by Aya DeAniege
I chewed for a while, nodding gently as it seemed to dawn on me. Pausing as I chewed, I frowned at Grace, whose eyebrows rose. Then I shook my head. She did the same.
“That’s not possible,” I said.
“I’ve only slept with him,” she said.
“That’s why it’s not possible,” I said. “I know you wouldn’t cheat.”
“But… what if…”
“Don’t say it, it’s not possible and not good to get your hopes up.”
“I’m pregnant?”
Sera arrived just before noon. I greeted her at the front hall with a kiss on her cheek. It was a gentlemanly thing to do. We had agreed over text that we would do a proper date, which was why I almost brought her a handful of flowers.
I knew men did that, brought flowers for a woman they liked, but I wasn’t sure why. I also always heard them compare their women to the flowers, which I always thought was foolish because the flowers would wilt and die, their beauty a fleeting thing in the world. Once the beauty was gone, the flowers were thrown out, and to my thought, that was like telling a woman that when her youth faded, she would be cast to the curb.
I didn’t get her flowers, and when I had mentioned getting her jewelry instead, because the beauty and value of that would last a great deal longer, I had been told to do that only if I wanted to scare her off.
We went out to the garden, finding our way to the very back corner. It was an area that I was still working on, and no one else ever went to. The basket was an older thing, but I hadn’t realized we needed a new one until I had found the hole in the bottom of it.
Beside the basket, a picnic blanket had been laid out. It too had been old, but thankfully, it had been one of Mary’s things that she cared for because it had pleasant memories. That particular blanket had been part of our last picnic lunch in Britain before we travelled across the sea to the New World and Mary held the memories of that day quite fondly.
She also didn’t like the New World. She thought we should go back to the old, where everyone was a great deal more civilized and knew how to spell all their words.
Sera glanced at the picnic blanket, then over her shoulder at me. There was something in her eyes, but I wasn’t certain what that look was.
She had worn a blouse and fancy pants. I didn’t know what they were called, only that they looked good on her. One would never suspect her of being a stripper when she was dressed in day clothing. Her hair was down and combed out. Straightened, I think it was but otherwise was untouched. She wore nothing more than a lip balm on her lips, and even that had no colour to it.
I didn’t know if she was dressing down to chase me off, or because she knew it would turn me on.
Maybe that’s what she likes to wear.
The third possibility stirred my loins. Nothing, to me, was more beautiful than a woman brave enough to walk the light of the modern world without makeup.
I was against makeup. It was distracting and expensive, and I liked a woman whose lips reddened when she was interested. I had even tried to redirect the humans to cast off the art of painting one’s face for day to day life.
I understood painting one’s face for art or performance, but a woman was not a performance piece. She was a person with a brain and a thought of her own. She should have been taken seriously whether she paid for face paint or not.
Sam said makeup was still a new thing, or at least it being worn so broadly was. He said I would come around to the idea, but I didn’t want to. A woman’s naked face was the closest thing to pleasure I could feel on Earth.
“When you said picnic, you literally meant a picnic?” Sera asked as she settled on the blanket.
Her feet sprawled off the blanket. She kicked off her shoes and let the grass slide between her toes as she rubbed her feet against the ground. She set her hands on the blanket and looked up at me with a little smile.
She looks so comfortable.
I settled on the blanket beside her and looked over the bit of the lawns that we could see from our position.
“What’s wrong with a picnic?” I asked.
Humans rarely slowed down for picnics anymore. Once, we had been invited on picnics and planned them ourselves. They had been a nice way to get out of the house without spending any money because you brought everything with you.
Suddenly it was wrong to have a picnic, and I just didn’t understand the notion.
“Normally picnic is code for sex in a park somewhere,” Sera said with a shrug.
She spoke in a confident manner as if she had been expecting it and thus it would just happen. As if her agreeing to the picnic had been her consenting to sex.
I could never seem to understand why humans didn’t just speak plainly about their desires.
“I meant picnic,” I said, reaching for the basket. “Food and such, you know?”
“So, sex after lunch?” she asked.
“We’ll see how it goes,” I said, my hackles practically rising at the insinuation that we had to have sex.
“I know you all have reputations of being players, but, Michael, if you want to wait, you just have to say so,” Sera said.
Her saying that also raised my hackles. I couldn’t wait if I wanted to keep her. If I wanted to catch Sera’s attention, we had to have sex. She was a very open human and knew what she wanted, what she liked. I couldn’t very well deny her what she liked.
“If I wait, you’ll choose Raphael,” I said.
For a moment, I wondered if this was how human women felt as teenagers when their boyfriends tried to pressure and blackmail them into having sex.
Then I gritted my teeth, realizing what I had just implied. I glared at the bushes off to the side.
Sera reached, slipping her hand up my jaw as she brought my face back. She smiled for just the briefest of seconds, then she patted me and pulled her hand away.
“I’ve yet to agree to be exclusive with either of you.”
“I know that.”
It annoyed me, but I knew that.
A single woman no longer had to hole up in a tower somewhere until a man claimed and married her. That, too, I understood and appreciated. Sera was free to have sex with both of us, never committing to either or marrying either so long as we were also all right with the arrangement.
I would have been fine sharing her, but I wasn’t certain I could share her with him for long.
But I didn’t want to lose her, so I had to try.
Why is keeping her so important?
“I certainly haven’t implied that one of you would entertain me for longer than a week,” Sera said.
I thought about that, but I felt like it was spoken in that secretive code that women had. If Raphael had been there, he’d have known exactly what she meant, but it was just me, an idiot who was worth little more than how quickly he could make a woman come.
Sera didn’t make me feel like that. She made me feel like she looked at me and truly saw me. Not just the person that the others saw, but saw the real me. The me that no one was comfortable with, the one that even I had trouble dealing with.
And she was saying that one of us wouldn’t entertain her for long.
Was that the code?
“Are you trying to say that we should be a threesome?” I asked. “Why is everyone trying to get me to sleep with him?”
“How about we just focus on us, here in the garden and stop overthinking the future or what might or might not happen if we do or do not have sex?” Sera asked. “If you aren’t ready to have sex, I’m okay with that. I can wait for you. Whether we have sex isn’t going to change what I feel about you. I’m a big girl, I have toys and know how to use them if I feel like I have a problem.”
“I’ve had sex before,” I said.
“She broke your heart?” Sera asked.
“Yes, and stole from me.”
“I’m not sure that should ever count as sex,” Sera said.
“Thanks,” I said. “I think…”
I wasn’t sure whether it was a compliment or not.
“I can wait,” Sera said. “And if I do choose one of you, it’s not going to be because one of you didn’t put out. I’m not some crazy douchebag. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Do you believe in kissing, at least?” Sera asked. “Or are you full on asexual? If you are asexual, I need some kind of open relationship, excluding the choice bit. I just am not comfortable unless I have a cuddle at least once a month.”
“Wow, that’s an awkward conversation topic.”
We hadn’t gotten to the talk of a relationship. If we had, it probably wouldn’t have been on the first date, that was for sure. I had certainly never had a woman tell me that they wanted an open relationship.
“I know.”
“Won’t break up with me if I don’t have sex with you, but will demand an open relationship,” I said. “But asked if kissing was possible.”
She was all over the place like she was trying to talk herself into it or something. I glanced at Sera and wondered if her being all over might have been more sinister if she had been hoping to talk me into a three-way relationship with Raphael, but I immediately dismissed the idea.
I felt like she was the type of woman who would come right out and say it.
“It’s my first time trying to seduce two men into a relationship together, and with me, I’m bound to muck it up.”
Which I was not willing to admit was her trying to get a three-way. She may have just been trying to say that she had never had the attention of two men before. Or any other variation of that.
“What is so attractive about my sleeping with Ralph?” I asked. Then I recalled the name. “With Raphael. Last night Sam suggested getting it out of my system.”
I gave a nervous glance around me, wondering if Lillith had some spell to spy on us. If she knew we used the wrong name, she would do something explosive and disgusting, even in the middle of a picnic with a mortal.
Sera would never know why it happened, just that it did.
“No, no, not with him, with him and me. All together. I have this fantasy of you having him and then you both having me and it’s weird, I know.”
Damage.
She was damaged. Someone had hurt her. Knowing that, I took a mental and emotional step back. The first thing I wanted to do was find out who did it and burn them to the ground. After that, I relaxed into it. The fastest way to get what I wanted was not to fight it. The more I struggled it, the more she would stubbornly cling to that notion, and Raphael would win.
I couldn’t let him win.
Instead, I turned and pulled two glasses and a bottle of red wine. The red always kept better when warm than the white. I handed Sera a glass and opened the wine, then turned and reached with the bottle. She held the glass out to me, and I filled it to the halfway point before filling my glass and wiggling the cork back into the bottle to keep the wine from drawing bugs until I could get it back to the estate.
Or we could drink it all.
“For you, I might consider sex with Raphael,” I said.
I can’t believe I just said that.
“Oh?” Sera asked as if she were walking into a trap.
“Not right now, but maybe one day in the future.”
I responded in a strangled sort of fashion, knowing that I was building a bed that I would probably have to lie in. I wasn’t exactly lying. One day in the far future I might bed down with Raphael after we returned to Heaven.
“Good. I’d love to see you hold him down and him moaning under you, writhing with need.”
Descriptive and right on the tip of her tongue. That spoke of planning and desire. Even if that desire had been spawned of damage, Sera had thought long and hard about it. She looked forward to it and likely knew that men wouldn’t be lined up to fulfill that fantasy of hers.
I made a little sound and sipped my wine.
“Could we not talk about him for the rest of the afternoon?” I asked.
“Sure, it is the one thing we have in common. We… definitely did not discuss anything else last night. I know you like gardening. And I kind of like it. But don’t like bugs.”
Sera was correct. What conversation had happened, had been Sera asking guests how they knew the bride and groom. Then Sera had engaged in conversations about their jobs, their families, or any other tidbit of information they had offered up.
She and I had talked a little about the guests, and then I had watched her work over a few of them like they were marks. It was invigorating to watch her slip into the role so quickly.
“I also watch movies and read sometimes,” I gave my head a little shake, struggling to figure out what to say after that. “Banishing demons?”
Sera giggled, hiding her lips behind the wine in her glass. I watched her sip the wine, surprised that she found that adorable.
“Uh, I wasn’t quite joking,” I said.
“What, you’re an angel?” Sera asked.
Sam had told Grace that early on, and that had worked out. Why couldn’t I try the same?
“Your wings are detailed, way too detailed,” I said.
She seemed to ponder for a moment. “If you’re an angel, then how did you get betrayed? Don’t you just know it all and are all powerful?”
“No,” I said with a shake of my head. “See… Lilly, you met her last night.”
“Yeah, she likes to be called Lillith and punched a guy in the dick for trying to touch her,” Sera said.
“Asexual,” I said. “Also, Sam’s ex. His actual name is Samael.”
“Whoa, I just realized you guys… your names.”
With the shortened names, humans didn’t make the connection. Before that, we had spun a fancy tale about how we had changed our names and such on and so forth. Some rambling monologue about being protectors of humanity and on until the humans stopped asking questions.
For some reason, no human put in a great deal of thought into our names.
“Yes,” I said. “Sam dated Lillith, and he was told to break it off but didn’t want to. He ended up cutting out his heart so that he could try to do what our Father wanted. That created Baal. But if you ask him about it, he tells a really confusing tale about the whole thing. See, we can go back in time and change things, but when we change things, we still remember all the other timelines.”
“So, Sam changed the outcome, but he remembers all the other outcomes too and just settled on the one that led to the least amount of pain for Lillith?”
“I think so,” I said. “After that happened, all kinds went sideways. Sam ended up in Hell, ruling it with Baal, his heart manifested into physical being. While he was down there, I was on Earth, and I was supposed to find Lilly, but I just… I couldn’t do it. I got what he was doing, I got that he loved her and that was a thing. He cared for her as Father cared for the humans, and we had to respect Father’s love for his flawed little beings, so how could I say that what Sam and Lillith had was wrong.”
“You got a little jealous though, didn’t you?”
“Maybe, just a smidge,” I said. “I wanted to know what that felt like. I found among the humans a woman who was considered a remarkable beauty. We talked, and we had just so much in common. I even told her that I was an angel. Things went so well. So very well. And one night while I slept, she stole a feather. I didn’t even know it was gone until I returned to Heaven and the guardians tried to destroy me.”
“Why?”
“Because they could count every feather on an angel, they thought the humans had stolen my wings and gone to Heaven dressed as me. Which is a very real concern. Humans entering Heaven while still alive would be a bad thing.”
“Okay, so you got thrown from Heaven.”
“No, Raphael stopped them. We sorted it all out. Then Gabe said he was going down to save Samael from Hell. He asked me to go with him, but I was too sad to join him. So the dream walker, the guy whose job is literally to sit on clouds and dre
am, that’s it. Smoking pot, basically, that was his job, and I just let him walk into Hell by himself.”
“Gabe as in the black dude that looks like, well, like he’s been through Hell and back?”
“Yes.”
“Then how did you end up down here?”
“I… uh…” I played with my wine glass. “I got thrown out of Heaven.”
“Thrown out?”
“The woman had taken the feather and trimmed the threads off the very end and used it in a spell that changed the world. She took on others like her, creating a coven. Because of me, dark witches walk the world, meaning to take it over and then walk through the gates of Heaven to take over everything.”
“So you got thrown out of Heaven, for that?”
“Yes. Gabe saved Samael, both of who returned to Heaven and were told that they had to get rid of Lillith. Who had never sinned and therefore never died. Or aged. Bitch looks better than we do and we’re angels. They said no, and so the three of them ripped out their graces and left Heaven. But Raphael, well, Heaven still talks to him. He still knows what’s going on up there. He could probably go back and be accepted with open arms.”
“Why did the black dude end up as the angel of dreaming?” Sera asked, her voice getting a little higher.
“We’ve all be black before,” I said. “We can change our skin. Sam is considering forcing me to be a woman because he thinks I’m too comfortable as a man.”
Shit.
I considered my wine glass as I realized what I had just said to Sera. I sipped my wine and turned to her.
She was clearly struggling with what I had just said.
“So, like, Heaven and Hell are real,” Sera said.
“Well, yes.”
I shouldn’t have told her any of that. It was stupid, and if she did believe me, it was even stupider. And if she really believed me, telling her that I might end up as a woman would really end everything because no woman went out with a man hoping he’d turn into a she.
“What if you die and you’re an atheist?” she asked.
“Uh, having not been in Heaven, I don’t know,” I said. “We’ve debated it in a philosophical sense, and we think it would be fair just to end existence for those ones. That’s what they expect, right? If they’re good, given them what they expect. Nothing. If they’re bad, drop them in Hell.”
