A few nights later, I was in another one of those infernal office buildings. I didn't know where I was going, or why, but I went from room to room, through long dark corridors, opening doors of every sort of odd shape and design, always with the feeling that I was about to enter my room, my office, my place. But it never materialized. It wasn't like anything was really familiar, but these places always had something hauntingly familiar about them.For a moment, in this particular structure, I thought I heard voices. Were other people here? Just around a corner, at the top of a stairway. And when I got to wherever it was I never saw anyone. Although I did have a feeling I was being followed, or at least watched.
At times I inched my way, precariously balanced across high, narrow ledges, crawled across heavy rusted steel I-beams, perilously high over a dark abyss. I finally came to a small room whose door blended so perfectly into the wall after I closed it I could no longer find it. I was in a room with no windows and no doors. It was dimly lit but not by any sort of electric light I could see. There was nothing in the room except carpet on the floor and one chair. I sat. I wondered if I would finally come face to face with Satan here.
After a moment, the hidden door opened. A tall female figure appeared, very female, framed by the dark on the other side of the doorway. She entered slowly, deliberately. She was the same impossibly beautiful woman whom I had seen during my interview with Kasyade. The woman he called Lily. Or her twin.
She wore the unmistakable fertile look of certain young girls, usually younger teenagers you see walking with older men in malls. Where you wonder if he's her father, and if he is, you pity him. But you know it isn't. It's a look as old as the female gender, carnal, hungry for attention, too comfortable with her whiles. There is no way to control a female like this and woe to the man who comes in her thrall. Her burners are lit and turned up high. She cares about all the wrong things, follows her hormones, thrills at the power in torturing any man fool enough to follow her scent. She oozes sexuality and uses it to get her way. But her wants are limited by her lack of imagination. There is no good that can come from her. She indulges her passions too quickly and soon finds herself strung out and burnt out. The piercing eyes go dull, pouty lips dry up, her strut becomes a shuffle. Her flame burns out by the time she is in her twenties, a frazzled, nervous hulk with trembling hands and a hunger for any cheap high within her ever-shrinking grasp.
Though she didn't look it, the woman who stood before me was much older than this, I could tell by the way she looked at me, by the reflections in her tar-black eyes that she'd been around a lot longer than had I. In fact, she was ancient. But her flame burns ever brighter over the millennia. She was a rare one who tamed her flame, learned to control it. Now it was a blow torch. And I knew I was about to run like solder. She was Lilith.
Lilith didn't say a word. I knew this "test" was going to be one I wouldn't want to talk about in the morning. I could feel Lilith shuffling the file cards in my brain, indexing my cerebral hard-drive, nothing escaped the clutch of this luscious demon. Using the images she found in my memory, she began to display her prowess as a shape-shifter.
Lilith slowly circled around me, each step changing her visage. Always beautiful, but from moment to moment she took on the features of every girl and every woman I had ever known, every woman I had ever been attracted to.
From the deepest recesses of my memory came a high school art teacher I hadn't thought about in years. Then a neighbor's daughter. Then Lilith was the flaming red-head with the souped-up Oldsmobile Starfire convertible who lived down the street.
Lilith became a tall, English doll named Lauren, who I never actually met but who worked at the same office I did. This vixen had some strange powerful effect on me which I never understood. She always made me know I was completely in her thrall. If she knew what was in my mind she could have made a willing slave of me, a dog, begging for something sweet. At the time, I remember thinking that she must have been some sort of sorceress. I asked around but other men didn't seem to be so affected by her. I was flabbergasted as to how or why she so affected me, someone she didn't even know. It was a bitter-sweet torture I decided I would enjoy in silence, secretly dreading the day when one or the other of us would leave the company.
Lilith recreated the first day I came to understand the power this English girl had over me, a day I'll never forget. I entered an elevator, as I did in my office building a dozen times every day. The elevator was crowded and I didn't take note of who else was on it but suddenly I could feel a presence on that elevator. It was Lauren. My energy was drained and as normally talkative as I was, I was unable to find words. It was the custom of men in my company to hold the elevator doors open and allow women to exit first. When she brushed past me, I felt a spark cross the gap between us. That long-ago day, when I was a much younger man, I was drunk from her nearness for quite some time. Lilith somehow knew, and she reproduced that delicious feeling in my mind, fresh and tender as if it were today.
As I seemed to be able to endure this pleasurable torture and maintain some semblence of integrity, Lilith racheted-up the pressure, moving on to my most secret movie star fantasies. I am not the sort of person who cares much for "celebrities." In fact in general I have little regard for them. But I'm only human after all, and Lilith knew my soft spot for certain Hollywood actresses of earlier times. Lilith was all of them and more. She knew how the camera, lighting and angles could make even mildly attractive people seem like gods and goddesses. She was a flawless performer, and now I understood what was meant by the devil incarnate.
"I've been watching you, running all around this building," Lilith straddled my lap, facing me, leaning in close. "Have you been searching for me, Angelo?" she whispered in June Allison's wonderfully husky voice, and her closeness made me shiver.
"I don't think so, hon," I said feebly.
"Ohh," came the voice of Kim Basinger in her character, Memo, in The Natural. She seemed hurt. "Am I mistaken?" Now Lilith looked like one of my teenage friend's next door neighbors, a sweet frail young girl who had always remined me of a young Beverly Garland, all sunlight and the warm glow of straw. My eyes lit up and my heart went pitty-pat, pitty-pat as I recognized her, and I was so delighted to see her after all these years. But as Lilith, my attraction to her was magnitudes greater. She was a goddess, seven feet tall, unreachable, with flesh and muscle so perfectly formed I could scarcely believe a human could be this beautiful. "I saw the way you were looking at me when you first saw me at Kassy's place," Lilith purred. So she was Kasyade's Lily.
"It's difficult not to look at you... Lilith. That is your name, isn't it?"
"Names. We're so much more than names. Don't you agree?"
What arrows do we have in our quivers, we mere male mortals, for dealing with such demonic teasing? This was Lilith's ballpark and I was the visiting team. She was Eartha Kitt, I was Goofy. I pretended to be uninterested. Ha! A fine joke.
I said "Whatever," in the most dismissive tone I could muster. "Okay, what exactly do you want from me?"
"The question is what do you want, Angelo? It was you who summoned us, remember?"
"Then you must know I want to meet Satan. I seek God."
"Oo, God. Impressive. But, right now, at this very moment, don't you find me more... interesting... than Satan or that icky God?" Her brightly colored fingernails gently brushed my hair across my forehead. Just like that day in the elevator, soft warm sparks traveled between her fingertips and my flesh. But there was something else. I suddenly remembered my son saying his teacher did that to him. Lilith said "I can be a pleasant diversion from your cares. From all this angst you carry... worrying so much about mean ol' Satan and God and all your dopey people."
"What man wouldn't find you...?" I stammered.
"Then why don't you put your hands on me? I know you want to. Here," Lilith whispered, "I have a little present for you... it's in here," She pointed to the breast pocket of her blouse, and I immediately remembered what Matthew said. Lilith teased, "You'll have to get it for yourself." She moved right up against me, pressing her breast into my right hand. What! Was this just a coincidence? How could that be? There are no coincidences like this.
I felt her warmth right through her crisp white blouse. A supple bump of flesh, harder than the rest, like a soft pink pencil eraser touched dead center in the palm of my hand. This was enough to make a nine year old boy faint. As with all Earth women, there was some extraordinary power at work here. But Lilith's amperage was higher than any I had ever encountered. The strength drained out of my legs. My head began to swim, and I knew in a second I would be lost. If I gave in, I would fail Satan's test, I would never come face to face with him. With great determination, and more than a small measure of regret, I threw some invisible switch in my mind, diverting the energy flow from my flesh to my mind and my hand wrenched itself away from her.
Lilith giggled. "He's shy! How sweet," she said, "We'll have to be more subtle, won't we?" I blinked and she was Janet Lee in the shower scene from Hitchcock's Psycho. But the way Lilith recreated the scene, there was no soft lens, no shower curtain to obscure what we most wanted to see. She directed the scene as Alfred could only have wished he'd done, with all the camera shots that were never in the movie, the shots millions of young men could only imagine. Janet unbuttons her blouse. Janet drops her skirt. Janet in lacy bra and panties. In all her movies, Janet's bosom seemed like a heavenly promise, hidden just beyond sight by her perfectly tailored blouses. But now here I am and here she is, within easy reach, and her flesh quivers as she reaches behind and unhooks her bra. What cold-hearted male's blood wouldn't simmer? Janet steps into the shower, water streams down all her soft nooks and crannies. We helpless males drool as she soaps herself.
I wanted to howl at the moon but I forced myself to think of Anthony Perkins suddenly coming into the room wielding his terrible kitchen knife. I got up and ran to the shower to protect Janet. To protect Lilith! As this demon witch can obviously read my every thought, she judges my intentions are noble, and the shower dissolves.
Now Lilith is Elizabeth Montgomery, and she and I are naked in each others' clutches under thin silk sheets. Isn't this what every red-blooded boy dreamt about after being Bewitched by Samantha? She may have been a witch but she was the witch next door, squeaky clean, an untouchable beauty. I have to admit this was a most pleasurable dream. Lilith had me primed and I was feverish with desire. I wanted nothing more than to sink my teeth into her soft and wonderful flesh. To drive at breakneck speed through the dangerous curves of her body. But these visions were paradoxical. At the same time I was drawn to Lilith - I despised her. Though blood had drained from my brain to a lower part of my anatomy, in the tiny part of my brain that was still functioning, I knew there was only one reason this demon goddess would ever want to be in bed with me. Under my breath I said the only words that would come to me at the moment; "In the name of Jesus, I rebuke thee." I said it over and over and I willed my brain to clear, my blood cooled and my sanity returned.
We were back in the windowless room. My hand had found the crucifix in my pocket. Lilith was sitting on my lap, facing me, arms draped around my neck. Her tongue explored my ear. Her tongue must have been split just like Moloch's, as it was able to do warm, wet, wonderful things in a man's ear. She could make it trill like the gentle wings of a moth, and other things hardly imaginable.
I pulled away from Lilith. She pouted with that soft Kim Basinger sigh like a spoiled girl, and jumped off my lap. Then she became my neighbor's teenage daughter, swaying in front of me, playing with her pleated skirt provocatively so I could not take my eyes off her soft white legs. Okay, this was fun for awhile but I couldn't take this bittersweet torture any more. I realized I did have a card to play, and it was a trump card. I was sure Lilith was compelled by her Master to answer any question I threw at her. It was why we were here. Well, for that and to test my will. As long as I could come up with a question, she would be compelled to answer. She would be distracted from torturing me. But I knew the test was far from over.
"Tell me about Anu," I asked firmly.
"Anu, Anu, Anu!" she was clearly annoyed now. "What sort of pathetic man are you?" I may have successfully resisted her temptations but I had to be careful not to scorn this powerful woman. Lilith reluctantly answered, sounding like a robot voice, "Anu is Lord of Nibiru, King of the Anunnaki, Highest of the High Elohim, father of Enlil, Enki and Ninmah, patriarch of many including my Lord Satan."
"So they're all related. A royal family?"
"They are."
"Why was Satan cast out?"
"Lord Satan would not bow to the wishes of the Elohim, the Divine Council."
"Why?"
"Satan is a proud lord. He is superior. He suffers not fools."
"What wishes did he disregard?"
"To end genetic experiments with your people. To stop his House from mating with your women. To keep his place, to be patient with his fellow gods and not rush his ascendancy."
"For this he was exiled to Earth," I concluded.
Lilith nodded, "With his entire House."
"But you believe Satan will ascend nevertheless?" I threw any junk question at Lilith while I regained my senses.
"His time arrives."
"What, he'll be king?"
"Lord of Anunnaki Lords."
"What will happen to us humans?"
"Lord Satan will return to Nibiru to rule many worlds. Your Earth is a mere outpost," Lilith smiled and ran her fingernails down my cheek, "Though with some interesting aspects. Lord Satan will appoint another to rule Earth as he does now."
"If Satan rules the Earth now, why do we not see him? Why do we not know him?" A logical question, no?
Lilith laughed and said "You do see him. He remains, as your people say, hidden in plain sight."
"Well who is he?"
"He will choose to reveal himself to you... or not. It will be his choice."
"Will I be seeing him soon?"
"Perhaps sooner if you succumb to my charms," Lilith laughed, her tongue twiddling at me.
I tried to return her tease. "I might succumb sooner if you will tell me the reason my people should seek vengeance against House Enlil and the Elohim. The reason Kasyade and Moloch refuse to speak about." Okay, I wasn't a very good at it.
Her look softened, she became my teacher again. But this time I saw her through the eyes of my son, Matt. Naive and vulnerable. Teacher said "You little devil, you. You know only Satan can tell you about this. And what's worse, I've failed to arouse you."
"Not exactly," I stammered.
"I guess I'll just have to please myself," Lilith was fully prepared to prove she was a demon. "Perhaps you'd prefer to just watch?" She lay on her back, gathering her skirt up to her waist. I was stunned to see she wore nothing underneath. My nine year old self was shocked when she began to willfully abused herself, slowly pushing something between her legs. I watched incredulous as it disappeared into her body. How many times had I watched my art teacher, how many times had I lusted after her with all the crazy imaginings of a young boy as she moved about the art room, commenting on students' attempts at art? But this was more than I had ever dared, or could imagine at that age. More than a mere mortal boy could bear. I was burning with an overpowering desire, still I knew what she was doing was terribly wrong. I reached out and pulled her skirt to cover her and softly implored "Stop."
Lilith looked at me with a most inscrutable expression. She sat up and came closer to me. She took the object from between her legs, it turned into an apple which she lifted it to my lips. "Your favorite fruit, Angelo," she giggled.
I was my adult self again. I slapped the apple away. It flew across the room and hit the wall with a soft thud. Lilith cracked up. But there was no humor in her laughter. I don't know, maybe frustration. Probably anger. And I was out of questions. Her eyes flashed red and livid and then the room we were in flashed and we were once again in that horrible dimension where the River Hades flowed. Except the river didn't look like blood this time. The stench was overpowering. It smelled like a river of semen.
In this region of the river, the banks were populated with what looked like normal humans. At first I didn't realize what they were doing. On one side of the river there were hundreds... thousands! ...of harlots, women of the night, there were young girls who couldn't have been more than seven years old, others immensely overweight, and transsexual and homosexual men, strutting about in their work clothes, attempting to lure customers from the other side of the river. A more amazing collection of negligee, garter belts, whips, brassieres, little schoolgirl outfits and outrageously high heels had never been thus assembled.
On the other side of the river, Johns and Janes of all descriptions were lined up in equal numbers, paying to be ferried across to the wild side of the river on small flat boats piloted by little fat pink demon creatures dressed only in white diaper-like wrappings.
As Lilith steered us along the river and my eyes grew more accustomed to the dim light, I saw those who had already crossed over the river were engaged in every perverted sexual act imaginable and some I didn't want to imagine. And there were cameras everywhere! This was an orgy of biblical proportion, a giant factory producing obscene videos, films and photographs.
Writhing flesh was everywhere. I was watching a compressed montage of things that were happening back in my world at this very moment in time. My world. My people. Possessed by a madness beyond their control. Obsessed with carnal drives. Certainly this was not wholesome sex. This was degrading. In my world, in my awake state, I had to admit it was everywhere. We all know it's everywhere. The slick purveyors of pornography have managed to force their interests upon the majority by twisting the ideals of free speech, by appealing to the lowest forms of popular sentiment. You don't want to seem unsophisticated so you have been snookered into believing we shouldn't be judgmental. So you pretend to not see it, or claim to be too busy with your lives to notice, or perhaps you casually partake in it and don't give a damn about the denigration of our culture. In our country, the purveyors hide behind the First Amendment, as if the Founding Fathers somehow knew one day there would be video cameras everywhere trying to satisfy the insatiable hunger of legions of horn dogs. They argue that it's a "victimless crime" as this obsession drags more and more unsuspecting victims into its net. Underage children, desperate mothers, naive young girls and boys, wannabe screen stars, greedy producers and just plain perverts, each generating more psychic energy to be absorbed by Lilith's kind.
In earlier times, fear of God's wrath, wielded by the Church, kept many from indulging these secret yearnings. Their prurient impulses, a manifestation of their dark set of genetic characteristics were always there, but were repressed by most. Unsatiated, this energy was released in some other form, sometimes positive. But then came the death of God and the sexual revolution. The genie was let out of the bottle. Things barely imaginable in the past have today, with the advent of video cameras and digital technology, and the privacy they provide, become commonplace. So much so that the younger generation doesn't even realize this was a taboo. And we have just begun.
Lilith stood beside me, completely naked, growing more animated with the release of all this sexual energy. Everywhere on that side of the river, as far as we could see, humans writhed in one baroque mass of flesh, working for the camera lens. Women took on several men at once, women with women, men with men, men with children, children with even younger children, women with animals and bizarre half-man half-animals. It was a wretched display of the depravity my world was experiencing. On the other side of the river was another legion, mostly men, those who for one reason or another; lack of money or lack of courage, masturbating as they watched, like crazed peeping Toms, the goings on across the river.
The carnal sounds, the body heat and the smell of the river was disgusting. There was no way to shield myself from this grotesque landscape. It extended as far as I could see in every direction. Lilith grew stronger by the moment as the sexual energy of the mass of humanity rose to an ever-higher fever pitch. Her power would soon be irresistible. If I didn't get out of this nightmare world soon, I was sure I would be emotionally crippled. I tried with all my strength to wake myself up. I held tight to my crucifix and asked for Jesus to help me. But even with my eyes tightly shut my very thoughts were drowned out by the sounds of bestiality all around me.
The moaning reached a tortured crescendo as legions began climaxing. On one side of the river, great globs of semen splattered into the egg white water. On the other side semen sprayed everywhere, covering the naked bodies with slime. The sharp odor of sex filled the air, humid, organic, with the nauseating bite of ammonia and methane. My head spun and I contributed my own vomit into the river.
Lilith's eyes were aflame and she beat her chest, howling like a mad beast. She turned to me and realizing I would not cave in to the lust, her growl came up from the pits of hell. There was no mistaking the malice in her eyes. In a bizarre manifestation of anger, her pubic hair grew to engulf her entire body. The hair grew thick and dark and hard, and as I watched with dropped jaw, she transformed into a horrible insect. Jesus, she must have learned from my memories how much I hate insects!
I screamed, and despite being repulsed by the putrid river, I plunged straight into it, my arms and hands flailing in a desperate attempt to get away from Lilith. She scuttled over the side of the boat, her long antennae feeling its way around in jerky motions. I saw her floating on the river, her many spiny legs undulating toward me. I thanked Christ for allowing me to reach the riverbank, horrid as it was. I ran, drenched and trailing sticky semen through the gasping crowd of naked flesh toward the sheer cliffs. I climbed into one of the caves, running into a dimly lit tunnel with the monstrous insect in pursuit. Lilith slithered, hopped, and even flew when she had to. Her gossamer wings made a terrifying sound like paper flapping in a fan, sending chills through my spine. Looking over my shoulder, I heard scabrous sounds, always just out of view, getting closer.
I reached a dead end in the tunnel, and while it was so dark I couldn't really see, I knew this was her environment, not mine, and if she couldn't lure me with all the wiles of a warm woman, she would have me in a much colder way. I found my crucifix and held it tight and asked Jesus to help me. I felt Lilith's putrid breath and the spray of her spittle upon my face. Her forward pair of spikey appendages grasped me, drawing me closer to her giant eyes. They seemed to be illuminated from within, I could see many images of myself, each wearing a terrified expression, reflected in those horrible bulging eyes.
I had previously decided that Satan had let it be known that he did not want his demons to harm me. So I was pretty sure Lilith was not going to tear me apart and devour my heart. But had he also instructed Lilith to not use me as a toy? And what about my children? I was so terrified I couldn't decide whether she wanted to have sex with me or have me for lunch... or both. But when her spindly claws drew me irresistibly toward her, when her other pairs of appendages began getting into my clothes and on my flesh, I pretty much figured it out. This was it for me, time to go. I screamed "Stay away from me and stay the hell away from my children you stinking whore!" I plunged the crucifix into one of her eyes then the other. Lilith made the terrible noises of anger and pain, made all the worse by the closeness of the hard cavern walls. I focused every fiber of my being and made my internal alarm ring.
I woke up, arms flailing, screaming "Stay the hell away from my children!" still trying to ward off my invisible lover.
Here I was again, laying in my bed, physically and emotionally exhausted, wondering if I was sane. And if I was, how long could I stay that way. After a time, I managed to get to the bathroom and took the longest shower of my life.