“I’ve got a better idea Mort!” He sat up suddenly, as if filled with energy and enthusiasm. “Why don’t you go make your plans, and leave me alone? That way you’ll get better plans and I won’t have to listen to your bullshit!” He lifted his bottle again and started to take another long draught of wine.
“If you’re going to be a sarcastic ass you might as well do it sober,” I replied and before he could react I deftly slipped the bottle from his hand. Ordinarily his reflexes were so quick I’d never have managed to do it… but a lot of hard drinking had made him slow.
“You ass!” He was too slow to catch the bottle but planting his hands in my chest he gave me a hard shove. I fell backward over a small table and landed on the floor. Marc leaned forward and started to take the bottle back but I planted a foot in his chest and sent him flying across the room. He bounced off the corner post of the bed and crashed into the dressing table. “Bastard! You’ll regret that!” he shouted at me and snatched up a clay water pitcher as it started to fall.
Even hung over and strung out as he was I had to admire his dexterity at the catch… till he chose to fling said pitcher at my head. The motion caught me off guard and I failed to duck. Thankfully the shield I still habitually kept around myself prevented me from getting a cracked skull. “Hey! You could have seriously hurt someone like that!” Having fought a few times as children we both knew there was an unspoken rule against throwing heavy objects… or doing anything else potentially permanent.
“As if I could hurt you! You and your stupid shield… why don’t you take that thing off and fight like a real man?” he challenged.
“Fine!” I yelled back. “You could use a good thrashing. Did it ever occur to you that your family might be worried about you?” As I spoke I dropped my shield, though there was no visible sign of it.
“My family is none of your damned business!”
“Your sister is worried about you, so is Dorian.”
“What about my father eh? I guess he didn’t bother to ask after me did he!?” Marc was standing now and approaching cautiously.
“At least you have a father!” I shouted back.
“How long are you going to play the pity card over that one?” he sneered.
“Till I’ve knocked you on your ass and beaten some sense into your head,” I replied a bit more calmly. My anger was only half real, in the back of my mind I was still trying to calculate what the best way to bring my friend to his senses would be.
“Still got your shield up?” he asked. From an outside viewpoint it was almost odd how calm he seemed as he asked that question, but it seemed normal enough at the time.
“No I took it down a moment ago…,” before I could finish my words he caught me in the mouth with a quick jab. I stepped back quickly before he could follow up with another but he didn’t press his advantage. I wiped the blood from my lip… I could already feel it starting to swell. “Not bad,” I commented.
“Might improve your looks,” he snapped back.
I stepped forward and took a short swing at him but I found only air. I threw a few more but I still failed to connect till finally he blocked one and planted a sharp punch in my stomach. As he delivered the blow I got my left arm around his shoulder, his second strike drove the air from my lungs but I held on and managed to start a grapple.
Things improved for me after that. As with our childhood scuffles I was still no match for him in a straight up punching match, but once we had closed I was the better wrestler. My longer legs and arms gave me better leverage and he lost the advantage his quick reflexes normally gave him. We stumbled about the room for several moments before he tried to drive me into the bed post. With a twist I took his momentum and he wound up getting the hard wooden corner in his back.
With a strangled cry he quit trying to break the grapple. That seemed like a good idea, so I let go and rolled off of him, panting to catch my breath. “Are you alright?” I asked.
“Hell no! It hurts like hell!” He had his hand against his lower back. “That was a shitty move.”
“You’re the one that tried to run me into it! You’re too damn strong for me to hold you down, so it was either you or me,” I bit back.
He scowled at me for a long minute while he rubbed at his aching backside. I glared back at him till finally neither of us could take the tension any longer and we broke into grins. A moment after that we started laughing and our anger drained away.
“Some things never change,” he said once our chuckling slowed down.
“I thought we had outgrown these little chats.”
“Me too,” he agreed ruefully.
“Desperate times require desperate measures,” I announced.
We were lying on our backs side by side now. The hard wooden floor wasn’t exactly comfortable but neither of us complained. Then Marc spoke again, “Desperate indeed my friend. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but it isn’t going to be enough.”
With a sideways glance I could see him staring at the ceiling. “Why not?” I asked.
“Because it hurts Mort, it hurts far more than you can possibly realize.” He rolled his head over and caught my gaze. We had been friends for most of our lives and looking into his brown eyes I could see the pain behind them. I watched him for a long moment before he looked away. Tears had begun to well.
“I don’t understand,” I confessed.
“Nobody does. Even now, even knowing the truth, I want her so badly it feels as though someone is driving a stake through my heart. It’s painful Mort… excruciatingly painful.” He was referring, of course, to his goddess. Perhaps I should call her his ‘ex-goddess’, Millicenth, the Lady of the Evening Star.
“We all lose things, it’s a part of life,” I said softly.
“This isn’t like that Mort. Imagine living happily with Penny for years and years, having children, loving them and receiving their love. Imagine everything you ever wanted, love, respect, trust… all of it. Now imagine you wake up tomorrow and discover that it’s all gone. Not only is it gone, but it never existed. The woman you loved wasn’t real; she was a dream, created for the sole purpose of manipulating you. The children, your life, your happiness, all of it was a lie, fabricated by a being so foreign that it didn’t even hate you… you were merely a tool.” Marc paused for a moment.
“She made you think you had children?” I asked, puzzled.
“No… idiot! I was using that as an example, it was the closest thing I could think of to convey the sort of happiness she created within me. It wasn’t just happiness, it was… everything. While she was with me I had no doubts or fears. Death might threaten but she was holding my hand, and I believed she would be waiting for me beyond death’s doors. Every action had meaning, and every moment was full of importance, all part of her plan to better humankind. No… it wasn’t just that…” He stopped for a moment, a note of shame in his voice.
“What?” I asked. I wasn’t certain I wanted to know, but he wouldn’t have begun if he hadn’t needed to get it off his chest.
“It was like sex, only better. The entire time I was in her service I abstained from women… I had no desire for them. Whenever I healed someone…” I saw a shudder run through him as he remembered.
“You had an orgasm when you healed people?”
“No! But my shame is just the same, worse, the sensation was far better than an orgasm. It was like a drug, an exaltation of the mind and spirit, as well as an ecstatic sensation of physical pleasure. Why do you think I went looking for people in need?” The look in his eyes was one of abject despair and humiliation. “I ‘wanted’ to find sick people. I needed it… and when my craving became so bad that I had dreams of hurting people, just so I could heal them… she forgave me. She told me it was normal, a weakness of flesh forced to contain the divine.”
I couldn’t help the feeling of revulsion his words evoked, “That’s…,” I stopped myself before I finished with what I was thinking, ‘disgusting’.