Copyright 1999 by Jane Urquhart. The author is a member of the
Net Authors and
Creators Union (NACU), which defends the rights of Internet authors
and creators.
NACU intends to bring suit against any person or corporation infringing
copyright.
Specific permission is granted for publication in the news groups Alt.Sex.Stories
and
Alt.Sex.Stories.Moderated and for archiving by the Alt.Sex.Stories.Moderated
archive
and DejaNews. All other rights are reserved. Do not repost
or distribute by any other
means without express permission from the author.
CELESTE DEPARTS (No sex)
by Jane Urquhart
Celeste was
sitting in a big overstuffed chair, her feet propped up on a Turkish
ottoman. She was smoking a cigar and reading Lucius Apuleius' amusing
little opus, De
Deo Socratis, hoping to learn a little more about her successor,
when Hermes came in
without knocking, as was his custom.
"Out of here,
little man," Celeste said. "I have nothing to say to you."
She took a big swig out of the bottle of A&W decaffeinated root beer
that she always kept by her
side and tried to stare him down.
"Listen, lady," Hermes said, "I'm only the fucking messenger. Zeus wants to see you."
"Fuck him,"
Celeste said. "Tell him I'll hire Artemis to put an arrow in his butt
if
he doesn't stop sending people to bother me. I'm on vacation.
Hell, I may have retired.
I'm not taking any more crap off of anybody."
"He didn't like what
you said when he e-mailed you the last time," Hermes said.
"He told me to tell you that if you don't get your ass in gear and show
up at the castle in
jig time he'll turn you into a lesser demon."
Celeste paled.
She didn't mind being reviewer emeritus, but the thought of losing
real status got to her. Being a goddess is a good gig, and she knew
it. After all,
FastShow, the only lesser demon she knew anything about, was about to lose
his job as a
troll because a couple of little girls thought he was cute. Being
a lesser demon was the
pits; practically anybody could fuck up your career. If Zeus got
really mad, he really
could demote her, and not even her patroness, Athena, could do a
thing about it. She had to do whatever was necessary to avert catastrophe.
She pushed herself up out of her comfortable nest.
"Where's the sedan chair parked, asshole?" she asked.
Hermes smirked.
"The boss said you could walk," he said. "Your ass is going
to
get too big if you sit around all day swilling that horse piss. I quote."
"Get out of here,"
she said. She knew there was no point in messing around with
an idiot who did nothing but carry the mail. Hermes left.
She wasn't going to
be hurried, though. Swinging the butt in question, she walked
over to the hall table, picked up her purse and dumped the contents,
strewing them
across the polished surface. Murmuring to herself, she sorted through
the debris. She
picked up a short length of silken cord and ran it through her fingers,
then tossed it into
the wastebasket. "Meant to give that back to Crimson," she
thought, "and now I guess it's too late." She found a battered
piece of paper and unfolded it. "Note: Give M1ke Hunt a 9 to keep
him from getting a swelled head." She chucked that, too--damned fool
had quit writing before she got a chance to do it. A tiny pillbox caught
her eye. "I ought to save those and give them to that Raccoon fellow,"
she said to herself. "I don't need Valium anymore, and he sure as hell
will." A note of apology from Kim--a tiny tear slid out of the corner
of her eye.
"Oh, shit,"
she said aloud, "I can clean that stuff up later." She picked
out a
small packet of mini-cigars and a box of matches and threw them into her
purse along
with her cell phone, wrapped her robe around her and stepped out the door.
She made a
mental note to call Hephaestus and get him to fix the latch.
Walking up the dirt
road she cursed the stupid Greek engineers who built it and
then decided it wasn't worth paving. Sandals were all very well, but she
kept getting
rocks between her feet and the soles and having to stop to get them out.
Besides, the
edge was crumbling and she could see fields of wheat far below.
As she passed
Aphrodite's house she wondered what Apollo's chariot was doing parked
in front it.
"Fucking global warming is all his fault," she muttered. She was
incorrect, but that had
never bothered her before, and didn't this time. By the time
she arrived at the palace
gate, she was in a truly foul humour. She recognized this, and decided
that it was bad
enough that it merited the English spelling.
Ares, arrogant
as usual, came barreling out the gate in his chariot just as she
started to enter and nearly ran her down. Her waved his whip at her,
gave her a big
smile, dragged out an ancient .38 Police Special and fired a couple
of shots into the air.
Once the adrenaline
quieted down she entered the sacred precincts. Two
dumb-looking soldiers, probably left over from the day Deucalion scattered
those rocks
around, saluted as she entered the great hall. Baucis, the receptionist,
took one look at
her and decided to ignore her for a while. The longer she'd worked
in this place the less
she liked the gods, particularly the female ones. She was always
after Philemon to get a
better job than carrying water for the discus throwers so she could quit
and study
hydraulic engineering.
Finally Aphrodite
came mincing out the door of the throne room trying to get her
clothes in order. She gave Celeste a little wave and made circles
with her finger at her
temple. Meaning, Celeste figured, that the old man had thought up
something even
weirder than usual for the Goddess of Love to do to him. Celeste
lifted her chin and
walked in to confront the All-Powerful.
Zeus sat behind a large
mahogany desk. He was wearing a dark blue
double-breasted suit; a spotless white handkerchief peeked out of his breast
pocket. He
looked up as she entered.
"About time,"
he said. "You certainly are a stubborn little tart." His squeaky
tenor voice made him sound a lot like Marlon Brando.
Incensed, Celeste, replied. "I'm not a tart, I'm a respectable married woman."
Zeus laughed.
"You think I care about that mortal shit?" he said. He turned to a
scribe sitting at a small desk a few feet away and said, "Make a
note. Celeste is not
married anymore. She just went through a really messy divorce."
Then he turned and
smiled at Celeste.
"There," he
said, "You damn grammarians are always finicky about the rules.
I
make the fucking rules."
Celeste wasn't really prepared for such astonishing behavior.
"You can't do that,"
she said. "My marriage certificate is on file at the Harris
County Court House, and it's valid until some judge says it isn't."
"Sweetie," said Zeus,
"the Harris County Court House just burned down." He
smiled hugely. "That's the way I handle divorces these days.
I got old Prometheus
working for me full time now. And he loves the job. Just give
the guy a couple of
gallons of gas and a book of matches and he's happy as a clam."
The likely consequences
of this arbitrary decision ran through her mind. Her poor
husband, she thought. He wouldn't know what hit him. Maybe
she could get a phone call through, but she doubted it. Bell Olympus
was sulking because AT&T had the long
distance contract for the gods, and the telephone service had deteriorated
almost to the
point of disappearance. Then the really serious problem suddenly
dawned on her. She'd
always insisted that her monogamous marriage kept her from even considering
doing any of those awful things her worshippers, the writers of ASS,
kept suggesting that people were doing all the time. What on earth could
she use for an excuse now?
"Anyhow," said
Zeus, "what I really want to talk to you about is the chaos that's
crept into the ASS group since you left. It's all your fault, and
I want it fixed pronto. The Son of Cronos is just having a hell of a
time, which I'm not prepared to put up with ."
"Up with which I'm not prepared to put," she said automatically.
"Don't fuck with me,
little girl," Zeus said. "I'll split your infinitive six ways
from Sunday if you aren't careful."
"You wouldn't dare,"
she said cooly. "Athena would have Strunk and White up
here in seconds. She might even be able to get H.W. Fowler.
Some things even you can't do."
"Not to worry, dearie,"
he said with some satisfaction. "They're all down there
drinking beer with Socrates and Aristotle and they don't give a shit anymore.
I heard
Fowler say that if the assholes thought they could revise his book he was
washing his
hands of the whole thing. And White's thinking of changing the ending
of 'Charlotte's
Web.'"
Celeste's world was
crumbling. Her marriage was gone in a puff of smoke. She
could stand that, she thought, but the edifice on which she had built her
entire reputation
was about to collapse. That was too much.
"Your Majesty, I don't know what to say," she whimpered.
"That's first time you've ever said that," Zeus commented.
"No, it isn't, Your Majesty," she whispered through her tears. "That's what I said when I told my husband I was going to quit the Reviews."
"Do tell!" Zeus said.
"Yes, Sire,"
Celeste said, quietly. "That's what I told him. I had just found
a
comma fault in one of Uther Pendragon's stories."
"Holy fucking lighting
bolts!" Zeus said. "That's the first I've heard of that.
No
wonder you were struck dumb." He put his chin in his hand and appeared
to be thinking
hard. Then he snapped his fingers. "Why didn't you send me a message?"
he asked. "I'd have had that sucker down there chasing Persephone around
in a matter of minutes. He LET DOWN THE SIDE! But you didn't call
me. So what happened then?"
* * *
Celeste was just sitting
there reading a story, the way she had for countless hours
over the past few years. Suddenly she shuddered. Her vision
turned hazy. Quickly she
looked away from the screen toward the picture over her desk. It
was perfectly clear.
Well, she didn't know
what to say, anyhow. Maybe it was time for a break.
Feeling grumpy, she wandered into the kitchen, where her husband sat reading
the paper.
"Any more coffee?" she asked.
"Sure," he said. "Join me." He went back to the newspaper.
"You know what happened to me?"
` He put the paper down and looked at her.
"What?"
"I was reading this
story--a good one, too, from Pendragon--and all of a sudden I
couldn't read the words on the screen anymore."
"Now, that's odd," he said. "Can you read the paper?" He handed it to her.
She glanced at the front page and gave him back the paper. "Sure, no problem."
"Maybe you've been at the computer too long."
"I don't think that's it," she said slowly. "I think maybe I've had it up to here."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Well, I was just
reading along, and I saw a misplaced comma," she said. "In one
of Uther's stories! I think maybe it was just too much. I'm
telling you, it's getting worse.
When I can't trust Uther anymore, what am I going to do?"
"You've told me plenty
of times that it's a lot better than it was when you started,"
he said. "But now it's getting worse?"
"I think so,"
she said. "It looks to me as if everything's coming apart. If
I see
another run-on sentence I think I'll vomit. Otherwise decent writers are
confusing lay and lie, and double negatives are creeping in everywhere.
And people are getting
insubordinate. That Janey person just blithely keeps on mixing English
and American
spellings and even had the nerve to quote Mark Twain at me when I complained.
And
now I find a misplaced comma and I just don't know what to say.
I've run out of words."
"Maybe you need some
time off," he said, concerned. "We could go to Florida or
something."
"Maybe, I just don't
know right now. But I think I'll just quit." Then she drank
the last of her coffee and got up. She wandered back toward
her computer. Maybe just
surfing a while would help.
"Nope, you're outta
here," a voice said. She whirled, and there, standing near the
window, was a tall woman wearing a ragged woolen robe.
"How the hell did you get in here?" Celeste said. "And who are you?"
"Don't worry about it," the woman said, "we're taking you home."
Then everything went black.
* * *
"I suddenly found
myself back here and remembered everything," she said. "I
really am sorry about getting into that stupid apple thing with Aphrodite."
"Fucking women,"
Zeus said. "Always mixing into things that aren't your
business. Well, I think you served enough time. How'd you like
being a mortal?"
"It was better than
the last time," Celeste said, "when you sent me to Macedonia
to teach some decent Greek to that little shit Alexander."
"How was it better?"
Zeus said. "I seem to recall your getting on famously with
that Greek fellow--what was his name? Testicles? And I had
to send somebody;
Aristotle was getting nowhere."
"Well," she
said, "Testicles was all right, but I had a real husband this time,
and
he loves me, and I miss him. Besides, these people had computers
and air-conditioning
and Cadbury's chocolate and some other real neat stuff."
"But you burned out."
"I suppose so," she said. "When Demeter brought me back I was really glad to be home, but I do miss parts of it."
"Aw, shit, Celeste,"
Zeus said, "all you needed was a good fuck. Sounds to me
like that husband of yours wasn't doing his job."
"Oh, no, Sire,"
Celeste answered, alarmed. "Oh, no, he was wonderful. I got
fucked, got licked, got penetrated in every possible orifice. That
man is superb."
"Nope," said
Zeus. "I talked to Aesculapius about this before you got here, and
that was the prescription he insisted on. Actually, it's the only
one he ever gives when I'm involved, but it's always worked so far.
You want to turn into a swan, or shall I turn into a bull?"
"Oh, no, Sire,"
Celeste said, thinking faster than she ever had before. "You
wouldn't want to do that. If you did, you see, then I really could
never go back, and I like to keep my options open."
"Hmmm. I see your
point," Zeus said, cupping his chin again. "You've always
had that reputation, that monogamous married woman crap, and you really
ought not to
lose it." He thought a while. "I've got it. How about
you give me a nice blow job?
That's not sex. The President of the United States says so, and who's
a bigger authority?"
He stood, walked around the desk and stopped in front of her. Then he unzipped his fly and a nice, normal-looking penis appeared. He was not circumcised.
"Come on, baby," he said. "You'll like it."
Celeste had heard
that one several times before she was married. She figured he
was probably right. And, as an accomplished casuist, she was pretty
sure Clinton was
right, too.
"I'd really rather
not," she said, reaching out, stuffing the offending member back
into his trousers and zipping him up. "It would remind me too much
of my husband and
I'd probably cry."
"You goddesses are
more trouble than you're worth," he snarled. "I've got a good
mind to send you right back, preferably to someplace where nobody ever
heard of
grammar."
"Oh, no Sire!
Not that," she simpered. "But I wouldn't mind going back
where I
was for a while."
"No way," he
said. "Not unless you're willing to get back on the job. You'd
make a pretty good lesser demon, too. "
Unsettled, Celeste exercised her wits to the utmost.
"What if I just became a mortal?" she said.
"You crazy?"
Zeus sputtered. "Why, in a few years your tits would be down
around your waist and you'd be leaning on a cane, and then you'd die!"
"Maybe just for a little while, then?" She did think he had a point.
"OK, I'm feeling generous,"
he said. "Bacchus promised to bring around four or
five barrels of good chateau wine tonight, and some of those hot women
that keep
advertising in the news groups. So I'll tell you what I'm gonna do.
You're going back,
but you can't be a goddess down there anymore unless you go back on the
job. I'll fix it
so everybody forgets you're the goddess of the ASS groups and you'll just
be an ordinary English teacher. And when you get sick of it you can
come home. Just check at my web site any time. And forget
about hiring Artemis--she's working for me now, full time, and I have her
doing a job for Miles Naismith."
"You are generous,
Sire!" she said. "I think I can stand being an ordinary
woman, for a while, at least. And if I want to, and I can always
go back to work, the way
Michael Jordan did, and then I can be both a goddess and a woman again."
"Pack," he said, "before I change my mind."
Celeste turned on her heel and hurried for the door.
* * *
Her husband came in just as she sat down at the computer.
"Feeling better?" he said.
"I am," she
said. "I don't know why, but somehow things have changed.
Anyhow, I've decided to dump the Reviews and see how it feels. Let
somebody else put
up with those illiterate sons of bitches for a while."
"Good for you,"
her husband said. "You'll find plenty to do." He wandered off
down the hall and Celeste turned to the computer. She connected
to her ISP and started
to look at her mail. Then she hesitated. Something seemed
to make her put her cursor
on the address window and start typing.
"Http://www.greekgods.org."
Click. The window blanked, then a graphic began
to form. Big thunderbolt, blue on a black background. She smiled,
and bookmarked the
page. She wasn't quite sure why, but she thought it might come in
handy someday. She
liked to keep her options open.
----THE END----
NOTE: Opinions expressed by characters in this story are not
to be taken as those of the author. In fact, the author, who
was taken over by demons on the night of January 20, 1999, and found this
on her computer screen the next morning, is not responsible for
anything at all in this story, including errors of fact or fiction.
She also apologizes to
anyone, god, goddess, mortal or lesser demon, who might be offended.