We ordered room service, left our clothes on the floor, lounged naked in bed for the rest of the evening. God, it felt good to escape from my life for bit, into this fantasy of sex and hanging out. We talked about spiritual journeys and gods. And how some people saw gods.
“I’ve been avoiding the gods for a long time,” I said.
“Maybe they’re trying to tell you something,” Ariel said.
“I wish they’d come out and say it, then. The question is, are they projections, extensions of our desires and fears? Or are they really entities poking their heads in from outside Time and Space?”
Ariel studied me and arched her eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re a private eye?”
“My coworkers are a bunch of brilliant fuckups with nowhere else to go. They’re ex-coppers, lawyers, hackers, tech geeks. I feel underqualified next to them. I’m not sure I belong, but I have nowhere else to go, either.”
“I think sir protests too much.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you really like swimming in the chaos. It makes you feel alive. I’ve been there.”
“As a result of that, my karma’s like a minefield. Worst path to enlightenment ever.”
“So why did you give up the religious studies in the first place?”
“Burned out. I realized it was what my father wanted, not what I wanted. It was all too abstract for me. What good was pondering the big moral questions about life and how we should live life from the ivory tower of academia? After that I got my teaching qualification and taught secondary school for a number of years.”
“No way! You were a high school teacher?”
“That was another life ago.”
“Did you like it? Was it, like, your vocation?”
“Not really. Paid the rent, kept me in the world. Maybe helped some kids, that was it.”
“So why did it end?”
I didn’t tell her about the scandal that had gotten me sacked.
“Cutbacks. I got made redundant. So I was cast adrift. Again.”
“Ouch.”
“Six months with no luck. My overdraft ballooning. Then my friend David, who’s the legal counsel for the detective agency, got me an interview. They hired me, trained me, I started making decent money. The insane shit we got up to, though! It’s like the gods have dropped me in this new, clichéd detective story for a laugh.”
“Do you hate the job? You sound awfully ambivalent about it.”
“What? No. I like it. It has long stretches of total boredom when you’re just waiting for someone to show up, or when you’re following someone and they’re doing the most boring things ever just so you can photograph them, but the rest of it, I find out interesting things about how the world really works. And I’m in a position where I can actually help people. In some cases the police can’t help, but we can.”
“Holy shit!”
“What?”
“You’re a knight in shining armor!” She started laughing.
“Oh, stop it!” I was laughing, too.
She thought about it for a moment, then came out with it.
“Hey, why don’t you come with me?”
“To India?”
“Why not? You got one foot out the door, as it is. You’re worried about the bad karma you’ve been racking up. Why not leave it all behind for a little while? Get away from it all?”
“And do what? Travel with you, smoking some quality drugs and seeking answers like a pair of Sramanas?”
“You’re thinking about it right now. You got the image in your head.”
“Thing is, India isn’t an exotic escape for me like it is for you. It’s my native culture as much as Britain is. I still have family there.”
“But it’s huge! You can still disappear.”
I thought about it. The case. Dad. Mum’s debt. Sanjita’s wedding.
“I can’t. I still have things to take care of and people depending on me.”
She smiled sadly, like she knew what I would say.
“Know what you remind me of?” she said. “Hanuman the monkey god. Loyal, faithful, and selfless.”
“I’m no god. I’ve got enough of them swimming around in my head as it is.”
“I’d love to meet your gods some time.”
I looked at her Kali tattoo. Maybe she had been sent by Kali, after all.
“Did you know,” I said, “your name means ‘Lion of God’? But what I see is a playful mischievous spirit, like the Ariel from Shakespeare’s Tempest.”
She smiled and climbed on top of me, taking my wrists in my hand, and pinned me down.
“Hi, I’m Ariel, your designated spirit for this evening.”
“And how are you with the ways of the flesh, O spirit?”
“Let’s find out!” she said.