Maybe, I said, not exactly a lie. I imagine it depends on your talents, where you can make yourself useful. What can you do?
She appeared to consider this for a moment. I can write. My style is slightly sarcastic, but Im sharp and literate.
We have no use for writing.
So Im in hell after all, she said glumly. No books?
What would we read? Weve lived millennia. What about your wives? I have no wives.
I dont mean you specifically, I mean all the women here. Sarah and the others. Dont they want to read? Or do you guys give them such a fulfilling life, trapped here in the mist, that they dont need any kind of escape?
If they wanted to escape, they wouldnt be here, I said in the voice I used to shut down arguments.
I should have known it wouldnt do any good. She didnt seem to realize that was what my voice signified. Im not talking about physical escape, she argued. Just those times when you want to curl up in bed and read about crazy make-believe worlds. About pirates and aliens and vampires . . . Her voice trailed off beneath my steady gaze.
What else can you do?
She sighed. Not much. Im useless at Excel. I type fast, but I gather you dont have computers here. For a moment she looked horrified as she understood everything that meant. No Internet, she said in a voice of doom. How am I going to live?
Youre not alive.
Thanks for reminding me, she said grimly. So clearly you dont need Excel. Lets seeIm a demon at trivia, particularly when it comes to old movies.
Im actually quite a wonderful cook. I kill plants, so Id be no good in a garden. Maybe you could find me some commune-type thing? Without the Kool-Aid.
I remembered Jonestown far too well. You dont need the Kool-Aid, youre already dead, I said.
Lovely, she said sarcastically. So do I get married? Have kids? For Gods sake, at least have sex again?
Again? It always managed to startle me, the way women of the current times simply gave their bodies when and where they wished. Two thousand years ago they would have been stoned to death. A hundred years ago they would have been outcasts. The human women who came to Sheol had been the same over the ages. They had never known anyone but their bonded mates. Azazel had seen Sarah when she was a child and known she was going to be his, and hed watched over her, keeping her safe, until she was old enough to be his bride. The same was true for all the others.
She was looking at me, clearly annoyed. Yes, again, she said. Women have sex, you know. They find a man, or a woman if they prefer, and if theyre attractive and theres no reason not to, they have sex. Are you totally unconnected with modern reality?
I know people have indiscriminate sex, I said irritably, feeling foolish. I didnt like the idea of her with another man. I wasnt about to consider why; I just didnt. And I should have known youd be one of them.
Yes, Im the Whore of Babylon.
Not even close, I drawled.
Oh, Jesus, she said. Are you always so literal?
What other choice is there?
She was fuming. This was goodI
was annoying her as much as she annoyed me. I could keep this up for a while without any difficulty. We struck sparks off each other.
I decided to sum things up. All right, weve decided you can cook, which might be a valuable skill elsewhere. Anything else?
She looked at me as if considering something, and I had no intention of trying to divine what. That brief glimpse of her sex fantasies had been disturbing enough. And then she smiled, a slow, wicked smile. You dont want to know, she said in a lazy, totally sensuous drawl.
This was a waste of time. In a short while the Council would convene, and they would decide what would happen to her. I could argue, but in the end there wasnt much I could do to save her. I knew what their decision would be.
It shouldnt bother me. But it did. And the sooner I got away from her, the easier it would be.
Youre right, I said. And I ran.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IWAS ALONE AGAIN IN THE STARK white apartment. The relief mingled with anxietyit was easier being alone. I knew Id basically driven him away; all I had to do was mention sex and he ran like a terrified virgin. Though if anyone was a virgin around here, it was me.
No, not literally. Id had tons of lovers. Well, four, but you couldnt really count Charlie, who had performance issues, and the one-night stand with whats-his-name was more the result of too many cosmopolitans and a fit of self-pity. It hadnt been a pretty sight.
Still, two relatively decent relationships hardly made me a virgin. But compared to Raziels thousands of years of sex and marriage, I most assuredly came up short. So how dared he have that Youve had sex attitude? Typical of this patriarchal place, but I had no intention of putting up with it.
At least sex was a weapon I could use when I was feeling far too defenseless. I could get rid of Raziel simply by envisioning having sex with him, and he wouldnt linger to see the truth behind the erotic fantasy, see just how pathetic a lover I really was. Not that it matteredI was getting the feeling that I was looking on an eternity of celibacy, just like Raziel. Except in my case, it wouldnt be by choice.