Fisher of Men

by Phoebe Alexander

  There had been an eerie feeling that had enveloped her on the deserted boardwalk that morning, bringing all of the crazy jumble of emotions she'd buried back to the surface again as if they were adamantly forcing her to deal with them. She wasn't sure it was an honest-to-god omen, but she had what seemed to be a supernaturally-inspired vision of her walking the two dogs along the boardwalk in the summer. She was certain it was Glory and Keeper, not some other dog, and she was certain it was summer, not the depths of winter when Ocean City is a ghost town bleakly stretched across its narrow claim of the Atlantic like an abandoned spider web.

  The Ocean City Boardwalk in the winter is an entirely different beast than it is in the summer. Shops are boarded up; the boards are dull and gray; the winds whip across the water delivering thousands of lashes as a penance for summer sins. And there is silence save for the crashing of the surf against the beach and the distant squawking of seagulls.

  In the summer, the boardwalk springs to life, teeming with tourists. It vibrates with all sorts of sounds: music, laughter, and happy voices of both children and adults. Then there are the smells: fresh popcorn, boardwalk fries, chocolate fudge drizzled on sundaes, beer, sunblock and pizza. Visitors are sucked into the alluring atmosphere of hedonism, every sense bombarded with sirens of lust, envy, greed, and gluttony.

  So why did she find it surprising that those sirens attracted swingers? According to Cap, it wasn't just locals indulging their desires, hundreds or thousands of couples visited every summer wanting to get in on the action. Vanilla people would likely be shocked by the underground swinger culture. Leah certainly had been shocked when she first discovered that's what Casey's Group really was despite the guise of being a charity organization. She had never even considered such a thing going on right under her nose, but after getting to know some of the people and hearing some of Cap's stories, she wondered how many other smaller, less formal parties had taken place at The Pearl through the years with no one the wiser?

  Despite seeing that the participants were normal, everyday people, she remained skeptical that she, Leah Elizabeth Miller, was cut from the same cloth. Although there were people with political ties like Casey Fontaine, teachers like Jeremy, and fishermen and nurses and cops and firefighters and computer geeks and people from all other backgrounds and walks of life, she just didn't know if she, the daughter of a minister, hailing from tiny, rural, corn-fed Wahoo, could be one of them. And that was essentially the question, right? Because with Cap came either her involvement or at the very least her consent for his involvement. She had learned enough from previous relationships that she could never expect someone to change who he is for her. And that's what she would be asking if she demanded he give up the lifestyle for her.

  In the morning she had that vision of walking the two dogs on the boardwalk, presumably meaning that she and Cap were together at least six months into the future. And the picture it painted in her mind seemed so romantic, so appealing. It filled her with hope that she might be in love and happy. Part of her wanted to believe that vision was prophetic. But where was he in that picture? she wondered. Where was he?

  “So, regret is not the word. Maybe disappointment would be more accurate?” Leah finally said, when it seemed like his solemn gray eyes had turned to glass while awaiting her answer.

  Cap slowly nodded while he took that word “disappointment” and rolled it back and forth in his mind, trying to squeeze out the meaning. “Disappointed in me or disappointed in yourself?”

  “I don't know,” she admitted. “Both? More me than you, of course.”

  “What could I have done differently?” he asked, perfectly willing to accept some blame.

  “Oh, I don't know, Cap, I feel so stupid for even being upset with you. You patiently and thoroughly answered all my questions, and you gave me multiple chances to change my mind. Maybe I shouldn't have had anything to drink that night. I guess it's all my fault after all,” she said, resigned. She felt like running away. She'd made a fool out of herself and probably made a fool out of Cap too. What are his friends going to say when I'm cold and businesslike at Casey's Valentine's party? They're going to think I'm a stupid, immature drama queen.

  She shifted her feet squarely to the floor and began to rise from the loveseat, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down and into his arms. “Don't go,” he said, then added in a near-whisper: “Please?”

  The tears had already fought their way to the corners of her eyes, the tears she'd kept at bay for two weeks. She'd held them off so she could get through all the looming tasks at work, all of her obligations to Barry and to keeping her staff happy and operating smoothly. She'd poured so much energy into The Pearl that she hadn't had enough left over to deal with the emotional storm that was brewing inside her. And that was by her own design. Now, with his arms around her, and after the vision on the boardwalk, her previously submerged feelings had come to a head, and there was no other way than out. She physically felt the barriers break and release themselves in the form of violent sobs into Cap's strong shoulder.

  He held her for some time, permitting her to dampen his sleeve with her tears, letting her body shake against his sturdy frame while all the demons that had been haunting her were exorcised. Finally when her body had relaxed and melded to his like it was made of clay he asked, “What do you want, Leah?”

  Her green eyes were glowing and her cheeks were flushed and tear-stained as she pulled back from his arms. She searched his face for clues that he could give her the answers she wanted to hear, although she wasn't even sure what the questions were. “I just want to know what we're doing here,” she said, her voice fragile like eggshells.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, still patient, still comforting. “Like with our relationship?”

  He said the “r word,” she thought, sitting up straight and finding her bold voice. She wasn't accustomed to struggling to find the right words. Her entire livelihood depended on her being assertive, being able to ask for what she wanted in an articulate, diplomatic manner, and on being able to find common ground and compromise anywhere and everywhere. So why is this so hard for me?

  “Yes,” she said, clearly enunciating the “s.” “I want to know what you want from me. From this,” she said, gesturing in the space between them.

  He took her hand into his and caressed his thumb across her smooth ivory skin. “I really like you, Leah. I'm enjoying getting to know you. I don't have a specific agenda, but there is something about you, within you...an inner light or something...I don't know exactly, but it's something that makes me want to peel away your layers and get to your core. I think there's something there that you haven't quite tapped into yet. Something I may be able to bring out of you.”

  “And you think it has to do with my sexuality?” Leah asked. The waves of his voice vibrating across her ear drums were making the hair on her arms stand on end. It was like he was speaking to a different level of her consciousness, a level buried deep below the surface.

  “Maybe,” he replied.

  “I like you too, Cap, and I've been trying really hard to be open-minded,” she said. “But I'm having a lot of trouble reconciling all this with my beliefs. And I'm not only scared of burning in Hell...but I'm also scared of getting burnt here on Earth too,” she let something from her deepest depths seep up to the surface.

  “But you said you trust me,” he argued, remembering her words the night of the party.

  “I did say that,” she agreed. “But maybe it was more because I wanted to trust you than that I already do. Or maybe the problem is that I don't trust myself.”

  “Why wouldn't you trust yourself, Sugar? You are such a bright, grounded young woman, so mature for your age. You've got a great head on your shoulders and from what I've seen of your work, you are going to just keep climbing. Your boss loves you, your staff respects you. Everyone who met you at the party thought you were...well...you wanna know the word Other John used and Mary and Tricia agreed?”
>
  She couldn't help but let a half-smile turn one corner of her mouth up. “What's that?”

  “They said you were a 'keeper,'” he laughed. “They don't know my dog is named that. But, come on, that's funny, right?” The blueness seemed to be returning to his eyes as he worked to elicit a full smile from her.

  “That's sweet,” she said, but somewhat dismissively. “I think one of the problems is that I don't trust myself not to get my heart broken again.” There, I said it, she sighed, and felt her shoulders sink with relief.

  “Again?”

  She didn't like using the past as an excuse. But there were very good reasons she had built walls around her heart and guarded it from invasion. Not only did she need to focus on her career as she climbed the management ladder at The Pearl, but she never again wanted to experience the heartbreak she'd felt after Will and the confusion and despair she'd felt after Todd.

  He only let a few minutes slip past before he asked once more, “What do you mean by again, Leah?”

  She buried her face in her palms and searched for a way to make the story of her failed love life short and sweet. Determined to cut to the chase, like pulling off a band-aid, she answered, “I had two boyfriends in college. One cheated on me with someone who was supposed to be my friend. And the other turned out to be gay. So, there you have it.”

  He could only manage to spit out the word, “Ah.” He leaned back against the cushion of the loveseat and ran his fingers through his silver-streaked blonde hair. She noticed how much it had grown since she first met him and how it was beginning to curl up at the ends. “Well, Leah,” he finally said, “if you close off your heart, you won't ever find that part of you I see buried deep in there. And I don't know what else to say except that swinging isn't cheating and I'm sure as hell not gay.”

  In approximately one millisecond she went from feeling paralyzed on the loveseat to springing to her feet and heading toward the door, as if a huge reserve of potential energy suddenly transformed into kinetic energy, like an explosion. “Where are you going?” Cap asked, rising to follow her, although not as quickly.

  “I'm going home,” she answered sharply when he stepped into her path. “I'm clearly not what you want or need, and I'm not ready for a relationship anyway.”

  He stepped out of her way as she went to the bedroom to wake Glory from her curled-up puppy nap. She snapped her leash onto her collar, grabbed her purse off the kitchen counter and stomped to the door. “So that's it?” Cap said from the kitchen, his volume staying steady. “You're just going home and then what? It's over? Goodbye?”

  “I'm sorry,” was all Leah could offer him and in another millisecond, she was gone.

  Sunday morning's sunrise chased Saturday's thick layers of clouds away like unwanted guests. Glory was sniffing and pawing at the front door of Leah's apartment by the time the light broke through the curtains covering the sliding glass door to the balcony. Leah stumbled out from her bed and into the tiled foyer, feeling the cold seep into the soles of her feet. She was dizzy, her head throbbing again and just as she was starting to question why she felt so disoriented and fuzzy, she caught a glimpse of an empty bottle of wine turned on its side on the kitchen counter. “Oh yeah,” she muttered under her breath.

  Glory looked up at her owner with shiny almost-black eyes, cocking her head to one side as if to ask, “Are you talking to me?”

  Leah clipped on her leash and opened the front door. She bolted out toward the steps dragging her owner behind. When the fresh air hit her, Leah realized how nauseated she felt from all the commotion and jostling of running down the stairs. She swallowed hard, willing herself to keep the contents of her stomach safely locked inside.

  Glory was completely oblivious to her owner's plight. Leah headed toward the bay, which was only a half block from her apartment complex. She wished she lived right on the water, but she had always taken comfort in the fact that she could see the bay from her balcony. The sky was a shade of periwinkle where it touched down on the deep teal water. She liked the contrast of the dark glossy currents rocking against the feathery sky. So what am I going to do today? she considered as Glory squatted a few yards from the sidewalk. She knew better than to think much more than a day ahead when she was feeling like this.

  Oh, it's Sunday, she remembered. Church. She began to mentally review her current seasonal collection of church-appropriate outfits. She had missed church the prior week and the week before that was the morning after the party, when she'd woken up with a debilitating hangover. Even though she knew it was a completely irrational thought, there was a small part of her afraid to darken the door of church out of fear that God would strike her down with a lightning bolt for her actions at the party.

  She sighed. Does God really care that two women sucked on my tits and another guy played with my clit while the guy I'm dating fucked me? Does it make him angry that I also put another guy's cock in my mouth during all that? Does it make me a bad person? Does it mean I'm going to Hell?

  The gauzy periwinkle curtain seemed to be lifting off the bay, fading a little more with each moment she stood in the chilly breeze. She knew if she stayed there long enough, the sky would turn to a sun-kissed blue before her very eyes. Looking back East toward the ocean, she could see the pink tendrils of dawn caressing the sparse golden clouds that hung over the water. Doesn't God have enough to worry about just making that happen every single day, day in and day out? I may have fooled around at a party, but He's still making the sun rise and set. The earth is still spinning. Gravity still seems to be in working order. Maybe no one else gives a damn about what I did except me.

  I bet my parents would give a damn, she thought with a sudden flush prickling her wind-bitten skin. And Aimee, what would she say? What would Barry say? Well, the latter would find it very out-of-character for me, but I doubt they'd really give a shit. My parents on the other hand...

  That's it, I've gotta get out of here, she decided in an instant. The past two weeks she had seemed to oscillate between sluggish inertia and swift, decisive action, like when she had abruptly left Cap's the night before. She had half-expected to hear from him, a text or call to check on her, but her phone was silent, and she was left only with the image of his bewildered face embossed on her memory. She didn't want to stay in Ocean City where he might just pop up at any given moment at her apartment or at The Pearl. She would call Barry and tell him she needed a couple of days away from the office. She could do a lot of the more pressing parts of her work via email and phone.

  By 9 AM she was steering her Jeep toward Philly.

  And by noon she was knocking on Aimee's door. Her face was tear-streaked and blotchy and her nose was swollen. Her best friend took one look at her and her maternal instincts kicked in. She wrapped her arms around Leah as best she could, being about eight inches shorter, and ushered her inside. Anthony was dozing on the sofa, his feet propped up on the ottoman with a pink bundle wrapped up in his arms.

  “I'm sorry I didn't call first, I...I just had to get away,” Leah apologized as Aimee led her back to the bedroom where they'd have more privacy to talk.

  “Don't be ridiculous,” Aimee assured her. “You know our door is always open.” She patted Leah on the back and smoothed her strawberry blonde waves so they fell against one shoulder. “Tell me what's going on.” Her voice was soothing and gentle.

  “I went to the swinger party,” Leah blurted out. Just admitting it caused another outburst of tears.

  “Okay...and something went wrong? Did Cap not take care of you?”

  She shook her head as she struggled to work her voice past the accumulated tears, phlegm and snot that had settled into her nasal cavities and throat during her marathon crying bout. “It's not that. He was fine. It's just that I feel so guilty and so confused about what I did.”

  Leah witnessed Aimee's eyebrow shoot up with curiosity. “What exactly did you do?”

  I knew she was going to ask, Leah lamented. “I don't want to tell
you,” she mumbled and then looked up to see Anthony in the doorway with the baby who was starting to sob and flail her tiny arms. And I definitely don't want to tell him, she thought, as he carried the baby over to her mother.

  “I think she's ready for lunch,” he said and Aimee lifted the wrapped bundle from his arms and brought her to her chest. Leah could barely see her soft rosy cheeks peeking out over the blanket. She wore a little white cap with delicate pink roses and a fuzzy pink pom-pom on top.

  He stood there for a moment until his wife shot him a look that said, “Scram! It's girl time!” and then he at last got the hint and dutifully disappeared. “He'll be entertained as soon as the football game gets underway,” she promised.

  Hailing from Philadelphia, Anthony and Aimee were naturally Eagles fans. Leah had completely forgotten that it was a Sunday during football season. She was keeping Aimee from the game too. “Oh, no, I don't want you to miss the game!”

  “I won't,” Aimee assured her. “We're going to discuss your problem, get it solved, and go drink some wine while we watch the game. Don't worry, the Eagles didn't make the playoffs this year so it's not like I'm missing my team if our talk runs over.” She winked and then ran her fingertip along her breast, stroking it from the outside toward her nipple, which Leah could see was large and dark brown in color.

  “Why are you doing that?” she asked. But all she could think about was Mary and Tess playing and sucking on her nipples at the house party. Watching Baby Natalie use her mother's breast as God intended made all the guilty feelings rush back.

  “I'm stimulating my mammary glands,” she explained. “Trying to get my let-down going.”

  “What?” Leah asked with wide eyes. She looked at her best friend reclined on her pile of pillows like royalty, comfortably cradling her newborn daughter against her bosom. She looks like the freaking Madonna, and I'm feeling like a dirty whore, Leah thought with self-contempt.