Wrath James White presents Poisoning Eros I & II

by Monica J. O'Rourke

  “If it was your fault, if you were the cause of their sins, then why did he send them to hell at all? Why make them suffer for more than half a century in this place for something you did?”

  The old man stared at her for a long moment and then laughed. “You’re new here.”

  “What the fuck does that have to do with—”

  “I’ve sat on this beach many times, for decades. Do you know what I see?”

  “What?” Gloria stood beside him and looked out at the lake.

  “Chaos. There’s no order here. There’s no order anywhere—here or in heaven.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Those angels out there—how do you think they know which souls to rescue from those that fall? How do you think they identify the sinners from the saved?”

  “I don’t know. God tells them or something?”

  The old man laughed again. “They don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “They don’t know. They don’t pick out the good ones. It’s random. I’ve seen the worst of sinners whisked away to heaven, men I knew and recognized, famous men. I have heard of serial killers and mass murderers in heaven. Now how does that make you feel? That’s supposed to be the grand example of God’s mercy, that a sinner can get into heaven. I’m sure they have to repent their sins or some such bullshit before they’re allowed in, but who wouldn’t to escape this? And I have seen many an honest man wind up here instead. It’s all random.”

  “But that can’t be!”

  “And why not? He’s the Almighty. In his mind he owes us nothing, no explanation, nothing. And we owe him everything. We have to accept that it all makes sense from his infinite perspective. I have seen hundreds sit on these banks trying to make sense of it, trying to understand God’s logic. Why they’re in hell when the worst thing they’d ever done was worship the wrong God or have premarital sex or cheat on their wives. Then they see some famous criminal whisked off to paradise. They wander down that tunnel, thinking their sins will surely be forgiven. If Albert DeSalvo can get into heaven after strangling all those women … but they come walking back down that tunnel more confused and disheartened than ever when they’re rejected.”

  “That doesn’t make sense!” Gloria could feel herself starting to panic. Of all the lies and curses and insults and threats hurled her way since coming to hell, this was by far the most horrible thing she’d heard.

  “Why do you think that tunnel’s there? In case a truly honest soul winds up here? There are thousands, millions of honest souls here. But some do make it out. If they can find it. And if they have the guts to try. Most just figure they must have done something to deserve damnation. Who can’t look over the vast experiences of an entire lifetime and find at least one sin for which they believe they should be damned? So they just stay here forever with the child-molesters and murderers. The afterlife is just like life. Lightning bolts strike churches as often as bars and strip joints on earth. Good befalls the bad and bad befalls the good. Why would you think things would be different here when the same god invented it all?”

  The old man shook his head and turned his back on the flaming sea of flesh and spirit. He looked long into Gloria eyes then dropped his head and began to shuffle away, casting one last longing gaze back at the Lake of Fire and at the sky above.

  “Maybe God has a plan,” he said. “Maybe it all makes sense to him and our limited, finite minds are just too weak to grasp it all. Or maybe it’s all just as senseless and random as it appears, and we are all just deluding ourselves.”

  Gloria licked her lips, letting his words sink in. What he said was insane. Yet she believed him. She’d seen enough to know his ridiculous words rang true. “So now what? Where do we go from here?”

  “I’d kill myself if I could. But we’re already dead so I guess that’s pointless. What are your plans?”

  “I have to find my daughter and … someone else.”

  “You’re going to just wander around hell by yourself? You’ll never find her.”

  She shrugged. “Probably not. But I have to try. You could help if you wanted. You seem to know the deal around here.”

  He shrugged. “I could. There’s not much of this place I haven’t seen. But why would I? I told you. It’s all pointless. Even your love for your daughter means nothing here.”

  Gloria sighed and shook her head. “I know.”

  “But you have to try. Don’t you?”

  “It’s all I’ve got.”

  “Then you’ve got nothing.” He looked once more out over the boiling sea of screaming souls. “But I’ll help you. What else is there for an old fool to do?”

  *

  Again unmolested during their trek … Gloria suspected it was more than coincidence, more than good luck. Synchronicity held no court in hell. If they were being allowed safe passage, there had to be a reason.

  The caves and corridors she’d chosen to explore were random. Dan, the old man, offered no suggestions, never tried to sway her in one particular direction, so her suspicions of him—particularly his eagerness to help—were most likely unfounded, she started to believe.

  The corridor before them was unlike any she had previously encountered. The walls, although adorned like all others with sconces fashioned from human body parts, were well-lit, almost … cheery. Dried blood decorated the walls in a myriad pattern, brown and burgundy splotches in a Dadaist pattern. Few skulls littered the ground.

  “Maybe we should turn back,” Gloria whispered, chills tickling her spine for some unexplained reason. If anything, this quiet hallway should bring her peace, but it was doing the opposite.

  “Why?” He pointed down the hall, as if that gesture explained what was on his mind.

  She didn’t have an answer because she was running on instinct. A gut feeling was telling her this was too easy, that something wasn’t quite right. “It’s too quiet.”

  “Maybe we got lucky.”

  “In all the decades you’ve been here, how ‘lucky’ have you ever been?”

  He nodded. “I see your point.”

  “No,” she said, more to herself, “this isn’t luck. This is something else.”

  “Fate?”

  What an odd response. She waited for the other shoe to drop. “Fate? You think we follow some sort of force? That we have some kind of controlled destiny?”

  “Without a doubt. Why should anything be different in hell?”

  “Because everything is different in hell!” She’d spoken more loudly than she’d intended and lowered her voice. “That’s absurd. You’re going on the assumption that I believe in fate to begin with. You’re telling me everything happens for a reason, right?”

  He nodded again. “Pretty much.”

  “What about the Lake of Fire? That’s basically a crapshoot, isn’t it? Where the righteous end up facing the same torture as the damned. How is that fate?”

  Dan chuckled and scratched his chin. “Chaos theory.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a relatively new concept on earth but a very old one here. The greater the chaos the greater and more immediate the resultant order. God wants to intensify mayhem in hell and on earth so that all of it will resolve itself into order. His order. The perfect civilization on earth, the perfect system of justice and punishment in hell? Neither of those would equal the perfection that will come out of this madness. That’s your Judgment Day. All this insanity collapsing in on itself, imploding into perfect sublime oblivion. God said ‘Let there be light’ and has regretted it ever since. Who do you really believe rules hell?”

  Gloria rested against the wall, trying to avoid the severed arm sconce. “Satan?”

  Dan laughed and shook his head. “Satan is a paper tiger.”

  “A what?”

  Dan ignored her question and grabbed a torch from the wall. “It gets dark farther down. We’ll need this.” He took a few steps down the corridor but Gloria refused to follow.

  “You know exact
ly where we’re going. Don’t you? When you talked of fate or destiny … you knew all along where you were leading me.”

  He glanced back at her and didn’t answer for several seconds. “I’m just supposed to make sure you get there.”

  “Get where?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “No,” she snapped, “I won’t. I’m not going any farther.”

  “They want to meet you.”

  “‘They who?”

  “I’m not allowed to say.”

  “This is bullshit.”

  “Please. Just come with me.”

  “Why not just capture me out there? Why bring me to them? Why all of this?”

  “They never venture into Inferno. It’s beneath them. They may rule here, but they don’t soil their hands or feet. There are many corridors of hell and some of them can be quite comfortable, even seductive. That’s were they live, the place where all sins are indulged. It’s another blasphemy against heaven, a mockery of God’s laws. But not all sins are painful, only their consequences. They instructed me to bring you to them.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m sure they’ll tell you.”

  “I’m going back.”

  “Suit yourself. But all roads lead to the same place. Some just take a little longer.”

  “I’ll take my chances.” She turned away from Dan and took a step in the direction they had come from.

  But the passageway was gone, replaced by a solid wall of rock.

  “Fuck,” she mumbled, not entirely surprised by the sudden appearance of a wall. She turned back toward Dan. “You were saying?” She pointed down the corridor, indicating he should lead.

  “Told you.”

  “Yeah, thanks. That helps.”

  They walked a short distance in silence, Gloria wondering where everyone was. After all, hell was notoriously overcrowded. So why were no creatures roaming in this section?

  She broke the silence. “What happened to your family? I find it hard to believe God let them all in after all.”

  He shrugged. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

  “So now what? You just stay here and work for them?”

  “I’ve worked for them a long time. How do you think I was able to keep my family together? That was the tradeoff. I bring them new souls and I get to keep my family. Just like your buddy Vlad. Though his rewards for service to them were not quite so noble. All he wanted was power.”

  “So what do they want me for? I’m already in hell. Why would they reward you for bringing me to them here? I can’t be worth shit to them now.”

  “You’d be surprised.” Dan smirked.

  As they walked, the corridor darkened, became almost impenetrable. The light from the torch provided minimal help. Gloria couldn’t see her own hand when she held it in front of her face. She cursed herself for not grabbing a torch as well.

  “In case anyone ventures this far, there are safeguards to keep people out. We’re about to cross a chasm. One that’s virtually endless. Watch your step. You go first.”

  “No, that’s not a good idea.”

  “Go first so I can catch you if you stumble.”

  He reached out and found her waist, and she knew that if he wanted to he could easily push her into this bottomless pit. But why would he? She figured he wouldn’t bring her all this way just to shove her into a hole.

  They stood on a narrow crossbeam. On either side, the ground disappeared. Dan held his torch out but the blackness was too thick to see more than a couple of feet.

  They walked slowly across the beam, Gloria shuffling her feet, afraid to take a real step.

  Dan paused.

  “Why did we stop?”

  “Listen.”

  Gloria heard nothing. “Listen for what?”

  “Shhh. Can you hear them?”

  “What? I don’t hear—”

  “Come with me,” a voice in the darkness said. There was something androgynous about it, like a woman trying to imitate a man’s voice or vice versa.

  Someone touched her, and Gloria jerked back. Someone slapped her across the face and she rocked back on her heels, almost stumbling off the beam.

  Hands grabbed her and pulled her forward onto solid ground. There was something bizarre about the touch, cool and slippery like latex.

  “Fuck off,” she said, shrugging away from that cool, smooth grasp. She still could see nothing. The darkness was absolute. Dan and his torch were gone.

  A hand touched her back and it had an almost hypnotic effect. That touch somehow comforted her, though she still couldn’t see who it was attached to. It was so smooth, so soft. So unlike everything else she’d experienced in hell. The invisible contact, so delicate and unexpected, was somehow erotic and sent a pleasing tingle through Gloria’s body. She imagined what it would feel like to have those smooth fingers caressing her everywhere. It had been so long since she’d been lovingly touched by another living creature. All she knew was hurt and degradation. She wondered if pleasure here was as raw and intense as the pain. She tried to shrug off the feelings but they overwhelmed her, and she couldn’t control them.

  The hand on her back pushed her forward. She stumbled along a few steps, the sensation of that touch still vibrating along her spine. Gloria was no longer concerned with where this invisible creature—which she assumed was a female, out of intuition and not sight—was taking her.

  She began to obsess over that touch, imagined those silken fingertips stroking her everywhere.

  She stumbled forward, again felt those slippery smooth fingers on her back urging her on. This time the hands lingered, sliding down her spine to her waist before pushing her forward. Gloria’s body tensed, imagining those fingers traveling further, down over her ass and up between her thighs. Her legs began to tremble and a moist throbbing began at her root. She turned to look but could see nothing in the impenetrable gloom.

  “Who are you?” Gloria asked.

  “No one.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Keep walking.”

  She stopped abruptly. “Then kiss me.”

  Gloria didn’t know why she’d said that. Didn’t know why she was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to fuck this creature. After so long without it, her body now cried out with the desire for contact, for love. She needed desperately to be held, caressed, made love to. But more than that she wanted to cum. Orgasm wasn’t something she’d given much thought to since coming to hell, but feeling that erotic tingle radiate through her at this woman’s touch had awakened those long dormant desires. Besides, she felt entranced, hypnotized, and she wasn’t sure the words coming out of her mouth were even hers. But she didn’t care right now. She didn’t fight the feelings.

  “Please,” Gloria urged. “Fuck me.”

  There was a long pause. Gloria breathed heavily, despite the lack of true lungs or oxygen to feed them. Her breasts rose and fell, heaving with each agitated breath as she waited for those incredibly soft hands to touch her again. She quivered with anticipation but nothing happened. No movement at all in the darkness.

  “You still there?” Gloria finally asked.

  “I’m here.”

  “Then come to me.”

  “Why?” The voice grew softer, more lyrical, almost childlike.

  “Because I want to touch you. I want you to touch me. I need to feel you.”

  “You’ll hurt me.”

  Gloria was surprised by this. Was it afraid of her, or was it teasing her? “I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me.”

  “How do you know I won’t?”

  “I don’t. You might tear me to pieces. I don’t know who or what you are. But you can’t be any worse than the things I’ve already survived.”

  “There’s always worse and you always survive. No one dies here. We wish we could sometimes, but we can’t. No one touches here except to cause hurt.”

  “We can change that. We can be the first lovers in hell.”

  “We wouldn’t be
the first. There are plenty of those and they all hurt each other.”

  “I won’t hurt you.” Gloria reached out into the darkness. She didn’t know how near the woman was and she was surprised when her hands encountered that same slippery soft skin, only now she found two enormous breasts. She caressed them, bent down to suck the large nipples. A milky substance like sweet cream dripped from the woman’s nipples onto Gloria’s tongue. It seemed like forever since Gloria had tasted anything sweet. She sucked harder, greedily gobbling up the nectar.

  The woman moaned and suddenly those silky smooth hands were roaming Gloria’s body. She still couldn’t see the woman, but what she felt was incredible.

  There were so many hands on her, too many, but Gloria didn’t care. She counted six in all, with that same delicate smoothness. Gloria figured they belonged to the same woman. She’d seen such body modifications before. It was no longer shocking. What was shocking was the realization that the tender kisses and caresses, the fingers expertly titillating her every erogenous area belonged to a demon.

  Gloria tensed, waiting for the pain, waiting to be stabbed or whipped or cut or burned. But then she felt the softest lips she’d ever felt kiss their way down her neck to her cleavage and begin to suckle Gloria’s breasts and her fear melted into ecstasy. They fell to the cave floor, licking and sucking. Gloria was only mildly surprised to find both a penis and a vagina between the woman’s legs. It was another common body modification. She lapped at the woman’s engorged clitoris and sucked her swollen cock until the demoness came in a torrent of that same sweet cream that flowed from her nipples. Gloria gobbled up every drop of the woman’s juices, unable to recall when she’d ever been so happy to swallow cum without getting paid for it.

  The demon’s tongue parted the folds of Gloria’s vagina and began to flick across her clitoris, which had swollen to the size of a grape. Gloria’s orgasms were almost immediate, urgent, powerful, racking her body like a thousand volts of electricity. Her back arched so violently she thought her spine would break. Then she came again and again, one orgasm tumbling down over another, their relentless intensity threatening her sanity as the demon’s tongue slid deep inside her, fucking her with a tongue as long as a man’s penis.