You might even be predisposed to pareidolia. I’ve seen it before, the tendency to perceive faces in random stimuli.”

Leonard, losing his grip, looks at her in terror. His eyes have become dilated. He has questioned in the past if he represented some characteristics of schizophrenia. He has heard that psychedelics exacerbate its development. Was this some sort of visual variant?

Naomi bites her lip, looking concerned. She is totally nude, and the coloration of her face and breasts appears to be pulsing, shifting in places. Her eyes look bigger, glossier than they should. Her body turns green to pink and has grown.

“I want to leave,” says Leonard, his heart pounding.

“Now? You can’t drive like this. It’s far too cold, I told you. You’ll wind up dead in the woods somewhere.” She raises her brows, frowns sentimentally, and holds Leonard’s hands, beginning to rub his arms, warming them. “Why don’t you lie down on your table. I’ll take care of you. It’s only fair after you made me feel so, so good.”

***

Leonard can’t tell if he’s on the brink of vomiting or about to orgasm. He stands as Naomi guides him to the table. He lies on his back.

“On the ceiling, what do you see?”

Leonard blinks and gulps. Naomi cups his ears. The pulsing light turns a soft blue. Naomi begins to massage his head and neck. The ceiling has begun to undulate like a vast ocean, and in the stippling, he sees eyes, noses, ears and mouths. Naomi’s sweet perfume fills his nostrils as she runs her hands down his chest and abdomen, over his arms and shoulders.

“I’m going to take your pants off now,” she says. Time seems to stop.

“Okay,” says Leonard, calming down, unable to feel his legs. His groin is so swollen it’s almost painful. He does not resist.

But she doesn’t touch him there. She keeps her left hand on him and pulls something from between her legs.

“Look at this,” she says, dangling a heavy, top-like, purple stone attached to a thin gold chain above his face. She allows it to swing freely, finally taking her hand from his chest. “Lick it.” He did. “Everything you see, hear, or feel for the rest of the night will be forgotten by the morning.”

Leonard nods. He can smell the aroma of her on the swinging talisman, taste it, and will never forget it. It was the only thing he’d remember from the night.

“Stand now and lie on your stomach.”

Leonard stands and when he does, he sees the little man, about the height of a toddler, walking from the dark basement accompanied by five similar creatures, each of them younger in expression, the size of tiny dolls—maybe six inches tall.

Even with their obvious presence, now, Leonard follows Naomi’s instructions and lays on the soft towel, face down. He watches the middle-aged baby man hand Naomi a stack of U.S. dollar bills. She counts the money, glances at Leonard once more, smiles and walks upstairs.

By now the smaller humanoid figures are climbing the legs of the massage table, making their way toward Leonard’s behind.

“Relax,” says the oldest, in a deep, gruff voice, smiling as he snaps on a pair of size Small black vinyl gloves. Before long the small man is on the table, too.

Leonard tries to relax as he feels his anus pried open, and the six smaller men struggle to crawl inside of him.

***

The next morning, Leonard awakes with an excruciating pain in his gut. There are snowflakes falling on his face and the dead leaves, which crunch as he slowly lifts his head from the ground.

Leonard blinks, and in the distance, beyond the bare brush and weak trees, he sees the foggy, jagged skyline of Pittsburgh. Snowflakes the size of horseflies are falling, and a steady layer of fluff—like no one has seen in the city for over two years—has accumulated on the rocks. He’s mere feet from the overlook and treacherous depths below. Bandi Shaum Community Garden. Why the hell is he here?

He tries to sit up but feels that his gut, from the sensation of it, has been violently stretched. He lifts his shirt. Abnormal lumps move and curdle on his cold skin. Leonard releases a tremendous and horrible scream—which causes shooting pain all through his groin.

“Hey, are you okay?” somebody calls from the trail.

“Hellllp meeee!”

***

Leonard is takenby the good Samaritan to the Emergency Room in Oakland, just across the Monongahela River.

“It looks to be that you’ve been…impregnated by…something.” The doctor is a young, handsome Indian man wearing a large gold watch. He swings an X-Ray screen around for Leonard to view. The screen shows what looks like a large clump of clay in Leonard’s lower intestine.

“What the fuck is that!” he screams. “Get it the fuck out of me!”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that, sir.”

“Why the hell not?”

“That thing, whatever it is, is alive. Any procedure beyond the induction of labor would be considered an abortion, which is federally illegal, as you must know.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. This is a joke, goddamnit!”

“No, I’m afraid not. Under Amendment Thirty-three to the Constitution, removal of any living creature, even unidentifiable, from a human body, is considered an abortion. Even in instances of rape. Which, by the looks of your anus, was probably the case. I could be put to death for operating on you.”

Like many a-woman forced into the pressure of a man’s legislative framework, Leonard was pushed in a wheelchair out of the hospital clutching his stomach. He went home to find his girlfriend worried sick. She had been calling him all night and day. She had been worried he would leave her, or cheat on her, any given day. But this, per se, was not what she expected.

“We’ll go to Canada,” she said, in tears, and purchased them both round-trip tickets using the last bit of her income from the apartment she owns in a foreign country. “We have to fight.”

When they arrived at the customs desk, Leonard was questioned due to the size of his stomach. His lack of explanation was deemed suspicious by the TSA officer, and he was denied entry into Canada.

“You know what, I think I might just keep it,” said Leonard as they drove through the Fort Pitt tunnels back into Pittsburgh. “Other people have to deal with my inability to make decisions. Why shouldn’t I?”     

And they popped out of the tubes.

A.C.E. Ridenour

A.C.E. Ridenour is a writer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His fiction, poetry, and art can be found in Bewildering Stories, KGB Lit Mag, Illuminate, and many others. He served as editor-in-chief of The Phoenix and was an assistant editor of fiction for SLAB. His debut chapbook, Little Bit Weird, is available at Bottlecap.Press. To read more, visit aceridenour.com.

Author’s note: “Pareidolia” is one of my freakiest pieces. I am interested in controversy and the supernatural possibility of inversion. Somebody might have said “you should write a story about male pregnancy,” so I did. In touch, A.C.E.