Chapter 8. The Shadow of the Mountain Angel

Avery woke with a headache. Without opening his eyes he felt the only relief was in the imaginary steam that would come from his tears but he couldn’t imagine crying. He rolled over to feel someone next to him.

“You want some water?” A gentle voice said softly.

He opened his eyes, because he did not know this voice, or who it belonged to. A pretty round face framed with yellow hair looked concernedly at him. The yellow contrasted with dark blue eyes, and this contrasted again by the paleness of her bare neck. Followed by the bareness of her shoulders and the open vacancy of her clothes was revealed by her free breasts that swept the fabric of the bedclothes in a manner that made Avery’s heart jump in surprise and again in delight. This action, made his eyes squeeze shut, for his head pounded.

And lo! She moved, not away in shame, or into the mists as an apparition, but like an Angel announcing the word of God. Peace on earth and good will toward men. To be seen and desirable to continue to be seen as good and delightful. For a moment the sun shined in the soul of Avery Gennedario.

“You paid for the night.” said the girl, “but you fell asleep.”

“I’m sorry...I don’t remember coming here.”

“That’s alright,” the angel laughed softly, “it happens frequently here.”

The naked girl stood pensively regarding him and in this moment something called to Avery from deep within himself. It went something like this:

The Angel spoke hallelujah: Glory to God in the highest. Who was and is and is to come. With only her stretching and unashamed form that makes a man’s heart sing: Stay Angel and never let the good news God speaks leave your lips! And may He everspeak through the silence of his radiance through your skin! Bare it to me and melt the winter of my heart! Confirm in me that I too have this fire that I see in the miracle of your form. Confirm that your eyes see in me what I see in you!

“What do I owe for.” Avery was suddenly anxious he had spent all of Josie’s money.

“Just the going rate for a bed.”
Avery reached for his money.

“No fear.” laughed the girl, “you paid last night. and in pennies. You picked me but we could see that you were drunk and it was very late. So we gave you a place to sleep it off and I hope you don’t mind that I needed a place to sleep as well.”

She bent over the table and placed the refund for services not rendered. And though Avery’s head pounded he managed to open his eyes and explored the topography of that narrow passage of lips that kiss to the womb as she did so.

The Angel stood smiling at the boy’s eyes on her. “There, now we are square. But I would suggest, for the sake of your recovery from a little more drink than what’s good for you that we catch a bath.”

A bath? That had to be costly. Keythos culture priced water as precious. And the few baths Avery had there it was an event of great pleasure. It would be just the thing.

“How much?” asked the economist.

“2 cents.” said the prostitute.

“Alright.” She dressed and helped the boy arm in arm down the wide stairs to where the wooden tubs stood steaming in the room well protected from too much sun. They undressed and stepped in. It was early but soon the tubs began to draw shameless women into the lure of refreshment of their bodies. They would walk in bare, as if the carrying of a towel was the newest jewel to highlight the form of beauty that walked.

The water was warm and deep and Avery laid back to his ears and once all sights had settled their beauties into the refuge of their tubs, he closed his eyes and slept. Waking later, he found his mind in a state of sublime relief from the former ache in his head.

His Angel companion had stayed still across from him in the tub and when she saw him open her eyes only then did she begin to wash herself. His eyes followed the movements of her scrubbing. Oh how he wished to be the clothe in her hand. The girl washed her hair. And he wished now to be the water that enveloped and poured over her. She caught his eye as she pushed her hair and water out of her face. And then began to scrub the boy. He had never felt so relieved. And there is something we expect in love that feels very like relief. But this pain was both in his head, and in his loneliness. So here these movements, whether for money or not, Avery took as love. But it was both a love that made him feel like a child and like a man.

She rinsed out his hair and then drew close to him.

“You feel better?”

“Yes. Very much.” he found himself breathing deep as if to illustrate.

“What’s your name?”

“Avery.”

“That is not a common name.”

“What’s your name?”

“Modwenna.”

“Now that’s an interesting name.”

“You think so? I have an Aunt that shares the same name. She was very boring. That’s probably why I always thought it was such a plain name.” her voice shimmered with her smile. The calm vibration of the water and her bareness next to his seemed to sooth any anxiety of being heard or seen. There was a confidence in her confidence in her approach. As if any of his misgivings were not things that mattered. This inflated Avery’s confidence to a place where he felt his head swimming with possibility. Not just empty possibility but the very object of his desires. The height of young dreams topple with the angst of a hope of yet another fulfillment.

“Shall we get dressed?” the Angel suggested.

“You first,” said Avery, a cold bolt of boldness made speak his mind, nearly making him sweat in the bath in the exertion of his nerve followed by a bolder, “I want to see you.”

She rose dripping from the bath, “So you do like me.” she smiled. She made no hurry to find a towel but let the beads of water recede down her shoulders and over her hips while the rest dripped demurely from her breasts and the fine tuft of hair between her legs. Avery felt himself fortunate for the first time in his life. Whatever god that ruled Keythos that had bound up his whole life could not touch him here.

The angel stepped from the bath and looked back at the boy and said softly: “Now, let me see you.”

Avery would have been self conscious, but for the pain in his head and the energy generated by his sudden turn in fortunes, he rose and showed himself and for once felt like the man Adam himself at the beginning of the world and that no one judged him for his nakedness. For no man wants to show himself over eager. For he wishes for eyes to look upon him in acceptance of who he is not as a debit of need.

Modwenna looked upon his hiddenmost parts and looked back to his eyes and her eyes flashed a knowing that could only be this joyful acceptance. She had been taken and had by many, by both rough hands and soft, but knew this wifely attention was a gain to something higher than pleasantry and something more valuable than gold. It flickers like a candle between politeness, duty and love itself. Tender and fragile to every breath of wind. And once put out it is not easily lit again. This, every lover forgets, sometimes how to play their joyful part, sometimes that they forget that they can play that part, but they never stop desiring the part to be played to them. This is the service of lovers to each other. To remember to take up acceptance and apply it like oil to the skin.

But even as we desire it we excuse ourselves from this and call it the duty of husband to wife, or wife to husband. There is love in duty. But there is no love in the desire of service from another. For a prostitute the desire is her own to share or not. The cost of service is the same. For a husband or wife the cost is living either way. What sets them apart as lovers is what sets them apart in each other's soul that could only be described as blessed. One either seeks the blessed in another; or one forgets that their lover also forgets.

Beauty of body alone will never match beauty to beauty. Or beauty for beauty. A man’s beauty is not a match for the beauty of a woman’s. It is at best a beauty of disharmony in the hope that together they carry a tune. It is only the matching of acceptances. But even this imperfect endeavor there is no true match. But only the effect of perceived acceptance. Acceptance is the savor of salt, not too much, nor too little, that describes an enjoyment of love. Pleasant acceptance is the eating of offered love. And eating it is the mirror sharing the beauty together with one who looks in the glass. But too much salt ruins a dish; too little leaves one wanting. The true judge is the one who eats. Flaw is always tasted by the fed and healthy. To the starved and unhealthy there is only what feeds you.

Did you think the God who made enjoyment sits in judgement of us in our pointless scales of our enjoyment of the things he created? Those scales are ours. We made them up. But God, who created us, already had the true scale. But in his image we try to weigh out a physical scale to define our hearts. This is the farce of religion. But the farce of legalists and Pharisees point to something more real than our perception, don’t let them distract you with laws and regulations. Rather let Religion point to the inward heart, not the cause and effect of regulation; let it point to where our snake of an ego lies in trying to justify all action. If we can coax the ego out into the open, away from the warmth of our hearts and expose that raw bit of gold that we fear and realize together that this is our calling back to our creator. We are called to draw out the heart and let the image be corrected by the man who both made the glass and peers into it.

And O! To be touched by the gaze of acceptance! Nothing is closer to this than the dove of God alighting upn you saying: “in you I am well pleased.”

The snake-ego writhes in this love. Was it worth it enough? Did love itself suspend the justification of existence? The snake lays mute in shock, stunned by the surge of something that is altogether too much for it. For a moment the heart beats in a spirit realm and the snake is forgotten and useless.

Avery walked with her back to his room and tremblingly took her. And she laid out upon him all the acceptance that she knew how. For in her was a hope for something beyond just payment. But payment was to be had. But in the act itself there was no thought of gain. No ticking of accounting. And for Avery, as he lost himself in her, there was no thought of a future possible marriage, no pay of discontent, no secret and weight of murder upon him. In this moment, Avery Gennedario, True son of Pedro Delrio was momentarily free and loosed from all bonds that circumstance had brought upon him. Only to fall asleep a dollar lighter and to wake to the satisfaction of having made love. And no thought to having gained the weight of responsibility to another secret.

For the Angel who stole away with a soft kiss upon his sleeping face and a dollars worth of copper, and the wetness of a man between her thighs. To Modwenna all of this was pleasant. To take what she earned. To love her work. To have done it well. To have been appreciated for it. And to carry that reminder with her was all the language of pleasantry. She put away her coins. And made ready to catch another man with her whole acceptance.

It is true that she was a prostitute. But other’s pleasure for money is not pleasant. She had no home of her own. She had no husband to bring her the value of his labor. She was alone. And yet willing to set aside personal choice in mate for coin. This is a common practice in women today under the notion of “marrying up”. The work she did had value. One could rent love from her. But it was not owned. It was only more honest in that she did not expect love in return from her customers. But sometimes it randomly occured without its anticipation. Love does not flourish under a banker’s lien so expectation destroys love.

But to whose embrace does the prostitute go when the closeness of many lies nowhere in wait to comfort her? The silence of a God who gives peace especially to sinners. Before we feel the weight of guilt in the word sin: be assured that all things are. If it is not God it is sin. Perfect or imperfect. Love or not Love.

If God is Love itself; only Love can handle what we images seem only to hold, circumstantially: complete acceptance. To understand it we only need look at the nature of all things. Not mankind at the games he created: no. The Nature around us that we attempt to shut out by wall door and window: The wild things that we attempt to organize.

Love holds itself like the pollen in a flower: giving to the breeze or taking it from the romp of a bee exulting in his work. The joy is the bee, the joy is the bee; for who knows what will make the seed set apart in the field? Exalt in the bee, exult for the wind for these are working in the Joy of Love in concert with the rest of Nature. So the wind blows in effort to show the joy of the invisible: and the trees applaud in the roar of their branches full of life and fruit, the invisible seeks to drive out all doubt by its kiss all who would refuse her. But on her chariot rides all the smoke of life still alive from the flower’s many little sacrifices. Lay bare lover, chime to the wind or vibrate with the bee in its foundling home or lay stagnant in fear of his poison. But if the wind will not blow: pray for the bee. But if no bee ventures in search of life’s sweetness pray for the wind: you bitter flowers.