Fiction
Friday, April 16, 2010
Farm Girl
Allan Fitzgerald's front yard was unusually shallow for a parcel that had once been a working farm. A mere sixty feet separated his front porch from the curb of NY 231. Behind his humble little ranch, his spread extended a quarter mile further eastward, and was almost as wide as it was deep. The previous owner had once operated a moderately successful corn farm there, as had the owner before him, but the viability of so small-scale a farm had come to an end when the massive machines of Lyons-Davis Agricorp rolled into Onteora County.
That didn't matter to Allan. He'd never been a farmer. The field stood idle. In the barn beside the ranch, the tractor and harvester gathered cobwebs. The old Bellamy farm was merely his retirement home, where he hid more or less comfortably from the world and its reminders of his failures.
Allan didn't bother much about the field or the barn. When the mood struck him to be outside, he invariably went to sit on the front porch. Traffic on NY 231 was too sparse to annoy him, and the Compton farm across the way was as idle as his own.
That morning, he'd been sitting on his porch for about a hour, musing indifferently over a mediocre fantasy novel, when the girl ambled into view.
Foot traffic on NY 231 was unusual in the extreme. It was a truck route, a bypass for the city of Onteora. It had no sidewalks, and was flanked by no consumer-oriented stores or places of employment. It connected to US 90, forty miles to the west, but those who traveled it eastward were seldom Onteora bound.
At a distance the girl was ordinary-looking: medium height, a broad-shouldered but bosomy build, shoulder-length blonde hair. She was probably in her early twenties. She wore a heavy wool sweater, blue jeans, and work boots. A shabby satchel of modest size dangled from her right hand. Her walk was strong but unhurried. A surge of curiosity impelled Allan to lean forward, as he attempted to make out her face.
She noticed, stopped, and returned his gaze. Embarrassed without a clear reason, Allan smiled formally and forced his eyes back to his novel.
"Any good?"
The words startled him half out of his chair. She'd approached so quietly that he hadn't noticed her arrival on his porch, practically in his lap. She backed away a step as he resettled himself.
"Not particularly. Just a way to pass the time. What can I do for you?"
"I'm looking for work." She waved at the barn and the field beyond. "Your first planting is late. Need a hand with it? I'm good with machines."
He grinned ruefully. "You can't imagine how late. There hasn't been a planting here in seven years. This isn't a working farm any more. It's just my retirement spread."
The girl's face fell. She nodded, hefted her satchel, and made to leave.
"Just a moment."
She turned and looked at him questioningly.
She's not dirty or unkempt, but...
"How long have you been walking?"
She shrugged. "Couple days. A trucker dropped me off at the end of 90."
"Got a place to stay?"
She shook her head.
"Had any breakfast?"
"Granola bar." She indicated her satchel. "They're easy to tote around."
"Uh, yeah." He rose. "Look, I was about to fix some lunch. If you're not in a big hurry to get on down the road, you're welcome to join me."
She stared at him in silence for several seconds.
"Okay, thanks." She stuck out a hand. He took it, her calluses rough against his fingers. "I'm Kate."
"Allan," he said. "Let's get fed."
Kate attacked her ham sandwich with evident appetite. Allan smiled to himself, fetched bottled soda, potato salad, and a plastic container of grapes from the fridge, and loaded them onto the kitchen table.
As he laid out forks, napkins, and plastic cups, he said "Work's pretty sparse these days."
She nodded. "Not just here."
"You're not a New Yorker, are you?"
"Jayhawk." She snapped off another bite of sandwich, chewed and swallowed quickly. "The big outfits have taken over back there. They don't have much use for local hands. They bring in their own crews. Mexicans, mostly."
"It's the same here."
She nodded and shoveled up a monstrous bite of potato salad. He seated himself across from her and steepled his hands before him.
"So how long have you been on the road?"
She swallowed, laid down her fork, and looked at him as if she were trying to gauge the sincerity of his interest.
"Been a few weeks."
"No takers for an experienced hand in all that time?"
Her look of disgust was eloquent.
"So what do you think of New York so far?"
She scowled. "Not much. You don't use what you've got. God gave us the land to grow something. To give life. You folks don't seem to realize that. Unless your neighbors are different from...what I've seen so far."
"Religious?"
"Catholic."
"Me too." He hesitated. "Can I have a shot at changing your opinion of us?"
Her weighing, measuring stare returned at full force.
"What do you have in mind?"
He rose. "Come with me."
Kate ran a hand caressingly along the tractor's steel flank.
"This is a forty-seven Springfield. They don't make 'em like this any more. All plastic and sheet metal nowadays."
Allan nodded. "Think you can get it running?"
She chuckled. "Oh, I'll get her running, all right. She's a classic. Pure power, just waiting for the starting gun. When I'm finished with her, she'll be able to pull your house off its foundation." Her face clouded; she halted and swiveled to face him. "For what?"
"You want to grow things?"
"Yeah, but --"
"Do it here."
She gaped at him.
"I don't use the land. Why shouldn't you?" He waved at the array of machines and tools, idle since he'd taken possession. "Stay here and work it. You're welcome to do what you like with it. And keep the proceeds, of course."
She gazed doubtfully at the tractor, plainly uncertain what she'd really been invited to do.
"Stay where?"
"I have a spare bedroom."
Her eyes rose to his, challenging. "Is there a lock on the door?"
"There is. You won't be disturbed, I promise."
"Lend me a few bucks for seed and fuel and stuff?"
He nodded. "Not a problem."
"Corn?"
"Whatever you want."
She pondered in silence for a long moment.
"Okay."
Allan was overwhelmed by the fury of Kate's attack on his offer. She rose at five the following morning, was showered and dressed by five-twenty, and out in the barn immediately thereafter without even a cup of coffee. The constant clanking, scraping of tools against parts, and occasional heartfelt profanity kept him aware of her labors throughout the morning. It took all his resolve to keep him inside so she could work in privacy. He peered out the kitchen window at the open barn doors more often than he'd care to admit.
Just before noon, there came a brief, rapid whirring, followed by the roaring of a powerful engine awakening from slumber. Moments later, the tractor rolled out of the barn, with Kate grinning triumphantly in the driver's seat, and arrowed up the gentle grade toward his house.
Allan closed the back door behind him and stood on the landing as Kate halted the old monster a mere yard from his steps and killed the engine. Her smile was impossibly wide.
"Told you!"
He nodded. "Indeed you did. Get on in here."
She frowned, but followed him inside. He gestured her to sit at the kitchen table, then laid a legal pad and a ball-point pen before her.
"Make a list of what you need."
"Huh? I was going to --"
"No doubt you were. But it's a fair drive to the best clump of suppliers, so I want to be sure we don't forget anything." He cocked an eyebrow. "You didn't think you were going to carry a few hundred pounds of seed, fertilizer, and fuel back here, did you?"
"Well, no. But I was going to hitch Nellie up to the disc harrow and --"
"Nellie?"
"The Springfield. That's her name." She grinned. "All these years and you didn't know?"
He groaned. "Okay, so I'm insufficiently inquisitive about my machines' monikers."
"Hey! Shorter words, please. I'm only a farm girl."
He fixed her with a no-nonsense stare.
"You're a farm woman."
She opened her mouth, closed it, and nodded. "Okay, whatever."
"So make that list. I'll fix us some lunch."
"Okay."
For the next three days, Kate didn't let up. She put twelve to fourteen hours into the little farm each day: first tending the machines, then clearing away the debris of earlier years, then tilling the soil and readying it to receive seed. She paused only for meals, and at the end of the day to shower and retire to her room. Yet the grinding effort seemed to agree with her; she never complained, and she looked stronger and more assured with each day's work.
Allan knew that, without assistance, Kate would have to limit her ambitions. She certainly wouldn't be able to cultivate forty acres' crops with no hands but her own. He kept silent, and waited patiently for her to disclose her plans for the season before her. It was Saturday dinner before she revealed them.
"Think I'll plant four acres for trade," she said between mouthfuls of beef stew, "and put asparagus on two more. Won't be worth a damn for at least two years, but you have to invest in it if you want stuff that's worth the money. Plenty of money in good asparagus."
"So what will this year's cash crops be?" he said.
"Scallions and rhubarb."
"Hm?"
She grinned. "You expected corn? Why bother? The big guys grow enough corn to feed the whole world about five times." She sopped up stew gravy with a chunk of her dinner roll, thrust it into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. "Small operators have to do specialty crops. I'm really good with rhubarb. You ever had a rhubarb pie?"
He shook his head.
"Then you haven't lived. I promise you, nobody near here will be able to touch our rhubarb." She nibbled at the roll. "The hard part will be selling the stuff. Are there any specialty markets around here we could approach?"
"A few. Feel like taking a drive tomorrow, making inquiries?"
She was silent for a moment. "Sure. When's Mass?" she said.
The swerve hauled him up short. "I go to the seven-thirty. The church is on the other side of the city. You're coming with me?"
She shrugged. "Of course. Why not?"
"Right."
They drew more than a few stares in church. The seven-thirty Mass was populated by the most constant of congregations. Nearly all the attendees sat in exactly the same place every week. An unfamiliar face was sure to excite interest, and more than a little gossip. Especially since it was the face of a young woman', sitting by the side of a considerably older man who'd come to Mass alone for seven straight years.
Father Ray stopped them on the church steps.
"Do I have a new parishioner?"
Kate answered before Allan could compose a response. "For this season at least, Father." She held out a hand, and the priest clasped it. "I'm Kate Morrell."
"Welcome to Onteora parish, dear. I'm Father Raymond Altomare." The priest looked an avalanche of questions at Allan, who did his best to maintain an expression of bland amiability.
"Father," Kate said before the awkward silence could run too long, "would you know of any markets in the area that might take some specialty produce on consignment?"
The priest's eyebrows rose. "Are you reviving Bellamy Farm?"
She nodded. "Maybe you'll be calling it the Morrell Farm this time next year."
Father Ray smiled. "Wait here." He trotted off toward a knot of other congregants, animatedly exchanging words and gestures on the church's front lawn, and returned moments later with a solid-looking man in a sport jacket and NFL-logo tie.
"Hello, I'm Jack Taliaferro. I run the local farmers' market." He held out a hand.
Kate shook the proffered hand but did not release it. Her voice dropped a full octave and became husky. "I'm Kate Morrell. Allan has hired me to turn his spread into a working farm again. We've put in several acres of champion-line scallions and rhubarb. Very high return per unit. But I'm only good at growing things. I'm hopeless at selling them. Do you think you might be able to help?" With that, she produced a smile of such dazzling power that Allan's heart clenched in his chest.
Taliaferro's mouth dropped open. Beads of perspiration formed on his forehead. His free hand went to his collar and tugged it away from his throat.
"I think I might," he croaked. "Give me a moment?" He reclaimed his hand with some reluctance and beckoned to another congregant. "Solly? Come do some business!"
Presently Kate was chatting, laughing, and backslapping with the two merchants as if they were friends of twenty years' standing. A few minutes later, she shook hands with both again and returned to Allan.
Allan took Kate gently by the elbow and steered her back toward the car. "How did you do that?"
The smile she awarded him was 200-proof innocence. "Practice."
They went on that way, day after day and week after week. Kate would rise at five, if not earlier, and set to her labors at once. Allan, an hour or more behind her despite his best efforts, would cook for them, clean for them, and provide the relaxation of small talk at their meals together. At seven each evening she would put away her tools, shower off the grime of the day, and sit quietly before the television with him until weariness compelled her to sleep.
Allan kept his distance with difficulty; Kate was too much the dynamo, too filled with life and the fire of enterprise. She electrified him even at her arm's-length remove. She shone with the quality whose loss had impelled him toward an unusually early retirement: the simple joy of dedication, the ecstasy that comes from giving oneself wholeheartedly to work one genuinely wants to do.
She asked for nothing. He had to drag her away from the farm to drive her into the city for clothes, shoes, and grooming items. Her unwillingness to allow him to spend on her made it difficult verging on impossible, but he would not relent. He used Mass as the rationale; contemporary mores aside, he said, it was unseemly to attend church in stained jeans and work boots. She acquiesced, at first reluctantly, then with visibly growing pleasure.
It grew upon him over time that, while he had adjusted to being alone after his divorce from Marie, he had never come to enjoy it. He was not truly a solitary man. He'd been plagued by his sense of unworthiness and his awkwardness with others, and had come to prefer isolation to their torments. Yet in Kate's company he could feel neither.
One June morning, she woke him by force, shaking him out of a dreamless slumber to the rising light of dawn. He focused with difficulty, blearily wondering what emergency could justify her unprecedented invasion of his bedroom. The clock on his nightstand made it half past five.
She insisted that he don a robe and follow her, and led him to the fields she'd cultivated. To his sleep-hazed vision, all appeared as it had the day before. She scampered a few paces into the field, squatted, and beckoned to him to join her.
The scallions had sprouted. Green shoots about an inch long had penetrated to the air and sunlight. He looked from them to her, and found in her smile a joy that words could not capture. Instead of speaking, he raised her to her feet and offered his hand in congratulations.
She stepped past his hand and wrapped him in an embrace of crushing power. He returned it hesitantly. Twin streams of tears dampened his shoulder.
That night, Allan teetered on the verge of sleep when a warm intrusion made its presence known against his side. He groped through the darkness and found a cushiony silken mass: a woman's breast.
"Kate?"
She chuckled. "Unless you've got someone else coming over." A hand landed on his chest and slid caressingly down to his groin. He became erect at once.
"What are you doing?"
"What do you think?"
"But --"
"Shut up, Allan." She reached into his boxers' fly and took his organ in her hand. "We farm girls aren't into a lot of conversation at times like this." Seemingly in one motion, she divested him of his shorts and rolled him on top of her.
She was muscular yet soft and welcoming, a blanket of loving flesh that sought him with an eagerness he'd never encountered even as a teenager. He had to be the one to slow them down, to delay actual coitus and make room for foreplay. As he acquainted himself with her body, she clutched at him repeatedly, as if she were afraid that he might somehow slip away. He reassured her with fingertips, lips, and tongue, using all he remembered of the art of love from his distant days of joy with Marie.
When she was gasping raggedly beneath him, desperate for the ultimate union, he gently parted her labia, started to slide into her, and hit an unexpected barrier. He pulled back at once.
"What's wrong?" she breathed.
"Are you wearing a tampon?"
"No."
"Then --"
"Shut up, Allan!" And she slammed herself onto him with irresistible force.
They cried out together from the pain of her deflowering, but from that moment forward she would not allow them to be separated. It was only a moment to her first shuddering orgasm, a minute or two to her second one. As she approached the third, the tides in Allan's groin swelled toward their peak. No power on Earth could have restrained them. Her fingers dug deeply into his buttocks as he arched and came.
She screamed deafeningly as his seed flowed into her. She refused to let him withdraw, gripping him so powerfully that his pelvis groaned under the stress. His outpouring of semen seemed to go on forever, a torrent no effort of his could stanch. The force and duration of his orgasm left him exhausted, almost too weak to breathe, but still conscious enough to fret.
Dear God, I've broken a virgin. I might have impregnated her into the bargain.
She held him inescapably, her arms and legs woven around him, as they slowly regained their breath and their senses. He remained lodged deep in her body. He did not attempt to breach the embrace.
"Why?" he breathed at last.
"I love you," she whispered.
"But how?"
"How not?" she replied.
"Kate --"
"Time enough in the morning, Allan."
With a twist of her hips, she rolled them onto their sides. Arms around one another, still locked tightly together, they slept.
As usual, she was up before him, but this time he found her in the kitchen, coffee made and mugs steaming at their respective places. She looked up as he entered and smiled.
It was the radiant smile of the morning before, when she'd shown him the first visible sign of the life she'd nurtured, but it was more. It compounded discovery, triumph, love, and peace into a single visible expression of joy. He could hardly believe he was its object.
He sat at his place and stretched out his hands. She took them in hers.
"What now?" he murmured.
She shrugged. "Breakfast, a quick shower, then I guess I'll weed and water."
"Come on!"
She leered. "Got something else in mind?"
"Kate!"
"From where I'm sitting, everything's great, Allan. What's got you so wound up?"
"I might have impregnated you last night!"
"You think I'm not aware of that? Farm girl, remember? Oh, excuse me, farm woman. I've inseminated cows, Allan. I know what semen is for."
He was unable to speak, barely able to form a coherent thought. She grinned and chafed his hands.
"God gave women wombs for the same reason He gave us the land: to grow something. To make life. I want your baby inside me. If I didn't catch last night, maybe I'll get lucky tonight. Or tomorrow, or the next night. Think you're up to the job?"
Her expression turned serious, and she leaned forward. "Or is it that you don't want a baby?"
"Kate," he faltered, "the only thing I want more than a child of my own is you to love and raise it with. I just can't quite believe it's all coming true. Why?"
She scowled. "Told you last night. I love you."
"I guess," he said slowly, "that's the part I still don't get. How am I...how did I earn that?"
Her smile returned. "By being who you are. By opening your home to me, giving me everything you have, and telling me it's mine to use as I please. By looking after me and treating me like your beloved long before you even knew what I'm good for." Her brow wrinkled. "What I don't get is my good luck. Why hasn't some other woman snapped you up?"
"At my age?"
"Seems like you're doing okay to me. You're a classic. You haven't rusted or weathered. You're still state of the art. They don't make 'em like you any more. Like Nellie. How old are you, fifty or so?"
"Fifty-two. Kate, that's another thing. You're what, twenty-two or twenty-three?"
"Twenty-three in October." She grinned. "Lots of farm kids are born in October."
"Uh, yeah. So I've got thirty years on you. Just how long do you think I'm going to last? You could be alone again before you hit fifty."
She peered at him in disbelief. "I'm supposed to toss away the man I love because I can't have the whole of his adult life for my own? Okay, so I got here late. My bad. But what you have left is priceless, and I want to share it with you, and with your children born from my body. If you'll let me."
He fell silent.
Presently she squeezed his hands, rose and went to peer out the window at the field she labored over.
"I can't abide waste, Allan. Farm people are like that." She gestured at her tillings. "When you first showed me that field, and all the stuff in your barn, I knew I had to make use of it. You could have tried to send me down the road, but I think I'd have fought you even that very first day. And after you showed me yourself, I wasn't about to let you go to waste either."
He shook his head. "So what have you been doing these past six weeks? Working up the nerve?"
She chuckled. "Plus a little agriculture. Actually," she said, "I wanted to give you the right of the first move. After yesterday morning, I couldn't make myself wait any more." She returned to her seat and took his hands again. "Your turn."
"Hm?"
"Time to tell me how you feel about it -- about me."
He was slow to answer.
"I was...dead," he said. "Marie -- my wife -- left me a long while ago. It was harder on me than I realized at first. I lost interest in my work, and I became uncomfortable around others, and pretty soon I was alone. I tried to tell myself that I preferred it that way, but I was alone whether I liked it or not. I had money, so I took advantage of the opportunity to retire and get away. I landed here. Lots of space, no neighbors to speak of, no pressure of any kind. As long as I could get groceries and get to Mass on Sunday, I thought I had what I needed."
"And then?"
"Then there was you. The embodiment of life. Life on the hoof! What I'd needed but hadn't had the sense to look for or pursue, delivered right onto my porch on a breezy April day. From that very first moment, you brought me life in such abundance that I knew I couldn't stay dead. Want to know how I knew?"
She nodded.
"Because I couldn't look at you without shaking inside from the fear that you might get away."
Her eyes brimmed over. She rose and pulled him out of his seat.
"Come on," she said. "Let's get moving."
"Hm?"
"First," she said, "we shower. Then some toast or eggs or something. Then we go see Father Ray."
"Why?"
"Banns and a date, dummy! You do want our firstborn to be legitimate, don't you?" She tugged him down the hallway toward the master bathroom.
"Oh. Right. Kate?"
"Hm?"
"Could I help with the farm? I don't know much about growing things, but...?"
That stopped her. She turned and searched his face. "It's dirty, tiring work, Allan."
"That's okay," he said, "if I can do it with you."
She smiled and pulled him close. "That you can."
Saturday, November 21, 2009
A Cup Of Courage
Aaron Teitelbaum had the coldest smile Father Raymond Altomare had ever seen.
The lawyer was dressed in the height of Manhattan Legal style: a pinstriped three-piece navy blue suit, black Oxfords so brilliantly polished they seemed to outshine the conference room lights, and inconspicuous but quite impressive diamond-studded cufflinks. His glove-leather briefcase looked as if it had never been in contact with baser matter. The gold fountain pen and memo book he pulled from his inner jacket pocket were equally pristine. From the moment he'd walked into Ray's room at St. Gregory's rectory, Teitelbaum's smile had never wavered, but his eyes were fish flat and icy cold, and they never left Ray's face.
"Thank you for taking this meeting, Father," the lawyer said as they sat. "I hope I haven't greatly inconvenienced you, what with the pressures of the season."
"Not at all," Ray said. "As it happens, I was in town to visit my family for Christmas." The lawyer nodded minutely. Ray got the distinct impression that Teitelbaum had already known it. "But what could a parish priest from Onteora possibly do for you?"
"Quite a lot, actually." Teitelbaum slid a large glossy photo across the table. "You've heard of Del Nevins, of course?"
Of course. "The fellow condemned for the mass murder at the convenience store?"
Teitelbaum nodded again. "I was his attorney." He scowled fleetingly. "I still am. The court won't let me withdraw."
"Why do you need to withdraw?" Have you exhausted his money?
A spasm of distaste flew across the lawyer's face. "He's run out of appeals. His petition to the Supreme Court was denied a week ago yesterday."
"Doesn't that automatically free you from further obligation to him?"
"Not in a death penalty case." The lawyer looked as if he'd bitten into a ball of tin foil. "A condemned man is considered entitled to legal counsel right to the instant of his execution. The possibilities to save him might be dwindling, but given his destiny, the law holds that he must have an outside representative to work on his behalf, right to the end. But that's not really germane to why I've asked to speak with you, Father. Del's execution warrant was issued yesterday."
"So soon after his petition was turned down?"
Teitelbaum nodded. "He asked for it to be expedited."
Ray's suspicions swelled. He kept silent.
"I'm desperate to save this man's life, and I need all the help I can get. Your church has a history of opposing the death penalty. Del claims to be a Catholic."
"Very lawyerly phrasing, Mr. Teitelbaum."
The lawyer shrugged it aside. "How would I know what he really is?"
Ray hunched forward and slid to the edge of his cot. "Was he baptized into the Church? We do keep records, you know."
Teitelbaum reached into his briefcase again and pulled out a baptismal certificate. Ray peered at it. It appeared to be correctly executed. The seal looked genuine enough.
"Very well. So, has Mr. Nevins requested my services?"
"Not exactly, Father."
Ray's unease spiked. "I can't force my ministry on a man who doesn't want it, sir."
"Oh, he wants it. He just didn't ask for you specifically," Teitelbaum said. "And you might help me save his life."
"How so? It sounds as if he wants to die."
Teitelbaum stared down at his manicure for a long moment of silence.
"I've made some inquiries, Father. You're one of New York's more active priests. Some still remember that flap you had with your county executive over the nativity creche, two years ago. He won the technical battle on points, but you prevailed in the court of public opinion. And of course, you're young, photogenic, and dynamic. It all helps, when you're trying to rally public pressure on a sitting governor to issue a commutation."
"Well, thank you for all of that, but surely there are better known priests right here in Manhattan who could be of more assistance to you?"
Teitelbaum's face became a rigid mask. "Everything helps, Father." He rose and put out his hand. Ray rose and took it. "Are you willing to consider seeing Del?"
Would that be for his sake, or for yours? You must have called every priest in the five boroughs before you got to me...and they all turned you down.
"I'll get back to you about it."
The lawyer nodded. "Please don't take too long. The date of execution is January 2. At midnight."
Ray winced. "I won't."
Salvatore Altomare leaned forward over the dining room table and cocked a bushy eyebrow the color of new snow. "You gonna get involved in this rat's case?"
"Let's not prejudge him," Ray said, "He might have repented, you know."
"Whassat got to do with the price-a tea in China? He killed four people, and for what? Less than sixty bucks!"
Ray glanced fleetingly at his sister. Lisa was concentrating on her roast beef and maintaining an admirable poker face.
"Papa," Ray said in his softest voice, "you're not saying you'd have more sympathy for him if his haul had been bigger, are you?"
"Ahhhh!" The Altomare patriarch dismissed his son with a flip of the hand. "Get some sense-a proportion, kid. You gonna kill, you do it over somethin' worth killin' for. Not the price of a meal. Yanno, the pictures always make out that it's us Italians who kill at the drop of a hat, but you think Uncle Angie or Charley the Fade would kill over sixty bucks? You think Uncle Vito would? Not on your life -- and it would be your life to suggest it to 'em." He shook his head in wonderment over the decline in moral values. "You kids never unnerstood what it's really about."
The dining room became unnaturally still. Lisa laid her fork gently on her plate and sat back. Sal Altomare sat motionless, glaring in disappointment at the son who'd failed to follow him into the concrete business where he belonged. Ray simply allowed his thoughts to swirl until they coalesced.
"Then what is it about, Papa?"
"Balance, figlio mio. You gotta keep the balance. A life for a life. A death for a death. That way people can know what's comin' to 'em. You go killin' over a few quarters from a tip cup, or let a man live after he's killed one of your own, the whole system goes to hell." He rose and planted his fists on the table. "In the old days, everybody unnerstood that. We learned it early. You kids ain't never learned. 'S no wonder you got junkies killin' each other over a lump-a crack."
Ray closed his eyes.
The Church has condemned execution for decades. It's only permissible in the very worst cases, the Vatican said. But what if Papa's right and they're wrong? And what's worse than mass murder, anyway? Did Nevins have to do more to deserve his sentence? Did he have to torture his victims for his own death to be deserved? To keep the balance?
"Papa," Ray said softly, "I think I do understand it."
Lisa's eyes jerked up suddenly and fixed upon him.
"Then what, boy?" Sal said.
"I don't know."
Ray waited in the interview booth with as much sangfroid as he could muster. That wasn't much; over the whole drive up to Ossining, he'd thought of nothing but Nevins's victims, his lawyer's marked frigidity of manner, the Church's proclamation against capital punishment, and his father's diatribe of the evening before. When he'd identified himself to the deputy warden and asked to see Nevins, the man's manner, originally affable if solemn, had mutated instantly into a disapproval so intense that it verged on hatred. Several guards had sneered him where he sat, their disapproval unconcealed.
Christmas Eve in Sing Sing Prison. Among people who despise me, inmates and guards both. Lord, be my refuge.
Nevins appeared between two husky guards with truncheons, in full arm and leg shackles. The guards practically dragged him to the booth and shoved him into his chair. One of them plucked the handset from its holder, thrust it into the space between Nevins's ear and shoulder, snarled "Don't drop it," and backed away.
The condemned man was unremarkable in appearance: perhaps five-nine, a hundred seventy pounds, with watery brown eyes and thinning brown hair. He looked no more threatening than the average retail clerk...probably no more so than any of the four whose lives he had ended.
But he's here and they're nowhere.
Ray composed himself and put his handset to his ear. "Mr. Nevins, I'm Father Raymond Altomare of Our Lady of the Pines parish in Onteora County. Mr. Teitelbaum asked me to come up here and speak with you. He didn't say whether it was your wish or his."
Nevins smiled wanly. "Both, Father. Different reasons, though. How do you feel about the death penalty?"
Ray frowned. "You're a Catholic, aren't you?"
Nevins nodded.
"Then you must know the Church's position on the matter."
"That wasn't what I asked you, Father."
Ray hesitated, unsure.
"The Holy Father did leave an escape clause, didn't he?"
"Yes," Ray said, "but it was about...the safety of others. Whether a murderer could be confined in a manner that would leave him no opportunity to do further harm."
"I know, Father." Nevins's mouth twitched. "I've been in solitary confinement for the past nine years. I'd say the rest of society is pretty safe from me, even if I'd wanted to kill again. Don't you think so?"
"Mr. Nevins," Ray said, "I'm in no position to judge such things. But your lawyer told me that after your appeal to the Supreme Court was denied, you asked to have your execution scheduled as soon as possible. Is that correct?"
Nevins nodded minutely.
"If you want to live -- if my opinion of whether you ought to be allowed to live matters to you -- why did you do that?"
Nevins dropped his eyes to the little desk at which he sat. He was silent for a long interval. Ray searched the murderer's face, looking for any clues it might hold to his tangle of contradictions. He saw nothing he could identify.
"Because," Nevins said at last, "I'm afraid to die."
"I can't do anything for him, Mr. Teitelbaum," Ray said. "The law takes no account of a man's fears or Church doctrine. The governor has refused to consider a commutation. Seven days from now Nevins will stand before the Bar of Judgment no matter what you, I, or His Holiness the Pope might have to say about it."
"I know that, Father." The lawyer reached for his coffee and took a small sip. "But you have some sense for the man, now. He admits his guilt, and he knows what he faces. It simply terrifies him. The guards are likely to have to render him unconscious to get him into the execution chamber. He loses his sphincter control every time he thinks about it. And frankly," Teitelbaum said, lips pressed into a thin line, "that's something I think we would all rather avert if we could."
"Do you know," Ray said with sudden energy, "why he fears death so greatly?"
Teitelbaum cocked an eyebrow. "For the same reasons we all do, I'd imagine."
"Not quite, sir. Nevins is afraid that he's committed an unforgivable crime. He's confessed it and been granted absolution -- several times, according to the prison chaplain -- but he can't bring himself to believe that God will accept him after what he's done. He expects to face eternity in Hell. He finds that a lot more frightening than mere death. I'd expect anyone would." Ray paused, remembering. "I offered to shrive him again, right then and there. He said it wouldn't matter."
Teitelbaum looked away. He muttered something inaudible.
"Excuse me?"
The lawyer's eyes locked onto Ray's. "I said, God save us from true believers."
Ray was silent.
"Did he ask you for anything else, Father?"
Ray nodded. "To be present at the execution."
"Nothing but that?"
"Nothing but that."
Teitelbaum rose. "Then I suppose our work, however unsatisfactorily concluded, is done." He extended a hand. Ray rose and took it. "Thank you for your time, Father."
Ray looked up from his coffee to find his sister standing in the kitchen entranceway.
"You're up pretty early on New Year's Day," she said. She pulled her robe a little more snugly around her and sat beside him.
"Couldn't sleep."
"It's tonight, isn't it?"
Ray nodded.
"You're sure you ought to go?"
"I have to go," Ray said. "It's a duty."
"You won't enjoy it."
"I don't expect to."
She nodded.
"Lise, he says he believes. He was baptized and confirmed. He accepts Christ as the Son of God. He acknowledges me and other priests as Christ's vicars. He's asked me to perform Extreme Unction. But then why can't he believe he's been absolved?" Ray felt his hands ball involuntarily into fists. "Do we do too good a job of frightening people about the possible consequences of their sins? Do we say too little about the power of absolution and the infinite mercy of God?"
Have I enlisted in the biggest fright machine in the history of Man?
"I don't know, Ray," she said. "I'd say it varies. Father Keane is one sort of priest, Father Holcomb the opposite. I look to one for castigation and the other for compassion. If they behave differently with their other parishioners, I have no way of knowing."
"Have you spoken to either of them about this?" he said.
She nodded.
"And?"
"They both said they were sure you'd find the right path." She smiled. "They think the world of you, you know."
"Yeah." He stared aimlessly into the gloom. "And you know I don't deserve it."
"Well," she said with a chuckle, "they didn't grow up with you. So, what next?"
He stood, and she rose with him.
"I'm going to shower and shave," he said. "Then I'm going to Mass. After that...I don't know."
His sister's eyes expressed a confidence in him that he could not feel. "You will."
Nevins entered the little interrogation room tentatively, as if he were surprised to find himself there. He looked about in bewilderment, finally fixing on Ray, who stood behind a small table in his chasuble, alb, and stole.
Ray gestured Nevins toward the single chair placed before the table, waited for him to seat himself, and made a steeple of his hands.
"The Lord be with you," he intoned.
Nevins rose as if compelled. "And also with you," he whispered.
Ray celebrated Mass just as he had for the decade past. He recited the Creed, and Nevins recited it with him. He read from Chapter 26 of the Gospel according to Matthew, as steadily as he could. As he raised the host in the first act of consecration, he prayed silently for guidance and strength.
Lord, help me to do what this man needs. Help me to help him find You in himself.
As he raised the chalice in the conclusion of the consecration rite, he felt a vast peace descend upon him, and with it the certainty he had sought.
"For this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all, that sins may be forgiven." Ray's voice cracked and fell to a whisper. "Do this in memory of me."
When he had swallowed the host and sipped from the chalice, he looked directly at the kneeling convict and said, "Come forward, ye child of God."
And Nevins did. He accepted the host upon his tongue, swallowed quickly, and made to return to his place, but Ray stopped him and offered the chalice to him.
"Drink of the blood of Christ. Partake of His courage."
Nevins took the cup hesitantly, as if it might be snatched away from him at any instant. He sipped quickly and made to return it to Ray's hand.
"No," Ray said. "Finish it."
Eyes wide in incredulity, Nevins did.
"Let us pray."
They fell to their knees, priest and convict together, clasping one another and praying as one.
Ray stepped through the apartment door to find his father reading a newspaper in the living room.
"Finished?" Salvatore Altomare said.
Ray nodded.
"He's dead?"
Another nod.
Sal Altomare grunted, started to return to his paper, then shoved it aside. He rose and peered into his son's eyes.
"You unnerstand about the balance now, figlio mio?"
"I think so, Papa," Ray said. I think he did, too. "Thank you."
"Ain't nothin'," his father said. "You shoulda known. But hey," he said, grinning, "Whatsa father for, right?"
Father Raymond Altomare pulled his father close and kissed his seamed cheek. "Right."
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Vocations
(I’ve received a large amount of email about the stories in the Short Fiction section. It’s always good to receive such notes, even when they’re critical rather than complimentary; it means 1) that the stories are being read, and 2) that they’ve “touched a nerve.” The distribution, however, of mail-over-specific-stories is sometimes a source of bafflement. I wouldn’t have expected so many to address this one, or this one.
There appears to be a hunger among Eternity Road readers for more about Helen and Martine, in particular. I must admit, I have a great affection for my characters and any excuse is good enough for me to return to them. But I think it important to avoid telling the same story over and over, so...well, judge for yourself.
Gentle erotica set in Onteora County—and more.)
"Helen..." Martine scanned the little space quickly. Whatever her mentor saw in it had yet to register on her. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
The older woman raised one eyebrow ever so slightly. "Isn't it a bit late for second thoughts, dear?"
"No...well, maybe." The surrounding area was beautiful, open and lushly green, but the city was quiet, far quieter than Los Angeles. It wasn't exactly farm country, but it bore little resemblance to the milieu in which her mentor had recruited her and honed her skills. The great majority of the buildings were one or two storeys. The streets were traveled, but not full or nearly so. Most of the men were in overalls or blue jeans. The women they'd passed on the streets simply didn't look like the sort who'd seek the services of a specialist of her sort. "Where will our clientele come from?"
"Just set up as close as possible to how we were set up in California and wait to be noticed," Helen said. "Surely you're not worried about money?"
"No...no." Martine tried to imagine the rows of displays, the racks of goods, familiar from their store in Los Angeles. It was hard; the lighting, the differences in geometry, and the lack of ambient noise from the street beyond worked against her. The back of the store, just then partitioned off by a plain drywall but ultimately to be concealed by a wall of mirrors, was impossible to imagine set up as Naughty But Nice was arranged. She grimaced briefly and strove to quell her misgivings.
Helen laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "You have nothing to fear, dear. Remember, we're not here to turn a monetary profit. We are called to this work. If that which we serve decrees that you be here, then here you must be." She smiled. "Just do what you've trained to do...what you did so well in Los Angeles. Do it with skill, pride, and joy. My confidence in you is boundless. One word of advice?"
Martine nodded vigorously.
"Whenever you're open, always have the tea service ready. And the cakes."
"I will." Impulsively, Martine whirled and threw her arms around the older woman. "I'm going to miss you."
Helen squeezed her and stroked her short cap of shiny black hair. "I'm never more than half a day away, dear. I'll be here whenever you truly need me."
Martine repressed a shiver. "I hope so."
Another squeeze. "Count on it."
Maureen Harkness quickly made the Sign of the Cross and started to turn toward her husband, but Chris had already turned away and pulled the blanket to his chin. She tensed, thought briefly about importuning him, and relaxed with a silent sigh. Two tears leaked down her face in the darkness.
His goodness is killing me.
Fully aware of her vaginitis, Chris would not, as he put it, impose himself on her physically. He loved her too much to cause her pain for his own pleasure.
Maureen had come to miss that pain more than life itself.
Lord, how do I cope? He's the best man You ever put on this earth. I love him beyond all reason. Amanda, too. I could never have believed in his degree of bravery or integrity before I saw them with my own eyes. And I can't convince him that, despite my problems, I want him still, that having him in my body means more to me than anything else in this world. What must I do?
She feared it was having an effect on Chris that he wouldn't discuss. He'd become ever quieter since their last attempted coitus. There was a new tone of resignation in his carriage and his dealings with others. That morning he'd politely asked a garbageman not to toss their cans into the street. The lout flipped him off without eliciting a reaction, much less a penalty for his cheek.
His calling was to be a warrior in service to freedom and justice. Has my lessening as a woman lessened him as well?
She held herself very still, careful not to disturb Chris's incipient slumbers.
Guide me, Lord. Help me to find a way out of this impasse. But if that's not to be, if our marriage is to be without fleshly coitus from now on, help me to accept it with patience and bear it with unfailing love. Grant me Your grace.
She turned onto her side and closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep. But before she drifted off, a faint signal, like something heard from across the sea and over the horizon beyond, seemed to impinge on her semiconscious mind.
Ask Christine.
Maureen edged tentatively into the Integral Security gymnasium, mindful of the irregularity. Interrupting a training session in progress simply wasn't done. Kevin Conway, Integral's owner-proprietor, took a dim view of it. She'd likely hear about it from her husband, too.
As she rounded the turn into the martial-arts room, she collided frontally with Patricia Larson. The young patrolwoman seemed in a hurry to get to wherever she was going. The two women turned faces red with embarrassment on one another, each muttered a low apology, and Larson continued away at a fast trot.
Lord, help me to forgive her. Not to hold it against her that she wants what I have. Had.
Christine hoisted herself out of her seat as Maureen scampered across the exercise mats. She smiled widely and spread her arms, and they embraced.
"Good to see you, babe," Christine said. "Are you back on the schedule again?"
Maureen looked up at the younger woman and shook her head. "I'd like to be, though. Do you have an empty slot I could fill?"
Christine's smile grew wider still. "I'll make one. Just pick a time and I'll reserve it for you. Anyone who complains can fight for it."
"Me?"
The trainer shook her head. "Me!"
Maureen pulled her close again, rested her cheek against the cushion of Christine's bosom, luxuriated in the welcome there.
Lord, what comfort there is in holding this girl! So warm, so gifted, and so beautiful! Feeling her against me is almost as good as holding Chris. Truly, You never made two things the same. All praise to You!
Presently they sat, Maureen's hands enfolded in Christine's. All it took was for Christine to say, "So how have you been?" and though Maureen had never willed it, the whole of her agony poured forth uncensored.
It was several minutes before she ran down. When she did, she slumped forward, breathless and exhausted, ready to collapse into Christine's arms.
The trainer didn't speak for nearly a minute. She chewed her lips, stroked the backs of Maureen's hands with her thumbs, glanced randomly around the gymnasium, and finally gave a great sigh.
"We have to come at this from the beginning," Christine said. "Are you absolutely, positively certain it's just your problem that's in the way?"
Maureen straightened up. She started to expostulate an indignant affirmative, checked herself.
Am I really sure?
"I...don't know. I'd assumed so, but..."
The trainer nodded. "You can't be. You never can. It could also be a loss of desire on his part. Or he might have flogged himself into no longer thinking of you as a sexual being."
"Can a healthy man do that?"
Christine nodded. "I never told you about my trainer, did I?"
"No, you've..." Maybe I don't know you as well as I'd like. "Might I learn something from the tale? I don't wish to pry --"
Christine smirked. "I expect you would. Both ways, babe. Women are cats. We have to know everything, explore every crevice and lick every surface. Why pretend otherwise?" She squeezed Maureen's hands. "So come sit by me and cock an ear."
Maureen shifted in her seat to draw closer to the younger woman, but the geometry of the metal chairs held them several inches apart. Christine snorted, trotted to one edge of the exercise mats, and yanked it loose from its moorings in a display of her considerable strength. With a few tugs and twists she fashioned an improvised chaise longue large enough for the two of them to share.
"Will you get in trouble for this?" Maureen settled gingerly onto the mats next to Christine.
The younger woman drew the older one snugly into her arms, encouraging Maureen to rest her head on her bosom again. She stroked Maureen's hair and rocked her gently.
How she mothers me, and me the older by a good twenty years!
"I'll put it back later," Christine said. "Right now, I want to tell you all about Louis Dylan Aloysius Redmond."
"I never would have guessed any of it," Maureen murmured. "He sounds like an angel made flesh." Like my Chris.
Christine stroked her hair again. "He was, if there are any such. When he died it damn near killed me. Took the heart right out of another woman who loved him just as much. But that's the story."
Christine's hands went to the sides of Maureen's face, held her tenderly but firmly as they locked eyes. "It took a whole week, even after I'd raped him --" Maureen winced. "What's the matter, babe?"
"That word. Is that really...what it was?"
"Well, what would you call it when one person forces himself, or herself, on another sexually? I promise you, the first time around he fought me the whole way."
Maureen nodded. "And the week after?"
Christine pouted. "He wouldn't touch me. Acted like it had never happened. I pretty much had to do it again." She smirked. "He didn't fight me the second time, though."
"Bloody --" Maureen clapped a hand to her mouth. "Sorry."
The trainer chuckled. "For what? I can outswear a carrier battle group when I get cranked. Anyway, he'd never had anyone to do for him what he'd done for me."
"What was that?"
"Made me beautiful." A joy swelled in Christine's face that engulfed all the sorrow there. "Treated me like someone special, someone who deserved respect and admiration. Made me someone to love, instead of someone to abuse."
"Chris, if you had to be made to feel beautiful and special, I can't imagine --"
"And I don't want you to," Christine said. "I want you to feel the way he made me feel. Stand up." She rose and pulled Maureen to her feet. "Off with the duds."
"What?"
"Come on, it's just us little girls. Skin 'em!"
Maureen cast a hasty glance at the entrance and complied.
"Undies too."
"Must I?"
Christine scowled, and Maureen hurried to doff her panties and bra. When she was completely nude, the younger woman bade her stand still, arms at her sides and feet slightly spread, and moved around her, looking critically, touching her gently here and there and emitting the occasional hmmm of assessment.
"You've got the goods, babe. Good shape, still tight in all the right places, skin smooth, no big moles or tags. Not much of a rack, though. A or B?"
Maureen cringed. "A's just a little tight."
"Well, we can fix that. Get dressed." The trainer trotted to the front row of chairs and fished up her purse. "We're going shopping."
They were on their sixth outfit before Maureen protested in earnest.
"Chris," she whispered as the Albrecht's saleslady moved away for another selection, "I can't afford this!"
Christine's eyes twinkled. "Yes, you can. Relax, babe. We're not halfway there yet."
Dear Lord. Everything silk or linen. Everything gorgeous. Everything so flirtatious I could never have dreamed of wearing it. Where's the money supposed to come from for all of it?
She'd gotten a single fleeting glance at one price tag before Christine ripped it out of her hand.
And we haven't been to the shoe salon yet. I think I feel faint.
Her hands rose to cup the pliable gel "cutlets" Christine had molded to the undersides of her breasts.
"Are they uncomfortable? Coming loose?" Christine said.
"No, not at all. I very nearly forgot they were there."
The younger woman grinned. "They do you good, babe. I'd say to wear them all the time. Well, maybe not in bed." She put on an exaggerated upper-class-Londonian accent. "One must let the skin breathe now and then, eh?"
Maureen couldn't help but giggle. "Oh, mustn't one just. And serve the cause of discretion as well!"
Christine laughed. "Discretion and a C cup. A breakthrough for the ages!"
A seventh fitting, this one a daringly cut red silk minidress that clung to her like a desperate lover, and Christine called a halt. They toted their selections to the register, and before Maureen could say a word, Christine told the saleslady to ship all the purchases to the Chase residence, whipped out a gold credit card, and thrust it through the stripe reader. The saleslady rang up the transaction without comment.
"Chris --"
"My treat, babe. We're getting you beautiful." Christine grinned, signed the credit slip, and pocketed the receipt before Maureen could glimpse the total. "And we're way far from done, so summon your reserves. Next comes the fun part: shoes!"
"What's fun about that?"
Christine frowned. "Are you sure you're a girl?"
Martine had done her best with the available space. Thinning out the breadth of the selections helped. There was room for at least one of everything, and much to her surprise, she'd managed to make the displays somewhat reminiscent of Helen's shop in Los Angeles. The workmen had finished installing the tub and mirroring the walls of the rear gallery, and she'd hung a lovely curtain of Baltic amber beads in the doorway to it. The card table was set up in the corner, the tea service and a plate of Helen's special cakes upon it. A sense of having settled in was building in her.
She sighed in satisfaction, went to the door of the shop, and stepped outside to breathe the evening air. On impulse, she flipped the sign to OPEN before pulling the door closed behind her.
I'm ready. It's time to make Helen proud.
There was a prospect of traffic after all. She hadn't previously taken account of the large department store a block to the south. With Grand Street, the city's main drag, only a block further to the north, pedestrian passers-by might be more numerous than she'd feared.
As she scanned the area, her eyes lit on a pair of women exiting the department store. Even at a block's distance, Martine could tell they were revved high, excited and pleased with themselves and their purchases. From their body language it was clear that the taller one was the dominant, leader of the expedition.
Martine's hand drifted toward the steel busk that covered her mound. The anxiety of solitude, the sense of nakedness from not having immeasurably wiser and more assured Helen to backstop her had risen in her again. She fought it down, prayed for the chance to prove herself.
Walk this way, ladies. Be my first customers. Please!
The two did exactly that, the taller one with a relaxed yet confident saunter, the smaller one stumbling, wobbling, and giggling in unfeigned delight as she accustomed herself to her high heels, probably the first high heels she'd ever owned.
"Oooh," Maureen cooed.
"Getting the hang of it?"
"Chris, this simply must be a mortal sin!
"Hm?"
"Feeling this good. This..."
"Sexy?"
Maureen blushed.
"The point is sex, isn't it?" Christine said.
"Well, yes. Partly."
"Oh? What's the other part?"
Maureen giggled. She'd learned that the knack for walking in her five-inch stiletto-heeled sandals was to put one foot directly in front of the other, keep her legs close together, and take short, deliberate steps. It compelled her to swing her hips as no ordinarily modest Englishwoman would have done. The minidress caressed her from shoulders to hips with each step. The sensuous friction as her silk-clad thighs swished against one another was more of a delight than she could have imagined. "Feeling beautiful." Young, innocent, and carefree. Like a newborn.
"Wallow in it, babe. This is what life in America is supposed to be. Capitalism without guilt. Work hard, play even harder. Pamper and be pampered. Give your best and be your best. What I don't get is why Chris never did this for you."
"He's a very practical sort, dear. He deals with necessities readily and quite well, but luxuries are...foreign to him." You should see his underwear. Or perhaps not. "What is it?"
The younger woman had halted, eyes fixed on the front of a nearby store. It appeared newly occupied. The windows displayed an assortment of saucy lingerie, in a wide variety of fabrics, styles, and colors. The marquee proclaimed the name of the establishment to be Evenings To Remember.
"Aren't we done for the evening, Chris?"
"Maybe not," Christine said. "Let's have a look in here."
Martine stood before her counter and waited with as much nonchalance as she could fake. When the shop door finally opened, she had to repress a sigh of relief.
The two women who entered were a study in contrasts. One was young and tall, with a Valkyrie's figure. She carried herself like a warrior, as well: boundless confidence, unfazed by anything and ready for all of it. The other woman was slender, short, and middle-aged, with a natural reserve, or shyness, that she couldn't conceal. Both sported smiles, but the older woman displayed a hint of tension, of the sort that comes from finding oneself in unfamiliar, disturbing surroundings.
The older woman's eyes roved the racks of lingerie and marital aids, her expression slowly changing from puzzled to disturbed. The younger one stared directly at Martine. She murmured a single word: "Yum!"
Martine smiled and bowed. "Welcome to Evenings To Remember, ladies. I'm Martine Arnault. Today is our grand opening, and you're our very first customers." She gestured toward the card table and the tea service. "Shall we take a few minutes to celebrate and get acquainted?"
The younger woman smiled naughtily and pulled the older one forward. "We shall."
It took only one of the little cakes to dissolve Maureen's reserve like the sugar lump in her tea. Not ten minutes after they'd stepped through the door, she was holding Martine's hands and chattering away as if the two were bosom friends of twenty years' standing. Christine simply sat back and listened, attentive but relaxed and openly amused. Time passed unmeasured and unmonitored.
Presently Christine stood and stretched. "I have to get going. I have early appointments tomorrow. Take care of her for me, Martine?"
Maureen started from her chair. "Chris --"
"Enjoy the rest of the evening, babe. I can catch the bus at the corner. " Her eyes moved to Martine's. "Congrats on your opening. I'll be back sometime."
Martine smiled suggestively. "I hope so."
As the door closed, Martine squeezed Maureen's hands gently and said, "You're lucky to have a friend like that."
"I know," Maureen said. She took a second cake from the salver and nibbled at it, savoring the spicy sweetness as it spread over her tongue. "These are frightfully good. Is it your own recipe?"
Martine shook her head. "Taught to me by Helen. My mentor."
"Hm?"
"I'm sort of an apprentice, Mo. This is my first venture out from under Helen's wing." Her gaze briefly swept the shop. "First test of a lot of things she taught me."
"Does Helen run a shop like this, then?"
"In Los Angeles. Where we met." Martine hesitated. "It's only a day since she left, and I already miss her terribly."
Maureen leaned forward. "I think I understand, dear. I can't imagine life without my Chris."
Martine peered closely at the older woman. "What about your other Chris? The one you ran to first with your problem? The one who just dolled you up like the queen of all English sexpots? The one who checked me out for a whole hour before deciding it was okay to leave you in my care?"
Maureen's mouth fell open.
"Did she say what moved her to bring you in here, Mo?"
"...no..."
"It disturbed you at first, didn't it?"
Maureen nodded. "I'm a Catholic."
"I'm a Catholic too, Mo. I know all the teachings. I know how the Church treats sexuality and sexual pleasure. And I'll tell you something your pastor never will." Martine felt her intensity rise. "Every woman who lives is married to every other woman who's ever lived. Husband or no husband. We have a bond from birth that marriage to a man can't undo. It goes all the way back to Creation, to Eve, to the first blood that dripped from our loins. And when we accept it, and learn to make use of its power, we become more than we were. Much more."
"How?" Maureen whispered.
Martine hesitated, suddenly unsure. She groped for reassurance from the Power, felt it come vibrantly awake within her, and her uncertainty vanished.
"Celebrants. Priestesses. The true keepers of the fire of life."
Around them, the little shop was silent. No noise intruded from the street, now fully dark.
"I don't understand," Maureen whispered.
”Your friend does.” Martine went to the shop door and locked it, bade Maureen to rise, and urged her gently toward the amber curtain. "And you will."
Martine positioned Maureen before a wall of mirrors and bade her stand at ease. The shopkeeper examined her critically from every angle, as Christine had, but without comment. Strangely, she felt no tension at all.
Lord, I am in your hands. I don't fear this new sense of indulgence, and I don't know if I should. Guide me rightly.
Finally Martine said, "I don't understand it."
"What?"
"How could you have not known that you're beautiful?" The young woman smiled. "I saw it right away. Is it the vaginitis?"
Maureen's head drooped. "It might be."
"Would you like me to fix that?"
Her head snapped back up. "You can?"
Martine nodded. "Maybe. Would you disrobe, please?"
Maureen felt an unexpected thrill, the current that goes with the anticipation of onrushing joy, course through her. She grinned impishly.
"I will if you will."
Martine grinned back. "With pleasure." The young woman stepped out of her high-heeled pumps, peeled off her stockings, undid a short zipper on her form-fitting leather sheath and slid it past her hips as easily as if her skin had been greased. The figure thus revealed was as lusciously striking as Christine's. Maureen blushed, turned away, and made to remove her new clothes.
When she turned back, she noted that the shopkeeper had retained a single garment: a device of steel and leather that circled her waist and enclosed her groin.
"Is that a...chastity belt?"
Martine nodded. "I wear it just about all the time."
"Good Lord, why?"
"It's part of my vocation."
"Hm?" You're too sexy for Opus Dei!
"I'm a professional horny bitch, Mo. I'm supposed to stay as horny as possible as much of the time as possible. Believe it or not, that's the fuel that keeps me going."
Maureen Harkness had thought herself worldly. She'd thought she knew Mankind in its profusion and variety. In that moment she learned how narrow her horizons had really been. She stepped forward and crouched to examine the contrivance that bound Martine's loins.
It was a solid steel plate, brightly polished, closely fitted to the young woman's flesh and held tight there by thick leather bands. The edges of the plate were smoothly beveled, but even so, there were deep red grooves in the flesh along them. It looked as if it would permit no ingress at all.
"Does it hurt?"
Martine shook her head. "Not any more."
"You wear it...all the time?"
"Almost."
She touched her fingertips to the plate. "Is this what I should --"
"No and hell no! Your program will be completely different." Martine gestured toward a massage table at the far end of the room.
Program?
Maureen followed the shopkeeper to the table. Martine gestured to her to get up on it, bade her lie on her stomach, arms at her sides.
"There are several kinds of vaginitis," Martine said as she fumbled in a drawer set into the table's base. "Yours might be treatable, but you’d never get the right kind of treatment from a medical doctor." She grinned. "That's part of what I do. Will you trust me not to hurt you?"
Maureen hesitated, then nodded.
"Thank you. Just lie there and let me work."
And so it began.
Martine's awareness of her every movement as she labored over Maureen was uniquely vivid. The tremors that ran through the older woman's form as Martine massaged and caressed her reminded her over and over that this was not a creature accustomed to the thought of sex as pleasure or play.
She's led an arid life. Love, maybe even a lot of it, but not much fun.
"Time to turn over, Mo."
Maureen's skin was smooth and pliable. It bore the milk-and-roses tint typical of English womanhood, and the chamois-like texture of maturity that embeds every past caress in loving remembrance. Her breasts were small and firm. Her ribcage musculature was solid, without hernia or sag. Her waist was trim, her hips motherly but not overly padded. She bore her years as well as any woman could hope to.
Her husband must know what he's denying himself. I have to fix this.
It was at her vagina that things went sour. Martine parted the labia tenderly and leaned close. The opening was completely dry. The residual lubrication that can be found in a healthy woman, unaroused but sexually fully functional, was entirely absent.
"Mo," Martine murmured, "I'm going to remove your pubic hair. Is that okay?"
Eyes closed, the older woman nodded.
Martine plied an electric clipper over Maureen's mound until only stubble remained, then lathered her up and carefully scraped away the stubble with a safety razor. At the end, Maureen's pubis was as clean and smooth as Martine's own.
"You'll have to keep this up for yourself, Mo," she said. "Shave it every two or three days. Otherwise the vaginitis will return, and it will itch like crazy, to boot."
From the table drawer, Martine extracted a small torpedo-shaped vibrator. She coated it liberally and carefully with the special unguent Helen had compounded for easing an irritation of the mucous membranes, parted Maureen's labia again, and murmured, "Try to hold still, dear."
The older woman nodded again. Martine activated the vibrator, put the tip against the entrance to her vagina, and inserted it slowly. Maureen gasped and her eyes popped open.
"Does it hurt?"
"No...no!" Maureen's long muscles contracted and relaxed in a steady rhythm. Her hands clenched the edges of the table. "It's wonderful!"
Martine rotated the vibrator slowly as she worked it in and out, doing her best to spread the healing balm evenly over the whole surface of the vaginal membrane. She kept an eye on Maureen's reactions, vigilant for any indications of pain or stress. There were none, only a rising arousal building inexorably toward orgasm.
Just before climax, Martine put her free hand against Maureen's sternum and pressed downward. The orgasm that followed was volcanic, likely more violent than anything Maureen had experienced before. Without Martine's restraint, she might have flown off the table.
When her gasping and spasming had subsided, Maureen elbowed herself upright, tears streaming down her face, and beckoned Martine into her arms.
"You're an angel," she sobbed. "A genuine angel."
"No, Mo, not quite," Martine murmured into her ear. "But I'm on pretty good terms with one."
”You have to do it every day,” Martine told her. She handed the vibrator and the tube of unguent to Maureen. “All the way to orgasm. Two or three days, and you’ll start to feel fresh and moist again. In about a week, the tissues will start producing their own lubrication. Then comes the hard part.”
Maureen thrust the gifts into her new purse. “What’s that?”
”Persuading Mr. Harkness that you’re ready for battle.”
Maureen chuckled. “It’s Mr. Chase, actually, but I got the idea.” She pulled her stockings up legs that seemed twice as sensitive as they had in Albrecht’s women’s department, fastened them to her garters, and slipped her feet into her sandals. Every movement brought a languorous delight. Her state of dreamy contentment repelled all her misgivings and cares. “Will it be like that every time?”
Martine grinned. “We can hope so. Mo,” she said, “if you’re nervous about it, or shy, you can always stop by. I’ll help.”
”I know, dear. We’ll just have to see.” After this, bracing Chris won’t seem like that much of a challenge. She adjusted her minidress, stood and held out a hand. “Thank you for everything.”
Martine stepped past the proffered hand and caught her in a full, warm embrace.
”May I make two little suggestions, Mo?”
Maureen pressed the younger woman’s form firmly against her own. “Anything, dear.”
”Drive home barefoot. Learning to drive in heels takes a lot of practice.” Martine paused briefly. “And tell him you want to take his name.”
”Hm?” She pulled slightly back and peered into Martine’s eyes.
”You wouldn’t believe what it means to a man. They all say it doesn’t matter.” Martine’s eyes twinkled. “They all lie. Trust me.”
”I will.” Maureen hugged her again. “Are you sure you’re not an angel?”
Martine chuckled. “I think God would have told me.”
Only after the door of the shop closed behind her did Maureen realize that her evening wasn't quite over.
Though brightly lit, copiously traveled Grand Avenue was only a block away, the side street on which she'd found Evenings To Remember was fully dark, lit only by scattering of stars, and seemed devoid of life. Maureen wasn't reflexively afraid of the dark, but the city was largely unknown to her. Her husband had warned against walking its streets alone at night. She started hesitantly toward the municipal parking lot, placing her feet carefully, straining to see through the dark but only able to discern objects a yard or two away.
The lot was well lit, and her fears retreated. She was almost at her car's door when a large, dark figure in rough clothes stepped between it and her.
"Yo, mama. Whatchoo doin' out here? Lookin' fo' a good time?"
The slurred words were followed by a metallic click. A blade gleamed in the figure's hand. Her fears surged to a height she hadn't felt since London. She backed away, stumbled, and would have fallen had a pair of strong hands not caught her by the waist and steadied her.
"Careful, babe."
Christine stepped around her and confronted the knife-toting thug.
"My friend's a little tired. Want to play with me, asshole?"
The young thug snarled and lunged, knife held low, and slashed across Christine's midsection.
Maureen couldn't see clearly what happened next. It looked as if Christine caught the knife blade with a lightning sweep of her hand. It looked as if the thug froze in mid-swing and tried to wrench the weapon free, without success. It looked as if Christine snapped off the blade with her thumb, tossed it aside, and knocked her attacker cold with the neutered grip. But that, of course, was entirely impossible.
However, at the end of the tussle the thug was lying motionless on the macadam, and Christine was standing over him with arms akimbo, clucking in disapproval.
"Where were you?" Maureen whispered as she strove to quell her shakes.
Christine shrugged. "I waited outside the store. I wanted you two to have some privacy, but I thought I should stick around in case you needed a little help. Come on, it's time you got home."
She bundled Maureen into her car, shut the door, and sauntered back toward the shop. Maureen fumbled out her keys, started the car, and headed for her Foxwood home, her mind alight with thanks and praise to God for the friendship of Christine D'Alessandro.
Martine was unsurprised when Christine returned to her shop.
"Did your friend get home all right?"
"Not quite," Christine said. "A little trouble in the parking lot. I just put her in her car. I think she'll be okay."
"I had a feeling you hadn't gone far."
Christine nodded, absently fingering random items on the countertop. "The city isn't a safe place for a woman alone."
"Not even you?"
Christine chuckled. "Well, maybe for me. I wanted to chat with you a little, if you're not busy with important stuff."
Martine laid her journal aside and gestured at the card table, and the two resumed their seats.
"I wanted to thank you for helping my friend," Christine said. "She's had it pretty rough since coming to this country. She can't get a job in her field, her daughter was gang-raped a couple of years back, and her husband works way too much for his own good, or hers. What with all that, the sex crap was almost too much for her to bear."
"I sensed some of that," Martine said. "Anyway, I was glad to help." A thought struck her. "Have you ever been to Los Angeles? To Helen's store there?"
Christine shook her head. "I haven't left New York in...well, ever."
"Then how did you know I could help her?"
Christine was slow to answer. She stared down at her folded hands as obscure currents of emotion and contemplation passed over her face.
"You know what I do for a living?"
Martine nodded.
"It's not just a job, babe. It's more like a calling. One of those things that someone has to do, and I've been assigned." Christine looked up. "I've got what I need to do it, thank God, and I enjoy it, too. But the calling is the important part. I don't think I could walk away from it if I wanted to. And I got the same feeling about you and what you do."
Martine said nothing.
"I think...maybe we're the same that way, and different from everyone else. That other people get to work out their own ways through life, but our jobs were chosen for us."
"Yes," Martine said. "Helen is like that, too. I wish you could meet her. You'd love each other."
"If she recruited and trained you," Christine said, "I expect so. Tell me, babe." She hesitated. "Are you in contact with something?"
Martine's breath came short. She nodded convulsively. "Are you?" she whispered.
Christine smiled. "All my life. He's kept me sane."
"We are the same," Martine said. "Except I wasn't...in touch until Helen recruited me."
Christine flipped a hand. "Not important. Look, Onteora can be a rough place. You're new here, so you're likely to be targeted by some of our less refined citizens. Private and public." She pulled a card out of her jeans pocket and passed it across the table. "If anyone gives you trouble, you use that number. Day or night. Hell, put it on speed dial." She grinned. "Or call if you want a drinking buddy, or a shoulder, or someone to shop or watch TV with."
Martine closed her eyes and prayed for communion with the Power. It came at once, and blanketed her with the sense of approval for which she'd hoped.
Did Helen know this would happen?
"Chris? You haven't seen the whole shop. And I have an apartment in back. Would you like the grand tour?"
Christine rose. "Sure, why not?"
Martine rose and held out a hand, and Christine took it. As they passed through the curtain of amber beads into the mirrored gallery, Martine said, "The apartment isn't much, really, except that it has this amazing tub."
Christine grinned. "Really? Let me see."
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Tornado
(I'm not perfectly sure what this one is, or where it "came from." It's set in Onteora, and it's an erotic romance...but it's inexpressibly more.
The older I get, the more I value permanence. The pleasures of the world are nice things -- you'll never hear me say otherwise -- but many of them seem just too ephemeral to waste one's time on. That's particularly the case in matters of sex-for-sex's sake. For the young and carefree...okay. But we don't stay young forever. It's a lesson quite a lot of Boomers neglected to learn.)
I didn't understand it, and it troubled me no end.
Melinda Hunter was the Purchasing Department joke. The other men could hardly resist snickering and lewd comments as she passed by. She'd earned them with her behavior at after-hours watering holes and departmental parties.
On the surface, Mel was a major winner: fresh-faced, bosomy yet slender, extroverted, and well supplied with intelligence and drive. She was always beautifully dressed: tailored blouses, knee-length skirts, hose and high heels. Never trousers or jeans. Always just the right number of accessories, and in the best of taste. Her skill at negotiating with our suppliers left thirty-year veterans of the purchasing wars breathless. She knew how to play the corporate game, too; at twenty-eight she already had upper management eating out of her hand. The smart money was on her becoming the director of the department when Josh Parnell finally found the grace to retire. All the other women hated her.
You had to know about her slutteries to appreciate the contradiction.
Major winner, yeah. Young, single, beautiful, energetic, competent, -- and cheap. Cheap by choice.
Mel's trademark sex act had earned her a weird moniker: "Tornado." Apparently "Hoover" was considered too cliched, or perhaps inappropriate because she preferred to stand up. I couldn't help but wonder if she knew about it...or cared.
I cared. I tried not to let it show.
I stayed well clear of her. As powerfully attracted to her as I was, I had no intention of becoming part of her stable. Cheap and easy have never done a thing for me. I was damned if I'd ratify it with a woman as super in every other way as Mel.
After she'd been a bare two years in the department, I learned that I was the only man there who hadn't sampled her favors. That made me one of the office jokes, as well. I tried not to let it bother me.
But it bothered Mel.
A typical office has a few spots in which, given time and determination, you can corner anyone: the coffee service, the water cooler, the copier, the fax machine, and the departmental secretary's station. If you're aware that you're being stalked, those are places to avoid. Use them after hours if you can. If you can't wait that long, "case the joint" before approaching, do your work, and get back to your desk. Don't linger.
Of course, a determined stalker will notice. He'll watch your movements, note the patterns, and devise a counter-tactic. You must be ready for the inevitable.
My Achilles heel was the fax. Quite a number of our suppliers are averse to doing business over the Internet. They have their reasons, and I'm required to respect them. Anyway, fax is reliable and secure. But damned few offices have more than one, and I wasn't about to pay for fax service out of my own pocket just to avoid using ours.
I tried to schedule my faxing toward the end of the day, when everyone else's mind is on finishing up and going home. Occasionally it wasn't possible to wait that long. On one such occasion, I'd just gotten my order form into the hopper when I felt a slim hand land softly on my shoulder.
I turned. It was Mel, of course. Elegantly dressed as always, and with her trademark naughty smile. There was no document in her hands.
"How are you, Ryan?"
I smiled formally. "Fine, thanks." I started to turn back toward the machine, but she halted me.
"A few of us have plans to gather at the Black Grape after work. I hear Todd and Jeanne Iverson will be there, too. Have you ever met them?"
I swallowed. Her right hand was still on my shoulder. "Once, when I joined the company."
Her smile widened. "It would be an opportunity to deepen your acquaintance with them." Her left hand rose to land on my other shoulder. "With me, too."
I winced. Her smile gave way to a look of concern.
"Something wrong?"
I glanced pointedly over her head, shouted, "Josh, I need to speak with you," and pushed past her, leaving my order form in the machine and unfaxed.
I don't drink much, and seldom when I'm out. These days the cops are harder on drunk drivers than they are on serial killers. But that night I needed a couple, and it felt wrong to go home to do it.
I went to Team Spirits, a sports bar on the opposite side of town, to minimize the chance of running into anyone else I knew. There were plenty of available booths; I picked up a beer from the bar and slid into one. The bartendress frowned at me, as I was alone and there was no one else at the bar. I'm not solitary most of the time, but that night what I had on my mind wouldn't support a conversation. I wasn't looking to drown my sorrows; I just wanted to take them out for a quick wade in the shallows.
But Murphy's Law was on the lookout for me. Apparently I'd dodged the Flying Purple Shaft too often recently, and it had marked me for special attention. I wasn't a third of the way through that beer when the bartendress slid into the seat across from me and leaned toward me.
"Feeling a little low?"
I shook my head. "Just wetting down a few scattered thoughts. You know how it is."
She chuckled. "Don't I just." She looked me over swiftly and held out a hand. "I'm Nancy."
I shook it quickly. "Ryan."
"Pleased to meet you, Ryan. From the look on your face I figured you could use a little company." A pause. "I know I could."
I said nothing. That might have been the worst thing I could have done. Her face darkened at once.
"What's wrong with that, Bubba?" She looked down at herself. "Not good enough to sit with you?"
I shook my head. "Come on, you should know better. You're young and pretty and friendly. I'm flattered that you came back here. I'm just not fit company tonight. If I were in a better mood..." I let the thought trail off.
A look of understanding lit her eyes. "Girl troubles, hon?"
"You could say that."
"I'm a girl," she said. "Nothing's better for girl troubles than another girl. That's what my other customers tell me, anyway. And I own this joint. Want me to lock the door?" She glanced back at her bar. "Doesn't look like there'll be much trade for a while, anyway."
I've never claimed to understand the female mind, but these past few years the Plutonians I'd gotten used to seem to have been replaced by demons from another dimension. Her offer, which obviously implied quite a bit more than conversation, left me too flabbergasted to compose a coherent reply.
The door swung open, and high heels clicked smartly down the aisle.
"Excuse me," a soft alto voice said, "I believe this seat is taken."
Nancy looked up in irritation. "Bet your ass, babe. Find another."
A hand shot out, took Nancy by the ear and tugged sharply. She screamed and raised her hands to attack, but Mel caught Nancy's wrists, whirled her around, and twisted her arms into a neat cross-Nelson.
"Back off, sweetie." Mel's smile was feral, the rictus of the predator in the instant before the pounce. "He's mine."
"Well, that was something new."
"What?" Mel twisted around in the passenger seat to face me. "You've never seen two women fight over a man before? Believe me, it happens all the time."
"Around you, maybe."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"Means what it says. I've never seen it before. So what brings you all the way out here?"
"You do."
"Hm?"
"I followed you, Ryan. Isn't that just a wee bit obvious?"
"But why?"
"Because I have to know."
"Why I avoid you, you mean?"
"Well, why? What's wrong with me?"
I laughed. "That's twice in fifteen minutes a beautiful woman has asked me that. What is it with you, anyway? Why does something have to be 'wrong with you' for me not to want to become part of your harem, Tornado?"
Mel paled and her mouth dropped open. "What did you call me?"
"What every other man in the office calls you. Didn't you know?"
She began to tremble. Not little tremors, like ordinary nerves or someone who's having a hard time holding still, but real, violent quakes that looked powerful enough to shake her apart.
I reflexively put a hand to her shoulder. As I touched her, willingly for the first time, two things happened.
She burst into tears.
My heart broke.
"Forgive me?"
Mel nodded. "I'd heard the word used in the office. I just didn't know it referred to me." She raised a tear-streaked face. "Because of what I --"
"I assume so," I said quickly. "No need to discuss it in the parking lot of a sleazy bar."
She nodded and leaned into me, heedless of the gearshift digging into her thigh. I laid an arm tentatively around her shoulders. She was still quivering slightly.
I struggled with my own contradictions. I'm no prude. I enjoy sex as much as the next man. But I have an aversion to "going-nowhere" sex. Quickies. One-night stands with nothing exchanged but sweat, saliva, and semen. I want things to last. I want to build things that will last.
"Mel," I murmured, "have you had dinner?"
She shook her head.
"Would you like some?"
She looked up. "Sure. Where to?" She reached into her purse to grope for her keys. I laid a hand on hers, and she stopped.
"I'll drive."
Mel gave me a speculative look as we pulled into my driveway, but she held her tongue and followed me inside. I gave silent thanks that my cleaning lady had been there earlier that day.
I gestured her toward my living-room sofa. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll be back in a moment." She nodded and seated herself, smoothing her skirt carefully beneath her.
The liquor cabinet held a single unopened bottle of Gewurtztraminer. It would have to do. I uncorked it, poured two glasses, and brought them out to her. She accepted one with a nod and a murmur of thanks. We clinked and sipped.
"Are you averse to cheddar omelets and English muffins for dinner?" I said. "It's all I have the fixings for."
She smiled wanly. "The bachelor life. I know it well. No, that will be fine. I'd rather we stayed here anyway, even with no food at all."
I saluted her with my glass, rose, and went to the kitchen to fix dinner. As I worked, I heard movement in the dining room behind me, drawers opening, cloth flapping, and glassware clinking. Twenty minutes later I and my electric frying pan discovered that Mel had set the table, and more.
She had explored my sideboard thoroughly. She'd covered my old rock-maple table with my Irish linen tablecloth. She'd deployed my best china, beautifully delicate pieces over seventy years old, and the silverware I'd inherited from my paternal grandmother. She'd fitted slender white tapers into the candleholders and lit them, bathing the room in the inimitable glow that bespeaks an intimate encounter. Every item on the table was a family heirloom I'd never before found an occasion to use.
She stood waiting by the table, hands folded before her.
"Sorry I couldn't invent a centerpiece," she said. "You don't have any flowers lying around."
I swallowed. "I could send out."
She giggled. "The omelets would get cold."
I glanced down at the omelets. "They might die of embarrassment anyway."
Another giggle. "Sit down, Ryan."
We did. I served us and poured more Gewurtztraminer.
About three bites in, Mel said, "You have to watch out for 'special occasion' syndrome. Use your good stuff. Every day above ground is a special occasion."
I nodded, reached for my English muffin, and stopped. "That's part of why I never understood."
Her brow furrowed. In the candlelight her eyes were enormous.
"Why you...you know."
"Oh." She dropped her gaze to her plate.
"Look," I said, suddenly exasperated, "I'm not one of the everyone-is-special types. That's a lot of crap, always has been and always will be. There are a lot of people whose sole function in life is to keep their clothes filled. I don't trouble myself about them, and I'm sure they don't trouble themselves about me. But you are special." Mel looked up, plainly astonished. "You have every asset a woman could possibly want. I've been looking for exactly what and who you are all my adult life."
The cords of my neck had tautened and my hands had balled into fists.
"Ryan," she whispered, "that's how I feel about you."
There are no words in the dictionary adequate to how I felt upon hearing that. "Stunned" doesn't come close. "Devastated" is too modest.
"Then why have you cheapened it night after night by degrading yourself with anyone who wants his ashes hauled?" My voice had risen without my willing it. "Then you try to drag me into the same pigsty. How the hell am I supposed to feel about that?"
Animation flooded into her face. "That's not why I approached you. I meant what I said about wanting to get to know you better. I've waited for an opportunity for nearly two years, and you've been so elusive I had to jump at today's chance. I thought I might never get another one."
A long moment of silence passed between us.
"Are you serious?" I said.
She nodded.
"Then why...why all the others?"
"Ryan," she said wearily, "I just suck them off. I don't fuck them. Well, not often, anyway." She noticed my grimace. "What's wrong?"
I held up a hand and looked aside. I have a thing about gutter language, but I wasn't about to reveal that particular prissiness at the moment. Not when even the broadcast radio and television stations no longer try to repress it.
Mel rose, circled the table, and draped her arms around my shoulders from behind. I sat unmoving.
"Are you still hungry?" she murmured.
I looked up. "Not particularly."
She put one hand to the underside of my chin. "Then come with me."
Mel found my bedroom without having to ask the way and pulled me in behind her. It's not much -- no two pieces match -- but I try to keep it neat. She sat on the edge of my bed, gestured to me to join her, and took my hand again.
"I think you can guess why we're here," she said.
I nodded. "I'm not that slow. But I do have a question first."
"Which is?"
"Why all the others? Whoever and whenever and whatever, what did you get out of it?"
She shrugged. "It was just to break the isolation. Everyone's always looked at me...well, pretty much the way you did just before. Special. A world-beater. Too good for mortal man. Frightening. It gets lonely up on a pedestal, Ryan. I wanted to come down. So I thought about what would most likely get me down, and I did it." She scowled. "I've never really enjoyed it much. Not that I expected to."
"Would you like to know why?" I said.
She nodded, eyes wary.
"Because you are special, and you know it. You can't just throw yourself at the mediocre majority and expect to get anything out of it. The mediocre majority has nothing to offer you. It can take what you offer, but it can never pay you back in any adequate way. Would you like to know what the chief pleasure you offered all those other men really was?"
She said nothing.
"The satisfaction from saying to themselves that they'd lowered you beneath them. Instead of kinking their necks looking up at you, now they could look down, and maybe spit."
Another nod. "I think I knew that. I just...oh, never mind." She turned and wrapped her arms around me. I reciprocated. "Shall we make love?" she said.
"We shall."
We undressed together, and presently stood nude in the evening dimness. Her body was smooth and perfect, a symphony of luscious curves and flawless skin.
She started toward me, and I held up a hand. "Are you on the pill?"
She shook her head. "No, I use a diaphragm."
"Are you wearing it now?"
"Yes."
"Take it out."
"But --"
"Do it."
She complied and handed it to me. I gave it a cursory glance and laid it aside.
"This is not a fling for me, Mel," I said. "I'm done with flings and holding actions. This is as serious as it gets. I love you. I want you for my wife and the mother of my children. Do you feel the same?"
She was quivering visibly. "Yes."
"Then we start here and now, no holding back, no protection against one another, and no regrets no matter what should happen. Or we don't start at all."
"What if I can't have children?" she whispered.
"Would that oppress you terribly?"
"...no..."
"Then we'll leave that up to God. Will you have me for your husband? To love, cherish, and obey, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, until death do us part?"
She frowned. "Obey?"
"Just so. A household can have only one head. I will be that head. If not with you, then eventually with someone else. Those are my terms. Do you accept them?"
About ten thousand years later she whispered, "I do."
I took her in my arms, and we kissed for the first time.
Her lips were soft, her mouth sweet, her body warm. The cushiony pleasure of holding her against me and kissing her was exquisite, maddening. She moaned into my mouth and pressed herself firmly against me. My hands slid down her back and settled upon her rump, and I lifted her into the air and impaled her upon me.
She squealed and pulled back to look into my eyes. "No foreplay?"
I grinned. "Foreplay, afterplay, humbug! We'll have duringplay. Betweenplay. All-the-while-play. And play we will, my love. Join in as the spirit moves you."
I lowered her onto the bed, disengaging reluctantly. My hands and lips began a slow, worshipful exploration of her body. Full, ripe breasts, milky-pink, with turgid nipples and skin soft as rose petals. A beautifully tapered rib cage covered with the same satiny skin, but with surprising muscle beneath. A narrow waist and a perfect jewel of a navel. Hips of a goddess of fecundity, and perfect legs that promised an inescapable embrace.
I stroked her from head to toe, over and over, lingering over her nipples and her mound. She moaned and undulated in time to my caresses, in the erotic rhythm of a temple dancer.
"Ryan," she gasped, "I want you back inside me."
"All in good time," I said, parting her labia and taking her clitoris between my lips.
She squealed and shuddered as the first of her orgasms swept over her. I paused to let it pass, then resumed my nibbling. Another climax was upon her at once, and another after that. Within minutes she was panting raggedly, chest heaving from the tidal waves of tension and release. I rose and peered down at her through the gloom.
"What was it you said you wanted just before?"
"Come back down here, damn it!"
I did, and she welcomed me home.
We were unable to keep our hands off one another throughout the night. It was a struggle to rise and part the morning after, though we knew it would be a brief parting.
The office was as it usually is. I walked in at the usual time, drew a cup of coffee from the communal urn, and set to my work as if it were any ordinary Thursday. It would not be ordinary for long.
On my way to the copier I passed several other coworkers, and crossed paths with Mel on her way to wherever. We couldn't resist a brushing caress as we passed one another. I held my giggle back; she couldn't quite restrain hers.
Hal Larson grabbed me by the arm as I returned to my desk. "So it's true, then?"
"Hm? What's true?"
He shook his head. "I couldn't quite believe it, but my wife swore on a Bible that she'd seen you and Tornado out together. Said you looked like an item --"
I didn't let him get another word out. My right fist snapped out and caught him on the point of his chin, a perfect knockout punch. His eyes rolled up and he started to crumple. I caught him under the arms and dragged him to the departmental secretary's station, shouting "Everyone in Purchasing, up to the front desk, right now!"
I found a crowd of baffled purchasing agents there. What they thought of me dragging Larson's limp carcass will have to go unrecorded. I let him slump to the carpet, beckoned Mel out of the crowd to my side, and took her hand.
"I have a couple of announcements. First, the lady whom you've known these past two years as Melinda Hunter is now Mrs. Ryan Cunningham." I swept the gathering with my eyes. "I trust you will join me in celebrating our choice of one another."
There was a smattering of applause, but most were too stunned to react. I heard the doors open behind me, but didn't turn to see who it was.
"Second, there's a word that will no longer be uttered in this office, or for that matter anywhere in my hearing. That word is 'tornado.' If we should experience such a weather event, you may call it a cyclone, or a rotary atmospheric disturbance, or Fred, but not a tornado. That word is now forbidden, on pain of what happened to Hal here." I gestured down at Larson, who was still out cold.
"What happened to him?" Roy Service asked.
Service had passed some of the nastiest remarks I'd heard about Mel. I bared my teeth at him. "I happened to him. Have I made myself perfectly clear?"
An amused voice behind me said, "Perfectly, Mr. Cunningham. Back to your posts, everyone."
Mel squeezed my hand and hurried away with the others. I turned and confronted the legend himself.
Todd Iverson isn't a large man, but he can dominate any gathering of any size or composition. It takes one glance for you to know you're in the presence of a master intellect, someone appreciably more than human -- and one glance for him to know whether you have the slightest chance of measuring up to the stratospheric standards he sets for everyone in his employ.
I braced for a blast, but he didn't say a word, nor did I. He merely looked me in the eyes, smiled, and nodded as if in approval, before striding down the aisle to Josh Parnell's office. I watched him recede until he was out of sight, then returned to my own desk.
Nothing more of interest happened that day, until I was home and in Mel's arms.
After we'd dined, cleared the dishes, and made love quite as extraordinary as the evening before, we held each other and conversed in the darkness.
"What on Earth got into you today?" Mel said. "I never figured you for a brawler."
"I'm not," I said. "But I had to make it plain that some things would no longer be tolerated. They'd never have believed me if I'd stopped at just words. I had to punish a violator and let everyone know that I'd done it, or the snickering and degrading comments would never end."
I drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. "I can't tell you how relieved I was still to have a job at the end of the day. When I found Iverson behind me, I thought I was going to need to pack my things. But he just smiled and nodded."
Mel chuckled and snuggled close to me. "That wasn't why he came to Purchasing."
"Oh? Is there other news? A promotion in the offing for Mrs. Cunningham, perhaps?"
"Well, we'll see. But Todd came to our area because Josh has finally sent in his retirement papers. The word is that he didn't nominate a successor, just left it up to Todd. So I think our genius CEO might have been smiling and nodding at the next director of Purchasing."
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Expectations
(I’ve received a fair amount of mail that addressed the short fiction posted here at Eternity Road, most of it gratifyingly complimentary. What’s perpetually surprised me about it is how it concentrates on a handful of stories, most notably “Ceremony.” That’s my “Catholic family-values porn” piece, one of the quirkiest things I’ve ever written. I hardly expected it to appeal to anyone, even fellow Catholics who share my admittedly off-axis attitudes toward sex. But those who’ve commented on it have expressed a hunger for more in that weird vein.
What is it? Respectful erotica? A love-and-family story with a dash of spice? I’ve never been sure...but I’ve wondered, ever since I posted it, whether the impulse that caused me to birth it, if you’ll pardon the choice of words, would ever return for an encore.
Perhaps it has. Judge for yourself.)
I'd learned to expect nothing. I knew my limitations, my essential insignificance. I'd never dared to dream she was attainable. But sometimes the body will dare more than the head. And fortune favors him who dares.
Carmen was the Holy Grail to the company's young men. Her beauty was petitely, classically Japanese: her skin smooth and golden, her shoulder-length black hair gently waved but otherwise unstyled, her figure delicately feminine. Her dress was simple and modest: a silk blouse, a knee-length wool or linen skirt, and black leather pumps Monday through Thursday; a sweater, jeans, and sneakers on Casual Friday. Her only ornament was a small gold crucifix pendant, worn just below her throat. Her grooming was inconspicuous but flawless. She usually wore a light perfume, but no makeup that I could see.
She was alluring in that indefinable way that defies reduction to its parts. You didn't look at her and see her bosom, or her legs, or her pert little tush, or even her Oriental Madonna's face. You saw Carmen, whole and perfect. And if you were male and young, or even male and not so young, you immediately wanted to take her in your arms. In an engineering firm that employed nearly six hundred men, the majority of them under thirty and single, and barely two hundred women, nearly all of them over forty and married, she exerted an appeal that could have torn the building from its foundations.
But she didn't seem to notice. At least, if she did, she declined to exploit it or play to it. She was courteous toward everyone, men and women, single and married. She didn't flirt. She carried herself with a natural grace and self-assurance that would have done credit to a reigning queen. She wasn't overtly glamorous or sexy; she was merely as close to an angel as human flesh can get.
She didn't encourage any of the innumerable young men who sought to elicit her interest, Indeed, over three years working alongside her, I'd never heard her utter a word that wasn't utterly professional. That didn't stop them from coming at her in waves...and being turned aside, one after the next.
At thirty-seven years of age, a homely, balding also-ran like me had no business even fantasizing about beautiful, poised, talented, going-places twenty-six-year old Carmen Yoshibi. But that didn't keep my heart from speeding up whenever she passed my cubicle, or my mouth from going dry whenever she looked my way.
I have no illusions about myself. I'm a decent design engineer, but no candidate for greatness. I've run small projects by myself, but I haven't got the temperament for managing large ones. I'm not suited for customer liaison. I'm the sort a company sticks in the corner, feeds a stream of routine tasks, and generally ignores except for an annual performance review and a modest merit raise.
I have pride, but I know my limitations. It's important to know your limitations; the knowledge keeps you from overreaching. If you have no chance of making a big breakthrough or designing a killer product, neither are you in much danger of doing something ridiculous that would embarrass the company or cost it money.
To me, that's responsibility. Realism. Stick to what you know. Don't promise what you're not sure you can deliver. Admit it when you don't know or need help. Advise and help when you can. It teaches your coworkers to trust your abilities, and your management to trust your words. The world might not beat a path to your door, but you can go home at the end of the day knowing that you earned your pay.
How many men can justly expect more than that from life? I didn't. Which is why, when God smiled upon me and deposited the keys to heaven in my hands, I almost dropped them out of sheer disbelief.
I was surprised, and more than a little unsettled, to be offered the lead architect position on the EL-17. I'd never done anything that large or complex before. Despite my years in aerostructures, I had a lot to learn before I could even outline the problem. Harry Toussaint, my manager, promised me a first-class supporting cast, engineers whose several expertises would complement mine. He was so obviously anxious for me to accept the responsibility that I couldn't say no to him.
I hadn't guessed that the first subordinate assigned me would be Carmen.
Harry asked us to put together a general operating concept for presentation to the customer, told us we'd be alone for a while before the other engineers became available, and assured us we'd have all the support he could provide. Carmen took it with more aplomb than I did. I sat there with my jaw sagging as she drew him out on just how long "a while" might be, and what sort of support, in terms of computers, software, and instruction, he could winkle out of the project budget. When we left his office, I felt as if I'd just survived a nasty traffic accident. Carmen's gentle smile never flickered.
As his door closed behind us, she took me by the arm, pulled me into a small conference room, and breathed a mock-dramatic sigh of relief.
"I thought that would go on forever," she murmured as she seated herself. "Are you as scared as I am?"
I dropped into a chair facing her and nodded, still grappling with the gravity of the assignment.
"Harry's going to expect the document within the month," she said. "I hope your social schedule can stand a little compression."
"I, uh, think I can make room. How and when do we start?"
She dimpled. "How? With pencils, pads, and coffee. When? Now sounds about right."
"This late on a Friday?"
She glanced at her watch and nodded. "It's only four." She cocked an eyebrow. "Do you have a date or something?"
"Uh, no."
"We can get a lot done in an hour or two." She rose and headed for the corridor. "I'll be back in a jiffy."
Five minutes later Carmen was back with a pair of graph-paper pads and two Styrofoam cups of what our cafeteria passes off as coffee. She set it all down on the table, swung the conference room door closed, resumed her seat, and slid her chair toward mine until they were touching. I fancied I could feel her body heat, even through the layers of clothing between us. Her perfume, which I'd learned to ignore at ordinary conversational distance, swirled through my head, arrowed to the center of my brain and pitched camp there.
My body stiffened involuntarily. She noticed at once.
"Something wrong?" She looked honestly concerned.
"Uh, no, just a...a back spasm." I did my best to smile, hoping it wouldn't look forced. "You seem to have an approach in mind already. Could you outline it for me?"
She held my eyes a moment longer, nodded, and started to sketch on the pad before her, narrating her concept as she went. I fixed my gaze on the pad, struggled to ignore that maddening scent, and started an internal litany: We're just working together. Nothing more. It's just work, it's just work, it's just work...
But the mind's control over the body is incomplete. At least, it is for me. What we were there to do was insignificant next to the fact of Carmen beside me. The incompatibilities of our ages, our positions, and our prospects in the company had faded into invisibility. She was too beautiful, too vital, and too graceful for me to think of her as just a colleague.
I developed an erection. No, that's not quite right. It didn't "develop;" it sprang from my groin like a guided missile, tenting my trousers as it strained for release. I hunched forward a little further, hoping to conceal it beneath the shadow of my upper body. Hoping further that it would subside after I'd had a few minutes' to accustom myself to the temptation beside me.
No such luck. It only seemed to get larger and harder. Worse, the friction against my clothing soon elicited a slow leak of seminal fluid. My body was unimpressed with my attempt to treat Carmen with impersonal collegiality.
I started to fidget, shifting from side to side as subtly as I could in an attempt to relieve the pressure. If anything, it had the opposite effect. The drip got worse.
And Carmen noticed.
"Is something the matter?" she asked.
I forced a grin. "No, I just...I'll be right back." I pushed my chair back and started to rise, intending to head for the men's room and have a stern chat with my rebellious organ. Carmen laid a hand on my arm, and I froze.
She was staring directly at the crotch of my trousers. There was a wet spot there, large and growing, easily visible against the taut beige fabric.
About two hundred years later, she looked directly into my eyes and asked, "Is that for me?"
I couldn't speak. I could barely draw a breath.
She rose, took me by the arms, and urged me to rise as well. Before I realized what was happening, she'd unbuckled my belt, unbuttoned and unzipped me, and lowered my trousers and briefs to expose my betrayer, steel-hard and still leaking.
I don't have words for the state of stunned incredulity I occupied at that moment. It could hardly get deeper...until Carmen put one warm hand to the underside of my penis and slid it down to cup my scrotum. She caressed it gently.
Caressed "it?" She was caressing me. That hunk of willfully rampant flesh was my genital organ. I couldn't disown it, any more than I could ignore it. Carmen was fondling my most intimate parts with the delicacy of a lover. A practiced lover, completely at ease with her beloved's body and determined to bring him to the pinnacle of pleasure.
"Carmen..." I gasped. What little restraint I possessed was near to failing. "I can't...I mean, I mustn't --"
"Shhh. Why not?" she murmured. She ran a fingertip along the root of my scrotum, and I gasped again. More of my seminal fluid flowed forth, wetting her arm. "You can't imagine how wonderful this is...how flattered I am."
"What? Are you saying --"
Midnight-black eyes riveted my own. "Yes. Exactly." She stroked me with an exquisite underhand motion, fingers moving cylindrically around my tumescence. I moaned in sweet agony. "Should I continue with this, or would you rather we went back to work?"
I nodded mutely.
"You never made a move or gave me a sign," she murmured, still stroking me gently. More fluid pulsed out of me, dampening her arm all the way to the elbow. "Always the consummate professional, polite, reserved, almost completely impersonal. While all those boys swarmed around me, pestering me until I could hardly think. Why, Paul? Why not even a hint?"
I shuddered before her ministrations. She seemed to be deliberately holding me just before the point of climax, prolonging my tension and letting it build to an irresistible height. As powerfully as I yearned for release, part of me never wanted it to end. I was ready to fall to my knees and worship her.
Her caressing motion slowed, stopped. Her hand left my penis and went to my hip. I caught my breath, gradually mastered myself, and studied her face. It was as tight with excitement as my own. There was no hint of cruelty in her expression, only an eager delight.
"This is too precious to waste," she murmured. She bent, pulled up my pants, and swiftly but tenderly restored me to decency. "Go get your jacket and briefcase."
Carmen's apartment was as simple, modest, and graceful as everything else about her. The furniture was Danish Modern, of classic line. A scattering of matted Impressionist prints adorned the walls. Late-afternoon sunlight streamed through the living-room windows, bathing the little room in serenity.
She led me to her bedroom and gestured me toward her bed as she started to disrobe. I could only sit and watch, still unable to believe it was all real. Presently she stood nude before me, glory wrapped in golden flesh, arms spread and smiling gently.
Her crucifix pendant was still around her neck.
"Do you like me?" she asked.
"You can't imagine," I breathed.
She dimpled. "Then why are you still dressed?"
I jammed my zipper twice in my rush to join her.
When I was as nude as she, she flowed up to me, let her fingers trail over my chest, and took my crucifix pendant between thumb and forefinger.
"Christian?" she asked.
"Catholic."
"So am I." She pressed me down onto my back, lay full length atop me, and we kissed for the first time. I wrapped my arms around her, she laid her face against my chest, and we stayed like that, unmoving and unspeaking, for a long moment.
"Paul," she said, "I want you to know that I take this very seriously."
"Hm?" I was still too lost in the moment to attend to anything but the wonder of it.
She pulled her head up and caught my eyes again. "I'm a virgin," she said, barely above a whisper.
"Huh? But why --"
"Because I take you seriously. You and what we're about to do. How do you feel about it?"
"Carmen," I croaked, halfway between bewilderment and insanity, "I can hardly believe it's happening at all. I've never imagined that you'd want me as more than a coworker. What are you asking me?"
She put her hands to the sides of my face and studied it.
"I want you so badly that I ache from it," she said. "I've wanted you for months, years, almost from the day we were introduced. You're so sweet and humble, and kinder and more responsible than I ever imagined a man could be. But if I take you into my body, will you be accountable for the consequences? No matter what they are?"
My chest tightened. The first hint of tension appeared in her expression.
"Are you asking me to marry you?"
"Not necessarily," she said. "But I won't use contraception. I don't believe in it. And I won't abort a child." Her intensity was unchallengeable. "If I conceive a child by you, will you do the right thing, or will you run away from him -- and me?"
I can't call what I was doing at that moment "thinking." It was too exalted, too thankful, and too wild with glee. A man who reaches my age never having married can't allow himself any grand expectations about love or progeny. But that's what Carmen was offering me. Everything I'd ever desired, without reservation, if only I could match my commitment to hers.
I let my hands slide down her back, took a firm grip on her buttocks, and pulled her over me until the head of my penis nestled between her labia. Her eyes widened, but she held her tongue.
"Carmen Yoshibi, fulfillment of all my wildest dreams, will you marry me? Join me at the altar at Our Lady of the Pines and let Father Ray join us in matrimony? Share my bed and bear my children? Care for me and be cared for by me? For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, until death do us part?"
She paled. An eon elapsed between each breath and the next.
"Paul Thomas Mattison," she murmured shakily, "deepest yearning of my heart, will you marry me? Take me for your wife and the mother of your children? For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, until death do us part?"
"I take it that means yes," I whispered.
"I knew you were sharp," she replied.
"How did you know my middle name?"
The corners of her eyes crinkled. "You'd be surprised what I know about you."
"Then you know I'm not particularly well to do, don't you? I hope you don't expect --"
"I expect nothing," she said, "but your love and fidelity."
I hugged her against me as the last of my fears dissolved. "Damn, I don't have a ring on me. Poor planning!"
She tensed her legs, jiggled briefly up and down, and I was at once fully lodged inside her.
"Under the circumstances," she gasped, "I think this will do."
She did conceive by me, perhaps that very night, for just nine months later Raphael Paul Mattison, our first child, emerged from her loins. Twenty years, three sons and two daughters from that blessed day, she and what she has given me are still the fulfillment of all my wildest dreams.
Gentlemen, don't go astray because of low expectations. Ladies, don't let them!
