Gabriel’s Inferno Trilogy by Sylvain Reynard Page 0,146

you ever see Pulp Fiction?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t like Quentin Tarantino. He’s too dark.”

“Then let’s just say that she likes to get medieval…in her personal life…on people’s asses. And she isn’t shy about letting people know it. She researches that stuff and posts her publications online.”

Julia swallowed a piece of chorizo quickly. “So that means that he—”

“Is a sick fucker like she is. But he’s a hell of a researcher, as you saw this afternoon. I try not to think about what goes on in his personal life. I think that lovers should be gentle with one another. Not that love enters into what they’re doing.”

Paul surveyed the room cautiously before whispering in Julia’s ear. “I think if you care enough about someone to have sex with them, then you should care enough to respect them and not treat them as an object. You should be responsible and careful and never, ever hurt them. Even if they’re fucked up enough to beg you to.”

Julia shivered and took a very large sip of her second sangria.

He leaned back in his chair. “I can’t relate to someone wanting pain at all, let alone during sex. Sex is supposed to be about pleasure and affection. Do you think Dante would have tied Beatrice up and worked her over with a whip?”

Julia hesitated, then shook her head.

“When I was an undergraduate at St. Mike’s, I took a course on the Philosophy of Sex, Love, and Friendship. We talked about consent. You know how everyone says that as long as an activity is between two consenting adults, it’s okay? Our professor asked us if we thought a human being could consent to an injustice, such as selling himself into slavery.”

“No one wants to be a slave.”

“They do in Professor Pain’s world. Some people sell themselves into sexual slavery—voluntarily. So is slavery okay if the slave wants to be a slave? Can someone who is in their right mind consent to slavery, or are they simply irrational because they want to be a slave?”

Julia began to feel more than slightly uncomfortable having this particular conversation so close to Professor Pain and Gabriel, so she tipped back the last of her sangria and swiftly changed the subject.

“What’s your dissertation topic, Paul? I don’t think you ever told me.”

He chuckled. “Pleasure and the beatific vision. It’s a comparison between the deadly sins associated with pleasure—lust, gluttony, and greed—and the pleasure of the beatific vision in Paradise. Emerson is a great dissertation advisor, but like I said, I stay out of his personal life. Even though he’d probably be a hell of a case study for the Second Circle of the Inferno.”

“I can’t understand why everyone just doesn’t want kindness,” Julia mused, more to herself than to Paul. “Life is painful enough.”

“That’s the world we live in.” He offered her a sincere smile. “I hope your boyfriend is kind to you. Just be grateful you found someone who isn’t into the sick shit.”

At that moment they were interrupted by the waiter, so Paul didn’t see the color drain out of Julia’s cheeks and lips. She involuntarily peeked over at Gabriel and saw Singer whispering in his ear again.

Gabriel’s eyes remained stubbornly fixed on the table in front of him, teeth clenched and jaw set. He picked up his glass of wine, sipped it, and set it down again, all while Julia stared.

Look at me, Gabriel. Roll your eyes, rub your face, scowl…something, anything. Show me this is all a misunderstanding. Show me Paul is wrong.

“Julia?” Paul’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Do you want to share the paella Valenciana with me? They only make it for two. It’s very good.” Now he noticed Julia’s paleness and the fact that her fingers were trembling. “Hey, are you okay?”

She rubbed her forehead. “Yeah. The paella is fine.”

“Maybe you should go easy on the sangria. You haven’t had much to eat, and you’re starting to look sick.”

He was worried that he’d shocked her with his salacious revelations, revelations that he had no right to offer to a fellow graduate student. So he changed the subject by telling her stories of his last trip to Spain and his fascination with Gaudi’s architecture. She nodded as if on cue and even asked questions from time to time, but her mind was far away, trying to sort out who exactly she’d shared a bed with a week ago—the fallen angel who still had goodness in him or someone much, much darker.

She noticed