A Scarred Wonderland

I. Giant, multicolored sails litter the rolling turquoise waves of the Pacific. From this distance, they?re like flecks of paper mache swaying back and forth in the wind, waving little goodbyes as they drift farther and farther out. There?s a hard metallic clank as the hatch locks into place. ?All set,? a twanging southern voice calls out. In the mirror, a slim shape in a tank top and a straw Stetson gives a thumbs-up, a radiant smile etched on a heart shaped face. Abigail has this weird ritual for customers. Once the hatch slams shut, you lean on the horn a few times. The dazzling smile she always gave as she narrated a giggling tale of weird nostalgia left you weak in the knees. Abby just had that magic about her. This is the only time since I met her that I don?t answer. My mind is stuck on the spin cycle of chaos and it won?t shut off. I don?t hear her shout my name, or notice her tap on the windshield with her knuckles. I don?t hear the crunch of gravel as she wanders off. But I sure as hell hear the brutal crack of a pistol when she returns. My eyes swim red and I let out a high-pitched shriek of fear. I have a death grip on the steering wheel when I find her, hips cocked, a finger plugging one ear, and a slim arm pointing a cowboy revolver into the dirt. She winces when her eyes refocus on mine. She mouths a regretful apology as she walks back to the truck. ?Bad habits from a crazy granddaddy,? she mutters, leaning in over the rolled down passenger window. She pushes back the Stetson. I try to smile; it comes out lopsided. ?You okay, hon?? A sigh whistles through clenched teeth. ?Would you believe me if I said yes?? ?Sooner trust a coyote in sheep?s skin claimin? he was born to be white and fluffy. She pops the door open and eases in, cursing as her bikini clad ass hits the hot white leather of the bench. She drops the revolver on the seat, pulls a bottle of Jack Daniel?s from nowhere, and props snakeskin boots up high on the dash. Her legs are long and copper smooth. Makes me a bit jealous. I?m so pale you can almost see my veins. She tries offering me the bottle and I give her a look - alcohol at eleven in the morning? Makes my stomach turn. Her toned shoulders shrug as she unscrews the cap and takes a sip. I remember when she told me that a country girl never stops being a country girl, even after you give her a California tan and put a surfboard under her instead of a horse. She doesn?t push me. She doesn?t say anything in fact. Country charm. Country patience. I?m grateful for it. Gives me time. ?Ever get that feeling that something inside you is just? wrong?? Abby arches a thin black brow. She knows I?m not the chatty sort, so this means heavy shit. A sigh. ?It?s like a scab, I guess. You know something?s off when it festers, but you can?t really see what that something is. Just that it?s there, that it?s eating away at you like poison. And you want to do something about it? but you?re afraid. And then it scars over, trapping that awful thing inside you.? I shrug, at a loss at how to continue. Abby just takes another sip from the bottle. Then another. Silence. The sun rises higher in the sky as minutes tick by. It?s awhile before she says anything and I can sense her tiptoeing around the phrasing. ?I felt that once,? she says. ?Really?? Her pink mouth curves down. Blue eyes cloud, as if remembering something she wishes she hadn?t. She tucks a loose strand of black hair behind an ear. ?Well, maybe not like that. My mother did though. I think. Got herself into mess of trouble for it too.? She takes another drink and holds the bottle out to me again. I take it this time, gagging down a small mouthful of the bitter liquid. Abby takes the bottle back with a smile. ?Not for delicate little birds like you,? she laughs, breaking the dark mood for a moment. We sit in silence for a while, watching as the sailboats finally creep over the horizon. I look over at her; trails of sweat slope down a dusty cheek. The bottle of Jack is half gone and she?s flushed a rosy pink. ?What do I do?? I ask. Deep down, I know that those four words are a labyrinth of meaning far deeper in complexity than the singular answer I?m likely to get. She takes off the Stetson and runs a hand through shiny curls. ?After my mother? granddaddy took me in and gave me the kind of advice a girl never really forgets, especially at thirteen. He told me that sometimes the only way to face the devil inside you is to jump right down into hell and see if you take a shine to Satan hisself.? ?And what happens when you like what you see?? The question stumps her. She?s tiptoed right into a minefield. She looks at me sidelong. ?I s?pose you try not to let him steal your soul when you?re not lookin?.? What if it?s already gone? ?Taryn?? she asks. ?What is ?? I don?t finish. Those very pink lips of hers press tightly against mine. I can taste the whiskey on her breath. This time it?s delicious. I groan when her hand runs up my inner thigh. I push her away when her fingers try teasing inside my paint stained Capri?s. She?s beet red and chewing her bottom lip. ?Sorry,? she mumbles. ?Always wanted to. Don?t know why.? Yes, she does. And it pains her. ?I have something for you,? she whispers. ?Wait right here.? She slinks out of the pickup like a cat, snakeskin boots crunching over the gravel as she heads over to a house that looks like a modernized barn. I let my eyes follow the sway of her heartbreaker ass until she disappears inside. I want to speed off. But I don?t. I stay. Guilt can really weigh like an anchor sometimes. When she returns, she drops a wooden basket of strawberries in my lap. They look like glittering rubies. ?Best yet,? she grins. ?Finally figured out granddaddy?s secret. I?m sure you?ll put them to good use.? She leans inside the cabin and whispers in my ear. ?Do what you need to, honey.? Then she pulls away and slaps the door. I lean on the horn. She grins wide.O/o\O That moment when the clutch drops, and the old Chevy 5 rockets forward like an over eager virgin, sparks a rush of addictive adrenaline led by white-walled tires. I close my eyes and inhale the salty ocean spray as the cherry red pickup speeds along the coastal highway, the dying sun drenching the sky in pastel brilliance. I find the red button at my hip. The seatbelt clicks, releasing me from pointless bonds of safety. My eyes flutter open when the speedometer hits eighty-eight and I wish I could throttle back in time, course correct whatever horrible trauma I can?t remember suffering. But life?s a heartless bitch that enjoys kicking you back into the mud. It has no regard for what I want. I press harder on the gas pedal and the pickup roars with delight. Ninety-five. The steering wheel rattles. Lift-off. I?m blissfully free, nothing under me but a squishy leather bench and hunks of restored metal. I flick on the radio and a song crackles to life; a smooth tenor belts out a staccato lyric: ?Buhbuhbuh-Bennie annnnd the Jeeeeetssss.? The truck swerves into the other lane. It?s liquid fire in my veins as the creature inside me spits awake, cursing in anger. I have to fight with the wheel to bring the Chevy back under control. mersin escort The creature screeches until I get the radio turned off. I decelerate and pull off to the side. I?m a mess. My skin?s cold and clammy. I lose track of time until my nerves settle and I pull back onto the road. Out over the ocean the sun is a squished blood orange as it dips over the horizon. A supernatural heat starts to burn in my belly as I continue the rest of the way in unnerving silence. II. When the automatic sensors register the Chevy, small globes of muted silver flicker on in patterned pairs, illuminating the winding path up to the house in fuzzy light. I ease off the gas and the pickup coasts to a crawl. The breeze slicing through the cracked window is welcomingly cold on my cheeks and I can hear the natural, midnight tones of hooting owls and buzzing crickets drifting in through the trees. Their melody is a haunting dance. My foot jams the break pedal on pure instinct. I sit there, following the cones of pale yellow piercing the dark. I wait for something, maybe my Muse, fickle and fleeting, to get off her ass, to tell me what to do for once, instead of just directing the movements of a paintbrush. I?d be satisfied with a simple yes or no. Raised hairs. A pounding heart. Nothing. Not even a tingle. There?s just calm steadiness, like the body already accepts what the brain can?t. Or won?t. The trees murmur with rustling leaves as a silhouette with green eyes slinks quickly through them, staring right at me before dashing off. I wait for claws to reach through the window and tear my throat to a bloody pulp. Still nothing. Too many October nights spent curled on the couch with horror movies, wine and twizzlers my only companion until Grayson gets home. I let out a thin laugh that breaks into a snort and lift off the break.O/o\O When the Chevy eases around the wide, neatly manicured bend in the driveway, my sweaty palms slip on the ivory steering wheel. The midnight sky slopes unfathomably low to the ground and a golden moon swings with pendulum grace from invisible threads, almost scraping the roof of the tinted glass house. It swings low enough that I want to reach out and pull it down, see if it tastes like cheese. Or just give it hard shake, like a snow globe, and see if a tiny man falls out.O/o\O My sandaled feet crush a bed of flowers into the paved cobbles when I slip from the truck, releasing an intoxicatingly sweet fragrance that sparks a familiar feeling in me, one that I can?t quite place. I bend down and bring a handful of white to my nose. I breathe deep and colors explode into blinding neon hues that blush across the white petals before firing out, drenching first the house, then the sky in kaleidoscopic rainbows. A word forms on my lips, something that has an inherent magic all its own. It tastes like strawberry wine at the tip of my tongue and rouses a faded memory of a story I can?t remember reading: a lost girl in a blue dress with a bow in her straw blonde hair. ?Wonderland,? I whisper. The large trellis walkway stretching up to the patio is smothered in dark foliage so thick it creates a miniature forest canopy. Sheets of dark flowers in alien shades weave in and out of the latticework and wind around the cherry stained wood of the posts. As I walk toward the house, thin lines of moss branch out like circuitry through the interior of the trellis, carving an eerie path of electric blue through the inky black tunnel. I duck inside and push through the foliage and I?m assaulted by sensation. Impossible scents mingle like hot milk and cocoa with a touch of tongue tingling spice. It?s like being in a living garden bakery. No need for cooks, just larges vines that brush the skin like slippery, silken hands. Despite the strangeness of everything, I can?t contain the smile forcing its way across my lips. I want to believe this is his doing; that he?s even more than I think him to be. I vaguely remember that night in the club, under the heavy buzz of Tequila and great music. I don?t know why I said those words, only his response. ?I?ll jump down that hole after you if I have to, kitten, even if it?s into the jaws of Monty Python?s rabbit.? A terrible line really, but ?I also remember his nimble fingers, wet with whiskey, pushing past my damp panties under a black marble staircase. Six months was a still a thing, right? Halfway to something is a kind of achievement. You?re halfway to fucking it up or halfway to making magic. I push the door open. My hopes depress faster an addict?s needle. For a pregnant moment, I try convincing myself of some magical gesture of romance, even the darkly comedic sort. Black humor and pranks are his style. ?Hopeless delusion,? a voice whispers, so softly it doesn?t even register with me. O/o\O The house is chilly as I creep inside. The metallic flavors of smoke float in a heavy cloud of sulfuric grey. My feet want to carry me through the maze-like halls to the back of the house. I?m not sure why. Morbid curiosity I guess? Which is silly, because it?s these moments in horror movies that I always want to slap the heroine for making all us girls look like brainless bimbos. Turn around I always say. It isn?t worth all the pain and misery. Thing is, you can?t feel curiosity through the TV screen. You can?t feel that addictive pull at your navel, temping you, goading you. As I wind my way back, chilly drops to freezing and the blanket of brightly colored flowers that followed me in from the driveway thins out. What begins to replace them is frighteningly beautiful. Bat-orchids. Sinister. Velvety. Alien. Black tendrils fan out from the petals like snakes. My heart clenches. The creature inside me stirs, seems to resonate with whatever it is I?m walking into. My feet hit something hard and circular and my ankle rolls. I have to throw an arm out wildly, juggling the box of strawberries in the other. My sandals are a broken ruin, straps torn. A curse splutters over my tongue when I see what I tripped on. Spent bullets. They?re everywhere, littering the bed of orchids like poisonous silver beetles. My eyes drift to the walls and find jagged holes spelling out crude lines of twisted poetry. There?s an elegant quality to the verse, no matter how suggestive the content is. But it isn?t the poetry that makes my heart thump out of sync. No, it?s the glossy photograph tacked to the ruined plaster. The figure in the photo projects outward, like she isn?t quite part of the portrait, but isn?t really part of the space outside the print either. Alabaster skin glows ghostly silver in the black and whites. She?s slender and delicate, like a willowy waif, but the sardonic smirk that curls her mouth betrays any sort of innocence. As I move through the hallway, I find more photos tacked up. Each one is progressively more erotic, more revealing: at first it?s just a face, the upturned swell of a breast, a finger pressed to pursed black lips. Gradually, she materializes like a shade in the night. Despite the cold, my skin flushes hot. Behind that twisted, lascivious smile is rage, coiled about a violent lust. There?s a story flashing in her eyes, slanting mersin escort bayan down her pale skin - a nightmarish one. The creature inside me hums in helter-skelter rhythm as I make the last turn.O/o\O The tale plunges from teasing eroticism into filthy, magnetic perversion. A twisted laugh echoes from deep inside me; my vision blurs. When my eyes snap open, color bleeds from the photos in garish hues. There?s a dull ache between my eyes. It?s the feeling I get when I zone out, let creativity sink it?s claws into me until hours disappear and canvas after canvas is filled with paint. I used to think I was in control of the brush, creative expression given real, tangible life. Now I know better. It?s been her all along, trying to fill in the holes of a life I can?t remember. I can?t breathe. She shimmers electric green, naked and ethereal, a crazed glint in her eyes. She?s not looking at me, but beyond me. Blackberry lips twist. ?Let me show you.? I stumble back, sliding on more bullets. I fall. The photos spin in hypnotic swirls. Colors bleed to silver and sable before pulling apart to form tiny, pixilated cubes of light. The cubes slide into place and it?s like watching a movie from the 50s. I swear I can hear the clicking of a projector in the background as the countdown flashes across a dirty screen. Five. Four. Three. Two. Hands reach out from the screen and pull me in. One. Erotic hell.III. A girl hunches behind a tattooed man, one hand working between his legs while the other teases his ass. Fine white powder arcs along his lower back. A figure obscured in shadows reclines in a rocking chair in front of them, observing the show as he nurses a dark bottle of liquor. The girl presses her nose to the powder, takes a deep snort. Her eyes glaze and she shakes her white-blond hair. ?Fuck, that?s good.? She giggles and licks her lips. The shadowed man gestures. Her head lowers again, then again, until only a bit remains. I see a wicked grin split her face as the drug takes hold. She wets a finger and slowly collects the rest, like she?s polishing off the sugar from a box of powdered donuts. She rises up on her knees and leans over the tattooed man. She bites his shoulder, whispers in his ear. He grunts a strangled, ?Fuck,? as she plunges her powdered finger into his muscular ass, right up to the knuckle. When she finds his prostate, his body lurches forward and she rides him down, giggling all the way, into the soft mattress. Another body pulls from the shadows. He?s lean, hard, and his eyes are red-rimmed. He paws at the girl?s hips with awkward movements, trying to slot his drugged up cock inside her. He keeps missing, both holes, his shaft just sliding between the crack of her ass. She snorts impatiently, reaches back, and captures him in a tight fist. His cry of pain fades to pleasure when she eases him inside her messy cunt. The cloaked figure waves again, like a depraved maestro, conducting the symphony of wet slaps and animalistic grunts. The projector clicks. Another scene. She?s splayed out on the floor, ringed by naked, masked figures. They pull on engorged cocks, cackling as they spout profane derision. To them, she?s nothing but a toy to slake their lusts. Thing is, they?ve got it all wrong. They?re just mindless drones with pretty cocks and sculpted bodies. I know because I can hear her, scuttling about the edges of my mind with a throaty whisper. ?Let me show you what you are.? A cherry stem twirls between shiny lips like a toothpick and she stretches with feline grace, red gems of fruit rolling off her body. They watch, enthralled, as she drags the tip of a chocolate covered banana across erect nipples. When she dips lower, tracing the length of her leaking pussy, the room is filled with harsh jeers. She moans as the banana parts her slippery folds and pushes inside. The chocolate melts on contact with her creaming cunt. The scent is a bullet to the head, more addictive than caffeine, more dangerous than misplaced trust. She loses control, lost in a sugary dance, burning under the leers of men she doesn?t even know. The banana crumbles apart inside her fiery hole just as she tenses up, hips lifting off the floor, back arching. Magic. Her pussy twitches and a banana split of syrupy cum oozes out of her flared lips. A cacophony of ragged grunts echoes all around her and hot semen splashes over her in waves, coating her from head to foot. She wriggles this way and that, trying to catch all of, as if it?s ambrosia. When they finish, she wears an expression of inexhaustible exhaustion. They make crude jokes about a new class of high-end art as she paints a mural of lust over her body with their filthy leavings. She smiles wickedly, crooks a finger. Tells them to take a more direct role this time. They fall upon her like starved vultures. Click. Overturned poker tables litter a dim-lit room. Stacks of money lay crumpled and abandoned, soaking up rivers of spilled tonic and gin. No one notices the masked figures slinking inside. No one notices the panel slide up from behind the bar, revealing a safe. And no one notices the gold ingots being emptied from it along with a thick stack of files. No one cares. Sweat slick bodies wriggle with slippery, serpentine movements over sticky wood floors. A man with a goatee and a half-moon scar on his cheek has the blonds? hips propped up on a pillow, her breasts flattened against the floor. He teases a thin-necked bottle against her pink star, eases it inside. The girl sobs, begs him to pull it out. He spanks her ass, tilts the bottle, and tells her the wine is worth more than he?s paying for her services. Then his dick replaces the bottle. He pounds her ass with abandon, wine sloshing around with a filthy churn. Fingers curl in her tangled braid. He directs her movements with urgent tugs as she feasts on the blushing crotch of a pretty Asian. Glass shatters. The goateed man doesn?t notice. He?s entranced, watching the navy blue wine leak from the blonde?s ass, stained her pale legs. He spanks her, grunts in acknowledgement when begs for it harder. Faster. The blond notices though. She winks as the last of the masked figures picks up the gold bar he dropped on a $500 bottle of scotch. He stares. She curls a finger, licks her lips. He takes a step forward, then stops. Shakes his head. She frowns in amused disappointment. He takes off his mask, blue eyes flashing. ?Later,? he mouths. ?Definitely,? she purrs, just as a creamy load fires up her sphincter. Click. The photos explode in number, filling every inch of white space on the walls. And the monster inside me brings each one to depraved life. Drugs. Sex. Pounding music. Flashing cameras. Wild howls. The squelching beat of hard dick in dripping pussy. The blonde multiples in number and each time the shadowed figure is there, nursing a dark bottle, a bowler hat obscuring his face. Click. The final photo is blown up, hangs from the ceiling, spinning round and round. There?s no visceral imagery clicking along like a spool of film this time. It?s just a static moment caught in time. She straddles a dark muscular frame, head thrown back, mouth parted, escort mersin skin glowing blue, wild hair hanging in damp curls. I know her. I know them. Because I?m the girl in the photos, from the tattoo blazing across slim shoulder blades, to the freckled constellations that dot their pale skin. The biggest tell, however, the thing that can?t possibly be replicated, can?t be faked; the crisscrossing scars between the upturned swell of my breasts. ?Do you see?? the voice inside me snickers. The glass house shatters, tears apart at the seams. A scream rips from my throat. IV. Everything is dark. I feel lighter than air, like a zephyr floating off the ground. Heat fills me. Consumes me. I burst through a void of ice and all around me, steam hisses like angry snakes. Something howls within me, pushes out with a concussive force until I shatter into a thousand scorched puzzle pieces. I?m dying. Spinning. Flailing. Ascending. Descending. Hell. Heaven. They?re all the same in that they?re all so utterly meaningless right now. My heart skips to a stop. I start to fade. Everything is quiet. O/o\O Heat is what pieces me clumsily back together, new pieces overriding old ones, everything melting into something new, monstrous. Rebirth. The blood boils in my veins until I can see it, tracks of blinding, rusted orange fluid that pumps through me like the rivers of magma beneath a volcano. Reality bends into chaotic nightmare. I stop falling. A disembodied mouth materializes in front of me. Heat flares as I reel back. It curves into a wide Cheshire grin. Familiarity pokes me with needle-like precision. I know the smile. I see it in the mirror everything morning, grinning back at me, teeth all neat and white and straight. The mouth twists into an erotic, mocking smirk, like the girl from the photos. Me. It?s the sort of smile that knows something you don?t and takes sick pleasure in the fact. It?s the sort of smile that torments you, because deep down, it knows you better than you do, in all the ways that matter. The mouth blurs and vanishes completely. I spin around and it blurs back into focus, except something else blurs into focus a second later, filing in the empty spaces around the smile with bone and skin and muscle and hair, until the smile no longer just floats there like a marionette. I stare, and stare, and stare. That Chesire grin is still the same. Still mine. But the hair is burnished copper instead of blonde. The skin is freckled and tan instead of creamed alabaster. And the eyes are black star sapphires, crackling with lightning and filled with hunger, greed, lust, and? well, I?m not sure if life really applies. For reasons I cannot comprehend, those eyes frighten me. They spark a niggling burst of déjà vu, familiarity you can hold in your hand a split second before it slips through your fingers like oil, gone, yet trace amounts left behind. The smile widens into a silent laugh, reading the confusion and fear pulling over my face. Then I?m falling again. The heat burns hotter, faster. A hole opens up. I?m swallowed like a psychedelic drug. There are flashes of white, colorful top hats, and the faces of naked playing cards given frightening life. The tattoo on my back is molten fire, a white-hot brand pressed to skin. The ink pulses and moves, bubbling as the jaws open, the pointed teeth leaking neon blood. The laugh unhinges, echoes all around me like an exploding bomb. Then it breaks and becomes a snarl of demonic passion. It singsongs a broken, disjointed rhyme that cuts me to pieces. Warm fingers lace with mine, stopping my descent. The Cheshire grin floats back, a puppet without strings; blackberry lips start to part. It chants the tattooed phrase on my back. It?s the perfect line for perfectly broken imagery. I lean forward, entranced? press my mouth against those blackberry lips. They taste like candied fruit. Sharp teeth bite down on my tongue. Fire erupts from every pore in my body. The tattoo grows and envelops me. I scream. ?Do you see now?? ?No. No. NO!? I don?t want to see. But it?s already too late. I plunge deeper into miasmic abyss. V. Like Plato?s hellish cave, fragments of dim light warp twisted shapes off the slippery black surface of the chrysalis. At least, I think it?s a chrysalis. I can?t be sure. I can?t be sure of anything anymore. I can?t move. I can?t feel. And I can barely see. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Five thousand, three hundred and forty-nine beats. When you realize you can?t hear your heart anymore, can?t feel it hammering against your ribs, sanity starts to slip. ?Slip, slip, slip,? tiny voices tease, ?just like the rest of us.? Five thousand, three hundred and forty-nine lies. ?Do you see now? Do you, do you, do you?? Yes. I can. I?m sorry. I try to mean it. I really do. But this nightmare is pulling me apart. ?No. No you aren?t, you trashy harpy!? they singsong. As if any of you would be sorry. Silence. Are there winners and losers when all you?re doing is fighting a thousand twisted versions yourself? The only thing I?m sorry about is seeing them and? not so much remembering them, but feeling them. They push and push, forcing sensations and emotions on me. Sins. Pains. Guilty pleasures. Raging hate. A nickel-plated pistol. Rain slick streets. Five bodies. A river of crimson. Each version of me has its own jagged scar, its own story to tell. Dimly lit clubs. Drugs I can?t even pronounce. Sex so depraved, so powerful, it breaks you. Park benches near a placid lake. They all flow by in harsh, imperfect clarity, less visceral than before, but no less painful, no less maddening. ?Mad, mad, mad!? the voices jeer. Who the fuck would apologize for not remembering that? Not living that? Thump. Thump. Five hundred more lies. I wonder what I?ll look like when this chrysalis cracks open. Nothing angelic. Nothing beautiful. I know that now. I?m insane. Not delusional. I picture tattered wings oozing from my back like tar. Canines sharpened to fangs. Tongue forked. Flaming eyes and unquenchable lusts for hard dick to suck the energy from. You know that type of monster. Succubus. Demon. Hellion. The mirror-like surface above me shimmers like ripples of a vicious liquid. A hand reaches down into the abyss, grabs hold, and yanks me up into the light. I fall into shallow water. It hisses and sizzles upon contact with my superheated skin. I try getting up, but my feet tangle. I fall back into the water and steam rises in a thick cloud. I close my eyes and just lay there as the water evaporates around me, hoping it might take me with it as it rises up out of this nightmare. ?Now that?s delusional,? a youthful voice calls out, ?and totally unimaginative.? The steam thins and I open my eyes. Large flakes of ash float down around me like burnt leaves. I look up. A giant playing card hovers above me. The scorched outline of a woman in a Victorian-style bubble skirt glows an angry reddish orange. In the corner is a smeared Q with a bleeding, misshapen heart beneath it. Queen of Hearts. ?I hope you weren?t still hoping you might be the heroine in this story, T. A sweet, innocent girl like Alice just doesn?t suit us. I think the Red Queen fits perfectly. Villainous. Insane. Unfathomably sexy. Being bad is so much more fun, right?? I try struggling to my feet again and my legs wobble on spiked heels. ?Come on out. It?s perfectly unsafe.? A bell like laugh rings out, clear and true.