Joby haltingly explained his budding romance with Laura, and his anxiety about having a girlfriend without being tempted to impure thoughts and actions.

"Joby," Father Richter said when his confession had exhausted itself, "you are a good boy. I know how your heart burns for God, so I will not trouble you with unnecessary admonitions. God does not hate the gift of sexuality. He made it after all, and wants us to enjoy it fully in marriage. It is the devil who hates God's gifts, and wants to see us destroy them through misuse. As I see it, the problem is one of ownership. Anything we own can be used against us by the devil, because he's so much more powerful and clever than we are. But the devil can use nothing that God owns, because God is more powerful than he is. We all desperately want to own our bodies, Joby, but if we let God own them instead, then the devil can never use them against us again. Do you see?"

"I guess," Joby said. "But how do I let God own my body?"

"Every time you are tempted, Joby, just remember that God wants you to sacrifice your sexuality to Him, so that He can give it back to you later, in marriage, immeasurably improved. Every time you put your own desires to death, you can take comfort and courage in the expectation of some even greater pleasure after marriage, when God returns what you have given Him, multiplied many times over."

"Does that mean . . . Should I give up dating Laura then?" Joby asked apprehensively. "Sacrifice it, like you said?"

"Absolutely not," Father Richter replied sternly. "She must be a very special girl to have won the affections of such a fine young man." He smiled. "The thing to do, Joby, is devote yourself to learning how to love her, instead of lusting after her. That way, if you are ever married, the difficult part will all be done, and the easy part will merely complete your joy together."

Joby was filled with relief. Laura had always mattered to him, always made him feel proud-of her and of himself. Perhaps . . . perhaps they really would be married someday. The thought set everything within him singing.

"Thank you, Father." Joby beamed. "I feel much better now."

Father Richter grinned. "Your purity and devotion to the faith are an example to everyone." He leaned forward to pat Joby's shoulder. "I'm proud of you, Joby."

Never one to cut corners, especially with God, Joby still resolved, as he left the church, that he would learn to wake up if he had any more of those dreams. He still wanted God to know that there was nothing for which he would ever renounce Him, not the smallest piece of bread or the greatest pleasure.

Williamson hovered like a chill at Joby's back as the boy finished overdressing for Lindwald's party. Getting Joby to attend at all had proven harder than prying hallelujahs from Hell. They'd already had to postpone the event twice. Lindwald had always taken pains to arrange things so that Laura couldn't come, of course, but Joby hadn't wanted to go without her. Ironically, that snag had finally been resolved by Laura's own well-meaning insistence that Joby start developing a more independent social life. Even then, weeks of persistent pressure from both Lindwald and Mayhew had been required to convince Joby he'd have any fun with a bunch of people he didn't know. And getting past Joby's mother had taken a performance by Lindwald's young henchman, Johnny Mayhew, worthy of Eddie Haskell at his smarmy worst.

Williamson had to concede that this evening might actually be amusing. Only half the guests would be human. Joby would finally come face to face with the very demons who'd been tormenting him for years-though he'd not know it, of course. Malcephalon would be there disguised as a young Goth pseudo-poet; Tique, Trephila, and Eurodia as a rudely attired skate punk, a teenage wannabe gypsy, and a slutty cheerleader. Kallaystra was scheduled to show up later as the femme fatale. Even Lindwald's so-called parents, supposedly out of town for this party, would actually be attending as a wiry skin-head and a preppy teenage lush.

After all these years, Williamson thought with the ghost of a smile, finally something fun.

Forbidden to enter any teen-driven car, Joby was forced to ride his bike to Jamie's party. He'd forgotten how bad the neighborhood was. After chaining up his bike, he headed toward the front door and knocked, but the music was so loud that no one heard him, so he pushed the door open for himself.

Throbbing heavy metal and dense, acrid smoke drifted past him through the opening, as if desperate, themselves, to flee toward fresher air. The shades were drawn, and all the normal lightbulbs replaced with red, blue, or green ones, turning complexions lurid, and filling the room with shadows, though it would be light outside for hours yet. Joby's first impulse was to leave, but Lindwald suddenly appeared wearing a wide, slightly bleary grin.

"Hey, Joby! All right!" He threw an arm across Joby's back, and ushered him deeper into the house. "I was afraid you weren't gonna show! Wanna beer? A cigarette?"

Joby stared at him incredulously. This was not at all what he or Mayhew had led him to expect. "Jamie . . . I . . . I can only stay a little while. I-"

Jamie hooked his arm around Joby's neck, pulling their heads close enough to talk more quietly. "Look, Joby. Don't freak out, okay? I know you're new at this, but that's why I worked so hard to get you here. You'd be a lot more popular if you weren't so uptight." He gave Joby a conspiratorial grin and a good-natured thump on the back. "Just loosen up a little and hang out. That's all I'm sayin'."

Before Joby could answer, Johnny Mayhew popped up with a slutty-looking brunette under one arm, and a beer in his hand. "Joby!" He smiled. "Glad yer finally steppin' up to the plate, dude! The drinks are in there." He pointed at the red-lit kitchen doorway. "Grab yourself some brew!"

"Is there anything nonalcoholic?" Joby asked.

"What?" Jamie smiled, cupping his ears to hear over the music.

"I said, is there anything besides beer?" Joby yelled, just as the song ended, so that everyone turned to look.

"Oh. . . . Sure," Jamie said, glancing self-consciously around them. "There's vodka, rum, schnapps, whatever you want, bud. Come on." Jamie pulled him toward the kitchen as the music started up again: gangster rap this time, which was quieter at least. In the kitchen, Jamie pulled Joby aside, and said, "Look. Joby. Just be cool. You embarrass yourself here, you embarrass me, okay?"

"Jamie, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I don't think-"

"Just take a soda," Lindwald said, grabbing a 7 Up off the counter and thrusting it into Joby's hand, "and I'll introduce you around. Give it a try, Joby. They're people too, ya know. Just be friendly, and you'll have a great time."

Soda in hand, Joby followed Jamie back into the crowded living room, where they were enthusiastically assaulted by a skater and his gypsyish girlfriend.

"Gonna be a rager, bra!" shouted the skater, slamming Jamie an exuberant high five while his girlfriend threw herself around their host in a wild embrace.

"Damn straight, Skat!" Jamie shouted back. "Hey you guys, this is Joby."

Joby was shifting his soda around to shake Skat's hand, when Skat launched another of his mad high fives, knocking the can out of his grip to gush its contents over Joby as it fell, leaving a dark stain down one leg of his khaki slacks.

"Whoa! Sorry, bra." Skat grinned. "You better clean that up. Look's like you pissed yerself." His girlfriend laughed uproariously. "Hey, Jamie! Where's the juice?"

Jamie nodded toward the kitchen, then surveyed Joby's new look with a grimace. "Come on. The bathroom's upstairs."

As Jamie led him toward the staircase, Joby realized for the first time how horribly wrong his clothes were, soaked in 7 Up or not. He'd dressed for a party while everyone else there was dressed for Halloween or heavy yard work. What a geek I am, he thought just as Johnny and his girl popped up again.

"Nice look, Joby," Mayhew scoffed. "Can't even hold yer soda, huh?"

"Back off, Mayhew," Jamie growled.

Mayhew shrugged, and vanished back into the swirl of partyers.

The upstairs landing was blocked by an entourage of dark-clad girls surrounding a teenage boy with thin hungry features, dark eyes, and black hennaed hair. His long coat, heavy sweater, and ragged jeans were all black as well, right down to his battered steel-toed boots. He sat in a cloud of pot smoke, a joint hanging loosely from one hand.

"Out of the way," Jamie gibed. "Wounded comin' through."

The vampiric crowd scrunched aside enough to let them by.

"That's who you should meet," Jamie said, when they'd gotten to the bathroom. "Seth's got a brain, unlike Skat 'n' Anna down there. I bet you guys would totally relate. When yer cleaned up, just introduce yourself and hang out up here for a while."

Joby nodded, relieved at any excuse not to go back into the full melee downstairs.

Unable to do much with the towel Jamie had given him but spread the dampness around, Joby finally gave up and left the bathroom. Back out on the landing, he found Seth reading poetry from a crumpled piece of binder paper. Not wanting to interrupt, Joby waited politely to squeeze past them.

" . . . And since these things are bound to die," Seth intoned, continuing: "Why drag their corpses after you?

Surrender them.

The looming shadow we call death

is only freedom after all,

backlit by the sun."

Seth folded up the crumpled sheet, and stuffed it into a coat pocket.

"That was sooo cool," sighed one of his female entourage.

"Yeah," cooed another. "I loved the part about the night eating the moon." She looked at Joby, and asked, "Wasn't it beautiful?"

"I-um-I only heard the last bit," he said, "but it was pretty interesting." He thrust his hand out to Seth. "My name's Joby."

"Seth," the poet answered, ignoring his hand, but waving him to sit and join them. "I've never seen you at Jamie's parties."

"No," Joby conceded, sitting down. "I . . . Jamie just invited me this time. I'm . . . I'm kind of out of my league here, I think."

"Honesty!" Seth mused. "How refreshing! Jamie's taste in friends must be improving." He offered his joint to Joby, but Joby shyly refused.

"You're cute," said one of the girls, smiling, her lips blackened, her eyes heavily lined in mascara. "Your girlfriend here too?"

"She couldn't come," Joby said, unnerved by the calculating smile this elicited.

"Ah, so you're lonely," Seth commiserated. "Loneliness can make you wise, you know. Wiser than those morons downstairs."

"Yeah," one of the girls concurred mournfully.

"Wise and free," Seth said. The others all nodded gravely, as he took another hit off his joint. "It's the things we love that destroy us in the end," he grunted, holding in the smoke.

"That is soooo true," gushed one of the girls.

Joby's head felt strange. He suspected it was the smoke, and decided to brave the downstairs crowd again after all. "I'm kind of thirsty," he said, standing up. He looked sheepishly at his slacks. "I didn't get much of that first drink. I guess I'll go try again." He stepped across the bunch of them, and started down the stairs.

The music had gotten loud and fast again, and everyone was hurling about in some kind of mad slamming dance. Joby was trying to find Jamie in the crowd when someone ran into him from behind and sent him flying onto an end table beside the couch. The lamp sitting on it crashed to the floor in a burst of broken glass and laughter from all around him. Joby sat up to find the tall skinhead who'd run into him still gyrating to the music and leering at his half-drunken partner as if nothing had happened. Feeling honor bound to apologize for the lamp before he left, Joby got carefully to his feet to continue his search for Jamie. That's when he saw her.

Her sequined, knee-length dress seemed to catch all the light in the room, as if she were a bright silver fish darting through a fetid pool. She glanced at him suddenly, as if aware of his attention despite the chaotic crowd between them.

Forgetting to look where he was walking, he ran straight into someone large, and found himself belly to belly with Bobby Boggs, a senior lineman on the football team.

"What'er you, a faggot?!" the beefy giant bellowed. Then he recognized Joby, and laughed. "Joby Peterson! At a party? Didja wander in here lookin' fer a gay bar, ya little squid?"

The music stopped abruptly as Bobby shoved Joby roughly away and opened his mouth to humiliate him some more. But, suddenly, the angel in silver sequins was standing between them, frowning up at Boggs.

"We haven't met," she coyly told Bobby, "but I thought someone ought to tell you that you smell."

Bobby leered down at her, beginning to smile. "Maybe I should take a shower then. You wanna help?"

"I don't think a shower will do it," the girl said, wrinkling her nose. "What is that, rotten hamburger?"

Suddenly, Joby smelled it too. From the gasps and rude exclamations around them, it seemed that everyone had noticed. Even Bobby's face crinkled in distaste, then he looked surprised and, without seeming to think, raised an arm and sniffed his own armpit.

"What the fuck?" he said, looking up in shocked mortification.

"You know," cooed the sparkling girl, "I'd stay on ice if that's how you smell when you heat up." To Joby's amazement, she turned briefly and flashed him a conspiratorial smile, then looked back up at Bobby and said with sexy ease, "By the way, Joby and I go way back, and I can assure you that he's no faggot."

Though stunned, Joby had the sense to keep quiet.

For one strange, long moment, the silver girl just stared up into Bobby's eyes as his expression shifted from anger, to bewilderment, to plainly visible fear. Then he shoved his way through the crowd and out the front door as if he'd seen a ghost. Except for a few quiet objections to the smell of Bobby's passing, the room remained eerily silent until the girl smiled again, and said, "Come on, Joby. Why don't you get me a drink?" She tucked her arm under one of his and led him off, still speechless, while the music came back on and the dancing resumed.

When they got to the kitchen, Joby turned and said, "Who are you, and-and why did you-"

"I gather from our departed friend, the jerk," she cut him off, "that you're Joby Peterson." She flashed him another of her devastating smiles and reached out to shake his hand. "I'm Allaystra Bennit."

Joby was overwhelmed by her sheer beauty. Her large, liquid eyes were the color of perodite. Her thick, silky brown hair fell like a feathered veil around her face and throat. Her skin was flawless and pale, her lips full and dark, the shape of her under that dress was like a smooth ride over rolling country in a fine car. As he took her hand, he had trouble speaking. "Thank you," he managed. "I . . . I owe you."

Her smile widened, and Joby realized two things at once. The first was that he felt strange all over. His skin seemed to burn, and there was a pleasant, tingling pressure building underneath his nearly dry soda stains. The second was that he would die of humiliation if she noticed.

"Well, thanks," he said again. "Really! I'm sure you've got people to see though, so I'll . . . I'll just go now, but I sure do appreciate-"

"Wait a minute." She frowned. "Don't I even get to meet the guy I just rescued?"

"Well . . . well, sure," Joby stammered, "I didn't mean . . . I'll get you something to drink first, okay?" He turned away quickly, hoping to get himself under control down there before she noticed. That's when he saw Lindwald already at the beverage counter, and wondered how long he'd been there. "What would you like?" Joby asked Allaystra as he moved toward the liquor supply.

"Just soda," she said. "I'm not much of a drinker."

Relieved, Joby moved in next to Jamie to grab another 7 Up.

"Way to go, Joby," Jamie whispered. "Yer ship's finally comin' in, eh?"

"What are you talking about?" Joby whispered back.

"Come on." Jamie grinned and said under his breath, "She wants you, dude! And I saw you puttin' up that little pup tent." He nodded unobtrusively at Joby's crotch. "It's nice to see they're wrong!"

"What? Who?"

"All those dickheads who say you're queer." Jamie grinned. "This'll shut 'em up." He nudged Joby's shoulder. "Go for it, stud." He left with a drink in each hand before Joby could close his mouth. Happily, Joby's other difficulty seemed to have settled down, so he went back to Allaystra with her drink.

"Thanks," she said, lifting the cup to her lips without taking her eyes from Joby's. "There must be somewhere in this house where we can hear ourselves think. Why don't we go talk, okay?" She smiled down at her sleek silver dress. "I'm not really dressed for slam-dancing anyway."

Under control or not, Joby still felt terribly self-conscious, but she had saved his butt, and he wasn't about to be rude. "Okay," he said. "Wanna go outside?"

"Not so much," she said, wrinkling her pretty nose. "It's hard to make intelligent conversation with people puking in the bushes all around you. I'm sure it'll be quieter upstairs."

Joby had no argument to counter that, so he followed her through the crowd of dancers, who parted very courteously this time, and up the stairs past Seth and his poetry circle, in the midst of a decidedly more erotic poem, and finally found themselves in a nondescript bedroom where Allaystra closed the door behind them-against the noise, she said.

She sat on the bed and waved Joby down beside her. Joby tried to sit at the other end of the mattress, but Allaystra simply scooted up to join him. His palms were sweating, his skin was tingling, and he didn't know what he'd do if . . . if things started getting out of control again, but to his relief, Allaystra simply began to talk. She asked where Joby lived, how he knew Jamie, what his interests were. She asked about his views, and expressed her own on an amazing variety of subjects, and Joby soon realized that this girl wasn't just beautiful, she was really smart! He became so absorbed in their conversation, that he didn't notice how close she'd come until she put her hand on his chest as he was telling her about his secret desire to talk with animals.

"Joby Peterson," she crooned, "I've never met anyone so intelligent and, well, deep, I guess, at one of Jamie's parties." She leaned in even closer, and Joby noticed her perfume, too subtle to be detected from more than a few inches away. It was so lovely that his first instinct was to lean in farther just to get a fuller breath of it. "In fact," she sighed, "I don't think I've met anyone like you ever." Her fingers slipped between his shirt buttons to touch his bare skin.

He was as astonished by the swiftness of his body's response as by its intensity. Hard in an instant, the desire to press himself against her went through him like a shout. One corner of his mind screamed back that this was sin, but as she began to undo the buttons on his shirt, the fear of betraying all he most believed in strained in stalemate with his body's agonizing desire to capitulate. Then, something turned within him, and he stood, not caring what she saw, only desperate to leave before he lost all control.