SEX REBELS OF JESUSLAND, mini-chapter 155

155. ADAM INTERVENES

Adam stood outside the open door and pumped in the laughing gas. When he heard the helpless chuckles inside, he entered. He stuck a gas mask on Eve, and watched Joshua and Ezra pass out, both helplessly laughing. He waited until Eve stopped laughing. He led her outside the room where the others lay in unconsciousness, from which they would not awake for many hours. He locked the door.

“One question, Eve. Do you want to join the Men of the Gospel? This is what you always wanted. Ultimate power.”

Eve was silent. Why didn’t she answer?

“Eve, I have to know,” said Adam. “Do you want to take up their invitation to have ultimate power? At the end of the day, do you want to join the Men of the Gospel, like you always wished?”

“I don’t want it anymore.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to be with you.”

Adam felt his legs turn to jelly. He almost sank to his knees.

“I want to be with you, too,” he replied.

“I love you, Adam,” Eve said.

Tears sprang into his eyes. He had never thought he would hear those words from her lips.

He looked at her, questioningly, in unbelief.

“It’s true, Adam. When I was in jail and thought I was going to die, I realized that you were the only one I wanted to see. You were the last person I wanted near me before I died. I found out I loved you when death stared me in the face. The one truth I could focus on. I found out I was capable of love. Worthy of it. I got a bit distracted and diverted when I got out of prison, for which I’m sorry. But now, here, with you, I love you with all my life, which you gave back to me.”

Adam took her in his arms. His gaunt, thin Eve.

“I have loved you all along, Eve.”

She touched his face. “I know, Adam. I’m sorry it took so long for me to catch up with you.”

“It’s all right. It was worth the wait.”

They stood quietly in each other’s arms, each drinking in the other’s presence, like two souls drawing strength from the same spirit. Adam felt himself grow into Eve. He wanted to protect her always, love her always, and be her mate for life. Equals. Whatever. Eve clung to him, happy to feel his arms around her, her dream of power and ambition a cloud sailing away, her heart fixated on one other fellow human creature, whose warmth made her warm, so she could warm him, too -- and whose love she now loved to return. They slid to the ground, and they made a new love, a sex not born of religion or theory or hurt or revenge or punishment or science or power or transgression or God or anything but what was in their hearts. They fed each other love, like birds feeding their young from beak to beak. Afterwards they rose sluggishly. They looked at the time. Less than half an hour had passed, but it felt like some kind of eternity had wafted them into an eleventh dimension where time had lost its grip in the defiant embrace of emotion.