Sloth

by Hildred Billings

  The deity rubbed her eyes again, straining against her dress. Well, she was certainly hot. Beautiful, really. Yet there wasn’t much excitement in having sex with a sleeping creature. Sure, some people were into that… but at that point, Mercy needed a woman who would be a wildcat with her. For the umpteenth time since this whole debacle started, Mercy wished Lust would return to her. Now there was a woman who knew how to have sex for a long time! Mercy had twelve hours to spare before going back to work, since she wasn’t allowed to parade into the office two hours early again. Last time that happened, Rashid got so angry at her. Arnold, her boss, passive-aggressively told her it made everyone look bad – and supposedly made Lucia work twice-as-hard to keep up with her appointments. How was this Mercy’s fault?

  “I’m not implying that you’re not sexually attractive…” Mercy felt like Rashid, stalling anger when it was righteously applied. She eased Sloth away from her. Soft hair draped across her arms, inciting the lust inside of her. Maybe she and Sloth could get a quickie out of the way. “But I’m not sure how this will work. You keep falling asleep, and I’m not really into molesting women. Don’t know what you’ve heard about me from your sisters, but that’s definitely true, all right? I don’t care if they consent to it first. Know what I mean? Maybe we should wait until you’re rested.” Like in the morning, after Mercy cleaned her house and mowed the lawn at dawn. Her neighbors loved that. Every day that week thus far!

  “Oh, that would be impossible,” Sloth said with a yawn. “I’ve never been rested. I merely come in and out of consciousness.”

  “Wonderful. I bet you’re great at parties. Have a lot of friends?”

  “We would not have relations,” great, she was the type of woman who said relations, “in this physical realm.”

  Mercy pulled back. “What in the world does that mean?”

  “What do you think it means? We shall converse in the dream world.”

  Not a second went by before Mercy burst out laughing.

  “The dream world? Oh, honey.”

  “Why is that so funny? I am quite serious. As I am made, I cannot have sex or give your gift when we are in the mortal realm. We must go to another, one in which I am most prepared to give you what you are lacking.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that I’ll have a sex dream with you, huh?”

  “Not quite, but close. We will dream together. It will be real, but not in this realm.”

  “You keep saying that. I’m not sure we’re on the same page about what it means.”

  “Do you trust me?” Sloth asked.

  Mercy scrunched her nose up, as if she were asked if they should get married. “Honey, I just met you. I trust you as much as I trusted your sister two weeks ago when she broke into my house and stole my shit.”

  Sloth batted her sleepy eyelashes. Was this flirtation? “That was most unfortunate. If you haven’t noticed, though, we’re a little bit like our namesakes.”

  “I’ve noticed well. You’re also nymphomaniacs.”

  “In this state and in this mortal realm, I am not so much. I don’t care to think about sex when I am so sleepy.”

  “I never would have guessed. You’re barely coming on to me now.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Not really.”

  Sloth caressed Mercy’s cheek. “Perhaps you will like it somewhere else. Somewhere lovelier. Dreamier.”

  Mercy’s hair stood on end. “What in the world are you talking about? I really don’t want to leave my house.” There was too much to do there!

  “You don’t have to leave it at all.”

  “What?”

  Sloth leaned forward and kissed Mercy. Soon, she no longer knew what it meant to be lucid.

  —-

  Acedia traipsed the dreamscape that looked like so many others. Every woman has a different dream. Some are darker than others. Mercy’s dreamscape was awash in shadow and muted colors. A wide variety of colors, but muted, as if someone had run her whole world through an unflattering filter. Acedia could only illuminate so much in a dreamworld, let alone one she had little control over in her current splintered state. Yet she glowed enough to see beyond her own incorporeal hand.

  She saw well enough to find Mercy in the pit of darkness swarming the depths of her mind. At least this darkness is no cause for concern. Most humans saw that sweet darkness of nothing as they slept. It was when there were riotous bursts of colors and loud, deafening noises that concern grew. Acedia had been in those dreamscapes as well. She had fought back imaginative monsters and inner phobias to get to the woman she sought.

  Every few seconds, one of those smoky colors conspired to form into an image. Acedia stepped lightly around them as she searched for Mercy’s figure in the distance. Whenever a hand sighed against her leg, Acedia shook it off and pressed forward, her gritting teeth the only thing she felt as she kept her eyes on the faraway prize.

  “Mercy.”

  The figure of Mercy in her dreamlike state slowly crumpled into the fetal position. Acedia knelt beside her, unable to touch her, but nonetheless eager to bring her back to subconsciousness.

  “Mercy. Open your eyes. See me. See the one I have sent to bring you your gift.”

  Yellow smoke wrapped around them. Before her avatar could become one with her again, Acedia pushed through the golden light and hovered precariously close to Mercy’s sleeping face. On the other side of the unconscious woman, Sloth lay graciously beside her, eyes fluttering open.

  “So, what do we do about this?” Acedia’s avatar asked her.

  This was one of the few occasions when Acedia could look one of her sinners in the eye and converse. Sloth brought with her the power of dreams, and that meant Acedia could both exist in the mortal world and this strange space that was neither real nor fictitious. Usually, speaking with her own avatars required a level of energy that simply did not exist. Mostly because she was her own avatar.

  Acedia could both peer through her own eyes and gaze through Sloth’s. It was how they both knew Mercy’s most intimate secrets, fears, and desires. It’s how I know what it’s like to make love to her. If Acedia were falling in love with Mercy before this began, she was a goner now. Between Lust’s seduction of a broken woman and Avarice’s playful spirit, it was only a matter of time before Acedia threatened the delicate balance between helpful and dangerous.

  I must maintain my decorum. Last time… remember what happened last time?

  Sloth shook her head. “Don’t,” she chastised, echoing the very thing Acedia was about to say next.

  “I know.” An argument with herself? Wouldn’t be the first time it happened. “Promise me it will be different this time. This time, we will save her.”

  Sloth lowered her face toward Mercy’s, but refrained from giving her Prince Charming’s kiss. “Have I ever failed you?”

  “Not you, no…” There were different avatars Acedia could blame. The first four were champions of winning a woman over from the darkness. Lust. Avarice. Sloth. Even Envy didn’t bring too much discord to a woman already on the precipice of succumbing to demonic energy. It was the final three, the ones who were not-so-much cherries on the sinful sundae but chaotic thoughts that sometimes sent a target over the edge. Wrath. Gluttony. Vanity. By themselves they were destructive enough, but when combined with the other sins to inhabit a woman’s body… That was the greatest threat. If Acedia weren’t careful, she could lose Mercy to too much.

  “Then you know she’s in good hands. They’re your hands, anyway, aren’t they?”

  “I suppose they are.”

  Sloth’s smirk reminded Acedia of what she always felt inside whenever she looked at someone like Mercy. Being around mortals for so long had taught Acedia about the project. The fixer upper. Companions who came from a background of intense pain and grief. It was up to Acedia to save them. Yet if she put too much of herself in them, women like Mercy were only more endangered.

  What was her endgame, anyway, besides savin
g Mercy’s life and spiritual existence?

  It’s too much to ask her to fall in love with me. Sometimes, that happened, but not often. The few times Acedia decided to join her new beloved for the rest of a natural life, it happened organically. Or she took the chance that she might be loved if she took the plunge. Had Acedia’s heart been broken before? Yes. Would it be broken again?

  She didn’t know if she could handle it. Divine beings had their limits, too.

  “Trust in me,” Sloth said. “Trust in yourself.”

  Acedia lay beside Mercy, feeling her hot, metered breath as it slowly filled the dreamscape. Soon, Mercy would awake to a world that was neither beyond her body nor within her head. Sloth would be there. Not Acedia. They could not stand before Mercy at the same time. To attempt it was to tempt fate, a being that dwelled well beyond Acedia’s reach.

  “Promise me that you will love her,” she said to Sloth, “and that she might love you a little bit, too.”

  “All I can promise is that after I return to you, she will sleep soundly for the first time in months.”

  “I suppose it’s all I can ask for.” Acedia closed her eyes. Although she did not open them again, she felt Mercy and Sloth slowly slip away from her. It was time for Acedia to sleep. Soon, everything she saw, felt, and tasted would be through the filter of a golden goddess who brought the kiss of endless sleep.

  It was worth it to join Mercy in her dreams.

  3

  Mercy expected a generic kiss from Sloth, whose peck was like a breath of fresh air against the lips. It’s more chaste and sultrier… Certainly not what Mercy expected from the current parade of deities coming through her life to fuck her. Except such notions were what she conceived before noticing the strange scent infiltrating her nostrils, the golden wafts rising in the air, and that knowing look in Sloth’s eyes that said, “You have no idea what you’re getting into.”

  Before Mercy could open her mouth to respond, she fell backward – or, perhaps, forward. Hard to tell with the world spinning like a cyclone.

  Light flickered. Space collided. Mercy fell into a deep and dark abyss, the Heavens opening above her. Her body entered the languid state where her limbs transformed into gelatin and her mind turned thick with fantasy. What is happening to me? Deeper, deeper she fell, the storm spinning above her, full of constellations depicting the sensual arts of the Kama Sutra. Colors exploded in a riot of sunshine, foliage, and the flower petals of a warm spring day blanketing Mercy’s body. What is happening to me? Nobody would answer her. Not even the voracious laughter of a young woman somewhere far off in the distance.

  The world was still spinning when Mercy touched ground again. Finally free from nausea, she opened her eyes and wondered where the hell she was.

  A meadow spread before her, lush with green and life. Soft, too, as she rolled in her work clothes, never mindful of the stains she would doubtlessly spend the whole weekend frantically cleaning. Mercy lay on her back and looked into the cloudless blue sky. A warm breeze tickled her skin as she stared at the strange scenery around her. Everything was delightfully real – yet something nagged at her, begging her to reconsider what she saw.

  “Where am I?” Mercy sat up, slowly, for her body was not forthcoming with movement. Her limbs moved through molasses. Her eyelashes were bogged with debris. Her toes wiggled, but her fingers refused to respond to her mental commands. Soon, her heart wouldn’t know how to beat any longer. For some reason, that prospect didn’t frighten Mercy, who welcomed her sleeping death if it meant spending the rest of eternity in a place constructed by her own mind.

  A voice whispered into her ear. “It’s so real, isn’t it?”

  With Lust and Avarice, Mercy was instantly aware of their powers, specifically when they made love and infused her with budding sin. Yet this was her first time seeing such power from a single deity. Sloth stood beside her, the skirt of her golden dress flowing in the breeze and her hair tangling across her shoulders. She laughed, an action requiring far too much energy for someone as sleepy as her.

  “Where are we?” Mercy asked.

  “Where?” Sloth opened her arms wide, welcoming the world into her embrace. “This is not a ‘where,’ Mercy. This is a place in your mind. This is our shared dream.”

  “No way is this a dream.” Mercy uprooted grass from the ground and smell the dirt in its roots. “No way.”

  “Believe it. With a snap of my fingers, I can take us elsewhere. I always love a flowery, secluded field, though.” Sloth lowered herself to the ground and nuzzled against Mercy. “So much lovelier for making love. Shall we begin?” She caressed Mercy’s chest, taunting her through blouse and jacket.

  “Hold on a second.” Mercy managed to get out of Sloth’s hold before she could incite the lust burning inside them both. “You mean that you’re going to sin me through a… sex dream?”

  Another breeze perked up, this time chilling Mercy. Sloth said, “Does this sort of environment not please you? Perhaps you can meet me somewhere else, then. Somewhere more intimate for a prudish mortal such as yourself?”

  She snapped her fingers and disappeared.

  “Come find me, Mercy.” That voice was in Mercy’s ears again, but she could not find the woman toying with her in her dreams. “Keep moving forward. I’ll be on the other side.”

  What did that mean? How did one move forward in a landscape completely fabricated in their own head? This is a dream, right? Mercy pinched herself. Sure enough, she felt a twinge of pain that radiated through her arm. This definitely isn’t real, though. When she looked before her, she was greeted with a fog rolling through the dreamscape. Just go forward, huh? Mercy took one tentative step forward, worried that she would sink into the morass of her subconscious if she put too much weight in her foot. She didn’t know the rules here. She could barely understand what was happening!

  “Sloth?” she called through the fog. “Is anyone there? Sloth?” That was the strangest word she had ever repeatedly called in her life. Before, Mercy would have snickered to think of a woman with such an unfortunate name. Now? She would pay top dollar to see the woman in a gold dress. I’ll never make fun of their names again. I’ll do whatever it takes to get out of this!

  So she stepped forward. Always forward. Never moving left – never right. Then again, Mercy couldn’t tell anyone exactly what direction she was moving. Putting one foot in front of the other didn’t mean she was making progress. All it meant was that she was moving.

  Somewhere.

  “Sloth?” Her voice was weaker. So were her steps. Mercy wrapped her arms around her torso and proceeded onward, albeit her shoulders shuddered and her energy drained the moment she saw a familiar figure in the fog.

  Mercy stopped where she stood. Before her, sitting at her childhood kitchen table with a cigarette between the fingers, was her mother.

  Mercy hadn’t seen her mother in years. Not since long before Marissa, when Dina Devereux made it clear that there was no room in her life for someone like Mercy. Any triumph, any pain Mercy had experienced since then was lost to the ether. She had long learned to not spare any energy for her mother.

  “Mom…” Mercy stood a few feet away. Although she knew the woman before her was nothing more than a vision, she couldn’t help but feel her mother’s presence. The way Dina looked at her, with hardly a sliver of interest for the very soul she gave birth to nearly forty years ago, was so real. She used to look at Mercy like that every time there was big news. “I got a 4.0. I won the spelling bee. I got into my college of choice. I’m president of my club. I got that internship. I’m in love…”

  Dina didn’t care for her daughter’s love. Not who she loved, and certainly not any love for Dina. Theirs was a biological contract. Mercy had no say about being born, so Dina did the bare minimum to provide until her daughter turned eighteen. Mercy had essentially been on her own since then. That’s what happens when you have a baby you didn’t want. Mercy had known that from the beginning. The only reason
her parents got married – and the only reason she was born – was because of their religion’s pressure. If Dina wanted to stay in her family’s good graces, she would marry the man she fooled around with, and have the baby. Mercy wasn’t named by her own mother. She was named at the hospital by her grandmother, a woman who prayed by the maternity ward that the little girl born to such filth and sin would one day grow up to become a vessel of mercy.

  No wonder Dina barely looked at her. Let alone like that.

  “Mom, I…” Why was Mercy bothering? She knew this wasn’t real. Her mother was a figment of the imagination – a ghost sitting at the table surrounded by fog. Cigarette smoke tickled Mercy’s nose but that, too, wasn’t real. Nothing was. Nothing but the anxiety touching her heart. “What are you doing here?”

  Dina tapped her ashes atop the table. Mercy came closer. The ash hadn’t fallen into a neat pile. It spelled a word. One small enough that Mercy had to squint to see with her mind’s eye.

  “Forgive.”

  Dina continued to stare at her daughter, cigarette touching her lips and smoke coiling into the air. Her gaunt figure spoke of years beneath the onus of expectations and stress. An unhappy marriage. An unwanted child. The crushing weight of an extended family that told her to find the answers in a religion none of them really believed in but were too afraid to reject. Dina hung up pictures of the Lamb, but she didn’t pray as often as Mercy’s grandmother. Not unless Grandma had come over for dinner on a meatless Friday night. Fish and mac and cheese. For some reason, Mercy remembered the day when she discovered fish was meat more than she remembered her own twenty-first birthday.

  “You’re a mess,” Dina croaked. “The least you could do is conduct yourself well if you insist on being a queer.”

  Mercy’s posture slumped. Not even in her dreams could she interact with her mother and not have it be toxic sludge.