And Eternity

by Piers Anthony

  "Lie down," Gaea said, showing her to the chamber she had used before. "The body will be safe here, and your spirits will not be in danger there."

  Orlene lay down. Then Jolie linked hands, mentally, with Orlene and Vita, and the three of them floated out of the body. They had only vague human semblances, and their spirits overlapped each other, so that they seemed to be a single confused entity. They followed Gaea back to the window, which now showed a young, rather pretty black girl walking toward a building at dusk. She was in what was evidently her best dress for dancing, white pseudo silk with ruffles. The décolletage was low, and she wore a sparkling rose quartz necklace which rested across the slope of her nascent breasts.

  "Follow." Gaea stepped into the window and appeared beside the girl, who took no notice. They followed, and found themselves there too. "Enter her and observe. You may influence her, but that will change her situation and perhaps distort your observation. When you are satisfied, call me, and I will bring you back."

  They floated as a tight group into the girl. Vita was still inexperienced, but Jolie was thoroughly experienced, so helped her get settled in. It was not the same as it had been with Fate on the saucer, or with Mars on the Babylon-Persia frontier; their technique was a magical pseudomergence of physical bodies, while this was actual possession of a mortal host by spirits. In the old days it had been thought to be possession by demons, but usually it had been spiritual, not demonic, habitation. When a demon did it, the demon normally took over completely, and usually destroyed the host before it was through. Spirits were far more gentle, and could not take over unless given leave by the host. They often, in fact, were benign—as in this case. But the popular prejudice against them remained.

  That was the case while Jolie and Orlene were with Vita, and now it was the case with the three of them in the present host. They tuned in on the girl's mind, which was unguarded, and learned that her name was Ilka, and that she was fifteen years old, and that her name meant "hard worker." She did work hard, living up to it, and made pretty good grades, and did a lot around the house, too, but her mother still put her down as a child. She wasn't allowed to date, because she was too young, and anyway, all men were evil, her mother said, they just wanted to paw over a girl and put a baby in her and bug off. All her friends had boyfriends, and sure it was true about what those boys wanted, and two of her friends had abortions and a couple more were worried, but it sure proved one thing: they were women. She knew all about it: a girl could get a great good time from a man, if she got it before he managed to get into her pants, and if he liked her, he would be back next day for more, and if she got a baby, well, that was really proof she was a woman. She saw, she knew. She was tired of being dumped on by her mother; she wanted some romance, some independence, some respect. So tonight she had dressed up and sneaked out: she was going to get into the big dance and have herself a time, no matter what!

  She has trouble with her mother? Vita thought. She doesn't know what trouble is!

  But if she is typical, she'll get pregnant—and we need to know what would stop her and all those like her, Jolie reminded her. In my day we needed all the babies we could get, but today there are too many.

  I wanted my baby, Orlene thought wistfully.

  She's a fool to want a baby! Vita thought. I made sure to wear my charm, always! I mean, a baby would be fine, when I'm older and married and through with fun, but she's too young. She's my age!

  So you may understand her best, Jolie reminded her.

  Yeah, I see the track ahead of her, to be a black whore like me, hooked on H! If you folk hadn't come and put iron in my willpower, I never would have thrown that off!

  Ilka approached the dance building. It was brightly lighted, and magic flares in the form of dancing figures floated above it. Couples were arriving and entering.

  That looks great! Vita thought. I'd kill to get into a dance like that!

  But you don't know anything about it! Orlene protested. And with no date—

  She'll get picked up. Vita said. That's the idea. It's not as good as having a real date, but you do it any way you can.

  Indeed, Ilka was looking around now, trying to spot a likely man without a date. This was the tricky part.

  There were several young men near the entrance, dressed to dance. One was fat, one was ugly, and one was neither. All were white.

  Ilka nerved herself. She knew that white preferred white, at least to be seen with in public; she risked a crude rebuff. But if she got lucky, one of these would take her.

  Sure enough, the handsome one spied her and stepped forward. "Lose your date, girl?" he called.

  "Not exactly," she responded. "You looking for one?"

  "Maybe. You got money?"

  "Not enough."

  "You expect to be paid for?"

  "Maybe." She knew it wasn't smart of her to come right out and say it.

  "Well, I've got the price of the dance. But it's not cheap."

  "Didn't figure it would be."

  "You want to go in with me?"

  "Why not?"

  "And come home with me?"

  "Why not?"

  He eyed her, looking down her front. It was a good front, pushed in and up for best effect; she had worked hard on that aspect, because she didn't yet have all the fullness she hoped for. "I think you're just looking for a ticket in, then you'll lose me."

  "That's a lie!" But she knew girls did that sometimes. The thought had crossed her mind. What did she know of this character?

  "Then come to my car first."

  Nuh-uh! Vita thought emphatically. He'll screw you twice: once in the car, again when he reneges on the deal!

  Ilka picked it up, for Vita had directed it at her. "After the dance!" she said.

  He scowled. "Listen, you black bitch—"

  You should talk, you white pimp! Vita thought. You're trying to get some free ass!

  Ilka heard that thought. She assumed it was her own, and was surprised at her insight. "Forget it, pimp!" she snapped. "I'll go with one of these others."

  "Yeah?" The boy's face turned ugly. He raised his voice. "Hey, this hooker's soliciting me! Isn't that against the law?"

  "You liar!" Ilka exclaimed, furious. "You were trying to get me into your car!"

  "I'm going to turn you in!" he said.

  Brother! Vita thought. They'll believe him too! Get out of here. Ilka!

  Ilka, responding to what seemed to be her own thought, turned and strode away. But she heard one of the others speak to the one who had approached her. "You fool, Frank—she'd've put out, if you'd played it straight!"

  That's for sure! Vita agreed. And gotten knocked up too. Crazy girl's got no amulet, no sense!

  But I wanted to go dancing! Ilka protested inwardly, the reaction setting in as she walked back along the street. It was the only way!

  You'd have paid ten times what it was worth! Vita thought fiercely. A hundred times! What would you want with a bastard baby?

  There was a shock in the host. Jolie thought it was Ilka, but then realized that it was Orlene. Orlene had been born to an unwed mother, and borne a son who barely missed similar status.

  Who cares? the girl argued. At least I'd love the baby—and it would love me. I'd be somebody!

  And there we have it! Orlene thought. A baby would give her identity! A love relationship! As it did for me!

  But you were prepared, Jolie reminded her. You were married, and had a good situation. Money was no problem. How would it have been on the street, with an illegitimate baby?

  Disaster! Vita supplied. The girl's a fool! She'd get tired of that baby in weeks, and maybe leave it in a garbage dump.

  And she'd be starving herself, Jolie agreed. But even if she kept it—even if her domineering mother let her keep it—she'd still be adding to the population. And it's because of her bad relationship with her own mother that she wants it. She wants to be a mother herself, to be the authority figure in her family. It's foolish, it's unworka
ble—but she'll still do it. And so will a million other girls!

  I'd get by somehow! Ilka argued.

  Either way, it's mischief, Orlene thought.

  At least we stopped one baby, Vita thought.

  Tonight, Jolie concluded. They all knew that it was a hollow victory. The girl would probably get pregnant on another occasion. What opinion could they offer Gaea that wasn't already obvious? It would be impossible to have a ghost inhibit every wayward girl!

  She was walking by a dark building. Suddenly a man appeared. He loomed up so quickly that she couldn't even scream before his gloved hand clamped over her mouth. She struggled, but then felt the prick of a knife at her side. "Quiet, bitch, or I'll cut out your rotten heart!" the man hissed at her ear.

  She had no choice; he was too strong, and the knife hurt. She walked where he shoved her: into the dark building.

  Inside, he took her up a flight of steps and into a small room. He shut the door and turned on the light. Ilka blinked in the sudden brightness. This was evidently an interior room, without windows; no light would show outside. And what if it did? Surely the sound of her scream wouldn't carry, and if it did, neighbors probably wouldn't care.

  He threw her away from him. Ilka stumbled, and tripped over a bed she hadn't seen in the brightness. She flopped on it, her fear increasing now that the immediacy of the prick of the knife was gone.

  We've got to do something! Orlene thought. We got her into this, by turning her away from the dance.

  We got rid of the creep, and brought on a horror! Vita agreed. I've heard about this kind. Even my pimp steered clear of them. They rape and kill! It's called the slut/madonna complex or something. They hate women.

  It is a trifle more devious than that, Jolie said. There are a number of them in Hell, all of them surprised to be there. To them, there are only two kinds of woman: the perfect, pristine, untouchable one, who is to be worshipped; and the dirty, evil and sexual one, who is to be condemned. Unfortunately, such men do have sex drives, which they can satisfy only with the evil variety of woman. At its extreme, they become serial killers of prostitutes. Jack the Ripper is the most notorious example, though by no means the worst perpetrator.

  I never felt easy about the purpose of Hell, Orlene thought. Now I see that there are those who do belong there! This man—he glows a twisted black!

  "Strip, whore!" the man exclaimed.

  Ilka rolled over on the bed. She opened her mouth to make a frightened denial—but Jolie put an overriding clamp on it. Don't talk back to him! she thought imperatively. He will take that only as confirmation!

  So Ilka was mute, externally. But internally she was screaming. He's got a knife! He's going to kill me! He just grabbed me, and—

  Stall! Jolie advised. Move slowly. Sit up, start to remove your clothing, but have trouble with the snaps. Keep it slow, but don't stop. We shall try to help you.

  Now the girl realized that she wasn't talking to herself. "Who are you?"

  Some visiting spirits, Jolie thought. We stopped you from going with that cheap man at the dance. Now we will help you get away from this killer, because it is our fault you fell into his hands. Listen to us, and we will tell you how to escape.

  Ilka was doubtful. "I must be hallucinating!"

  Listen to us anyway, Orlene thought. Vita, you have had more experience with this sort of thing. Keep her moving slowly, while maintaining his interest. I'm going to check his mind for clues to how to handle him.

  Check, Vita thought. We'll kick him in the balls if we have to. She was not thinking figuratively.

  Jolie drew herself out of the host and floated across to the man. She entered him. This was distasteful, because she had affinity neither with the male gender nor with the criminally insane mind, but she knew it was necessary. Only her long experience as a ghost, and with animation of mortal hosts, enabled her to do it.

  She oriented on what she had expected: a twisted mélange of distortion and hate. The anonymous girl on the bed came into focus: her skin was dark, not because of her race, but because of the filth of her nature. She was a demoness, a succubus, a corruptor of man, evil incarnate: a creature to be used and destroyed. She evoked unclean lust in him, which proved both her power and her nature. By yielding to her lure, he corrupted himself—so he would expunge the guilt by killing her. Then he would be all right, for perhaps a month, until he encountered another corruptress.

  Jolie was revolted by the narrowness and certainty of his perspective. He had not bothered to ascertain any part of the girl's true nature; he had simply assigned the evil to her. The evil of evoking lust in him. She could either admit that she was a despicable whore or try to deny it; in either case she proved it.

  But Jolie had known this much about his view of women before. It was an exaggeration of the view of many ignorant men—and every man was ignorant to some degree. Even Roque, as just a man as she had encountered recently, had this fixation: he related best to the forbidden fruit, the underage girl. Young girls were by this distorted definition better, because they were cleaner. They had not had time to indulge their whorish nature, so were more likely to be disease free, and less likely to talk back. Thus Vita's youth and adoration overrode Roque's knowledge of her life as a literal whore, and he accepted her without condemning her. But that was rare.

  She had to explore the specific roots of this man's bias. There were always variations, and each case was unique to itself in detail. There had to be something that would provide the key to defusing the syndrome. She had to find it before things got violent.

  Through the windows of his eyes, she saw Ilka slowly stripping, having trouble with a broken fastening. Her dress zipped up the back, and the zipper was difficult to reach, and evidently a thread had got caught in it. Usually girls had assistance in getting in and out of fancy outfits; it had not been anticipated that Ilka would have to remove hers alone. Actually, Jolie knew, she had put it on alone, so could handle it—but the man was not in a position to know this. The man did not try to help her; it was part of his fixation that the evil woman was using her unclean nature to seduce him, so she had to do it herself.

  She was struggling, indeed, trying to get both hands on the stuck zipper. In the process she leaned forward, so that her breasts showed to his gaze as her décolletage hung low. Jolie almost smiled to herself; that was Vita's art. There really was some vamp in her! She knew that the man would watch as long as he was seeing something interesting, condemning her all the while but not acting. It was an excellent stall.

  Meanwhile, Jolie was searching the man's mind and memories. She had had experience with this sort of thing, working with Gaea, but never so urgently in such a difficult case. The man did not understand his own motives; he had fashioned a construct of passion and illusion to justify and hide the ugliness beneath, and would not let himself view it objectively. She had to slip beneath that construct and see what he refused to see, without alerting him. He could readily clamp down on those nether memories and feelings, if he realized, and then she would not be able to reach them. She was an intruder here, unable to open any doors herself: she had to sneak through, like a thief.

  There was a surge of conscious passion. Jolie was swept along, and looked out his eyes again. Now Ilka, having navigated the zipper so that the top of the dress was falling open to reveal her half-bra and stomach, was ready to pull it off over her head. But first she bent to remove her slippers, lifting her leg and bending her knee so as to reach her foot. In the process she showed her left leg under the dress to the thigh, all the way up to the juncture with her body. She looked bare beneath, but it was actually panty hose, shaded to make her legs appear lighter than they were, making of her crotch a perfectly seamless and hairless region. This, again, was Vita's doing; she knew precisely how to proffer a view without seeming to, so that the man would not press her while she struggled overlong with the slipper.

  The effect of this view on the man was electric. He felt a phenomenal thrill of desire—
almost immediately suppressed. A surge of guilt washed through him, and he wrenched his gaze away.

  Jolie followed the guilt to its source—and suddenly had what she wanted. Those legs were clean—and it was not right, by his reckoning, to experience lust for a clean body. Bad women were dirty and hairy in their secret places, fit only for further defilement. The one good woman—the madonna—was absolutely pure in every part. Her proportions were perfect, but without hair or apertures; the madonna had no unclean processes. Her breasts had no nipples, her legs met without genital or excretory complication. She wore conventional clothing only from deference to the norms of society; she had no guilty secrets of body or of mind. Madonna, naked, would remain sylphlike, innocent of the incitement of any lechery.

  Who was his madonna? She was Laurel, his older sister.

  Jolie picked up the essence in a flash: the father had been a brutal man, given to violence on small pretexts, and the mother similar. Any slightest infraction brought a sharp slap from her, and any backtalk brought a beating from him. He was Kane, the clumsy and stupid child, seldom getting anything right. He was punished every time his grades came, and ridiculed in between. He had no self-confidence or self-respect. It was no better at school; he was known as a dunce, and had no friends. Once in grade school a girl had teased him, asking him if he wanted to play "Doctor," pulling up her skirt invitingly. Deceived, not realizing that she wasn't being friendly, and curious about what she might have under there that was supposed to be so interesting, he had agreed. She had led him around the corner of an outbuilding where there was a modicum of privacy, and told him that first he would have to show her his. He had opened his shorts—and immediately half a dozen other girls had popped up from hiding and screamed with wicked delight at his exposure. A teacher had overheard, and investigated, and the girls had blamed Kane. That had brought a suspension from school and a solid beating at home. Only Laurel, lovely Laurel, had defended him, saying that the bitchy little girls had set him up out of sheer mischief. It had done no good, but Kane was overwhelmingly grateful to her. Later, hurting, banned to his room without supper, he had heard a quiet knock. It was Laurel, sneaking some rolls and butter to him, the best she could do. He loved her.