Chapter 2

I awoke in the large bed in the Victorian lakeside mansion surrounded by beautiful women. One of them lifted her head from my chest, smiling a smile without its usual complication. Pure happiness.

"Seraphine," I mumbled.

"Master. You're okay."

"How long did I sleep?"

"Most of the day, lazybones," Helena joked, but I could see her relief. "It's two in the afternoon."

"You were worried?"

"You were more like in a coma than sleeping," Helena told me. "Of course I worried."

"But you knew I'd awake."

"Of course. Just not when."

Nodding, I grumped, "Where's that bitch, Helen?"

"Here, Joe," she smirked, looking gorgeous in the doorway. "But we all agreed to it. We had to test you. I'm just the bitch who got to start the torture."

"She's right," my cutest wife assured me, her innate shyness and sweetness making it the most convincing. "You screamed," she muttered.

"Come here, sweetheart," I said, and pulled her onto me, kissing the dark hair on her scalp. "It didn't hurt. Just scared the shit out of me."

"Literally," Helen continued her smirk.

"Bitch," I heard murmured around me.

"Really?"

"You acted like you died, Joe," Helena explained. "You released everything. Lots of water around to clean you up, and Naomi went back to clean up her sacred place with a bucket."

"Shit," I said.

"Literally," Helen replied.

"Shut the fuck up, bitch," Eva growled, but we ended up laughing.

Looking around at my lovely wives and my Jewish slave, I smiled. "You stayed with me."

"Of course," said Zhenzhen. "Where else would we be?"

"And the others?"

"My band of beauties have been twittering all day about our visit," said Helen.

"And this supposed bitch has been hovering nearby," Eva said.

"Really?" I asked Helen. Her smugness disappeared, changing to a soft, loving expression when she nodded. "You hate being sweet on me."

"I like it actually," she shrugged.

"Vance and Stan have been acting like a couple," said Eva.

"Cool," I said. "Though I imagine your band of beauties might not think so," I addressed Helen.

"They'll get him when they can, just like they'll get you. Vance won't mind. He's smitten, but he's just glad he can have a lover, and a friend too, I think."

I nodded. "What about Shira?" When my wives laughed, I asked, "What?"

"Of course you asked about your latest conquest," said Helena.

"Sorry," I cringed.

"Don't be an idiot Joe. She's freshest in your mind."

"And she's a hotty," Eva added. "She worried about you when we carried you here. Actually everyone worried, but her especially."

"She's quite fond of you, Joe," said Helena.

"I'm fond of her too," I replied

"We know," Zhenzhen grinned. "She ended up staying the longest after we shooed everyone else away. When she finally realized none of us looked grim, so we actually knew you would recover..."

"How did you know?" I asked her.

"Your mind still sparkled like it does now. Just much quieter."

"Sparkled?"

Zhenzhen shrugged adorably. "It's the closest word. It's totally unique. Master's has a glow to his, almost a hum like a power station made visual. Everyone else has selective glows and sparks, angels stronger than mortals. It's all metaphorical really. And yours metaphorically sparkles.

"Anyway, as I was saying before being rudely interrupted," all of us chuckled at her cuteness, "once Shira calmed, she told us what she and Hannah and Lindy had been brainstorming in their near peak state of mushroom and marijuana induced hallucination. It seems she and Josh and Hannah had participated in a multi-media workshop instigated by this older polymath genius, mostly a composer. It had been an ongoing phenomenon occurring wherever he resided. Being an alcoholic, he ended up residing here, participating at Hazelton. One of the workshop attendees, in his fifties, the polymath nearing seventy, had her and her friends participate in this verbal piece, what he called Performance Poetry, where they read simultaneously from this poem, each cued when to stop reading, while this guy improvised. It was supposedly really fun, and it inspired Shira to find out more."

"The man must have enjoyed her attention," I commented.

"You have a one track mind my love, but I could tell she had fondness for the man, so probably. The gist of it is, he invited her and Hannah back to his apartment, and shut up Joe, and showed them film and played cassette tapes of a couple pieces by a friend of his and her girlfriend."

"Actual film?"

"Yes. Back in the seventies, video wasn't so prevalent or attainable. Not synched. Just 8mm film and the sound from the performance pieces via the cassette. Shira loved it and always wanted to do something like it and she thought it would be perfect here. You see, it has to do with moving from place to place, guiding the audience down paths and stopping for performances. She said they were very ceremonial, spiritual, with music and singing and dancing along with more traditional acting and the audience ending up getting instruments, mostly percussion, and joining in during the grand climax."

"No," I sighed.

"What do you mean no?"

"You don't think Lindy has enough on her plate?"

"Shouldn't you let Lindy decide?" Helena suggested.

"I do, but..."

"It sounds really cool," said Eva.

I sighed again. "It does. And the Lakota aspect would make the spirituality unavoidable. We should invite our neighbors to perform whatever inspires them, if they're still connected to the earth and sky and water like they seem to be. I bet there's even a ceremony specific to Cass Lake. It seems like Stan will be involved, but others too would be cool."

My angels laughed. "Jumped right in, didn't you Joe," said Helen.

I shrugged. "I don't know. This seems like a special place. It would be a shame not to do some sort of performance for an audience, and this sounds perfect. But how long are we here?"

"Three weeks at the most," said Helena. "Through Labor day. At least we should be in Boston by the second week of September. We only have Vance through the end of September."

"So the first showcase will probably be dancing," I figured.

"And music," said Eva. "I think this showcase has as much to do with Angelique as it does Lindy."

"I think Lindy would agree," I smiled. "Then we should get Naomi to create a flier as soon as possible for performances Labor Day weekend, with Betty designing it. In fact, I think Naomi should be even more involved. I think she should be the star. Her true story. Dorothy in Oz."

"With Nick as the Wizard," Helen laughed.

"Then Rosa should be involved too," Helena suggested, "as her friend luring her here."

"Just don't make the Indians fucking flying monkeys," I frowned.

"Definitely not," said Helena, and we laughed.

"But Joe," Zhenzhen murmured, "Lindy and Shira and Hannah have been working all night and day on this."

"Oops." I said.

"But it does sound cool," said Zhenzhen.

It turned out my suggestion excited them. It filled a hole in their ideas, which shared mine about finding out the Lakota's spiritual relationship to the lake. We found Lindy, Hannah and Shira in the theater about a half hour after I woke up still nibbling on a late lunch which the lovely twin servants provided us when we sat with them. We being my wives and Seraphine and Helen and her clones, who joined us as soon as we started heading out of the old Victorian house. Apparently none of the angels or their eternal wanderers had returned from the Twin Cities.

"How are you?" Shira asked.

I thanked her for her concern with a short but loving kiss before telling her, "I'm fine."

"You look fine," she purred, and pulled me into a longer kiss, surrounded by giggles.

"You do actually," said Lindy, her eyes demanding her own kiss, which I happily provided.

Afterwards I sighed. "I look changed, more studly or whatever?"

"Something," Lindy murmured in agreement.

"Uhm," I shifted things, "So, after recovering from last night's insanity, how insane did your ideas sound about this travelling performance piece?" That got them distracted away from their attraction, especially Lindy.

"Surprisingly sane," Lindy replied, "or at worst, interestingly insane. Not the least inane despite quite a lot of babbling."

"Lindy had the foresight to record us," Shira told me. "Some of it had us in hysterics, but there were tons of cool ideas."

"Can I put my two cents in?" I offered.

"Of course," all three women said, perhaps a bit too adoringly.

Even with that adoration, I trusted at least Lindy to keep her brilliant creative mind intact enough to judge my suggestions appropriately. I certainly didn't expect her to bounce with excitement with the other two dancers. I enjoyed the bouncing boobs.

"It's perfect Joe," she proclaimed. "It's exactly what we needed!"

I chuckled when they immediately returned to creative mode, bouncing off ideas, with Lindy noting everything down.

Helena approached them with surprising shyness. "Could I help?" she asked.

"Of course," Lindy grinned. "We need your writing. Mine's way too mundane."

After finishing my lunch, I decided to fetch Naomi. Her input seemed essential. Zhenzhen went with me, while Eva and Helen and her clones hovered around the creative table.

"Joe," Zhenzhen stopped me a few steps from the theater.

Looking where she looked, I saw a huddled figure on the beach near the corner of the theater. "Rosa," I murmured. Approaching her, I said her name louder.

"Joe," she exclaimed, standing and embracing me. "Hi Zhen," she said while in my arms.

"Hi Rosa." I heard the sadness.

"What's wrong?" I asked the gorgeous half Native American angel when our embrace ended.

"Sit," she sighed.

We sat. "What's going on?" I asked.

"I have hard time after killing someone. How are you doing, Zhen?"

"To tell you the truth, none of us angels actually killed anyone," Zhenzhen explained. "Not that we weren't complicit. We distracted Simon's minions. They were after us after all. Made it easier for our warrior friends to kill them. It was ugly, horrid, to watch people being killed or wounded. At the same time, I understood our enemy's intent. If they hadn't died, they would have tried as hard as they could to kill us. If not for our friends, I'm certain I would cause their death directly. I understand getting sick about it, and having a sickness that lingers. But I settled down, let the grotesque horror be the worst kind of experience, but one that broadened me exponentially, that let me witness and even participate in the worst of man and learn what man is capable of."

"Xo showed you how to experience the worst?" Rosa asked.

"Master told me to envelope terrible moments, to see everything from all sides. He explained man's nature of being self-righteous or self-loathing. Either way, the center of it all. The cause. It's a tendency towards solipsism, these traumatic moments. But to see the causes, the motivations, all of it, you no longer are the center. You may have caused some, but not all. I kept myself from trying to escape the ugliness and horror, instead ruminating on it. And I can't help feeling righteous in my place in it. Those that died brought it solely on themselves, or Simon brought them their deaths. Not me. Not our warriors. None of the angels. The madness made me sad, and not a little pissed off at that asshole."

"I'm doing something similar, Zhen. This isn't my first murder. I have never been a traditional soldier, fighting beside my comrades, shooting at the enemy, sharing their deaths. It's always been much more targeted as this was."

"What happened?" I asked her.

"Seraphine."

"She was followed?"

"She was about to be taken. Simon's top henchman. His most brutal minion. I have been with him since he left Milwaukee to come join his boss. Before that actually. Then, when Simon's most recent attempt at Nick failed once again, Simon sent off his minions in various directions to do his bidding, and I followed him to where Seraphine stayed."

"He planned to kill her?"

"I doubt it. To threaten her, yes. To hurt her, probably. To shame her, most definitely."

"Shame her how?"

"Toss her to the media sharks."

"I was hoping that pilot would be the scapegoat. And those camp assholes."

"We're talking about a vast and complicated conspiracy, having seduction at its base."

I nodded. "Who better than a beautiful, intelligent Jewess? To Simon, she'd be perfect."

"Exactly."

"I kind of figured that too. I actually warned her through telepathy."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Interesting."

"Surprising. But how did you know he was after Seraphine?"

"I didn't until she came out of the house when he arrived."

"Shit. She didn't say anything."

"Because she didn't know. As soon as he opened his door, I was on him, slitting his throat as well as his accomplice. They barely knew they'd been killed, let alone Seraphine noticing. Being supernaturally fast has its advantages. I drove the car and its occupants to a place where everything would disappear. I washed there and changed in a limo driving me back to my car."

"I see what you mean," said Zhenzhen. "A very intimate method of murder."

"Mine tend to be."

"So you've been used the way Gia has been used?" I asked.

"All of Nick's angels have been trained for such things. We have to be discreet and effective. Beyond being sneaky and invisible, which Miwa is best at, though I'm not far behind, I'm Nick's best tracker. Possibly the best of any of the angels. Spying is usually the intent, but too many times, it ends in assassination. I'm usually his chosen assassin. Like you said, Zhen, always intimate.

"You referred to the righteousness of these terrible killings," Rosa continued. "I have never felt unjustified. Like those wackos that Simon impelled to invade us here, these people needed to be killed. Never bystanders in the way of getting some selfish thing. Selfish only in the act being to protect me and mine. I guess Seraphine has become one of mine."

"Thank you for that," I said.

"She's your lover, and your best friend's lover and she carries your child, Joe. The Pereires are not my favorite people. Whatever bargain they made with Simon I think is about to finally bite them in the ass, and I can't say they don't deserve it. But Seraphine's yours, Joe, and therefore mine.

"But no matter how justified I feel about killing, ending a human life so abruptly can't help being tragic. Being eternal and seeing so many deaths along the way, mostly friends but acquaintances and enemies and everyone except eternal wanderers and angels, you'd think I would lose value in a human's life and mortality. Instead I feel it's the most precious thing, the most fragile and in a way the most beautiful, the arc of a human's life. The saddest too. You know what they say: 'Biography always ends badly.'

"Tracking isn't only about following someone. It's also about getting to know them. Instead of just watching what they, you have insight into what they might do, or more importantly, what they probably will do."

"Like bringing Seraphine to Simon."

"And her being crucial to the scapegoating. Except for his angels, this man had the most important assignments, and the ones requiring the most menace."

"Meaning women," I speculated.

"Most of the time. Definitely this time. Okay, the guy was a creep of the lowest order, an asshole's asshole. At the same time, he had a life, and I ended it. And, like so many before him, I knew a lot about that life. Known associates, meaning friends. Companions. Children."

"He was a father?" asked Zhenzhen.

"He was a top minion, so yes and no. But I knew he had fondness and was protective of a couple of his kids and their mother," she sniffled.

"I see what you mean," I gasped.

"I'm okay, Joe, or I will be. It usually takes a day or so of rumination to sort of bury his life."

"I don't mean to be cruel, Rosa," said Zhenzhen, "but what about the other guy?"

"I didn't know much about him. Mostly in relation to his boss. A relationship that caused his death, but which he relished. He was the strong man, the enforcer, essentially the dog sicced on victims. A lifelong bully of the worst kind, one with balls. I don't know anything redeeming, though he probably had something. Loyalty maybe. Okay."

Rosa zoned out, meditating. Her sadness seemed to deepen. We left her alone with it.

"Wow," Zhenzhen said quietly, taking my hand, "Rosa's incredible."

"I think so too," I replied, threading my big fingers within her petite ones. Back on track, we headed to the Victorian house, figuring Naomi would be there with Tash.

They weren't. "The falls," said Zhenzhen. I nodded.

They were there. Naked. Skinny dipping. With Stan and Vance. Zhenzhen and I looked at each other and nodded and removed our clothes and joined the frolicking.

"I want to talk to you," I finally said to Naomi.

"Should we go full circle and meld our minds behind the waterfall?" she joked.

"Not necessary, thank god," I chuckled.

"Come on then," she said, tossing me her damp towel.

"Wait," I said. "I'm a little more vulnerable to sharp things in the forest."

"Get dressed then," she shrugged.

"And maybe Stan should join us. It actually concerns him as well."

"Stan?" she swallowed. I had noticed surprisingly shy glances at the undeniably attractive man. Being naked did nothing but improve the view. It made me feel less gay than I ever felt, ironically, because if a man ever attracted me, it would be him, and I only felt an aesthetic admiration. But shyness countered all I knew of Naomi's character.

"Does he remind you of your first lover?" I asked her while getting dressed.

"He does, but not enough."

"What do you mean?"

"I can see the resemblance. I can tell he's a descendent. But he's like an idealized version. Thicker muscles made from a gym. A much more handsome face. He's closest in the eyes, their form, but more the wisdom and confidence they exude. But Stan has an altogether different wisdom, tempered by a white man's world. His confidence as well. My lover may have been the most spiritual man I ever met. Whatever connections his tribe had to the world as a sacred place, he embraced to the point he embodied them. His lithe, sinewy, beautiful body expressed the primitive, vulnerable life at the mercy of earth and sky and wind and water, of surviving the harshest of winters and thoroughly appreciating verdant summer. A devout survivor you might say, ever thankful for whatever nature provided in the deepest, most spiritual sense of it. The roots and berries, the meat and skin, he thanked the gods for their sacrifice enabling his existence. Like saying grace, but all the time. So he was confident and wise in the ways of his people, in the spiritual truth of it. No priest has ever been so convinced of his calling. I would even say he would have given Jesus a run of it. Jesus supposedly doubted at the end. My lover never would."

"What did he think of a spoiled little white girl intruding on his tribal land?"

She laughed. "He thought I was crazy just like I thought he was crazy. I don't think his opinion of me changed, but mine of him definitely did." She settled naked onto the fern grotto she had brought me. I sat beside her in my shorts and t-shirt.

"What did he see in you then?"

"Joe. Look at me."

"He wanted to fuck you?"

"We lusted after each other," Naomi shrugged and grinned. "We both wanted to fuck, but held back for a time. We seduced each other gradually."

"Like the first boyfriend and girlfriend. Like first love."

"Exactly. And even in an old fashioned sort of way, because we almost always had an escort. Rosa. He fascinated her. His spiritual purity. She learned his specific dialect and they taught it to me."

"Rosa's beauty... ?"

"Never really distracted him. You have to remember we shared the same age, the same blossoming of desire. Rosa really had an escort's presence, almost parental. Without me there, she might have been a MILF sort of thing for him, teaching him how to pleasure a woman. I'm sure she wouldn't have minded. But, of course, she would never have done that since I was there and very much wanted this young man. Lucky for him and for me, I had experience available to me, just not directly experienced."

"How long did the courtship last before you consummated it?"

"A couple weeks I think. By then we had gotten to know each other well, both physically and mentally. When we finally came together, both literally and figuratively so to speak, at least the second time, because the first hurt like hell and he came almost immediately, I had fallen completely in love with the man. It felt like a completion, mind, heart and finally genitals connected."

"And him?"

"He loved me. Not equally, but with passion. You see, I still dwelled in my mind, in my fantasies and dreams, convincing myself of the eternal nature of our love. But he knew nature, true nature and not some constructed fantasy, more than anyone. He knew the vicissitudes, the inevitable changes. In fact he knew exactly how long it would last." Naomi sniffled.

"Did you hate him for that?"

"Of course. But then I didn't. He didn't want to hurt me any more than he wanted that excruciating pain when he tore away my virginity. He wanted me present, of the earth, of his world. He showed me it wasn't my world. He brought me to his people, whom I respected just by knowing him. He brought me to his promised. I suffered her jealous gaze. Nick would have liked her. In fact I know he did, but I cock blocked him," she giggled.

"Anyway," she continued, "I looked at this pretty, angry Lakota girl. She hadn't had her menses all that long before, probably. Very young. Very pretty. Very bright. And I knew she was for him much more than I could ever be. You see, it would have been impossible for me to have him. It would mean either assimilation into the white man's world or me into his. Neither could happen. Neither my lover nor I wanted that. You see, for him, this was a dangerous time. So many of his people had been dragged into reservations, been massacred or starved or been frozen to death because the white man's world demanded it of them. All that Christian crap compared to these pagan savages. Coveting the land that these people never even owned. It would be like owning a god. But this band of so called savages never let themselves get captured. They didn't fight the white man. They ignored him. Or distracted him. Or led him away from them. They were warriors, yes. A warrior culture. But clever in their Warcraft. Cunning. Some thought it cowardly and went off to fight and lose. Others actually joined them from other tribes, sought for their interest in the tribe's ways, or, to be frank, for their beauty, and substantial trades were made. The girl had been one of those, the middle daughter of a medicine man, too much of a troublemaker, who, with one glance, decided she liked her new village. He liked her, too, but made her wait for her menses and for lessens from the wife of their medicine man."

"Your lover's mother?" I asked.

"Aunt, actually. The son didn't necessarily inherit the spiritual leadership, especially if another, a nephew especially, shows signs of spiritual connection. And of course my lover showed that in spades.

"Looking at this angry beauty, all my spoiled selfishness dissolved. I smiled as sweetly as possible, no smugness allowed. I could see it puzzled her. Invited her to come with me. I pleaded for her to come, and my lover to come with us. Her future mate. No one else followed us. I think my lover had something to do with that. Rosa not following was my doing.

"I led them to Nick's ostentatious new house and asked her if she wanted to see inside it. She looked to her future mate and he shrugged. She followed me inside. Unlike most Victorian homes, cluttered with knick knacks and pictures, we kept the space fairly bare, decorated mostly by single objects on each wall surface, almost all Native American, gifts given to Rosa, including a lovely dream catcher and even a headdress of feathers. The hearth featured a small grouping of clay and stone fetishes and a rather lovely peace pipe at the center. The only really obvious white man's feature was the sofa and matching loveseat and armchair, and even those depicted scenes from a buffalo hunt. The rug beneath them was Navajo. I directed the two, the lover and his mate, to sit on the sofa. I sat in front of them on a sturdy mahogany coffee table, I suppose another white man feature, and gave them a choice. We could share our man until I left him to her alone. I could show her what pleases him, and him what would please her. We could love each other and become friends. That wasn't the choice. At least I hoped it wasn't. I asked if she wanted to go to the place where my lover and I had first made love, or to the place where we often snuggled and napped and also made love. The first would be spiritual. The second, very comfortable. My lover did the manly thing, which he often did as was expected in his culture, and I found it attractive and a turn on, especially because his sweet side inevitably emerged not long after, and chose. He chose here actually."

"Nice," I said.

"Yes," she said. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Wait a moment. I'm trying something." I imagined I looked blank to her as I searched for Stan, his presence and his mind. Finding him, I let him see the fern grotto and Naomi sitting back naked on it as if on a loveseat. It wasn't far, maybe five minutes for him to arrive, so I refocused my efforts on Rosa, tapped at her troubled mind, begging forgiveness. My presence amazed her of course, so I gave her images of our drug addled journey. Afterwards I wanted to know if we could stay connected without me remaining in a trance. She said she could do that for me, and I would be the way Nick would be, sending out to a passive receiver while going about my business. She could even send back flashes of response which would barely affect me.

How did I know I could do this? I have no answer, only conjecture. I figured in my comatose state, my mind repaired itself by finding ways to block the explosion of consciousnesses which had caused that state, and lessons learned from Nick and his angels and the mental travels we achieved moments before the explosion, moving from individual to individual, even those thousands of miles away, showed me the effortlessness of it. I think Helen found out I wasn't an eternal wanderer because Nick and the other wanderers held those millions of minds and could ferret out each meaning amongst the immense noise, and I obviously couldn't. And yet I sensed, though shielded, that I could reach those millions. Only individually. And I had a strength to it that the angels' lacked, needing the power source of their wanderers to amp up the signal so to speak. I seemed to be unique, somewhere between angel and wanderer. And I also was capable of communication without restriction, unaligned with a certain wanderer, or aligned with all of them.

"You," said Stan with a perplexed frown when he arrived. "I've only felt Nick that way, in my mind. But I sensed it wasn't him."

"You communicated with him?" Naomi grinned excitedly at me.

"And with Rosa," I explained. "She's still connected."

"That's so cool, Joe."

"Do you know the significance?"

"Not a clue."

"But you and Helen..."

"Your telepathy was so strong. You actually compelled us to share your vision."

"So I have that too," I muttered, ambivalent about the talent.

"Apparently. But don't worry. We trust you. Helen and I took the reins because your wives probably already experienced it, but at a much more subtle level, and probably didn't even realize how powerful it was. Your mind must have resisted it. It was too unreasonable to accept the gift I guess. So when you became completely unreasonable, the block must have toppled. Helen told me she had an inkling of it. I think she's the most sensitive telepath amongst us angels."

"And Nick?"

"I don't know if he knows. Helen wants us to block him from seeing it, to surprise him, but he may know or already knew," she shrugged.

"Did you feel compelled?" I asked Stan.

"I saw Naomi," he smirked, but without malice.

"So yes," I chuckled.

I saw them smile at each other. It relieved me that Naomi had lost any tension she had felt. Stan wasn't her first love, and never would be. And he wouldn't be her most recent, either. They both seemed to agree to that. Being a temptress of the highest order, presently naked and reclined, looking hotter than usual, certainly tempted me. In fact Naomi beckoned me to her, and I became her human chair, resting her gorgeous torso against my much more mundane one. But Stan neither gawked nor attempted to charm her. Having a feast of sex presently might have helped. And though this might have been the most successful and memorable sexual time of his life, I figured any time he felt inclined to seduce, his success rate must have been nearly 100 percent. In other words, he'd become an expert in sussing out a possible lover agreeable to his advances, and Naomi clearly wasn't one. I couldn't help notice the impressive rise in his groin area though.