"Whoever else you have here," the two angels, Malkiel and Lufiel, told Lot, "sons-in-law, your sons and daughters, whoever you have in Sodom, bring them out of here for we will destroy this place. Its cry is very great before God."

Lot ran to his married daughters' homes but they and their husbands, men of the city, just laughed at him. He returned home dejected.

At daybreak, the angels warned Lot, his wife and their two unmarried daughters. "You must leave now," they said, "for the city is about to be destroyed."

"No, no, no," Lot wailed, falling to his knees. "Please! I need time to outfit a proper caravan."

The angels grabbed Lot, his wife and their daughters and teleported with them to a point high in the western hills, as fire and brimstone rained down on the cities below.

"Go," the angels declared, as the ground shook, "and do not look back."

"Where can we go?" Lot laughed. "We're doomed!"

"Go to Zoar," the angels replied. "It is close by and you will be safe there."

"Yes, Zoar, of course!" Lot babbled. "We will go to Zoar! Thank you!" Lot shepherded his daughters toward the trail that led up to Zoar. "Idit!" he shouted at his wife.

Lot's wife didn't budge.

"Get mother," he ordered his eldest daughter.

Lot's older daughter went to her mother. "Mom! We have to go, now!" She pulled at her mother's shawl, which fell off, and shrieked hysterically. Her mother, her face turned toward Sodom, had turned into a pillar of salt. Her sister came and pulled her away.

The angels watched Lot and his daughters stagger up the trail toward Zoar.

Malkiel smelled the brimstone and winced. "So many lives…"

"They were evil," Lufiel said.

"Still..."

The Archangel Michael appeared in a fury. "Angels, you take much upon yourselves!"

"But, we did as we were told," Lufiel sputtered, confused.

"'For we will destroy this place'?! You claimed glory for yourselves and gave it not to God! You said it," Michael addressed Lufiel, "and you did not object!" he added, turning to Malkiel. Michael touched both angels with his staff. "Behold the wages of folly!"

The angels' wings, ambient radiance and extrasensory abilities disappeared. Their white linen garments became coarse wool.

"Yet even as God chastises you," Michael said, "so is He merciful." He waved his staff in the air, and vanished.

An insect landed on Malkiel's arm and stung him.

Lufiel sniffed at the air. "There is no reek of brimstone!" he cried. "And where is Lot's wife??" He looked around. "This is not where we were! Malkiel, where are we? And when are we?"

Malkiel stared at his arm.

"Say something!"

"This welt."

"What about it?"

"It hurts; I feel pain."

"We're human!" Lufiel sobbed, falling to his knees. "We're marooned!"

No, Malkiel thought, we're free.

#

Malkiel and Lufiel emerged from a narrow valley onto a fertile plain and soon approached the outskirts of a bustling village. They noticed a young woman struggling to water, and keep together, a small flock of sheep.

Malkiel ran up to her. "Here, let me help you." He took two buckets and filled a trough with water from an adjacent spring-fed pool while Lufiel rounded up the stray sheep.

"Thank you."

Malkiel nodded.

"I am Anat, daughter of Kenaz the blacksmith."

"I am Malki and that is my brother Lufi."

They watched Lufi round up the last of the errant sheep.

"He's good," Anat said. "Are you shepherds?"

"No," Malki replied. "We're from, near Zoar, by the Salt Sea."

"You're a long way from home."

"It wasn't 'home'," Lufi muttered.

"Welcome to Luz." Anat pointed to the village.

"We'll work hard," Malki said, "in return for food and a place to sleep."

Anat looked at them. "That's my father's call." She let the sheep drink their fill and then led them back to a pen near two mudbrick structures, one of which was her and her father's home and the other the latter's forge.

Kenaz accepted Malki and Lufi, who overcame the old man's initial misgivings by dint of loyalty, honesty and sheer hard work.

Lufi proved himself a natural shepherd; he thrived on the solitude. Kenaz and Anat soon learned to leave him alone.

Malki readily learned smithying and metalworking; he thrived on the hard, physical labor.

The brothers shared a tent.

One summer night, Malki went to bathe in the pool. He pulled off his tunic, descended the steps cut into one side of the quarried pool and dunked himself in the chest-deep water.

"May I join you?" Anat stood at the top of the steps. "I'll leave if you want, but I would like to join you."

Malki nodded.

Anat pulled off her shift, entered the water and swam over to him.

Hyperventilating lightly, Malki looked at her breasts. "You are very beautiful."

Anat blushed. "Nobody has ever called me that before; I've never thought of myself as being beautiful. Thank you. I take it you've never been with a woman before?"

Malki shook his head.

"Then we're even. I've never been with a man before. Kiss me."

Malki leaned forward and kissed Anat, gently at first, and then with more force.

Anat took his hands. "When you first came here," she said, "your hands were soft, you were soft, like you had never worked in your life."

"You wouldn't be wrong. What about me now?"

"You look like you work in a forge." Anat ran her hands over Malki's biceps and then placed his hands on her ass. "Aside from the burns," she embraced him and pressed against his erect cock, "you're all muscle. Gods, look at you." She kissed his pecs. "You're…"

Malki kissed Anat's breasts, sucking the nipples, and rubbed his cock against her. She jumped up in the water and wrapped her legs around his hips. Their eyes locked for a moment before she sat down on Malki's cock, taking him inside her.

They rocked, grunted and shouted, wantonly humping until they both came. They held onto each other afterward for what seemed to both of them to be a long time.

"I know you don't want to talk about your lives before coming here," Anat murmured, "or you would have done so by now."

"Do you and your father mind?"

"My father did at first but you've won him over. He sees what a good worker and good person you are, and…"

"What?"

"He knows how much I like you."

Malki hugged her. "And do you mind?"

"Honestly?"

"Please."

"Right now I'm still overwhelmed that someone like you has come into my life and thinks I'm beautiful and wants to make love with me and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that."

"Meaning yes."

"I figure you'll tell me when you're ready."

 Malki nodded.

 "That is good enough for me. Gods, I love you."

 Malki hugged her again. "And I love you. And that should be singular. 'God'."

 "Really? How do you know?"

 "Call it a hunch."

 "Seems weird but OK."

 #  

Malki and Anat made love in the pool most nights after Kenaz and Lufi were asleep.

One day, at the new moon, Kenaz declared before the elders of Luz that he was giving Anat to Malki to be his wife. When nobody objected by the following new moon, they became husband and wife. They set up their own tent.

Late one afternoon, Malki went to the pool to bathe while Anat and Kenaz were in Luz.

Lufi approached the pool. "You're selfish," he said, "and cruel."

"How's that?"

"Carrying on with her..."

"Anat. Her name is Anat."

"...in the pool was bad enough but now you married her? What are you going to tell her when we go back, presuming you even have the chance to say something?"

"How do you know we're going back?"

"Malkiel, we're not like them."

"Lufiel, right now we are them."

Lufi scowled.

"What has your asceticism gotten you? As long as we're here, we should be...here."

"Speak for yourself. You're setting her up to break her heart and you know it. Think about that the next time you're together." Lufi stalked off.

#

Kenaz died a few months later. Malki became the local blacksmith and metalworker. He and Anat moved into the house.

Lufi, as usual, kept to himself and tended the sheep.

 #

One evening, Malki, wearing only a loin cloth, was in the forge working on a bronze sword.

Anat came in with bread, olives and ale. She stood unnoticed in the doorway and watched Malki work, reveling in his lean and rugged physique.

He gripped the hammer in his left hand, raised it high overhead and brought it down hard on the bronze, again and again.

Anat slipped a hand into her shift and stroked her clit in synch with each downward stroke of Malki's arm until he plunged the hot metal into the trough of water and she was panting on the verge of orgasm. "Now how about hammering me to perfection?" she said as she put down the food and jumped into his arms.

"But I'm all hot and sweaty," Malki protested feebly.

"Aren't you now?" Anat licked the left side of his chest. She rubbed the bulge in his loin cloth and tugged at the cloth until it came off.

Malki carried Anat over to a sheepskin-covered table, laid her down, pulled her to the edge, grabbed her hips and thrust inside her as she raised her legs to his shoulders.

"Go!" Anat gasped. Knowing that Lufi was far out in the field and couldn't hear them, she cried out as Malki took her in strong, vigorous strokes until she came.

Malki gripped her hips and groaned, calling Anat's name, as he pulsed and filled her with his fluids.

Anat put her legs down, sat up and smiled.

"What?"

"You're amazing."

"I'll take that as a compliment, but…"

"You make love the way you work and, for that matter, the way you eat and drink: The more intense, the better. You get off on the intensity. You positively thrive on hard work, vigorous sex and hot, spicy food and strong drink."

"Is it wrong to want to feel as much as possible?"

"No, but I'm pretty sure there's more to it than that, something else about you that's mysterious."

Malki took her in his arms and hugged her.

#

The following month, on the full moon, Anat and Malki were woken up by the dogs' incessant barking.

Anat knelt to look out the window over their sheepskin-covered pallet bed.

"Please tell them to shut up," Malki mumbled.

Anat saw Lufi emerge from his tent, his face ablaze in a wild look that jarred her, and run to some spot out in the fields. She pulled on a shift and ran out after him.

Malki pulled on a tunic and ran out after her.

Anat stopped just short of Lufi, who had stopped next to a man who was curled up, asleep, his head resting on a smooth stone.

Malki ran up and stopped sharply, staring open-mouthed at Anat's midriff.

"I…I was going to tell you tomorrow," Anat stammered. "How…how do you know?"

"Because he can see it!" Lufi shouted triumphantly, raising his arms.

A ladder reaching up to the opened Heavens appeared above the sleeping man's head.

The Archangel Michael stood at the foot of the ladder, next to the sleeping man.

"No…" Malki choked, with tears running down his face, "I don't want to leave…"

"Leave??" Anat jabbered, "Why are you crying? Who are you talking to?"

"Please don't make me go," Malki begged.

"GO?!" Anat screamed. "Who are you talking to?!"

"Michael," Malki said. "Let her see."

"That is not…very well." Michael waved his staff.

Anat reeled from the empyrean brightness. When her eyes adjusted, she saw that Malki and Lufi had wings. They wore fine white linen and glowed. Standing opposite them was another being like them holding a staff. A glowing ladder reached up to the open Heavens where a host of beings like them gathered. "Malki?" she breathed, open-mouthed.

"His name is Malkiel," Michael declared. "He and his brother Lufiel may now return to the Heavens from which they had been banished. Their sin has been expiated."

Lufiel touched the ladder and flew upward.

Michael beckoned to Malki.

Malki took Anat's hand. "I wish to stay here."

"What?! You prefer a mortal life with this woman," Michael asked, "to life everlasting in the company of Almighty God?"

"Yes." Malki squeezed Anat's hand.

"You will be susceptible to disease and illness, which you have largely been shielded from. You will grow old and you will die."

"But I'll be with Anat."

"She'll find someone else."

"But I won't."

Anat wept.

"If this is done," Michael declared, "it will be irrevocable. Is this your choice?"

"Yes."

"Then so be it." Michael raised his staff.

Malki rose into the air.

Anat gawked as power erupted from Malki's chest and flowed into Michael's staff. His wings and ambient glow disappeared. His white linen garment morphed into his tunic. Michael and the ladder vanished.

Malki fell to the ground.

Anat rushed to him.

Malki looked up at her. "Hi."

"Are, were, you a god? Oh, right, one God. Were you…one of his ministers?"

"More like one of his errand boys."

"How do you feel?"

"Like I just got hit by a chariot, oooh. Come, let's go home and I'll tell you everything."

Anat helped Malki to his feet. She glanced at the man on the ground who was still asleep. "How is he not awake?"

"He has been charmed. He'll sleep until dawn."

Anat looked up at the stars. "You used to live up there?"

"Not exactly. It's hard to explain but I'll try."

"Wait, will our baby be human or…" Anat waved her hand in the air.

Malki smiled. "It doesn't work like that. Our baby will be human."

They staggered back to the house and climbed into bed.

Malki spoke for almost an hour; Anat asked the occasional question but mostly just listened.

"And you gave all that up," she asked when he was finished, "for me?" She rubbed her stomach. "For us?"

Malki nodded. "My heaven is here."

Anat kissed him. "You know," she added, "Now that you're permanently human don't feel you have to change anything. You can go on liking hard work, hot and spicy food, and strong drink."

"What about vigorous sex?"

"You put the words right in my mouth." Anat rolled over, stroked Malki until he was hard and took him in her mouth.