I, Lucifer: Finally, the Other Side of the Story

‘And you’re not clairvoyant. My name generally precedes me.’

‘But other information does not.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as that you’re currently wearing peach-coloured cami-knickers from Helene’s in Paris. Such as that you were thinking several things a moment ago: that the English are in love with failure and loss; that there’s no pleasure for you now like the pleasure of being driven through capital cities in the last hour before dawn; that my cock would be small and that it’s been a long time since you’ve even known what you like; that there should be another dimension or place for the filthy rich when this world’s fruits have been sucked dry; that there’s nothing you’d like more than a long stay in a white-walled and chilly hospital where nothing was demanded of you; that you’d need to get drunk if you were going to fuck me.’

‘My mistake,’ she said, after a sip of her champagne. ‘How charming.’

‘Goes with the territory.’

Raised eyebrows. Tired, our Harriet, tired of life, tired of having done everything – but willing to be seduced by curiosity. ‘Territory?’

‘Being a fallen angel,’ I said. ‘Being the fallen angel.’

Another exhausted smile. Another sip. It wasn’t much, this, but it was, at least, something.

‘Tell me what I’m thinking now,’ she said.

I gave her a devilishly nonchalant smile of my own. ‘You’re thinking about how little you get for six million in South Kensington, and that in any case you won’t keep it for more than a year, since London houses are filled with sadness. You’re wondering whether I’ll fuck you because I’ve got a thing for older women, some dreary oedipal tumour, or because I’m the sort of young man who believes that self-degradation elevates him to some kind of divine knowledge.’

‘You’re really rather good at this, aren’t you?’

‘The best.’

‘There must be a story to tell.’ She sounded weary at the prospect.

‘After.’

‘After what?’

‘You know what.’

Oh my angel, my bad angel – well that pressed a few buttons, obviously – Oh my angel master, fuck me, fuck your little pigbitch, mmnyesss, stick your filthy fucking cock up my filthy fucking arse, all the filthy fucking way, all the way, um-hmn? Nn-hmn. You know I’m your filthy little cocksucking whore, don’t you? Fuck your little Virgin Mary whore –

Lost my head a bit at that point, I’m afraid. Curiously though, this monologue (yours truly too busy with the miracle of his own restored and restive rod to bother responding) all delivered in a robotic monotone, like a somnambulist bishop reciting the Athanasian Creed. It’s become one of Harriet’s tools for submergence, has sex; it takes her to some depth of consciousness far from the surface of her life. The pornologue’s mantric (as is the Athanasian Creed, for that matter) sucking her down to a level of herself where no questions are asked, where her history evaporates, where her self bleeds painlessly into the void.

And though I kept shtum myself, there was no denying the effect of such saucy language on Gunn’s tackle. Even from Harriet’s passionless lips they effected a startling transformation. (And ferried in the memory that Penelope couldn’t, simply could not talk dirty without cracking-up; whereas Violet’s dyspepsia lurks so close to the surface that in a few heady encounters it’s come out in a mild dominatrix shtick that’s had Gunn spunking like a hound-dog.) It’s been that way for him ever since he learned to read. Indeed, his childhood proficiency as a reader was driven almost exclusively by desire for the sexual knowledge books contained. Even as an adult his balls tingle at fuschia, fucivorous, cunning, cuneiform, cochlea and cockatoo – for no better reason than that they’re dictionary neighbours to fuck, cunt and cock. An absurd way for a grown man to behave, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Harriet looked sad as hell when it was all over. Sad as hell that it was all over. Sad as hell that time had started again, with its all ticks and all its tocks, all its excruciating reminders of who she was, where she’d been, what she’d done, and where, in the end, she was going.

‘You’re worried about going to Hell,’ I said to her, flexing Gunn’s breasts (I almost typed ’pecs’, but I don’t want to insult you) in front of the mirror, whilst smoking a cigarette. ‘Don’t be. I’ve made some changes down there. All that fire and brimstone, all that agony? History. No point. Plus, my fuel bills... I’m kidding. But seriously, can you give me one good reason why I should waste my time making my guests suffer? This whole . . . this whole line about me making souls suffer – it’s so stupid.’

‘Please stop talking.’

‘My feeling is, hey, mi casa su casa. As long as you’re not with the Old Man upstairs, my job’s done. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be civilized about it. No reason we shouldn’t be comfortable.’

‘It’s a nice gimmick, darling, but one needs to know when to stop.’

‘No one gets it. Which do you think would annoy Him more? Souls in Hell suffering and wishing they’d been Good? Or souls in Hell partying and thinking, ‘Thank fuck I didn’t bother with all that morally sound behaviour crap?’ You see the logic, surely?’

‘There’s no comfort in logic,’ Harriet said, picking up the phone and punching the stud for Room Service. ‘Suite 419. Bollinger. Three. No. I don’t give a fuck.’

Click. Wealth’s economical idiom. Not needing to say please or thank you. If parents hadn’t scolded their children for forgetting please and thank you, I’d never have got capitalism off the ground.

‘Harriet,’ I said. ‘I feel like a million bucks. Why don’t you let me pitch you a story?’

She rolled over onto her belly and let one arm hang over the edge of the bed. Her hair was a mad old lady catastrophe, now. Astounding: looking at the elderly elbow, the troubled capillaries of the wrist, I felt Gunn’s bollock blood thickening again. Who’d a thunkit? All Vi’s charms on offer and I can’t raise an eyebrow. Then Harriet, who – ah, the penny drops – is the age his mother would’ve been if she hadn’t croaked . . .

‘There’s no point,’ Harriet said. ‘I’ll have heard it before. The world ran out of stories centuries ago.’

‘I couldn’t agree with you more, Harriet,’ I said, lighting a fresh Silk Cut off the butt of the one I’d just smoked down to the cork. ‘I couldn’t agree with you more. And this story, let me tell you, this story’s the oldest story of ’em all. . .’

The story of my – ahem – downfall.

Hoooo . . . mamma what a downfall that was. I’d go so far as to say there’s never been another like it. Semyaza, Sammael, Azazel, Ariel, Ramiel . . . from Heaven’s lip they pitched and flared in radiant rebellion. Mulciber, Thammuz, Appollonya, Carnivean, Turel . . . one by one a third of Paradise yanked into the void on the leash of my charisma. Somewhere on the way down I realised what I’d done. It. . . ah . . . hit me. You know what I thought? I thought: Oh. Fuck. Fucking . . . hell. Apposite, really, come to think of it. But I’m getting ahead of myself . . .

Central conflict, obviously, my tiff with Junior. God the Son, to give Him His full title. Jumping Jesus Arthur Christ. Jimmeny Christmas. Number One Son. Sonny.

Where do I begin? The regrettable goatee? The humour-lessness? The Oedipal transference? The anorexia? He cast seven of my best friends out of Mary Magdalene and enjoyed every minute of it. Not that I blame Him. The Magdalene was a piece of ass even after her conversion; writhing around mid-exorcism like that she looked . . . Well. I’ve got it on DVD. We’ll splice some footage into the film.

I’d long wondered about the Son. When GodVoid had created us to prise God from Void He had self-revealed a tripartite nature, a 3-for-1 deal that rocked the entire non-world of ontology. I’m not sure it didn’t come as a bit of a shock even to Him, to discover not only that He was the Supreme Being, but that He’d had a kid and a ghostly PR officer all this non-time without even knowing it. He’d missed the best non-years, too, apparently – the milk-teeth, the evening bath, the bedtime story – since it was apparent that Junior was all