"Where's Sara?" Azazeal asked Cassie.
"Uh, Malachi said she was with you all day."
"No, I haven't seen her since this morning."
About an hour later, before they got too worried, Sara arrived with Luke and Lucifer with a giddy smile on her face. Azazeal got up immediately and went over to her, regretting that the time she'd spent with Luke and Lucifer while he and Cassie were gone had made her familiar enough with them to feel that she could tag along with them without asking.
"Where have you been?" Azazeal asked trying to sound neutral.
Excited Sara announced, "We went to a brothel!"
Azazeal looked up at Lucifer who was standing behind her with a smug smile on his face.
"What?" Azazeal yelled at him furiously and he didn't hear Sara's protests as he moved around her to stare Lucifer down.
"It was just a little field trip and she asked to come."
"How dare you?"
Lucifer just shrugged and moving away unconcerned said, "They didn't have any boys anyway so she just asked the girls questions."
Sara was now tugging on Azazeal's arm to get him to turn around.
"Dad, how am I supposed to learn anything real about sex, huh?"
He turned to her and looked down at her unhappily.
"Both Malachi and Luke have had some sort of guidance and Luke's not even fully grown yet like I am. Am I just supposed to pick a boy and figure it out for myself? I will, you know."
"You're my little girl, Sara…"
"Not any more, Daddy," she said kindly but with a hint of his seductiveness.
He smiled at this and said, "Alright, but you're going to have to talk to your mother. I only know my part in it."
Sara jumped up to hug him and went off happily with Azazeal calling after her, "And don't listen to anything Lucifer, Malachi, or Luke say."
"It's almost Christmas," Azazeal said to Cassie.
"Yes, it is, did I tell you, it's Elizabeth's birthday too!"
"You mean Christmas day?" he asked, his interest perked.
"Yes, why are you so fascinated by this? Lucifer was fascinated too."
"No reason," he said casually.
She moved closer to him and said conspiratorially, "I know it may not have actually been on December 25th, but was it just like the Bible? Will you tell me what really happened?"
He smiled broadly and said, "No."
"Oh, come on, you're no fun!"
"Cassie, either way, you'll be disappointed. If I had to tell you it was exactly like it is written in the Bible it would be boring and if I had to tell you it was different…you might just have to rethink all of your notions about Jesus."
"But if it's completely fabricated I wouldn't want to keep making a fool out of myself every year."
"It's not a foolish holiday. It brings people together doesn't?" he said amused at her concern over this.
"You know what I mean!"
"Let's just said I wouldn't worry about it. Now, what do you think we should do to celebrate?"
Cassie was at first shocked by Sara's open interest in sex but since she knew that Sara, like Luke and Malachi, would not have issues with pregnancy or disease, she figured that Sara might as well be as prepared as possible. Although even after coming to this conclusion she didn't know where to start. Unfortunately, like most women, in her head she thought that girls were supposed to either wait until marriage or like Sara said, figure it out for themselves with the first boy charming enough to convince them to get into bed. Well, she'd just have to get over that, she thought to herself when she had agreed to get back to Sara with some sort of plan.
"Sara…" Cassie started, but then she looked at Elizabeth for help.
"Sorry, Cassie, but you're going to have to do better than that," Elizabeth laughed, meaning that she would not take over so quickly.
"Mom," Sara interjected, "I know exactly what's suppose to happen, in detail, but what I don't know are the…finer points."
Cassie was a little flustered by this as she certainly hadn't gotten a chance to discuss even the basics with her and Malachi had been under Azazeal's supervision when it came to sex.
"But how…?"
"I know a lot of things," she said casually, showing another glimpse of how mature she was getting on the inside which Cassie felt she should recognize from Malachi's development but some how it was different with her.
Cassie took a deep breath and said, "Sara, the problem is…well okay the problems are the following: one, it's generally not pleasant the first time…for girls anyway, so that would be something to shoot for, two, boys your "age" won't really be any good for educational purposes, and three we're going to have to deal with the fact that you're not the average girl. What do you think Elizabeth, should she start out with someone her own age or go professional?"
Elizabeth stared at Cassie a little shocked by this sudden openness but quickly recovered to discuss the question.
While Cassie and Elizabeth debated the merits of different kinds of men, Sara's thoughts wandered. She thought of all the private moments she'd caught her father and mother in, especially recently: smiling, kissing, laughing quietly, looking as though they could not be physically separated, focused on each other. She'd seen it with Lucifer and Elizabeth too. This was what she really wanted, intimacy, which she instinctively felt was more than just love or sex but fed off of both.
When Sara left them still deep in conversation, she found herself confronted by a smiling Lucifer.
"I know what you're thinking," he said.
"Do you?" she said smartly, "Then tell me what I need to know."
"Not my area of expertise," he said with a shake of his head, but still with a smirk on his lips.
"But," he continued slowly and sexily, "when you want to learn how to make a man…or a woman helpless in their desire for you…when you want to learn something tantalizingly deviant…when you want to learn how to create an intensely exquisite experience…come see me." And they both smiled at each other for a moment before Lucifer left her.
Sara watched after him still smiling, appreciating that he knew exactly what he was good at and that he was willing to share this knowledge with her when she was ready. She watched him walk directly over to Elizabeth, now alone, who immediately pretended to be jealous of seeing him talking so privately to Sara, while he pretended to "guiltily" assure her that she had nothing to worry about. She smiled at their interplay and she heard Elizabeth say, "I think maybe you need to be brought to heel…hm?…be taught the consequences for coveting."
"Perhaps," was all he said before they disappeared.
Sara laughed to herself. She knew, just like Elizabeth did, that he lusted for no one but her. He had even confounded the ladies at the high-class brothel that they had been to by being completely indifferent to their quite intriguing attempts to seduce him.
It was only a couple of weeks until Christmas and Elizabeth still couldn't get anyone to tell her what they had planned to celebrate Christmas. She actually enjoyed this holiday more than any other and really wanted to make it a special for their newly created extended family. Even if the angels had to fake it, she thought the least they could do was have a nice dinner, but even Cassie was being weird about this. She also knew that by now all of them knew that it was her birthday too and it made her uncomfortable.
One day when she came back to the church from shopping with Sara, she saw the looks on Cassie's, Azazeal's, and Lucifer's faces, Elizabeth knew they were cooking something up for Christmas. A bit annoyed she said, "You two don't even believe in Christmas and probably think we're all crazy."
"Don't be so quick to decide that," Azazeal said, smoothly, "Just because we won't answer your questions about it."
"Fine! So what's the plan?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary, but since it's your birthday too, you don't get to do any of the work," Cassie said.
"So I can just show up then? Great!" And she walked off.
"Wow, and I thought you were exaggerating," Cassie said to Lucifer about Elizabeth's reaction to this.
"She just wants to celebrate Christmas and she doesn't want any surprises," Lucifer said.
"Are you sure?" Cassie asked.
"Relatively."
"That's not comforting."
"Well, keeping her out of this is was not my idea," Lucifer responded.
While everyone else was busy with planning Christmas, Sara had decided to take her "education" in her own hands. She'd carefully selected a candidate for her first time from a list she had compiled in her head and was now left with only the task of getting him to agree. She didn't think this would be too much of a problem but when she first tried to approach him, she lost her nerve. She had a great deal of confidence in her ability to learn quickly, but she didn't like the uncertainty of this kind of experience. Most other things she'd learned had been very cut and dry, either she could do it or she couldn't, but this involved another person who had expectations and an impression of her. Sara, however, was too much like her father to allow these doubts to stop her from getting what she wanted for long. And so, she seduced, rather than asked, her first man to make love to her.