"Do you think we're down to the last days?" Kevin had asked as they'd driven around, looking for an easily defensible place to spend the night. "Do you think we're going to make it?"
"Of course we'll make it," she said. But it was the phrase "last days"
that stayed with her, and despite her outward optimism she was not at all sure that they would survive.
Which was why she'd considered raping him.
She hadn't done it, hadn't been able to go through with it. It would not even have been rape because he so obviously wanted her--she could see the bulge of a permanent erection in his pants--but it hadn't felt right to her. Part of her wanted to reward him for the past few days, to let him experience sex at least once in his life, in case they did not make it through all this alive, but something kept her from acting on the impulse.
Strange, she thought, how one person's perceptions of another could change so completely over such a short period of time. She'd known Kevin Harte almost her entire life. He'd been in her first-grade class. She'd never much liked him, had always considered him something of a screw-up, but she now felt closer to him than anyone else alive. She trusted him totally.
Maybe life was more like a movie than she'd thought.
On the radio, they heard a reference to Napa. A news report on an AM
talk station out of San Francisco, reporter said that there'd been an accident involving radioactive waste on Highway 29 and that all roads leading into the Napa Valley were closed until further noticejf Radioactive waste?
She looked over at Kevin.
He shook his head. "It's probably their standard st when they don't know what's going on. No one wants come and gawk at radioactive waste. It keeps the! lookeeloos away." '
"How are they going to explain what really happened?""jj Kevin shrugged.
"Biological agents, I suppose. They'ltl say it was something carried on the wind, something half lucinogenic that caused mass hysteria."
"You think that'll work? Dionysus'11 shoot chopper*! out of the sky with lightning bolts if they come to invest tigate. How are they going to explain that?"
"Don't worry," Kevin said. "They will."
They drove in silence after that, looking for a place spend the night, finally ending up here, at this apartment Now she lay alone in the bed, staring up at the dark-|f ened ceiling.
She wondered what would have happene" with her and Dion if none of this had occurred. SI wasn't naive. She knew that most high school romance did not last long past graduation. And she realized that she and Dion had not known each other that long, did nc know. each other that well.
But the love they'd felt fo each other was strong and real, and she could see then remaining together, going to college together. They we both smart, both good academically, and there was no reason to believe that they couldn't have gone to the same university.
The only thing that bothered her was the thought thatl their mutual attraction, their feelings for each other, had| been bred into them, genetically engineered, planned. Shel did not know if that made their feelings any less real, buff it tainted them, and gave her the unsettling feeling of have""" ing no control over her Me, having no free will.
Dion would have understood this, though, if she been able to talk to him about it, and maybe the fact thatl they were both aware of the situation would have enabled!
them to bypass the pitfalls and maneuver around the barriers that had been placed in their path.
She found herself thinking of the way he'd looked when she'd first seen him in that cafeteria line. Awkward and nervous, but appealingly so.
Attractive. She remembered how frightened she'd been when he passed out at the fair, the feeling of panic that had shot through her as he'd collapsed, and the way she'd wanted to tend to him and care for him when he'd been lying helplessly there on the ground. She thought of the way his voice had sounded, the way his skin had felt.
She began to cry.
She tried to steer her mind toward something else, but she thought of her home, the place she had been born and raised, now burned to the ground, and she cried even more.
There was movement in the darkness, and then a hand was stroking her forehead, Kevin's soft voice was whispering in her ear. "It's all right," he said."It's okay. Don't cry." , She rolled over, reached out, and put her arms around him, hugging him, and he was there for her, hugging her back, letting her cry into his shoulder.
"It's all right," he said. "It's all right."
They remained like that for a while, until her tears had died and then after. They were still holding each other when she fell asleep.
In her dream, she was in the meadow, on her back in front of Dionysus, legs spread in the air. He was enormous, and she felt as though she was being ripped apart as he entered her, but it felt good too, and she bucked against him, trying to force him deeper inside her.
His orgasm was a violent explosion of molten semen that burned inside her like acid.
A half-human ant creature burst forth from her stomach.
She awoke screaming.
He needed Zeus.
He had never thought it would be difficult to rule. He had often chafed under Zeus' rules and restrictions, had often suffered as a result of Hera's caprices, and more than once he had wished that he was in charge of Olympus, that he was the one calling the shots and making the decisions.
But he didn't have a head for organization or administration. Olympus had always been a loose confederation of free individuals, but he could not seem to abide order to even that extent. He was constitutionally unable to act rationally or logically, to behave responsibly. It was simply not in him.
The strain was starting to show. He felt tired, and the I headaches would not go away. He had killed anything that moved, had fucked everything that walked, had consumed enough wine to poison an army, but nothing had made him feel any better. The responsibility of ruling still \ hung heavily over his head. And now his stash of wine had been destroyed.
The maenads would make more wine, but that would; take a while. For now they were out of the nectar. Other | wine had been brought in, and he had downed a casket of I it, but it was not his wine and it was not the same. It did I not give him the same kick, it did not possess the same^
power.
He needed to bring the others back.
Yes, that was at the heart of the matter. He had tried to I make a go of it on his own and had failed. Zeus would' probably punish him for that, Hera would probably bitch-J about it for eternity and forever sabotage his romantic entanglements, but it would be worth it to have them back.
And the other gods as well.
But how was he to resurrect them? Penelope? Penelope didn't want him.
She had wanted him Before. He had had her Before. But that was when he had not yet been himself. Now she hated him, was afraid of him, wanted to kill him.
He could force her. He could take her and rape her, fill her up with godsperm until she was overflowing. But he did not want to do that.
He was filled with a deep and aching sense of loss.
This wasn't what was supposed to happen. This was not the way it was supposed to work out.
He looked up into the sky. Dionysus in love? It wasn't possible. For thousands of years he had not formed an emotional attachment to any of the women he had had.
But this attachment was not his.
It was his.
He looked down. A woman was parading herself before him. When she saw that she had his attention, she bent over and offered herself to him.
He took her, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her onto him.
He began thrusting.
And the woman started to change.
He reveled in what he was doing, he savored every scream, every tortured nuance of her transformation, but he was at the same time horrified by his own cruelty, by his complete lack of feeling for the woman. She was a goat by the time he was through, and he yanked her off him and split her open, letting the hot blood rain down on his hair and course over his forehead and cheeks.