LILITH› I don’t know.
MAXWELL› How many had you?
LILITH› I don’t KNOW! Some got in line two or three times.
MAXWELL› And what was it like?
LILITH› Horrible.
MAXWELL› What was it _like_, Lilith?
LILITH› Like drowning. Like they were holding my head under water. I couldn’t… fight. They were too strong.
MAXWELL› Did you call out for help?
LILITH› Yes.
MAXWELL› To whom? Your mother?
LILITH› No. If my mother had seen me that way I would have killed myself.
MAXWELL› Your father?
LILITH› My father was dead. There was no one.
MAXWELL› The police?
LILITH› I didn’t report it.
MAXWELL› You couldn’t, could you? You’d agreed to have sex with more than one man. At what point did it become rape?
LILITH› I knew that’s how a cop would see it. How men would see it.
MAXWELL› Women too, Lilith. Women are far more cruel judges of female character than men, I assure you.
LILITH› You don’t have to tell me that. But I meant what I said before about how it changed me. At some point during the thing, I just rose above it all. Like I died and rose ten feet above the bed and hovered there, and saw myself being humped by these brainless bastards.
MAXWELL› How did you feel about them?
LILITH› I didn’t feel anything. I saw them like a pack of wolves. Biological jello in the evolutionary chain. Consciously, they were just animals trying to show off to each other. Unconsciously they were trying to spread their genes. I just thank God I didn’t get pregnant from it. I might have killed myself.
MAXWELL› You talk a lot about killing yourself.
LILITH› I used to think about it a lot. Before that night, anyway. Like after a date when I had let a guy screw me, and then he wouldn’t call. That kind of purgatory feeling when all the other girls are out with their boyfriends, and you know they’re holding out for that letter jacket or that pin or that wedding ring, “Oh no, Jimmy, not there, not yet, just on the outside of my panties. I’m so sorry, sweetie. I can help you though, I’ll just use my hand, okay?”
MAXWELL› It sounds like you’ve been there yourself.
LILITH› Guys have told me that stuff.
MAXWELL› And you never held out for anything?
LILITH› Not back then. I dropped my panties for any good-looking guy with a hard- on.
MAXWELL› And now?
LILITH› I still don’t “hold out.” Because someone who holds out is on the defensive. I’m not on the defensive anymore.
MAXWELL› No?
LILITH› No. I fight for what I want, and I get it. I’ll bet I make more money than any of those idiot jocks who raped me.
MAXWELL› I wouldn’t be surprised, Lilith. There’s just one thing I want to know.
LILITH› My address, right? Or what color is my pubic hair? Christ, you’re all alike.
MAXWELL› Not at all. I would like to know what you’re doing on EROS.
I am praying Lenz will reply quickly, but the next voice that speaks is not his.
MAXWELL› It doesn’t seem to me that someone who has experienced what you say you have, and grown spiritually from it, would be spending time on a sexual on-line service. N’est-ce pas?
LILITH› I’m not a sexual being anymore? Is that your point? Maybe you’ll figure it out eventually. Maybe you’ll see me again here. Maybe you won’t.
MAXWELL› I’m sure I will.
LILITH› I have a question for you, Max.
MAXWELL› Yes?
LILITH› How long is your cock?
MAXWELL› I shall not dignify that.
LILITH› I mean it. I like them thick at the bottom. Think you can follow fifteen guys in one night?
MAXWELL› Not to my taste, thank you. I’m a fastidious man.
LILITH› You’re a liar. I’ll bet you’re playing with yourself right now.
MAXWELL› You’re a hostile person, Lilith. Where did all that rage begin?
LILITH› You’ll never know.
MAXWELL› Someday I shall. Tell me, did you climax at any time during this forced bacchanal?
LILITH› I’ve never had a climax with a man in my life.
MAXWELL› What about masturbation?
LILITH› When I was very young. Not later.
MAXWELL› But you experienced some heightened state on that night.
LILITH› That night? I told you. It was… an elevated awareness. Like the more animalistic the situation got, the less individual I was, the less guilt I had, the less I had to worry about anything. Beyond some point, I knew nothing was my fault. And the men seemed almost in some kind of trance state. Like a frenzy. Something about their madness-it was a sexual madness, I think-passed into me somehow, like I was just a vessel for their anger and their fear.
MAXWELL› Why do you say fear?
LILITH› That’s what I felt, I guess. That underneath all their thrusting and heaving was some kind of awful terror, something they were running away from, something… worse than anything in the world.
MAXWELL› Death?
LILITH› Worse than that. And the harder they tried to come, the closer that thing was getting to them. It was insane, really. I’m not sure I could live through it again.
MAXWELL› What do you mean?
LILITH› I think my heart might stop. Or just explode. I would probably kill one of them or die myself.
MAXWELL› That was the next natural step wasn’t it, Lilith? Death? From this sexual frenzy to death?
LILITH› I suppose it was. Violence was all over that room.
MAXWELL› Did you ever feel, while it was going on, that the young men might kill you?
LILITH› I don’t know. I was scared. Scared enough to help them finish. I mean, I didn’t just lie there. I figured the faster I moved, the faster they’d finish and the safer I’d be.
MAXWELL› You were frightened that they’d hurt you?
LILITH› They _were_ hurting me. You asked if I was scared they’d kill me.
MAXWELL› And?
LILITH› No. They weren’t… at that level, you know? They were like, these suburban white guys. There were moments when they’d all… like realize what they were doing, that it was a crime or whatever. I think it was only the fact that they were all together that gave them the guts to keep going. Individually, they’d never really crossed the line.
