72 Virgins

[hunter]

My priest looks like Father Mulcahy of the twentieth century television series MASH and there's no reason he shouldn't because I suspect he was created in William Christopher's image as it was beamed throughout space. I don't know where the 72 virgins came from. One morning I woke up, and there they were, in every state of dress and undress, from black burkhas to stark naked.

Whoever is in charge of these things should have thought to put a door on my bathroom first. I don't know if things like this happen by ignorance or by some very cruel and twisted fate. The first meal I was served in this place was ice cream. I'm lactose intolerant.

It took me a very long time to pee. Some of the virgins looked away from me nervously, many of them raised their hands to their faces and twittered quietly, but a few of them were staring at me like...

"What's that, son?" said Father...

He sounds like William Christopher too.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Bless me father, for I have sinned. Things are a lot more complicated now, even more than yesterday's confession."

"In what way?"

"I've been thinking about the suicide mission. The virgins, you know..."

"It wasn't a suicide mission, child. I'm certain if the Army had known it was your desire to die they would have arranged that."

Father Mulcahy always referred to whatever perverted intelligence kept me here as "the Army."

"It wasn't my desire to have seventy two virgins appear in my room either, so I don't know how my desires matter," I said.

"Well, seeing as how you were not a faithful Muslim, and you did not succeed in destroying this place along with yourself, I'm not really sure why there are virgins in your room. Many things the Army does are a complete mystery to me."

"Some of the virgins appear to be quite young."

Father blushed noticeably, squinted and swallowed in that funny way he has when he hears something unpalatable.

Then he said, entirely out of character, "By your reckoning the youngest is about forty one hundred years old. As for their physical features, they are normalized for adult virgins of your time and place. Some women in their early twenties simply look young, if that's any comfort to you."

"So they are virgins?" I said.

Father blushed again. "Besides you and me, son, have you seen any other men around here?

I hadn't. Until the virgins appeared the only other creature I'd seen besides me and Father was a housekeeper. She was made out of shockingly pink plastic and looked like a department store mannequin. Her painted face with the pert lips and empty eyes didn't move at all, but the rest of her was quite graceful and she was curvy in the right places. I'd been supposing I could develop that sort of fetish in time. Father Mulcahy did not seem so attractive.

Father broke the silence by quietly clearing his throat, "Eh, hem..."

"It seems sort of silly to confess my lust," I said, "I'm more worried about my faith. I'd honestly convinced myself that I was a convert to Islam when I became an astronaut. And I never really was Catholic, even as a kid. Our family didn't go to Mass but maybe two or three times a year. I never really fit into Islam either, and when they selected me for this mission they really didn't give me a choice -- it was sneak a fusion bomb past your security and die a great hero of the human race, or die grounded as a cowardly infidel. They knew what I was about."

"Hmmm. Well then, it seems you made the right choice."

"But I did mean to destroy you."

"That's silly. The Army wouldn't allow it. And now you are here. The Good Lord knows what's in your heart."

That wasn't comforting at all. My heart was beating a little bit faster today for the 72 virgins.