Love Is the Law Read Online Free PDF Page B

me away. Greg was a skinny guy, but boys have good upper body strength. That ’ s what I was expecting, of course, so when he pushed me off of him, I took the skin between my teeth with me. He covered up, curled into a ball, and howled. I spit out what was in my mouth and scrambled to my feet, ready to kick in his ribs if he found some courage and came at me. But Greg had nothing but a faceful of pain that wouldn ’ t go away. The flesh around the mouth is full of nerves, and germs, but I made sure not to bite him so hard that he ’ d lose consciousness or go numb. He needed every moment, and every moment needed to stretch.
    “There ’ s some Satan for you, asshole!” I said. “That ’ s what I owed you. So forget about going to the police or your parents or anything. Anyone asks you, you were bitten by a wild dog. Anyone asks me, you tried to rape me and I defended myself. Then your ugly face gets in all the papers, and your parents get to pay for an AIDS test for me. I have use for you, so here ’ s what I ’ m going to do—I ’ m going to rush to the very next house and beg them to call an ambulance. And you ’ ll get some stitches and you ’ ll be okay. Enjoy the rabies shots, by the way. I ’ m told it ’ s only seven long needles now, not forty shots in the belly like it used to be.”
    Then I ran, like I said I would, and called back over my shoulder, “Leave the painting behind the shed in your yard. I ’ ll pick it up later!”

6.
    Bernstein had promised me that he would do something that worked. I’d challenged him in the ways I now know are typical of idiot seekers. “If you’re such a powerful magician, how come you’re not rich?” I demanded to know, though most of my spending money came from him, and I certainly had never seen him put on a suit and go to work for it. Like the fancy old ladies who never bought hats, but just had them, Bernstein always just had whatever amount of money he needed. He just laughed and told me that most Marxists who take it seriously—“and who aren’t in a political cult”—end up rich sooner or later. “We understand capitalism so much better than anyone else, after all.”
    “All right. Can you make people do things they wouldn ’ t normally do?” I asked, from between his pasty thighs. I didn ’ t even make eye contact with him when I sucked him off, because he didn ’ t like that. His leg hair tickled me. But it doesn ’ t take magick to be richer than a high school kid, or to get a girl to suck a dick. Crowley’s definition— Magic is the Science and Art of causing change to occur in accordance with the Will —sounded to me like a cop-out, and I said as much. Any eight-year-old learning to play the piano is a magician, then.
    Bernstein nodded, and hrmmed sonorously. I suppose chatting during cock-sucking breaks was my way of establishing some independence. “Many people would now feed you a line about quantum entanglement or some other scientific theory they don’t understand. I certainly don’t understand quantum mechanics, or any more physics than it takes to ride a teeter-totter successfully or set a kettle of tea to boil.
    “But I am a materialist, Amaranth.” He still occasionally called me Amaranth, which always felt like a subtle bit of mockery and affection simultaneously. “The world is matter in motion and nothing else. The mystic sees the world as an illusion—but the magician must see reality square in the face.” He tapped me on the shoulder. I could stop tonguing his balls, I guessed.
    “If you want to see something real, come with me,” he said. He pulled up his pants and went to the small wardrobe next to the television. A few minutes later we were out back. He had turned off the lights and the television, and we were far enough from both the other houses and the road that the woods were dark. Bernstein had thrown on a churchy-looking robe and held a thin lance in his hand. He drew a circle around us, then another,