Chapter Seventeen: Beulah

“There you are,” she said, dawn in the steel light slits on the ceiling. Forest Glade wafted in. Felix sniffed at the air. It smelled off to him, metallic. Veronica stretched and got out of bed. She went into the bathroom and filled a glass with cold water. He leaned up on his elbows and watched her drink it down.

“Bring me one, Veronica?”

She handed it to him, dripping over her fingers, and he drank it down, looking at her while the cold slaked his throat. It too had a disagreeable odor and taste he’d never noticed before. Well, what of it, he thought. He stood and kissed her. Her lips swelled against his, they bumped together, the water cool on their tongues. She pushed him down on the bed and said, “I want that,” and rubbed his cock through the ruby sparkle boxer shorts. He looked at the ceiling as she rolled them down over his ankles and started to suck. She pushed him till he trembled and then stopped to pull her nightshirt over her head. Then she climbed on top of him and dropped down on his face. It was like falling onto the earth on a hot day, brushing her lips with his, till they swelled and she got wet. Then he grabbed her ass and went at it hard. When they were one she pulled him in and let him out and he pushed back. It was tidal. They were lost on a long pulse of heat that only slowly released them to themselves. Separation abolished by a breath, the drift back.

They lay side by side. Semen seeped down between his legs and into his ass. The ceiling lights were on full sun now, birdsong cheeped from the baseboards. He turned over onto her and lay his head in the hollow of her shoulder and breast. It smelled like them, not like the weird, metallic air being blown out of the vents.

He was sick at the thought of having to leave. Love sick. In a way he didn’t dream possible anymore. That was a phenomenon of youth. But he was wasted, with love, with lust fulfilled, and no one had ever invented anything as good as that. It was just them, that’s what they were. They had become themselves again.

Eventually they had to put their nightclothes back on and commence to enact the daily routine, with neither scorn nor enthusiasm. He had no dread or foreboding, actually. In the shower he had even briefly hummed and whistled. The coffee was delicious, the toast buttery and crunchy. They downloaded the news onto copper electraweave, ate and chatted.

“Did we, experience the same thing? It felt to me like we did. It wasn’t like a dream at all,” he said.

“It never is. I flew.”

“I know.”

“How can it be that you know that?” she wondered.

“I don’t know. But you’re right, the garden is real.”

She nodded. “I’ve never met anyone else before though.”

“You mean Sammael.”

“Yes, the angel.”

Felix looked at her, screwing his face up. “Is that what he was? Are you sure? I didn’t see any wings or harps or anything.”

She smiled. “It’s not like that. You can tell he was an angel just by the way he was. We flew across the lake together.”

“I thought I could fly too, but in the end I just stood there, kind of transfixed.”

“So you’ll take it again–” Not a question, but a statement. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Of course not.” He looked at his hands. “You know, I feel great.” Then he looked up at her. “What is that smell by the way? Is the climate control broken?”

Veronica raised her right eyebrow and laughed. “That smell is this house. It’s nauseating. You know that Halloween smell of a candle burning in a pumpkin? That’s what it’s like.”

“That’s it exactly. I thought it was metallic at first.”

“Well that’s first thing in the morning. As the day goes by, the air becomes fetid. Too many lungs sucking off the same system.”

“Well, we draw our own air.”

“It recirculates Felix, between us. You’ll see.”

“And the water?”

“The steam is like composite on a hot day.”

And yet, despite these observations he felt good. “Maybe we can disconnect them.” She smiled enigmatically. “What are you doing today?” he asked.

Veronica rubbed her head and became thoughtful. “Well, I want to talk to the Fairbanks Tourist Council, get some idea of the industry there. Then I thought I’d price flights to Winnipeg, and car rentals there, to get an idea of how much cash we’ll need.”

“This is very fast.”

“Did you think everything would just go away if you took the pill?”

“No, but I haven’t even thought about the reality of moving, I mean, this is a life decision.”

“So is putting your wife on medication. So is living in this den and working for Intellatrawl.”

They were not really fighting because neither of them was angry.

“I guess.”

“Things are just so fucked up Felix. How could they be worse? I feel extruded. Now, mentally, things are o.k., I’m not going out the window or anything, but for instance, that smell. I live with it all day long, have been for months now. You just sort of tolerate it. Get rid of soap and deodorant and shampoo. Just be in the water, you know? The bad food, the transgenic trees, the people, flat and slow and senseless most of the time. It’s like, whatever filter it is you put up over your senses is down. All those blocking maneuvers, gone. It all comes bombarding in. But in the garden, it’s peaceful, it’s beautiful. Everything is there. But you can’t stay, can you? It’s not an option. The garden is the place you visit to get right with yourself and the world. But the world is where you have to live. Let’s choose a better one.”

“Look, that I get, it’s the embryos I’m not sure about.”

“It’s the only way.”

“But, don’t you ever want children?”

She laughed high and fast and said, “We can just make one ourselves you know, the way it’s been done.”

Felix blushed. “Yes of course, I know that, but it’s so, uncertain that way.And there’s the modifications.”

“No modifications, no thank you. Leave me out of that. Parents who sign contracts for their children’s lives, it’s slavery.”

“But the birth defects–”

She thrust her foot in his face. Two vestigial toes grew out of the

top of her foot. “Like this? Life is sometimes inconvenient. My parents, your parents, they were right.”

“They were out of their minds.”

“No, free. They died how they pleased.”

“But that’s just what I mean. If we give up the embryos, we give up the stem cell line and we’re at the mercy of nature. Something goes wrong and we don’t have the time or money–”

“Then we die.”

“That’s what I mean.” He looked around the room. They were sitting in a metal tank under ground, part of a massive hive of identical cells. They were safe. They could live there for sixty more years without leaving, and become one of those moth people, demanding, ancient, life like a lamp flickering out behind a mouth full of perfect teeth. He thought of flying through the air briefly and plunging head first into the purple black water, then of the golden scales of light brightening till he was blinded and then, on the black sand, on all fours, facing her wet face. He kissed her and stood.

“You’re right. I’ll be late.”

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you too.”