Venus Envy (35 page)

“Yes.” Frazier beamed.

“Did I take anything from you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Did I give you anything?”

“The best time I ever had in bed with anybody.”

“A great gift. Sex is a great gift.” Venus held her hand for a moment. “So, we shared our bodies. We gloried in the experience. I go my way and you go yours far richer than before we met. If I sleep with someone else, how can that take anything away from you?”

“But what if you fall in love with that person?”

“I am the goddess of love, remember?” Venus’s warm smile washed over Frazier. “Not everyone you meet in this life is a long-term partner. But everyone you meet is an angel. They may be dark angels but angels nonetheless, bringing you messages from the gods. Sex is one kind of message. To deny the body, to deny the animal, is cruel because you’re denying life. Life has its own imperatives and life is much older than reason. Stop trying to figure everything out and surrender to life.”

“What about V.D.?”

“Frazier, you’re an intelligent human being. You aren’t going to be irresponsible. I didn’t say you had to be promiscuous. I said don’t deny your body. Don’t deny life.”

“My entire society rejects the body even as it uses it to sell products. A half-naked woman is wrapped around a liquor bottle; a handsome man smokes a cigarette. It’s pretty schizophrenic, really. And then, speaking of being
a Protestant, Christ tells me to die to my animal nature. To be reborn and transformed into some higher being.”

Venus’s voice vibrated with compassion. “I loved Jesus very much.” She breathed in. “You must fulfill your animal nature. You are transformed into a higher being because you haven’t denied life.”

Frazier sat quietly for a moment. “I’ve denied life, haven’t I?”

Venus leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Yes.”

“I knew that when I thought I was dying. That’s why I wrote those letters. I thought, ‘Well, I’ve held back and withdrawn. Maybe I can blast some others out of their repressed cocoons.’ And maybe I was having my last revenge—if you think about it. Oh, Venus, the trouble I’m in because of those letters.”

“I know, but you told the truth. You can’t be responsible for how people use it or deny it. It’s like a talent. Up here we gaze down at you all and give you talents. What you do with that talent is up to you. You can’t feel bad because your mother has become more rigid. You didn’t make her like that. Your letter to Kenny Singer drew him closer to you.”

“And cost him his lover.” Frazier’s eyes misted over.

“Billy Cicero would have dumped Kenny sooner or later. He’s the kind of man who knows what he will do and then waits for some external event to justify his actions. You thought he was such a big part of your life, but the minute you needed him, poof, he was gone.”

“You know, it’s funny, this whole lesbian stuff. Do you feel like a lesbian?”

Venus smiled. “No, I feel like a woman.”

“Exactly. Me too. And we love women because they’re lovable, because there’s something in that person worth loving, and although I’ve held myself back from it, I still believe it.” She tapped her fork on the table. “But the
common, run-of-the-mill prejudices about lesbians are all negative. For example, that I must be too ugly to get a man.”

“We know that’s false.”

“Then I must be so beautiful I’m bored by men. See? You can’t win. There’s always some dumb reason why you’re gay and they’re not. I am hardly a genius, Venus, but I observe that Nature rarely makes mistakes, and as there has always been a percentage of the human population that is gay, she must have darn good reasons. I’d like to know those reasons but I do know there’s no more wrong with me than with my heterosexual counterparts. I mean”—Frazier warmed up—“if a woman was abused by her father and she marries an abusive man, how can anyone say that’s healthy? But she’s better than I am because I’m a lesbian? I am so fucking bored with other people’s stupidity I wonder how I lived my life before. How did I ignore it?”

“Because you valued things more than your soul.”

“Frazier thumped back hard on the chair. “I did, didn’t I? I was really kidding myself.”

“Your country has pushed Philistinism to new depths.” Venus smiled ruefully. “Even Rome, and she went through some terribly vulgar times, didn’t sink that low. All you Americans think about is money. Just awful.”

Frazier wanted to leap up and defend her countrymen. She couldn’t. The goddess was right. “We might find our way back to the heart, to valor, to beauty—abstract principles, but maybe that’s why people worship profit. It’s easy to understand.”

“So is death. You’re killing the spirit.”

“I was part of that.” Frazier tingled as Venus rubbed the back of her neck. “Look, Venus, everything you’re saying about my country is true of me, and I don’t know how to change America but I am trying to change
myself, and maybe that’s the beginning—one at a time. Maybe if someone sees that I am a happier person, a loving person, they’ll think about themselves. Maybe they’ll ask some questions.”

“That’s a good start, but you need to reach out. You need to struggle, to fight, laugh, grow. If you perfect yourself—as though that were possible—then you’d be a majority of one. You’d still be alone. People need one another. You can’t go it alone.”

“Hell, that’s what I’m fighting for, but my so-called community is ass over tit because they know I’m a lesbian. They’re like a bunch of school kids thrilled silly by a gorilla. Community! They’re sitting in judgment of me. They’re pushing me away.”

“Frazier”—Venus’s voice carried an imperial tone—“in Eastern Bloc countries gay people were considered mentally ill. Some were institutionalized. Others were imprisoned. Some committed suicide. It’s not that bad in Virginia. Oh, there are pockets of violence but”—she lowered her voice—“isn’t there violence every day against women? Rape. Child molesting. And what about violence against people who aren’t white? No one is a special case. No one is exempt from trying to civilize humanity and replacing the love of power with the power of love. You have a duty to act and no right to expect approval. Anyone can find an excuse to keep from working for a better world. Being gay is a pretty good one, but you know, my little sex bomb, it won’t work. Love is calling. Life is calling.”

“I’m calling.” Mercury appeared in the kitchen door. He was wearing sneakers with wings on them and gym shorts.

“Jesus Christ, you’re wearing sneakers,” Frazier blurted out.

“We don’t use Jesus’ name up here.” Mercury glided over and sat at the table.

“We were having a heart-to-heart about the state of the world. I might have risen to Apollonian logic if you hadn’t interrupted,” Venus chided Mercury.

“Spare me.” Mercury kissed Venus’s hand. “You can use reason to justify anything. You know in your heart what’s right and what’s wrong, so I say shut up and get on with it.”

“Are you both ganging up on me?” Frazier braced her hands against the table.

“What an excellent idea.” Mercury smiled broadly and a crackle of electricity played across his lips.

“He’s come to seduce you.” Venus playfully pushed Mercury on the shoulder.

“And you have no such idea?” Mercury raised his eyebrows.

“She seduced me.” Venus laughed with happiness.

Mercury appraised Frazier. “You are bold.”

“She’s irresistible.”

“I know.” Mercury, who had slept with Venus many times, agreed with Frazier. “We have a son, Hermaphroditus—well, she’s a daughter too. I’ve always thought we should have more children but my beloved here has three children by Mars—she can’t keep her hands off him and vice versa—and then she bore Eros but she’s still being very tight-lipped about the father. She says he’s fatherless.”

“Well, Juno gave birth to my husband without any man’s help, so I thought, why not? But we’re getting off the subject. I know perfectly well you came here to try to win Frazier.”

“We could all go to bed together.” Mercury gleamed with golden light.

“You’re bursting with lurid energy,” Venus observed.

“I hope to holler.” Mercury nodded in Frazier’s direction, since he used a Southern phrase. “You know those letters you wrote to people?”

“Only too well.” Frazier found him tremendously sexy.

“Well, think of the body as an envelope for the heart. I want a letter too.” His eyes, almost amber, twinkled.

“Oh, brother.” Venus shook her head.

Frazier blushed. “I think I’m going to blow a Fallopian tube.”

V
ENUS KEPT A ROOM FOR MERCURY AT SANS SOUCI.
He couldn’t exist without a large-screen television, which he could tune to every channel in the world as well as use to peer into people’s lives. Mercury hated to miss a thing on earth, under the oceans, or in heaven. Vulcan fashioned a sleek silver telephone for him which cradled in the hand. Next to it on a slim, elegant rectangle were all of the various lines. Mercury had only to touch a glowing button—all even with the top of the surface, not a bulge anywhere—to get a line out. As human design goes, Mercury favored Bang and Olufsen, but Vulcan had created a thin metallic line in the wall so that when he pressed it, the compact disc, tape recorder, and radio silently emerged from the cream-colored wall.

Even the bed was spare yet sensuous. Mercury loved a clean line, whereas Venus preferred a baroque silhouette,
but then no one could refuse Venus her excesses because she managed to make everything work. Her lust for gilded detail and vivid colors underscored her own personality. If she were an actress a director would say that Venus went over the top, but as she was a goddess, even that florid quality enchanted. Venus held nothing back.

As Frazier observed Mercury’s room she wondered how these two managed an on-again off-again love affair over the centuries. It finally occurred to her that their very differences supplied the fascination.

Mercury’s silken gym shorts, gold, clung to his tight buttocks. “Vi, why did we agree to get together for a family portrait?”

“Jupiter wanted one. He’s feeling very nesty, I suppose,” Venus answered. “I don’t mind them as much as you do.”

“I could live forever without seeing Dionysus again, or Mars.” He held up his hand like a traffic cop: stop. “I know, I know, he oozes masculine appeal to you but he’s got the brain of a squid and his damned wars are getting worse and worse.”

“You can’t blame him for war.”

“Oh, yes I can. He eggs on human frailties.” Mercury loathed his half-brothers.

“You’ll never see any good in him. He’s capable of incredible discipline and sacrifice and if we’re going to talk about Mars, then you and
I
will get into a fight.”

“Isn’t Athena the goddess of war too?” asked Frazier, comfortable on the bed with its curved enameled headboard. She quite liked Athena, who possessed a grave beauty.

“Wisdom and war.” Mercury picked music out of his vast supply, pressed a button on the remote for his CD,
and luscious sounds filled the room, rock harp music with a strong rhythm.

“She never goes to bed with anyone, really and truly?” Frazier asked, remembering the stories she’d read about Athena.

“Oh, I flirted with her once to see if I could break her down. She got so nervous she went off and started a war.” Venus giggled. “She didn’t actually start one—that’s unfair. Let’s just say she assisted Napoleon at Austerlitz. She was very fond of him and when the English poisoned him in captivity and he died she was morose for days.”

“Look how you moped when Marlene Dietrich died.” Mercury walked over to the bed.

“Yes, I loved her very much.” A cloud of sorrow passed over the goddess’s brow.

“You can’t keep a human alive?”

“Not even Love can reason with Death.” Venus shook her head.

“If one of you is in trouble and we’re so inclined, we can help you save yourself, but Death does have the final power.” Mercury sat next to Frazier on the bed. Venus sat on the other side of her.

“Can you die?” Frazier crossed her legs underneath her.

“Gotterdämmerung.”
Mercury sighed. “Eventually, yes we can, but don’t bring this up if you see Jupiter again. He gets very upset. He says, ‘Who has the time to die?’ He went to war against the Titans. He knows gods can die.”

“I hope not anytime soon.” Frazier wanted to touch his high cheekbones.

“Hardly.”

“What about the Christian god, my God—can he die
too?” Frazier blurted out. All those years of catechism tumbled in upon her.

“Sure he can. If he doesn’t do a good job. He’s so jealous. ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ You know, I faxed him the Ten Commandments a couple of years ago with comments in the margins. He was livid. No sense of humor, that one. Wants everyone to feel guilty and ashamed.”

“Hates women.” Venus lay back on a pillow, her arms behind her head.

“Hates sex,” Mercury grumbled. “I don’t know why so many of you down there pay attention to him. He’s quite hateful and cruel.”

Frazier, benumbed by this discussion of equals, and she a human, took a moment to get her voice back. “Yes, He is hateful and cruel, but when that’s what you’re taught from the time you can toddle, you believe it. Ideology need not correspond to reality to motivate people, and I suppose so many people feel so rotten about themselves they want a god to beat them, to confirm their worthlessness.”

Mercury picked his feet up off the floor and whirled around to sit square on the bed facing Frazier. “You are a bright one, aren’t you?”

“I told you she was—bright in some ways and just dumb as a hammer in others, mostly about herself.” Venus stroked Frazier’s back so she wouldn’t feel too bad about honest criticism.

“I love Jesus, though. He brought mercy and forgiveness to the world.”

“I am not big on forgiveness,” Mercury admitted. “Except for Venus, none of us are. That may no doubt be a failing but my experience of Mount Olympus and the world is that if someone hits you, you’d better hit back. If the numbnut hits you again, take his fucking head off.”

“Well,” Frazier drawled, “that’s effective.”

“And solves nothing, but Mercury and I will never see eye to eye on that issue. Even Athena, who is so admirable and calm, gets revengeful. I think it keeps the ball rolling for generations, actually, and ultimately it gets dreary for everyone who isn’t on the revenge cycle. I’ve got better things to do with my time.” Venus leaned forward and hugged Frazier from behind.