IV. Story Time

IV. Story Time

In the pictures she had on Facebook her eyes had been brown and they were still brown but they were doing something funky. It seemed to Russ that her eyes – the color parts of them were swirling around the pupil. Like those old hypnotists wheels in cartoons, only these were the irises of her eyes. He didn’t feel as frightened as maybe he thought he should have been. He didn’t feel like he was in danger either but a strange sense of calm washed over him.

“That’s why you wouldn’t look at me.” Rhayna closed her eyes then opened them and the swirling stopped. Her eyes were a solid brown once more. “What’s that mean? The fuck are you – vampire or some shit?”

She chuckled and sat back against the seat watching this poor white man lose even more color. Rhayna sat herself up just a bit and spoke with a hoarseness to her voice that hadn’t been there before.

“I’ll tell you a story – okay. You listen and learn. Some of this you may already know because it’s the only story that matters that has been repeated throughout time.”

Russ stared at her blankly and bit his bottom lip wishing to Christ that he had a pack to smoke. He listened as she spoke in low tones with something he picked up as the slightest accent unrecognizable to his ear.

“We, every last one of us, are all descendants of Africa and from Africa we are all one of the descendants of three pairings: Adam and Eve, Adam and Lilith, or Samael and Lilith.”

“Lilith, yeah I know about her – she’s Adam’s first wife.” Russ said looking out of the windshield at a group of college kids walking and speaking just a little too loudly across the opening of the alley.

“Yes. She was married to Adam first and since God created them both from the earth; she felt she should be just as equal as Adam. Only Adam didn’t like it and told her that she was made to lie beneath him and that he’s the dominant one. She needed to be subservient to him. And she was not. Adam felt it unnatural for her to want to be on top and to be so independent in thought.”

Russ leaned his head back against the seat, “Ahhhh, the first bruised male ego.”

“Pretty much,” Rhayna continued. “She ran away to the sea. Adam didn’t care for her and on her first day of life they argued and had been arguing since. He couldn’t stand it so finally he complained to God about the woman He made for him. He told Him of his concerns and God sent three angels after her to bring her back. She refused the angels and swore never to return to Adam. The angels threatened to drown her in the sea because of her wickedness, which coincidentally is why witches and warlocks were drowned in the 1600-1700s…for their wickedness and likeness to Lilith. But Lilith still refused and she told the angels that wherever she saw their names or likeness near infants that she would not leave them be because it would oppose God’s will since she strongly believed God to be vengeful and that she was created to bring sickness and death to children. She also agreed, to keep from being slain by the angels, to have 100 of her children die every day and so every day with the rising of the sun, 100 souls are taken and this is the creation of shadows, for these were the forms of the lost.”

“Souls slain by angels are shadows…the fuck?” Russ said in astonishment turning his whole body towards her now, giving her his full attention.

“The earth was new and parts of it still chaotic and dark from the Fallen.  Angels and Demons roamed the earth in its virgin state.”

“Sooo…it was Lucifer then that corrupted…?” Rhayna cut Russ off before he could finish.

“No. It wasn’t. It was Lilith. Even as she chose to be apart from Adam and to take another husband, her heart was still filled with jealousy over the new woman that God created.”

“Wait, wait.” Russ shook his head no. “Did you just say that Lilith had another husband?”

“Yes. Samael. After she left Adam she was found and comforted by the Archangel Samael, who she then mated with. You may know him differently as the Angel of Death.”

“Holy Shit!” Russ gave a little chuckle. The story was fascinating and he found that listening to her spin this tale of angels and demons entertaining.

“More than you know.” She said this while stretching her neck from one side to the other to relieve the building soreness and tension. “Lilith in her jealousy, as women are given to in matters of ex-husbands and the other woman, coerced Eve into eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge after Lilith, herself, listened to one snake in particular. She told Eve that she should be just as smart as Adam and that she should be able to make decisions too. And that Adam would love her more for it. The Creator warned Adam and Eve earlier in the Garden that eating from the Tree of Knowledge would bring about their death but Lilith refuted this and told Eve that she would not die as the Creator had said. So she ate from the tree and when Adam saw what Eve had done and saw the difference in her eyes, for now she was a woman with Knowing, he ate too because he couldn’t allow her to be smarter or more knowledgeable about life than he was.”

“The first man was an asshole! The rest of us never even had a chance. So why was Lilith so jealous of Eve, what did it matter to her that Adam had another when she had gone off and made a new life with Sam?”

Russ leaned an elbow on the steering wheel. Rhayna ran her fingers through her short soft curls, leaned her head back against the seat in silence, as if reflecting on something, then a moment later she cleared her throat and continued her story.

“A part of Adam was taken to create Eve, thus making her closer to her husband – giving them a supernatural bond. They truly shared a life together. Had God done this with Lilith she may have known a life of happiness.”

Russ marked the change in her voice – the Midwestern twang she had at the bar was now almost completely gone and the new accent, the one he had not recognized was more prominent now. He also noticed that her facial features seemed to be changing, as if during the course of this story – she was transforming. There seemed to be a sheen to her skin and dark rings forming around her eyes. She looked sick, dehydrated, and sleep deprived but seemed okay to keep talking. She hadn’t complained and that worried him.

“Interesting. So what about this Samael? And just so you know, we’ll be making a trip to the doc as soon as we get clear of those idiots on the street, got me?”

Rhayna smiled, baring her pretty pearly whites at Russ. To make him feel better she nodded her head.

“Samael, was as I said, Lilith’s second husband. She gave herself to him but when he had figured out what she had been up to, tricking Eve at the Tree of Knowledge, he accused her of wanting Adam back. Which was not the case, she wanted nothing to do with Adam. She just didn’t want him happy either. So Samael “fixed” Lilith. He was an angel with certain powers possessed of him. When he thought Lilith might go back to Adam he cursed her vagina with teeth. Teeth that retracted for him and would castrate anyone who dared lay with her, forcibly or otherwise.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Little Sister?”

“No. It pissed Lilith off that he would do that to her because he was trying to force his will upon her. Control her. She refused to lay with him, she stopped having sex with him and refused his touch altogether.”

Russ turned this over in his thoughts, he felt that this little story was beginning to explain a great deal about the behavior of some women but wasn’t sure if he should make the revelation out loud so he decided not to share this epiphany.

“I don’t blame her – I’d do the fucking same. The bastard!” Russ exclaimed.

“Yes and because Samael is not only an Archangel but also the Angel of Death – he had a foot on both sides of the fence. Good and Evil. It angered him that his wife wouldn’t lay with him, it angered him to think that maybe she was still pining over Adam the whole time he’d been with her and he did something horrific. Something that now defines Lilith’s character.”

Russ’s brow furrowed, “What’d he do? Hit her? What?”

“Yes, he beat her. And after he beat her, he raped her. But Lilith, unable to rid herself of the curse became determined and in her determination learned to control the teeth so that they appeared when she wanted them to. During the course of the rape Lilith commanded the teeth to castrate Samael. But it didn’t stop there. Because Lilith had grown vengeful and untrusting of all men, the curse Samael placed upon her body turned into something more that was fueled by her own hatred.

After castrating Samael, she laid him on his back and mounted him.” Rhayna sat up in her seat and met Russ eye to eye. “She crawled her naked and battered body up along Samael’s then sat on his face and from there – she began to devour him. This fed and sustained her and because she had become a darker creature than what she was created, having taken the lives of children and an Archangel, she was thence known as a demon, Dark Goddess, First and Terrible Mother. She can make men feel pleasure in being consumed or let them feel every ounce of pain that besets their poor bodies, so that dying is something they beg for.”

Rhayna searched Russ’s face for signs of fear and saw none and it perplexed her, but she was very careful not to show it. She leaned her head against the window and watched him as he spoke to her.

Russ shook, rubbed his arms to calm the goose-bumps racing over his skin then ran his hands over his face. “So she just…ate poor Sammy all up? Helluva way to go.”

“It is and she spared him no pain. God returned him with a body but without penis and his libido still intact to remind him of what he’d done; as it was the first sex crime against woman. He needed to learn to exercise control of his emotions since that was all he was left with. In his second stage of life Samael was resurrected as the Angel of Death for the horrors he’d been through and the darkness his eyes had seen. He now brings death to those whose time comes while still in the service of the Creator. When the Creator asked Samael what he’d seen during his devouring he told him, ‘The gates of Babylon lay within her depths.'”

Russ leaned back against the door, “What’s that supposed to mean, the gates of Babylon lay within her depths?”

Rhayna coughed and trembled slightly in her seat before settling and answering Russ’s question.

“No one knows but the Angel of Death and the Creator.”

But this was not true, for she did know and there was one other who knew the meaning of Samael’s words; one other who knew Lilith more intimately than Adam or Samael. This knowledge passed through Rhayna’s eyes before she closed them. She stopped talking and fell limp in the seat, her breathing labored and the color of her skin ashen. She looked terribly close to death.