The harder you run, the closer the fire seems to get. You can feel it singeing your back and the fat little man screams as a lashing tongue catches up with him and turns him into a cinder. The woman in the sack dress tramples across the bodies of the two men in gray flannel but the man with the golf club fights her off with his mashie. Then the four of them are eaten up by the hungry flames. You moan and your legs pump harder. There's an underground shelter ahead and you run toward it only to find the entrance jammed with people. You try to fight your way in. You grab hold of a man but his boiled flesh comes away in your hands. Then you see they are all dead, packed together so tightly they can't fall. You're running again and you see the woman with the two children only there's nothing left of them but a charred arm and a hand which she still clutches. The girl in the evening dress falls in front of you and you stumble over her. You see her dress and then her hair burst into flames. She throws her arms around you and you feel the suffocating flames.
"Oh Lord—Lord," you moan, and wake up. The bottle of wine on the nightstand is only half empty and you drink from it gratefully and think of going out for more. But you remember your goddess and you know that you have to go to see her.
She's in good form tonight as she talks about the Kinsey Report.
"If you're listening, say Amen!" She raises both arms as she yells this and you're amazed at the way her big breasts rise with them.
"In the Old Testament, God demanded death for the adulteress but Dr. Kinsey in his day tried to make her sins sound normal. But I tell you that this sin is the road to Hell, for the person and for the nation. God has destroyed other cities for this sin and His wrath will fall upon yours as well.
"If you're listening, say Amen!"
"AMEN!"
"Are you really listening? Do you honestly want to hear? Or do you prefer the way Los Angeles and the rest of the nation is going? Do you prefer the way of sex, the way of fornication and adultery? Do you prefer to read about sixteen-year old girls found in love nests with older men? Do you prefer to think of boys and girls in the back seats of cars? Do you prefer to think of some man's hand running over your daughter's body, touching her...." Elinda Egers is swaying back and forth, her body rigid, her breath coming faster and faster.
Someone else is breathing heavily and you're not surprised to find it's you.
"If this is what you want, say Amen!"