Oswald has been trying unsuccessfully for several minutes to transition this conversation to having sex and instead they are talking about Lacie again and he's crying and it's terrible. "I think I am trying to make my peace with being the selfish kind of evil. Which is easier to integrate than it could be because I try to avoid being cruel or destructive or various other kinds of evil."

"What exactly do you do that is evil. You try to fight evil gods and listen to music and kiss me. Samson is evil because he broke my arm and wouldn't let me get it treated for two days and you would not do that."

(--evil evil evil-- he wonders if he should run away from Oswald too before he--)

"What!"

"Samson deserves to be burned to death by lava. --I still want to know exactly what you do that is evil."

"I... exist? No, that's not -- I don't... I don't do things because they're right, I do them because it's easier than figuring out how to leave. And when I do break the rules it's because I want to be happy. And I don't trust anyone else on this team and when I do talk to people I'm callous and tactless and when push comes to shove I put my own life before anyone else's. Which maybe isn't evil but it's not, I'm not an altruistic person."

"None of those seem evil to me. They seem like at worst normal personality flaws and in several cases normal personality traits. Also you were talking about us."

Overwhelming self-hatred.

"I don't know if it's evil. It feels like it must be. I want you so badly and I can't point to why that makes me feel guilty but I know I'm guilty of something."

"I mean it is wrong to have sex with men? Because it is sick and perverted. And wrong to hit people. But I don't think it's like. Evil wrong."

"Maybe I just use the word more loosely. To mean things like selfish or perverted or wrong. I don't have as many words as I have feelings in my gut. I love you."

"I love you too. And I really like it when you hit me. So I don't think it's selfish. Maybe I'm selfish."

"I think both of us can be selfish." For instance he can want Lev to fuck him for plenty selfish reasons.

"Yeah."

(--evil evil evil--)

[To return to the main plot click here.]

Later--

"Has it occurred to you that no one in this expedition is older than 24. Because it has occurred to me. and it is awful? None of you are going to get a chance to DO anything."

"I guess so. I'm not sure I was going to do anything. Or, anything more than I was already doing ...No, I should be upset about that, I should be freaked out about probably... dying in my 20s... I don't know why I'm not."

"I mean in a very meaningful sense I am going to die at 26, so."

"In another meaningful sense you have managed to make it to your thirties. Not in the doing things sense I suppose."

"I am 36! Made it long enough to be a wolf with my own adorable punk lover."

"I don't know about adorable. I like to pretend to be slightly more dignified than that."

"No, you're adorable. I'm going to kiss your nose and you are going to make a FACE and it will be an adorable face."

He does as threatened.

Such indignities........

Oswald does, in fact, make a face.

"See! You are adorable."

Well, can he call him adorable if he is being kissed on the LIPS. He cannot. Checkmate.

Lev kisses him a bit then says:

"The point is that you have been an adult for six years, which is hardly any time at all. And mostly what you are going to do with your adulthood is travel the world fighting an evil cult? And it would be good if you also got to... Go to movies. Go to coney island. Take girls on dates. Cruise strangers. Read books."

"I guess I didn't really... think about those things. I kind of... didn't have a life outside my work. Or a future. ..................did I have a future at all? I just meant I hadn't planned for one that wasn't whatever Samson Trammel wanted me to do but I'm not really sure... what my... life expectancy... working for him... was."

"Presumably at some point they would either induct you in the evil cult or feed you to the mouth. Kind of weird he didn't actually."