"It's God Himself, I think. That's the true lost lover. At least, I think that's the place where Will gets sad."
Bijou curled her legs under her and leaned forward to refill Sara's wineglass before she continued.
"I don't know, it's merely a theory. But I think he's smart enough to be aware that faith is beautiful and necessary, that magic and the angelic do exist, but too smart and too left-brained to let go and just dive in and believe things that aren't rational."
Sara nodded. "I've often wondered about it. He's so bloody normal but then sometimes he's so terribly sad, so obviously isolated. It feels like if I get too close he pulls back so I leave him alone. I understand not wanting to let just anyone in. I respect that."
She ran her hand up the back of her neck and through her hair. "He is delicious though. He's one of those people... I mean, he could be a head in a jar and I would still fuck him as long as his mind was there." She grinned and blushed. "God, that's bad. Must be the wine. Although it's easier to say what I'm thinking with people who actually understand."
Bijou chuckled. "The Alien Grrrl's Club. Meetings weekly at midnight."
Sara laughed. "I remember when I read the one story where you sit there thinking that soon he's going to figure out you're not as smart as he thinks you are. I laughed out loud. That's me every single time I talk to him --about anything." She looked ruminative. "But it makes sense, that the lack of tangible evidence in a greater spirit would bother Will. With faith, I'm in transition myself, from the faith I grew up with to the faith I have now."
"I don't know that I've ever had that sort of faith crisis. The one where everything I know is wrong, yeah. Regularly. But I've never lost my religion, not like that. I can't imagine," said Bijou, looking distant.
"It was fairly devastating, to lose the security of a belief system I had known for so long," murmured Sara, almost to herself. "It's especially devastating when you're dealing with death and not being sure of what you believe. New faith is only just being born inside me now but I can feel it. I don't think I could have lived my life with that hole in me forever." She finished her wine and Bijou poured another glass before she could argue.
"A hole where faith should be," said Bijou. "But faith is a word I have trouble with anyway. I don't think I have any, if it's defined as the evidence of things unseen. I've seen everything I truly have faith in -- love, people, compassion, miracles, beauty, ecstasy. My gods are just... I don't know. The embodiments of those things. The ideas. But it's all right here." She sighed. "Maybe I just don't understand the struggle people go through. How can you not see God? He's a tomato. He's a stone."
"Ah, but we're talking about Will, not you or me. God is a Mind," said Sara, grinning again. "A great big sexy amazingly smart mind like his. The imaginary universal intelligence, the Super-brain he could actually trust."
"True. We make God in our own image," Bijou said, suddenly very distracted by Sara's cleavage. It was, admittedly, rather spectacular, and Sara had worn a low-cut top that Bijou would assume she'd save for a far hotter date than this one was supposed to be. She tried to focus. "But really, there are so many things that already affect him, or seem to, spiritually. Where does Will find his divine? Where does he see God already, whether or not he's willing to admit that that's what draws him and affects him? Music. Art. Poetry."
"Sex," smiled Sara, shifting around in her seat, casually tugging the neck of her shirt up, only to have it slide right back down. "At least, I'd be willing to bet he looks for it there pretty often." She looked at Bijou's legs, now stretched out along the couch toward her. Very long legs. She couldn't help but imagine them around Will, since she knew perfectly well they'd been there. More than once. The idea alone made her blush again. She turned so Bijou wouldn't notice, but Bijou noticed.
"You realize this is all theoretical anyway," Bijou settled back, tracing the edge of her wineglass with a fingertip. Round and round. Sara's eyes moved from the circling fingertip to Bijou's lips, wet from the wine. "I mean, I know him, but hardly well enough to diagnose and treat, or even assume the existence of, some deep existential crisis in his darkest soul. For all I know, what I read as the Lost Alchemical Marriage might just be mild indigestion. Not a hunger for God so much as a simple need for Pepto Bismol." Sara spluttered, swallowed her mouthful of wine and giggled.
When she'd caught her breath, she nodded. "There's something about him, or at least what I see in him so far, that makes me want to make him happy. I want him to see the good out there. We've talked so much, without ever really meeting. And he feels very far away, even in person, for whatever reason. He's a tough one. Smart enough to be very self-contained." Suddenly she wanted very much to kiss Bijou. Just to see how it felt, she told herself. But she wasn't at all sure how to go about it. It was getting difficult to listen to both Bijou's voice and her own internal voices, all of them drawing her closer even though she was afraid to move.
"Well, I don't believe one can actually make anybody else happy," responded Bijou, "not as such. But perhaps we do put the occasional light on someone else's path, so they find their own way more easily. Still, what are we really doing, after all? All we're really considering, at the bottom line, is seducing him properly. If he manages to see God in the process, well, that's just frosting."
There. She'd said it. Sara would either run screaming into the night right now, or she'd stay. And if she stayed... Bijou snapped that train of thought off instantly. Stop that. Too much to hope for.
"It's more than that with you -- you see yourself as, what, clergy in this realm, right? A priestess?" Sara hesitated over the word. It sounded cool. A bit intimidating. Was she considering kissing an actual sex priestess? Was that what you called it, even? There were always questions with Bijou but never a fear of the answers.
