"That," she began, with a glance downward, "looks uncomfortable." She untied the drawstring on his trousers, pulled him to his feet, and led him by the front of his shirt to the lounge nearer the fireplace. It was a halting, awkward walk, as she stopped periodically to relieve him of his trousers, then his shirt and then his shorts. It was indeed a relief, as his erection had grown so eager he was afraid his clothes would interfere with circulation of blood.
Gentiola laid herself out on her side at the far edge of the lounge, and patted the space next to her as if Charlinder needed any invitation to follow. "More room here," she whispered as he made himself comfortable and drew his arms around her again.
He could not have asked for a better place to be. As they kissed again, there was nothing else in the world except the two of them. He ran his hands over her side and back and marveled at every curve in that wonderfully warm, soft flesh that was such a welcome relief against his deprived, abused body. Everything else in his life was rough, hard, dry, cold and unforgiving, and then there was this lovely woman pushing her fingers up into his hair.
"Sit up for me, will you?" he asked upon pulling away from their kiss. He slid over to crouch next to her edge of the lounge as he indicated for her to sit up with her feet on the floor. She looked at him quizzically for a moment until he positioned himself between her knees and kissed her just below the navel. There was something that distracted him for a quick, fleeting moment: a scar on her right leg, curving from the center of her upper thigh down to just above the knee, but he didn't dwell on it. He settled his hands on her backside to steady himself as he kissed her lower belly and upper thighs in a slowly tightening spiral. When he drew his hands forward, Gentiola dropped back on her elbows and spread her thighs further apart to give him more room. Finally he spread apart those moist folds of skin around her clit and went to work with his tongue; he went in different directions until he found a pattern that made Gentiola fall flat on her back and moan like she was in pain. He kept going like that until her body seized up as if tangled up between invisible strings and she cried out in desperate, ragged moans punctuated by hard inhalations.
Once she got her breathing under control, she sat up and grabbed Charlinder by the shoulders with shocking strength for such a tiny woman. She brought him onto his back on the lounge and straddled him. She leaned forward, pressed her weight into his upper body and kissed his neck and upper chest like she was just as starved as he was. "Ready?" she said.
Ready for what, he didn't need her to put into words. "Yes," he exhaled. She reached down between her thighs, grabbed hold of his cock, and speared herself onto him. She moved determinedly up and down on him, and it was the most wonderful feeling except for one thing missing: he needed to be closer to her. Careful not to break contact, he vaulted upright and held onto her upper back so that she rubbed against him with every rise and fall. They may have fallen together back against the lounge; he wasn't paying much attention to anything except the insistent up and down of the mesmerizing woman in his arms, and soon enough, he lost control as the light in the room turned to blinding flashes in his eyes. Next thing he knew he was settling on top of Gentiola as his senses returned to normal. He could hear the fire crackling in the hearth, smell the thin sheen of sweat on both their bodies, feel the air turn cool as his pulse calmed to its normal resting pace. He stretched into a comfortable entanglement with her; she ran one hand over his spine and ribs like she wanted nothing more than for him to fall asleep on top of her.
"Char, do you like that I'm chubby enough for both of us?" she mused.
He didn't answer with words, only wiggled around to holder her tighter, resting his hands in the reassuring pads of flesh on her waist. She chuckled along with him in response.
"Besides," she went on, as if they hadn't just interrupted their fireside chat, "what could be broader or deeper for your people than getting through the next winter?"
"I don't mean I blame them for it," he replied, lifting his head to look her in the eye again. "But am I wrong to think they could be looking at bigger things than that?"
"I think what you mean to say is, they should also be thinking of how their grandchildren will get through their winters."
"Yes, thank you."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Voices
He found Gentiola outside, feeding and watering the rabbits and chickens.
"Good morning," he said, alerting her to his presence.
"Good morning," she returned. "Last night was..."
"Amazing," he finished.
"Yes," she replied appreciatively. "Listen, I haven't forgotten about why you’re here."
"I never thought you had."
"So, then, I’d like to tell you about the Plague today."
"I’d love that."
"Good."
He had to wonder why she'd chosen that morning to bring up the Plague, and why she'd implied that he may have suspected she’d forgotten. After several hours of letting Charlinder stew over this, Gentiola brewed a pot of tea and sat them down in the common area again.
"The biggest thing that I want to know is," she began, "
why
do you want the answers to the Plague?"
"I thought the reason was obvious. Doesn't everyone want to know?"
"Of course everyone wonders what made the world end," she said, "but you're the first one I know who's become a world traveler because of it. Why is it so important to you?"
"Because," he thought back to the tensions that motivated his departure. "Wait. Before I say anything, let me ask you something: Do you believe in God?"
She looked at him knowingly. "I am answerable to no force except the Earth. Her needs are my concerns, Her demands are my instructions, and Her energy is my life's blood. So if you mean, do I believe in the Abrahamic God, then, no, I don't."
"Okay, then, this'll be simple enough. You remember the fighting Eileen did with Mark, that was all over her journals? Of course we saw how the fight over birthrate turned out, but their argument about the Plague never got resolved, and in my village we're still butting heads over it. Most of us are content just to be heathens and get on with our lives, whereas the Faithful want to keep picking the same old fight about how we need to behave ourselves so God won't have to punish us again. And I might have a little more respect for that kind of concern except they take it upon themselves to tell the rest of us how 'God' wants us to behave, you know? That's the thing, is we still haven't figured out what makes them the Chosen Ones who know God's true intentions better than others."
"I noticed that about organized religions, too, in my youth," said Gentiola. "Go on. How did that convince you to walk around the world?"
"For a long time, it didn't. The argument sort of went in cycles, where the Faithful would annoy the rest of us for a while, and we engaged them maybe a little bit, but in the end we didn't care, and they dropped it for a while. Then more recently, they brought it up again, and they seemed to get a lot noisier about it this time, you know, more persistent. And things started happening, people started fighting about it. They were just little spats here and there at first, not enough to bother anyone except me. But then, one guy beat another one up."
"And this doesn't normally happen in your village?"
"Not often, and not nearly that badly. The message was mainly, 'Keep your cock out of my sister,' but he thought he had God on his side. That was the turning point for the village."
"Now, what did the sister have to say about this?"
"She was pissed off at her brother for what he did and she made sure he knew it."
"So how did she feel about the other fellow, as you call it, putting his cock in her?"
"Oh, she was all in favor of it. Regularly, in fact."
"Okay, then, I take it this was an example of someone using God as an excuse to be a bully, which is unfortunate, but it happens. Did this bully say anything about the Plague during this episode?"
"Not at the time, but the disease is their biggest reason for arguing that God exists. There were some things that happened which the scientific view never managed to explain, or didn't explain to the Faithful's liking. We nonbelievers figured they didn't need to be explained any better, or it would all make sense once we had researching tools again, or whatever, but the Faithful have always insisted the Plague is proof not only that God exists, but that God decided to punish us for our sins."
"And what might those sins be?"
"The laundry list varies, but it usually involves a lot of what we do with our private parts."
Gentiola nodded absently. "Yes, that sounds about right for organized monotheism. So, then, what do you hope to gain from learning about the Plague?"
"I hope to go home and clear up the Plague question so that the Faithful can't use it to hold their God over our heads."
"That is, assuming that what I tell you will prove your side right."
"Yeah, but you tell me you remember the Plague, and you still don't believe in God, so I don’t think you’re going to tell me anything that shows I’m all wrong."
"True enough. In that case, do you think you'll obviate their faith if you tell them the truth about the disease?"
"Maybe not right away, but I think it'll get the process going."
"The process of...what?"
Charlinder thought that much was fairly obvious, and had expected that she would see the value in his intentions without explaining the context to her.
"The process of no longer using God as a substitute for reason and sense."
Gentiola paused for a moment in which she didn't look at him. "I'm worried about what you're proposing to do."
"Why? I thought you felt the same way."
"About the validity of the natural sciences, yes," she said, looking at him again. "Yes, I think we're on the same page in terms of what runs the universe. But, are you hoping to effect a movement that rids human society of theistic religion?"
The closest experience he knew to the sensation he now felt was of being on a horse-drawn cart, trotting happily along, when the horses suddenly came upon a river and stopped so short that Charlinder and all the cargo on the cart were nearly tossed out. "Only to the extent that a small potato like me can make it happen," he said.
"And you'd hope to keep people from developing religious belief as part of this effort?"
"Are you saying that would be a bad thing? Haven't you told me yourself about the problems that kind of belief caused? Should I instead let the Faithful grow back into the kinds of theocracies that perpetrated the Crusades, the Inquisition, and most of the terrorism of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries? Because the ones in my village are pretty tame as they go."
"Of course I understand your frustration with the Faithful," she responded, with eyes glowing, "but insisting that everyone follow your non-belief in God is still dogmatic."
Charlinder practically choked on his tea. "
I'm
being dogmatic now? I'm not about to tell anyone what they have to believe, aside from what's plainly in front of their noses. There is nothing dogmatic about pointing out that there's no reason to believe there's a cranky old man in the sky who'll kill us all over again if he sees too many of us not showing up at the Sermons!"
"And do you think that's all you'll be asking people to give up? Just the fear of retribution?"
"I suppose there's also the tribal sense of superiority."
"It may look like just a tribal sense of superiority to someone with your privilege, but--"
"Privilege? You don't know anything about any privileges I might have."
"I know plenty," Gentiola responded.
"What do you know about me?"
"You’ve been in excellent health for most of your life. You have all your facial features as they should be, your skeletal structure is normally developed and all your digits are intact, which means you've lived a life free of catastrophe and hardship. You're at least six feet tall, and most of that height is in your legs, which means you were well-nourished for most or all of your childhood, and you've already told me all about how your family took such wonderful care of you. You have friends at home who are always there for you, you had a job that you enjoyed, and most of all you had the liberty to pull up roots and come out here just to get some questions answered. Most men your age have families who need them to stay put. It's easy enough for
you
to say this life is all we have and we need to make the most of it, but for a lot of people alive today, those terms are unacceptable. Religion may be just a myth to you, but it is far more than a mistaken idea about the past you'll be asking your neighbors to give up."
"So, what are you saying, I shouldn't tell them where the Plague came from because the idea of the Great Big Grampa Up in the Sky looking out for them is so comforting?"
"If you think you'll change the world for the better by sharing the 'good news' that everyone
won't
be rewarded for all the garbage they have to put up with in the here and now, then you are mistaken."
"So, what, now the Faithful are going to turn around and slaughter me for ripping the rug out from under their illusions? Or just that I'll make them so sad they won't bother to go on plowing their fields?"
"I'm not worried about you being murdered, only that you'll be disappointed. You're talking about battling something much bigger than the origins of the Plague. For many people, the thought of the afterlife is all that gets them through the season, and you think they'll give that up just because you have a new idea to share?"