Her

He opened his eyes. Every woman in his life stared down at him in dread — his wife sobbing inconsolably against his chest. He could still feel their terror, all of them. He shut off the tap — stopped feeling them, better that way — but he still felt his wife, an unbearable wave of fear and suffering.

He just laid a hand on her head.

"I'm fine, beautiful."

His wife made him lie down on the bed, sent all the girls away, promising they'd see him soon, that he just needed to rest — didn't matter how many times he told her he was perfectly fine. She was pacing, restless, wouldn't come near him, like she might hurt him just by being close.

"And... we'll go, all of us, and let you rest, or we go on vacation... or you go... alone..."

The thought of them separating hurt even more, but she'd do whatever it took — that thought comforted him, but tormenting herself not.

"You don't have to."

She wasn't listening, kept talking nonstop. He could still feel her, though — couldn't help it — and caught the message underneath.

"I can't feel them anymore."

She stopped dead. Her eyes filled with tears — they'd broken him, they'd been given an angel and broken him out of pure selfishness, humanity was lost, she was lost.

"Look at me."

She didn't want to. Didn't want to hurt him further.

"Please."

She finally looked at him.

"Everything's fine. Better than fine."

He wasn't lying — or he'd learned to lie to her, but that couldn't be, he wouldn't, even if he could.

"Come here." He held out his hand.

She felt herself calm, finally.

"You can't smell us anymore?"

"Them, I can — if I want, I can plug my nose, so to speak. Not you. I need you to calm down, it hurts, feeling you like this. Everything's fine."

She threw herself onto him, held him so tight he could feel her racing heart.

"Not me?"

"No. It's a message."

"How do you mean?"

"You were right. You've always been right. Her message is clear."

"Her—"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"She's you. And Helen, and Eve, Alex, Rose... my mother, and every woman who is, and every woman who ever was."

"You've hit your head."

"No — well, yes, but I'm sane. I think."

"I don't understand."

"That's what it smells like. All the women in the world. It smells like all the bad things you all feel too, but the good things as well — you have no idea what love and happiness and humor smell like..."

"Did you talk to God?"

"That's the second thing I asked her — if she was God."

"She—"

"No — well, I don't know. She doesn't like that question, best I can tell. She spoke to me in smells and memories — my own memories. She showed me the time Helen asked me why I was so good to her, how many times people have asked me that, and how annoyed I got, told her I was tired of that question, that the people who should be asking it are the ones going the opposite direction."

"What's the opposite of God?"

"Humanity? She can be cryptic — or maybe i just can't understand her. I think she was just telling me it's a dumb question, or one that shouldn't be asked."

"What did you ask her first?"

"If you were okay. I begged her to make you stop suffering... 'I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Exodus 23:20.'"

"She quoted the Bible at you? Seriously?"

He smiled. "No, that was Helen. It's a memory — everything's memories, or smells. She used joy and sadness, more or less, like a yes-and-no — hard to say for sure, no words there. I think she's telling me it's my job."

"I knew it, I knew it."

"I don't think it was meant literally."

"You went up to heaven and talked to God, what more do you want?"

"No, I don't think — she doesn't like that concept, God, I mean. I don't have answers that lofty. I don't think I could even understand them."

"So what did you ask her?"

"Who you were. 'Jennifer is a clock, the most beautiful one you've ever seen — no one can look away. And if you open it up, there's a million pieces moving in perfect sync, beautiful on the inside too, pure gold in every part — but you're just a regular mortal, you can't understand how it actually works, you can only marvel at the complexity. But rest assured, it'll tell you the exact time, down to the millisecond, every single time, no exceptions. You're not going to understand it. You just have to have faith.'"

"You said that... about me? She's me?"

"I said it. She showed it back to me. I think she's trying to tell me I wasn't going to understand — that she is complex, made of a million moving parts."

"You said that about me? When? That's... beautiful."

"Right? Gave myself a pat on the back that day, quite the prose."

"You're such a dork, tell me more, tell me everything, please."

"Okay, I'm going to paraphrase, or we'll be here two hundred years."

"I'd love to stay here two hundred years, but okay."

"There are others — not just Rasputin. I think one shows up now and then, or someone else makes it happen, or God, or something — not her, I don't think she has power over us like that. I think we just keep showing up and she watches, but she has will of her own, and I think she wants what every woman I've ever known wants — to be happy. She wants her smell to be more good things than bad."

"Why women, though — if you think about it, this whole thing revolves around us, like men just don't matter to it."

Nick smiled.

"I asked her that."

"And what'd she say?"

"Ugga ugga."

Jennifer burst out laughing — his smell of her disappeared for a moment. He wished he could smell her joy here too.

"She's got a point."

"She's got a sense of humor. I don't think we don't matter to her, it's just how she operates — you're the ones after all, and maybe the world's measured by what the women living in it feel, and we're the ones responsible for it not smelling better. We have to do better. That's why we show up sometimes, I think. Ones like me."

"Please stop dodging the word — she told you to have faith. Have faith."

"Technically I said that, not her."

"Nick—"

"There've been a lot of us. Not all bad. Some neither good nor bad — just men. You can use the word if you want, but we're men, not her messengers, not her envoys, nothing like that. We just show up, and she watches to see what we do — with me, at least, I think... I think she likes me. Asked if I wanted to stop feeling you all — she could tell I was falling apart, could see it because I was, I think, I don't know — I saw something before... I was terrified. But I told her no, told her to give me the strength to keep going, that I have to take care of you all, that you need me. She liked that. Taught me how to shut it off if I want to, i could do it before but i didn know. Except with you."

She sat with that for a moment.

"She wants you to take care of me no matter what?"

"No, that's what I want. Well, I'm sure she's fine with it, but I don't think that's the message."

"So what is it — that I'm special?"

"You are."

"As a message that's not exactly groundbreaking either, you tell me that constant—" She trailed off, staring at nothing, already pulling at the thread.

"I need you to think about it later, please. No rush."

"So cryptic. A little dramatic, don't you think?"

"So was the damn tattoo. But here we are."

"I'd forgotten about that. Feels dumb now, even though it's exactly what's called for."

She said that, but deep down he could smell her need climbing, just slightly.

Nick burst out laughing.

"I love that you love it. It's a gift — you know, I asked her about the sex thing too. How my gift ended up so tied to it — I know it doesn't come from her, but figured she might know something anyway."

"What'd she say?"

"'There are many kinds of love' — your words — and showed me an image I didn't know I still had. It's dumb, it was my mother, cooking, I must've been really little, using a knife to cut something. I think she wanted to say it's a tool for loving — makes sense people would be born capable of it, feels like we were meant to be born out of love at some point, but something got broken along the way... seeing my mom made me really sad, though."

"I'm so sorry."

"So was she. She showed me my mom's scent right after — it's in there, in her, smelled like love and hope. I think she can see me. I think she believes in what we're doing too."

He was crying. So was his wife — not out of sadness.

A silence. He breathed peace — hadn't been able to actually relax in a long time — but he wanted to share it all with the others.

"The girls — they're at the door, I think they heard everything. Let them in. I need them. Please."

Eve didn't wait for permission, threw the door open like a saloon in a western and sprinted for the bed, hugging him, kissing him.

"You still taste amazing, thank god — er, goddess."

Everyone filed in behind her, all climbing onto the bed. Rose hesitated, but her lord — her friend — had said he needed them all, so she slipped off her dress and climbed up too. Nick was glad his friend, not his servant, had joined them.

He started pulling Eve's thong off; she devoured his lips — no seduction to it, just an unstoppable energy, happiness given human form. He slid into her, and everyone watched, even Helen. Jennifer wrapped her arms around Eve from behind, stroking her breasts with one hand, her pussy with the other, and Eve's pulse quickened under the attention. Nick gently laid Eve down in the center while still inside her; Alex leaned in to kiss her and stroke her too.

Rose didn't know what to do until Helen spotted her and held out a hand, guiding her close, starting to lick her enormous breasts. Rose lit up — Helen didn't usually initiate sex her own way, and now she wanted to; Helen ended up between two women in something close to nirvana.

"Let me try you," Eve whispered to Alex, who climbed onto her face; soon her tongue was buried inside her. In front of them, Nick kept thrusting into Eve, devouring her with his eyes, the first moans escaping her. She threw herself into his arms, the way she always did, always would, and kissed him the way only she could — an explosion of hunger and want.

No wildness. No possession. No animal loss of control, no danger to anyone — just pure love, and the desire to make each other feel good, for everyone, among all of them. Everyone reached their peak, then went looking to bring someone else to theirs, again and again.

At some point, everyone had been satisfied, and they settled into talking on that enormous bed, everyone with questions for Nick. Jennifer thought about sending them off to bed to let him rest, then privately called herself a hypocrite when she admitted it was really about having him to herself a while. She'd nearly ruined the whole thing being selfish — never again. He wanted them here, so she settled for watching her angel, sprawled on his stomach on the bed with those huge wings, chatting with Eve, who was asking questions way above his pay grade, like what the meaning of life was, and why people thought God was a man when it was obviously a woman all along. Helen lay against his back, arms wrapped around him, peering over his shoulder to tell Eve she wasn't God, and got annoyed being called that — she was naked, so was he, so was everyone, and neither of them minded in the least. Nick turned and kissed her cheek — he felt heard, understood; the two of them loved each other in a way people who could be attracted to each other never could. Every kind of love found room in that man, who'd just noticed the arms wrapped around his neck. "God fucking damn it, you have got to be kidding me," he said, spotting the fresh, still-unfinished tattoo on her forearm.

"What, it's amazing, it's the crest of this house — maybe I'll hang one on the front door."

"Can you make me one? I'll put it on my ass."

"NO, no-no-no-no, you dare mark up that ass and I'll bite the tattoo right back off."

He lunged and bit her; Helen flew off his back and landed upside down on the mattress with a shriek of surprise. Nick spent a while biting Eve's ass instead, who dissolved into laughter, half-heartedly trying to fend him off.

They all ended up exhausted, everyone. Nick found it curious, seeking out someone important to sleep against — must be some basic instinct, everyone had paired off. He was surprised to see Alex asleep on Rose's stomach, Rose stroking her hair — hadn't known she was capable of that kind of tenderness. He remembered Helen once mentioning she sometimes saw them have "normal" sex — what fascinating creatures, those two. Back when he was someone else, Alex used to treat her badly — worse, violently. But she never showed the slightest sign of that cruelty again, and he'd always assumed it was because of him, because he was trying to be a better person, like an idiot. He'd just realized Alex's gift for understanding what you wanted and giving it to you ran a lot deeper than sex, even though sex was mostly her whole life — so much he still didn't understand. He thanked whoever had sent him the best possible tutor, so he could even begin to touch, with just his fingertips, what it meant to feel the way they all felt. All of them.

His tutor watched him, smiling — enjoying watching him connect the dots. Of course, she'd known for a long time. Nick marveled at her, tracing every feature, trying to find one that wasn't perfect. Failed, as always. He'd always known this. Now it was her turn to connect the dots — she already knew it, somewhere deep down, everyone did; every person who spent more than ten minutes with her had a word for her. They just didn't know how close it was.

Her dark eyes gave her away — curiosity eating her alive, working up the nerve not to ruin the moment.

"Go ahead," Nick whispered.

"What?"

"Don't dance around it. Ask."

She smiled — this man knew her too well; nobody got that deep into her head. Then again, he was the only one invited in.

"Am I... an angel too?" she asked, whispering too.

Nick smiled.

"No."

She let out a relieved breath — a weight lifted.

"I don't use that word. Besides, they're all men, I told you that — and we don't belong to her."

The weight crept back.

"You said 'don't use words.'"

"No — it was a memory. But it was one very clear word."

"You're killing me."

"I know. But I need to know you got here on your own, or you won't believe me — no matter how much you love me, trust me, I know what I'm talking about."

"God..."

"That's it."

"People keep telling me — everyone, you say it to me every thirty seconds — that I understand things like I already knew them beforehand."

"Keep going."

"And... you're saying I want what she wants too."

"That's it."

"And... everyone calls me goddess... and I'm obsessed with the color red."

She was almost there.

"She showed me a memory of me telling Helen I was grateful to whatever higher power put you in my life."

"I'm... her Avatar."

"God, it's a joy watching you work this out — exact word and everything, you're incredible. She showed me a memory of myself watching that dumb movie. Told you she had a sense of humor."

"Oh my god..."

"Heavy, right? Tell me about it."

"The message is... that we need each other for this. Both of us, together."

''Bingo"