Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [63]
“Why does this puzzle you, my son?”
“Because I am not…”
“Yes?”
“Not…well…one of them.”
“One of whom?”
Arkady blushed red as a beet and blurted out, “An ass-bender! Okay? I’m not a goddamned faggot!”
“The human body is a vile thing, when you reflect on it, is it not?” Koschei said. “An ancient prophet wrote that Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement—and what is that place of excrement but the Earth? The world is a dung heap, and those who crawl about on it are vermin who are fortunate only in that their stay upon it is brief.
“In such a world, the greatest blessing is never to have been born. Failing that, it is a short life. But it is not God’s will that we should escape His testing, and so there is Hell. All suicides go to Hell, and that wicked place is the most loathsome world in all existence. Which is to say that it is exactly like this Earth in every detail save one. This far from insignificant detail is that Hell is totally divorced from God. Is this not so?”
“So you have taught me, holy one.”
“How, then, can we tell that this world is not indeed Hell? From the fact that pleasure exists here, as it cannot in the Infernal Place. First and foremost, there is the experience of religious ecstasy, which is the highest of all pleasures. Second, there is the experience of being persecuted by the unjust, which is a pleasure second only to that of God’s presence. Very few are fortunate enough to experience the first or pious enough to appreciate the second. Yet there is also a third such proof, and that is the pleasure of sex, which is available to all. Though the deed be disgusting, the pleasure it engenders is pure. It comes not from the flesh, which is to be abhorred, but from the Spirit, which all human souls must embrace or be damned. Therefore, no pleasure is wicked or wrong or to be avoided, however much the mind may flinch away from it. Do you understand me, son?”
“Yes, kindly father.”
“Then kneel and receive your blessing.”
Arkady complied. He closed his eyes and waited for the monk’s hand on his head. But it did not come. Instead, he heard the sound of Koschei’s robe sliding to the floor.
Oh, he thought.
...9...
Surplus helped Zoësophia into the carriage and then went around to the far side and climbed in, leaving the footman to shut the door behind him. The interior was dark and snug, and the cushions deep and soft. There was not a hand’s-breadth of distance between the two of them. Yet Zoësophia held herself with such a frosty reserve that it might as well have been miles. The coachman shook the reins and the horses started off. “You are quiet today, O Dark Flame of the West.”
For a time, Zoësophia stared out the window at the passing buildings. Then, without turning, she said, “You must never touch any of the other Pearls.”
Affecting a wounded tone, Surplus said, “Madam, I am a gentleman! Which is as good as to say that I am a devout believer in serial monogamy.”
“In my experience, what a gentleman believes and what he does are seldom the same thing. But let me ask you this. Suppose you were to kiss one of my sisters—Olympias, let us say—ever so lightly upon her fingertips, and those fingertips did not blister. What do you think she would do then?”
“One imagines she would seize the chance to rid herself of her troublesome virginity. But I would never—”
“My sisters are all warm-hearted and generous. They were created so. The first thing Olympias would do is inform her sisters of this happy opportunity. Then, as a group, they would descend upon you. Now, I want you to reflect back upon these last several nights and ask yourself this: What condition would you be in now, had there been six of me?”
“Oh, dear lord.” “Precisely. It would take a stronger fellow than you to survive the experience. I want you to think about that most seriously.”
Surplus did. After a moment or so, he broke to the surface of his thoughts to discover in the