Red Hot Chilli Peppers

"Truth is irrational, worm. It sounds like madness. Yet it is."

"No! That's stupid! You sound like a cheap guru."

"Well, I am Isvara. I'm teaching you celestial wisdom. If you think I speak in tongues, then clearly, the fault is yours – you are unenlightened. Divinity surpasses substance. Do you really think that I am governed by the constraints of the universe? How else could I permeate all dimensions if I did not bend them thoroughly to my gargantuan will? I am the abyss of space. The vacuum. I manipulate matter as I wish." Samael poked my chest. "And this is the threshold to the void. The answer to why you have hungered."

"What?"

"Felt hollow all your days."

"No, BLTs usually fix that."

"Damn you, girl! Why else have you wandered incessantly. Felt adrift? Because you have no gravity. I have seen you: you are groundless. Your brain would float up to space, Shana, were it allowed."

"Are you calling me an airhead?"

"No. You are my sanctuary. I fill you, for my place is here." His left index finger, pale as the placid sunshine sea, skimmed my heart. Tears filled his black blue eyes. "Shannon, I live my whole existence in you. My soul chained to you. You are the eidolon cleft from my ribs." The celestial room spunt, and we were back in his hunting hall in Antwerp.

"Stop it, Samael! You are drunkenly raving. God, I am definitely not what you think I am, okay? You are very clearly delusional, and you're still forcing your Galatea envisioning of the ideal woman onto me. I'm sorry that your girlfriend Eve dumped you, but you are mad, Lord Samael Malkira - as mad as King George's dogs."

"What kind of simile is that, Shannikins?"

"I told you, I've been reading too much British Literature 101 to prepare for when classes start in September. Remember? I packed my school books in the Yugo."

He scooped me up against my protestations and kicked down the door. A drunken skeleton was passed out on the floor, party hat askew.

"There are Christmas lights on its ribs..."

Samael spat: "I loathe holidays," then kicked its skull. It clattered awake and ambled off. "That's right. Back to your graveyard and coffin. The danse macabre is over."

"I'm not her."

"Of course you aren't. I haven't guarded you all your life, watching from afar, waiting for you to bloom. You are not my cuckoo child, my baby bird, and you have no memory of the Fiddler's Green and lullabies I would sing to you, pushing you in the swings of the Dreaming. I am not Adam ha-Kadmon, first man, the sly serpent of the fields, and you are not my inspiration."

"Right! I'm not. Eve is stupid and gullible-"

"Don't say that," he growled. I glowered. The Bluebeard mansion was as twisted as Samael, like a wind worn oak on the heath. Everything was off kilter: floors sloped and wended in on themselves, priceless, dark cherrywood and pine furniture was coated in dust, and everything was cramped together in a labyrinthine, orderless fashion.

Cigarette butts dotted Samael's party wormn floor, and burn marks skidded the walls. Every mirror was covered with a tapestry or curtains. It was like an antique bazaar gone mad.

"Can I redecorate?"

"No."

"What about paint the walls."

"No."

"Maybe you should just go to Home Depot."

"No, lamb."

"Let me go please."

"Fine." He placed me on the drawing room couch. The ceiling soared stories high, cold and drafty, with wood that was completely black. A red fire bellowed in the hearth. He lay out invitingly on a wolfskin rug, looking at me forlornly.

"I'm cold-"

"I am not a child."

"You act like one, Corpseboy."

Hurt marred his face. I swallowed my guilt and looked away:

The skeleton's haphazardly strung Christmas lights formed a rainbow web in the rafters, and a charred hemlock , hung with beer, stood in for the holiday tree.

"God, what is this, Odin's hunting cabin?" I muttered, sneezing at the musty upholstery. Elephant tusks hung on the wall, mounted beside a unicorn horn and what I imagined was a dragon's jaw.

Sam lounged on the Persian rug at the room's center. He looked at a door tucked between the hearth and the bookcase that ringed the room.

"Is that where the beheaded women are?"

"No, worm. It is a hell mouth. If you misbehave, I cast you into eternal flames." A tea set appeared on the table between us. He hummed as he poured a cup.

I lay on my back and watched the fire, trying to forget his words. If I unfocused my eyes, the flames looked like skeletons and ladies dancing in a ring. Samael crept forward, thinking me unawares, and mouthed at the fabric below my waist.

"I think I'm going mad, Sam," I told him.

He voiced his muffled agreement, incisors shredding the borrowed robe. I sighed, completely defeated.

"What do you do if you know you're mad? Do you just resign yourself to it?"

"More or less." He kissed my sex, then paused for tea. The hot liquid on his lips made it almost unbearable. I lay there immobile, my will to resist decimated. He was wearing me down to the bone.

"Do you have a TV?" I asked distantly.

A flat screen flared to life above the hearth.

"Antique Roadshow?"

"I'm a collector." He played with my wetness lazily. "You can change it, though. The remote is under the pillow."

"Okay." I flipped to the nature channel. "Ooo. Water buffalo. I love those." An Indian celebration was underway, apparently in honor of one of those animal headed gods they worshiped. Nandi, Shiva's mount, if I remembered World Religions 101 correctly. The celebrants smeared the buffalo's haunches with red paint and hung its neck with flowers, then led it down the street in song. "I don't get religion. It's just a cow."

"Can I borrow your hands? It is quite urgent."

"No. My hands are already occupied. Changing channels."

"Damn you, useless girl. Do I have to do every bloody thing in existence? What am I, your manservant?" He muttered darkly and continued to tongue me. Once again, he was pantsless.

The buffalo was showered with rice-grains. No one cared when it defecated in the streets. "Really. Religion is just stupid. Why believe in something unless you have proof? Faith is useless. Anyways, I would never trust gods."

"Please?"

"Do you believe in gods, Samael? Do you believe in yourself?"

He ripped my robe completely open and grabbed greedily at my breasts, positioning himself between them. He groaned, using them for what my hands refused to do. "Yes," he moaned, grinding into me.

"You do. So are you a Christian? A Muslim? Are angels Jews?- stop poking me! I'd think demons would be Atheists." It switched to a commercial break. I looked up at him disapprovingly. "You're not listening to me, idiot."

He rubbed my breasts into cock, hot groin grinding against my chest. "What do you want me to say? That God is a crotchety old man? Evil? You've already met Metatron."

"Tell me the truth."

"There is none."

"I knew there wasn't a God."

"No, maggot. I mean there is no one answer."

"See?" I said, throwing the remote to the other end of the couch. He ducked so it avoided his heads. "That's the problem with religion. It's not peer reviewed. You can't verify it through experimentation."

"I would call this experimentation, for a starry eyed girl like you."

"Stop infantilizing me. You are the one whose head is in his pants. No wonder you lose your mind all the time. It's as secure as your belt loop!"

He groaned, sucking at my ear. "You are so beautiful."

"I can't hear the narrator, Samael. And its one of those crusty British guys. I want to listen to him."

The Reaper growled, frustrated. "Am I really so unappealing that daytime television-"

"Shh. They're switching to tigers in Africa now."

He pried my legs apart and slipped into me. I scowled, watching a villager hunting gazelle. Unbeknownst to him, he was stalked by a lion. "This is fascinating. Anthropology meets biology. Where are the scones?"

Sam nuzzled my neck. He began panting. "Oh god. Holy Havah, have mercy."

"God?" I looked at him suspiciously. "I thought only the Shekinah existed."

Finished, he flopped on top of me, knocking the wind from my lungs. "Hold me," he begged.

I felt like a chili pepper below. The Reaper began to snore.

"Sam?"

No response.

"Huh. Looks like I'm stuck." In his sleep, he mouthed my breasts, drooling onto the couch. His saliva was black like oil. "Ew. Demon spit." Where it fell, the upholstery smoked. "I guess you're a hedonist, then. Though you didn't ask, I'm a Deist. I only go to church with Granna for the wafers."