Aurora - Way of the Goddess Pt. 07

"It's not garbage."

"No, it's heresy."

"It's science. Just a few snippets of the awesome compendium of human knowledge, about nature, about life, about the universe and everything. You see, your brain has been fed on nothing but biblical fairy floss for most of its life, and now it's got malnutrition. Can't you hear it? Your poor little brain, crying out for sustenance? Tell me, how do clouds stay up in the sky?"

Vicky put her hands together, as if in prayer. "Stop it, Damon! Please, just stop it!"

"Because no clouds, no rain. No rain, no life. It's something you might want to think about."

"And no God, no salvation." Vicky railed, "And no salvation, no everlasting life. That's something you might want to think about."

"Everlasting life. Bollocks!"

"This is what Pastor must mean when he talks about the 'Earthbound'." Vicky said to herself. "Those who'd rather two-score and ten on this mortal plane, than eternal joy in heavenly paradise."

Watson screwed up his face. "Paradise? You wanna talk about paradise? Okay? Where is it? Come on, show me. Point to it. Right now! Give me a glimpse of paradise and I'll convert, right here and now."

"Oh, don't be stupid, Damon."

"Stupid am I? Why? If this frikken' paradise is so frikken' awesome, let alone real, why can't I see it? Doesn't god live there? Surely his PR team could manifest a live broadcast. Come on. Has anyone ever seen it? Has anyone ever come back with some photos? No? How about a fridge magnet? Even a souvenir menu from the all-you-can-eat buffet would do."

"You poor man." Vicky said bitterly, "It must be devastating. To live a life so devoid of meaning."

"It's got plenty of meaning, believe me."

"But to live a life without faith. To never bask in the unfettered love of the Lord."

"Or his unfettered tendency to hurl you into a lake of fire, for all eternity, if you piss him off."

"Only if you turn your back on Him, Damon. Only if you turn your back. And if you do that's your fault."

"Here we go again." Watson rolled his eyes. "The old free willy."

"Say what you like." Vicky sniffed, "I'll take faith over tawdry reality any old day."

"Faith!" Watson spat. "It's not faith, it's greed. It's the self-serving pursuit of a big fat reward. Being good gets you stuff- a bargain fit for a two year-old."

"It's not about getting stuff." Vicky said hotly. "It's about values and ethics, knowing right from wrong. How can a person possibly live righteously without some sort of a guide?"

They set off, walking past a humble stone memorial to a young girl cut down by one of god's practical jokes, towards a gracefully curved concrete bridge spanning the lake. "How long have humans been around?" Watson asked.

Vicky shrugged. "I don't know. Six thousand years?'"

"Oh, that's right, you're a creationist. So how do you explain fossils again?"

"The remains of the creatures that perished in the flood."

"Right. Funny how it's just one class of creature. Don't you think? Poor old dinosaurs. Moses must have been bitten by one as a kid."

"I think you mean Noah."

"Oh, so I do. You know it's funny how they're never found beside human remains. The dinos I mean. Do you find that odd, if they perished in the same flood as all of the humans?"

"Don't waste your breath, Damon. Evidence of the flood is irrefutable.""

"Really? According to which mainstream scientist?"

Vicky looked at him, eyes hard, but did not reply.

"Tell you what. Let's just pretend for a moment that mainstream science is right. Let's just pretend that humans have been around, in their modern form, for at least one hundred thousand years- though the best, non-biblical estimate is closer to three. Okay? So when did god turn up?"

"He didn't turn up!" Vicky growled, "He's eternal. He always was and always will be."

"Okay then, when did he first... 'appear'? Two thousand years ago? So what did we do for guidance the other ninety eight-percent of human existence?"

Vicky stared at the ground, lips compressed.

"We relied on innate human values, didn't we? Kindness, love, respect. Altruism. Self-sacrifice. Creativity, curiosity, a sense of wonder. Art, music-"

"Rape and murder," Vicky cut in, counting off on her fingers, "theft, violence, greed, fear-"

Watson jammed a finger in her face. "You have just described the tools of the trade of religion."

Vicky raked her hair back. "Is that so? Then what about the deeds of the missionaries? Going to the darkest corners of the Earth, bringing God's light?"

"Right." Watson grunted, "Just ask the Mayans how that worked out. Or the Inca, or countless other extinct cultures. Oh that's right, you can't, because they're extinct! You know, the Mayans had a library of over ten thousand books, and how many of those survived the missionaries? Three! Everything else was turned to ash. A compendium of ancient knowledge wiped out by murdering zealots!"

"Things were different then."

"But they were still using the same flippin' manual, weren't they? The flippin' bible." Vicky tried to walk off but Watson caught her arm and spun her around. "Vicky? Can I let you in on a little secret?"

Vicky wrenched her arm free then gave a petulant shrug. "Do what you like."

"You have to promise you'll never breath a word." Watson licked his lips, about to breach the trust of a rich and powerful woman, the sort who could have him ass-raped with a couple of phone calls. "Is Tanya religious?"

"Tan? No. She's an atheist I'm sad to say."

"Why sad?"

"Well she's utterly lost. She just blunders around in a moral wasteland. I know she has a good heart, at least she does now, but I also happen to know she has some very... unfortunate... proclivities."

"Like paying-off other people's mortgages?"

Vicky looked around, gobsmacked. "What did you say?"

"I just said a lost, blundering, amoral atheist paid off your mortgage."

"Tan? Are you serious?"

"She made me swear not to tell, Vicky. There goes another eternity in hell."

Big fat tears spilled onto Vicky's crinkled cheeks. "She paid my mortgage?"

Watson nodded.

"I flippin' knew it."

"Well you do now."

Vicky clenched her teeth trying to hold back her tears. "But why, Damon? Why?"

"Because she could. Because she loves you and would do anything for you."

Vicky clutched the front of Watson's shirt and stood sobbing quietly into his chest. "I knew it!" she blubbed, "I just knew it. Pastor and Aaron are always so... so disparaging, but Tanya... she treats me better than... than... than my own blinky mother! Why? Damon? Why?"

"Beats me. Look it up in the bloody bible."

"It feels like my whole jolly world's just falling apart. Like I'll fly off the Earth if you don't hold me down. I... I always hoped it was Pastor who... paid... or the whole congregation, but in my heart I knew... I knew..."

The old man looked nervously around then jockeyed the crying girl through a veil of hanging branches under a handy weeping willow. "Come on, shoosh now Sweetheart. Someone might ring the cops and say there's this creepy old man down by the lake with a crying young woman."

Vicky sniffled into his shirt. "What's happening to me, Damon?"

"It's all that running. It's cooked your brain."

"What am I going to do?" she pleaded in a hoarse whisper. "After everything that's happened I can never go back."

"To the hotel?"

"To the church. All my life it's been the centre of my world, now it's gone"

"Oh, it's still there, I can assure you. You can just about smell that smug self-righteousness."

"I can't go back, Damon Not now. Not after this."

Watson licked his lips, hoping against hope. "Well, that's the thing. Do you want to go back?"

There was moment's tense silence. He could sense the young woman's struggle, the almost insurmountable urge to shake her head. In the end she just shrugged.

The old man took her wrists. "Listen to me, Vick, you have a choice. Free willy, remember. If you want to go back then that's up to you. But if you don't want to go back then you don't have to. You've got a good job. You've got your own home. You've got friends who frikken' love you to death, who'd tear me limb from limb if I so much as made you frown. You've got a life, Vicky, a great one, all ready and raring to go."

"It would mean leaving my whole world behind."

"That's okay, come to mine. It's called Earth. Cracking joint. You'd absolutely love it and we'd love to have you."

"It's a lovely thought," Vicky said, smearing her eyes, "but we both know it's impossible, don't we?"

"Impossible?" Watson slumped. "Why?"

Vicky held a fist up to his face. "Notice anything?"

"Oh... the ring."

"Yes, the ring. I made a promise, Damon. I can't just walk away."

"That's all up to you, surely?"

"No. It's not. It's up to me, Aaron and God. I've pledged him my troth, Damon, and now I'll have to face up to what I've done."

"Face up to it how?"

"How do you think?" Vicky demanded bitterly. "I am going to have to confess to last night."

"Confess?"

"To Aaron."

"Why?" Watson demanded, shrinking back. "What makes you think it's any of his fucking business?"

"Of course it's his business!" Vicky glared. "He has a right to know. The right to know I am now defiled... the right to choose whether he is willing to forgive me or not."

"You guys." Watson shook his head. "Are all religious people so fucked up?"

"That," Vicky replied icily, "is entirely a matter of opinion."

"What will Adam do?"

"You mean Aaron?" she said then shrugged her shoulders. "I dread to think."

"Will he hit you?"

"No!" Vicky snapped. "He would never lay a hand on me while we're not married. But he'll be horrified."

"Sorry, what's his name again?"

Vicky rolled her eyes. "Aaron!"

"What's he like?"

"Oh," she replied hollowly, "he's very scholarly, very studious. Very well respected by the whole congregation."

"Is he funny?"

Vicky blinked. "Pardon?"

"Is he funny? Does he ever muck around? Does he ever hide behind the door and jump out at you, then tickle you till you wet your pants?"

Vicky looked the old man up and down with a glare. "Certainly not."

"Does he watch cartoons? Does he ever talk to animals? Does he pick up spiders and put them outside, with a beer bottle-top of water for them to drink? Does he take you to the pub to catch a live band, then only have one drink so you can get shitfaced? Does he? Hmm?"

"You don't know what you're talking about, Damon. Of course he doesn't."

"In other words he's boring."

"He's one of the most revered members of the congregation." Vicky replied haughtily. "Moral, pious, humble-"

"Correction. Dead boring!"

"abstinent-"

"Dead motherfucking boring!"

Vicky raised her voice to drown out the old man's obscenities, "-sober, temperate, devoted to God!"

Watson nodded. The asshole had just been condemned out of his fiancé's own mouth. "He must have something going for him, surely. Does he do triathlon?"

Caught short, Vicky blinked. "Triathlon? Oh, no, he would never do sport. Far too carnal. And to tell the truth, he doesn't really approve of me doing it either." She sighed. "That's another thing I'll have to give up."

"When you marry?"

Vicky looked at him and gave a sad nod.

"What's he giving up for you?"

She shook her head, nonplussed. "What do you mean?"

"What... is he... giving up... for you? Footy? His Penthouse Black Label collection? His Friday nights at the pub with the boys?"

"Well, no, he's not giving anything up."

"Thought so."

"That's not what I meant!" Vicky blustered, "Look, he might not be giving anything up, but on the other hand he's taking on a burden."

"What sort of burden?"

"What do you mean?" Vicky demanded then looked herself over. "He's marrying me."

"You? A burden? A twenty-five year-old stunner with her own career and a body to die for? You're shitting me."

Vicky looked around, mortified, like someone waking up to find themselves in the midst of a cataclysm. Watson draped an arm over her shoulder while she stiffened at first, she stopped just short of fending him off. "Look, Sweets. Can I be brutally honest? You are a very beautiful young woman and you have a fabulous mind, even if you're wasting it. You have a totally edible body, a wonderful heart and an amazing future..."

No man had ever said these things. She' been called slut, whore, defiler, fallen woman and harlot, but never these mellifluous endearments. In spite of everything it was happening again, that tingling in her groin, the sudden wetness.

"...or no future at all. At this rate you'll just have the life sucked out of you. You'll be consumed, by some self-righteous, humourless, sanctimonious goon working a sleazy franchise. Everything he does will be for his own self-interest, as he strives to wheedle his way into some ethereal Disneyland. Meanwhile you'll be a drudge. A frump, a chattel and a whipping girl, expected to pump out babies so he can gain favour with the creepy old men of the hierarchy. And then you'll die, having tasted none of life's sweetest fruits- freedom, independence, self-fulfilment. Creativity, curiosity and rampant, dirty sex." He shook his head. "It's totally heartbreaking."

"For whom?"

"Anyone lucky enough to know the real Vicky MacDonald. The sweet, funny, considerate, sexy Vicky MacDonald. Does your fiancé know that girl?"

"What do you mean? Of course he does."

"No. Does he know you? Does he ask about your dreams? Does he ask about your fantasies? What makes you happy, what makes you sad? Does he ever ask about your day at work? How your training ride went? When you drag your weary butt inside after a sixty-k slog through the rain?"

"How could you possibly know this?" Vicky whispered.

"Well, does he?"

She shook her head, looking bleak. "He's more about telling than asking, to be perfectly honest."

"That sounds familiar." Watson said darkly. "Does he know you've... you know?"

"Sinned?"

"Had some slap and tickle?"

Vicky nodded, eyes downcast.

"And what did he say?"

Vicky toed the ground. "He said he'd forgive me." she replied in a tiny voice. "He said I'd turned to the devil, but through God's infinite mercy and the Pastor's good work I'd been redeemed. He said... he said... if I should remain chaste and penitent, I could walk beside him on his journey with God."

"Oh Jesus Christ," Watson squinted, "he actually said that?"

Vicky nodded and Watson picked up the tiniest hint of embarrassment.

"And what did you say? Once you'd finished vomiting?"

A little ferry putt-putted past, early morning sightseers trying to peer into the willow's shady sanctum at the couple's exchange. Vicky raised her eyes, her face pale. "Oh, God, Damon." she whispered, "You have to save me."

Watson put his arm around her shoulders and shepherded her into the sunshine. "My Dear Macca. You're quite capable of saving yourself. You took the first step when you came to my room last night. Your first step to freedom."

"I can't do it, Damon," Vicky whispered, stepping in front of him and clutching his shirt. "I'm just not strong enough."

"That's where you're wrong. Look at you," he pulled away the better to see her, "I mean just look! One hundred and ten percent woman. A lesser being would have been crushed into oblivion by what you've been through. Your trouble is you don't know your own strength."

"Do you really think so?"

"I know so. I felt it last night. Your energy."

Vicky nodded, blushing. She'd felt it too.

They set off, walking, back towards the hotel, and Vicky put her arm around his waist. Watson gestured with his chin at the boat as it chugged into the shadows under the bridge. "Look at them watching us. 'Oh isn't that lovely,' they're all saying, 'she's out for a walk with her dear old dad'."

"You're the most of a man I've ever met in my life." Vicky said quietly.

"Aww..." Watson grinned, "shucks."

"I mean it. Last night... you were amazing!"

Not that she had anything to go by. "Flattery will get you nowhere, Macca," he said, roughing her up, "but don't let that stop you."

"Can I tell you a secret?"

"Seems to be the morning for it." Watson shrugged.

"Yesterday, when I came to Caddy's. Well... I only wanted to come because you were there. And I only wanted a swim so I..." Her voice trailed off and she left the old man hanging.

"So you could what?"

Vicky shivered. "Naww... it's too embarrassing."

"Oh, bollocks. We were doing the horizontal tango last night. You can't be embarrassed."

"So I could show you my body." Vicky said hastily, in a hurry just to get it said, "I don't know why. I've never, ever had that sort of feeling before- if the others hadn't been there I would have stood in front of you stark naked."

Watson palmed his forehead. "Now you tell me!"

"And you know what?" she carried on breathlessly, "Yesterday. My down there was all wet, just like last night."

"Your vagina, Vick. Let's just pretend to be grownups."

"And last night. When you put your tongue in my... thingy... I thought my heart was going to go jump right out of my chest."

"Well that all sounds pretty normal."

"For you, maybe. For me it was a revelation."

"Of what?"

"I don't know." Vicky hefted a shoulder. "The possibilities?"

Watson stepped in front of her, then gripped her arms and gave her a shake. "By George I think she's got it."

"Even this morning," she went on, desperate to unburden herself, "in spite of everything, I just couldn't wait to see you. Talk about conflicted."

Watson nudged her. "Stop it, Macca, it's making my head swell."

"Damon?" Vicky looked at him, blinking. "Do you think it's just a flash in the pan?"

"What?"

Vicky looked around restively. "That taste of freedom?"

"Only one way to find out."

Vicky shivered, in spite of the heat. "Oh my goodness, you're right. There is only one way. I've just got to do it. Do... do you think we can do it again? You and me?"

Already stirring, Watson's cock gave a twitch. "What are you doing tonight?"

Vicky blushed. "Not tonight."

Watson looked at her, a little miffed.

"No, no. I'd love to, really." Vicky said, "But I'm nursing a sore..."

"Pussy?"

"Thingy."

"Well that's a good sign!"

"No. Not really."

Watson peered deep into her green eyes. "Why not?"

"Well. To be brutally honest. When I went back to my room. I sort of... scoured myself."

"You what?"

"I tried to purify myself. Unfortunately all I had was mouthwash."

Watson reeled like he'd just been slapped. "Mouthwash? You can't be serious! In your poor little puss?"

"I couldn't help myself." Vicky cried. "I'd just committed a mortal sin. I wasn't thinking straight."

"Oh that poor little thing. Still, look on the bright side, at least it'll have that nice, mint-fresh breath. Should I have a taste and see?"

Vicky hugged his waist. "Once the dust settles, I promise. And anyway, there's still work to do. How the hell am I gonna break this to Pastor? Not to mention Aaron?"

"Tell 'em you've turned Buddhist."

"Buddhist? Why?"

"Who can hate a Buddhist?" Watson shrugged. "If you tell 'em you've turned atheist they'll just take it as a challenge to win you back."

"Buddhist? You think it'll work?"

"Worked for me."

"I'd better do some backgrounding, then."

"Hang on, Vick," Watson said, proffering an out, "you sure you want to go through with this? Don't want to take a day or two to think things over? They need never know what happened if you want to change your mind. This is Canberra. You can probably claim some sort of diplomatic-"

Vicky raised a hand. "No, Damon, I'm sure. In fact it's the first time in my life I've ever been sure of anything."

"What about the engagement? It might mean breaking it off."

Vicky raked her fingers through her hair. "There are no heartstrings binding us, I've already looked. Don't get me wrong, I really like Aaron, but..."