Erring Stars

He’s already searched him about the appearances of the heavens, and the composition of the firmament, and all the curiosities and treasures stockpiled by nature and populating the unnatural sphere. He’s had many obliging answers, and surprisingly few evasions. So he decides to try his luck.

“Tell me, Mephistophilis – it seems to me there are a great many delights for the flesh in Hell,” he says, thinking of Lechery’s stockings and her wet scarlet tongue waggling indecently. “Were there yet none in Heaven?”

His answer comes only after a significant pause, and it’s delivered like a catechism.

“We were spirits in heaven, we had no bodies naturally united to us. We did not then know lust.”

His devil is reluctant to answer, even sad, and his answer is pilfered straight from the Summa. Further diligence is required. Faustus moves to draw the answers forth from him with a kiss; he’d never had the time to adopt sophisticated manners in the arts of love, but twenty-four years give a man plenty of time to learn. His tutor suffers patiently, and no mortal man with rasping voice and bearded chin ever had such achingly soft lips as these.

“You must tell me more than that, my Mephistophilis, of what were such bodies composed? And whether there was kissing, embracing, or fondness of fellowship of any kind among the angels.”

Faustus is stroking his belly, tracing with inky fingers the track of downy hair that runs from navel to loins. His devil is shaking, just slightly, like a schoolboy.

“The angels who remained who sought to converse with men took on such shapes and attitudes as suited this discourse. In Heaven amongst ourselves we were void of sex, and when we shared in fellowship our substance made a concord, with no obstacle posed by composition of parts. All were equally well-matched.”

“So then in Heaven such intimacy took place with no regard for sex.” His hand sinks lower-down. “And what of the wicked angels who looked on the daughters of men and found them lovely? By then they must have had the requisite parts–”

“Aye, but not before – we knew no differentiation of flesh in those days; it was from men and women as well as beasts that we learned how to distort ourselves.”

Devils rejoice in obscenity and in animal carnality and in frightening excesses that even worldly Faustus quakes to think of; they weigh the good order of the sexes at less than a hair. It makes his hellish companion’s occasional resistance all the more baffling. They’ll fuck for mere sport, or as an adjunct to other cruelties. It followed, in the grip of their offending enviousness, that they’d be so jealous of Nature’s finest creations as to mimic their appearances and manners and still make a complete hash of it. Whereas angels had known mere love of a pale and anemic kind, had mingled their parts and become like one undifferentiated body, and considered themselves happy. Perhaps they still do; it can’t all be mansions and dazzling lights and celestial concord up there.

Faustus has studied all the old philosophers. He has seen the proud catamite of Bithynion walk to and fro on an imperial leash. He has known what men do to one another in the dark.

Mephistophilis draws his brows together; he must be trying to look pained, though it can only be his wounded pride.

“Do not press me on this – all that I know I’ve told you, on this and diverse other matters.”

“That may be. But still I have more questions; this is the curse of scholars.”

His hands toy fondly along the length of that which his devil conceals; angels may have no sex, but their fallen kin are manifestly otherwise, and Mephistophilis has all that a man ought to between his legs. Once he had bidden him to change his shape into that of a woman, but had neglected the caveat that it should be a beautiful woman; the creature stood before him dusky and candid, scarcely an overgrown girl with narrow hips and small breasts veiled by snaking curls of dull black hair, bearing an expression so piteous and yet so put-upon that he had no choice but to laugh at it.

(“What maid ever looked thus, so dour and unlovely, unless she had a tooth-ache?” The girl-devil’s spine had stiffened, and his/her eyes flashed, perturbed. “Eve, the mother of all men, looked thus.” “I pray you, change back again. I liked you better before.” And in a blink he’d been himself again, void-naked and proud for a startling instant before a mere gesture saw him clad again and fixing his skullcap on his head sulkily.)

“How did you come to find your bodies? Whether you fashioned them of light, or matter, or some other thing? The men of Sodom seemed to think their heavenly visitors looked good enough for their purposes; and you’re manifestly corporeal enough for mine.” His caressing grows more insistent.

“Such things are written only in the mind of God. Repent, then, and see,” he murmurs irritably, but he sucks in a breath and bites his lip as Faustus begins to undo his gold-tipped laces. The radiant heat within him takes an abrupt spike. “No more questions – please.”

Yes, this will do well for their purposes. He sinks down on his side, sending a twinge through his scarred arm but settling into the feather-bed with a pleasant ache. The devil’s hands with their sharp nails go to do what he does so very well. Faustus doesn’t have to ask.

Faustus seems to delight in the plainness of his physical form as it is now – though within his hapless master’s dwelling it remains invisible to all but the man himself, which eliminates a few inconvenient scandals. Perhaps he favors this one because out of all those he’s assumed, it was the first he’d taken on at Faustus’ own request. Dutifully he had shed a shape more frightful and infinitely more natural to him and taken on the appearance of fellow flesh. It is to accommodate Faustus that he does everything, and by him indirectly pleases the King of Hell. He is Faustus’ to make use of, to enjoy in his entirety. This doctor has loved the taste of learning all his life, has thirsted for it, has gobbled up all of it that a mere man can and come up starving. What does Faustus know of these things he asks? He learns but has no understanding.

Out of all their agreed-on services, this Mephistophilis loves least.

“Ah, my Mephistophilis–” Sated, he now rests his lank head against the devil’s breast. For a moment he considers making himself briefly insubstantial and letting him drop off the edge of the bed. (It would give him great pleasure to blast him with all the pains of Hell, to pin him with one touch and pour all that misery down his scornful throat, but Faustus is a mere man and knows not what he does, nor what he is. He is beyond hurting or helping.) “I never could find a better mate than you, not in all the whole world and everything below.”

“No, Faustus, that you could not.”