Chapter 42

“Pass me another Roast Red, will ya?” I asked Cherry while we sat in a restaurant called Philly’s, which used to be an Arby’s (all of the major fast food franchises had collapsed).

“That reminds me, love, of those stupid memes that went around back when the Internet was still universal and such ... you know, the ones that showed two roast beef sandwiches and compared them as an analogy for pussy ... used vs. new,” Cherry recalled with disgust as she handed me the sandwich with plenty of BBQ sauce.

“Ugh, talk about stupid! Pussy is pussy! It stretches, sure, and it retracts. Only dunces with insane purity and virginity obsessions think that it should always be that tight! But you know that, of course! How much did Raymond really care that you weren’t an extra tight virgin ... okay, okay, bad example, given that he was gay back then, but still ... you get the idea. How much do you think that I cared? How much did those men fucking you today care? Most sane men, not the morons who inhabited 4chan and shit like that, didn’t give two fucks about that stuff,” I ranted a bit, feeling a bit sheepish for some reason.

“No, no, please go on ... I love how much it annoys you. It tells me that you get it. Unlike those fools with their silly notions of wanting it tight as a drum all the time! I suspect that most of them are virgins and that’s the real reason that they feel that way. They wouldn’t know what to do with a non-virginal lady if she sat on their laps and called them ‘Daddy,’ would they? Though I suspect that when you were a virgin, you weren’t stupid like that!

“Since we’re all virgins at some point, it’s just how you handle that and also how long you stay one, perhaps? At least among men. To be fair, though, women can be even more vicious about stuff like that, calling each other ‘hoe’ and other cruel things. I guess what I’m saying, though, is that a certain group of involuntarily abstinent guys, who couldn’t get laid to save their lives, or else when they do get resentful that the girl has more experience than them, that kind of thing, also get weird fucking ideas of how a pussy should be, you know.

“Sorry, I’m rambling,” Cherry laughed at herself now.

“It’s cool. We’ve had a wild ride today. You’re just unwinding a little, relaxing, chewing the flab. Okay, funny figure of speech to use under the circumstances, but the point is that rambling is fine. We’re thinking as we go. On our feet in a figurative sense, if not a literal one. I think that we can both use a chance to sit down here,” I commented while devouring my Roast Red.

“Yeah, well, I think that you get the idea ... and thanks for being sensible about my rambling ... and about the subject matter. I like how you see it. Pussy is pussy. Ass is ass. Dick is dick. Well, up to a point. I feel awful for men with micropenis, but to be fair, not all women are size queens. Far from it. But, sure, some are. It’s a bit rougher with micro, but there are ways of compensating that don’t involve driving Corvettes at two hundred miles per hour, or should I say kilometers now that Haven is officially on the metric system? Good idea, by the way. Fresh start, saner system of measurements,” Cherry kept up her stream of consciousness type of chatter.

I actually didn’t mind her talking at all. It was relaxing just to let her spout whatever came to mind and listen to her. She was my first wife, she was by now pretty far gone in her pregnancy to me, and she was the mother of one of my other wives, Nydia. Being sister-wife to one’s own daughter might have been the proverbial cross to bear in some communities, such as say the FLDS, but neither Cherry nor Nydia minded the distinction. Nydia, of course, sat next to us quietly, eating her Roast White (a roast beef with horseradish sauce) and drinking her milkshake with considerable aplomb. She was also pretty far along in her pregnancy, her due date very close to her mother’s.

“I, for one, love that we’re metric now! Sure, it sounds European, even un-American, but so is having a Prophet/Lawgiver run things. Well, if you don’t count Utah in the early Mormon settlement days. America’s getting a fresh start, as is the world. It’s a new world order and I’m glad to be born in time for it. We don’t have to do things in the old way. Maybe someday, we’ll have a President, Congress, and all that jazz again, but if we do, I know who will be a shoo-in for the term or two,” Nydia spoke up at last, kissing her mother and me both with plenty of heat ... and tongue.

“This guy ... right here!” Shelby declared, pointing to me, “in a landslide! Oh, and if we ever do that, can we scrap that whole stupid Electoral College crap and just do it popular vote only?”

“Sure, because population redistribution will be a priority of my administration, so that no areas are over or under populated in the future. I imagine that what I will do first is something very Philip Dru: Administrator in style. A provisional dictatorship, just like now ... with a dash of theocracy added to the mix. The right kind of theocracy, mind you. With a Demigod like me at the top, what could go wrong? It will become secular again in time, though. Right now, we’re in a dog-eat-dog world, so that requires some autocracy, I’m afraid to say,” I acknowledged the dictatorial nature of my rule in Haven yet again as a simple necessity.

“So, you’ll lay down the institutions, the basic infrastructure, the essential nuts and bolts, and once the central government is more than skeletal, you’ll hold free elections? Well, as free as it can be, given that the entire adult population will be dependent on your sexual favors. That tends to erode the freedom just a bit! It’s a useful form of informal social control, come to think of it,” Marcy added with a bit of teasing for my benefit and the others’.

“You nailed it, of course! Naturally, having a syncretic national religion that co-exists with prior faiths and sects and absorbs their members will help as well. As the Prophet and the Lawgiver, they’ll tend to trust me to set forth the legislative agenda, even if I’m technically just Chief Executive in the civil government. I’m strongly tempted to impose a Westminster-style parliamentary system on the whole world, as that might simplify things. Or would it? It’s a thought, anyway,” I mused.

“I suppose that, in a sense, the Church of Haven will function almost like a ruling party in a one-party state. The secular institutions will be nominally independent, but that would be a formal fiction. Or, in a much better way than in my native Iran, you’ll be essentially like the Supreme Guide or whatever. In a way. A Havenite version of a supreme religious and political leader at once, without the stupid Sharia crap. Just because I’m nominally a Muslim doesn’t mean that I have to really go for that in either Shia or Sunni form,” Sahar made an interesting comparison.

“You’re somewhat accurate ... or again, the role of the Mormon Church in Utah, the Catholic Church in medieval Europe, or even the old imperial church during the last days of the Roman Empire. Lots of clerical power, no question of that, but still officially secular. And the supreme theocrat in the roles of both head of state and head of church. You know, like Henry VIII,” Wendy Warham observed, “Jim, by the way, claims descent from Henry’s first Archbishop of Canterbury, the one who was forced to yield by Good King Harry himself.”

“The one who tried to stipulate, ‘as far as the law of Christ allows,’ a clever piece of legal chicanery, clearly aimed at saving his own immortal soul. As an expert on canon law himself, Henry wasn’t fooled, of course. He knew that such terminology could be used to nullify the submission of the princes of the church at a later point when convenient. Still, very shrewd. And Jim is descended from THAT Warham? What a distinction, Jim!” I grinned at Jim, who blushed and shrugged.

“Given the supposed celibacy of the clergy at the time, which was never honored more than in the breach, mind you, it’s obvious that any ancestral link was somewhat less than legitimate,” Jim admitted with another shrug, “bear in mind, I’m an academic, too, and an Episcopalian by upbringing to boot.”

“As am I, oddly enough. My family was always an odd set in our community. Obviously, Black Episcopalians were rather thin on the ground by that point. African Methodist Episcopal was as close as most black folks came to that. Mind you, right after the Civil War, there were more than a few of us, at least in places like Virginia, but that changed in time. I remember the Eucharist story about Robert E. Lee leading the way in sharing Communion with a black man, kneeling together for the sacrament. That story would ring a bit false if very few of us had been Episcopalian back in those days,” Wendy noted with some amusement.

“So, you two had a lot in common when you met. Despite you being black and him being white and all that. Scholars, members of the same church ... well, now you’re still members of the same church ... just a different one from then. A church without the troubled past that most Christian sects have, mind you. Of course, I don’t expect that Christianity will vanish entirely. As you may know, I haven’t discouraged Ninve or Sandra from participating in the Assyrian church, because it’s part of their ethnic heritage, their community. That’s a major reason why our church is so syncretic,” I pointed out.

“Yes, I will always be Assyrian, as will Ninve, but it means different things now. I imagine that the religious, Christian aspects of it will fade over time, leaving it more cultural than sectarian. Who knows, it might become a Rite of the Church of Haven in time. Certainly, the moralistic doctrines will die out first. Just as they will in all other faith traditions co-existing with the syncretic Church of Haven. It will be rather tough to preserve a moral code that conflicts with this Schumacher Syndrome, after all, won’t it?” Sandra laughed as she considered the likely fate of most religions in the new society.

“That it will, cousin! Preach it, sister-wife!” Ninve answered, even as her maternal spidey sense alerted her that Sargon and Arwen were awake from their naps, “oops, gotta dash! The babies need me! You coming, Sandra?”

“Hell, yeah! Love you guys! See ya!” Sandra gave me a quick kiss before joining Ninve, who also gave me a peck as she darted away.

“Now, that’s a mama bear!” I commented with praise, “both of them, in fact, though Ninve makes more milk than Sandra, which isn’t Sandra’s fault. Ninve just has larger, more productive mammaries, that’s all.”

“It’s not to be unexpected. Sandra is petite, slender, smaller frame, smaller bust. Ninve is plump, voluptuous, larger frame, larger bust. Though both are about the same height. Funny how that works. It does make Ninve self-conscious about her weight somewhat, but she has gained some confidence in knowing that she is the main source of nourishment for the little ones. I love how nobody puts Sandra down about that or Ninve about her weight. We, especially you, Mark, accept both of them as they are, loving them for what and who they are, without any kind of critique of their size, shape, etc.,” Jana praised me for that.

“Yeah, well, I love all of my partners for who and what they are. You really love someone, you gotta take what comes with the territory, babe. You didn’t judge me because I was a virgin now, did you? Fresh out from Minnesota, going to high school, young, pimply-faced nerd that I was. Arguably still am, but you get the idea. You didn’t judge me. You just ... took my virginity and seemed to enjoy doing so, too,” I recalled with considerable delight.

“Hey, I adored you, studmuffin! I knew you for who and what you were ... and could be, on an intuitive level, my love! I just wish that we had never broken up. I was an idiot! I was stupid and asked you to marry me when you weren’t ready for marriage back then ... without explaining that I didn’t need monogamy. I know now that if I had spelled that out, we would have gotten married, wouldn’t we? Tell the truth and shame the Devil!” Jana confessed her mistake as she saw it.

“Hey, I’m not that easily shamed, folks!” Satan popped in to chat for a bit, despite indicating that he would stay in Atlanta.

“Yeah, well, that’s true. I’m not a one-woman man. Never was. I suppose that I really should have cleared the air and asked for clarity on that particular subject, but I stupidly made assumptions, too. Also, some silly part of me wondered if you just wanted the green card. I know, that was dumb, stereotypical, even a bit bigoted. A little trace of my parents in that, no matter how much I tried to avoid being like them,” I admitted, a little beet-red in the face as I did so.

“Yes, after a three-year love affair where I risked imprisonment and deportation for doing jailbait, I would have hoped that you knew me better than that, but youth is full of contradictions that life tends to sort out. And youth is a time for making mistakes. That’s why it has to be given the chance to do so. Including by having plenty of sex and romance at that age. You mature through experience, not through a simple passage of time,” Jana agreed with a passionate and forgiving kiss as she recollected our past liaison.

“That was ... shortly after my abortion, just so you understand. Our parents decided to send Mark and me to live with some family out there. Him to make it less conspicuous and get him out of their hair. In Arizona, of all places. They didn’t move out there, of course. Aunt Lydia, that was her name. Spinster extraordinaire. Lydia Horowitz. Mom’s sister. That couldn’t have been easy on you, living with her the last few years of your minority. It sure as fuck wasn’t easy on me! Rumor had it that she was flirting with conversion to Catholicism and a nunnery, of all things. Remember how she croaked two days after you graduated? Freaking weird!” Rachel asked out of sheer uncertainty.