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Chapter
Fourteen
The
Enchantress
As Adam stood in front of the store
and gazed into the empty room, another reflection appeared in the glass. A crotchety old man’s image was captured in the
window, ambling toward him from the street.
Though he looked nothing like the octogenarian seen on television, Adam
was reminded of the televangelist, whose prophecies now haunted him as he
considered Satan’s words. Unlike the
first old man, who wore a threadbare suit and clerical collar, this stranger
wore the baggy and tattered clothes of the vagrant. In contrast to the televangelist’s shiny baldhead and
clean-shaven face, he sported a shock of filthy matted white hair. Like other unwashed bums, his hands were
filthy and he exhibited a stubbly gray beard.
The televangelist had comported himself with the authority of a
patriarch. Moving slowly, with the
feeble shuffle of men his age, the vagrant took his place timidly by Adam’s
side. For a moment, Adam expected him
to ask him for a handout. In
anticipation of the proverbial “hey buddy, got some change?” he handed the
apparent panhandler coins from his pocket, hoping he would be on his away.
For a moment, as he held out the change, the
annoying little tramp stood there mumbling to himself as burnt out winos often
do, looking quizzically down at the coins then looking up with irritation at
the young man. Adam understood, after
the old man waved querulously at his outstretched hand, that he didn’t want
money. He listened with curiosity,
unable to understand the man’s gravelly voice at first, as he pointed
impatiently at the street. Following
the shaky finger to its destination, he tried to decipher the man’s grumbling
but saw nothing but emptiness beyond the curb.
Skid row was quiet this hour.
With the exception of the old man, not one homeless person was
afoot. Adam’s mental dialogue with
Satan had emotionally drained him. In
his fragile state frame of mind, he welcomed any diversion or sign of normalcy,
even the ramblings of an old drunk.
As he bent his ear to the irascible
voice, he caught sight of a small black cat scampering down the street. Under normal circumstances he might have
considered this to be a bad omen, but he felt only pity now for the little
beast.
“Every city in the world has
castaways,” explained the old man, “but there are one hundred thousand homeless
folk in Los Angeles, twenty thousand of whom live on skid row. It is unknown how many of these people lost
in this wilderness were once husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, murderers, or
thieves. Many of them are still
salvageable, if just given the chance…”
Though he had little sympathy for
bums, Adam listened patiently to a brief history of Los Angeles’ skid row. According to his new friend, who no longer
sounded like a burnt out drunk, “Skid row is an ugly byproduct of the railroad
industry in LA. Since Los Angeles was
the last stop for rail riders traveling across the country, the area known as
skid row became one of the collection points for the “riff-raff” in the
USA. Transient workers and folks
running away from past lives patronized the cheap hotels, bars, and brothels,
which welcomed down-and-out men and women from all walks of life. These early hobos found the climate better
in the City of the Angels and found it easier to survive on the street. A sub-culture of vagrants, already familiar
throughout US cities, grew along with the working population of LA. During the Great Depression, many unemployed
men and women joined the ranks of the homeless culture in skid row. A large influx of undesirables also occurred
when mental hospitals begin cutting their budgets by releasing harmless
lunatics onto the streets. After the
world wars, the Korean, Vietnam, and three Middle Eastern wars, many men, who
could not cope with memories of battle also wound up casualties on skid
row. Children, whom parents discarded
or ran from physical and sexual abuse, often wind up as adult wrecks on the
street. As heart rendering as the
autistic and schizophrenic men and women are here, worse are the drug addict
runaways, down-and-out women, and even children trapped in skid row.
“Supplying homeless folk with meals, temporary
refuge, and employment counseling is the Union Rescue Mission of Los Angeles,
founded in 1891 by Lyman Stewart, who also founded the Union Oil Company. Unfortunately, due to cutbacks in government
funding, entire families are forced to rely on the mission. Did you know that some of these families
virtually live on the street? You’ll
meet some of them downtown, near the river, and in the parks. Our most immediate concerns, however, are
the down-and-out men and women on this street.”
Slow to attach significance to his last words, Adam
stared slack-jawed at the speaker. It
hadn’t occurred to him yet that the devil had been exorcized from his
head. A mortal, even an eccentric
street person, was a vast improvement over the evil presence in his mind. Any moment, however, he expected the devil
to break its silence as it had before.
As he stood looking at his reflection again, the words “our most
important concerns” caused him to flash the man the classic double take. From a jerk of the head, Adam then fell into
shock, gasping and falling back against the glass as the punch line poured from
those ancient lips.
“…. The street is empty now,” the old man seemed to
change the subject, “but in less than a hour,” he declared, raising his arms in
the air, “it will begin filling up with the castaways of humanity—your new
congregation.”
Adam recalled light-headedly the voice in his
head. How he had prayed that the
dreaded occupation would end. It was
not merely silent, he noted with mixed feelings, it was gone. It stood before him now, disguised as a
dirty old bum. Hysterical laughter
erupted from his unsmiling lips. A
lament followed, which Adam halted by pressing a fist against his mouth.
“Don’t look so frightened,” the old
man cackled. “Your old church was empty in the beginning, and look how long it
took to fill up with those middle class, do-gooder prudes. Look how quickly many of them turned against
you because of your wife. Tell me Adam,
where is the alleged Christian compassion in your hoped for new age
congregation? How long would it have
taken for those blue-nose hypocrites to give you the boot?”
“…. The street, on the other hand,” he
said after a pause, “is constantly filled with desperate seekers and unhappy
souls. On a moment’s notice, a
mysterious drifter can strike up a band of these ragamuffins by proclaiming
himself a messiah. Just think how much
someone like yourself could do with my help!”
The full weight of everything Satan
had said now fell heavily upon Adam as he stared at the old man. Satan’s unreasonable expectations and
continuing presence were more than he could bear, as his last shreds of sanity
seemed to slip away. Now, in the flesh,
came the monstrous punch line, so appropriately following the history of skid
row.
“Is this what you meant by the
universal church,” he cried in disbelief, “—skid
row?”
“It’s a beginning,” the old man
replied, “and it’s fertile ground.”
“What happened to the stadiums and
cathedrals?” Adam shouted. “Where are the banners and the crowds?”
The old man answered, “They were
glimpses of the future, not the present.
Surely you don’t expect everything to happen all at once! You’re not ready for that.”
“Maybe not at once,” he protested,
“but certainly not here!”
“You must start somewhere.” The old
man shrugged his shoulders.
“But why this place?” Adam asked in
disbelief. “Burbank, Hollywood, Orange County, or anywhere, but why here?”
All Adam could think of at this point
was the trick that Satan was playing on upon him now. As he shrank to the pavement again and surveyed his dark domain,
the old man cleared his throat to break the quiet.
“Don’t be afraid of the street,” he
uttered thoughtfully. “Where you go I am. I can be many people, any place, and at any
time; and I can create illusions and work miracles on your behalf. If you’re patient and follow my
instructions, you’ll prosper and become the most powerful prelate alive. On the other hand, if you turn your back on
me now, I will make you the poorest of men.
As you slink through alleys and hide in the shadows, you’ll not only be
godless and friendless, you’ll be without a future as well.”
A grim smile twitched on Adam’s
stunned face. As he listened to the
words from those ancient lips, it sounded so ludicrous. The old man, in playing out his role, seemed
to wring out his last ounce of strength as he shook his gnarled fist, but not
for a moment could he mistake the look that was cast upon him during his
bombast. Those cold black eyes, he
knew, had once defied heaven. They had
also shown encouragement to Nero, Stalin, and Hitler, and now ruled Hell. They were the eyes that had mocked Christ
and were mirrored in the merciless gaze of Nazi storm troopers, Klansmen, and
Muslim terrorist groups on their paths of death and destruction, and were the
same eyes that followed the deeds of most of mankind…. They were the eyes of
Satan, perverse and without compassion and warmth.
“Why do we have to start at the
bottom?” Adam asked, looking away from those cold dark eyes.
“Because,” Satan answered cryptically,
“at the bottom lies the seed.”
******
It’s amorphous body now transformed
into a series of street people. A blind
man with a white cane, sleazy-looking girl in a tight blue dress, hollow-eyed
teenage runaway, Hispanic bag lady, and other dirty, misshapen and emaciated
derelicts flashed before his eyes, until, finally, a black street hustler, with
tattooed and needle-tracked arms, unshaven face, and ragged clothing stepped
forth.
“This be as good a place any,” the
young black man replied, while rolling a match around in his mouth. “Dis street
be full of lost souls, jes like me!”
The accent and cocky demeanor of the
young man didn’t distract from his true identity. As the old man and the other specters before and after him, this
was just one more manifestation of Satan.
To emphasize its magic the match in the young man’s mouth suddenly
exploded into a brilliant flame. At
that point the latest specter began to dissolve hideously before Adam’s eyes, a
mindless grin cracking his melting head.
“I’m melting! I’m melting!” His
voice gurgled in parody of the Wicked Witch of the West. His body turned to liquid now, as would a
melting candle, as he shrunk down to the pavement. Adam stepped back gingerly as the bubbling fluid created a large
puddle on the sidewalk and began trickling over the curb and onto the
street. As the man’s empty clothes blew
away in a gust of hot wind, a miasma the color of candle wax had already
stretched amoebically over the street as far as the eye could see. To the limit of his sight a symbolic evil,
which Adam now understood to be the beginning of his empire, invaded the land.
Overwhelmed by its latest theatrics,
Adam shook his head numbly and asked, “When’s all this suppose to begin?”
“Today,” a voice came breathlessly
into his ear. “It’s already begun!”
Startled half out of his wits this
time, Adam whirled around to confront the young woman in the tight blue dress
paraded earlier before his eyes. Only
drug addict hookers would be caught in this part of town. This creature, who was supposed to be a
streetwalker, was a common sight uptown in the shopping and business
districts. Though she was as much out
of place as himself in this part of town, she represented an important element
of lowlife found on the street. He
sensed now that Satan was about to play another monstrous joke on him.
Moving provocatively down the sidewalk
with an exaggerate wiggle in her stride, she glanced coquettishly over her
shoulder, as if to say, “Come here big boy,” and waited patiently for him to
take the cue. Adam watched with
mounting apprehension as she stood there in front of an abandoned and condemned
hotel. He did not want to consider the
implications in this gesture. After she
passed under the marquee into the hotel, he began walking hesitantly toward the
building, his heart drumming in his chest.
“This can’t be happening,” he mumbled over and over under his
breath.
When he reached the entrance of the
ramshackle building, he looked into the gaping doorway of what was once an
elegant hotel lobby but was now a haunt for derelicts and pallet for gang
graffiti. A shaft of light stuck her
frosted hair and bare shoulders as she paused in the middle of the room. The words to the song “Devil With The Blue
Dress On” surfaced in his mind. Here,
waiting for him in the disguise of a prostitute, was the same devil who had
tempted Eve. This same devil had also
tempted Christ…. Now she was tempting him, beckoning him up a shadowy
staircase. After hesitating repeatedly
as he moved forward, he followed her slowly up the steps, knowing that he was
reaching a point of no return. Her
seductive form hung expectantly at the top of the stairs, as would a bride
awaiting consummation. At this point,
he had no more doubts about what Satan had in mind: Satan, the enchantress,
wanted to seduce him in order to make him her own.
For a moment, he lingered in the hall
and could not warm up to the idea of making love to the Princess of
Darkness. Aside from its factual
wrongness, it seemed so utterly perverse.
He recalled his wife’s ugly remark about Jesus being a “Queen.” Here, personified in himself, was the
stereotype image of the Risen Christ, and he was being lured up a rickety
staircase by Satan, who now seemed to be the mother of whores. Before he had a chance or dared to protest,
his shaky legs had brought him up the steps into a dimly lit room. She begin stripping down as he followed her
into the room, first discarding her sunglasses and her high heels and then
managing to wiggle out of her tightly fitting dress, slip, and bra as if there
was no time to waste. She settled in a
corner of the room where sunlight streamed through boards nailed across the
window frame. She stood there quietly,
reminiscent of a feral beast, her eyes simmering coals, her anatomically
perfect physique poised for action.
Under normal circumstances, if he could have put aside his dread and
concentrated on her body, she might have been just another sensuous element
filling an empty void in his life. She
was beautiful. She had the power for
unlimited passion…. But she was also the devil, and nothing could change that
fact in his mind.
Visibly trembling now, he shuddered as
she reached out from the shadows to touch him.
“Calm down,” she whispered, “relax….
We’re not starting our great adventure yet.
There’s no rush today. It’s too
early to begin in this part of town.
The street people, as you know, are mischievous, nocturnal souls who
keep late hours. You need rest and
relaxation now.”
“I’m starved. I need something to eat,” Adam blurted as
she began tugging at his belt.
“All right honey,” she said huskily,
“I’ll give you something to eat.”
“No, no, no,” he groaned, “I meant
food. Not the nectar of love. You’re
moving to fast for me!”
Suddenly, without even a visible
gesture by Satan, a small ornate little table appeared in the center of the
room with a cornucopia of fruits and nuts.
A tureen sat next to it alongside of a platter of meat and a large jug
of wine. In spite of his realization
that he was famished, however, he was more concerned with what waited for him
after his meal. Eyeing the nearby bed,
he felt himself being pulled by his belt, and heard her muttering, “That’s
right. Let’s get you comfortable first. I’ll personally feed you with my own
hands. I didn’t mean I was going to sit
on your face. You nasty boy….
There-there, you get comfortable on the bed, while mummy gets you a nice hunk
of meat and mug of wine.”
“I don’t think I can do this,” he
said, watching her pour him a drink. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Sure you can,” she replied, handing
him the mug. “Drink this first before you begin eating. It’ll relax you and clear your head.”
Almost immediately after he took a sip
of the beverage, his found his stomach settling and his nausea disappearing.
“What is this?” He asked suspiciously.
“Is this some kind of drug?”
“No, it’s not a drug,” she assured
him, holding a drumstick up to his mouth. “I want you clear-headed, not
drugged…. Now eat, my lamb. I must
fatten you up a little before we begin.”
******
Adam took as much time as he could to
eat his meal. He hovered around the
small table awhile, gorging himself on its delicacies in effort to delay the
inevitable as long as he could. In
spite of his fear of being drugged, he drank as much of his second mug of wine
as he could before he found Satan taking the empty mug out of his hand and
leading him back to bed.
Breaking away suddenly, he retreated
to a far corner of the room. He stared
across the narrow space that separated them, which still seemed a million
spiritual miles away, and was sure that he would never be more severely tested
than now. This act would complete his
tie with Satan; they will have graduated from a blood offering to a love
offering. He would have preferred that
it was merely feral lust or perversion in Satan instead of a test of good
faith. But he knew that she was not
playing games anymore. She was deadly
serious.
“Come, my lamb,” she called from the
darkness of the bed, “lie down with me.”
“This is what you meant by rest and relaxation?”
He asked bleakly. “…. Sex?”
“Yes, we’ve made our bond,” purred
Satan, “now we must consummate it. Our
secret partnership shall be like a marriage between a man and woman: in the
flesh as well as the spirit.”
“I thought it required simply a nod.”
“That was before you exorcized me out
of your head.”
Reaching across breathlessly from the
bed, her delicate hand caught the sunlight: the most perfect hand in creation,
with long fingers and glistening scarlet nails. Crooking her finger, she continued to beckon him toward the
bed. Except for her streetwalker
bearing and frosted hair, the outline of her shadowed body was a flawless
hourglass form. Even the eyes in her
lovely head, which glowed with feral light, had an inner warmth lacking in the
previous specters. She was a vast
improvement over the other personifications he had seen, and yet he couldn’t
warm up to her no matter how hard he tried.
“I understand what’s happening.” Adam
swallowed miserably. “There’s another reason other than blackmail for the death
of my wife. Now that she served her
purpose, you will take her place.”
“Our relationship has to be strong and
inviolable.” Satan explained. “You must therefore learn to think of me as a
person. The only way you will ever
accept me is as a woman: a lover and a friend.”
“Accept you as a woman?” He murmured,
gripping his forehead. “How can I accept you as a woman? All my life you’ve been portrayed as a foul
fiend with cloven hooves. My liberal
theology would never allow me to believe such nonsense. Now it turns out that you do exist, but, through all your
disguises, you’re not even a male!”
“Nonsense!” She said with a snarl.
“Forget those medieval myths about horned satyrs carrying pitch forks. I never looked like that spawn of Greek
mythology who went about raping virgins and guzzling wine. Pan was male: half goat and half man. I, as you should know by now, can be either
sex with no specific form. I can be
pure sex: male, female, or both. I also
have the power of unlimited joy.”
“All right,” he replied, shuddering at
the thought, “for the time being you’re a
woman. But I can’t do this. Believe me I can’t!”
“Can’t or won’t?” She shot back irritably. “With me anything is
possible! Don’t tell me you can’t do
it. You haven’t even tried!”
“It’s true,” he assured her. “I’m
trying to warm up to you, but I can’t!”
“There’s that word again: can’t.
I won’t accept can’t.” She
waved her hand in annoyance. “I don’t see any effort to warm up to me. What’s stopping you? I have a prefect body. Look at my breasts. Here feel them. Feel the rest of my body too.”
She watched him sigh deeply, close his
eyes, and drop his chin to his chest.
Springing angrily from the bed now, she stood there in front of him,
breathing strangely, trying to fathom his mood.
“You wonder why I like being inside
your mind,” she whispered indelicately. “It’s where I gather unspoken
information. I don’t like tormenting
you that way Adam; that’s why I’ve decided to work with you in the flesh. But I can return to your head any time I
wish. You’re mine now Adam, so stop
fighting me. Don’t make it so difficult
for me to read your mood.”
“Do what you will with me. I cannot play this game,” he announced, his
shoulders slumped but gaze rising to meet her stare.
Her naked body, caught in shafts of
sunlight, scandalized him anew as he looked up and saw her standing there. Her voice rose accusingly this time as he
stood his ground. “No-no, this is not a game Adam. You must know that by now.
I don’t always have to be in
your mind to know what’s going on inside. It’s obvious to me by the look on your face
that you’re thinking ‘Satan is in disguise again—as a woman this time but no
less the devil.’ Satan is therefore
perverse, with homosexual inclinations.
Is this not right?”
“Yes…. but it’s not the only reason,”
he confessed, trying not to look her in the eyes.
“Adam,” she said, reaching out to
touch his face, “look at me. For all
practical purposes I am a real person now.
Give me a chance to prove it to you.”
Seeing him shrug faintly but drop his
head again, she reached out gently and raised chin. “Is it my eyes that bother you?
You seem to have trouble looking me in the face?”
“No,” Adam said, glancing at them
briefly, “you have beautiful eyes.”
“Is it my hairdo?” She asked, touching
her hair.
“No,” Adam said, “I don’t mind frosted
hair.”
“All right, is it my body that’s the
problem?” She persisted, placing a hand on her hip. “Am I too big busted or
narrow in the waist? Would you like it
better if I was shorter or had fuller lips?”“
“No,” Adam shook his head, “you’re
perfect, without a flaw!”
“Okay, Adam,” she said, folding her
arms, “if it’s not my eyes, hair, or body that bothers you, what is it that’s
preventing you from having some fun?”
Adam was surprised that Satan was
accepting criticism. So far she had
been quite patient. Trying now to frame
his last problem into words, he realized that it was her stereotype appearance
that turned him off. How did one tell
the Princess of Darkness that she was a turn-off, no matter how perfect her
body seemed? After being victim to his
wife’s outrageous behavior for so long, he had lost his basic desire for those
kind of women. It was bad enough that
Satan had broken tradition and changed genders on him. Her anatomy, even with her intense gaze, was
utterly flawless, but she had also chosen the wrong type of female body to
captivate him. She had selected the
carriage and look of a whore.
“…. Call it a performance problem,” he
began lamely now. “…. Yes, I’m sure
that’s what it is.”
“Performance problem,” she said,
shaking her head. “I don’t know Adam.
When I was in your mind, I found no evidence of you being gay or
sexually inadequate. Just exactly what
sort of performance problem do you think you have?”
“…. In the past, my wife came on to me
really strong. You should know that,”
he struggled for words. “Sometimes she acted like a whore for me. I can see why now…. She was a whore. But I was
raised by my parents to respect women. I
guess I put them on a pedestal. My wife
never liked that. She thought I was too
gentle and polite. Not too long ago she
started coming on really strong with me, as if she had forgotten how she had
disgraced herself in front of my congregation and the many disgusting things
she did when were at home…. I couldn’t warm up to her. In spite of being a stud-muffin once, I
became impotent. Do you understand
now?”
“Listen Adam,” Satan interrupted
impatiently, “if she were alive today and standing in front of you right now, I
could understand you having a performance problem. But you’re not impotent.
Any normal man would have performance problems with such a wench. That nasty creature would have destroyed you
if I had not come along. But that’s in
the past Adam, and your wife’s dead—cut from your life by your own hand. This is now, you’re alive, and I’m
alive. I will not let you wallow in the memory of her corpse anymore!”
After what she thought was a
convincing argument, Satan drew close to the trembling young man and began
rubbing his crotch. Experimentally now
or to test his reaction, she began unzipping his fly. As her breath quickened and one hand reached in to grab his
manhood, he did feel a momentary twinge, until her cold fingers touched the flaccid
muscle and began pulling it out.
“Ohmagosh!” He gasped.
“Come here my little troglodyte,” she
cried out with delight. “Let me take you to my cave!”
What Satan thought was clever use of
words reminded Adam of some of the tactics that his wife Cora had used. He had tried unsuccessfully to seduce his
wife in the old romantic way, but his efforts to do the foreplay, himself, were
always superceded by Cora’s aggressive behavior. He wanted to explain this problem to Satan, but he didn’t know
how. She had taken such great pains to
be the perfect bedtime partner, and he was impressed with her efforts. But she was on the wrong track. How did one tell the devil that she was acting
like a common slut? What words did one
use for the master of temptation and deceit?
His effort to select just the right
response was seen by Satan as continued stubbornness. She began to stimulate him the old fashioned way, her hand
pounding unmercifully onto his scrotum, disregarding the expression of horror
on his face.
Wincing in pain, he cried out “Hey
bitch, that hurts!”
Jerking away and retreating to the
corner of the room, Adam stood there in panic, his forehead pressed against the
wall, reminiscent of his pose in front of the store. The sound of his zipper going up now sent Satan into momentary
rage: “You wimp! You still think I’m a
queer! Well, that’s rubbish! I’m amorphous and hermaphroditic, but for
your miserable benefit I’m also a female!
Come over here and feel my naked body at once!”
Not knowing what to do yet, he
shuffled slowly back to her, felt a bare shoulder and then withdrew again with
a shudder. Ignoring his timid response,
she reached out boldly and pulled his trembling hand excitedly down her
ribcage.
“See” she said breathlessly now, “I’m
a bona fide woman: breasts, nipples, mons veneris—all the trappings!”
“I don’t believe this is happening,”
he mumbled numbly.
“You must believe,” she said, with a
passionate groan that made Adam almost wretch. “Who do you think corrupted many
of our great men of history, palace eunuchs?
You are a man; I am a woman. Let’s do it!”
At this point, his hand finally
brushed her moist pubic hairs, and he was swept with revulsion. “I can’t
do! This is making me sick!”
“You can do it!” Her voice shrilled
with rage. “I’m Satan, and with me you can do anything!”
After watching him shake his head
emphatically, she suddenly transformed into his childhood phantom: a horned
satyr with foul breath and cloven hoof.
“Would you prefer this!” She asked him
in a deep masculine voice.
“No!” Adam gasped, backing away toward
the door.
“How about this one?” She began
transforming into something far worse.
The creature inching toward him looked
like the Greek medusa, with snakes coming out its head in place of hair, until
it began to melt into a bubbling frothy mass onto the floor. By that point, Adam had reached the door and
was trying desperately to open it and escape the madness unfolding in this
room.
“Let me out! Let me out!” He cried, wrestling with the doorknob.
“You can’t escape me now,” the blob
uttered in a hissing voice. “We’ve gone too far!”
“Unlock this door. You can’t keep me against my will,” he
replied in a quivering voice.
With his face pressed against the door
and his fists pounding frantically on the wood, a look of terror was frozen on
his face. As he listened to the
bubbling mass behind him, he wanted to pray though it seemed to be such a
futile gesture now.
“Oh dear God! “ he muttered
frantically. “What’ve I gotten myself into?”
“Adam!” He heard the woman’s voice
now. “Turn around and face me…. Why do I, your loving master, revolt you?”
As he looked back, a shaft of light
from the dirty window fell on his new master.
That moment, in spite of her frosted hair, her body appeared statuesque,
almost goddess-like.
“I think I can explain it now.” He whispered almost
to himself. “…. Your question’s right on the mark.”
“Speak up man,” she commanded him.
“Tell me what’s wrong!”
Recalling the woman in the tight blue
dress, he meditated a moment longer, took a deep breath, and then told her the
other reason why she turned him off.
“It’s not just what you are.” He gathered his words carefully. “It’s how you are.”
She replied calmly this time. “I think
I understand what’s wrong. Since the
inflection was on what and how, I take it that, along with homosexuals, you
don’t like whores.”
“Yes, it’s true,” he cried in relief.
“Your sexual preference was a big enough shock to me, so why did you pick a
hooker’s body?”
“Is that how you perceive me,” she
asked, a faint smile playing on her lips, “a scarlet woman and common slut?”
“Yes!” He nodded vigorously.
“So that’s why you can’t warm up to
me.” She seemed to be amused. “All along it’s been the image and what it stood
for, not just me.”
“That’s correct,” he replied, the
imprint of the medusa flashing intermittently in his mind. “I hate those kind
of woman more than any blot on earth!”
“Hate no one who’s not your enemy,”
her voice softened. “Despise only fools, who will not listen; they are your
enemies—not those poor wretches on the street.
If I remember correctly, that carpenter started with a motley crowd,
himself, and one of them was a hooker
too!”
Adam realized that the insult had been
diminished to a mere complaint, leaving Satan only mildly irritated with him
now. He had exaggerated the personality
of his wife a bit to make his point.
She came forward slowly and thoughtfully this time and began undressing
his rigid frame. Although he offered no
resistance, he remained frozen like a storefront mannequin, awaiting the
inevitable.
Tossing his jacket aside, then
unbuttoning his shirt, she continued to chide him gently: “Loosen up…. I
understand your feelings now. I’m not
going to molest you anymore. I’ll be gentle.”
“I’ll do my best,” he promised,
bracing himself for the worst.
As she finished pulling off his shirt,
he wanted desperately to oblige her and to relax, give himself up to whatever
lusts she had in mind. Though he wanted
to get it over with, his heart wasn’t in it.
Because of her aggressive actions, Satan still reminded him of a
dissolute call girl. When she caught
the hopeful gleam in his eyes and sensed his growing effort to warm up to her,
she responded immediately by kissing his bare chest. He reacted by closing his eyes, as if pretending that it was
someone else. Encouraged by his
efforts, she plunged her tongue downward and began tugging exciting excitedly
at his pants. Although it felt as if a
warm, nasty slug was moving toward his navel, there was a distinct rise
beginning in his crotch.
Dropping his unfastened trousers and
yanking down his underwear, she cried, “Name her!”
“Name who?” He gasped, as she pulled
him over to the bed.
“The girl of your dreams,” came a
breathless response.
“My wife was the only one,” he said,
as she removed his shoes that had been preventing his trousers and underwear
from being pulled off his feet.
“Well then,” she offered, pulling off
his socks, “use your imagination! What
will it be: a blond, brunette, or maybe a redhead? Come on Adam, dig into your memory. I seem to recall one woman in your mind who made an impression on
you.”
After removing his last article of
clothing, Satan drew back on the bed next to him. A shaft of ethereal light fell over her body as she began to
transform over spectrum of female types, ranging over every imaginable
combination of body build, skin tone, hair color, and size. Somewhere in the midst of this menagerie he
must have made a gesture of approval, because he found himself staring suddenly
at a petite woman with rich brown hair, an average built but fresh-looking
body, with medium-sized yet well formed breasts and a child-like, angelic
face. The only part of her that did not
require change was her eyes; her large dark pupils sat motionless now in her
almond-shaped eyes.
“Big breasts, small breasts, wide
hips, anything else?” She asked in a crinkly, much more feminine voice.
“This is fine.” Adam smiled, finally
satisfied with Satan’s new form.
He lie completely naked next to
her. For the first time in months, he
allowed himself to be stirred by longing and wasn’t ashamed. The body he had picked was drawn from a
Biblical painting he recalled, subconsciously his ideal from the
beginning. She was the most natural opposite
to Cora in every way and was therefore someone he could accept.
“A good choice,” he heard her murmur
as they edged closer on the mattress. “You have chosen the face, if not the
body, of the Virgin Mary. In the
painting, however, I believe her eyes were blue.”
“Yes,” he nodded with more enthusiasm,
“in that depiction they were blue.”
“That’s false.” She shook her head.
“Christian painters always paint her with blue eyes. But Mary came from good Jewish stock, and her eyes were as black
as sin. It was her bastard son
Jesus—the spawn of Gentiles—who had blue eyes.”
Stroking his Nazarene beard in mock
humiliation at this obvious perversion of the Biblical truth, Adam caught
himself laughing at this sacrilege.
Only yesterday he had cringed at such free flowing blasphemy from his
wife. But today, coming from the body
of Mary and mouth of Satan, it was somehow refreshing and desperately
amusing. In one short paragraph imprinted
forever on his thoughts, this softly smiling creature had officially rebuked
his entire education in the church. Her
saintly face, in matter-of-fact directness, had undermined his last threads of
faith. The Immaculate Conception had
been degraded to whoredom, the resulting Savior bastardized, and the Holy
Trinity therefore degraded to human perversity.
Satan was in charge of his life. With her sex established and working for
her, as she promised, she had evolved from a blackmailer and tempter to an
enchantress. Now they were partners, if
not yet friends.
After coaxing him softly to snuggle up
to her, she began using the ultimate lure upon him: sex. The taint of the evening’s horror, which had
followed him up to this very moment, had seemed to disappear almost completely. As a passing nightmare, the spectrum of
degenerates that were used to persuade, extort, and shock him into submission
vanished from his thoughts. The
counterfeit Virgin Mary, his new master, became a goddess for him now, offering
him her secret garden. He became a
neophyte, exploring her forbidden fruit.
Together they began a session of erotic pleasure that lasted long into
the morning. Together they locked in
unholy communion, consummating their bond at last.
When it was over, all his aching
joints and stricken muscles were suddenly consumed by the last twenty-fours of
fatigue. He remembered one more kiss
from her boiling lips, and he felt her stroking him feverishly as his body
lifted weightlessly into somnolence and then into a deep, untroubled sleep.
While he slept, Mary, Queen of Hell, continued to stroke the motionless body of her protégé. Her black pupils burned with unnatural light. She had given herself the power to express feeling toward a mortal man. So a mortal’s warmth left her fingertips and a smile broke her trembling lips…. He had finally submitted: the love offering had been made. She had won her first earthly battle against God.
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