Cries of Penance (15 page)

Cries of Penance – Roxy Harte

memorizes words and melody, your heart applies a deep primal emotion born on the tide of beginnings. Tune out the chaos of your life and open your soul to the deeper wisdoms that our society stupidly left behind. Rise up and embrace your authenticity. Rise up and embrace the sacredness of the journey you have undertaken in the moment you created life.”

As the other couples stand, Jackie helps me up and I lean back into her. We sway together, our chant changing, fol owing the facilitator’s lead. It swel s and thickens. Likewise my heart expands and I feel a sweet lifting of spirit, a natural high.

Anne encourages, “I want you to let your mind go on an erotic fantasy, the goal is complete and utter surrender. Coaches, you can assist your partners by massaging their breasts, kissing their necks, even rubbing their genitals.”

My eyes fly open. Jackie and I don’t have that kind of relationship.

Jackie presses her cheek next to mine. “Relax. This isn’t sex, this is massage.”

As her hands run over my breasts, kneading, rol ing their softness beneath her strong palms, it sure as hel feels sexual. I close my eyes tight, trying to forget that it’s Jackie touching me.

I’m shocked when Anne tel s us, “During your labor, I want you to orgasm often. Use the pleasure your partner can give you to help you ride through each contraction, not only pain free but joyful y.”

Is it normal for the kinky one in the room to feel completely and utterly vanil a?

Jackie’s hands slide down over my abdomen. Her touch does feel good, relaxing. I can imagine Thomas embracing the idea of me orgasming through the 135

Cries of Penance – Roxy Harte

pain of labor and I al ow my mind to drift, imaging his hands sliding under the curve of my bel y, massaging, teasing.

Anne says, “An orgasm is twenty times more relaxing than a tranquilizer.”

My pussy tightens with need as Jackie’s fingers drift lower, teasing my mons through the stretchy yoga pants I’m wearing. My arousal makes me uncomfortable, but as I crack my eyelids open to see how the other couples are reacting to today’s instructions, I see that they are al participating enthusiastical y.

“Sexual arousal wil expand your vagina as much as two inches, which is why it is so very important for both of you to be comfortable with clitoral and vulva massage during your labor. Some of you may have a doula or midwife present.

Now is the time to have a frank discussion with them. Discover their comfort level and decide whether they wish to step from the room to give you privacy during your contractions or if they are wil ing to stay.”

Jackie’s hand slides between the juncture of my leg, pressing against my labia, and need shoots up my spine. I push back against the pressure, enjoying the pleasure of her touch.

Anne confides, “For several days prior to delivery, I felt like the time was near.

Using olive oil, I massaged my perineum every few hours. My husband brought me to orgasm several times each day, and when my contractions started we concentrated on reaching orgasm as the contraction peaked. Yes, there was pain. I won’t say my labor was completely pain free, but the pain and pleasure blended. It was so erotic. My heart and mind and soul connected with my 136

Cries of Penance – Roxy Harte

husband’s in a way that was so powerful. The energy of our sexuality cradled us.

My husband admitted that to him the experience was like being high.”

“God, I wish Garrett was here. If he could only hear what the birth could be like—”

“Take a few moments to reground, talk to your partner about how they’re feeling, and in a few moments we’l start the next exercise.”

I don’t want this activity to end, but as the facilitator eases us back down we slowly retake our seats. I look shyly at Jackie and she laughs.

“Girl, I told you I could be a good coach.”

“So, how do I convince the hospital staff that I need to orgasm through my contractions?” I smile, stil slightly embarrassed, and we both laugh at the image, making jokes about their shocked principles, but it real y isn’t funny. “I wish Garrett would just open himself to the idea.”

The facilitator asks suddenly, “Who has done their homework? Who can tel me what endorphins are?”

A dozen hands go up, and she takes two answers.

“Endorphins are hormones, the body’s natural pain-kil ers.”

“Endorphins transport you to an alpha-state.”

She smiles. “Exactly. Endorphins are responsible when someone reports they had a painless childbirth.”

Smiling faces radiate hope around the room. Of course we al want a pain-free labor and delivery. I feel my own face tightening as I imagine a sterile room, masked doctors, and a bloody scalpel. “Oh God.”

Jackie pats my hand, looking concerned, and I force a smile.

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The facilitator keeps speaking. “The more endorphins you produce, the better you wil feel. You’l be able to surrender to the experience. Likewise, the baby wil enter the world more relaxed, calm, and I know you al want that for your baby.”

Oh, I do. I do. I rub my bel y, feeling my babies move and rol inside of me. I have to figure this out, I have to find a way to get Garrett to understand how important this is to me.

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“With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man’s past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present: it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a stil quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavors and the tinglings of a merited shame.”

George Eliot, Middlemarch

Standing in the shower, with hot water pounding my shoulders and steam rising around me, al I can think about is naked bodies, specifical y the arch of Sophia’s back, the curve of her hip; the flat plain of Garrett’s stomach, the veins that stand out on his erect penis. It has been only minutes since I had sex with Abigail, but my body hardly registers the contact. I need—not sex—loved on. I close my eyes and feel the ripple of my abs under my soaped hands, imagining Sophia’s touch. I turn my face into the spray, pretending the tears leaking from my eyes are just water runoff. I never imagined being away from her and Garrett would be this hard.

Sophia is thirty-four weeks. Unless I can wrangle it, I wil miss the birth of my sons. I wil potential y miss out on much of my children’s lives…I feel doubly cursed. And there is even more guilt because in wishing I could walk away from this assignment, I feel I could walk away from my brother and my commitment to him.

“Lex!”

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By the tone of Abigail’s voice I can tel something is wrong. Throwing open the shower door, I rush out, grabbing my Glock, ignoring the towels hanging in reach.

Weapon leading, I visual y sweep the room but see no threat, just Abigail’s pale face trained on the television. Dripping, I go to her side. “What is it? What has happened?

She doesn’t reply and so I turn my attention to the television screen for answers. A headline flashing Breaking News runs across the bottom of the screen, and as I watch the film footage playing behind the news anchor it takes a moment for my mind to register what I’m seeing. My wife, Lattie, is behind a podium giving a speech at a Sudan peace ral y when the sound of gunfire fil s the air. She drops down, ducking behind the podium. I hold my breath hoping she was not shot. As the camera’s view zooms closer, I see that she is crawling to a row of seats staged behind her where moments before dignitaries were seated.

They’ve al fled. Al but one. As she reaches him I see the sniper’s target was her father, but that makes no sense to me. Yes, he’s powerful, he controls a significant part of the country, but he has no real enemies. I swal ow hard and sit in a nearby chair. I didn’t like the man and he definitely didn’t like me—actual y, he wanted me dead—but I certainly didn’t want him dead. “What in the hel ?”

“Wait. Watch,” Abigail urges, as we continue watching events that have recently unfolded. Obviously, she has already seen the footage once and instead of tel ing me, she lets me see for myself as four masked men appear at the back of the stage. Heavily armed, they grab Lattie and drag her off the stage.

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The news anchor’s voice has been a monotone blah, blah, blah, not real y registering as I try to understand what was happening. I force myself to listen. “It is not yet known why Lubna A’isha Charbonneau was taken fol owing the assassination of her father, Charles François Charbonneau. There have been no claims by any group taking credit for the act of terrorism nor has there been any demand for ransom. Headlines across Europe are cal ing her a hero, and it is being speculated whether she wil be one more martyr to fal in this region of turmoil.”

Lubna A’isha. The last time I heard her birth names seems like a far off dream. As soon as we reached American soil she became Latisha. Bal ing my hands into fists and breathing hard, I turn to Abigail. “I have to go to Sudan.”

“She could be anywhere. We don’t even know who has her.”

The ful reality hits me like a blow to my head, and I drop to my knees realizing the entirety of the situation. With François dead and Lattie missing, I have no idea where my children are or who is caring for them. “My children.”

“God, Thomas.”

“I have to get them out.”

“I’l send an extraction team. Do you know where they would be?”

I shake my head. My wife wasn’t even supposed to be in Sudan. The last I’d heard she was in Ba’hai but she’d promised to enrol the children in school in France. “They could be anywhere.”

My cel phone rings and I look at the cal er ID with irritation, expecting it to be Abigail related, but then I see it the number for the SAT phone I left with my children. “Hel o?”

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“Papa!”

My son’s frantic whisper rips through me. Every imaginable horror races through my brain, hearing my son’s terror over the phone line. “Hektor? Are you someplace safe?”

“Men are here, searching the camp for something. They are screaming at everyone and hurting people! I’m scared.”

I fear the something might be my children, but that is horribly paranoid. It is more likely that François was involved in something that has gotten him kil ed and put Lattie in grave danger.

“Are you with your brother and sisters?”

“I have Athena-Sophia with me, but Nikkos and Olympia were with Isaam and Badriya.” His whispers alone tel me he is very afraid and believes he is in danger. I don’t know if it is good or bad that he is separated from his brother and sister, but at least I know the quadrant of the world they are in by his tel ing me they are with my wife’s sister and husband. I can also triangulate the SAT phone now that I know it is stil in his possession. Thank God.

“How far are you from the wel ?”

“We are here. We arrived two days ago. We were packing to move out this morning, but the men came and started tearing everything up.”

“Don’t draw attention to yourself. Hide if you can. I’m coming for you.”

I hear a shuffling, and then the phone goes silent.

I know it is too late but I shout, “Hektor!” anyway. My mind and body goes into work mode, I keep my cel phone in one hand in case Hektor is able to cal back and use a second cel phone to make a cal out to some very dangerous men on 142

Cries of Penance – Roxy Harte

the other side of the globe, mercenaries wil ing to do whatever needs done for a price.

“Pepé, it’s Wiley, I need a favor.” Pepé is for Le Pew, not because he smel s but because I’ve never known him to not be under the influence of obsessive love, and Wiley because I tend to survive even impossible circumstances as does the cartoon coyote.

“Name it, brother.”

“My four children are stranded in the base camp of a man named Charles François Charbonneau. I want them out of harm’s way immediately.”

Pepé whistles.

“What have you heard?”

“The same as you, I’m certain. Charbonneau was kil ed last night. His daughter kidnapped.”

“But you know what happened?”

“No. There wasn’t even a rumor on the wind before it happened.”

I growl. “Pepé!”

“Charbonneau was trafficking very rare finds from a recent dig and butted heads with some desert pirates. He had something. Something very valuable.

Maybe he thought it was worth dying for to keep. I think someone is wil ing to do anything to get their hands on it.”

“Shit!” The only thing keeping Lattie and our children safe in that corner of the world was her father’s hired guns and with him no longer there to pay them, there is no protection for my children, and worse, they may turn on my family if there is money to be had from another source.

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Pepé interrupts my thoughts. “You sure those kids are in that camp?”

“Yes. They’l be there. There is a wel three hours north of Khartoum. Do you know it?”

“Sure, sure.”

I use my phone to send a data file of their most recent photographs. “I need you to get them out of the country. Now.”

His voice is gruff when he tel s me, “I’l contact you when I have them in my custody.” The line goes dead, and I listen to the silence. I cal ed the right man. I cal ed the only man for the job. I just hope I cal ed him in time. Silently, I pray for my children.

I pray the feeling in my gut that my children are the target of the search to be used to put pressure on my wife is incorrect. Why Lattie continues to place my children in harm’s way, I wil never understand, but I know I am finished with whatever game she is playing.

I watch the television screen replaying the assassination footage. In the foreground Latisha is standing at a podium speaking. “Politicians want us to believe the war has ended, but I say to you, as long as women are being raped and murdered as they forage for firewood, as long as young men are being castrated and left to die in the desert for being born the wrong race, as long as violent raids terrorize those seeking sanctuary in refugee camps… The. War.