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There’s only room for two, but they make it fit three. Venus. Jupiter. Neptune. And the top bunk of the cabin time forgot. Curled into one anothers bodies, temporarily resumed form. They are breathing quietly. No scouts have found this part of the woods; they tried, but fell back at the barrier. It’s a wall twenty feet high, like frosted glass or Sprite slushies or the transparent way some people’s skin shows the color of their knucklebones.
Jupiter’s on the edge of the bed, back braced against the rail, arms curled over her chest. She still believes in being good; clothes make it safe, she thinks, safe enough to touch skin and not feel alarmed. Under her jacket she’s sweating. August in an unconditioned cabin heats up when the sun rises. Neptune slides a hand across Venus, who’s asleep in the middle, and snaps the band on Jupiter’s wrist.
“Stop it.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
Neptune pops the band again, a line forming between her eyebrows. “If you’re going to be bad, you need to commit. Put your full cunt into it, or I’m leaving you in the lake with all the other freakazoids who wanted to stay normal.”
The word cunt makes Jupiter flinch. It’s not—it’s not like swearing offends her, but. There’s a difference between yelling fuck and the way Neptune says cunt, forceful, like it’s a hex she’s casting into the overwarm air. It makes you sit up and pay attention. Makes Jupiter overly aware of how they’re three bodies on one too narrow bed radiating heat into one another. Trading oxygen and carbon dioxide between their lungs.
Long tendrils of sunlight peep through the narrow windows at the top of the cabin’s walls. Two hours of sleep means Jupiter and Neptune look rough, worn down to the bone. Venus is an angel between them. It should feel filthier being next to him her but it’s Neptune who makes Jupiter shiver. Like a pool of unimaginable filth. Like that bottle of whatever shit they drank that’s making her head pound with every new ray of light.
When Neptune reaches up and begins unbuttoning her shirt Jupiter squeezes her eyes closed like if she can’t see it then it’s not there. They almost wanted to, almost did, and it’d have been so easy to say it was a drunken accident. She cracks one eye open. Neptune’s shirt gets tossed across her face.
“It’s too hot.”
Jupiter doesn’t try to remove the shirt. It’s like a blindfold, or a tent for her head. Safe. “We can go in the lake later.” Stupid of her to mention it. Swimming means skin on display. She snaps her hair tie, which has returned to her wrist. Have to get away from that kind of thing.
“I’d dissolve. Like the Wicked Witch of the West, haha. Melt away until there’s no evil left and you can go on with your happy little life. As if you can go back. I saw what you are.”
“We can change—”
“—you can’t. You just fucking can’t. If people change so easily, then why do they always go back?”
“Because you can’t outrun gravity,” Venus says. “Good morning.”
She uncovers Jupiter’s face and strokes her on the cheek. It’s hard to describe what Venus looks like now. Mostly blurry. Lots of eyes. She can’t hold on to her human form—and why would she want to? Feathers touch the inside of Jupiter’s wrist, and the hair tie snaps at the hard plastic glue point. Its sad form drops off the side of the bed and to the braided rag rug below. Where the band once sat there’s a red welt. Jupiter squeezes it, then rubs, harder and harder, until the pain is worse than any sting.
“That was totally rude of you,” Jupiter mutters. “So not cool, Venus. That was my favorite. What if I wanted to tie my hair back? Or like, if it was a survival situation or something?”
“We can take care of each other.”
“But we. I mean, I don’t. Whatever. It’s cool.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe you,” Neptune says. Venus’ wings are cradling her now, and she’s got her arms at her sides. Jupiter sees the tops of her breasts. She digs her nails into her arm and pulls.
It’s hard to stay away from trying to be good, even when you’ve already been the Devil once. It’s so hard. Jupiter is dissolving at the edges into every kind of hand even as she shoves herself further from them. They're asking her to be touched, in ways that are kind, and it’s an indescribable chasm of want and fear that stretches from her to them across those three inches of mattress. Of course, when Eve left the garden and saw the barren fields, she must have wanted to turn back too. Repent and beg on her knees before the gates so she wouldn't have to labor in pain over the unforgiving earth.
“God won’t grant you forgiveness.” Neptune is liquid in response to Jupiter, variable, able to fill wherever she’s needed. “God hates us because we said we’d never fight his bullshit war again. But he can’t touch us.”
"He can't touch us," Venus agrees. "And he can't punish us unless you let him in. We'll stop you if you try."
"You're never going to be the best girl again."
"Life's better this way. Holding and touching."
At the word touch Jupiter spasms. “I want it,” she sobs. “I want it and I want it to hurt until it feels good and I want it to be you and I want it to be Venus and I don’t want to think about it.”
“You have to say yes,” Venus says, “and we have to have more room.”
All three of them make their way to the floor. The garden was hard to leave, but the Devil makes even heavy burdens light. Plants grow across the cabin roof, break through the windows and slip under the door. Wisteria blossoms explode into lavender profusions. Nodding violets edge the walls. In the beams above their heads bloom fuchsias and coral bells.
“It’s like the cabin before,” Jupiter whispers, still astonished by the gifts of the Devil. Her head is cushioned by soft moss. They have no need for the sun. Here Neptune flows and Venus shines; they are an ecosystem, an entire Earth.
“No mistakes. And no more pain.”
Jupiter puts her hand on the top button of Venus’ shirt. “You’ve changed.”
“I was remade.”
When her shirt falls away there are breasts, small ones, and Jupiter’s mind breaks when Venus takes her hands and places them firmly over top, eyes aglow. Her wings can span mountains; instead, they stay confined to the room. She makes a pleased noise when Jupiter squeezes.
“A little harder,” and then: “Ow, ow, less hard. That’s good.”
Oil slick Neptune undoes her bra and takes others of Jupiter’s hands. There are more and more now, ones for kissing, ones for holding, ones for pinching nipples and others for feeling the weight of breasts in their palms. Venus catches the fingers of two between her lips and sucks on them.
“Please,” Jupiter begs, without knowing what she’s begging for.
In ancient times humans came from the ocean. Once they did not fear water, but dry unmoving land, the awfulness of thirsting to death. You cannot enact law or boundaries on the sea, or even keep her from eroding all land she touches. At the end of time, she wins.
Jupiter opens her legs for the ocean, for Neptune’s wet fingers on her thighs and stomach and ass. Her head is supported by Venus’ wings. They are making eye contact through a million stained pieces of glass. Jupiter kisses one of many mouths, gasping to breathe as Neptune trickles inside her.
Venus’ new body has its own delta, and Jupiter has hands for squeezing and rubbing over clothes. She wants Venus to show her how, but not even Venus knows, and so they both are trying to find which fingers and what wrist feels best. Lights flicker on the wisteria above.
“I’m going to fill you up,” Neptune says. “I’m going to make you scream and then sit on your face. I’m going to make you come so hard you forget being human.”
“What about you?” Venus asks. “What do you want us to do for you?”
The waters stand still for a moment, thinking.
“Ask nicely.”
There is a place to want and a place to be wanted; a place to bloom and a place to seed. Neptune is a thrashing storm inside Jupiter, who spreads her arms out to the skies and asks for rain. Her entire body is wet: sweat, tears, slick. Neptune is making a fist inside her, a thick club, two spreading tails. Water is hard as stone when it wants, or softening and shapeless.
“You like my hand? You like my hand up your cunt? You’re such a fucking slut.”
“Slut,” Jupiter agrees, crying too hard to continue. It’s a good cry, like rain falling in a thunderstorm after it’s been baking for a week and even the weeds have turned brown.
What’s left of Jupiter’s focus is still touching Venus, who curls in on herself, wings fanning her face. First time in a new body, and she presses her forehead to Neptune’s cool one for respite. It feels like a star’s furnace. Like nothing ever did in her old form. Neptune is steaming where their heads are touching, but she doesn’t mind; tendrils of herself drape over Venus’ neck like a wet rag.
“Please,” Venus asks.
“You two are so polite.”
Neptune doesn’t say yes, and they both want to be good—not good in the way the camp counselors and their parents want but good in the way Neptune wants. Because the path of good she’s leading them down is all the ways to love and juicy slices of fruit falling from wet mouths. Because there’s a wet seep between her legs every time they beg, scented like salty water. The tide’s coming in.
Jupiter howls when she clamps down on Neptune’s hand and squirts, clit untouched.
“Let Venus,” she gasps. “She’s holding me so good, let her.”
“You’re the one touching her.”
“But you have to let her.”
“Please,” Venus says. “Please, Neptune, let me come. I’ll let you hold me down and pull on my hair and call me a whore.”
“It’s worse if I’m nice. Jupiter. Get Venus off because she’s a good girl.”
At the words Venus flutters her wings and sends all the flowers swaying. Some eyes drip golden tears, while other eyes squeeze shut. She wants to argue against the praise, but she also wants Neptune to consider her good, and the orgasm isn’t stopping.
“Thank you,” she says, and gets close to the ground, moves her head up Neptune’s skirt. Jupiter is there too. They fight to get at Neptune’s clit, sloppily make out in front of it, pass spit and come and ichor between their mouths. Neptune pats both of their heads. She is poorly defined now, a non-Newtonian fluid, solid under their tongues and flowing down their backs. Jupiter’s hands cup differently colored puddles of blue-black.
“You love this, you slut,” Neptune says to her left. “You’re perfect, keep going,” she says to her right. The tone of voice is the same. A high tide and a low tide are both of water. They get her off three times, and only stop because she’s too sensitive, shoving their heads away with columns of water.
The mid-morning sun which shines on their exhausted bodies was created by God but still serves the Devil, who always wins at the end of time and love. Venus cradles them in feathers while Jupiter flexes bands of iron at all the points which need to be secure. Neptune is asleep again. Their barrier wall holds strong. All is well in the garden.