‘Goths challenge the idea that we should all be happy. We see beauty where others do not even choose to look because it makes them feel uncomfortable. We know that beauty can be chaotic or sinister.’
‘I see,’ Lilith answers. ‘Black clothes are a statement of how much better you are than those around you?’
‘Not better, different.’
‘Different, how?’
‘Because I don’t need people to like and admire me.’
‘Do you have friends?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you care if they like and admire you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do they also wear black?’
Star nods.
‘So rather than being different, you are identifying as part of a group by way of a uniform?’
‘Yes, but…’
Lilith cocks her head. ‘You’re an artist, Star. Do you only ever use black paint?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘Because sometimes I want to paint things as I see them and other times I want to paint them as I feel them. When I paint feelings I use a lot of black and sometimes red and blue.’
‘So black represents your feelings when you feel unable to share them another way.’
‘I guess so. Do you think that’s a bad thing?’
‘No. Why would I? I’m just trying to understand.’
‘It feels as though I’m being cross-examined.’ Star looks away. Her head feels heavy and her eyes sting.
‘Does that make you uncomfortable?’
‘A little.’
Lilith strokes Star’s cheek. ‘Why?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Are you afraid of revealing too much?’ Lilith asks.
‘Too much of myself?’
‘Yes. Is there something inside you that you don’t want others to see?’
‘There is.’
‘What is it?’
Star looks towards Edensun for advice. He smiles at her, but doesn’t speak or move closer. He appears entranced by the conversation. What is it? That’s a good question. It used to be the vortex: that little hub of power inside me of which I always felt ashamed. I felt I must be evil to have such chaos inside me. Now I know that the power doesn’t have to be chaotic, it can be focused and useful. It can be as bright as the sun. It saved me and Satori. It healed Lilith. Is that what I am still ashamed of?
She looks at Lilith who sits patiently waiting for Star to find her answer. She looks at Edensun, the boy who grew up without a mother. Is that what I’m ashamed of? Leaving my son when he needed me most, but he was a monster. We didn’t bond and he hurt me. I can forgive myself for leaving and he has already forgiven me. What then?
She looks into her lap, past the deep cleavage exposed by the cut of the dress between her breasts. ‘I’m ashamed that I’m a woman,’ she answers.
‘What?’ Edensun cries.
Lilith holds the palm of her hand towards him to silence his outburst.
‘Eve’s shame,’ Lilith whispers.
Star nods.
‘The human race hasn’t evolved much in thousands of years.’ Lilith sighs. ‘Do you believe it when they tell you you’re inferior, a temptress, evil and shallow?’
‘I don’t feel I’m good enough.’
‘Good enough for whom?’
Star shakes her head.
‘Every day I make flesh for new spirits, some are male and some are female. The spirits within both are infinite until I make that arbitrary choice as to how to shape their flesh. Each is limited by their new shell. Their bodies separate them from each other, organising the spirits into logical patterns which conform, with varying success, to the rules which cage them. Do you follow?’
‘I think so.’
‘Rules such as you can no longer fly; you can no longer expand into your environment; you can no longer merge completely and seamlessly with another; one day you will die and your spirit will return to the source. These are the rules of being bound into flesh and they are the same for male and female forms. Everything you have been taught since you were pushed from your screaming mother, other than these rules, is bullshit. These new limits humans have imposed upon themselves, and each other, are not real. They hold no profound truth about yourself or the human condition. You are neither inferior nor superior to the billions of other spirits caged in flesh that roam the earth.’
‘If that’s true what is the purpose of life?’
‘Purpose?’
‘What should be our goals?’
‘Should?’ Lilith grins.
‘Lilith!’
‘The purpose of life is to find your own purpose and your goal is death.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ Star shakes her head.
‘Why?’
‘If death is our goal why do we live at all?’ Star’s eyes are wide, pleading almost.
‘To discover, to learn, to have fun.’
‘We don’t do those things.’
‘Some do. Others have become confused and in their confusion they look for answers to the wrong questions.’
‘Why is the world so unfair and unequal?’ Star glances at Lilith whose face is hazy through the veil of tears.
‘Because people make it so.’
‘So there is no purpose?’ Star looks down and squeezes her fingers.
‘Do you need there to be?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then make your own purpose.’
Star stares at her hands. ‘My own?’
Lilith’s voice grows sharp. ‘Why are you so infuriatingly stupid and blind, Star?’
Star frowns. She bites her bottom lip and pinches the back of her hands between her fingernails, stretching skin from bone. ‘I’m afraid to fail.’
‘Fail at what? How can you fail at living for a while then dying?’ Lilith gesticulates wildly, losing all semblance of calm.
‘It isn’t that simple.’
‘Of course it is.’ Lilith’s voice heightens in frustration.
‘But all the other people…’
‘What of them?’
‘You don’t live there. There’s a hierarchy, societal pressure. It isn’t just five people in a room chatting.’
Lilith’s voice softens again. A soft smile plays on her lips. ‘Or more accurately two chatting and the other three listening.’
Star looks up and catches Magenta’s eye. Magenta blushes and looks away.
‘Maybe they should talk too?’ Star says.
‘That’s up to them. This is freedom. They are neither obliged to talk or to stay silent.’
‘They aren’t free, Lilith. They’re your servants.’
‘They help me. I do my job willingly as do they. If I stopped making people God wouldn’t soar through that veil and tell me to start again. I have simply decided my purpose and I fulfil it.’
‘How did you start?’
‘You know my beginnings.’
‘In the Garden?’
‘No, before then. I was the light of the moon. I was cast out and I fell to earth. I was born demon from the womb of the moon. God made me human, but the price was too high. After The Fall, not my fall, but The Fall of humankind from the Garden, he asked for my help. I ensured I made the right demands this time. I discovered quickly what I value most highly. I am free to do whatever I please and most of the time I am pleased to manage this factory of human creation. It amuses me, imagining the potential of each new spirit to change everything around them. While it’s rare, some spirits do shine more brightly and do change things.’
‘For the worse and for the better.’
‘You still don’t understand. The lives of humans are of no concern to us. We do not guide them. I am simply entertained by change.’
‘I wish I had changed more,’ Star says.
‘What would you change?’
‘I’d abolish animal farming and inequalities of wealth. I’d make sure everyone had enough for survival but not a glut of resources. I
’d stop war and I’d stop the sexualisation of women.’
‘Big changes,’ Lilith says, nodding.
‘Yes, too big. I didn’t have the power to change any of them.’
‘You didn’t use the power you had,’ Lilith says.
Star looks at her empty glass and refills it from the decanter. ‘That’s true. I didn’t.’
‘It’s not too late,’ Lilith says.
‘What do you mean?’
‘For you to change things. Shake the world up a little. Why don’t the three of us make a little visit to Malkuth? It could be fun.’
‘I don’t think so, Lilith.’
‘Why not?’
‘For a start, who am I to decide what other people do with their lives?’
‘If you hate it, change it.’
‘But it’s not my place to do so.’
‘Nonsense. It’s everyone’s place, everyone’s responsibility to be the change they seek.’
‘If you and I go to Malkuth, we’ll have undue influence. We are too powerful.’
‘Yet before you said you wished you had changed things, but you felt powerless. Which is it Star?’
Star bows her head. She sits silently, studying the lines on her hands and the creases of her silk dress. Slowly she raises her head and stares into Lilith’s eyes. Her lips twitch. Her features slacken in resignation and she sighs. ‘Both.’
Chapter 62
Lilith notices the tiny shiver across Star’s skin. ‘You don’t really want to talk about all this heavy stuff, do you? Why not have some fun with us?’
Star smiles. The laugh she offers sounds hollow, sardonic almost. ‘Lilith, you make my head spin. Okay, I’ll bite. What do you do for fun?’
‘Truthfully we mostly eat, drink and have sex, but if that’s a little avant-garde for you, especially with your son present and all, we could go for a walk, play hide and seek, go swimming.’
‘Children’s games?’
‘How do adults have fun?’ Lilith asks.
Star shrugs. ‘We talk, we drink, we dance…’
‘Dancing! What a marvellous idea? It’ll be just like the time we met in that club. What was it called?’
‘Club Midian.’
‘Sapphire, darling, play some music for us.’ Lilith stands up and holds out her hands towards Star.
Shaking her head, Star blushes and giggles self-consciously. ‘I-I…’
The moment the music starts Lilith moves with it, gliding with serpentine grace across the room, pulling Edensun, Magenta and Violet to their feet. They follow her lead. Bodies weave around each other. Sometimes they dance so close that there is not a sliver of air between them. Lilith returns to Star’s side and offers her hands again. Star’s smile makes her tingle. This time the Goth stands up and allows Lilith to steer her towards the centre of the room.
As Lilith watches Star move, it is like gazing upon evolution. The timid, confused and often irritating little girl blossoms into a confident and beautiful woman. The lines of worry across her brow vanish and her soft mouth curls into a smile. Her hooded eyes scan the room and she looks mischievous, predatory and alive. Lilith almost forgets her own steps as she watches this angel of the dance floor.
Star weaves between the other dancers. Her hands move like falling leaves, sometimes hovering for a moment on the shoulder of another.
One by one the dancers fall away. Edensun and Magenta play a game of chess together and Violet returns to a piece of embroidery. Star appears as unaware of their absence as she had been of their presence. She is completely lost in the rhythms of the music.
Lilith watches patiently as the movements of Star’s arms become smaller and the swaying of her body less random. When Star looks up from the floor, Lilith smiles at her.
‘You’re a wonderful dancer,’ Lilith says. ‘Motion is your medium. Perhaps you should be a dancer rather than a painter?’
Star shakes her head. ‘I am not nearly talented enough and I don’t like the feeling of being watched. I just enjoy dancing. It makes me feel…’
‘Free?’
‘Yes, exactly. I guess it’s like meditation. The music shuts down my conscious mind and lets my subconscious surface. It feels like flying. Hey, Lilith, do you remember that time in the club when we floated above the dance floor? Oh no, wait, that was a dream.’
‘Reality is a construct of your conscious mind. Dreams are constructs of your unconscious. Why put a higher value on the one while dismissing the other?’
‘But, how could I expect you to remember if it’s my dream?’
Lilith nods. ‘I remember.’
Star looks pensive for a moment. ‘What is this music?’ she asks.
‘Ancient, tribal songs from the desert updated with a mixture of traditional and modern instruments for the twenty-first century,’ Lilith answers.
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Do you understand the words?’ Star asks.
‘This one, right now, it’s comparing the desert sand to children, moulding and forming them then watching them blow away on the wind.’
Star closes her eyes and pictures the desert. The imagined sun warms her face and grit irritates her eyes. ‘Will you take me to the desert, Lilith?’
‘It’s just beyond our garden wall, child.’
‘No, the one where you wandered, before and after Eden.’
‘As you wish. We can have a world tour, the three of us: all the pain, suffering, cruelty and hardship we can pack into two weeks.’
‘It isn’t that bad,’ Star says.
Lilith frowns. ‘Really? It is exactly that bad the way you tell it and it certainly is that bad in the land I used to call home.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Star reaches out and touches Lilith’s hand.
Lilith looks at the pale skin covering her own deeper tones. She looks up from their hands and into the blue eyes of the woman before her.
‘That was rude of me,’ Star continues. ‘Forgive me. Your land, is it a war zone now?’
Lilith nods. ‘Enough talking, we either dance or we can take a walk outside in our own desert.’
Star’s pupils dilate and her face glows. ‘I’d like very much to walk with you, Lilith.’
‘Shall we leave the children to their games?’ Lilith nods towards Edensun, Magenta, Violet and Sapphire.
‘Yes, they seem happy.’ Star smiles.
‘So do you, at last, my dear. So do you.’ Lilith offers her arm and Star accepts it. Together they leave the villa grounds and step onto the soft yet barren earth.
‘Does nothing grow here?’ Star asks.
‘Everything grows here,’ Lilith answers. ‘But I need space to think so I can do my work.’
‘Do you ever get bored of the monotony?’
‘No.’
‘I think if it were my land I’d need more contrasts, more change.’
‘I know, but it isn’t your land and I already know who I am. I don’t always strive to see what’s waiting around the corner while ignoring the things that I already possess.’
‘Do you think that’s what I do?’ Star turns and stares coldly at Lilith.
Lilith suppresses a smile, shakes her head and continues walking.
They walk in silence for a while.
‘How large is this world?’ Star asks.
‘Large enough for our needs.’
‘What about the geography?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Is it all dirt and sand other than the villa?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘What about at the edges?’
‘The edges? Do you mean the boundaries?’
‘Yes.’
Lilith stops walking and points. ‘Do you see that light in the distance?’
‘Yes.’
‘That comes from Samael’s world. The spirits walk through the veil between his world and mine so I can mould them into flesh.’
‘What is his world like?’
&
nbsp; ‘Dark, crowded and chaotic. He enjoys having distractions around him.’
‘Do you hate it?’
‘I couldn’t live there, but there are reasons enough to visit.’
Star catches Lilith’s eye and coughs. ‘How about in that direction?’ She points away from the light.
‘There’s a lake. Satori crossed it to enter this world.’
‘Can we see it?’
‘I don’t go there. I am certain Edensun would join you, if you wanted to make the journey.’
‘Now?’
‘There really is no peace inside of you, Star, and there will never be, unless you learn to be still.’
Star nods. ‘Okay.’ She sits down and Lilith sits next to her.
Sand caresses Lilith’s toes. She smiles and turns toward Star. Star looks deep in thought, her eyes fixed on the horizon. The woman’s skin shines like moonlight. Tiny hairs on her cheeks catch the light and glisten. The pores beneath them offer hours of exploration. Her top lip where it points downwards slightly in the middle quivers as she breathes. Beyond that Lilith can glimpse the whiteness of teeth and the pink curve of her tongue. Her nostrils flare each time she inhales. Dust, from the desert air, journeys in and out with her breath. Fine spider webs, of blue and red veins, decorate the internal walls of her nostrils.
Star turns to focus her eyes on Lilith. Her pupils widen and the pink tip of her tongue flicks across her lips, moistening them.
‘I would like to kiss you,’ Lilith tells her.
‘I’ve never known you to ask before.’ Star laughs.
‘Things are different now. I’m different and so are you. We are equals. I won’t kiss you unless you want it too.’
‘I do,’ Star replies.
The pale face and dark curls blur as Lilith moves closer and closer to Star’s lips. She tastes like ocean spray and summer fruits. As they kiss Lilith’s need grows. She pulls Star closer, touching her hair then her throat then her arms, filling Star’s mouth with her tongue. Her excitement mounts as she feels Star’s tongue push sensuously back.
They tug at each other’s clothes. Discarding fine silks on the sand, they press flesh against flesh. Breasts squash against each other as legs and arms entangle. They roll across the sand letting it cover their heated bodies, completely unaware of everything but each other.
Lilith grips Star’s breast. The woman moans with pleasure as Lilith licks sand and salt from Star’s skin. Her fingers trace the curves of her lover’s pale body. They stroke Star’s soft rounded stomach, downy with fine blonde hairs then explore the tangle of auburn curls below, before reaching her clitoris and squeezing the swollen mound between teasing fingers.
Starblood Trilogy Page 69