by Gwen Masters
(06/18/03)
It was simply too hot to fuck. One of those days when even the mere thought brings on heatstroke. I told him this. He rolled his eyes and rolled his body and trapped me under it anyway. The humidity drifted into my lungs like water rolling into places where only clean air should have been. Like that warmth right before giving up, that voice that said it was okay to not be anymore. How did purgatory really feel?
"I could get used to this," I said. "And on the eighth day, God created hell on earth, and he called it the Delta."
He laughed at that. We were in Nowhere, Mississippi. The flatlands were pretty this time of year, but how would I know? We had hardly left the room. And that was just fine. After all, things moved with another kind of speed in the land of the Crossroads.
We didn’t speak of her. But she was always there, always watching from the corner of the room like a scolded child. Watching while the others played, the others who had lied and stolen and cheated and blamed it on her. Guilt is simply the absence of responsibility. Convincing ourselves of that was absurdly easy.
The gold medallion slipped off his shoulder. I pulled it back, pressed it to his chest. Pressed it deep. Marked him with it. It was round, and flat, and more malleable than it appeared. The patron saints. It reminded me of those condoms in golden foil packets. Protection of the highest order for those who fell from grace. The desecration was enough to send us to hell on its merit alone. The fucking was just incidental. Wasn’t it?
I rode him. Hard. Then harder still, letting the sweat run down my body like the benediction. His fingers became wet with it. He tasted it, water of the holiest of acts. Last rites of a sanctified relationship. He was the forbidden, and morals be damned. I slammed down harder.
"Fuck," he groaned in surprise, and I continued to do just that.
Later he held me with such honesty, it made us both cry. The late sun through the panes made a cross on the wall. There was a bible in the drawer. There was a wedding band discarded on the floor. I told myself I didn’t care for anything but this. He sank his teeth into my neck and I let him, knowing there would be a bruise, knowing I wanted it.
Needed it.
I closed my eyes to her. Her, standing there in the corner in that pretty Catholic schoolgirl uniform. How many novenas had I fucked my way into over the last three days? But it didn’t matter anymore, because that was his desire sliding into my deep well of temptation. His medallion swinging against my breast. His unspoken prayer and repentance at the unassuming altar of acceptance that was me.
Only after he was asleep did I rise from between the sheets. I stood at the window for a long time. The Delta heat pressed down as I resigned myself to the hell of my own making. I was just audacious enough. I knew blasphemy only went so far before one found the truth.
The moonlight fell gently on the rosary. It made a cracking sound as it hit the cobblestone, six stories down.
