Magdalene (42 page)

“Do what you want, Mitch. Don’t worry about
me right now. We have all the time in the world together.”

So he did, crushing her mouth with his, the
sound of the shower drowning out any sound of how hard he drove her
into the wall. She whispered against his mouth, “More. Harder.
Faster. Give me everything you’ve got.”

He braced himself against the wall, his
hands high up over her head, and tried. Her surprised gasp, her
moan, “Oh, God, Mitch,
yes
,” barely registered, but it did
and he came, his head back, being pummeled by hot water, surprised
at how wonderfully
violent
it was—how strange it was to feel
her rocking against him, grinding herself into him, her legs
tightening around him.

Cassandra seemed to hang onto him, breathing
as hard as he, and he let his forehead slowly drop to hers so that
their noses touched.

“Mitch,” she murmured after their breathing
had calmed somewhat.

“Cassandra.”

“That was fabulous.”

“You came?”

“Didn’t you hear me scream?”

He opened his mouth to answer, then snapped
it shut again, a feeling of deep satisfaction working its way
through him. “Yeah, I guess I did. You weren’t faking?”

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “I only
faked for the people who paid.”

“Oh, right,” he drawled, and felt himself
smile. “You don’t lie to let people save face.”

“Trust me, if you weren’t doing it right,
I’d tell you. So which one was that?”

“The third one.”

She gave him a broad chuckle, shaking her
head. “You aren’t going to say it, are you?”

“Nope.”

“It was all three. You realize that all
making love is fucking, but not all fucking is making love.”

“I do now.”

“Did you and Mina ever take a shower
together?”

“No. She was too shy, didn’t like to let me
see her nude. When we made love, it was always in the dark.”

Her smile faded and she sighed. “Let me
down.”

He did, wondering what she was up to, then
he knew. She took a round scrunchy scrubber thing and squeezed
something from a bottle onto it, then said, “Turn around.” He did
and once she touched that scratchy thing to his back, he sighed and
dropped his head back, the water sluicing over him and
Cassandra—his
wife!
—scrubbing his back, his shoulders, his
arms, his ribs, his butt, and down his legs...something he had
never expected to happen. She trailed her soft hands in the soap
after the scrubber, her fingers tracing patterns, writing things
maybe, making him feel cherished.

Mitch didn’t remember ever feeling cherished
in this manner; Mina had been so timid, so insecure...

“Turn around.”

He did, and noticed how her body glistened
with water, how beautiful she was with her hair, now wet and
slicked back, her face heart-shaped and perfect. He cupped her jaws
in his palms and brought her to him for a long, tender kiss.

“Now let me wash you,” he whispered.

She blinked. Had no one had ever done that
for
her
? He smiled and took the scrubber thing from her,
spending an inordinate amount of time on each body part so that by
the time they rinsed, Mitch was ready for her again and,
apparently, she shared his desire.

She led him back to bed and Mitch marveled
that he had never known such intimacy existed, how much different
it was, making love with a healthy, sensual woman.

“Lie on your back.”

He propped himself on his elbows, then
closed his eyes as exquisite agony washed over him when she
straddled him and sheathed him within her.

“It’s daylight, Mitch. Open your eyes.
Watch.”

His wife, his beautiful wife, set a slower
pace now that they were in no rush to get to New York and into bed.
He studied the way his body slid in and out of hers, the way her
breasts bobbed, the way the skin between her legs glistened with
moisture, the way he looked with the evidence of her desire smeared
on him.

He took a long breath and lay back to take
her hips in his hands.

“You just can’t give up control, can
you?”

“Habit.”

She smiled at him and took one of his hands
to arrange his fingers just so on her clitoris, showing him how she
liked it, controlling how he touched her. He determined to
remember
this and practice often.

“Talk to me,” she whispered as she lay on
his chest once she had groaned his name. The pride of a job well
done burst through him. “There’s something about you and Mina— I
don’t understand.”

He took a deep breath and pulled her even
closer than she already was. “Mina and me... It wasn’t about the
sex. It was about building a life together, fulfilling each other’s
more pressing needs. She had a crush on me— I always wondered if it
was because her father had trashed me before she even saw me, if I
was just her big rebellion. Or if she cultivated a crush because
saw me as a way out.” He paused. “My mother was mad at me for
months, thinking I was bitter about my mission, marrying Mina to
get Shane’s goat because he was just like my mission president, and
me rebounding off Inez to boot.”

“You couldn’t have had the life you did if
those had been your only motives.”

“I know, but we never talked about it. We
sat down at the dinner table, set our goals and our budget, and
learned how to live together. We both made an effort to serve each
other.”

“And fell in love. Did Mina know about
Inez?”

“Yes. I think a lot of her insecurity
stemmed from that. Inez was much older, sensual. She was an
intimidating woman.”

“But your sexual issues really stemmed from
Mina’s illness.”

“Yes. I liked it. It felt good. To me.
Wasn’t worth making a big deal over getting more, so it didn’t
occur to me to resent it. I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t
know what to do to give her pleasure, didn’t know there was
supposed to be that kind of pleasure. For us, it was a bonding more
like...trust. Feeling close to each other, you know, us against the
world. She would’ve been perfectly satisfied with making out all
the time—she loved that—but you don’t get pregnant that way. Other
than that, it was never about pleasure.”

“Did you ever want more?”

He sighed. “Not until my mid-thirties, when
life began to shake out a little here and there. I’d think about it
at odd times, then I’d dive back into my crises to take my mind off
it. Try not to, uh...”

“Masturbate.”

He flushed a bit. Shrugged. “It doesn’t
happen often.”

“And then she was comatose. Then she
died.”

He paused. “It’s been very...difficult. The
last four or five years. I looked around. Saw what I could have,
how easily I could have it.” The sudden bitterness in his voice
shocked me. “But there was always something missing, some spark.
Interest. No one I could talk to and
like
. No one I could
have fun with. Who could be my friend as well as my lover. My
equal.” He paused. “Cassandra, you are...everything I have wanted
for so long, everything I never knew I needed. You have no idea how
much of a blessing you are to me, in so many ways.”

She turned her face away from him then and
he felt her tears drop on his chest.

“Cassandra,” he whispered, and, with his
fingers on her chin, made her look up at him. Her eyes had filled
with tears and she wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Don’t cry. I’m telling
you I love you.”

She choked and buried her face in his neck
to sob.

He wrapped his arms around her and stroked
her back until she fell asleep.

* * * * *

Took the
Hand of a Preacher Man

March 26, 2011

“You planning to go to church with me?”
Mitch murmured in my ear as we lay in bed tangled up together,
sweaty, sticky, smelling of sex, Mitch’s hands caressing my back
and butt, his teeth intermittently nipping at my ear.

It was the last day of our honeymoon, an
entire week spent in my otherwise abandoned townhouse in a suite
that was as unfamiliar to me as it was to him. It was like a luxury
hotel without the pool we wouldn’t have used anyway.

I couldn’t get enough of him. He was a fast
learner, inventive and selfless. We only left the bed long enough
to eat, bathe, watch a few movies (including
Bridget Jones
and
Fight Club
), and even then we ended up making love in
the rest of the house.

The bathtub.

The kitchen table.

The stairs.

The very expensive couch which now had cum
stains on it, which I would have to pay for myself because I
couldn’t blame Clarissa and her boyfriend (although it did occur to
me to try for my own amusement).

But not The Bordello. It sat ready to be
shown as an apartment once I finished moving to Bethlehem.

It was the most time I’d ever spent having
sex with one man in one stretch.

“Yes,” I finally answered.

“Oh,” he said, startled but clearly pleased.
“Thank you.”

“Don’t feel too flattered. It’s Prissy I go
for. Love that woman.”

He laughed.

“Do you know she’s one of the first real
female friends I’ve ever had?”

Mitch looked at me. “That’s sad.”

I shrugged. “Not really. But now that I have
her, I don’t want to take her for granted.”

It took us most of the afternoon to move the
rest of my wardrobe and what few trinkets I wanted around me in the
home I’d share with Mitch for the next year. That night, I slept
and made love with him in the bed he’d shared with Mina.

“Uh, no,” Mitch informed me when I mentioned
it. “This is a brand new bed.”

I said nothing for a moment. Then, because I
couldn’t keep my mouth shut, I murmured, “This marriage is a bunch
of firsts for both of us, isn’t it?”

He smiled against my temple.

Mitch was gone when I awoke Sunday morning
and I felt his side of the bed. Cold. That didn’t surprise me, but
what did surprise me was the fact that it hadn’t taken but a week
for his body beside mine in bed to become normal.

Necessary.

I dressed with extra care, my wedding ring
catching on bits of my clothing and hair. I would stop to look at
it every time, a beautiful diamond the color of molten steel in a
setting designed by Sebastian. It was moulded from the Hollander
alloy, the finish precisely machined to reflect the orange of the
diamond to flow around the ring like a steel river.

Mitch had started building this ring the
moment I told him I liked his metal, had told Sebastian exactly
what he wanted, but not why or for whom.

I had to swallow over the lump in my throat
when I thought about the look on his face when he saw me at the end
of the aisle, waiting for him.

He loved me. I knew it before he said it,
and then he had and I had broken down like a teenager with her
first crush.

I had successfully kept all that at bay
during the week we spent bound up in each other, naked, fucking,
but now that I was alone for the first time in a week, I couldn’t
help but think about it.

No man had ever said that to me before.

As usual, I sat in the back pew on the left
side of the chapel to await Prissy and her children. Trevor
surprised me by hopping over the back of it to sit with me. “You
mind?” he said brightly. “Not like I have to be up on the stand to
bless the sacrament anymore, right?” That made me laugh.

Prissy’s little girl made a beeline for me
so as to prevent her brother from sitting by me. Whatever Prissy
might have said to me died in the face of her curiosity that Trevor
was sitting in the back instead of up front. “Trevor, is this
seating arrangement permanent?”

“Yup.”

She sighed with acute disappointment, but he
shrugged. At my confused look, he muttered, “There’s only one
reason I’d be sitting back here until I go to college. It’ll take
everybody else a while to notice, much less figure it out.”

People stopped to say hi and chitchat before
going about finding their places. So. They still didn’t know, and
Mitch would most likely announce it from the pulpit and then all
hell would break loose.

The service proceeded as normal, Mitch
conducting.

Prelude music.

Opening hymn.

Opening prayer.

Announcements.

Ward business.

“Cassandra?”

His mouth twitched as he looked at me from
the pulpit and Prissy slid me a look. “Well, stand up,” she
said.

So I did.

“A week ago Friday,” Mitch said, looking at
me with what I now knew to be desire, pure and hot. No one else but
I would know that and it humbled me. “Cassandra St. James did me
the honor of becoming my wife.”

The gasp was immediate and loud. I felt two
hundred fifty pairs of eyes on me, though Sally’s was not one of
them. She had her head down, her scriptures in her lap. Her husband
beamed at me.

The look of shock on Sitkaris’s face made me
long for a camera, but then it faded into calculation and I stared
back at him until he looked away with a knowing smirk.

Sabrina Johnston wiped her eyes and flashed
me a sweet, happy smile.

I felt Prissy’s hand on mine, tugging me
down. “What an ornery man,” she grumbled with great amusement, and
I chuckled. “I’ll run interference for you.”

I could not have named a bigger blessing at
that moment, and for the two hours after sacrament meeting, Prissy
was my bodyguard. If they couldn’t get around her—and, granted,
that was difficult—they couldn’t get to me. She did it on purpose,
shielding me physically, never allowing anyone to see that she was
being deliberate.

To our great surprise, Sally took up her
usual place on my right, though she was tense and disinclined to
chat. She was angry with me, I knew, and for a myriad of
reasons.

Greg Sitkaris had a convenient emergency and
left the Sunday school class without a substitute teacher. Prissy
was prevailed upon to teach with no warning, no preparation, and
only a glimpse at the lesson manual.