Poppy Milk
Klaymen wandered into the Throne Room as if he didn’t quite know where he was going. Hoborg spotted him standing by the entrance door, looking at a decorative shield with a blank expression.“Klaymen?” Hoborg said.
The Hoodian slowly looked up. He said nothing.
“Is everything alright?” Hoborg asked.
Klaymen shook his head. While Hoborg was coming up to him, he heaved a sigh and wrung his hands.
Hoborg lay his hand on Klaymen’s shoulder. “What is it?” he asked.
Quietly Klaymen said: “I’ve been having bad dreams about Klogg.”
“Oh…” Truth to be told, Hoborg’s dreams were also plagues with the memory of Klogg. The memory of seeing him blown off the Neverhood was still too fresh for comfort. Generally Hoborg tried not to think about it, but if it meant comforting Klaymen, he would go to any length. “What are they about?” Hoborg asked.
Klaymen gulped before he said, in very low voice: “He catches me. Ties me up. Says he has killed Willie and he could kill me, too. But he won’t. Instead…” Klaymen gulped again and continued in a voice so blank you’d think he was reading. “He touches me. Tickles me with his claws. Opens me and touches my insides. He says… I’m beautiful. That he can’t help himself. That I smell too good… That he needs this. That he will take what he wants. And he does.”
Hoborg found he couldn’t breathe quite right.
Klaymen snaked his fingers around his throat. “Sometimes he chokes me,” he said, squeezing a little. “Sometimes he claws at me. But he’s always inside. And he always says that it feels so good. Like he’s in a fever. And I let him. Because… I owe it to him. We’ve done wrong to him. And in that dream I can make it up to him. He’s… so irresistible. It’s like…” His eyes searched the ceiling for words. Finally he looked down, ashamed. “It’s like sin.”
Hoborg nodded. He didn’t know what to say. He was afraid to say anything.
Klaymen looked at him with those big brown eyes and Hoborg knew he had to say something.
“If you want,” he uttered, “I can give you something that will make your sleep dreamless.”
Klaymen smiled. “That would be nice,” he said.
They never spoke of it again, and Hoborg never found out if it was because the dreams stopped.
