| “ | "I will rise now and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek the one I love." She is whispering that, and she whispers, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. He said, this stature of mine is like to a palm tree, and my breasts like clusters of grapes. He said he would come to me then. I am my beloved's and his desire is only toward me." | ” |
–Bilquis, Interlude 1 | ||
Bilquis is one of the Old Gods.
Background[]
Significance in narrative[]
Somewhere in America[]
In Los Angeles, a wannabe movie producer meets with a prostitute named Bilquis. She asks him to pray to her and worship her as they have sex, and he does. After he climaxes, he looks down to see his body slipping inside her up to the chest. He continues to worship her as his body disappears into her vagina. Satisfied, Bilquis closes her eyes and goes to sleep.
Interlude 1[]
In Los Angeles, at 2:00 a.m. on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, Bilquis roams the streets, looking for johns to worship her. She has started using the internet to find dates because it's been raining recently. It's about to start raining again and as she is leaving, a white stretch limo pulls up to her. She gets in and the passenger/john is Technical Boy. Bilquis lies and says her name is Ayesha and then jumps out of the limo when it starts to slow. She runs in fear, trapped between a cliff face and a hillside. The limo hits her when she's trying to climb the hillside. Technical Boy gets out to taunt her before returning to the limo and she is run over again and again before the limo drives away.
Gallery[]
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab
Graphic novel
Notes and trivia[]
- Bilquis is the Queen of Sheba, who was suspected of being half-human, half-demon (a jinn).
- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab created a perfume oil inspired by Bilquis for their "American Gods" line. It is described as: Honey, myrrh, lily of the valley, rose otto, fig leaf, almond, ambrette, red apple, and warm musk.
- Neil Gaiman explained that none of the sex workers that he knew of and that read Bilquis scenes in the novel were shocked by them. They apparently found them sweet, funny, moving or odd. But they may have "just been polite". [1]