The Wicked: A Love Story

Stories About Us

Every man and every woman is a star.

-The Book of the Law

Dan Rawlinson had shown up at the door of Loreal’s room, leaning against the wall, looking, she realized, delicious. She couldn’t blame Laurie and she remembered something about Laurie saying they shared not the same mind, but the same self. That if he loved Loreal, Dan loved her too. And she felt, looking up and down him, a feeling like and unlike she had felt the first time she saw Laurie touching her now.

She let him in, and they ended up talking for three hours. It was on the third that Laurie showed up, but by then, she and Dan were reading through Susanna Dunharrow’s journals.

The book was open, and Loreal’s hands were tracing a very old drawing, a quartered circle, and at the top was North, and to the sides, East and West and South at the bottom. In the first quadrant there was a blue circle, and then in the second a yellow circle with a dot in the center, and beneath it, in what would be the south east was a green circle, quartered like the original circle, and then, beside it, was a red circle with a bar through it.

“Ynis Witrin,” Laurie read, his eyebrows furrowed. “The Glass Castle, Glastonbury.”

By the yellow circle he read, “The Golden Castle, Fensalir, the Land of Elphame.

“What is this?” Laurie asked.

“I’m not entirely sure,” she said.

And then, “Read this. Here. In the South.

“The Maid,” Dan said, “The Golden Bowl.”

In the center, three spirals moved out, and in the middle of it was written, “The Spiral Castle.”

“I don’t know anything about this,” Loreal said.

“But your grandmother did. It’s in her book. Did she ever say anything about it?”

“No.”

“Well, then,” said Dan, “you could…”

“What?”

“Maybe this is a dumb idea, but you could look it up on the Internet. It is the twenty-first century.”

“I’m already with you,” Loreal had pulled her laptop out of her bag. It was not elegant and slim. It was much too heavy, and usually much too slow. She swore a little bit as it cycled on and then she typed, “Spiral Castle.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“It’s the only thing I’ve ever heard of,” Loreal said. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of it in stories.”

She waited for the search to come up, and then said, “Well, there it is.

“Prydain. That’s it. From the Lloyd Alexander books, but that can’t be it. It’s an album too. I see pictures of it. Looks like the tower of Babel.”

“Why,” Laurie laid a hand on her knee, “don’t you try another search?”

Loreal frowned. “Nothing else on here looks searchable.”

And then she typed in, “Golden Castle. North East.”

She typed, and deleted, and typed and deleted and finally said, “Fuck, all I’m getting is Golden Castle of Stromberg, and that’s some type of video game.”

“Why are we just flipping through these books and the internet?” Laurie said. “In the morning, why don’t we ask Lewis?”

When Marabeth Strauss opened the door, Peter could see that not only Kris, but Joyce were already there. Joyce sucked in her breath at the faded black eye on Peter’s face, but politic, Marabeth made no mention of it, though her eyes shifted to Myron whose wide eyes were a strange combination of sobriety and anxiousness.

Marabeth nodded, and pulling back the door, motioned for them to come in.

“It’s all true,” Myron said to her, “isn’t it?”

“From what I’ve heard,” Marabeth said, “you might know more than I do.”

“Well,” Myron jerked his thumb back at Peter who was talking to Joyce who was looking at his eye, “apparently he knows more than all of us.”

There was another knock on the door, but the golden haired Jim didn’t wait for an answer. Marabeth had heard something about him and that Seth. Not too tall, not short, lean, well muscled, but narrow waisted, Jim had always been a remarkable Strauss, amber haired and honey skinned, his blue eyes the color of a warm Mediterranean day, not the usual ice blue you saw in Kris or Peter, but now he was fairly glowing.

“Well, family,” he said, shrugging his camel coat off of his broad shoulders, “shall we begin?”

The door opened and Sethlooked up to see Chris.

“I didn’t know you’d be in here,” he said.

“No?” Seth said.

“I thought you might be out. With Jim.”

“No. He and his family had something over at Marabeth’s apartment,” Seth said. “We may get together later.”

And then Seth said, “But why did you come, if you didn’t think I’d be here?”

Chris took one of the great chairs by the door and dragged it with what Seth was beginning to call vampire strength to sit beside Seth.

“Lewis was with Loreal, going over Susanna’s books. And he went to sleep. And I don’t really—” Chris stopped.

“I sound stupid to myself. I sound like someone who isn’t three hundred years old. I sound confused.”

He looked at Seth. Chris was taller, so he actually looked down on him. His face was narrow and high plained, and his pale blond hair was sticking up a little.

“I did hope you would be here. You’re comforting. Lewis is too, but you’re your own type of comforting, and it has been a while since the two of us have sat side by side. What with everything.”

“There is a part of me,” Seth said, “that assumed I was an interruption.”

“An interruption?’

“Between you and Lewis. That you put up with me.”

Chris laid a hand on Seth’s knee.

“You are not an interruption. You are a sweet, sweet strangeness, and the truth is we’ve missed you. I have missed you. I love having Lewis to myself, but I’ve missed you being with us.”

Seth nodded, smiling a little.

“I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you do.”

“How are you feeling?” Seth asked.

“About?’

“About your sister.”

“I…. I don’t rightly know.”

“I think,” Seth said, “if my sister died, if she was killed because she had come against me and what was mine, even if I was the one who had to kill her, I think at least part of my heart would be broken. Because I think all this time I would have held out the hope that one day she would be the person she once was. I think no matter how bad she got, I would always hope. And then once she was gone, once it was all over, I would be hurt in a place it’s hard to show.”

Seth looked up at Chris.

“I think you feel like you don’t have the right to feel that way. But I think it’s the way you do feel? Am I right?”

And when Chris turned to him, his blue eyes were deep and wet, and a stream of tears was running down each of his cheeks. He didn’t blink, as humans would, and he nodded his head, his lips parted.

Seth had offered himself to the vampire, been bitten by him, but he had not gotten up out of his chair and held him until now, letting Chris Ashby weep on him. And suddenly, he kissed Chris. He kissed him hungrily, not out of pity or because he was with Lewis, but because he wanted him, and Chris kissed him back and they held to each other with a tight urgency until it was Seth who brought Chris to the floor, and they began to struggle out of clothing. Now Chris blinked away tears as he knelt naked over the smaller man, and the length of his cock bobbed before Seth.

Seth took him in his mouth. He wanted to. He wanted to take away his pain and sadness, or be part of it. And Chris cried out and his eyes closed as Seth’s mouth worked on him. And maybe, Seth thought, as he took Chris deeper and deeper down his throat, he wanted to know what his night with Jim had meant to who he was, because this was who he was. He lay on the floor and wrapped his thighs around Chris’s waist, and as Chris entered him, deeply, and they both groaned, as Seth’s whole body prickled with the pain, with the ache, with the ache dissolving into pleasure of Chris’s entry, he knew who he was. Ancient words played in his mind, but this was not the time to think about them.

This is the secret of the Holy Graal, that is the sacred vessel of our Lady the Scarlet Woman, Babalon the Mother of Abominations, the bride of Chaos, that rides upon our Lord the Beast.

Drain out the blood that is your life into the golden cup of her fornication.

Mingle your life with the universal life. Keep not back one drop.

No this was not the time for thought. This was the time to be and to feel, to wrap thighs around waist and drape them down so your heels landed on the soft round hills of Chris’s ass. This was the time to feel Chris Ashby move up and down and in and out of you like rivers, to lift up your shoulder and receive the bite that stung and connected, that drove in and then felt at home, to, at that moment dig in fingernails like claws over Chris’s back and draw that same blood. This was the time to bite down on his lip while Chris moved in and out of you, shuttling faster and faster as the iron sweet taste of Chris Ashby’s blood dripped into your own mouth. They came together, their bodies crashing, shaking, toes curling, limbs twisting, hands and feet bunching, clinging to each other as the only things that could get them through the orgasm and keep their souls from flying out of their bodies.

They lay together exhausted, redeemed and crushed by each other, heaving on the floor, looking up at the ceiling.

At last, Chris turned on his side and stroked Seth’s cheek. Seth turned to him. And they looked with love on each other.

“Come to bed with us,” Chris told him.

Seth nodded.

The two men, the taller and the shorter, pale and cream colored, rose a little unsteadily, still shaken by their sex. Chris opened the door first. Naked and heedless if anyone might come down the hall of the elegant hotel, he walked out, taking Seth by the hand, leaving their clothes and notebooks, and phones. They crossed the hall into the darkness of the room where Lewis slept. They closed the door, once in the dim and silent room, and on either side of him, climbed into bed.