“She couldn’t come,” Joby said, unnerved by the calculating smile this elicited.
“Ah, so you’re lonely,” Seth commiserated. “Loneliness can make you wise, you know. Wiser than those morons downstairs.”
“Yeah,” one of the girls concurred mournfully.
“Wise and free,” Seth said. The others all nodded gravely, as he took another hit off his joint. “It’s the things we love that destroy us in the end,” he grunted, holding in the smoke.
“That is soooo true,” gushed one of the girls.
Joby’s head felt strange. He suspected it was the smoke, and decided to brave the downstairs crowd again after all. “I’m kind of thirsty,” he said, standing up. He looked sheepishly at his slacks. “I didn’t get much of that first drink. I guess I’ll go try again.” He stepped across the bunch of them, and started down the stairs.
The music had gotten loud and fast again, and everyone was hurling about in some kind of mad slamming dance. Joby was trying to find Jamie in the crowd when someone ran into him from behind and sent him flying onto an end table beside the couch. The lamp sitting on it crashed to the floor in a burst of broken glass and laughter from all around him. Joby sat up to find the tall skinhead who’d run into him still gyrating to the music and leering at his half-drunken partner as if nothing had happened. Feeling honor bound to apologize for the lamp before he left, Joby got carefully to his feet to continue his search for Jamie. That’s when he saw her.
Her sequined, knee-length dress seemed to catch all the light in the room, as if she were a bright silver fish darting through a fetid pool. She glanced at him suddenly, as if aware of his attention despite the chaotic crowd between them.
Forgetting to look where he was walking, he ran straight into someone large, and found himself belly to belly with Bobby Boggs, a senior lineman on the football team.
“What’er you, a faggot?!” the beefy giant bellowed. Then he recognized Joby, and laughed. “Joby Peterson! At a party? Didja wander in here lookin’ fer a gay bar, ya little squid?”
The music stopped abruptly as Bobby shoved Joby roughly away and opened his mouth to humiliate him some more. But, suddenly, the angel in silver sequins was standing between them, frowning up at Boggs.
“We haven’t met,” she coyly told Bobby, “but I thought someone ought to tell you that you smell.”
Bobby leered down at her, beginning to smile. “Maybe I should take a shower then. You wanna help?”
“I don’t think a shower will do it,” the girl said, wrinkling her nose. “What is that, rotten hamburger?”
Suddenly, Joby smelled it too. From the gasps and rude exclamations around them, it seemed that everyone had noticed. Even Bobby’s face crinkled in distaste, then he looked surprised and, without seeming to think, raised an arm and sniffed his own armpit.
“What the fuck?” he said, looking up in shocked mortification.
“You know,” cooed the sparkling girl, “I’d stay on ice if that’s how you smell when you heat up.” To Joby’s amazement, she turned briefly and flashed him a conspiratorial smile, then looked back up at Bobby and said with sexy ease, “By the way, Joby and I go way back, and I can assure you that he’s no faggot.”
Though stunned, Joby had the sense to keep quiet.
For one strange, long moment, the silver girl just stared up into Bobby’s eyes as his expression shifted from anger, to bewilderment, to plainly visible fear. Then he shoved his way through the crowd and out the front door as if he’d seen a ghost. Except for a few quiet objections to the smell of Bobby’s passing, the room remained eerily silent until the girl smiled again, and said, “Come on, Joby. Why don’t you get me a drink?” She tucked her arm under one of his and led him off, still speechless, while the music came back on and the dancing resumed.
When they got to the kitchen, Joby turned and said, “Who are you, and—and why did you—”
“I gather from our departed friend, the jerk,” she cut him off, “that you’re Joby Peterson.” She flashed him another of her devastating smiles and reached out to shake his hand. “I’m Allaystra Bennit.”
Joby was overwhelmed by her sheer beauty. Her large, liquid eyes were the color of perodite. Her thick, silky brown hair fell like a feathered veil around her face and throat. Her skin was flawless and pale, her lips full and dark, the shape of her under that dress was like a smooth ride over rolling country in a fine car. As he took her hand, he had trouble speaking. “Thank you,” he managed. “I . . . I owe you.”
Her smile widened, and Joby realized two things at once. The first was that he felt strange all over. His skin seemed to burn, and there was a pleasant, tingling pressure building underneath his nearly dry soda stains. The second was that he would die of humiliation if she noticed.
“Well, thanks,” he said again. “Really! I’m sure you’ve got people to see though, so I’ll . . . I’ll just go now, but I sure do appreciate—”
“Wait a minute.” She frowned. “Don’t I even get to meet the guy I just rescued?”
“Well . . . well, sure,” Joby stammered, “I didn’t mean . . . I’ll get you something to drink first, okay?” He turned away quickly, hoping to get himself under control down there before she noticed. That’s when he saw Lindwald already at the beverage counter, and wondered how long he’d been there. “What would you like?” Joby asked Allaystra as he moved toward the liquor supply.
“Just soda,” she said. “I’m not much of a drinker.”
Relieved, Joby moved in next to Jamie to grab another 7 Up.
“Way to go, Joby,” Jamie whispered. “Yer ship’s finally comin’ in, eh?”
“What are you talking about?” Joby whispered back.
“Come on.” Jamie grinned and said under his breath, “She wants you, dude! And I saw you puttin’ up that little pup tent.” He nodded unobtrusively at Joby’s crotch. “It’s nice to see they’re wrong!”
“What? Who?”
“All those dickheads who say you’re queer.” Jamie grinned. “This’ll shut ’em up.” He nudged Joby’s shoulder. “Go for it, stud.” He left with a drink in each hand before Joby could close his mouth. Happily, Joby’s other difficulty seemed to have settled down, so he went back to Allaystra with her drink.
“Thanks,” she said, lifting the cup to her lips without taking her eyes from Joby’s. “There must be somewhere in this house where we can hear ourselves think. Why don’t we go talk, okay?” She smiled down at her sleek silver dress. “I’m not really dressed for slam-dancing anyway.”
Under control or not, Joby still felt terribly self-conscious, but she had saved his butt, and he wasn’t about to be rude. “Okay,” he said. “Wanna go outside?”
“Not so much,” she said, wrinkling her pretty nose. “It’s hard to make intelligent conversation with people puking in the bushes all around you. I’m sure it’ll be quieter upstairs.”
Joby had no argument to counter that, so he followed her through the crowd of dancers, who parted very courteously this time, and up the stairs past Seth and his poetry circle, in the midst of a decidedly more erotic poem, and finally found themselves in a nondescript bedroom where Allaystra closed the door behind them—against the noise, she said.
She sat on the bed and waved Joby down beside her. Joby tried to sit at the other end of the mattress, but Allaystra simply scooted up to join him. His palms were sweating, his skin was tingling, and he didn’t know what he’d do if . . . if things started getting out of control again, but to his relief, Allaystra simply began to talk. She asked where Joby lived, how he knew Jamie, what his interests were. She asked about his views, and expressed her own on an amazing variety of subjects, and Joby soon realized that this girl wasn’t just beautiful, she was really smart! He became so absorbed in their conversation, that he didn’t notice how close she’d come until she put her hand on his chest as he was telling her about his secret desire to talk with animals.
“Joby Peterson,” she crooned, “I’ve
never met anyone so intelligent and, well, deep, I guess, at one of Jamie’s parties.” She leaned in even closer, and Joby noticed her perfume, too subtle to be detected from more than a few inches away. It was so lovely that his first instinct was to lean in farther just to get a fuller breath of it. “In fact,” she sighed, “I don’t think I’ve met anyone like you ever.” Her fingers slipped between his shirt buttons to touch his bare skin.
He was as astonished by the swiftness of his body’s response as by its intensity. Hard in an instant, the desire to press himself against her went through him like a shout. One corner of his mind screamed back that this was sin, but as she began to undo the buttons on his shirt, the fear of betraying all he most believed in strained in stalemate with his body’s agonizing desire to capitulate. Then, something turned within him, and he stood, not caring what she saw, only desperate to leave before he lost all control.
“Joby?” she breathed, reaching for his hand.
He could not remember leaving the room, nor fleeing down the stairs past Seth, as he must have done. He vaguely noticed laughter as he bolted through the front door, fumbled in the near dark with the lock on his bike, and ran with it out into the street. Only after a car screeched around him, blaring its horn in protest, did Joby come fully to his senses. He mounted his bike and rode away as fast as he could, his body still burning with the need for release, resigned to the certainty that he had narrowly escaped one sin only to embrace another when he got home. He could only hope that God would understand.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” the boy’s voice came mournfully from beyond the screen. “It’s been three weeks since my last confession.”
Though a pretense of anonymity was germane to the sacrament, Father Richter could hardly fail to recognize Joby’s voice, any more than Joby would fail to know his.
Hearing the boy’s account of the previous evening’s excesses, the intensity of his desire to sin, and the remedy to that desire he had been unable to avoid later, the priest’s alarm steadily increased. The angel had emphatically warned him that sexual impurity posed the greatest threat to Joby’s spiritual destiny, and thus to Father Richter’s own ambitions as well. He had worked too hard and brought Joby too far toward holiness to see it all undone now by mundane adolescent urges.
“My son,” Father Richter said, steeling himself for greater severity than he had ever shown Joby before, “I must be clear. The wages of sin is death. Our Lord taught that it would be better to sacrifice any part of our bodies and enter Heaven crippled, than to be cast whole into the fires of Hell. Is any passing pleasure really worth the loss of your soul? God called Abraham to sacrifice his own son. Next to that, how difficult is the small sacrifice of flesh that God asks of you?”
Of course, God had spared Abraham that sacrifice at the last moment, but Father Richter had no intention of weakening the boy’s resolve by including that point. Given the raging storm of hormones any boy of Joby’s age endured, it was unlikely enough that Joby’s virginity would last much longer. Why give the devil any extra help?
“You say this young temptress was a stranger?” Richter asked.
“Yes,” Joby whispered.
The anguish in that whisper nearly broke Richter’s heart, but he knew there was no room for sentiment here and asked God for strength. “Have you a girlfriend?” he asked, knowing the answer, of course. “Someone you truly care about?”
“Yes,” Joby murmured forlornly.
“Do you realize,” Father Richter pressed, “that it was not merely God you wished to betray last night, but this girl you love, as well?”
There was an even longer silence. “Yes,” Joby said at last, sounding on the edge of tears.
“It is good that you do,” Father Richter said, suddenly feeling terribly weary. “Have you other sins to confess?”
“No, Father,” Joby murmured.
“Then I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” Father Richter said. “For your penance, I want you to prove your worthiness of God’s love by devoting yourself to loving the girlfriend you speak of without any lust whatsoever, and valuing her spiritual welfare as well as your own at all times, lest you subject her to an ordeal like that which you, yourself, have suffered. Do you understand me, my son?”
“Yes, Father,” Joby said with audible resolve. “I will never be unworthy of God or her again. . . . I promise.”
“Then go with God’s forgiveness, and sin no more,” Father Richter said, and slid the panel shut between them.
10
( Too Late )
As they walked, hand in hand, toward her front door, Laura smiled at Joby and leaned up to kiss his cheek, eliciting a smile twin to her own. The evening had been everything she’d hoped her senior prom might be. She’d been the envy of every girl there, dancing in the arms of their class valedictorian, so tall and handsome in his black satin tux. During their senior year Joby had finally become taller and better looking than Laura thought Kevin Branscom had any hope of being. Seeing even her lascivious friend, Karen Tyler, cast covetous glances at Joby that evening, Laura had barely restrained herself from drifting over to murmur, “Not bad—for a twelve-year-old—is he, dahling!”
As it happened, Laura’s parents were gone for the entire week. By some miracle, they’d won a cruise trip in some contest they couldn’t even recall entering. With the house all to herself, Laura had decided earlier that evening that the time had come to do Joby, and herself, one last, huge favor before graduation forced them to part.
For two years now, Joby had been sweeter and more sensitive than any boy she’d ever known, even Benjamin. He’d carved tremendous amounts of time from his frenetic schedule to spend with her. He had always listened when she wanted to talk, seeming both to care and understand. He was always surprising her with small insights, little gifts, and kind gestures. He had become a very good dancer, once she’d convinced him to try. And yet, there was still a part of him Laura had never gotten within shouting distance of.
From the very beginning, Joby had kept everything between them so terribly chaste. He kissed her often, but only as storybook princes kissed; lips warm and soft but barely open; embracing her with grace but never real passion. As he’d grown taller and more beautiful, she had hoped this would change, but it never had, though the passion missing in his kisses was more than evident in his eyes and voice. In the fall, Laura would leave for Brown in Rhode Island, while Joby went to Berkeley. But Laura had grown more determined than ever to have him completely, if briefly, at least once before she had to let him go.
At the door, she turned, and Joby kissed her as sweetly, and as inaccessibly, as ever.
“It was wonderful, Joby,” she said when he leaned away. “I wish it wouldn’t end.” She smiled plaintively, taking his hands in her own. “I’m not ready for it to end yet. Come in and keep me company for a while. . . . Please?”
Kallaystra stood gazing down on the pretty couple, sleeping peacefully in each other’s arms, naked but for the girl’s covers wound about them. In one way at least, the unfortunate girl was not deluded: Joby really had become a very beautiful young man. Looking at him now, Kallaystra even felt some small regret at having failed to seduce him herself at that party two years earlier.
Steering the girl through this seduction had been child’s play. It was never difficult to compel such creatures toward what they so deeply wanted to begin with, though the child might recall some of her tactics this evening with great discomfort in the morning. Winning past the boy’s defenses, however, had required a subtle skill and surgical precision that left Kallaystra once again in awe of Malcephalon’s abilities.
Her part in this finished, Kallaystra took one last appreciative look at Joby, and murmured, “I hope you enjoyed your meal, pretty lad.” She glanced at Malcephalon, looming in the shadows beyond their bed, and quipped, “Here comes your waiter with the check.”
Joby woke in darkness without opening
his eyes, still clinging to the most deliciously sinful dream he’d ever had. Thankful that God didn’t hold him accountable for dreams, he opened his eyes and began to stretch. As the muzzy confusion of sleep suddenly receded, however, two things became apparent. He was in a room he did not recognize, and he was naked, though he never slept naked.
With a jolt, he sat up and turned to find Laura lying beside him, as naked as he.
Oh God! he thought, immobilized by shock. What have I—How could we—
His mind raced backward, scrambling for explanations, but everything was fuzzy and disjointed. For an instant, he even wondered if Laura had slipped him something somehow, then shoved the idea furiously away. Slowly, it all started coming back. There had been . . . an argument, about why he wouldn’t ever touch her, why he wouldn’t even look at her as she . . . as she had let her dress slide to the floor.
He shook his head in denial.
“You think I’m ugly, don’t you,” she had wept. “You must despise me!”
She couldn’t have done that. She would never have . . .
He half-remembered his own urgent denials, his attempts to explain, his need to stop her tears, to comfort her, to hold her, the warmth of her through his clothing, the dampness of her tears on his face and neck as she clung to him. The elusive sense of manhood he had always longed for and never found within himself; the chance to be everything he’d ever seen in Benjamin; an answer to his father’s shame; an end to the terrible gaping hole that had haunted his wounded, empty heart for so many years; every physical pleasure Joby had ever denied himself and hungered for; all this had suddenly been his—to seize or lose forever.
Despite the darkness, Joby covered his eyes, desperate to avert the memories even as he felt himself stiffening with new desire. Shame and dread leapt up inside him with explosive intensity. He had used Laura terribly, betrayed her love completely, broken every vow he’d ever made to God, ignored every warning Father Richter had ever given him! Yet, on the very heels of such horrendous treason, he ached to wake Laura and do it all again!
The Book of Joby Page 22
