Blameless in Abaddon by James Morrow

That’s pretty drunk.”
    â€œIf I get arrested for driving under the influence, I’d have to indict myself,” he said with a throaty laugh. “I
did
enjoy it.”
    â€œYou did?”
    â€œA lot.”
    â€œGood. If you’re really planning to change genders, Martin Candle, we’d better seize the time.”
    At Patricia’s bidding, the puppet took the sash of her robe in its paws and yanked it away as if starting an outboard motor. The halves parted. Beneath the satin lay a female form as desirable as the ceramic Eve who presided over the Celestial City’s petting zoo.
    â€œI ought to be going,” he said.
    â€œWould she really begrudge you this moment?”
    â€œYes. No. I don’t know.
I’m
the problem, not Corinne.”
    â€œPlay with me.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou know. Play with me.”
    Taking a tress of raven hair in each hand, Martin pulled her toward him. He closed his eyes. “It’s true what you said on Friday.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œGrief sharpens the appetite.”
    â€œRight. Play with me. I’m on the Pill.”
    â€œEstrogen?” he asked, unbuckling his belt.
    â€œEstrogen.”
    â€œI’ve got seeds in my prostate, forty-six radioactive I-125 microcapsules, but Blumenberg says they don’t affect my semen.” He shed his socks, pants, and jockey shorts. “We’ll use a condom if you want.”
    â€œIrradiate me, Judge Candle.”
    Afterward, she wrapped his body in her arms and, through a series of maneuvers that alternately evoked modern dance and slapstick comedy, dragged him down the hall and laid him on the bed in her guest room. As she stretched out beside him, flopping her bare arm across his chest, he realized he hated himself, a sensation he found not altogether unpleasant. It was perversely satisfying to know that, for all the confusion seething in his brain, all the chaos raging in his prostate, his sense of guilt remained intact. Only a man with an operational conscience had the right to put the Main Attraction on trial.
    â€œâ€˜I’ll chase him round Good Hope,’” he whispered drunkenly into the darkness, quoting Ahab’s great speech from
Moby-Dick
, Martin’s second-favorite among the honors English novels.
    â€œHope?”
    â€œHope,” he repeated. “‘And round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round addition’s flames—’”
    â€œâ€˜Addition’s’? What?”
    â€œâ€˜Perdition’s flames.’ And round Omar’s Arabian Oasis. And Shamgorod. Celestial City. And round The Hague. And . . . ‘before I’ . . . and . . . ‘before . . .’”
    â€œBefore you . . .?”
    â€œâ€˜Before I give him up.’”

Chapter 4
    W HEN J ENNY C ANDLE FIRST LEARNED of her brother’s audacious ambition, she decided he’d lost his mind and promptly gave him the name and phone number of her therapist. Vaughn Poffley also stood foursquare against indicting the Almighty, fearing the pre-trial publicity would cost Martin the upcoming election. Martin’s mother, he knew, would have just one thing to say to him—“Your father would not be proud”—and so he didn’t even tell her.
    Much to his dismay, the person from whom he expected unequivocal support had no use for his project at all.
    â€œI mean, what’s the
point
, really?” asked Patricia as she and Martin sat down to espresso and sweet rolls in a Glendale coffee shop, Café Olé.
    â€œWe owe it to Brandon.”
    â€œBrandon is dead.”
    â€œWe owe it to Corinne.”
    â€œEven if you get a conviction—even if they shut off the Lockheed 7000—is that
justice
?”
    â€œPatricia, I’m hurt. Why can’t you believe in me?”
    â€œI
do
believe in you. What I don’t believe in is revenge.”
    He jammed a