away, stammering, “Mia, this one thing Brovik forbids. He says it will bind me to you.”

“It’s too late. I’ve already had yours. He owns your body Kurt, he can’t own your soul.”

“Do we have any to speak of?” He hesitated, eyes brimming with vestigial moisture as he took my hand between his fingers, tracing the network of veins. Touching the palm to his lips, weighing the consequences of this action, a look of resolve came over him. His mouth opened and clamped down on my wrist. I shuddered as the points entered then retracted and his lips wrapped around the wound. We collapsed on the mattress as he pressed his own wrist against my lips. My tongue licked the slight bulge of the artery before taking him. His skin was sweet and salty. As it broke, a warm wet fountain bubbled up over my tongue.

Rhythm throbbed throughout him, penetrating every fiber. A soaring voice, an angel, sexless, ageless, sang as the blazing white light inside of him spilled over into me, sending shadows and phantom shapes to the edges of the landscape. The light and song grew brighter, cutting through the confusion, far too bright for poor battered Psyche. The god came forward in all his glory, face too bright to look upon, arms and wings outspread to gather her to him.

I cried out, pulling away from Kurt. “I’m sorry! I can’t!”

He blinked. That same terrifying light blazed in the depths of his eyes as a look of utter astonishment came over him, a glissando of wonder escaping from his lips. He clasped me to him, his tears wetting my skin. “Don’t spoil this.”

I called myself every foul thing I could think of. My heart was dead and buried somewhere among the wreckage bearing Ethan’s name, all that remained was to feed off of Kurt’s, and it was seductive, to suck up pieces of his soul he proffered like rubies dripping from his hands.”

Mia paused, a single tear gliding down her cheek. Joe was deeply disturbed by what she’d told him about Kurt. In his work he’d run across human monsters that preyed on kids sexually, the worst kind of ghouls. It destroyed lesser individuals, but Kurt had turned into cold, hard stuff and survived, ultimately finding a unique outlet for his revenge.

She stared into space. “This demon gnaws and gnaws at him. He delivered himself into my hands, gave me his deepest, most painful secret and he’s suffered for it every hour, since that night.”

SEVENTEEN

* * * *

“Kurt stayed a month before Brovik summoned him home. I ached for him when he left. The cramped apartment felt empty. The piano stood silent, gathering dust. I reverted to my old habits, wandering the city night after night, evading the odd Immortyl.

Kurt would drop in unexpectedly, clutching a single red rose like a mortal boy to give to the girl of his fancy. I’d take the long stemmed flowers and reflect on the masses Ethan had showered me with. How very like Kurt to make the elegant gesture. How very like Ethan to make the ostentatious.

Years passed. Manhattan changed yet again. Established old shops and restaurants gave way to franchises. The pin stripes of the eighties faded into to the flannel shirts and torn jeans of yet another generation. Somebody figured out that in the year 2000 a lot of computers might not know what year it is, probably some clerk making fifteen grand a year. Computers would crash and planes would drop from the sky. A sheep was cloned and newspapers proclaimed a breakthrough in the field of genetics. It was the post era, post modern, post feminist, and post gay. Here a post, there a post everywhere a post, post. Ethan was right. Time was a spectacle.

Aside from Kurt, my callers were few. I remained far out of the loop as progress on Brovik’s work went. Kurt wasn’t at liberty to tell specifics and I didn’t bother to press him because I’d come to think the whole thing impossible.

Ethan had disappeared, Kurt told me. Brovik hadn’t heard anything of him for years. I hoped he walked the streets of hell.

Then, one early summer night in the last year of the tumultuous century of my birth, Kurt arrived with his customary floral offering. “Got a surprise for you… ”

I hadn’t seen Philip in over a decade. He extracted himself from my impulsive embrace and gave me a long look. “You have roses in your cheeks again. The boy is good