Authors: Melanie Tomlin
I wrapped my arms around his body and buried my face in his right wing, enjoying the feel of the feathers on my skin.
When I finally nestled my head between his shoulder blades, sighing happily, he partially closed his wings and turned around until my head rested on his chest. He fully closed his wings around me. They touched my back and gently pushed me closer to him, until I was certain not even a feather could find its way between us. I was enclosed in a cocoon of feathers and heavenly flesh.
Danny slipped one arm about my waist and used his free hand to raise my chin, so we were looking in each other’s eyes. He leaned down and kissed my lips — a long, lingering kiss — and my heart began to race. Once again we were driven by our desires, needs, hunger … and once again we gave in.
I lay in his arms, content with the world.
“No wonder mortals do this so often!” he chuckled.
“Don’t angels have sex?” I asked.
“We’re immortal, we don’t procreate.”
“You don’t do it for pleasure?”
“No.”
“You mean to tell me that
all angels
are
virgins?
”
“I can’t vouch for the others. Perhaps some, like me, have stumbled upon the feeling of …” he thought for a moment of an appropriate word to describe what he’d experienced, “of euphoria such a union can bring.”
He leaned down and kissed my forehead.
I thought I must have committed a great sin, fornicating with an angel, and I was racked with guilt.
Will God forgive him?
Yes, I had no doubt about that — he might get in a bit of trouble, but he’d be forgiven in the end.
Will God forgive
me
?
I couldn’t bear to think about it. Maybe I
was
evil.
“Am I going to hell?” I whispered.
“Why?”
I had difficulty speaking, the words caught in my throat. “I’m a monster,
of sorts,
and now I’m a perverter of angels.”
Danny chuckled. “And you think I was an unwilling party whom you seduced? I think it’s the other way around, judging from your memories, and I’m the one guilty of seducing you. No …
you
may think of yourself as a monster — something
I do not
agree with — yet in my heart I know you’re
not evil
. There’s a place for you in heaven, when the time comes.”
I wasn’t afraid of dying, but I was afraid of the unknown. “What will happen to me, up there?”
“It’s different for everyone. Heaven is what you want it to be.”
“Will you be there?” I asked hopefully.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because my work is here, finding and fighting demons and monsters. Perhaps if you wanted it badly enough, an angel in my image would be created for you in heaven.”
I sighed. A copy would not be as good as the original, though that gave me an idea. “Maybe we could do a swap if that was the case. The copy could come here and you could stay with me.”
“You know I can’t do that. I have a duty to Him,” Danny sighed. “Let’s not talk about this any longer. You’re not going to die anytime soon. In fact I think you’ll be long-lived, if not immortal.”
“But isn’t what we did a sin?” I asked.
“Mortals’ beliefs are so funny,” he laughed. “
He
gave you the Ten Commandments — which you couldn’t follow, by the way — and ten only, yet you create even more rules to make your lives difficult. No sex before marriage, sex only to reproduce, no meat on Fridays and the list goes on.”
“Okay, I get it.” I rolled my eyes. “Changing the subject, did you happen to notice anything about the room when we were,
you know
.”
“You mean the brilliant white light?”
“White light,” I mumbled, “I didn’t see any white light. The room was infused with a pale red glow, but not a white light. You need to get your eyes checked.”
“The colour I associate with joy, adoration and heavenly devotion, is pure white. I imagine pale red has a similar significance for you. Surely you’d be used to it, all the times you’ve …” he let the words trail off, not wanting to say
all the times you’ve had sex
.
“Well, no. It’s not really something mortals experience,” I explained.
“Ah, but we’re no mortals,” he reminded me. “Perhaps it’s caused by the joining of two immortals — perhaps the euphoria.”
“I guess.”
There was no other explanation that came to mind and obviously this was unfamiliar territory for Danny. I wondered why not bright red, the colour I associated with lust. Pale red was … well, it was
different
. I pushed the question aside. I couldn’t deal with the implications it presented.
“So, why have you got wings?” I asked. “I thought you didn’t have any?”
“In reality I don’t, although in your mind, this is how you imagine angels to be. This is my gift to you, to see me as you would like me to be.”
I leaned on my elbow to look at his face. His eyes and smile were warm, his lips inviting. If I didn’t focus on what I wanted to say I’d be lost in him again, the sinner that I was. A lot had changed since that night, however long ago it was, I’d been found by an angel.
“Yes, that’s how I
used
to imagine angels would look. I like
my angel
without wings.”
My angel
. Would Danny pick up on the nuance of those words? Certainly I hadn’t meant to lay a claim on him. Still, there was no denying it. I did want him like I’d wanted no other, body
and
soul.
The wings faded and disappeared, except for one perfectly formed feather that Danny held out to me.
“This is for you to remember me by whenever we’re apart.”
I took the feather from his hand and tucked it behind my ear. The downy barbs tickled and I had to resist the urge to scratch.
We lay in each other’s arms talking for most of the day — we’d both noticed the red tint in my fingertips had disappeared and marvelled at the change — and after a number of hours, as our conversation ebbed, we were content to listen to the sounds of the birds in the garden. I dozed again, satisfied with my lot for the first time in years.
Danny was gone when I woke. It was not unusual for me to be left on my own, but I expected, clearly wrongly so, that he would be here. I had thought he wouldn’t leave me now, without letting me know where he was going and when he thought he’d be back. I was overestimating my own importance — and worth — to him.
A clothes rack stood against the far wall, a variety of clothes hanging for me to choose from. I noticed some gorgeous, expensive-looking dresses. On the floor were a number of pairs of shoes, both the practical kind and the impractical high-heeled kind. Piled on the chair in the corner of the room were accessories — bags, scarves, belts — and makeup. How long had it been since I’d worn makeup! Sleeping with an angel had its advantages, and I was only beginning to realise them.
A large hat box was sitting on Danny’s side of the bed. When I opened it, instead of finding a hat, I found an assortment of matching lingerie, including teddies and negligees. Presumably that meant the events of last night were to be repeated at some point. I smiled as I rubbed the fabric of a delicate negligee to my cheek, wondering if Danny had been embarrassed to leave them on the bed. Hence the hat-box.
I’d never had sex for pleasure before. It was always strictly business. Last night, though …
wow!
If I’d known it could be that good
I
would’ve been the one who was paying for it!
I took my time browsing through the garments on the rack, thinking about what lingerie, shoes and accessories would go with each item. When I’d decided on what I wanted to wear, I took my selections with me to the bathroom, where a hot tub —
thanks, Danny
— awaited me.
I wished I had a hair dryer, but electricity was a pre-requisite and there was none of that here in the cottage. I rubbed my hair vigorously with a towel and brushed it close to a hundred times to make sure it shined beautifully. I slipped on the lingerie, dress and shoes and applied some makeup, using the mirror over the basin to help me get it just right.
I stood back from the mirror, and though I couldn’t see the whole picture, I thought I looked pretty good. I closed my eyes. What would it be like if I were to visit the city again — to see people and the city lights, the noise and the bustle? Imagine if they could see what I looked like now, dressed like a screen siren. I became a little bit frightened of the longing I had to see the city again. My stomach fluttered uneasily at the thought of bumping into old acquaintances, and of what I might do.
I opened my eyes. Everything around me had changed. I wasn’t in the bathroom anymore.
Have I finally lost my grip on my sanity?
Was this what insanity was like?
As my eyes adjusted I saw I was in a very small room — about one and a half metres wide and deep, and a little over two metres high — made of wood and metal. When I turned around I was facing metal doors. A panel was situated to the right of the doors. I was in an elevator! There were no lights and no matter how many buttons I pressed nothing happened.
I don’t like small spaces, I don’t like small spaces!
I screamed in my head.
I pressed the emergency phone button to talk to someone. I had to get out of here.
“Hello!
Hello!
” I yelled. “Is anybody there? Pick up, damn you!”
I pressed the button again and again. It wasn’t connecting me to anyone.
Oh god, oh god, I can’t be trapped again! Please no, I can’t be kept in a box. I need to breathe. I can’t breathe!
I pounded on the doors until the sides of my hands left minor impressions in the metal.
“Let me out,
please let me out!
” I screamed, hysterical now. “Somebody
help me!
Don’t lock me up, I’ll be good. I’ll behave from now on. Please, let me out!”
I sobbed uncontrollably, hitting the doors again until my hands and palms were red and raw. I slowly slid down to the floor and huddled in a corner, rocking back and forth, back and forth.
“
I’ll be good, I promise.
”
I was lost in a memory so far suppressed it didn’t seem to belong to me — a little girl screaming and crying to be let out of a box, no bigger than a metre square. It was in a basement, dark as night.
I clawed at my neck.
“Please,” I whispered. “I can’t breathe. All the air’s gone.”
I placed one palm on the door and somewhere from within the depths I made one final plea. “
I’ll be good Danizriel, I promise.
”
When Danny arrived I was so consumed by madness that I didn’t know who he was. He knelt beside me and tried to grab my wrists, to stop me from flailing, talking soothingly to try and calm me. I screamed and struggled against him.
Danny lifted me to my feet and pressed me up against the wall, his body holding me in place. He rested one hand over my heart and the other on my forehead. I was flooded with warmth, bliss and peace. I knew this feeling — I’d experienced it before. I managed to claw my way through the madness to the surface.
I heard Danny gasp. Through his hands I felt his body stiffen, then convulse, as had happened before. When the convulsions stopped his hands dropped. He leaned back against the wall beside me, taking deep breaths.
I reached for his hand and held it in mine, afraid to let go. He turned towards me and ran his hand through my hair. There were tears on his cheeks. I brushed them away gently with my thumb.
“Mortals can be so cruel,” he said. “You didn’t show me that memory before. I can understand why. It’s the most painful of all.”
“Danny,” my voice was hoarse from all the screaming, “I honestly didn’t remember that happening until I came here. I don’t even know how I got here. I want to go home, to the cottage.
Please
.”
Danny raised my hand and kissed it. We took the four small steps required to head home. I went straight to the bathroom, kicked off the shoes, stripped out of my clothes and wiped the makeup off my face. What a disaster! I pulled the robe off its hook and wrapped it around my body. I splashed cold water on my face and patted it dry, before heading to the living area.
Danny was sitting in an armchair, his head in his hands. I sat on the floor in front of him and rested my head against his knees, rubbing his calf with my hand.
“I don’t understand how I ended up in an elevator,” I whispered.
“I do, I saw it,” Danny replied.
“Tell me.”
“In your mind I saw your longing for the city, the lights, the people … and your hesitation. You took yourself there, to that elevator. You transported yourself. I saw no steps, no lights, only the transition from the bathroom to the elevator.”