Chapter 18
Jake
Day four of what I was now referring to as Holiday Hell was upon us, and Collin and I had made plans to bolt tonight.
Sadly, this lovers’ retreat, or whatever this hellhole was called, was more of a torture than a help in assisting me to find inner peace or whatever I was expected to be looking for.
That ego death thing? Yeah, Collin and I could safely say that our egos had crashed, burned, and been incinerated after two nights of shitting in the woods to clear toxins and parasites from our bodies.
This was a literal shit show and something only dumbasses who cheated on their wives should be subjected to in order to save their marriages—not the ones who came here to keep the fucking spark alive.
“With the energy you’re feeling while you chant, move your thoughts in the direction of that which you should like to manifest,” Gustoff resounded the weird fucking chant we’d been listening to for the last hour or so.
“Feel your soul call to it. Feel the crisp air surrounding your nearly naked bodies.” I reopened my eyes, glanced at Collin’s aggravated expression, then looked up to see Gustoff bang the dong to round out the bullshit he was spouting off.
“Feel the goodness of life moving toward you like a rushing wave, mightily and boldly claiming the sands of the shoreline and taking what it wants. Your manifestations want you. They need you. They thank you for all your hopes and desires of them.”
“Yes,” I heard a man cry. “Yes, I need and want you.”
“Fucking hell,” I whispered to Collin, who was doing a fine job of pretending he was into this as much as I was.
We started faking interest in this bullshit after two nights to prevent another evening of shitting our lives away in the forest. In fact, we had been faking it so well that Collin and I had become Gustoff’s two favorite husbands at this retreat.
“Shh,” Collin said, his tone reminding me that if I did anything to blow our cover, we wouldn’t be able to sneak out of here tonight. “Focus.”
“Dude is moaning and practically orgasming right now,” I said, feeling disgusted by Harold getting off in this manifestation thing we were stuck doing for the entire day.
“I’m going to sound just like him when I see Laney tonight, too,” Collin said in a hushed voice, smirking before his face fell serious again as if he were deep in manifestation mode.
“Let us stand,” Gustoff said, and everyone rose as if we were in some weird cult. “Dr. Mitchell,” he nodded toward me, “Collin,” he said with the usual approving grin he’d been giving Collin and me since we became his favorite kiss-asses.
“Yes?” I said as respectfully as I could.
“How are your souls this fine morning? I see you are both ever-so-deeply into this manifestation, and I trust you are feeling close to the harmonic balance of Mother Earth?”
“The peace is coursing with the magnetic pull and energy of the earth,” I bullshitted him in response. “Mother Earth is bountiful in peace and stillness, and I accept it.”
“I am grounded as well,” Collin said, eyeing me because I took it a bit too far.
“I see this in the youthful glow you two are radiating today. A transformation has taken place, and your manifest power is overwhelming.”
“You can feel that?” I blurted out without thinking.
“I feel energy,” Gustoff answered, eyeing me skeptically. “I feel yours and Collin’s stronger today than I have since you arrived; however, your vibrations seem slightly off. What is this I am sensing?”
Goddammit. The bastard must be catching on to us.
“My vibrations are strongly connected to Mother Earth and the magnetic pull—”
“It’s like a hunger is trying to come forth,” Gustoff said, interrupting me, “an urgency?”
The only thing I’m hungering for is my wife and a rare fucking steak, I thought, trying to stay focused.
“I only hunger for more of the peace and solitude this island has given us already,” I answered.
“And you, Collin?” Gustoff questioned.
“The hunger I feel is a strong desire to be closer to Mother Earth,” he sang back.
“Beautiful,” Gustoff responded. “Then we have selected both of you to lead our fire mantras and chants on the shore tonight while the moon is full. Tonight, we will make camp on the shoreline. We had planned to return you to your wives this evening, but upon further assessment, no one is as far along in their ego deaths as Collin and Jake. We are not all in one accord,” Gustoff eyed everyone around us.
“If Dr. Mitchell and Collin were able to achieve this much peace and ego death in such a short time, it shames my heart to know the rest of you haven’t accomplished the same.
We must all attend the fire class, and tomorrow, we shall reassess everyone.
Hopefully, you will return to your wives after that. ”
Gustoff disappeared with his men, who waited on this outdoor wooden stage, and we knew the routine from here.
Once Gustoff was done with his instruction, he abruptly vanished, and we returned to base camp for directions on where we’d go next.
We’d successfully done this more than a dozen times, and every time we were instructed to do some weird bullshit like braid palms, stack rocks, and tie knots in ropes.
“What the fuck are we going to do now?” Collin asked, reading my mind.
“Endure this bullshit for another night?” I answered. “Why does this seem like a prison?”
“Because that’s exactly what it is, and I can’t fake this shit another night,” Collin said.
“Me neither,” I answered. “I’m already accidentally thinking like that weirdo.”
“No shit. After I felt bad for pissing on a tree this morning, I knew this was starting to fuck with my mind,” Collin said with a laugh.
“Well, Gustoff would tell you that the tree was helping you by absorbing the toxins from your urine and—”
“Listen to you,” Collin said. “The fact that you know that—That I know that—is a fucking problem.”
“All right. This is what we’ll do,” I said. “Tonight, after we howl at the moon or whatever the fuck Gustoff is going to make us do to help the other dumbasses, we’ll wait until they all fall asleep and then sneak the fuck out of here.”
“Actually,” Collin smirked, “maybe it’s a good thing he’s making us go to the beach. We can find our way back to Ash and Laney much easier.”
“True. In fact, this may be part of the journey,” I mocked Gustoff’s favorite phrase, “and going to the ocean symbolizes us returning to where the ladies are. He’s just got to have one more night of fucking us over.”
“Is this the type of thing Ash is into?” Collin asked.
“No, thankfully,” I answered truthfully. “Although I thought the same thing when we first got here,” I smiled, missing my beautiful wife so damn much. “Ash is nothing like this. She meditates, and grounds herself, but she’s nothing like these people.”
“Thank God,” Collin said. “This is weirding me out. It’s like a cult. I wouldn’t want to have to rescue Ash from something like this and rewire her brain,” he laughed.
“I heard that,” I agreed. “No worries there, although I feel like rescuing her right about now. I fucking miss her.”
“I feel that shit, son,” Collin said. “Come on. Let’s head back to camp, eat grass for lunch, and get ready to get back to them.”
“I’m never coming to the Maldives again,” I said. “This was a place I’d always wanted to visit, but now, fuck no. This is worse than being stranded on a desert island, knowing I would never be rescued.”
“Would you come back if you knew you’d be staying in those villas where we thought we’d be staying?”
“I don’t know, dude,” I said, honestly. “This whole place is just a traumatic destination for me,” I sighed. “I guess the hopeful part is that we haven’t seen the ocean this whole time, so maybe there’s a slim chance I wouldn’t associate those bad-ass water huts with this fucking jungle prison.”
“There’s the Christmas spirit,” Collin chuckled.
“Christmas spirit,” I laughed in response. “How can you even think about the holidays right now?”
“Simple,” Collin said. “I just keep singing Jingle Bells in my head to make it look like I’m meditating. If I don’t, I’m going to have a hard time accepting that Christmas is right around the corner when we get home.”
“This whole trip is ruining everything,” I admitted. “It’s hard enough to get into the Christmas Spirit during a normal holiday season, and this shit, which we’re barely surviving, is making the holidays seem nonexistent.”
“I’d give anything to see a goddamn mall Santa and a fake North Pole just to get some festiveness in our systems,” Collin chuckled.
“No shit,” I answered as we approached the tent that led to where they fed us grass for food.
“We have to get the fuck out of here tonight. Then, after we get to the ladies, we get our asses to the airport. That’s when I’ll call Jim and tell that bastard to get us the fuck off this island.
His stupid ass better have a fantastic explanation about this place.
I swear, if he and the guys set this up, knowing what was in store for us? ”
Collin smiled, “Oh, the payback we bestow on those miserable fuckers will be far worse than anything you and I have experienced.”
“Let’s just stay focused on one thing at a time. We’ll question those bastards about this trip, which they were all a little too excited to send us on, after we get back home. For now, we plan to get back to Laney and Ash.”
Gustoff and everyone could kiss our asses.
Fire chants or no fire chants, tonight we were breaking out of this Island Escape Room and going home to our families.
I learned enough in my short time away from Ash that all I wanted was her.
I wanted to see her smile, to feel her wake up in my arms, and to hold her longer in bed because I knew if we got up, it would take all day to get her back in my arms again.
The tiny things I’d taken for granted were things I’d give anything for now, and it took this ridiculous trip to prove it to me.