Jeffrey Thomas, Voices from Hades by Jeffrey Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

at last discern something about it that would distinguish its illusory substance from her mortal skin, wherever that lay moldering right now, he asked, "How did you and your husband die?"
    "In a plane crash. Private plane. We were going skiing, in Colorado. We met on a skiing trip in Aspen, actually. I’d moved to the States a few years earlier, and…"
    "Did you have children?" Xaphan interrupted.
    "Two. Ten and seven. They’re still alive." A few empty beats. "I don’t want to talk about them, X."
    He changed the subject, his voice retaining the quality of a sleepwalker. "Your flesh is so different from Vjeshitza’s," he murmured.
    "Whose?" A look up at him again.
    Tensing up a little, Xaphan let his hand go motionless upon her.
    "A mate?"
    "A lover," he admitted solemnly. "We don’t need to mate."
    "But you fuck." A carnal smile. Was there a hint of jealousy in her dark eyes, or was it merely flirtation that pretended jealousy? He hoped she was jealous. It would cause him pain if she wasn’t, he realized.
    He was jealous of her husband, he realized…
    "Yes," he whispered.
    "I’m different from her, am I? I won’t ask who you like to fuck more. It’s apples and oranges, isn’t it? A bright morning sky is lovely. And so is the black night sky with stars."
    Xaphan grunted derisively. "Your theologian Swedenborg said, ‘corporeal loves appear gross, dusky, black and misshapen, while those that are heavenly loves appear fresh, bright, fair, and beautiful.’"
    "That must bother you, to have troubled to memorize it."
    "It bothers me," Xaphan admitted.
    She took the hand that didn’t lay upon her skin, brought it to her lips and kissed it. "Don’t worry—you’re a beautiful midnight sky, aren’t you, my love?"
    "Don’t say that."
    "Say what?"
    "Love. I’m not your love. You don’t love me."
    "Why are you…" she began to chuckle.
    "Don’t mock me!" he hissed.
    "I’m not mocking you, X! It’s an expression, isn’t it? I didn’t realize love was such a touchy subject for Demons. I didn’t even know whether you can feel it." A moment. "Well…can you?"
    "I’m not sure I understand it," he grumbled evasively.
    "Well I guess we’re not so different after all. I don’t understand it either. I mean, I know I loved my mother, and my children…there’s no ambiguity there." She veered the conversation, again, away from the children who had survived her. "I used to have a neighbor, who told me that he and his wife had once taken in a stray cat. They had it for about ten years, I suppose. My neighbor was an older man, very gruff, an old war vet. And he told me his cat was hit by a car in front of their house one day. He said to me, in his very gruff way, ‘I don’t know why we ever got that damn cat.’" Teresa smiled. "That was the greatest avowal of love I’ve ever heard…"
    "Terry?" a voice called out, echoing in the circular, domed cavern beyond.
    "Shit," Teresa whispered, getting to her feet as Xaphan let go of her. She grabbed up her balled robe from the stone bench, and began slipping into it. In so doing, her elbow struck the deep red velvet of the cubicle’s curtain, causing it to sway.
    "Terry?" The voice had turned in their direction. "You there?"
    Pushing Xaphan back against the wall with one hand, Teresa parted the curtain with the other and slid out into the humid air of the bathhouse. "I was just going to take a dip, darling," she said. "Want to join me?"
    Xaphan peeked out through the slit in the soft curtain. He saw James Colombo’s loathsome face. Could he not smell the sex on his wife’s sweat-moist body? The film of slickness spread across her inner thighs? With his superior sense of smell, Xaphan himself could clearly detect the musk of his own lifeless sperm, nestled inside her in a miniature version of this secret closet he lurked in.
    "Mm." Colombo reached his hands around and cupped Teresa’s full bottom, pulling her against him, kissing her on the mouth. Open mouth. Xaphan felt