About You: InstaLove Romance Novella

(Ravenwood University Book 1) Emily

Rayard
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 Emily Rayard

About You
InstaLove College Romance (Ravenwood University)
 Copyright © 2023 by Emily Rayard

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To those who need a short adult bed time story.
 Contents

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
About the Author
 Chapter 1

I have always been the good girl, the reliable one. Even in high school, under
my senior photo, I was voted Most Likely to Succeed. Right now, I feel like I’m
Most Likely to Crumble Under the Weight of the Fall Semester of my Junior Year at
Ravenwood.
It is the beginning of the semester. New England’s suffering from a heat
wave and I’ve packed my calendar with other obligations on top of my school
work. The Ravenwood Paper, the food drive with the honor society, and
volunteering as the designated driver for at least two of the parties for
Stewart’s frat, Kappa Sigma.
I’m staring at the twenty-two unread emails sitting in my inbox that
appeared in the last four hours. Another one pops up, adding to the number.
My running to-do list on my desktop is at least six inches long.
My mind drifts from the noise. I feel like I’m forgetting something. I rub
my sun tattoo on the side of my wrist. That annoying nagging feeling that
never seems to go away when I’m right in the middle of the busiest time of my
life.
“Summer! Summer!” my mom nearly shouts in my earbuds, the sudden
volume jarring me from my thoughts.
“Mom!” I snap, and I immediately feel guilty. “I don’t know if he can come
this Christmas break. Stewart said he has to go to his dad’s this year.”
“Are you sure, honey? I have a table reserved for Nomas Restaurant. Really
try to convince him, everyone else is dying to meet him. It’s about time we
should start getting to know each other.”
I let out a frustrated sigh as I roll my neck to release the tension that took
up residence when I started in Ravenwood. I’m trying to maintain my near-
perfect GPA. Trying to complete a double major, because my mother believes
that a business degree is going to be far more valuable than my journalism one.
Internships are competitive and I can’t risk anything less. Ravenwood has
exclusivity in many companies, including The Sport Weekly, my dream
internship.
I’m in one of the reserved study rooms at the library. I was supposed to be
at the Ravenwood Paper meet & greet with the freshman. Today, I was being a
coward, hiding mostly from my peers who needed something from me. The
price I pay to be the best, the price I pay for my dream as a sports writer.
A ping hits my phone.
Stewart: Have fun at the meet & greet. Got a meeting. So I can’t go to dinner.
My lips thin and I half listen to my mother as I realize this is the second
time he’s bailed this week.
The door opens. I glance at my best friend, Zoe Rivers, who is already
frowning at me.
Her rich, dark hair is in a high ponytail and her massive headphones are
around her neck. I eye the two large iced coffee cups in her hand. At a glance,
we are often mistaken as sisters. Only she has beautiful tanned skin and I’m
paler with amber-brown eyes.
“Summer—” my mother whines.
“Z is here, I gotta go.” I hang up, chucking my phone on the desk.
“I always know when your mom calls—you become infinitely bitchier,” Z
says as she sets her books on the table, placing the cup in front of me.
Smoothing my skirt, I rest my head on the desk. “It’s another idiotic
conversation.”
Z rolls her eyes. “About Stewart and planning your future?”
“Of course.”
“I think he sucks,” Z says, crossing her arms. “And I still don’t know why
your mom is so into him.”
My head hurts, so I rub my temples. Ever since I told my mother about
Stewart, she’s been like a dog with a bone. Being a housewife with an empty
nest, she fills her time stalking me and my siblings’ love lives.
“Because apparently he’s the whole package? Good family, a legacy here,
good prospects, and handsome?” I imitate my mother’s words.
 “Jesus, why doesn’t she marry him then?” Z asks as she settles opposite of
me, pulling out her laptop.
“I’m sure she would if she were me.”
“You need to tell her to stop living vicariously through you.”
Shrugging, I glance at Stewart’s text again.
Stewart became my boyfriend my sophomore year. I had turned him down
after our first date when I was a freshman but he still persisted for the whole
year. The chemistry wasn’t there at first. Of course, somehow I had let my
mother into my head and gave him another shot.
After one date turned into many, I realized I felt safe. He wasn’t pushy; in
fact, he was kind and sweet. In the end, I imagined some sort of future with
him. It was easy, he made me laugh. Mom believes it has a good foundation.
Like she is comparing relationships to fixer-uppers.
“Mom wants to meet him during winter break,” I explain.
“Why can’t he?” Z drawls. It was a fight I wasn’t willing to start with her
again. Z has no problems making it known that she isn’t a Stewart fan, but
despite all of this, she sticks by me.
“He has to go to his dad’s.”
“He has an excuse for everything, huh?” Z quips. I sour at her comment. Z’s
smirk immediately drops. “Sorry, I’m a little on edge lately.”
The tension in my head and neck returns. “I mean, he has a lot to do.”
“So do you, but you always try to schedule something with him. I mean
what happened over summer? You saw him for a total of two weeks?! He didn’t
have his frat obligations, then.”
She’s right. Something is off with him lately. My fingers press back on my
temples. I can’t think about that right now. There’s too much to do.
“I’ll talk to him,” I decide.
“When?” Z and I stare out the glass wall from our study room. The library’s
busy with fall semester in force. Books piled on the tables. All the outlets are
being hoarded by groups of people.
“After this,” I say, reaching for the iced coffee and taking a deep drink of
my vanilla latte. It’s one of the few things that soothes my mind. The sweet,
creamy drink is my favorite all year round and I can’t wait until fall weather
arrives and I order it hot.
 As I let the cool drink wash away the tension in my neck and head, I look
back out of the library, as I scan the shelves from my chair and disassociate for
a moment.
“Where should we start? I swear, Mr. Firth is determined to flunk me.” Z
pulls my attention back and I shake my head.
Z and I glance at the instructions for the paper. With each word we read,
the more our collective misery increases.
“Seriously, this lit assignment is going to kill me,” I groan.
Z doesn’t respond with her usual snarky quips.
“I’m going to forget about sleep for a while,” I continue to complain.
“Uh, Summer,” Z whispers, even though we are in a soundproof room.
“Like, why would he think it would be cool to spring this on us with a
week to do it?”
“Summer!” Z snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Oh my god, look!”
My head snaps up and there he is, Stewart Pratt. His coiffed blond hair that
has a cowlick in the back that he hates. He smiles at a pretty blond girl and
tucks an errant hair behind her ear. I see his classically handsome face as he
grins at her. His hand finds the small of her back leading her toward the
entrance.
“What the fuck?” Z stands looking at me, her brown eyes wide. Numbness
starts in my chest and moves through my limbs. Stewart is no longer standing
there, but I still can see him. Not in a meeting like he said he was.
However long I sat there, I can’t tell until Z gently takes my hand.
“Summer?” she calls, trying to coax me out of my shock. “Are you okay?”
Jolting up, I nearly topple my vanilla latte all over my laptop.
“Give me a second, Z.” Stalking out the door, I turn in the direction I saw
them walking.
“Summer!” Z hisses. She hooks her arm through mine, trying to ground
me.
“Wait. Wait!” she frantically whispers, moving in front of me as I spot their
backs heading toward the front entrance of the library. My mind is spinning
like an out-of-control centrifuge.
“That fuckin’ ass—” I growl.
 “Shut up. Calwood is going to have our heads if we’re loud and cussing,” Z
scolds.
The rush of feelings is like a broken dam. My stomach twists, my body
heats, and all I want to do is destroy something.
“I need you to slow down,” Z whispers, corralling back toward the study
room. I start to shove my things in my bag. “I’m ending this now.”

***

In twenty minutes, I’m parked in front of Kappa Sigma’s house with a box of
Stewart’s things.
The frat house was at the edge of campus. Each Greek house has similar
red brick, Victorian-style homes. As much as I come to this street, my favorite
thing is the giant oak trees that line sidewalks. As I drove toward the Kappa
Sigma house, I mourned the likelihood that I would never drive down here
again.
Moving up the porch, I ring the doorbell. A pledge, a freshman I recognize,
answers wearing a maid costume and a sad face.
“Hey, S-Summer,” he says. The pledge is wide-eyed, glancing at my box.
“Luis.” I move past him, ignoring his plea to wait, and sprint up the stairs
toward Stewart’s room.
Giggling reaches my ears before I get to his bedroom door. Quietly
opening it, the sight is not unexpected but hurts all the same. It’s the blond
from the library, leaning on him, with one hand down his boxers and one hand
through his sandy blond hair. His lips lock on hers and nausea creeps in my
stomach.
“So this is the ‘meeting’ you absolutely couldn’t miss?” I hiss loudly.
Stewart jumps up from the bed. His wide gaze lands on me.
Raising a brow, I assess them; the girl is mortified, glancing at me and
Stewart.
“Summer!” Stewart shoves a pillow over his lap.
I dump his stuff on the floor, hearing glass shatter, pleased it was likely his
favorite beer glass.
 “We’re done here,” I say as I walk out his room.
Stewart calls my name as I move through the house. When I see the door, I
nearly run, needing to get out. My feet hit the porch, on to the sidewalk and
head back toward my car. I steady my breath with each step. The twists in my
gut fade as I process the sudden pivot in my life that occurred in the last couple
of hours. Tears threaten my face and the hurt seeps through my bones. I force
myself to stop but tears still make their escape. Unfortunately I’m not alone.
My eye catches on the two guys meandering toward the house next to Kappa
Sigma.
Duke Burnham, the right winger and vicious enforcer on the Ravenwood
Ravens hockey team and Denny Owens the left defenseman. I try to look away,
and hope they don’t notice me. Duke is tall, imposing, with ocean blue eyes
that trail up toward me. Duke is a ruthless player on ice; intimidating in
presence, he is one of the key players on the hockey team that dominated
college hockey. Rumors have it that the NHL has its eye on him. Denny Owens
is a legacy at Ravenwood. Generations of his family have graced Ravenwood’s
halls. He is the latest and like many of the legacies, he is smug and prone to
flashing money and influence for whatever he wants. He’s much shorter than
Duke, but what he lacks in presence, he makes up for in influence.
Having interviewed them a couple times for the Ravenwood Paper, I always
found my conversations with Duke respectful. In fact, every time I grabbed a
quote from him, he was thoughtful. Our conversations were brief but friendly.
Denny, on the other hand, stares like he is playing out a sick fantasy right in
front of you. It is a wonder how Duke is one of his friends.
My avoidance started when Stewart told me to stay away from the two,
telling me he heard rumors of their bad behavior. Hearing about Duke
surprised me the most, having no indication of his capabilities but I suppose he
was better at hiding it.
Since dating Stewart, he had quickly told me of Duke’s diabolical ways.
Like the summer internship program for a world renowned tech company,
there were rumors of blackmail and intimidation against one of Stewart’s frat
brothers, Mark. He eventually transferred out.
On campus, Duke never seemed to cause trouble but I always heard of
rumors opposing that fact. Being close with Denny was enough proof that he
wasn’t who I thought he was.
Stewart viewed him as his rival ever since he tried out for Hockey Club
and they played against Duke’s team for fun. Stewart had it in his mind to
show off and Duke decided to humble and humiliate him. Duke always seemed
to treat him like a nuisance, occasionally antagonizing him. After that, Stewart
set out to join the frat, cursing hockey but specifically Duke. During Campus
Wars, I had to keep Stewart from breaking Duke’s nose after Duke’s team won
the paintball competition. Stewart, of course, tried to prove he cheated.
Duke’s gaze finds mine, and my breath lock in my throat. He barely sends a
nod my way, the same kind he would give when I approached him for quotes
for our paper. Now he is staring at me. For a brief moment, I catch a flash of
surprise. I quickly wipe my tears and jog across the street to my car, willing my
pulse to slow down and the heat in my cheeks to fade.
As I reached my car, I realized I was no longer Stewart’s girlfriend. Which
meant I was now free game. I no longer had the protection from his frat or
even his legacy name and I didn’t know if that was a good thing.
 Chapter 2

B reak-ups are a strange thing. My grandma, Nana, always believed that

past loves were disguised as lessons, preparing you for the real thing. I
had thought I learned everything from previous boyfriends and other
people’s relationships. I thought I could get away from the pain of growth, but
it waits for me all along.
Memories flood my mind. The alcohol not only makes me replay my
relationships repeatedly like an awful movie, but it pulls out the other ghosts.
I want to go back in time. To a moment where I felt unstoppable and I
always remember the Halloween party my freshman year. At the party, I was
the designated driver for my friends. Single then and part of a group of
Catwoman, each a different version. I was Michelle Pfeiffer, strutting in the
skintight black costume with a small, braided black rope as my whip. I felt
powerful and I decided that night to be open to whatever came my way.
That was when I had my first and only one night stand. He gave me one of
the best nights of my life. The Skeleton, my name for him because he had a
skeleton face and was all in black. That night, he freed me from my worries
and just let me be the person I wanted to be. I buried the perfectionist student
Summer Evans in a cat mask as the Skeleton buried himself in me. Even using
my whip to tie me to his bed. We decided no names, just pet ones. Keeping the
thrill of anonymity. There were days where I wondered who he was. If I ever
ran into him. If my eyes ever scanned his face and I never knew.
This party doesn’t remind me of that night like I had hoped. It smells
rancid and almost feels damp. The music is too loud and not even good. The
liquor in my cup tastes too strong. Still, I let the liquid burn down my throat.
It’s better than being alone with my thoughts, which have only spun me
around, the darker ones making me question if I was ever good enough for
Stewart.
“Summer. Are you good?” Z asks, peering at me. I swear this is the fifth
time she has asked tonight. It didn’t help that I’d received an email: my favorite
extra-curricular, the Ravenwood Paper, had asked me to step down temporarily.
Telling me I needed a break without really giving a choice in the matter. In my
downward spiral, I stupidly wrote a scathing piece about one of our donors at
Ravenwood. I lost the trust of my team and jeopardized my dream internship
in New York.
Three hours ago, I begged Z to go out and let loose to help me forget. Z
reluctantly agreed, dragging Eddie, her boyfriend, who promptly disappeared
the moment we walked through the door.
It’s been over a month since I dumped Stewart. October is around the
corner and midterms are a few weeks away. No one here seems to care about
the looming deadlines and tests. I had decided I wouldn’t either, for now.
“This drink tastes like shit.” Frowning, I move out of the way of a couple
barreling the down hall giggling.
“That’s because it’s straight up whiskey. And not the good kind.” Z makes a
face, smelling the drink and gagging. She plucks the cup out of my hand and
replaces it with water.
Chugging it, I am grateful for her. I decide in my drunk haze I need to be
less of a bitch and get myself together again. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe on
Monday.
The fallout of our break-up was strange. As if I had pulled my head out of
the ground and reality rushed to greet me. Ravenwood’s legacies are
untouchable. I never thought that dumping Stewart for his infidelity somehow
made me the bad guy.
Leaning against the wall, I watch the surrounding people. Of course, I
notice a few girls nearby looking at me and talking.
“Isn’t that Stewart’s ex?” a petite brunette says.
“Yeah, she’s kind of uptight. I heard she drove Stewart crazy because she
was obsessed with knowing where he was.”
“No wonder Stewart cheated on her.”
Grimacing, I move away from them.
 “We can head back and have a movie night.” Z squeezes my hand, noticing
the misery on my face. “Then I can bitch about Tripp to you. Eddie doesn’t
want to hear it anymore.” Eddie is a stressed out senior. Having been together
since her sophomore year, he has long been sick of hearing about how Tripp
Montgomery ruined her day.
“What’s he done now?” Tripp is Z’s personal nemesis. One of the star
hockey players with the Ravens. Paired with movie star looks, family wealth,
popularity, and being a legacy. The man is used to being worshiped. Z, who
comes from the opposite background, grew up in a family who fought hard for
her to get into this school. With her brains, she landed a full-ride scholarship.
Naturally, they didn’t start off on the right foot and it imploded when he
signed up to be a tutor, like Z, for extra credit. He tried to flirt with her to
offload his work one day for a date and she wasn’t having it. They have been
antagonizing each other at the tutoring center ever since.
Z’s face contorts into disdain before she can tell me. Her jaw clenches as
her eyes follow something behind me.
“What?” Turning, I follow her line of sight.
Stewart is here. This time his arm is slung around another girl, a different
one with dark hair. I recognize her as the president of another sorority.
“Of fucking course.” My gut sours as he spots me from across the room. It’s
the first time we’ve run into each other since the break-up. It was inevitable,
but it’s still too soon. Stewart promptly abandons his date and moves in my
direction.
“Let’s go, Z.” Grabbing her hand, I stalk in the opposite direction,
anywhere, just to put space between us.
“Summer!” I hear him call from behind me, but I continue on. My skin
feels hot and I want to feel something other than betrayal.
As I round the corner, I walk into something solid. Something broad that
smells of fresh linen and citrus.
“Whoa, you okay?” Looking up, I recognize the last person I expected,
Duke. Next to him is Tripp, his light green eyes gleam with amusement as they
flicker to Z next to me. Z groans, her nose scrunching like she stepped on
something. On the other side is Adam Florence, the goaltender with lightning
reflexes and a sweet disposition, compared to his companions.
 “Must be my lucky day,” Tripp says with a grin. It’s the one he uses to
charm anything with warm blood.
“Must be my nightmare,” Z grumbles.
“Aww, Sunshine, I’m flattered that you subconsciously think of me.”
“I’ll send you the therapy bill.”
Tripp grins his million-dollar smile at her, but it only makes Z roll her
eyes.
I gawk up at Duke, feeling my spine tingle and face heat once again,
reminding myself I am here. Duke, of course, doesn’t respond, instead his gaze
is pinning me to the spot. Everything around us seems to fade, and something
heavy settles in my chest and warms my belly, wondering if the alcohol is in
more control than I realized.
“Summer!” Stewart’s voice is behind me, and I feel his clammy hand on my
arm.
Duke’s eyes blink a beat, then narrow at Stewart’s hand on my arm.
“Let go, Pratt,” he growls and not a moment later, Stewart does like an
obedient dog. That was the power of Duke Burnham.
“What the fuck do you want, Duke? I’m trying to talk to my girl.” Stewart
glares at him, but keeps his space.
“I’m not your girl anymore!” Crossing my arms, I muster up my best
withering look. “Actually, your real girl is on the other side of the room
looking for you. You should go to her.”
Steward gives me a hard smile. “Baby! Stop throwing your tantrum and
let’s talk.”
“What the f—” Z moves next to me. Tripp grabs her arm, keeping her at
bay, sending her an uncharacteristically serious look to stay out of it.
My jaw tenses and I see red. Hissing at him in a low voice, “Stewart Pratt.
If you don’t get the fuck away from me, I will happily remind you and
Professor Tilby who has been authoring your Econ papers.”
A dark look quickly replaces the pleading in his eyes as if in a split second
he just became another person.
“Summer, if you don’t stop this—” he hisses, taking a step forward.
“Back the fuck off, Pratt. She doesn’t want to talk to you,” Duke says. His
usual cool and collected threats are now laced with anger as he steps between
us. Tripp is next to him, the perma-smirk now gone, replaced with a look that’s
steely and deadly as he watches Stewart. Duke’s larger frame hides me. What
breaks my concentration is his hand. It splays at my hip and gently guides me
behind him.
Biting my lip, his warm hand leaves my skin, and I’m left wanting more.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Stewart also notices Duke’s hand. His face contorts into rage. “Are you
fucking him now?! Really, Summer?!”
“Hey now!” Adam frowns. “You need to settle down.”
Stewart snaps like a wild animal, and Duke takes a step forward, corralling
Stewart away from me. I see the muscles in his back work and I realize Stewart
had never once protected me like this.
“And what if I am? Hell, since you suggested it, maybe I will,” I snap, trying
to see his face from around Duke’s massive frame. I don’t care if everyone is
watching. I don’t care if anyone hears. All I can do now is watch as Duke nods
at his friends. Tripp and Adam grab him by the arms, leading him away.
Stewart curses up a storm, but his voice fades in the crowd. The sorority
girl is left with her jaw on the ground, unsure if she should follow him or
pretend she doesn’t even know him.
Silence fills the air for a beat before the music continues and the party acts
like nothing had happened.
Duke turns to me, “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I reply, staring at the spot where Stewart had been. “You didn’t have
to do that.”
Duke studies me as silence settles between us. “You were too good for him,
you know.”
Shrugging, I glance at Z, who returns with Tripp and Adam from
overseeing Stewart getting removed from the house.
“It was a mistake I needed to learn.” I sigh.
“Let’s get you home,” Z says. “Thanks, guys.” Z shoots a look at Tripp
before mumbling her thanks to him.
“What was that, sweet cheeks?” Tripp feigns shock.
“Fuck off.” Z flips him off, tugging on my arm, but I’m frozen.
Duke’s gaze is still locked on my face.
 Exhaustion is replacing the fury and adrenaline. My bed is becoming more
enticing than staying a minute longer here.
“Let me find Eddie and we can go,” Z says.
Tripp rolls his eyes and waves goodbye before moving in the opposite
direction, his attention catching on a group of ladies ogling him.
“Thanks again,” I say. My brief interviews with Duke always run like this.
He waits patiently for me to ask my question and he gives me an answer. His
attention and focus is always on me, no matter what is happening around us.
Tonight was no different and I become acutely aware of how handsome he is.
Duke runs his hand through his brown hair. It’s long enough that it curls at the
nape of his neck and I watch, wondering if it’s as soft as it looks.
“I heard you’re not at the paper,” Duke says.
My spine stiffens. “I’m on temporary leave.”
“I’m sorry.” He is sincere and I smile, grateful.
“It’s fine, I’ll bounce back.”
Duke nods as he rubs the face of his watch. It’s a habit I noticed when I
started interviewing him for the paper. It dawns on me, he might be nervous.
“We’re having a party after the hockey game in a couple weeks at the
Hockey House,” Duke says.
My brow raises, wondering if I heard him right. It takes a moment for me
to muster up a ‘no thanks’ to the random invitation, but before I can answer,
Duke leans in.
His scent invades my nose and my head again. His breath is hot in my ear
and yet my body shivers. “If you go, come find me and we can really piss Pratt
off.”
My mouth drops and my heart feels like I’m caught in a vice grip that is
Duke’s voice.
“What do you mean?” I ask as my mind reels.
“Pratt is a prick. He thinks we’re fucking. Let’s mess with him.” In the
colored lights of the party, he is stone cold serious. He has no business looking
at me like that in the middle of the party, surrounded by people.
“It’s forward, but think about it; we can pretend.” He winks. “Catch you
around.”
 Duke disappears into the crowd, leaving me wondering if I hallucinated
everything, wondering if he really meant what he said. Biting my lip, the heat
that simmered in my veins is now wanting to combust. Z appears to take me
home and I’m grateful.
I suck in a breath as I follow Z outside. The fresh air helps to reinvigorate
my mind to clear the fog. There is a tug, a feeling of being watched that I can’t
shake as we head down the sidewalk. Duke’s offer is at the forefront of my
mind. It does what it always does, goes down rabbit holes of ‘what-if’s, ‘should
I’s,’and ‘why not’s?’
 Chapter 3

S tewart Pratt was a bastard. After the party, the jerk started rumors.
Rumors of me taking part in an orgy. For revenge because he strayed. My
reputation is in shatters, my advisor is worried about my grades and I’m
still out of the Ravenwood Paper.
“Slut shaming isn’t a good look,” Z drawls as we walk across the quad.
“Still, it’s pretty fucking annoying.” The vanilla latte is my third for the day.
My calendar is packed, my to-do list has grown into an insufferable amount of
tasks and I barely got a damn lunch. Trying to get back into the motions,
trying to make-up for a couple of bad assignments and ignored projects.
Trying to regain trust with the Ravenwood Paper to let me back in again.
The worst part is that I’m horny. Ever since Duke intervened that night, he
awakened something I hadn’t felt in a while.
“Did you think about the party at the Hockey House?” Z asks as she leans
in. Her hazel eyes are bright with excitement.
“No. When do I have time?” It’s a lie. I’m always thinking about it.
Debating, weighing the pros and cons. My dreams seem to think it’s a good
idea. God, I even started looking all over my room for that rope from
Halloween. It was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t serious though, he just
wanted to piss off my ex. I think.
“You should do it,” she says. “For real, though.”
“What?” My feet misstep on the stairs as we head up to the lecture.
“Seriously. Sleep with him, I always got the vibe that he liked you.” We
greet the cool air inside. The smell of books and floor cleaner assaults my nose.
“Well, IF we get there, I hear he chews up girls and spits them out,” I say.
“That’s a plus to me.” Z giggles. “Besides, what if he’s just as good as Mr.
Skeleton man?”
 We are standing at the far end of the hall, away from the small crowd of
students who are also waiting. Z is the only person who knows about that
aberration in my behavior, that one-night stand who is now haunting my
dreams.
“I know you haven’t gotten it good in a while,” Z adds. ”Why not talk to
him, sweeten the deal with a good lay?”
Rolling my eyes, my phone buzzes. It’s my mother and immediately, my
mood sours. I was actively avoiding her, hating that I’m going to have to tell
her about Stewart.
“You should tell her,” Z says.
“Do I have to?”
“Come on, this is perfect. You have like ten minutes before we can go in.”
Moving down a different hall, I pop my ear buds in and sit on a bench.
“Hi,” I say.
“About time you answered,” my mother drawls.
“I’ve been busy,” I say.
“How are classes? I know the load you took on is heavy for the business
degree, but I promise it will be worth it.”
“Well, it’s not my favorite.” A partial truth, because I realized nearly a
quarter into my semester I hate my business major.
“In fact, I’m not sure if I want to double major.” My lips purse, I brace
myself.
“Well, you can’t be a journalist; you need to have a degree that is worth the
paper it’s printed on,” she says.
I close my eyes, trying to push away the sting.
“Don’t take unnecessary risks, especially with an opportunity like this. My
daughter, at Ravenwood, with a business degree? It’s as good as gold for you.”
My jaw hardens again, tension running down my neck and into my
shoulders.
“How is Stewart?” The inevitable question. My hands feel clammy and pain
shoots in my chest.
“We are over . . . for good.” I sigh. The silence that follows was the first for
my mother.
“What? Why?!” she asks.
 “Because he cheated on me, Mom,” I snap. “He’s an asshole, not the perfect
future husband that you think he is.”
“Oh, Summer . . . I—” my mom starts.
“Look, I don’t want to talk about it right now. I have to go to class soon.”
“Summer . . .” my mother tries again.
“Can I talk to Nana, please?” The silence stretches again and I hear
shuffling in the background. I fight hard against the anxiety that makes my
vision blur and my head spin.
“Is this my ingrate granddaughter?” My Nana’s voice pierces through all
that and makes me smile and tears prick my eyes.
“Hey Nana,” I say with relief.
“I almost wrote you out of my will again. You’re on thin ice for not calling
for this long,” she scolds.
“Can’t help it, you old bag. I have to invest in my future, you know.” A tear
slips and I wipe it away. “Since I’ll have to make money to keep you alive with
machines, eventually.”
Nana scoffs over the phone. “I’d rather haunt you.”
After chatting about anything but my life, my shoulders relax. Z pops her
head around the corner, giving me a warning that class is going to start.
“Nana.”
“Yes?” she asks.
“If someone hurts you, do you let go or get even?”
Nana laughs. “Revenge won’t help you. Karma will. But that doesn’t mean
you can’t help it along.”
“Hmm.” Rubbing my neck, I think surely I can’t feel worse if I sleep with
Duke. Hell, even though I’m not a casual sex kind of girl doesn’t mean I don’t
like it.
“Did you love him?” my grandmother asks.
Biting my lip, I really think about it. “No.”
“Good,” she says, satisfied. “Don’t let him think he’s won.”
Throughout class, my thoughts drift as our irritable lit professor
eviscerates some of the students’ papers with his Irish accent.
What was I to lose? Self respect? I discreetly pull up my phone. My thumb
hovers over Stewart’s social media account. Of course, the first video I see is
him dancing at a club. A drink in hand and sandwiched between two girls. My
nose wrinkles and my thumb quickly exits out.
When I leave the lecture hall, I spot Duke and Denny walking in the
opposite direction, talking. Duke looks more serious than he did at the party.
His jaw is hard and spine stiff as Denny seems to laugh at his own joke. They
have been on a winning streak during the games and it’s becoming more and
more likely a scout might appear.
My thoughts drift to our conversations. Perhaps he forgot about what
happened at the party. Doubt evaporates as he sends me a smile that dimples
his cheek and stops in his tracks.
“You go ahead, Denny.” He nods to the shorter man. Of course, Denny
spots me and a frown deepens on his face.
“Don’t be too long.” Even though he looks annoyed, I can feel him looking
me up and down and I suddenly want to take a shower.
“Summer,” Duke greets and my stomach wants to flip and spin with the
way he is looking at me. Clutching my laptop case and coffee, I wish I actually
took the time to dress less like a hobo in my oversized shirt and leggings.
“Duke.” I clear my throat.
“Have you thought about what I said?” he asks.
“A little. Have you? You might have been drunk.”
Duke smirks. “I don’t drink.”
“Oh!” I raise a brow. There is so much mystery about Duke. Rumors swirl
around him like a fog, but the little tidbit he shares somehow feels like a
shimmer of light in the darkness.
Duke steps toward me, and I crane to look at him. “I’ve been thinking
about it a lot.”
It feels like I’m having an out-of-body experience, getting caught in Duke’s
orbit.
“Have you?” It slips out more sultry than intended.
“How can I not be?” he asks. My pulse jumps as I see his eyes darken.
“Because midterms are coming.”
Duke laughs, a genuine laugh that brightens his face, and it’s a beautiful
sight. However, I remember his reputation and they always have a sliver of
truth. The enigma and brutal enforcer on ice, unforgiving and merciless.
 “Why do you want to do this?” I blurt out, searching his sea blue eyes.
Duke nods as if he’s ready to explain, “Because the bastard has been a
nuisance since the Hockey Club game.”
“Seriously?” I roll my eyes. “That was a long time ago.”
“Not because he was rude and obnoxious to everyone on the ice but he
started some rumors about me that are not quite true.”
My brows shoot up, my journalistic curiosity taking over.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll explain one day but the guy has been talking shit, a lot of shit about
people, starting rumors that are damaging, and now you.” He frowns. “You
don’t deserve that.”
“Thanks.” I feel heat spread on my cheeks.
“Besides, he really sucks and I’d like to piss him off.” Duke grins wickedly.
My mouth snaps shut. I’ve never truly doubted Stewart but slowly it’s
becoming more obvious how much of a liar he is.
The smile on his face stays. “You seem stressed.”
“I always am.” It’s the cold hard truth.
“How are you not stressed?” If I recall, he’s also part of the honor society
and is involved with intense hockey training and games.
“I have a healthy outlet.” He winks. “If we do this, I can help with that, too.”
“You mean like . . .” My face continues to heat up and I begin to notice that
people around us are watching curiously.
“Yes.” Duke lowers his voice. “I’ve always found you attractive.”
My mouth parts as a shock courses through my body. Duke stands in front
of me with a damned smile I can’t tear my eyes away from. When I interviewed
him, he was always respectful and attentive.
“If I do this, you won’t post anything on social media or make fun of me?”
Duke’s lips thin, “I would never do that. What we are doing is no one’s
business. Sex is just an option. We can make it a business to piss off Stewart all
just by hanging out.”
As we stand in the middle of the quad, I feel more eyes on me. On us. Even
this little interaction seems to catch the interest of the student population.
“You must really hate Stewart.” Glancing around, I decide I need to move,
heading down to the sidewalk.
 “I really want to rattle him a bit.” I don’t miss the glint in his eyes. “I’m a
firm believer in helping karma along.”
My feet trip and his large hands steady me. They are warm and leave a
pleasant tingle on my back.
“What’d you say?” My head snaps toward him.
“What?” he asks, confused.
“Never mind.” Shaking my head, I spot my car in the parking lot. I realized
he had been going the opposite direction, yet he accompanied me all the way
to my car. We exchange numbers and I have to fight the excited smile on my
face after he texts me.
“Shoot me a text when you figure out if it is just for business . . . or
pleasure.” He winks as he continues down the sidewalk, chuckling at my
shocked face, as if the dirtiest, hottest shit I’ve heard today was funny to him.
That night, I stare at his number. When I got home, Stewart decided to text
me. Calling me all sorts of names because he heard from someone else I was
being friendly with Duke. I promptly blocked his number and wondered why I
didn’t do it before, how I never knew this side of him.
Summer: I’m in. For business and . . . and if the offer still stands . . . pleasure.
Duke: Friday, after the game, at the Hockey House.
I steady my excited breath and chuck the phone on my nightstand, sealing
my fate.

***

“You look pretty smokin.” Z whistles as I look myself over in the mirror. My
jeans hug my hips as the black lace bodysuit hugs the rest of my body. My
brown hair is up in a high ponytail and, for the first time since the breakup, I
felt like my old self again.
“I’m feeling pretty smokin,” I admit, standing in our home after the hockey
game against the Badgers of Madison College. I watched with rapt attention as
the Ravens dominated the ice and won.
Every time Duke intercepted or brutally took on an opponent, I couldn’t
help but grin. His excited blue eyes would find mine across the ice and the
cheers and screams tuned out as I locked into his gaze. It’s a constant reminder
of what’s to come.
When I got home, I tore apart my closet, finding the sexiest thing I could
wear. My mind was made up and if I was going to do this, I was going to
summon Summer from Halloween her freshman year.
“You don’t want to come with me?”
Z smiles, shaking her head. “No, I gotta work on my project and then I’m
going to see a movie with Eddie.”
Of course, my thoughts spiral and doubt knocks on the door.
“What if he talks shit about me too?” I frown, my confidence had taken a
hit because of Stewart and I know I won’t bear another one with Duke.
“He won’t.” Z shakes her head.
“How do you know?”
“Because the only people I know who have slept with Duke are the ones
who talk about it. He doesn’t talk to anyone about his exploits.”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” I fan myself. I want him. I knew the moment
I got home after our conversation.
“I can, because you deserve a good dicking down by one of the hottest,
most intimidating guys on campus, just to fuck with Stewart Pratt.” Z laughs
and I’m envious of her easy-going attitude.
My mind drifts to our conversation. It has consumed my thoughts as the
countdown began, popping into my brain during class and even in the middle
of my dreams.
The Uber drops me off in front of the Hockey House. It’s a designated
Victorian-style mansion for many of the hockey players to live in. I recognize a
handful of people when I enter the door.
The foyer opens up to a large room, people lined inside. The dim lighting
somehow makes the Victorian design less menacing.
My gaze drifts around and I spot familiar faces and head over, only to
distract myself from the buzzing in my veins and how my stomach feels like
butterflies trying to make an escape.
Meeting with acquaintances does little to shake the feeling of being
watched. The shadows at the party feel like they have eyes of their own. I
almost reconsider coming here.
 “Summer, right?” Turning, I find Denny. His gaze isn’t even on my face;
he’s boldly staring at my chest before dragging his eyes back up to my face
with a smirk.
“Yeah. Congrats on the win.” I nod, hoping he doesn’t notice my
discomfort.
“Duke told me you might come.” He smiles. If I didn’t notice him leering at
my chest, I would have thought he was a nice guy, but I know better.
“Yeah. He helped me out with Stewart at a party a while ago and we’re
friends.”
“Did he now?” The gleam in his eyes makes me want to figure out an exit
fast.
Luckily, Tripp saves my ass, making an appearance. Next to him is a
familiar face, Adam. Adam never says much. When I first interviewed him, I
found him to be very shy. He speaks little unless it’s about his longtime
girlfriend, Audrey, who he has dated since high school and both ended up in
separate colleges.
Denny shoots Tripp a glare and I can see there is no love lost between the
two.
“Denny.” Tripp claps his hand on his shoulder. Tripp is a sniper on the ice,
scoring goals and earning the love of the whole Ravenwood population, a fact
that Denny hates.
“What’s up, Summer?” Tripp’s million-dollar smile wipes away the
discomfort like it wasn’t even there. “Where is your partner in crime?” he asks,
glancing around.
“I think Eddie and her are out for dinner,” I say.
Tripp flashes a look of disappointment. “That’s too bad.”
“What do you want, Tripp?” Denny is annoyed and this seems to please
Tripp to no end. The harshness in his tone seems to pull Adam from his
distraction, watching between the two, ready to intervene.
“I brought some friends over. Suzy is dying to meet you.” Tripp drags
Denny away from me, presumably leading to the girls in the other room.
Adam pauses in front of me, “Duke’s waiting upstairs if you want to say hi.”
Adam smiles politely before eying Denny and Tripp heading into the other
room.
 “Excuse me.”
My eyes trail up. Duke. His arms are crossed, wearing a tight fitting black
t-shirt, making his shoulders and forearms thick. I notice the glint of silver on
his wrist, a watch.
The vodka I gulp burns the back of my throat. It helps lighten the lead that
seems to attach itself to my feet as I head upstairs.
I hold his gaze, and he moves away. I realize that it is now or never. When I
trail upstairs, I feel lighter with each step; how can such anticipation make me
massively turned on? It’s as if my body knows what’s about to happen next.
Thinking of the potential of the night ignites a fire in my veins. When I get to
the landing, I smile, ready to burn in flames with him.
 Chapter 4

H enotice
leads me to the far end of the hall. His room has large double doors. I
the fireplace the moment I step in and take it all in. His room is
immaculate, but I notice there are no photos or even a hint of who he is
underneath the veneer of being a college legend. There is an intimidatingly
enormous bed that is centered. The desk is devoid of anything but a laptop and
a lamp. The man is an enigma even in his own bedroom, the place you can be
most vulnerable.
“Do you need something to drink?” he offers. He must sense my nerves, the
tension in my shoulders and my neck won’t relax. The heat is a steady fire
right now and I want him, but something inside feels this is the point of no
return. Like sweet oblivion is just on the other side of the door.
“No,” I say, with a swallow.
Duke smiles and walks toward me, his large hands settled on my shoulders.
He keeps my back toward the only exit.
“Relax.” His gentle command relaxes my nerves and I must look like a
caged animal to him.
“Sorry, I don’t do this often,” I explain.
Duke nods, his face softens, “Despite what it must feel like, Summer, you
have all the power here. When you say stop, I stop. I’m not gonna do anything
you don’t feel comfortable with, okay?”
My mouth parts and I feel myself getting wetter. The heaviness seems
amplified suddenly.
“Now. Tell me what you want,” he directs.
I’m mute and it’s not because I don’t know what I want, it’s because there is
too much in my head. Too much of me in my head. Wondering if I smell okay,
did I shave my other leg?
 “Let’s start this way. What do you want me to call you?” He cocks his head,
waiting for my answer. It’s just a brief flash in my head, the pet name the
Skeleton called me.
“Kitten,” I tell him.
Duke’s face is suddenly unreadable, but I see him swallow hard.
“Kitten,” he breathes and my mouth waters. He says it right, like it’s a
prayer. He takes another step forward and I remain in place, somehow not
combusting.
“Can I touch you?” His eyes are hooded and dark. I can barely see any blue.
I nod, staring at his lips. His hand reaches for my hair, pushing it back and
running through. His other hand splays across my back and pulls me closer so
our chests touch.
“Is this okay?” he asks.
I can only nod and I suddenly wish I took up his offer of water.
Duke’s face burns in my head and I see him look at my lips like he’s hungry,
and he’s ready to feast. It’s then I realize he’s waiting. Waiting for me to make
the first move. When I do, I stand on my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his
neck and inhaling his scent, which buries itself in my head.
My heart is hammering and my mind runs a million miles a minute as my
lips seal over his. It’s tentative, and he knows it, and I’ve never felt so self
conscious.
Then Duke kisses back softly and suddenly my mind is silent. He is gentle,
as if afraid he would scare me off. I lean into the kiss and I melt in his arms at
how sweet it is. I sigh against him as I feel his hands move to cup my jaw, his
thumb gently stroking my cheek. When his tongue meets mine, it’s not frantic,
lewd, or invasive. It’s more affectionate than I had expected.
Breaking away, I catch my breath, my pulse pounding and suddenly.
Wondering what the hell I am getting into.
“Kitten, stop thinking so much.” He chuckles.
“I can’t help it.” Heat creeps in my face, and I wonder if he is regretting this.
“Do you want me to help you?” He licks his lips and all I can do is nod.
“Think back on when you felt thoroughly and utterly satisfied. How did
that go?” Duke’s hands still hold me against him, his fingers tracing my spine as
he waits for my answer.
 My mind doesn’t flash to Stewart at all, instead to my stranger.
“Like I was fucked out of my mind. Enough that I forgot everything, who I
am, and the chatter in my head shut up for once.”
Duke’s eyes are impossibly black now. He closes them and groans.
“What?” I inquire, wondering if I said something wrong. Duke steadies his
erratic breath.
“You are making this very hard on me.” He chuckles.
“Oh?” The corner of my lip quirks.
“Yes. Because I’m tryin’ to be a gentleman here. If you let me have my way,
I would have made you come twice by now,” he says.
“Why haven’t you?” I whisper, leaning in. I feel a little braver with his
words and I steal another kiss. He cages me against the wall.
“Are you sure about this? You can stop at any time, okay?” His voice is
hoarse and I swear I see him shake.
“Yes,” I say.
The moment I utter it, I seal my fate. His hand frames my face again as he
kisses hard; our teeth collide and the chatter in my head disappears again. My
senses focus on him. He picks me up effortlessly, pulling my legs around the
taper of his waist.
He doesn’t break away from the kiss as he moves us to his desk and settles
with me there. It’s becoming frantic and I knock off the lamp. I clutch at him
just because I need some semblance of gravity.
Tugging my hair back, with my neck exposed, he trails kisses there. I pant
as his hands roam all over me.
“Fuck,” he curses, realizing there are too many articles of clothes between
us. He has to force himself to pull away. His hair is a mess as we both help each
other out of our tops.
Duke is built like a god. With the number of times I’ve seen him at the gym,
it’s not a surprise, but I am finally going to make him put all that hard work to
use on me.
Sliding his arm around my waist, he pulls me toward him, pulling my legs
around him. His lips seal across mine again, greedier. My hands roam his
chest. He is like a furnace and he leans harder into my hand, like he’s been
touch-starved his whole life. My hands drift down to reach for his belt and I
hesitate, drawing away.
Duke’s hands find mine, pulling it back to the belt buckle. “Never hold
back with me, Kitten.”
Obeying, I undo it and a thrill moves through me. Maybe it’s because he’s
Duke, maybe it’s because I finally feel freer than I’ve been in a long time.
When my hands reach to push his jeans down, Duke moves back. It takes a
moment to process what’s happening. His looks are predatory as he kneels in
front of me, face at the level of my pussy.
My mouth parts, about to tell him he doesn’t have to and draw my thighs
closed, but his hand stops me. He looks up at me, almost offended, as he yanks
off my pants and underwear with it. His gaze moves down, staring at me bare
and heat flashes across my chest at how wet I already am.
“Fuck, you’ve been hidin’ this from me, Kitten?” he asks with lust in his
eyes. It’s pure and unhidden. It makes my stomach twist in anticipation. He
looks hungry, and nothing is going to stop him from feasting.
Duke looks at me like I’m a little traitor, hiding his present. His muscular
arms wrap around my thighs and pull me closer to the edge of the desk.
He doesn’t start slow or tentatively. He seals his mouth on my fiery core
and his tongue practically digs in. I can’t hold back the cry and I buck against
him at how sensitive I feel.
His large hands hold me down, as if he’s silently telling me to take my
punishment. My mind blanks and I can only babble his name and hold on to
his hair for the ride. My core tenses and I lose myself in the sensation that his
tongue brings.
He inserts a large finger, finding that spongy spot like he fucking knew
where it was the whole time. He strokes it slowly and deliberately before he
inserts another finger.
“Please. Please! Please!” The babble can barely come out and then suddenly
I tip over and I moan. Loudly. I come hard on his tongue and fingers, my
thighs clutch around his head and I feel like I could snap his neck as he makes
me ride it out almost to the point of oversensitivity. I’m a mess as I look up,
trying to comprehend what just happened when he pulls away.
 “I always knew you’d like that,” he mutters as if to himself, and I don’t have
enough brain cells to comprehend it further.
Duke’s face appears in front of me and he still looks unsatisfied. When he
kisses me, I taste myself on his tongue. The kiss itself is devastating, utterly
destroying the last bit of rational thought in my mind. Duke’s hands keep me
from breaking away from him as he rubs my core on the hardness of his jeans.
He pulls me off the desk and spins me around, backing me up until I feel
the soft blanket behind my knees and I buckle on top of his bed.
Blinking, I stare up at him. In one sweep, he yanks down his pants and
boxers. His cock is thick and angry. He pulls out a condom and puts it on
before his body stretches over me, caging me under him.
“I thought I could draw this out, Kitten.” His breath is hot on my face and
all I can do is stare into his eyes because my mind is mush. Duke’s eyes are
blown black and his solid chest heaves.
“You think too much,” I tease, remembering his words. He smirks, tracing
my jaw and to my lips.
“Kitten, you poor thing. I’m going to fuck you now until that pretty head of
yours can only think of me,” he whispers before kissing the column of my
throat again, refreshing the marks he left there before. When he lands on my
breasts, he sucks there, making me bow beneath him.
Duke chuckles before giving attention to the other one. All I can do is
moan, my hands running through his soft hair again. It’s a foreign concept to
me that I could get turned on again so quickly after cumming once. My voice
can hardly make a rational sound or a snarky reply. Instead, I’m caught up in
the storm of pleasure that rages through once again, ready to implode.
“On your knees,” he whispers, rolling me onto my stomach and pulling my
hips back. Biting my lip, I tense at the anticipation of his blunt head rubbing
against my folds.
I nearly jolt when he presses forward. His thickness makes my mouth
drop, but nothing comes out. His hand reaches down, finding my clit again, the
tight circles helping me relax as he attempts to push forward again.
“Kitten, fuck, you’re tight,” he mumbles.
“Duke,” I groan, nudging myself wider. It’s a wonderful burn and
everything about it is making all my nerves come alive.
 “I’m here, Kitten. I got you.” He pulls me against him, my back against his
chest before pushing forward. The angle itself is tighter and hitting just the
right spot.
“You’re taking me so well,” he whispers praise and my skin is hot as he
slowly draws himself in and out until he fills me in every space I could offer.
My heart is pounding and sweat beads on my skin.
Duke pulls back before sharply snapping into me, finally getting more
words out of me as I cry out. He repeats himself, one hand squeezing my
breast. Finally, being able to take all of him, his pace is steady but deep. His
fingers are making tight circles on my clit and the other snaking around my
throat in a gentle squeeze as he snaps up into me, falling into a brutal rhythm.
It is everything. I never want this to end. My body bounces on him and all too
soon, I edge the precipice again, ready to jump and shatter on him.
“I’m going to come,” I whisper, forcing my hips back against him. My walls
are squeezing him tightly.
“Holy shit, Kitten,” he moans.
Duke keeps his pace and I feel myself coming again. It tears through me
hard. My pussy clamps down and I shriek his name. Duke grunts at the
sensation as I flutter around him. I’m sure everyone can hear but he doesn’t
seem to care as he clutches me on him, forcing more of himself in me as I
continue to spasm around him.
“I got you, Kitten,” he chokes out.
“Fuck.” My body is boneless but I know he’s not finished as he holds me up.
His hips move again, erratically punching out my breath with each thrust
before stiffening behind me. His hands grip me hard and he groans my name
in utter devotion.
Staring up at the ceiling, I feel the world come back together again. Like
my awareness slowly taking shape. Duke is an excellent cuddler and eventually
helps me into his private bathroom to let me get cleaned up.
I had thought he would kick me out. When I emerge from the bathroom, I
know I am going to feel him until next week.
“What are you doing?” Duke asks as I reach for my clothes.
Blinking, he looks almost hurt.
“I thought you’d want me to leave . . . after . . .” I say shyly.
 “Summer.” He steps toward me. His hand nudges my chin up to him. I’m
caught in the sea-blue eyes that have the barest hint of mischief. He’s still
naked and somehow I feel the need for him again, like I just got hooked on the
most exotic drug.
“I don’t think we’re finished yet.” He pulls my shirt away from my chest,
glancing down at my bare breasts.
My lips curl into a smile. No, we weren’t.
 Chapter 5

“W hen are you going to tell me?” Z bounces in front of me as I stride

outside the yoga studio. It has nearly been a week since I left Duke’s
bed. The heat wave had broken drastically, making way for the cooler winds of
fall. Ever since I left his bed, things oddly started getting better. Pratt caught
wind of my appearance at the after party at the Hockey House, pissing him off
to no end, and the gossip turned from nasty rumors to the curious situation
blooming between Duke and I.
The man has ruined me thoroughly, and I was willing. God, I was willing
and I couldn’t believe I almost turned around. It was a miracle that I forced
myself to sneak out of his bed. To pad quietly down the stairs the next
morning in the Hockey House, without finding a soul. We didn’t sleep for most
of the night.
Hell, my throat was even sore. Taking him in my mouth, I had let him face
fuck me until tears ran down my face and I was swallowing every drop of his
cum.
The bruises and soreness I felt still linger and every time I think about him,
the fire in my veins reminds me it is still there, simmering, waiting for his
touch again.
“It was incredible,” I sigh, welcoming the cool air on my sweaty skin. The
yoga session was much needed, if only to help me break my growing obsession
with Duke Burnham. The craving that takes up residence inside me and
refuses to leave.
It was too incredible, and in one night, exceeded previous experiences.
Duke didn’t just make me forget and feel. He didn’t just take control and fuck
my brains out just to get himself off, icing our encounter with a nice revenge
package. He drew out my fantasies. Listened to me. Made me feel worshipped.
Things I wanted to try but didn’t dare bring to light when I was with Stewart,
only because he didn’t seem interested.
Duke was better than a sex god; he was the devil that liked to play.
Z squeals, “Who would have thought you just needed a good rail?”
“Keep it down, you wild animal,” I say playfully, shoving her as we make
our way down the sidewalk toward the cafe.
“What about you?” I eye her. Things with Eddie weren’t exactly on the best
terms. Z’s face blanks and her smile is too stiff for her usually expressive self.
“Eddie doesn’t want to do anything too adventurous,” she starts, her voice
small as if she’s ashamed. “He said, ‘why change something that’s already
good?’”
“But is it good?” I ask.
Z adores Eddie, but I still can’t see how Z, the girl with hidden tattoos on
her ribs, pierced nipples, and strong independence, is with Eddie.
Eddie, who planned on taking over his father’s grocery store in small town
North Carolina. Who had a house waiting for him to fill with kids and a wife.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but I do wonder how Z planned on making
this work when she has every intention of going to grad school.
“Whatever. I’ll figure it out with him.” Z beams, her cheer returning. “Let’s
get back to Duke.”
“I mean, we fucked. A lot. It was great, out of this world. I feel better about
myself and Pratt’s pissed!”
It was bittersweet. Even though he did this for his own personal revenge,
he somehow made me feel powerful, like I was in control and we shared the
weight of the world between us.
“I don’t think we’ll see each other again for a while,” I pout.
“Are you sure about that?” Z sings. I roll my eyes, and of course, she jerks
her thumb ahead of us. The sight stops me in my tracks; Duke looking
delectable in his black windbreaker and sunglasses. Making his way toward us.
Next to him is Tripp, his glass green eyes trained on his phone.
“Hey,” Duke says. There’s a softness about him today. The sea-blue eyes
always make me feel seen.
“Hey, yourself.” I smile. Duke nods a greeting at Z and Tripp’s smirk
appears as Z grimaces at him.
 “Zo Zo.” Tripp winks. “Didn’t realize you did yoga; keeping yourself limber
for the constant stick up your ass?”
“Do you hear that, Summer? I swear I heard some weird hockey rat
squabbling bullshit.” Z turns to me.
“Behave,” Duke cuts in before Tripp can open his mouth.
“Thanks, Duke. It’s nice to know Tripp has a muzzle.” Z rolls her eyes.
“Z!” I turn to my best friend, who still seems interested in her cellphone,
pretending to be innocent.
“It’s okay, Summer, I know it’s hard for Z to pretend to be civilized,” Tripp
remarks.
“Please, if civilized involves fucking the whole campus, playing hockey, and
shirking off their tutoring sessions then I must be a neanderthal . . . oh wait . . .”
Tripp is grinning, which only deepens Z’s frown. Duke and I glance at each
other, mutually deciding to keep out of it.
“I’m going to meet up with Tanya for coffee,” Z announces before Tripp
can respond.
“I am also going to get some coffee and maybe say hi to Tanya too,” Tripp
adds, amusement lighting up his face. Z glares at him and it does nothing but
make him smile wider at her.
Z sends me a thumbs up from behind Duke before disappearing down the
sidewalk with Tripp, who is checking out her ass.
“What is up with those two?” Duke asks as he watches them disappear.
“Who knows,” I sigh, shaking my head.
“Want to get breakfast with me?” Duke waits for my answer and I catch
him rubbing his watch again. He sounds unsure, a far cry from his usual
confident self.
“Yeah.” I grin in excitement.
“Are you doing okay?” he asks after we decide on the diner across the way.
We settle in the red leather seats of a booth. My phone goes off, my mother
calling again.
“Yeah, I’m doing okay.” Smiling, I silence my phone. My mind is trying to
fight the merry-go-round of questions. Maybe I left something at his place or
worse, he’s having regrets. There is a beat of silence between us and I notice
him shifting in his seat, rubbing the face of his watch.
 “Sorry, why is this so awkward?” He laughs.
“I don’t know. You would think for a guy who had been in me, it wouldn’t
be.” I wink.
Duke grins, rewarding me with a genuine smile again. It is secretly
becoming my favorite thing.
“You left without saying goodbye.” He frowns.
“Thought you would prefer that. I’m kind of an annoying person to wake
up next to.”
“How so?” Our coffees are set in front of us, and we both clutch our cups
like a shield.
“I steal all the blankets, I starfish so I take all the space, and I’ve been
rumored to talk in my sleep.”
Duke’s grin grows. “There is a reason I have a king size bed and I’m a heavy
sleeper.”
“Didn’t want to risk it. After all, I needed to leave with a good impression.”
“You don’t need to. I’ve always been impressed.”
My next words die in my throat and I feel the thrill run through me. I
realize that Stewart never had given me praise for anything.
“Thank you.” I smile and a blush heats my cheeks. “I’m pretty impressed,
too.”
We smile in the silence; the awkwardness melting. The waitress takes our
food order and I have the urge to pepper him with questions.
“Your tattoo.” He nods toward my wrist.
I smile fondly at the little sun. “It was my graduation present to myself
after high school.”
Duke gently takes my hand, lightly touching the black ink. “It’s fitting.”
My heart flutters as he smiles at my wrist, as if he can see he caused my
erratic pulse.
“The Ravens are hosting a formal at the end of the semester, raising money
for the children’s hospital.” Duke’s finger finds the face of his watch again. “I’d
like to personally invite you and Zoe. Pratt will be there, and this will put his
panties in a twist.”
“Of course.” My reply was automatic and there was a tendril of hope that
he was asking me to be his date. The food we order settles in front of us and I
shove the disappointment down. Maybe I could become friends with the cool,
formidable Duke. Put the incredible sex we had behind us and settle for a
friendship. For now, I am reminded of the optics of this arrangement.
“Tell me,” I start. “What major are you even in?”
“Finance. You?” he asks.
“Business & Journalism. Double.” I sigh, remembering how much I hate it.
“Double major, no wonder you’re stressed—your articles are awesome
though.”
Heat creeps in my cheeks, and I stare at him.
“You read my work?”
Duke pauses a moment from his eating, then nods. “Yeah, I occasionally
pick up the school paper. I’ve read your sports pieces. I like the players’ profiles
and the one investigative article you did on the hidden fees and tuition hikes.”
I swallow my food, feeling my cheeks heat. No one outside of journalism
or lit majors ever complimented my work. “That one was a collaboration, out
of my realm, but it was fun.” After a moment of digging into our food, the
awkwardness starts to relax.
“Do you like Finance?” I ask curiously.
“Yeah, actually.”
“If hockey doesn’t work out, I can see you enjoying being some sort of
stock broker,” I tease.
A vision pops into my head—Duke in a suit, sitting at his desk in a high
rise with all windows. The vision shifts and I’m his secretary, getting bent over
a custom made desk that probably costs too much and getting railed from
behind by him.
“Actually, I’m enjoying my forensic accounting class.” He takes a bite of his
pancakes. The vision in my head changes slightly. I’m still getting railed on the
desk, but now he’s wearing an FBI badge.
“I didn’t know we even offered that.” I clear my throat and push out the
dirty thoughts.
We continue to talk about our academic lives and I find Duke easy to talk
to now that I’ve broken through the fog of fear and mystery.
Duke accompanies me home as I tell him about my formidable Nana. A
journalist and author traveling the globe, writing people’s stories to share with
the world.
“But my mom wants me to have a business degree; it’s safer so to get what
we both want, I doubled,” I explain as we speak in front of my apartment
building. The smile on Duke’s face never leaves and he always seems interested
in what I have to say.
“You should just minor in business,” he announces. “You sound like you
have way too much on your plate. Plus, you don’t give a shit about it.”
Laughing, I realize I sound bitter. It was tempting, but I had come so far,
invested so much. It’s as if Duke could read my mind, “You’re taking way too
many courses in one semester; you’re not even spreading it out over summer.”
I had explored that idea, but my mother had already planned my summer.
Going to our family cabin in Maine.
“Mama Evans has my summer planned already. Now that I’m single, she’s
making a list of eligible bachelors for me to be a wife to.” I laugh at my joke,
but Duke frowns.
“Is that why you’ve been with Pratt?”
My laughter dies and I reflect for a moment. It was the first time I didn’t
feel like shit thinking about him. “I thought at one point I loved him.”
Duke shakes his head, his brown hair falling to the side. “You are too good
for him. Too smart, too sweet, and definitely too hot for him to handle.”
He whispers that last part, his eyes darkening. My breath hitches and I
can’t help but lick my lips. I can enjoy this, bantering with Duke, finding that
he isn’t as scary as I thought.
“You need to have some fun.” He smiles widely at his phone. “What does
your schedule look like?”
Laughing, I pull up my calendar, “For business or pleasure?”
“Both, we can hang out, give more for the school to talk about and show
Stewart what a massive idiot he is.”
We huddle over our phones and make plans. At the beginning of the
semester, I would have never dreamed that this would happen. That I actually
enjoy his company. He promises to give my name for a seat at his hockey
games and I plan which ones I’m going to.
He shoots me a wink before heading down the sidewalk, leaving me in a
puddle in front of my apartment. However, reality pushes through, reminding
me that this isn’t based on any real feelings. Is it?
 Chapter 6

W eintohadtheplanned a “date” after one of his hockey games. After he snuck me

locker room and made me cum. The time comes fast and Z is
over the moon for me. “This is unprecedented, you know!”
“God, you make it sound like he suddenly became the Governor of
Massachusetts.”
I’m in jeans and a simple t-shirt. In ten minutes, Duke should come to get
me.
“Well, I’ve never heard of Duke taking ANYONE out on a date.”
“Well, we aren’t exactly dating…I think.” I frown, the lines are starting to
blur and I’ve been avoiding confronting it.
“Summer,” Z says as she squeezed my shoulder and shook me. “Enjoy this,
relish it and, for fuck’s sake, use this opportunity to bang him again.”
Duke arrives exactly on time. Dressed in a t-shirt and flannel. He has rolled
his sleeves to reveal his thick forearms. Grinning, he guides me to his truck
and we are off.
“You aren’t going to tell me where we are going?” I ask.
“Nope.” He winks with a grin. We argue playfully about music and I
discover more secrets about him. Unearthing little facts like he likes pop music
and that he hates the new country music. What blows my mind the most is that
he grew up on a ranch in Texas and that he worked hard to get rid of his slight
drawl before arriving at Ravenwood.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I don’t like people knowing that much about me, plus you know
how it is here.”
“Why are you letting me?”
“I want to,” he says simply.
 We arrive at a seaside town, the harbor and classic cape lighthouse seen
from the main strip. Boats move in and out of the harbor and Duke leads me to
a restaurant right on the beach.
It’s the kind of restaurant that has their menus laminated. The beer options
are simple and you know the food is going to be good. The smell of the sea
breezes through the windows and locals hover around their favorite spots.
Duke gets us sandwiches and we settle in the outdoor seats that overlook
the sea.
“When I first came to Ravenwood, it was the first time I’d ever touched the
ocean,” he says, as we take a bite of our food.
My head snaps at him in surprise. “Are you serious?”
Grinning, he nods, “Yeah, serious. I’d seen it, but for whatever reason, I
never had time to actually put my toe in it.”
“Did you not travel much?” I ask.
Duke shakes his head, “We did, but it was related to business, moving
livestock, or visiting a family member that turned into a business meeting. I
grew up on a ranch. It’s not a small one, so working all the time was a given.
But I didn’t want to work on the ranch.”
“Did you do anything fun?” I ask.
“Played hockey in high school. Made myself the best.” He shrugs, “But the
moment I got a sports scholarship to Ravenwood, it was my ticket out.”
We continue to eat our meal and it’s easy to relax. A contrast to what
Stewart and I used to do, which usually ended up with bickering. I mentally
shake my head; it’s not fair to compare them. This wasn’t real.
“So, all those rumors about you . . . do they have any truth to them?”
“Not as bad as Stewart makes it out to be.” Duke stares out at the sea. We
finish our meals and we decide to walk along the pier.
The breeze picks up around us, and in the distance out over the sea, I see
puffy clouds.
“So the truth . . .” I start slowly. “What is it?”
“What do you want to know?” he asks.
The water sprays a bit; it’s cold like the snow that doesn’t stick. White caps
are in the distance and I can see more boats coming into the harbor.
“So the internship,” I start. “I heard you framed Mark.”
 Duke nods. “That wasn’t a frame job, the truth is unfortunate.”
“Tell me,” I say.
“Mark had slipped drugs in a girl’s drink. One of her friends rescued her
before anything happened.”
“Wait.” I freeze in my spot. “Mark? Did that?!”
Mark was a quiet, mild-mannered frat brother of Stewart’s. I never
thought he was capable of that.
“A friend asked for help and I did. I confronted him with her. Stewart was
there and he didn’t want to believe Mark did that.” Duke frowns, his jaw is
tense.
“Stewart made me look like a monster. Her friend is too embarrassed and
scared to go to the police. So I did what I did, made him drop the internship
and scared the shit out of him so she could get some sense of justice.”
“I’m sorry that happened, I hope she’s ok.” I nudge his solid arm. “You’re
not a monster.”
“Maybe not like that, but I’m not as good of a person as you think.” Duke
frowns and his eyes dull as if he’s fallen into some distant memory.
“Who is?” I shrug. “I thought Stewart was a good person, flawed but good
and somehow he ended up being crueler than I thought.”
Duke lets out a breath as he rubs his watch face. His brows pinch as he
seems to fight with himself.
“Not going to lie, I like that being perceived this way does help my hockey
career, according to Denny.”
“He’s invested in your hockey career,” I say watching his expression.
“Yeah. He doesn’t think he’ll get on a team but he does have interest in
being an agent. He’s got connections.” Duke stuffs his hands in his pockets,
looking out at sea.
“He’s pretty sure we should expect a scout soon.” Duke’s phone buzzes,
breaking our silence.
“It’s Denny.” He sighs.
“Everything alright?” I ask.
“He . . . got into a scrap again,” he says before snapping his mouth shut.
“What do you mean?” I push curiously. At first it was curiosity but now it
bothers me. Why are Duke and Denny so close.
Another random document with
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These defences have evidently got out of their proper order, and
have probably been a good deal corrupted as well[254]. But their form
and general purport are mostly intelligible and show undoubted signs
of Egyptian origin. They were therefore probably not the work of the
earlier Ophites or Naassenes, but were most likely introduced when
the Ophite doctrines began to leave their primitive seat in Phrygia
and to spread westward into North Africa and the south-east of
Europe. The diagram itself seems to be fairly expressive of the more
ancient teaching and in particular the division of all things below the
Godhead into three parts. Thus we find in it the “middle space” or
heaven of Sophia, itself perhaps the Paradise whence the
protoplasts and Ophiomorphus were hurled, then the world of seven
planets, and finally this earth under the government of
Ophiomorphus’ seven angels. To judge from Origen’s remark that
“they say there is a sympathy (συμπάθεια) between the Star
Phaenon (i.e. Saturn) and the lion-like power (Michael)[255],” it is
probable that the Ophites, like the Babylonian astrologers, looked
upon the system of “correspondences,” as it was afterwards called,
as running through all nature in such a way that every world and
every power inhabiting it was a reflection of the one above it[256]. That
each world according to the Naassenes contained a “Church” or
assembly of souls[257] is stated in the text quoted above, the
“Captive” Church there mentioned being evidently composed of the
souls still held in the grip of matter, the “Called” of those who had
passed into the planetary worlds, and the “Chosen” of those who
were purified enough to be admitted into the middle space or
Paradise of Sophia[258]. That these last were thought to be eventually
united with the Deity appears in some later developments of the
Ophite faith, but the doctrine seems also to have been known to the
Naassenes, since the author quoted by Hippolytus speaks of “the
perfect gnostics” becoming “kingless” (that is, subject to no other
being) and as appointed to “share in the Pleroma[259].”
Of the amount of success which the speculations of the Ophites
enjoyed we know very little. Origen, as we have seen, speaks of
them as being in his day “an insignificant sect”; and we have no
proof that their numbers were ever very large[260]. Father Giraud
asserts on the faith of some of the smaller heresiologists and
Conciliar Acts that they spread over the whole of Asia Minor, through
Syria and Palestine into Egypt on the one hand, and, on the other, to
Mesopotamia, Armenia, and even to India, and this is probably more
or less correct[261]. But those who had actually read their writings, as
Irenaeus and Hippolytus evidently had done, seem to have looked
upon them more as the source of many later heresies than as
formidable by their own numbers. Whether the Sethians with whom
Irenaeus would identify them were really a subdivision of the Ophite
sect may be doubted, because in Hippolytus’ account of the Sethian
doctrines, the existence of Jesus is never mentioned or referred to,
and there is some reason for thinking them a non-Christian sect[262].
But the heresies of the Peratae and of Justinus, which Hippolytus
describes as not differing much from the Ophites, certainly resemble
that which has been summarized above too closely for the
resemblance to be accidental; while the same remark applies to
those of the Barbeliotae and Cainites described by Irenaeus, and to
the Gnostics, Archontics, and others of whom we read in Epiphanius’
Panarion. Most of these sects seem to have flourished on the
Eastern or Asiatic outskirts of the Roman Empire, although some of
them probably had settlements also in Egypt, Greece, Crete, and
Cyrene. As the first Ophites had contrived to make an amalgam of
the fervent and hysterical worship of nature in Anatolia with the
Jewish and Christian tenets, so no doubt these daughter sects
contrived to fit in with them the legends of the local cults among
which they found themselves. But such compromises were not likely
to last long when the Catholic Church began to define and enforce
the orthodox faith, and the Ophites seem to have been one of the
first to succumb. In the Vth century A.D., there were still Ophite
“colleges” to be found in the province of Bithynia; for Theocritus and
Evander, the bishops of Chalcedon and Nicomedia, “refuted” their
leaders publicly with such effect, says Praedestinatus, that they
afterwards broke into their “secret places” at the head of a furious
mob, drove away their priests, killed the sacred serpents, and
“delivered the people from that danger[263].” This is the last that we
hear of them as an organized sect, and although Justinian in A.D. 530
thought right to include them by name in his law against heretics, it is
probable that by then their opinions had long since passed into other
forms[264].
Probably one of the first changes to take place in the Ophite faith
was the withdrawal into the background of the serpent worship which
respect for the ancient cults of Asia Minor had imposed upon the
earlier members of the sect. In the diagram, Ophiomorphus does not
seem to have been depicted in his proper shape, although he may
perhaps be identified with the Leviathan there shown as surrounding
the terrestrial world. Those Ophites who wished to obtain proselytes
among Christian catechumens no doubt felt the advisability of not
insisting upon this conception, inasmuch as “the serpent” was the
figure under which the Oriental Christians loved to allude to the
Pagan worships which still opposed them in Asia Minor[265]. Hence
there arose much confusion among the Ophites themselves as to the
character of the serpent, and while some, according to Irenaeus,
asserted that Sophia the mother of Ialdabaoth herself became the
serpent[266], Theodoret, a very late witness, thinks that the Ophites of
his time held that Ophiomorphus, although originally the minister of
Sophia, had gone over to the other side, and had become the enemy
of mankind[267]. In this we may also, perhaps, see, if we will, the
effect of Egyptian influence upon the earlier Ophite teaching; for in
Egypt, the serpent Apep was always looked upon as the enemy of
Râ, the Sun-god, who was rightly considered the great benefactor of
humanity. It is no doubt due to the same influence that in one of the
documents of the Pistis Sophia—one part of which, as will be seen
later, was probably written for the furtherance of a late form of the
Ophite heresy—the serpent, while keeping his place in the Cosmos
as the great ocean which surrounds the earth, is transformed into the
outer darkness of the Canonical Gospels, and described as a huge
torture-chamber for the punishment of souls[268]. The same document
shows us how the Ophites, while adopting all the ideas of their
predecessors the Orphics as to the respective states of the initiated
and uninitiated after death,—including therein their reincarnation, the
draught from the lake of memory and the like—contrived to mix with
them the current astrological ideas of the time which made all these
events happen in an order determined by the motions of the
stars[269]. This tendency, already visible in Hippolytus’ time in the
Ophite sect which he calls the Peratae[270], will, however, be better
considered when we come to deal with the documents of the Pistis
Sophia themselves.
There remains to be said that the Gospel according to the Egyptians
mentioned above is the only apocryphal document that Hippolytus
directly attributes to the earlier Ophites or Naassenes. The sects
derived from them seem to have made use of a great number of
others, among which we find a Book of Baruch otherwise unknown
to us, The Paraphrase of Seth, the Gospels of Nicodemus, Philip,
and Thomas, together with a Gospel according to the Hebrews,
which may or may not have been identical with the one which
Hippolytus calls that according to the Egyptians[271]. Of these, the first
two are entirely lost, and the documents which we possess bearing
the name of the Gospel of Nicodemus relate the events of the
Crucifixion in much the same way as the Canonical Gospels, but add
thereto the visit of Jesus to Hades. A Gospel of Thomas, which is
also extant, contains only the account of miracles performed by
Jesus in His infancy, and therefore goes to controvert the Ophite
theory that Christos and Sophia only descended upon Him at His
baptism, and that up to that period He was as other men. It is
probable, however, that our copies of these Apocryphal Gospels
have been severely edited so as to expunge everything which
savoured of Gnostic teaching and may really have been partly or
wholly the work of Ophites[272]. Of the Gospel of Philip, Epiphanius
has preserved a short passage as follows:

“The Lord has revealed to me what the soul ought to say when
she goes to heaven, and how she ought to answer each of the
Powers on high. ‘I have known myself,’ she says, ‘and I have
collected myself from everywhere, and I have not begotten
children for the Archon, but I have rooted out his roots, and I
have collected the scattered members, and I know thee what
thou art. For I, she says, am from above[273].’ And thus he [i.e.
Philip] says, she is set free. But if, he says, she is found to have
begotten a son, she is retained below, until she can receive
again her own children, and draw them up to herself[274].”
Similar expressions are to be found in two of the documents of the
Pistis Sophia, and the abstinence from sexual intercourse which they
enjoin is direct and first-hand evidence rebutting the accusation of
promiscuous immorality which Epiphanius brings against the Ophites
or their related sects. Epiphanius attributes to the same sect of
“Gnostici” the use of a Gospel of Perfection which “others”—the
context shows that he means certain Ophites—“are not ashamed to
call the Gospel of Eve.” Of this he also preserves a single passage
as follows:

“I stood upon a high mountain, and I saw a huge man and

another who was mutilated [or perhaps only smaller, κολοβὸν]
and I heard a voice of thunder, and I drew near to hearken and
he spoke to me and said, ‘I am thou and thou art I; and where
thou art, there am I, and I am scattered through all things. And
whencesoever thou dost wish, collect me, and in collecting me,
thou dost collect thyself[275].’”

Is the greater and lesser man here the Adamas or Father-and-Son of

the Ophites, in which case the latter part of the passage doubtless
refers to the scattering of the light through the world of matter and
the necessity of its collection and return to the Godhead. The “I am
thou and thou art I” phrase is repeated in the Pistis Sophia by the
risen Jesus to His disciples[276], and seems to refer to the final union
of the perfected human soul with the Deity.
In addition to these books, the Ophites whom Irenaeus and
Hippolytus describe quoted freely from the Canonical books of the
Old Testament, from one of the apocryphal books of Ezra and from
the Book of Tobit, as also from such books of the Canonical New
Testament as the Gospels, including that of St John, and most of the
Pauline Epistles, including that to the Hebrews[277]. But it would be
going too far to say that they “accepted” these or attributed to them a
Divine origin, or thought them inspired in the sense in which the word
was used by the Catholic Church. On the contrary, Epiphanius
complains that they thought many of the contents of the Old
Testament Books at any rate were inspired only by Ialdabaoth and
the creators of the world of matter for the purpose of misleading
mankind[278]; and throughout they seem to have considered all the
Canonical Scriptures that they quote as on an equality with the
writings of Homer, Hesiod, the legendary Orpheus, and other
heathen writers such as Herodotus. Without attempting to deny or
question the historical truth of the facts or legends recorded by all
these authors, they regarded them merely as figures having an
allegorical or typical meaning, which they could interpret in any
manner they pleased, so as to make them accord with their own
preconceived theories. Thus the Naassenes when they found St
Luke quoting from the Proverbs of Solomon that “the just will fall
seven times and rise again,” declared that this referred to the
downward passage of man’s soul through the planetary heavens[279];
and Justinus, one of the Ophite teachers, finding a story in
Herodotus about Heracles and the serpent-tailed girl whom he met in
Scythia, said that it was a type of the generation of the universe by
the combination of the invisible and unforeseeing Demiurge and the
female principle or Sophia[280]. The same dialectic had already been
made use of by the Orphics, by Philo of Alexandria, and by Simon
Magus; but the Ophites seem to have been the first to apply it to all
literature. The full effect of this method of interpretation we shall see
later.
Generally speaking, it may be said that the Ophites seem to have
been the first to bring about any kind of amalgamation between the
popular religions of the Near East and the rising faith of Christianity.
By interpreting the “mysteries” or secret rites of Asia Minor and
elsewhere in their own sense, they supplied Christianity with a
mythology which it would otherwise have lacked and the absence of
which must always have proved a bar to its propagation among other
than Semitic peoples. At the same time they greatly exalted the
figure of Christ, who in their system became much less the personal
teacher and master of the Jewish-Christian communities[281] than the
angel or messenger of the Supreme Being sent from above in
pursuance of a vast scheme for the redemption of the human race.
In this capacity it went some way towards identifying the historical
Jesus with the great god of the Mysteries and towards giving the
sacraments of the newly-founded Church the secular authority of the
rites practised in them. The influence of the Ophite system or
systems upon the sects which succeeded them is at present hard to
define, but there can be little doubt that some of the documents,
which have come down to us in the Coptic MSS. before mentioned
and will be more fully described in Chapter X, can only be explained
by reference to them.
 CHAPTER IX
POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: VALENTINUS

It seems fairly plain that the originators of the Ophite teaching were
uneducated men[282]. A few quotations from Homer and Pindar,
probably familiar to anyone who listened to the Rhapsodists, are
indeed to be found in the anonymous author whom Hippolytus
quotes under the name of “the Naassene.” But the reading of the
learned of that day consisted not of poetry but of philosophy; and
there is no trace in his speculations of direct acquaintance with the
works of any philosopher whatever. This is the more striking because
Heraclitus of Ephesus, Zeno of Cyprus, and Cleanthes of Assos
might have been brought into court in support of his cosmogonical
ideas; and the Stoic philosophy was especially an Asiatic one,
having one of its principal homes in Tarsus, and therefore not very
far from Phrygia proper. Its cosmology as taught in Rome at the
period now under discussion[283], differed very little from that of the
earlier Ophites, and its theory of “seminal reasons” (λόγοι
σπερματικοὶ) or particles of fiery matter descending from heaven to
earth and there becoming formative principles, together with its belief
in metensomatosis or transmigration has many resemblances with
the Ophite scheme of redemption[284]. Yet the Naassene author in an
age when philosophy was most in fashion never appeals to the
authority of the founders of the Stoic school or of those followers of
theirs who must have been his contemporaries and countrymen; and
Hippolytus, whose own acquaintance with Greek philosophy was
superficial and hardly first-hand, in his summary of the Naassene
doctrine draws no parallel between the two. On the other hand, the
Naassene author perpetually refers to the Old Testament which he
seems to have known in the Peshitto or Syrian version, although, as
will have been seen, he by no means regards it from the Jewish
standpoint as a divinely inspired rule of life, and pushes down
Yahweh, its God, into a very inferior position in the scale of being. As
the date of the Peshitto has not yet been put further back than the
second century A.D.[285], this would lead one to suppose that it had
only recently come to the notice of the Naassene writer, who
probably welcomed it as a valuable source from which to draw
materials for spells and exorcisms. This excessive reverence for the
letter as apart from the spirit of a document is characteristic of the
magician of the early Christian centuries, and is further exemplified
in a magic papyrus of the IIIrd century A.D., now in the British
Museum, where “a number of single lines taken without any regard
to sense or on any discernible principle from the Iliad and Odyssey”
are arranged in a certain order for use as a fortune-telling book, and
appear in company with magical recipes for obtaining dreams,
compounding love philtres, and all the usual paraphernalia of a
wizard of the period[286]. Such a use of writings venerable for their
antiquity would never enter into the head of anyone endowed with
any literary sense, but seems natural enough to persons of limited
reading, to whom they form their sole material for study. In reading
into the lives of the Jewish patriarchs hidden allusions to the theories
of the origin of the universe and the destiny of man then current over
the whole Hellenistic world, the Naassenes did not behave differently
from our own Puritans of Cromwell’s time, who discovered in texts
like “Take the prophets of Baal, Let not one of them escape[287]!” a
justification for “knocking on the head out of hand,” the clergy of the
opposing party[288]. We may, if we please, picture to ourselves the
earlier Ophites as a handful of merchants, artizans, freedmen, and
slaves inclined by inherited custom to magical practices and to
ecstatic or hysterical forms of religion, and, as it were, intoxicated by
the new field of speculation which the translation of the Hebrew
Scriptures into their own tongue had opened to them. At the same
time, their anti-Semitic feeling, dating perhaps from the time of the
Maccabaean resistance which had materially contributed to the
downfall of the Syrian Empire, and considerably exacerbated by the
atrocities committed by the Jewish rebels at the close of the Ist
century A.D., must have forced them into an attitude in every way
opposed to Jewish national pretensions; while it is easy to
understand that such persons must have caught eagerly at any via
media which enabled them to reconcile the Jewish traditions, long
familiar to them through spells and charms, with the legends of the
Greek Mysteries, and at the same time protected them against the
social and moral obloquy attaching to open adherence to the Jewish
rites. Such considerations, perhaps, explain alike the immediate
success of St Paul’s preaching in Asia Minor, and the outburst of
activity among the Gnostics which followed close upon it[289].
The Gnostic speculations were, however, destined to pass out of the
hands of unlearned men. Although it was hardly likely to have been
noticed at the time, the day was past for national or particularist
religions having for their object the well-being of one nation or city;
and men’s relations to the Divine world were coming to be looked
upon as a matter concerning the individual rather than the State.
Alexander’s work in breaking down the barriers between people and
people was beginning to bear fruit in the intellectual as it had already
done in the political world, and the thoughtful were everywhere
asking themselves, as Tertullian tells us, not only whence man and
the world had come, but what was the meaning of the evil within the
world[290]. Along with this, too, had come a general softening of
manners which was extremely favourable to speculation on such
subjects, and to which the vagaries of the Caesars of the Julian
house have made us somewhat blind. A reign of terror might often
exist among the great families in the capital under a jealous or
suspicious Emperor, and the majority of the proletariat might there as
in other large towns be entirely given up to the brutal or obscene
amusements of the arena or the theatre. But in the provinces these
things had little effect on the working of the system set up under the
Empire; and the civilized world was for the first time, perhaps, in its
history, beginning to feel the full benefits of good government and
freedom from foreign invasion. It is quite true that the population
were then, as at the present day, leaving the country and flocking
into the towns, thereby acquiring new vices in addition to their old
ones; but this also led, as town life must always do, to increased
respect for the rights of their neighbours, and to the extension of the
idea of law and order rather than of the right of the strongest as the
governing principle of the universe. The Roman law, upon which the
jurisprudence of every civilized country is still based, first took
coherent shape in the reign of Hadrian; and Ulpian’s fundamental
maxim that before the law all men are free and equal was founded
on a conception of the rights of the individual very different from the
Oriental notion that all subjects high and low were the chattels of the
king.
In these circumstances, new ethical ideals had arisen which affected
all classes in the State. As Sir Samuel Dill has said in his charming
sketch of Roman manners under the Julian, Flavian and Antonine
emperors, “It has perhaps been too little recognized that in the first
and second centuries there was a great propaganda of pagan
morality running parallel to the evangelism of the Church[291].” But
this ethical propaganda was an entirely lay affair, and the work not of
the priests but of the philosophers[292]. It had, indeed, always been so
in the Hellenic world, and while we find it exciting no surprise that a
priest of the most sacred mysteries should be worse instead of better
than other men[293], it was the philosophers to whom was committed
what was later called the care of souls. Thus Alexander had
recourse, when prostrated by self-reproach after the killing of Clitus,
to the ministrations of Anaxarchus, who endeavoured to console him
with the sophism that kings are not to be judged like other men[294].
So, too, we hear of the Stoic philosopher, Musonius Rufus, when the
army of Vespasian was besieging Rome, accompanying the
Senate’s embassy to the troops of Antonius, and preaching to them
at the risk of his life upon the blessings of peace and the horrors of
war[295]. Seneca, also, when about to die, endeavours to stay his
friends’ lamentations by reminding them of the “rules of conduct” by
which alone they may expect consolation, and bequeaths to them
the example of his life[296]; while the “Stoic saint,” Thrasea, when the
sentence of death reaches him, is occupied in listening to a
discourse of Demetrius the Cynic on the nature of the soul and its
separation from the body[297]. This shows an attitude of mind very
different from the merely magical or, as we should say, superstitious
belief in the efficacy of spells and ceremonies; and the example of
Epictetus bears witness that it was that of slaves as well as of
senators.
Gnosticism, therefore, was bound to become ethical as well as
gnostical, or, in other words, to insist on the efficacy of conduct as
well as of knowledge, so soon as it came into contact with thinkers
trained in philosophy. Where it did so, in the first instance, cannot be
told with any degree of certainty; but all probability points to
Alexandria as one of the places where the post-Christian Gnosticism
first made alliance with philosophic learning. Not only was Alexandra
the natural meeting-place of Greeks and Orientals, but it was at the
early part of the IInd century a great deal more the centre of the
intellectual world than either Athens or Rome. Although Ptolemy IX
Physcon is said to have expelled from it the philosophers and
scholars of the Museum, they seem to have returned shortly
afterwards, and in the meantime their dispersion in the neighbouring
cities and islands, where most of them must have supported
themselves by teaching, probably did a good deal towards diffusing
the taste for philosophy over a wider area than before. In Philo’s
time, in particular, the Platonic philosophy had gained such a hold in
the city that he, though a leader of the Jews, had had to assimilate it
as best he might[298], and, as we have seen, to bring it more or less
into harmony with the traditional beliefs of his own people. A century
later we see the same thing occurring with the now rising sect of
Christians; and a school of Christian philosophy was founded in
Alexandria under the leadership of Pantaenus, the predecessor in
office of the famous Clement of Alexandria[299]. If we may judge from
the writings of this last, the expressed object of this school was to
instil a knowledge of Greek literature and philosophy into Christian
teachers, to bring about which it attempted to show that, while both
philosophy and Christian theology alike aimed at the discovery of
truth, the valuable parts of the philosophic doctrines were borrowed
or derived from the writings held sacred by Jews and Christians[300].
Nor were the Alexandrians in the least likely to refuse a hearing to
any new faith however wild. The leading place which Alexandria had
gained among the markets of the world brought within its gates the
adherents of every religion then known, and Jewish merchants and
Christian artizans there mixed with Buddhist monks and fetish-
worshippers from Central Asia, while the terms on which they met
compelled a wide tolerance for one another’s opinions, and
predisposed its citizens to a practical amalgam of several apparently
conflicting creeds[301].
It was into this atmosphere that Gnosticism entered at least as early
as the reign of Hadrian. Who was answerable for its first introduction
there we have no means of knowing, nor do we even know with any
certainty what form Egyptian Gnosticism first took[302]. One would
imagine that the Hellenizing tendency of the Samaritans might have
brought to Alexandria the doctrines of Simon Magus, but there is no
direct evidence to that effect. The case is different with Antioch,
where one Saturninus or Satornilus—the name is spelt differently by
Irenaeus and Hippolytus—seems to have put forth, at the period
referred to, a quasi-Christian system having some likeness to that of
the Ophites, its chief distinguishing feature being its hatred of
Judaism and its God, for whose overthrow it declared Christ to have
been sent[303]. Like the Ophites, Saturninus rigidly opposed the
commerce of the sexes, declaring marriage and generation to be
alike the work of Satan, the declared enemy of the world-creating
angels, and of their leader the God of the Jews[304]. But the followers
of this Saturninus seem to have been few in number, and although
all the later heresiologists preserved the memory of his teaching, it is
probable that the sect itself did not long survive its founder[305].
Basilides, whose name is associated with that of Saturninus by
Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius, who all make him a fellow
disciple with Saturninus of Menander, the continuator or successor of
Simon Magus[306], certainly flourished under the same reign at
Alexandria, where he taught an extremely complicated doctrine,
declaring that between the unknown Father of All and this world
there was interposed a series of 365 heavens corresponding in
number to the days of the year, the chief of them being called
Abraxas, the letters of which word have that numerical value[307]. This
is the account of Irenaeus, not materially varied by any of the other
early writers on heresy, with the exception of Hippolytus, who gives
us a long account of the doctrine of Basilides and his son Isidore,
which according to their own account they derived from Matthias, the
Apostle who replaced Judas and who received it secretly from Jesus
Himself[308]. From Hippolytus, we learn that Basilides’ complete or
final teaching declared that there was a time when nothing existed—
 “neither matter, nor substance, nor the Unsubstantial, nor simple,
nor compound, nor the Intelligible, nor the Unintelligible, nor that
which can be comprehended by the senses, nor that which
cannot be so comprehended, nor man, nor angel, nor god, nor
anything which can be named”—

and that this God-Who-Was-Not willed to make a world[309]. This act

of volition, exercised in Hippolytus’ words “without will or mind or
consciousness[310],” produced the Seed of the World which contained
within itself all the future universe, as the grain of mustard-seed
contains the roots, stem, branches, leaves, and innumerable other
seeds of the future plant[311]. In this Seed was “a Sonhood, threefold
in all things, of the same substance with the God-Who-Was-Not and
generated from non-existing things[312].” Of this threefold Sonhood,
one part was subtle or finely divided like aether or air, one coarser,
and one which needed purification; and he goes on to describe how
the finer part immediately upon the projection of the Seed, burst forth
and flew upwards until it reached the Non-Existent-One, towards
whom, Hippolytus says, “every nature strains,” on account of “its
beauty and majesty[313].” The coarser part of the Sonhood attempted
to imitate the first, but failed to do so until helped by the Holy Spirit
who served it as the wing does the bird; but although the second
Sonhood thereby attained beatitude, the Holy Spirit could not enter
into the Godhead along with him “because it (or she) was of a
different substance from him and had nothing of his nature[314].” She
was therefore left near it, purified and sanctified by her contact with
the Sonhood as a jar which has once contained perfume still
preserves its savour[315]. As for the third Sonhood, it remained in the
Seed of the World, which thereafter gave birth to the Great Archon or
Ruler, who is the Demiurge or Architect of the Universe and fashions
all cosmic things. This Archon makes out of the things below him a
Son who by the arrangement of the God-Who-Was-Not is greater
and wiser than himself, whence the Archon causes him to sit at his
right hand[316]. This Son is in effect Christ, who reveals to the Archon
the existence of the worlds above him, and sends the Gospel (here
personified) into the world so that by it the third Sonhood might be
purified and thus raised to union with the God-Who-Was-Not.
There is no need to follow further the system of Basilides, nor to
describe the extremely complicated tangle of worlds, principalities,
powers, and rulers, including the 365 heavens and their Archon or
ruler Abraxas, which Basilides interposes between this earth and the
Godhead. M. Amélineau has endeavoured to show that, in this,
Basilides was borrowing from the ancient Egyptian religion which he
imagines to have been still flourishing in the Egypt of the second
Christian century[317]. It may be so; and, although M. Amélineau’s
proofs seem hardly strong enough to bear the weight of the
conclusions he would draw from them, it may be conceded that in
the Ogdoad and the Hebdomad of which we hear so much in
Hippolytus’ account of Basilides’ teaching, we have a distinct echo of
the extraordinary arithmetic of the Pharaonic or old Egyptian
theology, wherein we are constantly meeting with an Ennead or
“company” of nine gods which, as M. Maspero has shown,
sometimes consists of eight, sometimes of ten, and sometimes of a
still more discrepant number of individuals[318]. But Basilides’ system
was never intended for popular use; for he himself said, according to
Irenaeus, that only one out of a thousand or two out of ten thousand
could understand it, and that his disciples should keep their
adherence to it strictly secret, seeking to know all things, but
themselves remaining unknown[319]. Its interest for us here lies in the
fact that Valentinus who transformed post-Christian Gnosticism, as
will presently be seen, from an esoteric or mystical explanation of
Pagan beliefs[320] into a form of Christianity able to compete seriously
with the Catholic Church, was himself a native of Egypt, that he
studied the Platonic philosophy in Alexandria[321], and that he must
have resided there at the same time as Basilides, who was slightly
older than he, and died before Valentinus’ doctrine was
promulgated[322]. It is therefore hardly possible that Valentinus should
not have known of Basilides’ teaching and have borrowed from it,
even without the internal evidence of borrowing afforded by a
comparison of the two systems[323]. The almost total silence of the
Fathers as to Basilides’ school after that of Valentinus became
famous is to be accounted for, as Matter points out, by supposing
that the hearers of Basilides, probably few in number, came over to
him in a body[324].
Basilides, therefore, forms a very important link between Simon
Magus and the pre-Christian Gnostics—with whom Basilides was
connected, as we have seen, through his master and Simon Magus’
successor Menander—on the one hand, and Valentinus on the other.
But his teaching also explains to us why so many of the features of
the Ophite doctrines also reappear in the Valentinian heresy. For the
three Sonhoods of Basilides, although described in a fantastic and
almost unintelligible way by Hippolytus, seem to correspond in idea
with the First and Second Man and the Christos of the Naassene
writer; while the Holy Spirit, who is of inferior essence and therefore
remains below the Supreme Godhead, can hardly be distinguished
from the Sophia or Prunicos who in the Ophite scheme plays so
large a part in the work of the redemption of the light. The power of
the Great Archon or Ruler of this World is also said in Hippolytus’
account of the Basilidean teaching, to rise no higher than the
firmament, which was placed between the hypercosmic spaces
where soared the Boundary Spirit, and the ordered universe[325],—a
statement which strictly corresponds to the limit placed on the power
and authority of the Ophite Ialdabaoth. The Archon of Basilides who
must, I think, be intended for Yahweh the God of the Jews is, like
Ialdabaoth, ignorant that there is anything above him[326]; and
although he differs from his prototype in being better taught by his
Son, this is easily explained by the higher position occupied by both
Jews and Christians in Alexandria than in Phrygia. It is significant
also that the mystic and probably cryptogrammatic name Caulacau
which the Naassene writer uses for the Saviour of his system is
applied to the corresponding person in the system of Basilides[327].
The popularity and success that attended Valentinus’ own teaching
may be judged from the pains that the Fathers took to oppose it. The
five books Against Heresies so often quoted above were written by
Irenaeus with the avowed intention of refuting Valentinus’ disciples.
Hippolytus, who aimed at a more encyclopaedic account of the
heresies of his time, devotes more space to the Valentinian sect than
to any other. Tertullian not only repeatedly gibes at them after his
manner when treating of other matters, but composed a special book
against them still extant, from which we learn of the existence of
other treatises against them written by Justin Martyr, Miltiades a
Christian sophist, and one Proculus, all which are now lost[328]. Those
near to Valentinus in date seem hardly to have considered him an
enemy of Christianity. Clement of Alexandria quotes several
passages from the writings of him and his followers, and although it
is always with the view of contradicting the statements of his fellow-
countryman, he yet does so without any of the heat displayed by
other controversialists[329]. On the other hand, the orthodox who
wrote long after Valentinus was in his grave are most bitter against
him. Epiphanius, who seldom had a good word for any one, calls
him, with some justice, the chief of heretics[330]; Philaster of Brescia
says he was more a follower of Pythagoras than of Christ, and that
he led captive the souls of many[331]; Praedestinatus, that he and his
followers throughout the East severely wounded the Church of
God[332]; while Eusebius in his Life of Constantine produces an
Imperial edict against the Valentinians and other heretics, issued,
according to him, some time before the baptism of its promulgator,
and ordering that they shall no longer be allowed to assemble
together and that their “houses of prayer” shall be confiscated to the
use of the Catholic Church[333]. It was probably in pursuance of some
such law, which also enjoined, as Eusebius tells us, the search for
and destruction of their writings, that a conventicle of the
Valentinians at Callinicum on the Eastern frontier of the Empire was
burned by the Christian mob headed by their bishop and monks in
A.D. 388[334]. The same scenes were no doubt enacted in other parts
of the Empire; and we may, perhaps, see in the fury of the
persecutors the measure of their fear.
Yet there is little in the Valentinian doctrine as described by the
Fathers to account for the popularity that it evidently attained.
Valentinus, like all the Gnostics, believed in one Supreme Source of
all things; but he from the first threw over the extremely philosophical
idea of Basilides, which some writers would derive from
Buddhism[335], of a non-existent God as the pinnacle of his system.
To fill the gap thus left, he returned to the older conception of the
Ophites, and postulated a Bythos or Deep as the origin of all. But
this “Unknowable Father” was by no means the mere abstraction
without direct action upon the world or man that he was in the
systems of the Ophites and of Basilides. As to the mode of his
action, however, a schism—or rather, a difference of opinion—early
manifested itself among his followers. Some of them gave to Bythos
a female consort called, as Irenaeus, and, following him, Tertullian,
tell us, Silence (Σιγή) and Grace (Χάρις), from whom all the
subsequent aeons or manifestations of the Godhead descended[336].
Irenaeus partly explains away this by the statement that Bythos or
the Perfect Aeon dwelt for boundless ages in rest and solitude
(ἡσυχίᾳ), but that there existed with him Ennoia or Thought. Whether
this last part of the statement was or was not thrown in so as to force
a parallel between the system of Valentinus and that of Simon
Magus from whom the orthodox insisted all later heresiarchs derived
their teaching, cannot now be said. But Hippolytus, who, while not
disputing this derivation, is just as anxious to show that Valentinus
was also much indebted to the Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy
learned by him at Alexandria, tells us that there were other
Valentinians who insisted that the Father (or Bythos) was without
spouse (ἀσύζυγος) not feminine (ἄθηλυς) and lacking nothing
(ἀπροσδεής); and that Valentinus himself said that Bythos was
“unbegotten (ἀγέννητος) not subject to conditions of space or time,
having no counsellor, nor any substance that could be
comprehended by any figure of speech[337].” Herein either Hippolytus
or Valentinus seems to have been attracted by the ideas of the Neo-
Pythagorean school of Alexandria, who indulged in many
arithmetical theories about the Monad or Final Unity which went on
producing male and female (i.e. odd and even) numbers alternately
until it arrived at the perfect harmony of ten[338]. Yet those who study
ancient religions by the comparative method will be more inclined to
see in this diversity of opinion among the Valentinians a hesitation
between the old idea current, as we have seen, in the Eastern
Mediterranean, that a god may be bisexual and therefore capable of
producing descendants without female assistance and the ancient
Semitic view (due perhaps to the fact that Semitic languages know
only two genders) which divided the Godhead like everything else
into male and female[339].
However this may be, all the Valentinian schools seem to have
agreed upon the emanation which immediately proceeded from the
Deep or the Father of All. From Bythos, either alone or with the help
of Sige[340], there proceeded Mind or Nous (Νοῦς), called also
Monogenes[341] and the Father, the beginning of all subsequent
things. This Nous is said to be “equal and like” to him from whom he
had emanated, and by himself capable of comprehending the
greatness of Bythos[342]. With Nous there also came forth a female
Power named Aletheia or Truth (Ἀλήθεια), and this pair gave birth to
a second syzygy, viz. Logos or the Word (Λόγος) and Zoe or Life
(Ζωὴ), who in their turn produced a third pair, namely: Anthropos,
Man (Ἄνθρωπος) and Ecclesia, the Church (Ἐκκλησία)[343]. The later
Valentinians, from whom Irenaeus quotes, added to these six aeons,
Bythos and his spouse Sige, thus making up the originating Ogdoad
or eightfold Godhead again called the root and substance of all
[subsequent] things[344]. Valentinus himself, however, probably did
not give Bythos a spouse and held that he remained apart from and
uplifted above his six principal emanations[345].
This subdivision of the Divine, resembling as it does the system of
Simon Magus before described, may seem at first sight incredibly
foolish and complicated, especially when it is considered that these
“aeons,” as Valentinus calls them, might be considered not only as
powers but as worlds. So it did to the Fathers, who are never tired of
pouring contempt upon it. Tertullian makes merry over the
Valentinian conception of a universe with an endless series of
heavens piled one over the other, as he says, like the “Lodgings to
let” of a Roman insula or tenement house, or, had he ever seen one,
of a New York skyscraper[346]. Irenaeus jokes cumbrously, comparing
the Valentinian aeons to vegetables as if, he says, a gourd should
bring forth a cucumber and this in its turn a melon[347]. Hippolytus,
indeed, cannot indulge in such jeers because to do so would have
stamped him in the opinion of all the learned of his time as an
uneducated barbarian, his pet theory of Gnosticism being that all its
doctrine was a plagiarism from the Greek philosophers and notably
from Plato. Yet he never loses an opportunity of calling Valentinus’
opinions “worthless”; and goes out of his way to tack on to them the
system of the Jewish magician Marcus, who, if we can believe the
statements of the Fathers, exploited the rising sense of religion of
the age for his own immoral or interested purpose[348].
Yet a statement that Tertullian lets drop, as if accidentally, may teach
us to beware of taking Valentinus’ supposed opinions on the nature
of these hypostases or Persons of the Godhead more literally than
he did himself. In his treatise against the Valentinians the “furious
African barrister” is led away by the exigencies of his own rhetoric to
tell us that there were some among them who looked upon all this
elaborate description of the emanations of the Ogdoad as a figure of
speech. All the aeons of the Ogdoad were according to them merely
attributes or names of God. When, they said, God thought of
producing offspring, He thereby acquired the name of Father; and
because his offspring was true, that of Truth; and because He
wished to appear in human form, he was called Man; and because
He assembled His attributes in His mind and selected from them
those most proper for His purpose, they were called the Church; and
as His only (or unique) Son was, as it were, uttered or sent forth to
mankind, He was called the Word; and from His powers of salvation,
Life; and so on[349]. As we have seen, Valentinus did not invent de
novo his conception of the Godhead, which bears besides evident
marks of having been adopted with slight modification from that of
Simon Magus and the Ophites. This statement of Tertullian gives us
ground therefore for supposing that he may really have held the
same views respecting the Divine Nature as the Catholic Church,
merely giving an allegorical explanation of the earlier opinions to
convince his hearers that the teaching of the Apostles was not so
subversive of or inconsistent with the way of thinking of the ancient
theologians and philosophers as some of them thought. Clement of
Alexandria shows similar comprehensiveness when he said that in
the Christian faith there are some mysteries more excellent than
others—or, in other words, degrees in knowledge and grace[350]—,
that the Hellenic philosophy fits him who studies it for the reception
of the truth[351], and that the Christian should rejoice in the name of
Gnostic, so long as he understands that the true Gnostic is he who
imitates God as far as possible[352]. He even goes further, and
himself uses the Gnostic method of personification of abstract
qualities, as when he says that Reverence is the daughter of Law[353],
and Simplicity, Innocence, Decorum, and Love, the daughters of
Faith[354]. If Valentinus used similar metaphors, it by no means