THE SEX REBEL OF JESUSLAND, chapter 140

140. SCARLET AND ADAM.

Adam went looking for Scarlet again. He found her in her cottage.

“How’s the work going?” He meant secretarial, but she understood something else. She smiled at him.

“We’re shooting Adam and Eve tonight,” she said. “Ezra said it was your idea.”

“Not really.”

“Do you want to come and look? You can come home with me afterwards.”

Adam wondered if she was making up to him for something. Perhaps she felt pity for him, because she was a real sexual outlaw who had initiated him, and could sense the peril of that much freedom.

“Listen,” she said, and now he knew she was trying to make up to him, and he found it touching, that she would have some consideration for his feelings. “Take this key. It’s a master key. It’ll get you through two doors to the porn studios. Ezra keeps those studios out of bounds. People who’ve been here for years don’t even know what goes on in the basement. They don’t even know there’s a basement. You walk down the main corridor to the middle where there’s a small door that says broom closet. You use this key to open it, and you’ll see another door. You open that one, and then you’ll see stairs. At the bottom of the stairs there’s a room, and a closet. You open the closet and you’ll see a door in the back of the closet. Then you open that door and you’ll be in the studio. I’ll tell Ezra I invited you, but don’t tell him I gave you this key.”

“OK.”

He used Scarlet’s key that night. He opened all the doors, and ended up in the studio. He heard voices. He walked around a painted theater flat and he was in a wonderland of flowers and trees. A lush garden. The Garden of Eden. He saw Scarlet lying in the middle, by a shimmering pool of goldfish. Her legs were open. A cameraman sat on a dolly above her. A large snake stuck out from between her legs, its head – or was it the tail? – buried in her. Not quite the story in the Bible.

Scarlet saw him and winked. Ezra stood by a video monitor, talking to the cameraman about the framing.

He went home with Scarlet that night, the last night before the rescue.

He felt like a sinner again. Being a sexual outlaw was the privilege of the damned. And unworthy of Eve. This was the final treachery, a greater treason against Jesusland than going to rescue Eve, because it could not be excused by love or anything else but his own desire, which was un-Christian and decadent and would earn the wrath of God.

He wished he hadn’t given Scarlet the amulet. He didn’t want to ask for it back, because he could not imagine Eve wearing it now that Scarlet had worn it around her sinful neck. It was touched by sin. It belonged to Scarlet now. It was home at last, with a latter-day high priestess of sex, who had allowed a snake inside her.