She pushes his shoulders and he rolls onto his back. She towers above him, rising and falling. She leans backwards and he sees himself move inside her. She pants and screams with pleasure. He lies back and enjoys the wonder of it. Her face returns to his and they kiss again. He holds her waist and helps her move. Her thighs wrapped around him, they move together like the ocean. Waves of pleasure wash over them. Her eyes are glazed. He kisses the skin above them and for a moment she focuses on his face then she fades away again. He wonders where she is but the thought only lasts a moment. He feels mounting pressure at the base of his spine as his balls tighten. With a gasp and a grunt he withdraws too late and hopes history won’t repeat itself.
She collapses on him and he strokes her hair. A feeling of desperation replaces the lust he felt moments ago. Am I cursed to keep making the same mistakes?
Chapter 21
Freya looks at Satori. His eyes are cracked with pain. She smiles. His features do not change. Her smile is not returned. Whatever he felt for her moments ago is lost now. The contempt she feels for his weakness threatens to push words of hatred from her throat. She swallows hard. She still has a job to do. If he loved her it wouldn’t be as easy.
‘What now?’ she whispers.
He rolls heavily from her and struggles to pull up his jeans. The silence stabs at her. He doesn’t even have the decency to hide what he feels.
He stands up and crosses the kitchen floor to the coffee machine and refills both cups. She watches as he sits next to her and places one cup near her hand.
‘It wasn’t that bad,’ she says.
‘No, it wasn’t,’ he answers. ‘But it was wrong.’
‘Right and wrong. I thought you of all people were above such concepts, Satori.’
He shrugs and sips his coffee.
‘She left you. Before all this with doorways and Lilith, you’d already lost her.’
He nods. ‘I know.’
‘Then why the guilt?’ Freya asks.
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Perhaps not, but try me anyway.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it, Freya.’
‘You should. Bottling these things up is a noose around your neck. If I’m going to help you…’
‘We already discussed this, Freya. You’re not going to help me.’
‘Ignore Ivan,’ she says.
‘It’s not just Ivan.’
‘What is it then?’
‘I don’t trust you.’
His words are a punch to her chest.
‘What the fuck? You trusted me when you were thrusting inside me, didn’t you?’
‘No, that’s not trust although it rhymes with the word,’ he says.
‘Fuck you, you bastard.’
He nods. ‘Just drink your coffee and go.’
‘I’ll tell them what you did,’ Freya says.
Satori shrugs. ‘Tell them.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘Fuck it, Freya. Do what you want. You always do.’
Anger bubbles inside her. ‘You’re so arrogant. You think you can save her, but you can’t. I hope you spend the rest of your days having your entrails pulled from you, inch by inch.’
He looks at her. ‘Do it,’ he says.
Her eyes burn with rage. ‘What?’
‘Kill me. I know you can,’ Satori says.
‘Not here,’ she whispers.
He shivers. ‘There?’
She nods.
‘So you’re coming for me whether I take you there or not?’ he asks.
‘You never took me there, Satori. I took you.’
‘Why?’
Her eyes flash with anger. ‘I felt sorry for you. I wanted to give you a fighting chance.’
‘And my dagger?’
‘You’ll never find it,’ she says.
‘Get out.’ His voice is filled with hate.
‘What?’ Freya asks.
‘Get out of my house.’
Giving him the coldest look she can muster, Freya gathers her clothes and starts to dress. Her panties press against her still swollen sex and she winces. She turns away so he will not see weakness in her face. Every muscle aches. Her legs feel heavy as she lifts them to pull on her skirt. Regret that she has burned this bridge twists in her chest. There will be other bridges. There are always more men.
She dresses in silence, refusing to hurry, refusing to explain herself. When she is ready she strides out of the kitchen and along the hallway. She opens the front door. Looking back, she sees his legs arched before him and his hand clinging to his coffee cup. His face isn’t visible. He isn’t even watching me leave. She considers calling back to him, telling him that she will tell no one. Her imagination provides his reply. ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.’
As she walks through her own front door she feels cold. The house is silent. Walking from room to room, she looks for her family. All are empty. No one is there. She considers pouring herself a drink but it is still early. Instead she makes a cup of tea and sits in the living room sipping it, wondering whether she should try Ivan’s mobile and see what’s going on. The tea calms her. Maybe they’re out with friends or shopping. If they were at the hospital with Donna they would have left a note, phoned me, something. Are they out searching for me again? No, Mum wouldn’t bother. She’d still be here. It’s too much, feeling like a prisoner in my own home.
Chapter 22
Dark shapes pass in front of Donna’s eyes. Sometimes they get so close she can see no light beyond them. She tries to move her fingers, but she cannot remember which part of her mind she needs to use. Her body feels hot. Noises pierce her, but she can make no sense of them. Her mind collapses in upon itself.
***
Donna hears a voice she recognises. She tries to open her mouth, move her tongue, give some sign that she knows her mother is there. Her tongue will not move. She is unsure whether the fault is in her brain or whether the muscle has fused to the base of her mouth. Mum, I wish you could hear me Mum. The shadow she assumes is her mother’s face blocks the light. She feels safe, suspended in liquid, listening to the sounds her mother makes when she tries to communicate. Perhaps she is in her mother’s womb, waiting to be reborn?
***
A sharp pain as something pinches the skin of her hand. She wants to scream, but she cannot make a sound. She cannot even move to resist the dragging of her skin away from muscle, tissue and bone. Her eyes feel damp. Perhaps her tears will be enough to stop this torture? No shadow hovers beyond her eyelids. Whatever is happening her torturer isn’t looking at her face.
***
Other voices. Donna catches a few words and her brain struggles to make sense of them.
‘Third degree burns.’ ‘Coma.’ ‘Not responsive.’ ‘No change yet, I’m afraid.’
Her mother’s tears haunt her. Donna wants to tell her that her baby’s okay. The pain isn’t too bad. If only she could swim through this viscous dream and communicate. If only her mother would touch her, perhaps then she could make her understand?
Chapter 23
Satori listens to Freya leave. When he is alone again he finishes his coffee and tidies the kitchen. His body itches. Every inch of skin crawls as if covered by ants. He needs a shower.
Clouds of steam rise from the angry jet of water. They billow and expand, filling the small room and pressing against the ceiling and cool tiled walls, before reverting to their origins in drips and rivulets, which snake down the ceramic surfaces.
Satori’s head hangs low. Water splutters and hisses as it rushes out of the shower rose to splash on his shoulders and neck. The skin there is cherry red with tender looking, raised blotches. He scrubs his forearm with a nailbrush. The wooden-backed brush is soapy and the suds are stained pink from the wounds. He changes arm and grates the brush back and forth, back and forth. When he finishes with his second arm he rinses the brush and rubs it fiercely into the block of soap again. He parts his thighs and scrubs be
tween them.
The frenzied scrubbing makes Satori wince, but it isn’t enough. He rests his cock in the palm of his left hand and drags the hard soap-covered bristles along its length. Tears fall with water from the shower. Will he ever be clean again? He scrubs until he breaks the skin and more blood runs with the water into the plughole.
‘Forgive me,’ he says.
Turning off the water, he steps out of the shower. He rubs himself angrily with the towel, smearing blood onto its fibres. Standing in the remnants of steam, naked and dry, he realises that he still feels unclean and gets back in, turning the thermostat even higher.
‘Fucking Freya,’ he growls as he rubs his arm. ‘I stink. I reek of betrayal. Why do I never learn?’
He squeezes shampoo into his hair and scratches his scalp with his fingernails. The suds sting his eyes and fill his open mouth. He coughs and splutters but keeps working the lather.
He can still smell the musk of sex and the alkaline stink of her cunt. He looks across at the bottle of bleach next to the toilet. He steps out of the shower without turning off the water. The bathroom mirror is misted. He rubs it clean and looks at his scratched and flailed flesh. His body looks angry. Raw skin pulses with fury. He picks up the bottle of bleach and looks again at himself: at his wet but still shining hair and dove grey eyes. He wonders how much permanent damage this cleansing will do to him. Already his self-hatred is subsiding, replaced by self-preservation and vanity. These scratches and wounds will heal or leave only a little scarring, but bleach? He replaces the bottle on the floor and sits naked and wet on the toilet. He shivers. In resignation he looks at the stained, damp towel screwed up on the floor, but it seems too far to reach. A few steps in this world feels much greater a distance than one thousand in the other.
He thinks again of Star. I should be there, not here. I should be searching for her, bringing her home. How will I bring her back? He has not thought of an answer to that riddle. Maybe he will simply know what to do when he reaches her or maybe he will perish. He welcomes the thought of slipping into oblivion. It squats upon his shoulder, whispering promises of nothingness.
I should have given Lilith what she wanted. When she asked me to sacrifice my penis I should have been glad to do it. What has it caused me but pain and suffering? The woman I love is dead. She would still be alive if I’d agreed. And now what do I use it for? Fucking a girl who wants to destroy me, whose brother would hate me if he knew.
He looks again at the bottle of bleach. His member seems to sense his thoughts. It shrivels and hides beneath his pubic hair. You can always do it tomorrow, a voice tells him. Go back to Yesod. Speak with the man. Find Star. Be a hero. Don’t sit here whining and mutilating yourself.
Satori stands up. His body stings and aches but he tries to ignore the pain as he pats himself dry. He crosses the landing to his room and lies on his bed. Food and warmth, last time I was called back too soon. This time I must prepare my body for the journey. Who knows how long it could take? In the absence of an intravenous drip to keep him hydrated and fed during his journey, he gets dressed and makes himself a sandwich. His nose wrinkles as he looks at the food. He feels no hunger. He takes the first bite and chews. It feels like sandpaper in his mouth. He sips some water and bites again and again and again. When the sandwich is consumed and he feels overfed he uses the toilet and returns to his bed. Wondering whether there is anything he has forgotten, he lies back on his duvet and closes his eyes.
When he opens them he is surrounded by white and purple. He pushes himself to his feet. The walls of the bunker rise around him. A pile of ash is the only sign of the fire and the pot which once hovered in the centre. Gabriel has gone. Satori reaches up and grabs the ridge of rock above him. Scrambling, he inches his way out of the hole and looks around. There is no evidence of the beautiful man. Satori sighs and starts walking towards his original destination: the jutting black silhouette that scars the horizon.
He feels a sense of loss. Satori wishes he had been able to speak to Gabriel more, but he felt weak and his stomach had dragged him back from this world into the other. This time it will be different. He is ready.
Walking silently towards the horizon, Satori’s journey feels lonelier than before. On arriving he hoped that Gabriel might travel with him. As he wanders through unchanging scenery self-doubt creeps in. What am I doing here? Do I really think I can save her? I am in the land of gods. How can I hope to win? He keeps walking, knowing that returning home without trying is not an option.
Satori opens his mind to Star trying to re-establish the old connection. He tries to tell her he is on his way. He will find her. The only reply he receives is brittle white noise. He sits down on the hard ground and tries again. Closing his eyes, he pictures Star’s face then pushes beyond into her mind. For a moment he thinks he can feel her. Warmth spreads through him. Her screams fill his mind. The warmth deserts him and he shivers. The screams get louder and make his teeth and bones vibrate. He pulls away, tries to shut his mind off to her anguish. Maybe it isn’t her, he tells himself. Oh god, what’s happening to her?
He rises and pushes onwards. Tears fall freely as he marches across the land. So far left to travel. This is the first of nine worlds, with Lilith and Star in the eighth. Too far from the source to stop her screaming, he can only share her horror.
He remembers the time at the lake. Wading into the icy water as his body tried to shut down around him. Star at the centre, smiling beatifically. Each step forward thrust a thousand needles into his freezing skin. Each meter he travelled closer to her felt closer to death. He had braved all manner of death: drowning, hypothermia, frostbite and he had won his temporary victory. Why should it be any different now? He cannot let fear stop him from trying. I must use her scream as a beacon and keep moving.
He tries to pinpoint the direction of the scream, but he cannot. It is within him and it surrounds him. Her pain is part of the air. He tries to dowse for her. Closing his eyes, he spins around until he feels sickened by the motion and stops. He holds his left hand outwards, tells his fingers to reach for her. They tingle and his body turns a little to the left. It stops and circles to the right again. He feels a magnetic pull in one direction. He opens his eyes and looks out towards the empty horizon.
His logical mind tells him he should walk towards the tower. It could be a city and someone might help him find a gateway to the next realm, but his magic tells him he needs no such aid. This is the way. She will lead and I must follow. It saddens him that walking into the wilderness might mean he will never see Gabriel again. In spite of this regret he takes his first step towards his new direction and hurries once more.
The monotony of the landscape continues for what feels like hours. When he sees something glitter in the distance, a heat haze or water perhaps, he breaks into a run. As he rushes towards the shimmering silver he sees it grow, become better defined, and realises it is a pool.
His pace slows. Even he, who has never travelled to these parts before, has heard of this pool - the true mirror. A place where the brave and foolish can glimpse at their true reflection, he shudders. Cold terror passes through his body. My true reflection. He has done so many things he is ashamed of now. Hurt so many people. What horrible vision waits to be revealed in those depths? If I look will my mind crack or will I be strong enough to accept what I truly am?
He sits cross legged a few feet away from the water’s edge. His mind paints pictures of what he fears he might see: a scarab beetle with bloody jaws, a thunder cloud. A clear image forms in his mind. Yes that’s it. He sees his face. His tongue protrudes from his mouth. A heavy metal shackle clamped around his throat, the chain that hangs from it is held by what stands proud from his pelvis. His penis towers above him. In a tiny hand it holds the chain of its prisoner. On its head it wears a crown of gold and rubies. He opens his eyes. It doesn’t have to be this way, he tells himself. Things can change, people can change. Maybe this is who I am now, but it is not my true self. He glances
towards the pool, but will my true self be even more terrible?
He stands tall and closes his eyes. Touching his forehead, his chest and his groin he whispers words of power, the names of Hebrew angels. His left arm outstretched he touches his left shoulder with his right hand and whispers another name then he reverses the stance to touch his right shoulder. With both arms outstretched in the sign of a cross he lets light fill him. He draws down energy from the sky and feels it alter and change within his body until the excess is discharged into the ground. Finally with both hands placed flat on his chest he whispers, ‘Amen,’ and opens his eyes. Before fear can burrow its way into his soul again he travels the last few feet to the pool.
Terrified, he peers into the water. It becomes still. The quicksilver mirror shows him nothing at first.
‘I am nothing,’ he whispers and almost turns away. Then he sees something.
A reflection starts to form. He feels the essence of his psyche being dragged into the pool’s depths. Before him an image hovers. An infant with soft grey eyes full of tears reaches reptilian arms towards him. He turns away and vomits on the ground beside him. Part of him wants to turn back to the pool, face his inner demon, accept and draw it into him, but the overriding desire is to shake it from his mind. This child half alien half frightened human, this is me, a reflection of my soul.
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