*Language and adult theme Descending Dreams John Miller Rain pelts my body from all angles, but primarily from below me. Propelled by wind, the drops drive up from beneath the bridge against my pant legs which flap painfully against my skin. The torrent pounds me without mercy. Then, as the wind whips, the sky pours from the heavens against my fedora. I clutch it to my head; I gather up my trench coat and scrunch low so that it can reach with characteristic trails behind me. The domain of cloud swallows me, as if it is a house crafted from vapor moving about me. It burrows into me, under my clothes, and I ache on the storm winds of painful memories. It's futile. I simply stand upon the bridge as my personal house of cloud opens its doors, invites me in, and I enter this Hotel California of cloud: I stand surrounded in spraying mist and rain's painful rivulets. You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave. I'm eaten alive high above the roiling Illinois River. I gaze down through tears and rain to my sad destination sixty feet below.
Within those black waves, driven like the surf of the sea, I gaze and lose myself to thoughts of my past. I'm searching for a specific reason as to why I'm here to end it all, as the pavement beneath my feet vibrates from passing traffic, cars and trucks on the other side of the iron beam behind which I hide, lost in a sea of enraged elements and painful memories.
Why?
That is the question upon my mind. I think of Samantha, her fangs flashing in firelight, bat-wings unfurled with lust in the Colorado cabin; the soft fur of a bear rug pulling us in, the scent of love somehow palpable and more intoxicating than our sex-scent wafting on the warming currents. The heat of the fire licks our skin sending paradoxical shivers of chilled pleasure, first her then me, gooseflesh jumping from her body then to mine.
“What is she?” My brother asked three years ago when I finally broke down. “A vampire?”
“Oh, no. She's much more than that.”
“What are you, Stephen?” His voice filled with worry. “Have you… changed?”
“I'm just a man… still a man.” I wiped tears and controlled myself, held Jack's eyes and added, “A man in love with a demon.”
The bridge beneath my feet offers support I do not wish, for I will leave the support of family and friends and even the bridge soon, wishing for the freedom of falling into the house of cloud and mist, offering myself to the elements which forever seem to hinder me, even now in my final hour. The elements push against me as they have all my life, preventing me from easily reaching the edge, where freedom sings louder than the roaring winds.
I do not wish support; I wish to be free, to leave the structure of social conditioning with its rules and laws and customs—all expectations I shattered, rules I broke and morals I trampled… all for the sake of the succubus.
In a flash of lightning she is there beside me, naked, light glistening off thick drops upon dark skin. My eye catches rivulets of rain running down her breast and off her nipple, and then it is gone as I soon shall be. She smiles and I know I could fall into that smile forever, and although her offer is spoken without words, it is crystal clear.
“No thank you,” I tell her.
Her smile turns to frown and then lightning that isn't in the heavens reflects within her gaze, lightning from her own inner storm of emotions. Her eyes widen and her bat-wings unfurl as she reaches for my wrist, but I am already leaving the bridge, already falling, and although she leaps after me and disappears into the darkness next to me, her support is unwanted as is the bridge. I hear the storm winds and flapping of her invisible wings, falling in pitch black pain.
“Why?” She screams, her voice surging with emotion. “I love you.”
I love myself, too, I think. That's why I'm doing this before I lose my soul to you forever.
###
Four years ago she was on top of me in my bedroom. I was exhausted. I didn't know what it was about her, but she did it for me in a sexual and a spiritual way. It was tantric and went beyond mere touch and orgasms; we often pushed our orgasms off until our bodies stopped quivering, and we did this to continue the sacred act of bonding, of fucking and loving and pressing deeper into each other's energies. When we found ourselves close to orgasm again, we slowed to an excited stop, until we could build the passion and energy between us back up again, a constant ebb and flow, like the tides.
I breathed in the scent of her hair as it swayed above my face, reached for her nipples with kisses, our bodies grinding against space and time, our souls falling into each other, melding and bonding with sizzling heat. I wished to consume her, to burn her up with my inner fire—the only woman to have opened me up to bask in that most sacred and deep place within.
The previous month we met at the park. She'd asked me out for drinks, but our schedules only allowed for a daytime date—she had three kids like me. I got out of my car and slipped into her van, and she drove slowly around the winding park roads. Frisbee golfers flipped disks toward goalies, people walked their dogs, and summer oozed into the surrounding woods with pleasant coolness. It wasn't too hot for June, and I smiled at her from the passenger's seat.
“What are you thinking?” she asked after five minutes of idle conversation.
“I can't stop thinking about your legs.” I grinned at her shocked eyes before she returned them to the road and swerved back into her lane. “I can't stop staring at them.”
She wore blue shorts and her legs, tanned from the parlor, were perfectly shaped. She wore a blue halter top. I can't remember what I wore. I just remember those legs flowing from blue shorts, dark ankles dripping into perfect feet, sandals ending in a wiggling French manicure; the belly ring and studs in her ear, along with her tiny but graceful nose ring; dark hair and a whimsical expression every so often. Feigned shock to make me believe she wasn't a whore. And those green eyes.
We were out of the van. I didn't notice getting out. One moment I was inside while she parked, and the next we were walking together across the road. It just seemed natural, but awkward at the same time. Her hand reached out, and mine went to hers with its own volition.
Why are we holding hands?
Everything was happening so fast, but it just felt right. It was natural. We walked through a glen a little ways off a road, dodged some Frisbees and apologized, and found ourselves walking up a hill. The dead-end road was seldom used, ending at a playground for the families owning the five-hundred thousand dollar homes nearby.
We sat at a park bench. Legs together. I wore shorts. I remember now because our skin stuck sticky sweet from perspiration, the result of our short hike. I had to rest because I was out of breath while she was fine. She scooted away. Her eyes said she felt things were moving too fast, even for her.
“What's the matter?”
“Nothing. My back hurts.”
“Turn around.”
I rubbed her back as she straddled the bench, but I became tired of twisting at the waste. I straddled the bench behind her, sat too close. I felt her body's heat against my groin and stomach and chest. Passion stirred. I scooted closer.
“Okay, buddy.” She pulled her legs around, sitting sideways, chuckling. “Let's slow down, okay?”
We sat on the bench again, side by side, legs touching this time without complaint from her.
“You asked me out for drinks, right?”
“What about it?” She tilted her head and glanced at me, her bangs falling forward covering her green eyes. “I didn't say I wanted to fuck.”
She wasn't my type. I knew it. But when I thought about that, I put my arm around her shoulders and let out a sigh, thinking of how I might break it to her, when my hand touched her shoulder and chest, my fingers just hanging over her shoulder blade. My hand tingled. A shock entered into my hand at the center of the palm, traveled up my arm, and I felt it spark inside my heart with delicious meanderings of what it might be.
“I don't believe it,” she said. She scooted away and held her hand to her chest where I'd touched it. “Your hand. My chest.”
She turned away and leaned into me. We straddled the bench while I rubbed her back. My hands tingled. My heart beat faster. Sometimes I held my palms over the skin at her back, feeling tingles dancing underneath my palms, electrifying my fingertips. When I went back to rubbing her back the tingling continued.
In an hour we had a motel room. It was cheap. We were desperate. I touched her skin one last time—I could still back out as gracefully as possible—but felt the same energy pulling me into her, into her eyes and into her lips.
When we were done she lay on the bed naked, her feet dancing in the air behind her, fidgeting feet and fingers.
“I don't let people see me naked.”
“Why?”
“I just don't.”
“Uh… thank you?”
“You don't understand.” She was serious so I stopped smiling. “I never let a man see me naked. Even Samuel my husband.”
Oh, yeah. There was that: she was married.
###
Desert sands billow into dunes from the dusty planes. A gigantic Gothic structure rises thousands of feet blocking out one of two suns; one is a black sun and one is similar to our yellow sun. Samantha is beside me in her human form, dressed in jeans and a pretty pink shirt.
“Why am I wearing this gray robe?” I look down amazed at the coarse material with my arms spread wide, holding up my sandaled but dusty toes. “I don't remember buying this… or anybody giving me this for Christmas, for that matter.”
I look at the forbidding structure and say, “It's miles wide.”
“Purgatory.”
I look at her and choke on laughter.
“I'm not Catholic, Samantha. Had I died, I doubt I'd wind up in some Catholic holding cell.”
“Purgatory existed long before the Catholic Church. As did heaven and hell. Scriptures from differing religions expose certain elements. That's why some people believe there are thousands of heavens and thousands of hells; there aren't. And there is only one Purgatory.”
“So you're going to show me where to go?”
She smiles and nods, then glances at the structure. A hot wind pushes dust into my eyes. It doesn't seem to bother her. It's a dream, I realize. Only dreams can hold two suns, one of which is black like night casting long shadows. The structure is so large it can only exist inside a dream, much like a city-state with five-hundred foot walls and bridges and terraces interlocking at its base, allowing hundreds of thousands of people passage to and from Purgatory. Above the walls I see spirals and towers with interlocking walkways, all protected by great turrets.
“It's not a dream, sweetie.”
She holds my hand and I think of the park, our first date. I didn't know she was a succubus back then.
Is she a succubus right now? Or is she human? Probably both as in real life.
I think about dreams, how things that aren't real can exist inside them; how laws of Nature can be superseded as if everything is natural, normal; where immorality makes perfect sense, like the time I made love in the fountain of a department store, or when I joined the axe-wielding police force, breaking up an underage party by hacking youths to pieces. I know Samantha may either be a human or a demoness, and I'm waiting for the dream to reveal itself.
“I said it's no dream, Stephen.”
I chuckle.
She slaps my face. Hard. She takes me by the shoulders and forces me to look into her eyes. Tears of anger well in my eyes. When I try to look away she grabs my chin and forces me to gaze at her. My face flushes with rage.
I was raised never to hit a woman, but does it count when she's a demoness?
I clench my fists until the knuckles turn white. I grasps my hands behind my back and the hurt lessons, the rage dissipates, because I can't help looking past her shoulder at the little ants scurrying to and from Purgatory, the terraces and bridges clogged with people and afterlife agendas.
“Does your face hurt?”
I ignore her and continue watching the herd of humans lining up, forming organized patterns of movement, and I wonder where the street signs are to direct them. All of them are afoot like us.
She pulls my face to hers and says, “There is no physical pain in dreams.”
I squint against the dust blowing in my face, taste grit on my tongue. My face still stings. She pulls me close into a kiss. I try to fight back but cannot remember why. Something happened but I don't remember what, something that bothered me… before I woke up here in this dream.
People don't wake up in dreams.
I feel my heart speed up, my breathing comes in gasps. I realize I'm in a real place. I'm really here. I look around us realizing I'm a real person in this very solid place; this is no dream. Behind us are snow-capped mountains. I watch a dragon soaring across the red-ringed moon high above the peaks.
“I'm really dead.”
“Are you ready?” Her clothes disappear and bat-wings unfurl from her shoulder blades. “I'm your guide, sweetie.”
She reaches for my hand, and my hand goes to hers with its own volition. We walk side-by-side until our feet leave the dusty plains and join the others on a bridge of cobblestones. I don't know where we are going. Purgatory. That's all I know.
I tap the person in front of me. He's a Roman Centaur. He turns around and I smile.
“Hi. I'm dead. The name's Stephen.”
He pushes me roughly and turns his back to me.
“The people here are capable of great good and great evil.” Samantha pulls my arm until it presses into the front of her body. “Stay close and talk to no one.”
###
I stood in the foyer of the store, a co-manager, and Samantha fidgeted before me, standing too close. I could smell her skin she was so close, perspiration, her shift now over and sweet sweat breaking through her worn perfume. She smiled shyly, but her eyes burned with lust.
“Aren't you married?”
“I already told you the marriage has basically been ruined for two years.”
“I'm not looking for a relationship. I don't want to hurt you, okay?”
“It's not like we're getting married.” She tilted her head in a cocky way, gave me another whimsical smile. “It's just a drink.”
I was still married, too, but that was because my ex-wife had just gone into drug rehab for the second time. I had full physical custody of three small children, working sixty hours per week, and I was good at my job.
My children were my life, all I lived for. Nothing else mattered.
I lost my faith. Faith in God, in the American Dream, that white picket fence dream —all had shit on me. I believed in freedom now, in soaring high above the false belief in God and marriage. Love was nothing more than an endorphin-charged rush in the sluicing elixir of people's brains; what happened afterwards was friendship that took place after the magical lovey-dovey feeling wore out—and it always wore out. And if two people had nothing in common to bring them together as friends in the first place…
“Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“Okay I'm going to marry you,” I teased. “How soon do you want kids?”
My humor didn't scare her off. She muttered something about it being very funny and brushed past me.
###
We stand side-by-side just inside the first archway of Purgatory, having waited in line for weeks.
“Don't they have computers? It would speed things up quite a bit, wouldn't it?”
Inside I see the same droll architecture, masculine with angles and sharp edges; balusters and verandas flowing over walkways and stone gardens; everything the same brownish-gray adobe color, dull and life-sapping.
The line led to a raised dais where a man sat behind a stone podium. An angel sat with a bored expression upon its face, fluffy wings stretching high above its head from its back, a real halo floated above his golden locks of hair.
“This has gotta' be a dream.”
The angel looks up and glowers at me, then his eyes dart to Samantha. He frowns and stands.
“Demons are not allowed in this part,” he says.
“I'm his guide.” She pulls me close to her naked body. “I received special permission.”
“From whom?”
“Jesus.”
The angel lets out a heavy sigh and hangs his head.
“That Essene Zealot is always pulling something like this.” He gestures with his hand and adds, “Do you have the proper documentation?”
Samantha reaches toward her navel, and next thing I know there is an official paper in her hand with a golden seal with a big “J.” I ask where she had it tucked away and she shushes me.
The angel reads the document slowly. Finally he smiles and hands it back to Samantha. She rolls it up and pushes it into her navel where it disappears.
“You may go.” The angel gestures to a one-hundred foot archway. “But be warned, mortal: if your succubus uses hell's magic in this part of Purgatory, it is a crime.”
Before I can ask what the punishment is, she walks toward the giant archway. I jog to catch up to her, worried about getting lost, and this time it is me reaching for her hand.
“Why do I keep reliving elements of my past?” I squeeze her hand, thankful she's with me in death—although she wouldn't be with me in life. “I keep having… flashbacks.”
“Heaven and hell created Purgatory, Stephen. Doesn't it strike you odd how plain it is?”
“It is pretty boring.”
“It wasn't created for looks; it was created to make people relive their lives. The stone walls and furniture and floors are imbued with magic from Hell and prayers from Heaven, making Purgatory's denizens relive elements of their past.”
“And why would they want us to do that? I killed myself to get away from my life, and now I have to relive it?”
“It's to make you come to a choice.”
“And what choice would that be?”
“Heaven or hell. You have one final act to accomplish on earth before you die which will shift the neutral balance of your soul.”
“Well, I would think the choice would be obvious.” I chuckle. “Who wants to go to hell?”
“You'd be surprised.” She pulls my hand against her hip as we walk. “Hell has many benefits. It's not all about torture. If so, why would Hell have so many followers? Why would Hell be so successful in enlisting recruits and tempting Heaven's followers?”
She does have a point, I realize as my hand presses against the secrets of her body. I wonder if things could be different down here… Samantha and me. Maybe we could have a brand new start…
###
There was a lot of sex. It's almost as if that was how Samantha and I communicated. We spoke before loving, but after the sex act our natural defenses and invisible walls fell, exposing our hearts, souls laid bare and stretching like invisible tendrils through our gazes. A simple look after making love spoke volumes, and we shared our heart's secrets. But not all of them, I learned.
A year into the relationship Samantha was beneath me. We hadn't spoke much before the blistering touch of flesh on bare skin, and the energy began to flow, like a current, and it swept us away. I became entranced in her body, in the invisible current sucking us into its unstoppable flow—I began to think this must be destiny.
So many broken promises. She was going to leave her husband, but finances prevented this. We were going to get our kids together, but appendix operations and the removing of tonsils and orthodontist appointments—all these things added to needing the incredible insurance her husband had.
I ignored these things. It roiled like puss in a boil under layers of skin, festered deep inside me. I lied to myself, telling my mind that it didn't matter, that I just wanted to be happy, to go with the flow, that invisible current that gushed from her and me.
I knew something about energy. When I was sixteen I chased a basketball down a friend's drive, out into the street. I hadn't heard the truck. After the screeching of brakes, I saw everything turn upside-down as I flew through the air.
I can't believe I chased a ball into the street at sixteen, I thought. I chided myself for doing what I'd warned neighborhood children not to do. I'm hurt bad.
I marveled at the sight of the tops of houses, the shingles on roofs and chimneys, and I thought the truck must have struck me harder than I thought. Then I saw my body landing thirty feet beneath me in the grass, crumpled and broken; and the truck fishtailing sideways in the street, the driver already leaping from the cab; my friends running down the drive, screaming my name, and my friend's mother running out the front of the house, her face frozen in terror.
I've died!
But I hadn't died. That much was painfully obvious three days later when I opened my eyes in my hospital bed. Pain wracked my body. Tubes ran into my body. I breathed through tubes, peed through tubes, and received nourishment through tubes. Sixteen broken bones: one hip and both femurs, one tibia and a collarbone, eight ribs and both wrists. And my tailbone—that one sometimes hurt the worst.
Morphine dripped into my body, numbing it, but sometimes I became conscious between sleep and painful wakefulness. At those times my soul separated from my body, and the sound of rushing wind and powerful vibrations signified the leaving my physical earth-suit, and I became as a ghost.
Walls became nothing but color I passed through, but I felt the gritty texture as it slid through my ethereal body. I traveled into the skies and sometimes appeared in fantastic dream realms. One thing that I learned was I didn't control the process consciously; it was heartfelt.
Conscious thoughts didn't dictate where I went. If I consciously decided the next time I'd visit a family member next time I separated from my body, I couldn't go; only those things deepest in my heart mattered, and those people closest to me. I realized it was intention of the heart or subconscious that led me, and conscious thought meant nothing. In fact, when I separated from my body, I left the brain along with its conscious applications for detail and analytical thought. Movement was based on emotions.
After I returned to my body recovering in the hospital, I realized that life was like that: people were controlled by their emotions, and after following their emotions applied logical reasons consciously as to why they did certain things. But I began to understand people acted almost always on emotions. People married because of love or lust, both invisible elements of the human heart, and even killers murdered for reasons of rage or greed—more invisible tangibles of the human soul. People who married into money did so for greed, and people who gave their money freely for churches and organizations did so out of fear of the afterlife (hell) or the joy of giving.
Years went by and I expected the separations experiences to subside, but they never did. I never controlled the times they happened. I bought books about astral projections, Out Of Body Experiences (OOBEs) and Near Death Experiences (NDEs), practiced the exercises therein, but none gave me the control I sought. So I gave up trying to control the times and places, trying to nail down the exact moments I left my body.
That was what happened that day I was with Samantha. I had entered into a light trance, entranced by the repetitious movement of two bodies grinding into each other for long periods of time. I had never separated from my body except in the middle of a dream or in a light trance, sometimes staring out a window, but never while in full movement. This moment was unique.
When I heard the rushing wind in my ears, I knew what was happening. I opened my eyes and had two sets of vision. I saw through my physical eyes and I saw through my soul's eyes, and the resulting impressions were like two images overlapping one another. But each perceived image—that of the physical and that of the spiritual—were clearly seen with concise understanding; it was almost as if an unused portion of my brain had opened up, part of the ninety-percent of our brains scientists say we rarely use, and I perceived things from two different points in the room.
My soul rose above my body, embraced by Samantha's soul. My physical body embraced her physical body below. I felt both her bodies through both sets of arms; felt my physical body sliding in and out of her body below, yet felt my ethereal body melding into her intangible body above; and I saw the differences between Soul-Samantha and physical-Samantha.
I gasped because her soul had smiled with fangs and brought them near my astral body. Below we kissed, both entranced in some tantric love-making spell, but above we saw with open eyes. She licked my neck and slide her fangs into my astral body, and while I fought her strength was too great.
Energy poured from my wound into her like blood, and I thought of the hundreds of times I'd leave her embrace, white-faced and exhausted after hours of making love, wondering why I felt so drained. It was more than lovemaking, I realized, as she sucked spiritual energy from my neck.
She's a demon!
While outside the body, I'd learned I could imbue my emotions into certain parts of my body. For example, anger could be transformed into electrical bursts around my hands, or fireballs; fear delivered the speed of angels; and lust? I didn't know about lust in the astral because I'd never been outside my physical body while impassioned.
I desired her. In so many ways I desired her. For while she sucked energy from my soul, she simultaneously poisoned me—is that the right word?—with lust and passion and love. I felt the emotions pouring into me, like waves crashing against a rocky Pacific coastline, spraying my mind with desire so palpably strong it oozed with presence.
I wanted to consume her, literally, eat her from the inside out, from the center of her being and lick along the edges, until nothing remained. I needed her to do the same to me, to know me completely on all levels, and I freely gave her my neck, pulling her head closer to bury her fangs deeper inside my body, such was the power of the spell I was under.
Then my lust manifested, transforming my teeth into fangs which slid into her neck. Her eyes opened with surprise. She pushed against me, but my fangs held and I felt the lust and demonic passion flowing into me now circulate, pass around my ethereal body, and exit through my mouth. It was one continuous circuit of lust and passion and need so deep it hurt on the deepest levels, and this poured from me into her, circulated through her body, and back into me again. The connecting points—those of our mouths upon each others' necks as well as at our melded midsections—burned and glowed as if we were in a dream, and in a way I guess we were.
We stayed that way for eternities, tasting each others' deepest fears like dark delicacies, licking the joy and love from each others' lives, until all that remained were two astral bodies sharing the same energies, the same passion and need.
When our unholy union was over we slowly lowered, wraiths of erotic delight, dropping into our bodies like the feathers of the same raven. We wept openly, having tasted each other, having poisoned each other with our needs and dreams and hopes and desires, until our astral bodies remerged within our physical bodies.
I felt the rushing wind, the intense vibration that always accompanied me when reintegrating, and then I was back inside my earth-suit. We opened our eyes at the same time.
“I think I'm beginning to fall in love with you,” she whispered.
Is she a human or a demon?
I didn't care; I wanted her on the deepest levels.
Some of you have entertained angels unaware. I remembered the Scripture from Sunday School when I'd been a child, and the Bible lesson that day had left a lasting impression upon me. I wonder if some of us entertain demons unaware?
We kissed and wept openly.
###
The line starts moving again. All of us lift our heads that had been bowed, our chins resting on our chests. The stupor is over; the reliving the past, certain elements crucial to our decision; things heaped and smattered with karma and decisions of choice, of right and wrong.
I'm behind a Turk now. A long scimitar hangs from his belt tucked in the sheath. A turban covers his head. He seems seven feet tall.
Behind me is what I can only assume is a witch. She wears a black robe. Red hair and green eyes. She's muttering to herself:
“I couldn't sacrifice the child… I wouldn't, couldn't… and I wasn't as evil as I thought… I—”
I realize then she had been a Satanist in life, or had belonged to something similar. She hadn't gone through with her choice.
“How long must we wait in line?” I turn to Samantha beside me. “What happens when the memories of my past bring to the last event? The bridge? My leap into death.”
“It could be your leap into life.” She looks away. “If you're not able to come to your final choice, your decision, the events of your life—the most important ones—will be replayed over and over until you chose.”
“It's not so much about making the right choice, either. Is it?”
“The choice will be based on your emotions, your heart, what you really want. You can't lie yourself through it. When you make the decision, you'll find yourself back in your body right before you strike the river.”
The line stretches for miles before us. Terraces stretch over the line, and open skies. I see the black sun fighting for dominance with the yellow orb. We all wait, standing in line, with no place to go. I wonder what will happen if we step out of line, but that's what we did to get here in the first place: we all stepped out of line; not too far, just enough to come close to the edge of the abyss, but with enough goodness to prevent us from toppling over the edge.
“You're closer than you think.” Samantha gestures at my chest, and I gasp when I see it transparent. “What are you thinking?”
The line halts. Heads bow, chins to chests, and eyes close around me. I fight it off with a panic, because I don't know what I'm going to decide and I realize my decision may send me to hell. I have a demon at my side, for God's sakes—or not for God's sakes —and I'm in trouble, I know. What constitutes as my heart somewhere in my chest sends my energies roaring like blood through my soul-body, but at last the slumber overtakes me.
I bow my head as if in prayer, remembering… so much pain.
###
“You cheated on me, you bitch!”
I drove without thought, too fast, racing along the interstate and screaming into the phone. Samantha was on the other end, trying to argue and shout over my words.
“You stopped calling me.”
“You said you needed time, Samantha. I gave you time, and the only thing you could come up with was to find another man to screw?” I laughed without mirth. “How can you cheat on me when you're already cheating on your husband with me?”
“I don't know.”
“Do you even know what you are?”
She was silent.
“I'm sorry.”
She didn't know what she was. I didn't, either. I didn't know if Samantha had been born human and the succubus had possessed her, or whether the succubus had entered the womb of her mother at conception. All I knew for sure was Samantha the human didn't know what she was when she left her body.
I worried about her then. Although she'd hurt me, I worried about her. Here was a woman, a succubus, a demoness who sucked the psychic and sexual energies out of mortals, from men. She didn't know she was a demoness. She didn't understand what she was, why she did the things she did. How could she?
“I feel so sorry for you.”
“I don't want your pity.” Her voice broke into sobs. “I just want you. I know that now.”
“I know that now.” I looked at the succubus suddenly in the passenger's seat. “I know that now.”
I heard Samantha the human, her voice flowing through my cell phone, yet I heard Samantha the succubus saying the same words next to me. Their voices weren't exact, and it sounded like a slight echo.
“I need you,” came through my phone.
“I didn't think I did,” the succubus said inside my car.
They took turns talking. Each was filled with remorse, with extreme sadness.
“I am a demon. My only goal in life is to siphon energies from men, to break their hearts and leave them broken. I entered my present incarnation. I've had many affairs, have broken many hearts. My husband is close to suicide. I am evil; I don't care.
“I care about you. I fooled myself thinking I could go on existing like what I was, loving men, breaking them… consuming them. But you have consumed me. You have shown me what it is like… to be loved and desired… to burn.”
The succubus wept. Her tears sizzled down her cheeks, steamed as they fell upon the leather car seat.
“This is a game you're playing.”
“This is not game. I'm here to save your life.”
“What do you mean?” I asked fearfully, but I knew.
“You're driving erratically. You mean to end it all. To end the pain.”
She reached her hand to my arm and said, “Don't.”
I slowed down, but I still drove too damned fast.
Too damned fast! I laughed while crying. That's funny.
“I don't have to be here.” I knew she was right; she'd already broken me. “I'm here because I love you.”
I pulled over. Samantha on the phone cried tears of relief. Samantha the demoness embraced me in the car.
I've lost it.
“You lost it a long time ago,” the succubus said.
“My soul?”
She didn't respond in the way I wished. “I lost my soul to you, too.”
###
I wake and step out of line. My decision is close and it terrifies me. Everybody else still stands in their stupors, their heads bowed. A gong bongs in the distance, its echoing reverberating through the very stone floor. I notice there are no places to sit, just places to stand and wait in line—always waiting in line. The only seats are those for angels—or for demons, I assume, in some other area, a darker portion of Purgatory.
Twelve figures stroll toward me. Samantha is gone. I begin shaking uncontrollably. My breaths come in gasps.
I'm dead and still breathing?
Six angels and six demons. The angels have white fluffy wings. The demons have black bat-wings. Two of the demons are dressed in business suits, two wear fatigues, and two wear clerical clothing like priests or ministers. The angels are dressed the same. Shadows roll along the floor next to the demons who walk in single file, and white light beams from the angels who walk side-by-side with their counterparts. Between them entwines a rainbow fashioned out of their darkness and light.
“It's time, mortal,” an angel says.
“You've made your decision.” The leading demon adds with a smile. “I'm pleased with your decision.”
“Wait! I haven't made my decision yet.”
“Your heart has,” the angel says sadly. “That's all that matters.”
###
I sat in my apartment. Samantha curled before the easy chair at my feet, her elbow resting on my knee, and she trailed her fingers over my zipper.
“You can't forgive me?”
“I don't think I can.”
She hung her head and wept.
“I'm so sorry.”
“I know.”
###
The twelve spiritual beings speak magic words. The demons speak first, speaking guttural syllables, incomplete words. The angels finish the words speaking syllables of song, chiming timbres of joy. The words formed and spoken, a portal appears. Inside I see a bridge, the Illinois River . Time has been halted, and I see a shadow about to hit the storm tossed waves. Samantha is frozen next to my body, reaching with wide eyes, a sorrowful expression.
“Please step through.”
I step inside. Instead of the final scene from my life, I stand on pure cloud. The cloud is white and puffy, but my body is weightless. Above shines the full moon in all her glory. The twelve spirits accompany me, the demons on my left and angels on my right.
I feel like they're making a bigger deal out of it than what my soul is worth. Do they know what I've done? The sins I've committed? Two other portals opens a little further away. They are spaced about ten feet apart. Each one is a doorway. One door is black and the other is bright yellow.
The suns of purgatory.
I know where each door leads.
“I guess you want my decision,” I tell them. “But I'm still not ready yet.”
“Up here you aren't—” a demon says tapping his head. “—But down here you are.” He taps his chest and I know he means my heart. “The decision has been made on the deeper levels of your soul; you aren't even aware of what you've decided, are you?”
My three children stand before Heaven's door. Samantha stands before Hell's door.
“Daddy,” my small children say. Their voices plead. “Don't do this.”
“Don't worry, sweetie.” Samantha smiles. “Haven't you read the Book of Job? Satan goes to heaven during Council to bring complaints against the elect of God; those of hell have always visited Heaven, and Heaven comes to Hell, too. It's always been our way.”
“So if I go to Heaven you can come visit,” I tell her.
I walk toward my children who start beaming, their smiles like miniature suns, and there is great joy. This is the right thing to do, the right choice , and I am glad I've made it. But then my gait slows, my direction changes, and I begin crying when I approach the other door.
The astral bodies of my small children cry and shout and scream, “Daddy,” over and over. Tears bleed down my face and I try to force myself to go to them.
They need me! Oh, dear God in Heaven! My children need me!
It isn't so much me as the poison in my soul, the power of the succubus that draws me to her. Oh, it is love, of that there can be no doubt… but it is poison, too. I cannot help myself as I approach Samantha.
“On earth they've just discovered my body,” she says. Her voice coos with seduction, but I cannot stop the onslaught of eternal melancholy and sadness—already I miss my children. “I committed suicide to be here with you.”
She holds her hand out and I take it.
“You love you children.” She pulls me into her embrace. “But you cannot fight against destiny.”
I realize then I cannot say no, cannot resist. I couldn't have resisted from the beginning, even before she poisoned my soul, before she slid her fangs into my astral body and siphoned my energies, before she filled me with addicting love.
“You belong with me.”
The black door opens and shadows spill forth like coiling serpents. They latch onto my legs, their black fangs sink deep into my leg, and they pull me toward the door.
“You'll get used to the pain after a time, sweetie. After that, when your soul has been forged in the fires of hell, you can become one of us.”
“Daddy!”
I reach out toward my children but Heaven's door is too far away. They reach for my outstretched hand, but a shadow entwines my arm snatching it away. Samantha pulls my face to her and kisses me, pushing her tongue deep inside my mouth, sucking in my energy while simultaneously filling me with her poisonous passion, and I feel that I have to have her. The change is instantaneous, sudden, and darkness fills my mind. In seconds my head spins, I am consumed, and my children are remembered no more.
###
The water rose toward me. Face first. Open-eyed with terror and compulsion, I stared into the darkness below. Lightning illuminated the waves that met me. Before I felt the coolness upon my face, the freezing waters clutching my body in its icy death-grip, my head snapped backwards. The sound of thunder and splashing water drowned out the pop of my broken neck.
My body sunk deep into the depths of the black river, but my soul sunk deeper than the river's bottom. I passed through wet soil and bedrock, falling faster and faster, until the glow of hell illuminated the horizon that opened up like bleeding nightmares. The screams of the damned from each individual formed into one cacophony of sound.
I was home.
###
Sixty Earth-years later I am back at Purgatory. I've been tortured, I've been tempered in the fires of hell, and I've incarnated on Earth. I've become an Incubus, the opposite of Samantha—her real demonic name, I've since learned, is Shazleth. We play games with mortals on Earth, betraying the opposite sex, breaking hearts until we can meet again while our physical bodies sleep. I don't know how long my present incarnation will last, but I don't care.
Sometimes I leave my physical body at night. When Samantha is busy tempting the souls of mortal men, entwined in mind games of lust and betrayal, I leave my body during its sleep.
I come here.
They lied to me, you know. Samantha lied to me. I haven't seen my children since Heaven closed its door to me.
I miss them. Terribly.
That is why I wait in line with the other souls. I listen to the gong toll, feel the vibrations saturate my body, vibrations meant for human souls. Although I am a demon, I have found if I close my eyes and bow my head, I can relive portions of my past, seek them out.
The human souls bow their heads, falling into slumber as they wait in endless lines that stretch for eternities. Decisions are being made. Souls are judged. I bow my head. I close my eyes. Tears slide down my cheeks as I relive beautiful moments of my past with my children.
“Daddy!”
<end> |
