Angels Before Man

by Rafael Nicolás

I have to apologize. I usually rear an angel up in the stars and dip them into the light of an eclipse, and that’s where I let them wake. But I couldn’t hold you tight, no matter what I did. I didn’t want you to fall. So, I tucked you in here and dispossessed you of a spectacular genesis.”

“I’m tying better luck into your hair,” a laugh, “and maybe a little love too.”

Real friends braid eachothers hair :)

Lucifer finally saw him well. He was indeed brunette, but a shade removed from black and tousled in curls that fell past the nape of his neck. His skin was brown as bronze, kissed by a handful of darker specs — like he were a mountain itself with touches of a wildfire’s ravage. The hooded eyes — those were hazel, but only between the soil browns and leafy greens. And no, there aren’t words for the full of his lips, or even the hill on his nose bridge; there are words, but they begin to fail, they become repetitious. He was tall, mountainous again, and broad everywhere; this mountain of an angel.

‘Over there is the angel of beauty, take a look at his body, see how the Lord made him, his hair, his hands, he reminds me of a rose, but thorns are prickling my eyes.’

Bloodthirsty — Lucifer had never heard a word like this; he picked it apart literally, thinking of filling a wine glass with blood and sipping. Would it drunken him, too?

“But is it alright if we walk? My wings are tired from traveling through the stars for so long.”

I saw how our Father sewed you from coppers, how He handled you when you were burning coals and when you were settings of gold. He embroidered a nose on you, a sweet mouth on you, then the outline for a pair of eyes before He placed suns there. He sculpted your face with wet clay; He opened you like a citrus and planted a garden of budding flowers inside. Then, He weaved your hair from the streaks of three stars and your wings out of four wandering crescent moons.” He breathed but was not finished: “And your hips — those came the tides of a sea, the same one whose pearls He took to carve your feet and hands. There was so much jade, so much marble; He fit it into the last places you were hollow. When He was done, I watched Him breathe life into you, then cradle you as if you were His first angel, before He settled you into fire and let you simmer.”

“Not long. I’ll find you. And if I’m told to take to the stars again, I’ll just take you with me.”

Then, he remembered the universe, fantasized of Michael among the stars, lying on two planets as if they were his bed, and he would have a sun as his pillow, nuzzling his jaw.

“Well, you deserve a lot more than that. I feel like I have to invent new ways to be nice to you.”

“When I asked of you, angels said to me that your beauty was so great, one could take a glance, but never stare. That your face alone was as dangerous as too much wine, that you made their heads hurt and their visions blur.”

‘How terribly lonely that must be, to be so beautiful that others think of you a thorn.’”

‘Maybe you’re as strange as I am.’

‘I feel aged. I feel as if you’ve aged me with your own hands, Michael. Ripened me. Like a red fruit, at the edge of a branch, hanging at its peak. Beautiful — and just about to fall.’ A little laugh, his own thoughts embarrassing him. ‘Maybe I’m the dramatic one.’

“You make a good trophy display,” Michael teased, grinning. “Now, kiss my cheeks for good luck. I’ll need it for this other round.”

This, this here, could be worship. ‘This—’ Lucifer pressed an innocent kiss to the prince’s sweet, divine mouth. This could be religion.

“God is good,” Lucifer argued, turning to nuzzle his face against Michael’s palm. “He wouldn’t allow you to get hurt so badly. Even if He did, we could piece you back together — any part of you.” “Even my heart?” “If you’re so nervous, you can leave it with me, and I’ll keep it safe.” “Tuck it in with you whenever you rest.” “Yes, angel of demanding.”

“What do you plan to do with such an angel?” “I’d like to keep him.” Lucifer felt so much fever rush his body he nearly squirmed, but Michael’s grip on him was sturdy. “Right here, attached to me like jewelry.”

He fought a victorious grin as the feeling of the angels gazing returned to his nude body. ‘Them, just like those in the other room, like those who undressed me, always, all of them, devastated by how much they desire to abduct me and pin me to the walls of their homes like a portrait, or onto their beds like a quilt, or onto their bodies like an earring.’

‘You do not desire me.’

‘Because you know I am already yours.’

‘Yes. Hold me, squeeze me there, nuzzle me open.’

‘My entire body throbbing in beats like a heart.

‘Devour me like a pomegranate and stain your tongue.’

“I feel drunk,” Michael murmured against him, then shuddered. “Your mouth— When you were created, your lips must have been laced with liquor.”

Like this, they found their bodies moving on each other, following the lead of their mouths, rubbing like palms together, trying to create heat.

As if he could find some piece of Michael that would stab him.

If only the prince could enter him, could spread his very skin, move inside, so that their souls would kiss how lips do.

Michael didn’t weaken his embrace on the angel of beauty. He put his chin on top of Lucifer’s head, imprisoning him to the quick thunders of his heart, dull against Lucifer’s cheek.

‘I wish I could get even closer to you — I wish we could sink into each other and become one.’ Lucifer clutched Michael’s clothing. ‘What is inside of you, archangel? Did Father plant flowers within this body too? I want to peel you open and suck the nectar from them.’

Lucifer smiled, in a wistful daze. ‘One time, I dreamt of us, Michael, in Eden. We were over the flowers, and you touched me, remade me. I thought that I could adore you more than the sky, than the heavens, than the Earth.’ He let his eyes flutter shut.

‘In vain, I love you; in vain, the dawn streaming onto you, beside me; in vain, I want to be yours, your angel. Angel of love, angel of Michael.’