by Emma Easter
Lord, I promise to stay away from him.
She continued to listen as they talked about other topics from subjecting the flesh to fasting in order to cleanse the soul. She was already doing most of what they said, but still, she didn’t feel clean.
Maybe she wasn’t like them, she thought. Maybe she wasn’t even a Christian? That might explain why she never felt clean no matter what she did. And if she wasn’t a Christian, did that mean she didn’t have the Holy Spirit and therefore had a demon?
Her mind kept tormenting her the more she listened to them.
At last, they finished the meeting and dispersed, leaving her with her torturous thoughts.
God, are You there? Can You even hear me?
She felt and heard total silence, and terror came over her. Maybe He wasn’t even listening to her. What if she had committed the unpardonable sin and He’d turned His back on her?
Her thoughts grew drearier and drearier until she closed her eyes and cried out.
“Sienna?”
She opened her eyes. Bryan was in front of her, gazing at her with a troubled expression on his face.
“Are you okay?”
She started to hyperventilate, and he took her hand. He stared intently at her. “What is it?”
She looked at their joined hands and grimaced. This wasn’t right. Snatching her hand away, she got up and ran out of the class.
*****
Bryan sat on the seat Sienna had just vacated, worry spreading through him. He’d been studying about Scrupulosity since he’d left her after the street evangelism. The more he’d read, the more certain he was that she had it.
He knew the only solution was to help her focus on God’s love and grace. However, how could he tell her that and help her if she ran away every time she saw him?
He felt the familiar tug in his heart. He had to go help her now. But he didn’t know where to start. He didn’t even know her room number. He stood as the urgency to go find her grew. He began to fear that she might be in physical danger.
I need to find out her room number. But from whom?
Lord, where do I find her? He prayed. He’d never seen her with any friend.
He decided to ask all her female classmates until he found out where her room was. He hurried out of the class. Now, where do I begin?
Students milled around the hallways, and he looked around until he saw a girl he knew was in Sienna’s class because he remembered sitting behind her in the bus on the way back from the street evangelism. He politely stopped her and asked if she knew Sienna’s room number in the girls’ dormitory.
“You mean that model-looking girl?”
Bryan nodded.
“I don’t know, but you can wait until tomorrow. She’ll definitely be in class.”
He held back a groan and thanked the girl. When she walked away, he thought, if I wanted to wait until tomorrow, I wouldn’t be asking, would I?
He sighed loudly and began to make his way to the girls’ dormitory.
Chapter Six
Sienna reached her room and flopped down on the bed. She was grateful her roommate wasn’t here. Veronica’s inquisitiveness would be even harder to bear now. She looked up at the ceiling, feeling like her soul was empty and bereft of God’s presence. Fear gripped her and tears ran down her face. She got up and then knelt down on the floor. She started to pray in earnest, asking God to forgive her sins. The more desperately she prayed, the worst she felt. There was no feeling of God’s light in her heart, not even a flicker.
She reached for her Bible under her pillow and randomly opened it, just to hear something from God. She read the passage aloud, “For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.”
She got up and took a deep breath. It was a lost cause then. She had lost her salvation and wouldn’t get it back. If God had turned His back on her, she would turn her back on Him. If He didn’t want her anymore, then there was nothing left to do but to live it up from now on.
First, she needed to leave this place.
She packed her things into her suitcase, locked it, and rolled it to the door. Before she left, she glanced around the room. She’d come here looking for peace and a stronger relationship with God, but she was leaving here wholly cut off from Him.
She walked out of the room with her suitcase, went down the stairs of the dorm, and strode to the college back gate. Outside the gate, she found a taxi and said to the driver, “The airport, please.” She entered the cab and exhaled. She’d already made up her mind to go back to New York. It would be difficult to get back into modeling there, but she would find a way somehow, no matter what she had to do. She’d had a good relationship with her former agent, and there were some other industry people she could call. This time, there would be no boundaries the way there had been when her focus was on pleasing God. She had rejected so many jobs because of that. Now, she would do whatever it took to get to the top.
About an hour and a half later, she was on the plane flying back to New York City. She made a mental note to call Audrey and Trisha once she landed and tell them she had gone back. She would not do anything other than that. They would be happy for her.
When the plane landed hours later, she took a cab to the Peninsula Hotel on Fifth Avenue, knowing she had to find an apartment soon. Thankfully, the money she had made from previous modeling jobs would more than keep her going until she could get more jobs.
She called Trish, who was as happy for her as she’d guessed. After that, she called Audrey. Surprisingly, Audrey was a little skeptical and wondered why she had abruptly left the Bible school. However, after convincing her it was what she wanted this time, Audrey wished her well. After the calls, she ordered room service and took a long bath. When the food arrived, she clapped in delight at the sumptuous spread. There was a surf and turf platter, a plate of caviar carbonara, a huge cheeseburger and a decadent-looking chocolate cream pie.
She stuffed herself with relish. She’d mostly starved herself, fasting regularly while in the Bible College. Even when she had eaten, it had been sparingly. This type of food, she’d not had in quite a while.
After eating she called her agent.
“I want back in,” she said immediately when he answered the call.
“Sienna! How are you? It’s been a while.”
“It has,” she said.
“Where did you go, Sienna?”
She sighed wearily as a thread of pain went through her. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You sound different,” he said. “I thought you had quit for good. You do know many of our former clients won’t hire you anymore. You canceled all the photo shoots I had lined up for you and quit, just like that.”
She sighed again. “I know, but find anything.”
“Anything,” he sounded unsure. “You know what? I can ask Surge Model agency if they will sign you on exclusively as you’ve worked with them a couple of times. Obviously, they have some of your pictures, but I’ll show them your full portfolio.”
“Anything, Zack.”
“You know a lot of their clients are lingerie and swimwear designers. Are you ready for those sorts of photo shoots? You never took those types of jobs before.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care anymore.”
He paused for a few seconds and then said, “Okay, let’s cross our fingers and hope that Surge agrees. I do think there is a good chance that they will.”
After he promised he would get back to her, she ended the call.
She felt a prick in her conscience, but she brushed the guilty feeling away. She was starting a new life, free from all that exhausting demand for moral perfection. Hopefully, the agency would agree to sign her on exclusively. If they did, modeling lingerie and swimwear would be a regular part of her life.
She glanced around her lavish hote
l room with its cream and gold décor and wondered what she was going to do now. She was bored. Months ago, she would have turned on the TV to find some ‘clean’ entertainment, but she’d promised herself she was going to ‘live it up’ now. Sitting in a hotel room alone, watching TV, definitely wasn’t living it up.
She remembered the nightclub in Manhattan where some of the models she’d worked with went regularly. She passed by it on her way to go-sees and photo shoots, and she’d always glanced at it with a slight feeling of disgust. But apparently, there was something about that place that had made an impression on her because she pictured herself there now, gyrating to some upbeat music.
She would go there tonight, and it would probably become somewhere for her to go when she wanted to have fun. She went out to shop at a boutique close to the hotel. She bought a skimpy sequined dress and sky-high heels for her night out.
At about ten p.m. she left the hotel in the dress, hailed a cab and entered.
As the driver drove to the nightclub, her mind wandered to Bryan, and she shut her eyes as an excruciating pain ripped through her heart. Pressing her lips tightly together, she groaned softly. She had fallen hard for him, and she would miss him terribly.
She opened her eyes and wiped away the tears on her cheeks with her fingers. If only they could be together. From the way he looked at her every time she saw him, she knew he liked her too. But it wasn’t possible for them to be together. Like the watchers, his purity shone bright like the sun, condemning her, constantly reminding her of her shortcomings. He belonged to God while she didn’t.
He would find out in Church Missions class tomorrow that she wasn’t on campus anymore. Before long, he would forget about her. But she knew it wasn’t going to be so for her with her obsessive thoughts. Unless she could find a way to expunge his face from her mind, it would remain etched there. The memory of what could have been between them would torment her forever.
The taxi driver stopped in front of the club, and she got out. The club called Gold Nile was a white nondescript building with troops of people entering. She walked up, and a burly man she guessed was the bouncer looked her over and let her in.
Inside, she looked around. The club was packed with people dancing, Smoke filled the air. The pulsating music, effervescent multicolored lights and general unfamiliar rhythm of the place slightly unnerved her. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and told herself to calm down.
I’ll have to get used to it to enjoy it.
She climbed up a flight of stairs to the spherical sitting area and found an empty seat. A huge artificial palm tree stood next to her, and she turned to admire it before she ordered a mocktail.
Just as she finished sipping her drink, a man approached her and asked if he could sit with her. She assessed him. He was handsome and refined-looking in a fitted blazer and white button-down shirt.
She smiled and said, “Yes.”
He sat beside her, nodded to a waiter and ordered himself a hot toddy. “Can I buy you another drink?” he asked her.
She thought about it. Most people were drinking alcohol here, and today she felt adventurous. She had never had alcohol before, but there was always a first time. She nodded. Since she wasn’t sure what kind of drink to order, she asked the waiter to bring her what he had requested.
He smiled. “Good choice.”
He asked her name. When she told him, he told her his and asked what she did for a living.
“I’m a model,” she said.
He sat up on his seat and smiled. “That’s an interesting job to have.”
The waiter came back with their drinks, and he immediately lifted his to his lips. He drank his while she stared at hers nervously. She exhaled and forced herself to drink the cocktail and then coughed as she swallowed it. “Hot,” she said, shaking her head.
“You’ve never drunk alcohol before, have you?” He smiled sympathetically at her.
She shook her head. She took a deep breath again and took a sip of the drink. She forced herself to savor the bittersweet taste and then swallowed carefully. It warmed her inside, and she took another careful sip.
He smiled at her and then asked what it felt like being a model. At first, she gave him a brief answer, but as she took sip after sip of her drink, she felt herself getting mellower and more and more talkative.
He asked if she wanted to dance and she nodded. She got up but stumbled. When he caught her in his arms, she sat again and giggled, “Guess I can’t . . . dance.”
He grinned. “Do you want to get out of this place . . . with me?”
She looked at him, fully understanding what he was asking. A warning bell went off in her, but she ignored it. She focused on the fascination she felt. He was handsome, and people went home with strangers from the bar all the time. It meant nothing. If she was going to free herself from her religious shackle and expel Bryan from her mind, this was a good way to start.
“Why not?” she said to him. As she got up and followed him out, her stomach quivered with a strange mix of uneasiness and excitement.
After being with the man in his hotel room for a night, she knew without a doubt that she’d totally expunged God from her heart. Bryan’s face, however, remained. An intense feeling of desolation came over her as she left the hotel room in the morning and stayed with her throughout the day.
*****
Audrey opened the brown envelopes containing the photographs from the burglary scene. She scattered the pictures on her desk and stared at them. The images didn’t reveal much. One of them showed the back lawn of the youth center covered with huge tire marks. It meant the burglars had entered the premises with a big vehicle. But she already knew that from the surveillance cameras. The footage from the CCTV camera in the front and at the back of the building had shown two hooded individuals in all black outfits carting away items from the building into a waiting van. She and Ken would watch the footage again to see if they could find anything else that would help them with the case.
Audrey pushed the pictures aside, leaned back in her chair, and sighed worriedly. Sienna had called again yesterday to tell her she’d been signed into a new modeling agency. Even though Audrey was happy for her, there was something about the way she sounded that troubled her. She’d sounded like she was reciting her words from a script.
“Are you okay?” Audrey had asked, gripping her cell phone.
“I’m good. I thought you would be happy that I’ve gone back to modeling.”
“I am. It’s just that you sound a little off.”
“Nah, I’m good. I’ve gotta run, but I’ll talk to you soon.” She had ended the call before Audrey could ask any more questions. Audrey had sighed wearily and prayed that Sienna would tell her if something was really wrong.
A knock sounded at her office door, distracting her from her thoughts, and she looked up. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw it was Ken.
He said, “Have you discovered anything else about the burglary case?”
“Not yet, but I want us to watch the footage from the CCTV camera again.”
He came and sat across from her, and she inhaled. As usual, he had that grin on his handsome face that took her breath away.
Easy girl, breathe, she said to herself, and stood to turn on the DVR.
As they watched the footage again, she pointed at one of the hooded burglars. That’s a woman right there. The baggy clothes didn’t do enough to hide her curves. We just assumed they were both men.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t notice the first time we watched it,” Ken said. “That means your hunch was . . .”
He stopped mid-sentence as a sudden commotion outside her office drew their attention. She stood to go check what it was and Ken closely followed. The musky fragrance of his cologne filled her senses and without thinking she inhaled it deeply. And then she chided herself.
“What’s happening out here?” Ken asked.
A man who had been arrested for a DUI brandished a small poc
ket knife. Police officers surrounded him, laughing.
Ken shook his head.
“What does he think he can do with that in a room full of cops?” Will, a gangly officer, roared.
Lieutenant Burns chuckled. “Maybe he wants to whittle us nice wooden presents. After all, we saved his life by arresting him.”
They all laughed again.
Audrey watched them in amusement as they mocked the man. And then she noticed something that none of them had seen. The guy’s hand was inching slowly toward Will’s gun on his hips. Audrey dived for the man just as he drew out the weapon from the holster. She tackled him to the floor and wrestled the gun from his hand.
Everyone watched with eyes wide and mouths agape. She hurled the guy up with her and then shook her head as the others rushed him. She left them and then went back to her office. Ken came to sit across from her as she took her seat. He studied her face.
She raised her eyebrows. “What?”
“That was impressive out there,” he said. “But I’m not surprised.”
“Really?” she asked, slightly shocked.
“Yeah, you are kinda like Wonder Woman!”
She snorted, but couldn’t hold back her smile.
“I love how your eyes light up when I compliment you.”
“And I love the cute things you say to me.”
They were constantly flirting these days. She knew nothing more would come out of it. It was not like they would get married and ride off into the sunset.
She grimaced at her thoughts. Get married? How did her thoughts suddenly move from their light-hearted flirting to marriage?
He tilted his head toward her, his eyes studying her. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“’Bout marrying you,” she blurted out and then groaned in embarrassment. “I . . . did not mean . . .” She stopped trying to speak. Always with this man, she said the most ludicrous things. She sighed. “I’m sorry.”
She expected to see his usual silly grin, but he did not smile. He looked serious. I’ve offended him this time.