Gloria Into The Labyrinth by Doc

Gloria led him down the garden path.  She had an imperious attitude and an indifference that was off-putting – until people got to know her.  Then they either hated her, or followed her like the children of Hamlin behind the Pied Piper.  She would lead those brave enough or foolhardy enough to follow her off to a cave – perhaps the entrance to a labyrinth -- never to be seen again.  At least in not in Hamlin….

He was one of the enchanted.

And after being seduced into a trance, he awoke to find his mind was no longer exclusively his.  Neither was his body, totally naked.  It was real.  The When he glanced into a mirror, he peered at a familiar face. It looked as it always did.  Real.  But -- when he closed his eyes and let his mind wander, he found himself in a labyrinth.  Happy but lost. Confused.  He was inside of a dream -- called ever further into its twisting passages.  He was wandering, lost inside his mind, his convoluted cavernous spirit.  And he was there with Gloria.

He thought of Dante’s trips through the realms of the Great Beyond: to Heaven, to Purgatory, to Hell.  But Gloria was no innocent Beatrice; she didn’t have an ounce of innocence in her.  Still, he followed.  Into the labyrinth.  Enchanted.

She played a pipe and the tune was hypnotic.  She played his pipes.  He danced to the tune.
“If this is slavery,” he thought, “I am content with slavery.”  He knew he might be betrayed, or find himself face to face with something he couldn’t cope with deep inside the twisting passages.  He prayed she wasn't leading him to a Minotaur.  Somehow, he trusted her.

His life had always been a journey.  He was always on a trail.  He had seldom found anyone he cared to travel with.  And then – Gloria.  She looked at him, sized him up, questioned him a bit, listened to him for a while and then uttered two simple words: “Follow me!”

He did.  And he was still doing so.

Into the heart of darkness, perhaps.  On that famous highway: The Road to Perdition.  Maybe.  But he’d never visited the town of Perdition.  Not yet.  Perhaps that’s where Gloria was leading him.  It really didn’t matter.

He gazed at her buttocks, down her thighs to her slim ankles.  There, on a gold chain was a single key.  She had possession.  He was hers.