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“Couch?” I asked.
“Certainly.”
“Ladies first.”
I watched as she went to the couch, and sat down, pulling one leg up under her. The hem of her dress, a cute, light, summery thing swishing as she walked. She really was my opposite in most things, at least on a superficial level. Though, as we were both beginning to learn, there was a lot more to life than that. I sat down on the other end of the couch. Still not sure about her comfort level.
“So, Lucifer is a metaphor?” she asked.
“Yes, almost always, except among the theological. Be they monotheists or Satanists.”
“Theological Satanists?”
“Yeah. Basically they’re inverted Christians, who have read and believed the Bible and decided ‘I’m goin’ with the other guy.’ They are a minority even among Satanists. They give the rest of us a bad rep.”
“What are you?” Rachel asked, curiously.
“Modern LaVeyan. Basically, we take the basic principles of the original Church of Satan, including the Seven Tenets, while also modernizing. Particularly in terms of women. LaVey was surprisingly humanist, particularly considering he wrote the tenants in the late sixties but still had some old fashioned ideas. Understandable considering he was born in the thirties. In many ways he was a contemporary of Kenneth Anger.”
She took a moment, seeming to process the new information which I would have to be the first to admit came a bit fast and furious. I lost both a filter and all sense of time when I started talking about things I cared about. I also tended to start shouting as well. Rachel wasn’t reeling back in abject terror so I didn’t think that had happened. I was doing my best not to scare her.
“What are the Seven Tenets?”
“The core principles of the LaVeyan school. Similar to your Ten Commandments only shorter.”
“Do you know what they are? I mean all of them?”
“Sure. Um, let’s see. One should strive to act with compassion and empathy to all creatures within reason. The struggle for justice is a necessary and ongoing pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions. The body is inviolable, subject to one’s will alone. The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend.
“Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world, one should take care to never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs. People are fallible, if one makes a mistake one should do one’s best to rectify it. Every tenet is a guiding principle, designed to inspire nobility in action and thought.”
She looked like a deer in the headlights. Clearly never having heard any such thing before in her short life.
“That’s not exactly it but close enough, I-”
Rachel leaped at me in what I could only call an attack-hug. She wrapped herself around me, her hand holding on for dear life. Like she might die if she ever let go.
Just as I was trying to figure out if it was a really aggressive come-on, her soft sobs wetted my shoulder. Making matters very clear.
Getting over my own initial shock, overcome with surprising empathy, I held her. Gently stroking her back as she let it out.
I knew in that moment the scarring had been forced and who had put them on her.
I’d never seen quite a strong reaction to hearing the tenets but could also understand it considering what she must have been hearing since she was little.
Religious instruction was one thing and not something I really had an issue with. Brainwashing was quite another.
Even with her lovely, gentle warmth pressed up against me, my thoughts remained pure. Or at least as pure as they might.
Sexy thoughts were honestly nowhere near my mind.
The context was far too harrowing for any such considerations. I just waited it out, rocking her gently as possibly years of pain and repression came up all at once.Chapter Thirteen - RachelIt really wasn’t what I’d planned. Things had gone well. Better than expected if I were to be super honest. I really didn’t think it would be possible for us to cross our obvious divide.
Or, at least, so I’d assumed. Looking at it in light of the new information, what I thought would be a Grand Canyon of irreconcilable difference, tuned out to be more of a puddle.
I tried my best to process it all. Almost every word from Augustus, either typed or spoken, since we started messaging that fateful morn, had been another shock to my system. Everything I’d thought I’d know being smashed like glass under a hammer.
The Seven Tenets, as Augustus had put them, sounding like the most beautiful set of ideals I’d ever heard. Rational, practical and empathetic at the same time. Really basic, fact-based things it honestly felt that all people could embrace. Even if they already had a religious belief.
Nothing I’d heard really contradicted the monotheism I knew. Even if it did have a few welcome additions like personal autonomy. If anything, the Jesus I knew would agree with most of it. I wasn’t about to ‘switch teams,’ my faith far too precious to me, despite some uglier side effects. Though I would never forget what Augustus had told me. Showing a better, more compassionate way to think and live.
