Daughter of Man

by Aleisha Browne

  Chapter Eleven

  Exchange

  No images, just sensations.

  Her toes wriggled in grains of soft sand.

  Her head was cushioned in between her mother’s breasts—her finger curled around a strand of her mother’s hair.

  Somewhere overhead, there was the sound of her kite being flown by her father.

  That’s right—their day on the beach on her sixth birthday.

  She snuggled closer to her mother’s body.

  Mummy?

  “Mum,” Ellen heard herself give voice to that word, as she blinked awake.

  And found that her face was resting on an impressive expanse of bosom. A stranger’s.

  She recoiled violently from her snug embrace. She saw that the woman was gorgeous, impossibly beautiful and attired in thin transparent folds of fabric that revealed everything.

  “I am sorry I scared you,” the woman began, carefully not moving as if relating to a startled animal, “I am Haniel. Michael asked me to look out for you…should you be returned here to his Sphere.” She looked at Ellen searchingly, “You look well, even after your ordeal.”

  Ellen looked down quickly at her body, which she saw was covered by a slightly more modest shift. There were no marks to show for the seeming eternity of debauchery meted out upon her fragile flesh. But her memory could not be so easily erased and she flinched away from remembering it.

  She felt the woman’s fingers gently touch the side of her face. Involuntarily, she flinched from that, too. The woman quickly withdrew her hand and there was a sincere apologetic look on her face as she said, “I’m sorry.”

  Ellen buried her face in her hands and uncontrollable cries tore out of her lungs. She heaved and sobbed and heaved. Then she felt the woman’s soft arms reach out to her and they held her tight, demanding nothing. The compassionate gesture served to make Ellen cry even harder.

  She heard the woman begin to croon softly.

  Ever so slowly, Ellen quieted. Her choking heaves became only slight trembles. Squeezing the woman back, Ellen mumbled, “I wish…I wish none of this has happened. Why me? Why was I chosen?”

  At this, she felt her tears well up again. It was no longer about the memory of pain, but the discovery that she had been forced to traverse the darkest corners of her soul. And when there, she faced the capacity in her to enjoy—no, delight—in the most abysmal level of depravity possible. Faced it and survived with her sanity intact.

  With a finger, the woman lifted up her chin so that she was looking up into her honey-colored eyes. Haniel pursed her luscious red lips, saying, “Shhhh,” as she held Ellen very still. Even so, Ellen felt herself slipping. It was so hot. There was an intense crackling of energy between their close, close bodies. She felt the inexplicable urge to get even closer—that this close, this tight wasn’t close enough. She wanted to be inside her, to be consumed by her. All she wanted right now was the comfort of blank, mindless and pleasurable physical connection.

  The woman’s lips were less than an inch from hers, inviting. Ellen closed the miniscule distance and held a protracted kiss. Each caress by the woman was questioning and with each of Ellen’s silent assents, the touch was continued with poignant tenderness. They eased away her memories and hurt. Ellen was stirred beyond all sense of self as she allowed herself to float on the endless sea of forgetfulness.

  She felt Haniel tweaking each of her toes, licking up her shin, massaging her knees and calves. She worked her thighs with her tongue and lips. Then she flicked her tongue up and down the length of her snatch, before parting her folds to suck at her tiny pearl. At the same time, she pushed one finger into her moistened vagina, sliding in and out, before pushing two fingers in, widening her further. Before Ellen allowed herself to come, she pushed Haniel back to devour her lips, swallowing them aggressively. Then she moved down to suck, for the first time, a woman’s nipples. She moved her tongue round and round until her nipples pointed outwards, aching for her. She also moved down to taste, for the first time, a woman’s juices, tracing her tongue over the shape of another’s clit and using her lips to map the contours of another woman’s feminine tissue.

  Then with a fluid uninterrupted movement, Haniel had also positioned her face in between her legs so that they were sucking each other together. They used their fingers to move in time with their tongues and it was just almost too much. They orgasmed with the clenching of legs and flinging back of heads and emission of cries.

  Later, they were lying with their bodies entwined on the milk-colored sand. The rhythmic pounding of the waves on the shore was constant and reassuring. Stroking strands of Haniel’s hair, Ellen asked, “Why did he let me go?”

  Gazing up at the sky, Haniel answered, “It was Michael. We think he was crazy for love of you. He absolutely lost it when he discovered what you had done. He requested me to stay here, as I told you before, to look after you when you are returned.”

  “Where is Michael now?” Ellen asked quickly, betraying her anxiety.

  Haniel turned her intense gaze upon her, “Lucifer wanted an exchange—Michael to take your place, of course. That was Lucifer’s plan for keeping you prisoner. He gambled on Michael coming after you and that if he was foolish enough, to trade his liberty with yours.”

  Her expression became very pained, “You have to know their history to understand what he has done for you, Daughter of Man. Before Lucifer’s fall, they were like brothers, the closest friends amongst the Host. Lucifer was the Viceroy of Heaven and Michael the Second in Command. When Michael cast the final stroke to end the War of Annihilation and Lucifer was then cast into the Abyss, those two have since held an undying hatred for each other.” Her voice trembled, “You cannot begin to imagine what Lucifer would be doing to Michael right now. A hundred times worst that what you suffered, that I know from my immortal being.”

  Ellen began to feel a shudder passing through her that she could not stop. The problem was, she could imagine the horrendously perverse things that Lucifer and his demons would do to Michael—a hundred times more ingenuously worse that what she had experienced, such was the taint of his corrupted touch upon her. Her stomach lurched with revulsion.

  Haniel continued, “And he went into his fate willingly. We don’t understand. If this love for you would drive even the Commander of the Hosts mad, it is definitely not like the love we feel with the Presence. Lucifer could keep Michael there, torturing and tormenting him forever. Do you know why our leader would willingly give himself up like that?”

  Ellen shook her head, still quavering as she replied, “I thought that he only lusted after me. He threw words around like Beloved and my Love, but they were just words, as if speaking them meant something. I—I don’t know why.”

  Deep inside, she quavered at her craven words. Deep inside, she was calling and calling, Michael, Michael! My Lover, come back to me! Don’t leave me now!

  “But I thought you mortals had the answer!” Haniel exclaimed.

  “No, no, we don’t,” Ellen said weakly.

  Suddenly, Haniel’s body went rigid and her eyes glazed over.

  Ellen sat up, her trembling gone.

  “Haniel, what’s the matter? What is it?” she cried, shaking the woman’s body. She moved her hands to hold the sides of Haniel’s frozen face and was sucked

  —into a vortex.

  Chapter Twelve

  Revelation

  They had all been summoned.

  She was unwittingly borne through the celestial firmaments with Haniel’s essence of existence, almost totally stripped of her humanity to partake in angelic senses that no mortal could fully experience.

  She was one of many, immersed in them—the other lights and thoughts. She was one of them, she was all of them, she was the Host.

  As they all gathered in the Unnamable Place

  , she saw four seraphim that constantly interchanged their forms from columns of immense flame to human-shapes with six sun-bright wings. To her supernatural si
ght, each transformation was a supernova of blinding light that threw even the lighted chamber into momentary shadow. They seemed to be singing a song with words that she could not quite understand, at a frequency higher than any she was used to hear and with an alien melody she could not quite appreciate. They did not for any moment acknowledge that the Host had gathered.

  Under the seraphim were a number of cherubim facing the Host—still, watchful and waiting. Each of them had multiple heads—of a man, an ox, a lion and an eagle, which were quiescent and intensely listening to something the rest of the Host could not hear. After an indeterminable amount of time when all were silent save for the unchanging singing of the seraphim, the group of cherubim intoned as one, “We see the Commander of the Hosts approach.”

  The once-familiar figure of the Highest of Archangels suddenly appeared. His once-magnificent green wings were mutilated to their stumps and his once-muscular frame was emaciated. His face was hollow, his skin an ashen gray. He held one of his arms crookedly to his chest. Ellen wanted to gasp with shock as a well of sympathy sprang up inside her. No one deserved to suffer the malicious cruelty and self-destroying humiliation at the hands of Lucifer, who was demented with hate. She felt something more than sympathy. It grew and expanded. Empathy. More.

  His voice, when he spoke, was quivering. He was so much less than a shadow of his former self that her heart bled for him. However much her conscious self had vehemently denied it in the past, his passionate mastery of her satisfied her primeval craving to be ravished absolutely. He aroused her so devastatingly and she desired him with an intensity that verged on madness. Was this perhaps how he and she could so easily blur the line between lust and love? Was this the spark of her infidelity? Why couldn’t love and lust be two faces of the same coin? A glimmer of insight stroked her.

  Images and sensations of them together tumbled into her mind.

  They were resting in the open, basking in the warmth of twilight. Her head was leaning against one lap whilst his golden harp sat on the other. She had her eyes closed and was listening to him lightly strumming the strings. Then he began to play music so heavenly, uplifting and pure that she felt herself being transcended—a part of her being lifted up from the prison of her body. He began to sing and his strong angelic voice brought tears to her eyes, even though the words he sang were in another language. Her scalp prickled with the beauty and intensity of the melodious song so that when he pulled the final note and sang the last word, she felt as tightly strung as the harp itself. Her throat choked with unsuppressed emotion. Her body throbbed with lyrical energy.

  He leaned down to soothingly kiss her closed eyelids, whispering sensuously, “Did you like my serenade, my Love? It’s all for you. Only you.”

  As she nodded, he stroked the feathered tip of his wing from her lips, down her neck, in between her breasts to flatten lightly across her belly. She strained upwards to receive his sensitive kiss, which at first was soft as if he was tasting her like a rare delicacy. Then it deepened and she was soaring. As he probed his cock into her, she raised her hips and wrapped her legs around his thrusting waist, squeezing tight as she laid back to receive his love—all of it.

  After they had made sweet, tender, languid love, he rested his head upon her chest with his member spent, though still resting inside her. He murmured terms of endearment to her as she stroked his hair. Enwrapped around both their forms were his soft-feathered wings, folded under her so that she rested upon their cushioned down.

  Should I say I love you? Do I love you?

  This was her last thought as they both drifted into careless slumber in the intimacy of each other’s close embrace.

  Her mind was snapped back to the present at Michael’s pitiful voice.

  “I come before the Presence, a humble and loyal servant,” he began weakly and sank pathetically to his knees.

  His body heaved. Her throat caught as she heard the sound of him weeping. Collectively, the Host was appalled and stricken by what had become of their admired and powerful leader.

  Slowly, with his good arm, he withdrew from the folds of his tattered cloak, a crookedly wrought staff. It was deformed and pulsed darkly with flashes of sullied red and blue.

  As one, the Host gasped.

  “I hold before you what became of the two swords which I wielded to vanquish the Foe. You know that he fell into the Pit with those weapons still embedded in his sides. He has melded the two together to create this Staff of Annihilation,” his breathless voice choked slightly as if every word spoken caused him wrenching pain. “He told me that if I didn’t use this Staff to destroy the Presence, that he would kill my beloved Ellen.”

  He paused for breath, and then continued, “I sought to take her place in the Enemy’s prison, but he said he has her still.” He wrung his gashed hand around the staff helplessly as he said, “And all here, know this. I was going to do it. When he laid the Staff in my grasp, I was going to do what he commanded or she would die. But now I am here, I cannot.”

  The Staff fell limply from his nerveless hand.

  “I am your oath-sworn servant,” he said as he collapsed into an abject heap, the last of his strength gone, “And she is going to die because I cannot save her.”

  He lay there, still as a corpse.

  After a pause, the cherubim again intoned as one, “What is this Daughter of Man to you?”

  Michael lifted his head painfully, “Before I knew her, I never thought I would give myself up to a hated enemy so willingly. Surrendering to him is something worse than destruction. But for her life, I have done it. Now, as a boon for my loyalty, please destroy me. I cannot exist knowing that she is dead. I cannot cling on like those two hundred and three angels in the enchanted forest. They have gone mad with grief from the loss of their earthly consorts. They were given the choice to return to heaven or stay with their consorts, and in doing so, join the demons. They chose to follow their holy oaths and return to heaven…but at such cost!”

  He paused again, to finally say, “I—I would rather cease to exist. So destroy me.”

  She screamed, My Lover— no, I’m here, I’m here for you, but nothing came out.

  There was deep quietness as the cherubim communed with the Presence. They finally announced, “It is because of your vast loyalty and faithfulness, the demonstration of your sacrifice for love and this final act of allegiance at such great cost to yourself, that you will be granted this boon.”

  She was on the verge of shrieking out, No! Does love count for nothing? Is loyalty at all costs the be-all and end-all?

  “Contrary to what the Foe has led you to believe, she is alive and well.”

  Michael sprang back to his kneeling posture, as if the news had invigorated him instantly.

  “But she is a Daughter of Man and cannot dwell permanently in the firmaments. She belongs to the physical realm and has to be returned. You are an Archangel and cannot exist in true physical form. You have two choices. One, you remain here, retain your title as the respected, admired and much loved Commander of the Hosts and keep a watch on her from afar. For she is mortal and will soon pass away, but you will continue to serve in your everlasting position here.”

  They paused to let the import of this first choice sink in, before providing the second, “Two, you can join her in her return to Earth. In the human world, centuries have passed and it would be kinder to send her back with no memory so she can make a new beginning. If you return with her, she will not remember you. Also, as you cannot exist in true physical form, she will not be able to see, hear, speak to or touch you. You will be able to see and hear her, but cannot speak to or touch her. In time, she will pass away and you will wander the rest of the days of humankind with them until the Rapture. What is your choice?”

  She could not see his eyes from her distance—what kind of blue it was at this moment. She longed to touch his face then, the longing so sharp that it felt like she was being knifed. Things couldn’t end like this between them, now that
she had fully embraced who she was and her true feelings for him. There was so much to be said and done. She tried to reach out to him.

  He opened his mouth to reply. A sudden blackness wrapped itself around her mind like a blanket and all was peaceful nothingness.

  Epilogue

  She blinked her eyes open and it wondrously registered to her brain that she could see things. Above her was a tree with no leaves set against the orange-slashed sky of twilight. But none of these were perceived as names or even words. There was a movement to the periphery of her vision. Without knowing how she willed it, her muscles twitched as if by some kind of precognition. It felt like she was moving herself for the first time, but not.

  With a lurch forward, she managed to sit up. She examined her hands and was fascinated by how they connected to the rest of her. She ran them around her face, across her bare breasts and down her legs. Yes, that was the whole one piece of her.

  Something brilliantly glinted on the ground next to her. She picked it up and squinted at it resting on her palm. It was a ring, with one diamond—again, no such names came to mind. To her, it was just another thing, a shining one. On the inside of the band, she managed to pick out some engraved markings. Seeing them spontaneously triggered some words—concepts reduced to markings.

  “Ellen and Eric.”

  Although she was now able to recognize letters as the building blocks of words, these words did not give rise to any sense of familiarity or ownership. However, with the regaining of the ability to read, she was then able to put names to things like a jigsaw puzzle falling into place. Like the thing that had caught her attention at the periphery of her vision. She stood up to look squarely at it now.

  It was a starship, resting in midair.

  She associated it with flying. She felt a strange affinity to that.