It's Raining Men

by Jennifer Stevenson

“Where am I?” he said.

  The woman in pajamas stroked his face. “You’re with me.”

  Archie tugged at my hand. We edged away.

  “You see?” I hissed to him. “They’re coming after you. That was a lucky break.”

  “Not exactly.” Archie looked up. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

  “Yes, yes, but let’s get off the roof.”

  When we came downstairs, the bar was empty. Everybody must have gone outside to look at the show. We went to stand at the front windows. Archie’s fireworks display was still going off. Now and then something heavy plummeted out of the night and hit the street or the occasional parked car with a thump that shook the building. Car alarms were yelling all over the neighborhood.

  “What on earth?” I said.

  “I’m guessing that’s the Joint Task Force.”

  “I don’t get it. The Ravenswood Project, the victims’ compensation program—you made those up. How did the Regional Office and the Home Office find out?” Something with white wings swooped past the bar’s front window. I flinched as it crashed into a tree and tumbled to the sidewalk. “Why are they falling?”

  A woman in pajamas came running up and pounced on the fallen—angel?

  Archie craned his neck, trying to see past the awning. “They must be coming down through the sparks. There’s a pretty potent love spell in those fireworks.”

  “Love spell?”

  He looked at me. “I wanted to give you every chance. If there’s a decent man out there, you deserve him.”

  I was getting impatient. “Archie—”

  Archie took my hand in his. “Chloe, look out there. That isn’t real life. It’s my life. I can jog along, faking it for years at a time. And then something like this happens. If I didn’t smoke a whole lot of dope, I’d be insane. As it is, I’m just—”

  “Lonely.”

  He shut his mouth.

  “And chicken,” I added.

  He took a deep breath. His voice deepened. “Not any more.”

  “Look, you,” I said, squeezing his hand in mine. “I don’t mind that you boinked a million girls. It’s fun feeling stuff like that”—I waved at the window and the exploding sky—“inside me every time we kiss. I even kind of like your roommates—”

  He interrupted me. “I crawled through the Regional Office, dicking with their records, just so I could come back and love you the way you deserve to be loved.”

  “Who are—wait—what did you say?” I skidded in mid-rant.

  “When you fell on your ass on the basketball floor.” He was calm now, and perfectly serious. “I realized I’d been in love with you for a long time.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “You had on those fucking stilts, and your skirt was so short I could see your panties, and your legs stuck out splat on the floor, and you were laughing, and your eyes glowed, and you didn’t care. You fell on your ass and you didn’t care.”

  I swallowed a lump. My heart was banging. “Talk sense. You’ve been watching me fall on my ass for two years. That’s our girlfriend theme. How Chloe fell on her ass again, and how Archie always cheers her up and tells her not to be such an idiot.”

  “But you always did it again.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said reasonably. “Life isn’t a horse, you know. You don’t have the option to give up riding and walk.”

  He opened his mouth to rebut that and stopped. I saw him actually start to think. My heart leaped.

  “I suppose not,” he said slowly. He looked at me, and I saw love in his eyes, and my heart turned over. “You’d never give up and walk.” He smiled, and I felt beautiful.

  I swallowed. I didn’t want this feeling to end, but we had a lot of ground to cover, and I’d only just started.

  I said, “It makes me crazy that you won’t face up to your place in the world.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t have a place in the world.”

  “Yes, you—” I stopped yelling and toned it down. “Yes, you do. Everything you’ve ever done is all around us. You invented the odometer, and the block and tackle pulley, and the screw pump, and a way of calculating volume through fluid displacement, a zillion things. You did that. Not your tutor.”

  He waved his arms emotionally. “A whole lot of smart people did stuff with my wack ideas! I sobered up for twenty minutes and had the idea. They worked.”

  “I haven’t seen you drunk in the two years I’ve known you.”

  He eyed me, and his lips twitched. “It got old.” That look came back in his face. My heart did that flippy thing. “I met this girl.” He took my hand, and I hoped fiercely that he would kiss me.

  “Don’t try to distract me,” I said, wanting to rip my clothes off and leap on him. “If I let you derail this conversation, I find myself cleaning that horrible bathroom again while you and the guys play video games.”

  “Veek’s right,” he murmured. “That bathroom really gets on girls’ nerves.”

  I squeezed his hand, leaned forward, and let my eyes bore into his. “Work. Or this”—I lifted his hand in mine—“or this won’t work.”

  “I work,” he protested.

  “Not bartending. Invent something. Design something. Think, Archie. Think for money.” I pleaded, “You know you want to.”

  He heaved a sigh. “Okay. How’s this? If I can make enough on even just one invention to support us, will you get off my back?”

  I smiled. “Maybe.”

  He threw his hands in the air, but I could see he was pleased that I’d got the better of him.

  “You do love me,” I said, blinded with wonder.

  “I,” he said, drawing me close to him, “will let you domesticate me. That’s how much I love you.”

  “Oh, please.” I gave a happy sigh. “You’re a housecat. You just never let a woman boss you before.”

  A shadow passed over his face. I knew we would be on to the next point on my agenda soon.

  He said, “We still have to figure out how to limbo under the radar—” His gaze wandered away from me for a moment.

  Then he froze, staring out the bar’s front window.

  I turned and looked.

  A twenty-four-foot liquor distributor’s truck had pulled up out front. There on the side was the latest Boshy Beverages ad wrap, featuring an adorably pudgy, cuddly, black-and-white sketch of a Greek temple, framed by lavish bunches of grapes, and the words VENUS DREAMS written in Greekish lettering over the door.

  I smiled. “That was next on my list. We won the contest. Remember the twenty-five thousand dollars and a cruise to Cyprus? And I’m now a Vice President of Marketing.” And here we were, at the next moment of truth. “I’m moving to Syracuse.”

  That got his attention. “You—what?” He looked sick. “S-Syracuse?”

  “And I spoke with her again. Aphrodite. She made a lot of sense, Archie. I don’t think she hates you, you know.”

  He wasn’t listening to me. He was staring at the temple drawing on the truck.

  Suddenly he grabbed my arm. “Chloe,” he said hoarsely. “Go out the back door. Run to the lair. Run. Tell Baz to set fire to my room, burn the whole thing, everything in it. And ask him to—” He took a deep breath and shoved me behind him. “Ask him to hide you if he can. I’ll stall as long as possible.”

  “Archie—”

  He gave me another shove, and then he groaned. “Too late! Stay here.”

  I followed his glare.

  On the side of the truck, on the ad for Venus Dreams Liqueur, a door had opened in the roly-poly temple sketch.

  A woman was walking out of it, growing larger as she stepped down off the truck onto the asphalt of Ravenswood Avenue. Her classic white Greek gown flared orange, green, yellow, and red by turns, in the light of Greek fire from the rooftop.

  Archie squared his shoulders and barged through the front door of Cheaters.

  I ran out after him.

  She l
ooked as she had in Syracuse, sleek and powerful, the ultimate cougar.

  She stopped in front of Archie with a very personal smile.

  He was taller than the goddess, and his fists were bunched at his sides, but I wasn’t fooled about who was in charge.

  “Well, Archimedes,” she said.

  He started to rumble something in a foreign language and she raised a hand.

  “English, please. Chloe will want to know what we are saying.”

  His head whipped around. I looked him straight in the eye. He looked despairing and then spun around back to Aphrodite.

  His shoulders squared. “Leave her alone.”

  Aphrodite put her head on one side. “Will you leave her alone?”

  “I’ll give her up if it will protect her from you,” Archie grated.

  “Hey!” I said.

  “From—me? Do you mean, from love? Or would you protect her from my envy?” The goddess smiled. “Really, Archimedes. I never avenged myself on any of your women.”

  “None—” Archie stopped, swallowed hard, and said deliberately, “None of them mattered.”

  She gave a tiny shake of her head. “And our brief encounter, permit me to disillusion you, has not remained green in my memory.”

  “What do you want?” Archie said tensely.

  I would have come up to him and held his hand, but I thought it might just freak him out more.

  “From you? Only what you promised me.” She threw a glance over her shoulder at the liquor truck. “A temple in Syracuse.” She smiled wider, and dimples showed. “I find it acceptable.”

  He looked at the liquor truck ad now.

  Behind him, I said, “We won, Archie. Your drawing, my campaign. That’s why I got the promotion.”

  I looked past him at the goddess he’d been running from all these centuries, and asked her, “Are you done with him?”

  The goddess waved a graceful hand. “Yes. I could show my gratitude more, but I think he may not be up to it.”

  “Don’t dis him,” I said sharply, stepping in front of Archie, who seemed stunned. “And stop getting him in trouble!”

  Aphrodite smiled and tipped her head. “Trouble?”

  “You told the Regional Office and the Home Office about the Ravenswood Project and the victims’ compensation, didn’t you?”

  She pursed her perfect lips. “My people are placed everywhere…even in cubicles with computers.”

  “He worked hard for you. Are you going to abandon him like this? Freaked out and—and—”

  “Brokenhearted?” the goddess said. “Really, I don’t interfere. I just start things. It’s up to you to finish them.”

  “Me?” I gaped. “Hey—don’t walk away!” She was turning away, moving back toward the temple on the truck ad. “Does he have to stay a sex demon? Does he have to live forever, hiding out like this?”

  She faced me. I swallowed, feeling the full force of her attention.

  “Do you have to die, having filled so little of your own purpose?” she countered. She leaned forward and whispered, “Ever?”

  I went still and cold. “What?” She just looked at me kind of sympathetically, and I shivered. “Ever—die? You mean he really has been turning me into a sex demon?”

  “You are coming into your own power. A natural process. This happens when one is fully activated—by sex, then by love,” Aphrodite told me. “A very potent combination. It is almost impossible to undo, and the result, well. You may regret the decision, should you choose to reverse the process.”

  “Chloe—” I heard behind me.

  I turned. “What?”

  Archie stretched a hand out to me. For a long moment I thought he would say more, maybe try to talk me out of something. Whatever the goddess was offering me. “Be very careful.”

  “You shall have your reward,” Aphrodite said to him, as if chiding. “Allow Chloe her choice.”

  Abruptly he sat down on the curb and put his head on his knees. His hands gripped his hair, or maybe just covered his ears.

  I turned to her.

  She made a little dismissive gesture. “Always better when we can deal without them, yes? Like children.”

  I couldn’t argue with her there. “If this is such a natural process, what’s happening to me, why doesn’t it happen more often?”

  “In this culture, I am surprised it happens as often as it does. Surprised and grateful.” She smiled at me. In spite of my fear for Archie, I felt that smile warm me clear through. Her lovely dark eyes narrowed. “You yourself have exceptional courage. And even you, how do you say? You bailed.”

  I opened my mouth.

  With a wave, she silenced me. “Whether you love or not, the process will continue until you are fully yourself. Because your powers are activating, this will happen far more rapidly than it does to”—she stirred a hand vaguely in the air—“all these ordinary women.”

  “It could happen to any of them? I don’t believe it! Why doesn’t anybody know? I can’t believe, with all these heavens and hells, that nobody knows what love can do!”

  “You think all those heavens and hells want ordinary women to know that they could be goddesses?” Aphrodite gave a silvery laugh. “They would hide it from you. They have hidden it from you.”

  “But you’re telling me.”

  Aphrodite smiled. “Ah, but I am a reckless goddess. My purpose is to propagate life at all costs. If I give away the secret that sexual magical power is inherent in everyone and in everything? So what? It’s not really a secret. It is the juice that makes life happen when you throw a forkful of lightning through a mud puddle. And Archie has thrown quite a few forkfuls of lightning through you,” she dimpled.

  “What if I don’t want to be a goddess?” I said slowly.

  “It is too late for you, my dear. You have already been tampered with.”

  I felt like pulling my own hair. She was making my brain whirl. “What’s it going to cost me? Am I, like, your minion or your avatar or your servant or whatever if I go along with this?”

  Aphrodite looked stern. “You must learn to serve yourself. Without allegiance to yourself, you cannot be a new sexual power in the world.”

  I said mulishly, “I don’t want eternal life without Archie.”

  She seemed to think about that. “I concede that that would make you a different sort of goddess. Yes. That is a good argument.” She nodded and turned away, climbing an invisible staircase up to the temple door. At the temple door, she turned back. “Archimedes!”

  Archie looked up, haggard, from his seat on the curb.

  “Allow yourself to be guided by Chloe. This is my friendliest advice.” She glanced fondly over her shoulder at the gigantic black-and-white sketch of a temple on the side of the truck and patted it with a slender hand. “Oh—and—nice temple.”

  With a little laugh, she vanished through the door.

  And then the door in the sketch vanished.

  The truck rolled away.

  Chloe stalked across the street and folded her long legs to sit next to me on the curb. “Do you believe her?”

  “That she’s done with me?” My head felt ready to explode. “I guess so. Maybe. Hell, I suppose so.” Chloe sat close enough to kiss. I covered my eyes and pressed the heels of my hands against them. How could I have forgotten about Aphrodite long enough to give in to Chloe?

  But if I could believe Her, we were done. Even. Quits.

  I could have Chloe after all.

  Chloe joggled my elbow. “Is she messing with me? About turning me into a goddess?”

  “How would I know?” I threw up my hands. “I’ve never let it get this far before. I was always afraid she would—you know.”

  “Turn me into my brother and make me fuck a donkey.”

  “Whatever.” I half sighed, half groaned. “It never seemed like a good idea to put anybody at that risk.”

  “Chicken,” she said.

  I looked at her impatiently. “Do you want to fuck a
donkey?”

  “I wouldn’t want to be my brother, even for the amount of time it takes to do a donkey,” she countered.

  That made me smile, and she said again, “Chicken. You’re afraid of love. You told me so. Before—”

  “Before you exorcised me from your heart and sent me in my birthday suit to the Regional Office.” I pretended to scowl.

  She burst out laughing. “Is that what happened?”

  I was just about to favor her with a word painting of my rabble-rousing stay in the waiting room, my sabotage of the central computer records, and my climb through a thousand feet of solid rock to get to her, when I remembered what I had learned there.

  When I say, “remembered,” it felt more like I was checking in, exhausted, to my stale hotel room after twenty straight hours alone on a bus full of squalling infants and stinky drunks and finding my girlfriend’s suitcase already lying on the bed next to mine.

  Oh, yeah. Somebody loves me.

  I put my hand over hers deliberately. “I think she’s not kidding—about you coming into your powers, whatever that means.” I looked at her hand, feeling how strong her fingers were. “It’s probably not reversible.”

  “It’s terrifying,” she said. “But only when you’re not around.”

  I shook my head. “Chloe, I have no more idea what’s happening to you than you do. Except you seem to have stopped apologizing for breathing all the time. That’s nice.”

  “Thanks, I guess.” She didn’t seem offended. Her breath was coming shallowly. I could smell that hospitable lady deer smell. “I think that love cure has worn off now.”

  Carefully, I put her hand back on her knee and held it there. “On the way back from the Regional Office, I thought about a lot of things. No, I lie. Mostly I—I felt things. I’m not good at that, Chloe.”

  “Nope,” she agreed.

  “What I noticed finally was that you haven’t run away. That’s why I—gave up last time.”

  “You mean, when you burned the lair down and let yourself die?” she said tartly.

  I flinched, remembering she had learned this from the goddess’s own lips.

  “I’m not proud of that,” I admitted. “She—the girl I liked—I told her who I am, what I am, and she freaked. She went all religious on me and ran away. At the time I couldn’t see how I was going to live another twenty centuries like this.”