There was an angel on my bed. Really. An incandescent, feathery white–winged, ten–foot–tall angel. Don’t ask how it got there. I don’t even go to Mass. In any case, no nun I ever talked to mentioned the possibility of multiply–gendered, stark naked holy visitations. Not even the saints got naked angels.
What did I do? What would any sane person do in that situation? The cat fled, squealing as if all the legions of hell were after it. Perhaps the Inquisitors had been right about black cats. I shut the bedroom door, leaned against it, and waited. Then it beckoned.
It was definitely an it. When it wasn’t definitely a he, or a she. Have you ever, on a melting August afternoon, ignored your mom’s yells (“Close the fridge!”) and just stood there, basking in the tingle? The angel, it glowed. Only it glowed heat so hot it froze you — or maybe it was cold so cold it burned.
I stepped over to the bed. The sheets weren’t on fire or covered in ice. I was. The angel never said a word, although later I would have sworn it was singing hallelujahs the whole time. My roommate never heard a thing. The angel drew me down to her breasts, the long white feathers dissolving into rose–pink skin. No pores.
Later, when my clothes had disappeared with a brush of angel wings (they never did come back), I brushed my nipples against hers, only to find the feathers had come back. It wasn’t until I sat, impaled, that I noticed he had pointed teeth.
My roommate didn’t even hear my screams, as I rode the angel’s hard body, locked in an embrace of biting teeth and engulfing wings. I don’t know what angel semen does to human flesh — the angel shifted right after my orgasm, gone out of me as if it had never been there at all. The breasts disappeared and reappeared at will. The wings never changed, though.
Tired, I struggled not to fall asleep, and it grinned is first grin as I watched it slowly dissolve into a tacky plastic crucifix on a blue–bead rosary. Then the rosary dissolved too.
You figure out why it came. Maybe it fell in love, or it’s a new kind of ad campaign, or I’m going crazy, or Lucifer’s gonna approach me with a real sweet deal and all the angel slaves I want thrown into the bargain. Me, I have to go to work in the morning, and if it weren’t for the feather–shaped burn mark on my chest, I’d put it all down to a momentary psychotic episode and try not to stress too much. As is, I’m just waiting for the men in white coats or some clearer instructions.
If there’s a God watching over me, wanting something from me, then It’s going to have to be a lot more convincing to talk me into joining Its side. But if you see Sister Agnes anytime soon, tell her for me... nah, don’t tell her anything. I don’t think her universe could hold an angel like that one. I do have a bit more hope for a God who’d create a universe that does. Maybe that’s all It wanted.