Read Online Jeffrey Thomas, Voices from Hades by Jeffrey Thomas - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jeffrey Thomas
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battleship compared to their sleek but weathered yacht. "Hey, is that a torture ship?" Rule asked their pilot.
"An ocean liner for vacationers like yourself, anxious to see the sights beyond the pearly gates." Petty thought he detected a mocking tinge to the cliche "pearly gates." "Drink, dinner, dance, shuffleboard, harpooning the Damned. I’m sure you would enjoy it, gentlemen. Ships like that find harbor south of here, should you be interested in booking passage when you’ve had your fill of my humble boat."
"We’ll have to talk to our tour guide about it when we get back to our lodgings," Petty said. Because he did indeed feel that he’d prefer cruising slowly on a large ship like that, instead of jouncing across the waves on this smaller craft. He had hoped a visit to Hades would shake up his jaded senses, after having found Heaven to be rather dull, rather lonely. But he hadn’t wanted to be physically shaken.
"I like this boat," Rule stated, however. "Much more exciting, huh, Steve?"
"Sure," Petty muttered.
‘It’s good to be alive again!" Rule chirped, raising his bottle to salute the churning Red Sea and the black layer of perpetual clouds that formed the ceiling of Hades.
««—»»
Petty had considered bringing his apsara with him on his vacation to Hell, but had ultimately decided against it. The apsaras were homunculi like the Demons, and made to order for those in Heaven, as servants and lovers. Because Petty had had no luck meeting a female Angel with whom to enjoy the boundless carnal pleasures he would have expected to await him in the afterlife, he had ordered one of these apsaras for himself. In life he had been a mortgage expert, so he had named his living sex doll Fannie Mae as a private joke, though she had the face and body of Demi Moore, as she had looked in her early movies like St. Elmo’s Fire and About Last Night (in which she’d been deliciously nude). He had preferred her then, soft and young and small-breasted, over how she had looked in Striptease , with her phony-looking breast implants and her buffed body and harder face. Petty liked to think that he had a refined sense of taste, an artistic appreciation of the female form in its natural state. Not to mention that he was drawn to very young women. That they would be the last women to be interested in him made him long for them all the more.
He had enjoyed Fannie Mae on a physical level, but her uncomplaining accommodation, her dog-like complacency, and the fact that the homunculus was nearly monosyllabic had made him fairly discontented of late. Whereas Rule had come to Hades to hunt the Damned for sport, Petty had come in the vague hopes that a Damned woman would be a more willing sex partner than a fellow Angel. Or, if not willing, then an unwilling sex partner. He need not be concerned with raping a Damned woman, whereas such a thing with an Angel would be out of the question. He didn’t know if an Angel like himself could be sentenced as a Damned, but he wasn’t willing to risk it.
He had thought he might even persuade a female Demon to take him to her bed, but after seeing the red-scaled beings back at the Demonic seashore fortress where he and Rule had been given lodgings, he had ruled out the possibility.
He had thought this adventure would exhilarate him, like a safari. Instead, he was already finding this remarkable ocean of live red blood cells boring in its redundancy. The thought of immortality began to depress him. To escape it for a brief while, in what was dubbed the little death (or was that what they called orgasm? he couldn’t recall), he decided it was best to retire to the forecastle for a nap, leaving Rule to his hunt. Though the Damned deserved to be here, because in life they had turned their backs on or denied the existence of their Creator (Petty and his wife had been church-going Catholics, Rule a Baptist), Petty wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to take a turn at the harpoon gun,
"An ocean liner for vacationers like yourself, anxious to see the sights beyond the pearly gates." Petty thought he detected a mocking tinge to the cliche "pearly gates." "Drink, dinner, dance, shuffleboard, harpooning the Damned. I’m sure you would enjoy it, gentlemen. Ships like that find harbor south of here, should you be interested in booking passage when you’ve had your fill of my humble boat."
"We’ll have to talk to our tour guide about it when we get back to our lodgings," Petty said. Because he did indeed feel that he’d prefer cruising slowly on a large ship like that, instead of jouncing across the waves on this smaller craft. He had hoped a visit to Hades would shake up his jaded senses, after having found Heaven to be rather dull, rather lonely. But he hadn’t wanted to be physically shaken.
"I like this boat," Rule stated, however. "Much more exciting, huh, Steve?"
"Sure," Petty muttered.
‘It’s good to be alive again!" Rule chirped, raising his bottle to salute the churning Red Sea and the black layer of perpetual clouds that formed the ceiling of Hades.
««—»»
Petty had considered bringing his apsara with him on his vacation to Hell, but had ultimately decided against it. The apsaras were homunculi like the Demons, and made to order for those in Heaven, as servants and lovers. Because Petty had had no luck meeting a female Angel with whom to enjoy the boundless carnal pleasures he would have expected to await him in the afterlife, he had ordered one of these apsaras for himself. In life he had been a mortgage expert, so he had named his living sex doll Fannie Mae as a private joke, though she had the face and body of Demi Moore, as she had looked in her early movies like St. Elmo’s Fire and About Last Night (in which she’d been deliciously nude). He had preferred her then, soft and young and small-breasted, over how she had looked in Striptease , with her phony-looking breast implants and her buffed body and harder face. Petty liked to think that he had a refined sense of taste, an artistic appreciation of the female form in its natural state. Not to mention that he was drawn to very young women. That they would be the last women to be interested in him made him long for them all the more.
He had enjoyed Fannie Mae on a physical level, but her uncomplaining accommodation, her dog-like complacency, and the fact that the homunculus was nearly monosyllabic had made him fairly discontented of late. Whereas Rule had come to Hades to hunt the Damned for sport, Petty had come in the vague hopes that a Damned woman would be a more willing sex partner than a fellow Angel. Or, if not willing, then an unwilling sex partner. He need not be concerned with raping a Damned woman, whereas such a thing with an Angel would be out of the question. He didn’t know if an Angel like himself could be sentenced as a Damned, but he wasn’t willing to risk it.
He had thought he might even persuade a female Demon to take him to her bed, but after seeing the red-scaled beings back at the Demonic seashore fortress where he and Rule had been given lodgings, he had ruled out the possibility.
He had thought this adventure would exhilarate him, like a safari. Instead, he was already finding this remarkable ocean of live red blood cells boring in its redundancy. The thought of immortality began to depress him. To escape it for a brief while, in what was dubbed the little death (or was that what they called orgasm? he couldn’t recall), he decided it was best to retire to the forecastle for a nap, leaving Rule to his hunt. Though the Damned deserved to be here, because in life they had turned their backs on or denied the existence of their Creator (Petty and his wife had been church-going Catholics, Rule a Baptist), Petty wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to take a turn at the harpoon gun,
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