Ayer Sells had loomed large on this corner for twenty years. He’d stood here, and told them in the boldest language he could how they were all headed for hell, how they would be scorched and forever smelling themselves burning, only they would never be burned up, how they’d crawl into themselves for escape and only find more hell there; damnation was their rightful wage, Ayer Sells shouted, and Jesus would pick them up by their heads like they was nothing more than berries and dangle them there, letting their own sins lick the soles of their feet. Ayer Sells was sure of it; God had shown him, the same way God had shown him that he was to stand here twice a week, Thursdays and Sundays, and shout the message.
Once, a child had listened to him; she had managed to detach herself from her mother and had stood there, a little toe-headed girl, her hair in pig-tails and her heart just the right age for picking out early from the path of damnation. He saw in her eyes where she lived; a whore's den, an adder's nest. She’d listened for half a minute before she ran away screaming, and Ayer shouted after her, “That’s right, honey! Weep for your soul! Weep for your soul, and perhaps God will pluck you out with his fingers from the furnace, pluck you right out with the smell of ash on you while the rest of your generation burns! Weep, child! Weep!”
And now, Ayer Sells was face to face with a prostitute. He knew she was one because he’d seen her walking these same streets every Thursday, sometimes climbing into the cars of men and even women. From a distance, Ayer had made himself watch so he could spell her sins out for her, so he could show her exactly why she would burn in eternal damnation.
Nearly the entire expanse of her breasts were showing from beneath her top. He was sure if she bent over he would see her private places, her fornication places. Those places visited by men who, in surrendering to their lusts, were little more than amorphous, bestial entities.
“Listen, you cook,” she said, “You can go to hell, you got that?" She went to leave; the day seemed red around her, the air thick as though to stop her from leaving him. It was God, it was God, and, I'll be damned myself if I let her leave.
Ayer Sells leapt forward off of the edge of the sidewalk and caught her by her arm. He caught her as firmly as she was caught by her fornication; he squeezed her arm, tightly, and forced her to look him in the eye.
"You leave, and you're the one going to hell, Whore," Ayer Sells said. Whore was her name, but God wanted to scour her until her pale skin was red, but clean, and dress her with a new name-- one that covered up her shame, her breasts, the long length of her legs showing.
"My name's Dana, not whore, you ancient bastard," the prostitute snarled. Then, she left Ayer Sells, his head hung, the faint smell of smoke tickling his nostrils. Nowadays, he did not smell much in the city as he had used to-- he did not smell, for instance, the Greek restaurant across the street, or the stench of a thousand bodies mingling in close contact, some washed, some unwashed, nearly all passing through earth on their way to Hell. He smelled the smoke that clung to them, and sometimes, on Thursday nights and Saturday nights, he would stand in the shower, the water so hot that the steam lingered around him, purging himself of their presence.
The evening afterward, Ayer Sells stood on this street to watch her. She climbed into the back of a limousine that was opened for her by the customer; he wore a white shirt, with a stain down the front, his face unshaven, his eyes red and rolling, his countenance warped by conduct. Dana leaned forward and whispered something in his ear; Ayer saw his face, saw him grin like the Devil did, lascivious, godless. They climbed into the limousine. The window rolled down, not enough to see, but enough that Ayer fancied he could hear them as they settled down across the leather seat. He thought he heard the rustle of clothing being discarded. He was sure he heard the grunts that began to follow. Those were the grunts of animals rutting.
Fifteen minutes later, Dana crawled out of the limousine. It was dusk, and she crawled out naked, her clothes in her hands, a ghost hung suspended between two worlds. She looked at him. She looked passed him. Her movements were awkward, fumbled, rehearsed. Dana did not seem to notice him.
“You need a place to stay? Just for the night, I mean.” The words were not his words, he knew, but he said them, and his voice hung roughly in the air.
Dana nodded.
“Sure,” she said. “Why the hell not. What's the difference between bastards anyway. But you keep your filthy hands off me, you see, because I'm not working any more tonight, and I swear if you do anything I'll find a knife and chop your balls off, see if I don't.”
Dana's shoulders were straight. He thought, in that moment, that the only woman who had ever carried herself with such sureness was the Virgin Mary as she nursed the Christ child at her holy breasts. He thought, in that moment, breasts are like two fawns and between your thighs lies a mound of wheat bordered with lillies. and he was not sure if the night sky, rounded as it was and set against his shoulders, was not the reason why he walked bent over now. He, Ayer Sells was an amorphous creature; he thought that, behind his ribs, in the dark cradle of his chest, Solomon's heart beated. He felt himself breathing out twenty years, and he felt himself breathing them back in again, the moment passed and the night unchanged around him.
Yeah, that was definitely a huge portion of what I was trying to get across. So glad you enjoyed this then