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To Love in Hell

In order to be with my beloved, I willingly took up eternal residence in Hell. How could anyone ask for a more passionate declaration of love?

Yet that is never enough to move you, my beautiful Duma. Certainly, you love me in return. But it is nothing more than the benign and impersonal love you'd bestow on anything in creation, from Almighty God Himself to a lowly amoeba. Nothing like the all-consuming passion I feel for you.

Yet sometimes I wonder if you tempt me deliberately. Lounging around in glorious nudity, the key to our domain your only adornment. Then I shake my head and laugh at myself. How could I possibly suspect a fellow angel of such guile? Perhaps the unholy nature of our domain is beginning to affect me, or maybe this is a last trick Lucifer Morningstar left to distract us from our greater goal -- the transformation of Hell from a realm of meaningless torment into a place of righteous pain and salvation. Certainly these shameful longings cannot be my own. After all, angels aren't supposed to have doubts or impure thoughts or to … well, fuck. Then again, who would have thought that angels would rule in Hell?

I love you more than I love the Creator himself. My bones tremble at the sacrilegious nature of the thought, but my heart cannot deny its truth. After all, I did not accept the role of Co-Monarch of Hell because He commanded me to. I accepted because I could not watch you bear the burden alone.

Long ago, a number of our siblings took on fleshly form to sample the delights of carnal sin. You had wandered off to contemplate goodness knows what, while I had hidden behind a cloudbank in the Silver City and watched with guilty fascination. I was repulsed and titillated by what I saw, and frankly puzzled as to why any angel would risk the wrath of God for a few moments of fumbling ecstasy.

But now I'm beginning to understand. What they really sought wasn't merely sex, but Communion. The Son himself taught us that you needed the body to reach the soul. This is my body, this is my blood, and I would willingly offer it to you if only you would accept it.

I've spent years wondering what forms we might take were we to encase ourselves in mortal flesh and consummate our desire. Would we be two women, eagerly exploring each other's curves and crevices with needy fingers and tongues? A man and a woman, copulating as though we planned to populate the face of the Earth? Or two men, locked in a sinewy embrace that blocked out all thoughts of Heaven or Hell?

But now I realize that sexes are superfluous for a love like ours. After all, desire does not reside in the loins, but in the mind. I'm living proof of that. I want to run my hands over every inch of your perfect body. To pinch your rosy nipples, and grip your slender hips, to stroke the smooth, utterly featureless flesh between your thighs. I long to bite your neck, lick your ear, feel your legs wrap around me in desperate passion. I want to ignite every nerve in your body with desire. I want to feel and touch and taste until we both forget where we are and what we are, until we're nothing but a writhing mass of need and flesh. Above all, I want to hear you say my name. Just once, I want you to pay me the homage that not even God Himself has received.

During the early days of our reign, I often came to you for comfort when the screams became too loud and the homesickness became too much. You would lay my head in your lap and gently stroke my hair. Your sapphire blue eyes full of benign kindness and cruel ignorance. Once, you tried to kiss me, and I angrily shoved you away. How could I endure your angelically chaste kisses when I wanted to ravage your lips, to swallow your moans into my own mouth, to engulf you whole?

So instead I content myself with watching you. Admiring the way your golden hair stirs in the sulfurous breeze, the way your skin glows in the light of the fiery pits. Not even Hell could corrupt your beauty. Your innocence remains as inviolate as your silence, untainted by time or doubt . . .

Untainted by me.

The End