Immortal (40 page)

She grinned and I fell in love, for just a half second. “Plato,” she said.

“Plato?”

“You’ve read him?”

“I knew him.”

She pushed away and tucked her knees in until she was sitting up and opposite me and my heart broke, for just a half second. Although she was still entirely naked, and fully apparent as such, and that eased the pain.

“Did he believe in the gods of the Greeks?” she asked. The switch from coy flirtation to intellectual curiosity was mildly jarring, but I didn’t mind all that much. The truth was, there were few beings on Earth with greater native intelligence, on average, than succubi. It was the sort of thing one was better off knowing in advance.

“He didn’t,” I said, “but many still did in his day, as did most of their ancestors.”

“And Aristotle? Or Socrates? Or, I don’t know, Parmenides, Eratosthenes, Pythagoras, Heraclitus . . .”

“You’ve been bedding a scholar, haven’t you?” I asked. It had been a very long time since anyone had rattled off such a long list of Greeks to me.

“I’ve been reading,” she said a touch sternly. She slipped off her knees and lay back on the blankets, looking up at the ceiling.
 

“I can tell. No, most of the great thinkers did not believe in the old gods. They preferred to set up their own private cults instead, since the body politic at large did still believe. Pythagoras’s cult was particularly notorious, but he was also a lunatic.”

“I thought he was interesting,” she said. She reached over her head with one arm and found my leg, which she rubbed gently the way one might tickle a pet. It was as if she was daring me to form complete sentences.

“Interesting yes, sane no,” I said. “The Pythagoreans worshipped numbers instead of gods.”

“That doesn’t sound so crazy to me. Not in comparison.”

“Except they had a tendency to draw their swords on non-initiates. They were particularly protective of the dodecahedron.”

Rowena laughed. She had a rich, velvety laugh that caused men to run toward the sound, even if they couldn’t walk unaided prior to hearing it.

“All right,” she said, “I accept your opinion on Pythagoras. But . . . what I don’t understand is how anyone could in seriousness think the Pantheon was a reasonable thing.”

Her other hand had managed to discover her cleavage, her fingers teasing along the breastbone, the thumb tracing the outside of her left breast. It was possible she wasn’t even aware she was doing it, but it was all I was aware of. Consequently, my response was nothing more than, “The Pantheon.” Because when you cannot think of what to say, repeating back what you had just heard was nearly always a safe option.

“Zeus,” she offered. “Hermes, Poseidon, Hera, Athena . . .”

“Yes, I know who you mean, I just don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, milord. Petulant, irrational, cruel beings living on top of a mountain lusting after mortals and giving them silly quests or hurling thunderbolts at them or turning them into pigs or cows or trees. It’s the sort of thing you tell a child you want to frighten into obedience.”

I leaned forward until I was next to her, looking down at her lovely body. “Maybe that’s how they saw the world,” I suggested. My right hand, on its own initiative, traced its way along her flat stomach and to her hipbone as my lips contemplated giving some serious attention to her nipples. Her skin felt like satin and smelled like cinnamon.

She lifted my hand up to her face. Smiling, she pulled a finger into her mouth and sucked on it for a moment, and then pulled it out and kissed the palm. “You were there,” she pointed out. “Don’t tell me maybe.”
 

Rolling out from below me, she reached the end of the bed and got to her feet. My heart broke again, along with a few other organs.

I sighed grandly as I watched her walk away. She stopped at the pitcher and slowly poured herself the glass of water she’d turned down so recently. “All right,” I said. “The behavior of the gods was their way of explaining the apparent random cruelty of day-to-day life. Will that do?”

“No.” She leaned back against the wall, sipping from her glass, smiling. I sat up and swung my feet around, meaning to walk to her. “And you have to stay on the bed,” she added.

“Why is that?”

“Because you’re not taking my questions seriously, so you will stay there until I’m satisfied.”

“It seems to me you’ve been fairly well satisfied so far,” I suggested.

“Oh, indeed, milord. But in that regard I can also satisfy myself right here, without additional assistance.”

To punctuate this point, she dipped two fingers into the water and began drawing a line down her belly, stopping just shy of very interesting. I think I may have moaned audibly.

“Ask me again,” I said.

“I want you to explain to me how a civilization that gave birth to the greatest thinkers in history, could possibly subscribe to such a juvenile religious faith.”

“That will take a while,” I confessed, without exaggeration.

“I have nowhere to be.”

Nor did I, but this was not how I expected to be spending all the free time I had set aside. “All right. But this will come at a price.”

“Whatever you feel is appropriate,” she said with a satisfying grin.

I decided on an approach.
 

“The short explanation,” I began, “is that they believed in the gods because the Greeks had met their gods.”

She looked disappointed. “Now you’re just patronizing me,” she said.

“I’m not.”

“Zeus, Athena and all of that? We are talking about the same gods?”

“Yes.”
 

“I think I would prefer the longer explanation.”

“All right, another approach: how do you think the gods were created?”

She laughed. “I imagine some overly creative little boy dreamed them up.”

“It’s a serious question, Rowena. How do you create a god?”

She pondered this, while tasting her water by dipping a finger in the glass and then sucking on it. I’ve never seen anyone enjoy fresh water as much as her.
 

“I guess I don’t know,” she admitted. “The stories of the gods were told for a long time, weren’t they? There wasn’t a . . . a bible of any kind.”

“No, there wasn’t. The myths were passed on orally. But how did they start?”

She glided away from the wall and settled in the bench in front of the bay window. With legs crossed—said legs being of the long, muscular sort generally seen on dancers, the kind that made men drop whatever they were carrying when she walked by—she leaned back and looked out the window for some time, while sunlight tricked across her naked body with great eagerness. If I had the time, I would have commissioned a painter.

“I know mankind to be notorious when it comes to properly interpreting the natural world,” she said. “Am I a demon?”

“You are definitely not,” I answered. “Although I’m less certain regarding incubi.”

She smiled. Insulting an incubus when talking to a succubus is always a good way to get ahead, because while they are of the same species, they don’t get along in any real sense.

I don’t like them either; most I’ve met have turned out to be dim, charmless rakes. But I understand them. Essentially the responsibility of carrying on the species falls on the incubi, because succubi can’t become pregnant. Thus, the average incubus spends all of his time charming and bedding women in order to impregnate them, and roughly one out of ten offspring ends up being a succubus or an incubus. They tend to prefer married women whose husbands are men of means so that their children will have a decent upbringing, given the incubus isn’t going to be helping raise anybody. I frankly don’t see why any woman would be interested in one, but I am not a woman.

“So,” she continued, “I could easily imagine these gods began as misapprehended stories that developed into something supernatural in the retelling.”

“That’s a large part of it,” I agreed. “But what did the stories begin as?”

“Ah! As men!”

“Exactly. The deeds of great men and women, passed down through history.”

“Great women?”

“History has had many matriarchies, and quite a few women have actively participated in warrior cultures. It wasn’t always as it is now.”

She stood and walked over to the bed, stopping just shy of arm’s reach. I was uncovered and so it was fairly clear I was ready for her to return. “This answer nearly pleases me,” she said.

“Nearly?” I asked. I could have reached out and grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the bed. And she would have relented, and even acted as if that was what she had wanted all along. But it would have been the last time we were together.

Instead of acceding to the bed, she sat down on her knees beside it, in a position of supplication I found entirely irresistible.

“You mean to say that all of the gods of the Pantheon were true persons of Greek history,” she said.

“No,” I countered. “True persons of history, but not all of Greek history. The Greeks were conquerors before written history, and their gods came from many different traditions. It would be impossible to tease out all of the stories after the fact.”

“Impossible for you?” she asked. “You were there.”

“I was, but no. Even if I cared to remember, there are too many threads.”

She looked disappointed. “That’s a shame.” She sighed grandly, adding, “And I reject your premise.”

“What?”

“Which is unfortunate; I was looking forward to rejoining you.” She spread her thighs just slightly, and her hand felt its way down. I strongly considered leaving the conversation at that and simply watching her.

“Where do you disagree?” I asked.

“You told me the Greeks had met their gods in person . . .” she hesitated to tickle herself, which we both enjoyed. And then her hand slid back up to her belly. “But you’ve also said the gods came from traditions older than the Greeks themselves. Are you suggesting these gods are all immortals? Because, milord, you have told me often there is no-one like you and I believe you.”

“All of that is true,” I agreed—although it wasn’t. “You can continue doing that if you wish.”

“I do,” she said. “But I’d like you to administer to the contradiction before I administer myself.”

I’ve talked philosophy with a lot of people, and while it was often a frustrating undertaking, I couldn’t recall any of those conversations being quite this maddening, for reasons having little to do with the subject itself. “This Cardinal you’ve made friends with,” I said.

“Yes? Would you like to see what I do for him? I’m already on my knees.”

I ignored the offer, as painful as that was. “Does he talk to you about Jesus?” I asked.

“Sometimes. But only in passing. He doesn’t believe I have a soul. I think that makes it easier for him.”

I asked, “Has he ever met Jesus?”

This question had a significant effect on her mood, which came as a surprise as it didn’t occur to me, prior to asking, that a succubus could also be an adherent of the Christian faith. Her hands, just moments ago finding interesting places on her body to rub and massage, fell to her sides. “That is not the same thing,” she said. I felt the urge to backtrack, but it was too late.

“Nor is it all that different,” I said. “It’s been nearly two millennia since Jesus of Nazareth walked the Earth, but finding someone today who would declare he never truly existed, and that he wasn’t a god, would be difficult.”

“
The
God. He also never lived atop a great big mountain and hurled lightning at people,” she argued, hopping to her feet and walking over to the water pitcher again. Her carriage had changed from enticing and graceful to simple and efficient, and I realized for the first time just how much of what a succubus is and does is a performance. However, she was still naked; the situation could be salvaged.

“You’re missing my larger point, Rowena,” I said. “The Greeks may not have met their gods face-to-face, but their ancestors did, in the same way the ancestors of your Cardinal met Jesus.”

“I understand your point,” she said without turning.
 

Something in her tone of voice recommended I keep quiet for a while, and so I did. Presently, she turned again and leaned back up against the wall, stretched dramatically—it was reminiscent of a cat somehow—and looked at me. A grin crept back onto her face.

“I am beginning to question the wisdom of debating gods with an immortal man,” she said.

“Do you accept my premise?” I asked.

“I do, conditionally.”

“Conditionally.”

She walked slowly across the room, hips swinging slightly. Despite the lack of clothing, she carried herself with the allure of a well-dressed courtesan on a Parisian ballroom floor. I gathered from this that she had decided she was no longer cross with me. Committing one knee to the bed, she leaned forward, breasts dangling nearly within reach.

“My fear, milord, is that should I compare the philosophical underpinnings of Christianity to the warrior gods of legend, you will find a way to prove them equal in merit, and I don’t think I’d like to hear any of that.”

She leaned in and kissed me deeply. I reached around and grabbed her perfect little behind and pulled her onto the bed properly. Her legs separated and her knees slid in beside my hips.

“So let’s save any more . . . probing . . . on the matter for another time, milord.”
 

With a free hand she pulled away the sheet that separated us and settled on top of me. A little moan of satisfaction escaped her lips—a portion of the performance or not, I no longer cared—and then she was tilting her head back and panting and I was lifting myself up to meet her downward thrusts.

And my last cogent thought, before I gave in to what would be a largely mindless afternoon of carnality, was that I was very glad Rowena found my explanation satisfactory. Because the last thing I wanted was to have to tell her the truth: some gods were more real than others.