The grotto’s empty black space thickens with heat. The rough pocked walls begin to tint, tongues of wavering orange light growing bright. Out of nothing, the burning man rises, the man made of flames. The fire-lover.
She sees him. His body is beautiful and sculpted of millions of tiny points of flame. He is hissing. His large, delineated genitals are pulsing for her, rousing. In his fire-eyes, she sees all the passion of history.
Then she sees herself. She is more than herself. The splendor of her passion transcends her flesh. In this bright, hot unreality, she is now more real than she ever has been or ever could be. Her spirit now transposes with her flesh. It has made her greater, more beautiful, truthful, and real than all the sum of her worldly parts.
She is arching back. Her arms are rising as tears are squeezed out of her eyes.
“I can see it!” she whimpers.
“Yes.”
The burning man approaches her. The proximity of all that passion burns her into a state of ecstasy. She is coming, reeling, nearly screaming in bliss.
The fire-lover takes her hand and leads her away forever.
Veronica’s knees went out; she collapsed to the smooth mirror floor. Sweat ran off her in rivulets, and her sex was throbbing down. She tried to rise to her hands and knees but collapsed again. Seeing herself transposed into the dream siphoned off all that remained of her strength. Her sweat left a print of herself on the glass.
She rolled over on her back. Her wet hands reached up for Khoronos.
Khoronos was no longer in the room.
Chapter 23
Susan lay back in her plush bed and stretched like a cat. Desire existed for a reason — to be sated — so why should she feel bad? The two young men administered her from either side; she felt like a dynast on a bed of feathers, with these two as her sex slaves. They were irresistible. She had no inhibitions about leaving the lights on. “We want to see you, Susan,” the short-haired one had said. “Fine,” she’d said. She wanted to see them too. The best sex must slake every sense, like the best poetry.
They’d come on to her at the Undercroft. She’d shot the shit awhile with Craig, who she’d been putting the make on for months. As usual he’d politely declined her rather forward suggestion. “Know any good plumbers, handsome?” she’d asked. “I have a drain that needs to be snaked.” Craig had very kindly given her the local number for Roto-Rooter. It didn’t matter, though. Perseverance always paid off. She’d have his gorgeous ass in bed one of these days, and then she’d show him what a real woman could do. Yes, sir, she’d suck his balls right out the hole in his knob.
Then there was that lush cop — Jack something. The poor fucker had been plowing one Scotch after the next. She’d heard he was a county homicide cop on the skids. He looked like shit: crushed slacks, coffee-stained shirt and tie, and hair longer than Jesus. At eleven o’clock sharp he went facedown on the bar. Craig and another keep had carried him out.
That’s when Susan had been just about to leave. Damn good thing I didn’t, she thought now, and giggled as a pinky slipped up her anus. Because that’s when Fraus and Philippe had walked in.
Where’d guys this young get money for suits like that? These two were dressed to the max. Rich European daddy’s boys, Susan had concluded from their accents and mannerisms. By now Susan had heard every bar come-on line in the book. These guys, though, they had it down. “Miss,” the bigger one had said, “you may find this hard to believe, but I have psychic tendencies.” They stood on either side of her, smiling and beautiful in their crisp Italian suits. “Oh, yeah?” she challenged. “Tell me something about my life.” “You are a poet,” he said.
She’d been taken aback. It was true. She’d dabbled in poetry since college, had even had some published. Most of her stuff was clearly derivative of Anne Sexton (Susan preferred to think of it as emulation), descanting stanzas of free verse which depicted the finding of oneself through sexuality. Sex, she believed, was power, and her poetry detailed that power, often quite explicitly. Her favorite thus far was called “Female Utilitarian Coronation in Knowledge,” which had been published with some others in The Tait Literary Review.
“I am Fraus,” he said. “And this is my friend Philippe. He is also a poet.”
Susan found them immediately fascinating, these two beautiful suave boys. They’d talked for two hours, about theology, poetical dynamics, and the philosophy of sex. Philippe claimed to be published in Métal Urbain and Disharmonisch, renowned European art journals.
“What do you write about?” Susan had asked.
“La beauté des femmes.”
“What?”
“The beauty of women.”
Hmm, she thought. “And you? What do you do?”
“I sculpt,” Fraus said. “On the same theme.”
“Do women pose for you?”
“Not in the traditional sense. I do not sculpt by looking at a model. My models must be women I have loved. I sculpt by the memory of touch, from what my hands have touched in passion.”
Their approach refreshed her. So what if it was phony? It was different and unique. She drank Cardinals through their trialogue of creative innuendos. They drank beer called Patrizier Z.A., which was nonalcoholic. When she asked about it, Fraus replied, “Neither of us partakes in alcohol. The creative spirit is quickly corrupted through the flesh.”
“Drink is not a very edifying pursuit,” Philippe added.
“There are better things to do than drink.”
Now you’re talking, Susan thought. But this proposed a problem. Who would she go home with? Philippe or Fraus? Unless they were roommates, she couldn’t very well go home with both of them.
“Hurry up, please, it’s time,” Craig quoted T.S. Eliot to announce last call. “Or to put it more eloquently, everybody get the fuck out of the bar!”
Susan finished her Cardinal. Immediately she felt even more aroused — her panties must be soaked. Perhaps the pressure of choice spurred her libido further. They paid her tab and theirs, and looked at her, their faces forlorn, beautiful.
Which one do I want? she struggled.
Then came the simplest answer of all.
Both.
“Follow me,” she said. “The blue Miata convertible.”
She hadn’t quite made out their car. It was big and black, like a Caddy. The headlights behind her could’ve been the light of their expectations, which was fine with her. Her own expectations were beginning to drench her. She hoped she didn’t soak through her dress to the suede seat. Once on a whim she’d picked up a middie at the Rocks, whose own rocks hadn’t lasted long enough for her to get it in her mouth. Kids, she thought. They never last. The nut stain on her seat would last, though. For sure.
The complex was dark. In the elevator they’d assailed her, kissing both sides of her neck. Philippe played with her breasts while Fraus stuck his hand up her skirt. She giggled almost embarrassingly as her hands drifted to their crotches, then she giggled again. The elevator wasn’t the only thing going up.
None of them had wasted time on preliminaries. She’d never done two at once before, but as horny as she felt right now, she thought she’d do just about anything.