help. this story had its fingers down my memory's throat. i coughed up undigested nostalgia:
+ k'nex that didn't actually connect right because the colorful rods and spokes (shaped like spiderweb macaroni, uncooked but so was a lot of the pasta i ate) were irresistible, flavorless candy, even as they clawed at my gums. i chewed them until they bent.
+ a plastic spoon from a kitchen playset, the fake berries attached to it somehow permanently scented like a perfume you wish you could drink, covered in teeth marks.
+ lego tires, the truest delicacy. actually chewy, flavored like a shoe, resilient to all my teething. how many lego cards did i put up on lego bricks, rubber jacked from the rims? i wondered if it would be the same as swallowing gum.
one of the first intrusive thoughts i ever let win.
SPOILERS FOLLOW:
i pursue this level of dread in stories, both in what i consume and what i create. i think it's executed almost perfectly here, in the way Rory thinks she's solved a mystery and will gain some kind of power over Alexandria,
but Rory is swimming toward hooked fingers the entire time. when you will eat anything, the hook itself is the bait.
the fact that the dread coexists with one of the hottest depictions of visceral oral violation i've ever seen is a feat. i love the color language you employ, not just with the purple creeping in, but with the blue starburst around Rory's head while Alexandria shoves her fingers in. all the dread you promise gets multiplied exponentially by the way the forced regurgitation is the sexy scene, and the sex scene is instead the moment that dread returns. the dulled hues at the end... it's so wretched. thank you and well done.
(also Rory is one of the most charmingly designed cat girls i've ever seen and i hope only good things happen to her in some hypothetical world beyond this story.)