Immortal Stories: Eve Read Online Free Page B

onto the porch.
    There wasn’t much of a view.  She could see a small square of grass that constituted the private yard belonging to the property, personalized with bits of plastic furniture.  The yard was contained by a tall, chain-link fence, just in case anyone was concerned about exactly where the ownership diverged.  Directly across and to the left and right were other houses.  The people in the yard to the left were cooking meat on an open flame.  The smell reminded her of a more literal hunger.
    “I’m not sure if I’m gonna get complaints from the neighbors or compliments, if you’re gonna stand out there like that.”
    “The clothing here is scratchy,” she said, turning around but remaining where she was.  “I prefer not to wear it.”  The man watching his meats cook would have a decent view of her back if he chose to gaze in the right direction.
    Rick was sitting on the edge of the bed and looking at her.  He had the courtesy to not put on any clothing, but was also not prepared to step out on the porch with her while unclothed.
    “ Here .  You keep saying things like that.  How did the clothes feel when you were doing all this traveling of yours?  Wherever that was?”
    “It was looser and softer.  When I wore clothing.”
    “Right.  So how many is most ?”
    “I don’t understand your question.”
    “You said I keep up better than most.”
    “Oh that, yes.”
    “I… I’m sorry, I just realized how rude that was.  Something about you made me think I could ask… no, forget it.”
    “It’s all right.  I am trying to think how to quantify my response, but… it would have to be several hundred.  I never bothered to count.  Presupposing the existence of math, which we should not do.  Are you considering both genders?  Only humans?  What are your parameters?”
    He fell back onto the bed.  “Of course, we must consider the non-human element.”
    “It’s a fair question,” she said.  She drifted back in and next to him.  “Vampire, goblin, elf.  And satyrs, of course.  Werewolves, too.  They’re all viable.”
    She ran the back of her hand down his hairless chest.  He was warm.
    “Faery?” he asked.
    “Oh, yes.  It was their realm I left before coming here.”
    “Of course,” he laughed.  Then he gasped as her hand found its way down past his waist.
    “And incubi and succubi,” she said.
    “Angels and demons?”
    “Never a demon.  They’re repulsive.  Even their women think so.  And I’ve never met an angel.”
    “I think you might be one,” he said.
    She climbed up on her knees and straddled him.
    “I’ve been a god,” she said.  “But never an angel.”
    She lowered herself down and let him in.  It was time for another round.
    *   *   *
    “So you aren’t an angel,” he said later.  Much later. 
    The sun had taken its leave entirely.  They hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights in the bedroom, but between the stray lamplight from the street and what was coming in through the doorway to the living room, there was no need. 
    They had eaten.  On the kitchen counter was food ostensibly of Chinese origin in cardboard boxes.  Eve had an intimacy with most regional foods, and considered the appropriate source region for this cuisine to be America.  It might have been cooked by the Chinese, using techniques from East Asia, but the ingredients were too distinctly local for it to pass as authentic.
    It also tasted better than the authentic version.
    “I’m not an angel, no,” she said. 
    She was sitting in a folding chair on his porch.  The night had cooled, so she wore some clothes, and was wrapped in a light blanket.  He was sitting in another chair, in the clothes he’d put on when he answered the door for the food. 
    “I doubt angels are real.  I’ve not met one, which makes their existence unlikely.”
    “But demons are real?  And faeries, and succubi and vampires and all that?” 
    He said it in a lightly mocking