“There is rich,” said she, “and then there is rich.”

Sitting in a black dress by the bar by the pool, Heaven cradled her drink in one hand – red wine – while she surveyed her surroundings. To her far left, starboard, the moon shone bright, a road of silver light dividing the dark waters of the sea into two equally placid halves. Her gaze travelled over the edge of the yacht, where security stood in the corners and the shadows, in sharp suits and with alert eyes, big men, packaged in expensively tailored cloth. In the heated pool, four women – girls, really – were laughing in their bikinis – red, blue, green and yellow – their skin flushed, from alcohol and probably something harder, their laughter was shrill, and she found them very much like birds. Upon the other side, port, two men were talking, and then the road of the moon continued its passage, toward the far horizon.

The men, along with the others of their company, were Arabic, European, Japanese. Princes among men, some of whom could rightfully claim such a title. Old school, whose names never appear in the media, because they do not need the publicity, and most of them pay well to keep their privacy. The companies they own are not public, will never IPO, some of them aren’t even legal. Oil, crime, construction, land, mining, banking; it doesn’t matter, really, where the money comes from, just as it doesn’t matter where it goes. The men move, like a ship through an ocean of economics, trailing decadence in their wake. The yacht has golden sinks in its washrooms; sapphires on a faucet to denote the cold water, rubies to denote the hot.

She had seen men like these with their harems and slaves, parties where the playthings don’t always leave in the condition they arrived, if they even leave at all. With enough money insulating you from reality, you can do very much whatever you want; carte blanche, the blank ticket of life with God’s signature on the bottom. Heaven smiled – in that singular way, they were very much like her.

The talking pair separated. One of them gestured toward two of the girls in the pool – red and blue – and disappeared with them below deck, into a cabin. The other was walking toward her. Like his colleagues, his hair was greying, and he had profitably traded youth for dignity. She noticed the pale line around his ring finger; the ring had been removed recently. As the distance closed between them, she knew all that she cared to know about him, in the power he wore around him like a cloak, in the way that he walked, in the way that he would speak to her, certain and charming, confident in his affect.

“Hello,” she said.

He smiled at her, gestured expansively towards the sea, “Venus was born from the sea, did you know that?”

She shook her head, no, though she did, indeed, know. She thought of the little mermaid, and the meaning of Aphrodite’s name, and decided instead to simply smile, looking up at him through her lashes, the stars in her eyes.

“With whom did you come with?” he asked.

Oh, how polite, she thought, he doesn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. “Robert,” she replied, who is in a meeting right now with a bug on him, “but just because I came with him doesn’t mean I have to leave with him.” So it wasn’t that every girl was fair game. Pity, it meant that she had to cover her tracks, since it couldn’t be certain that her hosts will have their own cause for discretion.

She considered her plan as he went through the formalities of seducing her. She would have to retrieve the bug on Robert and leave the boat before dawn. She had no idea how long more he would be in his meeting, or even if the meeting was already over and he was right now in the midst of some entertainment. Which left her risking everything if she wasn’t there when he came looking, but she had already been waiting for what felt like hours and–

Over the shoulder of her new friend she saw the necklace. Diamonds, glittering in an array tastefully sublime, oh so many diamonds. Her smile widened.

She dipped a finger in her wine, then put it to his lips, cutting off his latest anecdote. She leaned in close to him, and whispered yearningly into his ear, “Tell you what, loverboy. If you’re good enough to talk her into a bed with you and me, you get to be in bed with me and her.”

And it was as easily said as done.

It would be dawn in an hour, less if they had been travelling east. Her companions lay sleeping, and she listened to their breathing to make certain that they were really asleep. Satisfied, she left the bed, enjoying the feel of satin sheets against her skin as she moved. The room was lit by a pair of candles, flickering in the air currents caused by the air conditioning. The bed dominated the small room, the man furthest from her, the girl in its centre. They both lay upon their sides, facing her. He had a hand upon the girl’s stomach, her breasts above it, the necklace above them. Her legs were slightly parted, her sex wet and – Heaven again noted critically – she was not a natural blonde. An almost empty bottle of brandy stood on the bedside table, its glasses somewhere upon the floor. A miniature Venus di Milo lay upon her face, the base opened, its cache of pills swallowed.

Heaven walked though the debris on the carpeted floor – clothes, a spilled ashtray – to the other side of the bed, and blew out the candles, already burning through their last quarter. She put on her dress, wondering when Robert would find her bug, and what he would think of her disappearance, if he remembered her at all. Dressed, she happily removed the necklace from the sleeping girl and put it around her own neck. She walked toward the door, hesitated, turned, and picked up his pair of pants from the floor, removed its belt, wrapped it around her own waist, marked the spot, pieced a new hole with a fang and put it on. She bent over the girl again, and took a quick drink from her slender neck. She wondered if they would kill her for losing the necklace. Oh my.

Heaven picked up her shoes and, after a last glance about the room, hoping her senses weren’t overly impaired, nodded to herself, blew the sleeping pair a kiss, and left, smiling.

She walked slowly through the empty corridors, listening as attentively as she could, the silence interspersed with sounds as she passed each closed door; snoring, moaning, laughter, and–

“–must never find out about this.” The voice was clear and crisp, very much awake, with the slightest trace of an Italian accent.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s all taken care of.” An American voice.

She realised she had stopped moving, and hurried on. Click, the door was opening. She tried the nearest door, found it locked, and slid into the next room.

The room was empty, moonlight shining in through a single window. It hadn’t been opened in a while, and would have proved difficult if she hadn’t been as strong. She spent a moment trying to figure out how to close it behind her. Not much choice, she decided, threw her shoes into the water and bunched her dress around her waist, to allow her limbs free movement.

Fleeing from the siblings of the watching moon, she splashed into the water, and sank.

She opened her eyes to find herself floating, drifting gently in the current.

Pale moonlight formed an irregular circle denoting the hole to the coral formation she had spent the day under. A quick appraisal ensured that she was safe, that all her parts were still hers. She brought a hand up to her neck, felt the diamonds, and smiled. All is well.

She undid the belt that kept her anchored to a rock, replacing it around her waist and wondering if she could take out a shark or some other predator, a giant squid, maybe, how exciting. She wasn’t worried though, she never was. She wondered, too, how their blood would taste. Probably bad, she decided; she had never been fond of fish. She wondered if she could drink a whale, or what it would be like to be swallowed by one – was that Jacob? Jonah? Job? The Baron Von Munchausen, certainly.

She left her shelter and stretched, swimming the short distance to the ocean floor. She curled up, pulling her legs to her chest, until, for a brief moment, she was almost sitting down, then she kicked. Upward and upward, through a passing school of fish, toward the shaft of light that was the moon.

Breaking the surface, she went through the uncomfortable process of expelling the water in her body, before looking about her. Nothing but water, all around, the moon shining bright with the clouds in the sky, and the stars like diamonds.

“Oh great,” she said, realising she was lost.

She sighed, started swimming towards the moon.

“Deus ex machina,” she said, and followed up with a prayer.

A point of light separated itself from the bright disc of the moon. She stopped swimming and looked at it; moving in an erratic dance, it seemed to be coming closer.

It must have been neared than it looked, for in a moment the light had resolved itself into a glowing butterfly, flying in quick circles directly above her.

She turned around onto her back, spread her arms and smiled, “Thanks for coming.”

The butterfly flew upward, spinning in a widening circle, trailing light like a ribbon behind it. When the brightness faded, a woman hovered in the air before her, softly glowing, naked and with a pair of butterfly wings flapping slowly behind her. “My my,” the goddess said, “you’ve really screwed up this time, haven’t you?”

“Not really, I’m sure I’d hit land sooner or later.”

“The sea’s a pretty big place, and not exactly very friendly.”

“It probably helps if you can’t drown.”

“True, but it’s also possible you wouldn’t be able to find cover before dawn. Helios’ light travels far.”

“I think that’s probably why I played the divinity card.”

“And here I was thinking you called me up to chat. Manifestations require proper ritual you know.”

“Like you’re such a stickler for protocol. Come to that, your wings are flapping too slowly, and butterflies can’t hover.”

“And my breasts don’t sag, either.”

“Perk of the job?”

The goddess smiled, “That necklace of mine looks good on you.”

Heaven’s eyes widened, “oh come on, that’s how I ended up here in the first place.”

“Well, you know the stories. It wouldn’t be moral of me to help you out and let you keep it.”

“How about I get a butterfly tattoo?”

“We’re not bargaining, are we?”

“I don’t suppose I could try my luck and swim around for a few nights and then call you again when I get desperate?”

“You could, but I may not answer.”

“You always have before…”

“That’s besides the point. And you really ought to do a proper summoning.”

“Yeah yeah. Okay, the necklace is yours.”

“Thank you. Let’s go to the bar and catch up.”

The goddess flew to the side, landing upon the edge of the pool. Her wings faded, her glow with them, leaving her in an elegant blue dress, the necklace around her neck, diamonds sparkling like stars.

Heaven laughed, swam to the edge, and lifted herself up. She realised she was dry as she straightened her dress. She smiled, “lead the way.”

“Stockholm. You’re already checked in, been here a few days, the staff will remember seeing you about. Is there anything else?” the goddess asked, as she handed Heaven her shoes.

“Oh yes,” Heaven replied, “if you don’t mind, I need a new hairstyle.”