The Descent

[9]

The cat was away. Eve was attending a hastily arranged conference of all the Sûq’s notables, convened secondarily for the purpose of discussing the recent developments in my life, including my brief liaison with Mary. Yes my private life here was a public matter, after all I was a special person. Didn’t Burâq punish an immortal for my sake? Didn’t he interfere directly to save my life, by making the ground of the Sûq soft, so soft as to cushion my fall, every time I had jumped from the minaret? And I did jump more than once, I jumped quite a few times in fact, out of frustration at first, then more out of enjoyment as the adrenaline ebbed and flowed, time and again through my body, through my veins.

Still, the primary reason for the conference had  nothing to do with me, it rather concerned Khumeini, and the continuing growth of his influence, and following. It seems there was enough frustrated and bitter people in the Sûq to ensure that Khumeini would not be a flash in the pan as the notables had expected, he turned to be more like a permanent stain. The conference, Eve had told me before she left, would take weeks. Immortals had a different sense of urgency, you see.

And while the cat was away, the mouse... well, the mouse was busy playing, playing the penetration game, over and over again, with Jû, and others. Many others. Too many others. We played it on the beach, on waterbeds, in giant bathtubs, and in small corners of Eve’s labyrinthine house. We played everywhere it could be played. And we played it often. Too often.

There was no point of holding out anymore. The hûrîs were plentiful and willing, they had always been willing, and no matter how absurd this all seemed to me, more so the discovery that, in this world at least, I had the vigor of a thousand men, and one, I finally allowed myself to be unleashed.

Unleashed. Jû was a screamer, and her cries and moans let me know, and  feel, the extant of her pleasure, while prodding me on and on, reaching within me to a primordial force that was too hard to contain once unleashed. Once unleashed. And I would penetrate Jû in a state of animal rage.

And I raged on and on, investing my whole self in the process, a  mindless worshipper, until I’d withdraw from her, ages later, being totally drained, having ejaculated half of my body weight into her, and the rest of my sanity.

All this, and I still thought of Eve, and dreamed of Eve every day, every night. Soon it would be time for me and her. Perhaps. Perhaps.

“I have no monologue to deliver.” Jû said as she lay naked beside me on the bed in my quarters. “ I think you heard enough monologues already. But I’ll tell you this, because I think it’s time for you to know. My real name is Juwayriyyah, you should recognize this name, I used to be a wife of Muhammad, and a mother of the faithful. And that’s all you need to know about my life, the rest...the rest is irrelevant. The rest is History, as they say. And now,” she added, her voice undergoing a subtle change, and her body rolling over mine. “And now stop asking me all these meaningless questions, and pleasure me you mad atheist, I want to have you just one more time to myself, before the others arrive.”

The others? But of course, the others, Shajarat al-Dur, Joan of Arc, Esther were just the others here, simply the others. I wasn’t just fucking beautiful and sensuous women here, I was fucking History, Theology,  and Mythology, above all Mythology. And I did it without any apprehension, or shame. I did it while mad. I did it while numb. I did it with Jibrîl and Iblîs comatosed, or just pretending to be comatosed. I did it mechanically, and passionately, paradox notwithstanding. I did it, because I was taught to do it. All my life, I was taught to do it. Everyone expected me to do it. It was the natural thing to do, the natural thing to do. And why oppose nature, for god’s sake, why? Why not let it define you, as, indeed, it should? Why not? Why not? Why not?

“And why not Eve? Why not” I asked the obviously surprised and disappointed Eve that had walked on me in my room, only to find me fornicating away, like only a believer could, with the dozens of women that her house contained. I was giving my semen away, getting rid of it, ridding myself of it, for there was no point anymore in holding out to it. It was useless. It had become useless. Fertile, but useless. There was going to be yet another war in the Sûq. The News had spread before Eve’s arrival.

“Did you expect me to keep on holding still Eve? Did you expect me to keep on cherishing my semen? Did you want it in you Eve? Did you expect me to save it for you? Was I supposed to? Was there some sort of a silent agreement between us to that effect? Huh?” Eve was   trying to paint a disgusted look on her face as I spoke, as I rambled, but she was unable to do it. And so...

“And what do you want to do with it Eve? What do you want with my semen? Do you want to bring yet another bastard child, to give to this rotten world of yours, of ours? Is my semen alive enough to breathe life into your frozen womb? Huh? Well I pity your womb Eve. I pity your womb. Your hopelessly yearning womb. Your unceasingly disgustingly yearning womb. Your filthy, filthy womb. Oh, how I love your filthy womb. How I love your filthy womb.”

And I knelt in front of Eve, and buried my head right into her blackhole of a womb, then I started to cry.