Good Sex, Great Prayers

by Brandon Tietz

  “I don’t remember any of that,” Father Johnstone says.

  “He’s not capable of telling anything other than the truth right now,” she says. “It came out of your mouth. That’s all he knows. Right, Travis?” she asks.

  “Oh yes indeed, Miss Paige. Those are the words the preacher said—no mistakin’ it,” Travis declares, giving his head a little shake. “No mistakin’ it at all,” he says. “Then he told me that if I didn’t screw my wife, someone else might just step in and do it for me. Hintin’ at it like he was gonna do it himself. That’s when I walked out.”

  Madeline turns to the pastor, bending towards his ear, she whispers, “Pollux.”

  Then Travis keeps talking, admitting, “I was gonna hurt you today, preacher. Had my knife in my pocket and everything. Was ready to cut you up for what you said.”

  Madeline finds this particular confession interesting, considering she didn’t ask for it. She turns back to Travis, asking him, “And why didn’t you hurt him?”

  “That’s a man of God, right there, Maddy Paige. Half the town is worried they ain’t getting into heaven because of what they intended to do to him today, myself included.”

  “And the other half?” Madeline asks.

  “Think he’s a charlatan. A trickster,” Travis says. “They say he’s pulling the wool over our eyes somehow with his miracles. People want to know why ol’ preacher here waited so long to help the cripples and such if he in so good with God.”

  It’s just like the pastor has been preaching for years: ‘beware of false prophets.’

  “There’s something funny in the air,” Travis says. “A disruption. People can feel it but they don’t wanna say nothing about it. Too scared.”

  “And what do you know about fear, Travis?” Madeline asks.

  “It consumes every bit of me, Miss Paige. I could never ride the bull like my pop wanted,” Travis says. “Could never live up to what he was. I feel him lookin’ down on me shaking his head like he wish he never had a son. All I did was wreck the name.”

  “Who put the idea in your head that you had to live up to what your father was?”

  “Preacher did,” Travis says, tilting his head in Father Johnstone’s direction. “He said that he lives on through me…that I carry the torch.”

  The pastor can see the big picture now: a child that sees his father killed right in front of him, left traumatized and fatherless. He latches on to the next best thing, told that he can follow in Danger’s impossible footsteps. He’s told he can defeat the very thing that truncated one parent’s life and left the other a drunken mess. Travis was told the Durphy name depended on him, and he believed it. Envious of his father, driven by the pride of the name.

  “You asked me why we’re here, Johnstone, and now I’m going to tell you,” Madeline says, shifting away from Travis and facing the pastor now. She sighs deeply, telling him, “We’re here to fix this man. Granted, he’s not crippled or blind or suffering from brain parasites, but he’s broken just the same.”

  “And what can I do about it?” Father Johnstone asks. He knows the blame is being placed on him, even if she’s not directly stating it.

  “We’ll clean house. The amygdale, which is part of the limbic system, is the primary component in processing emotion,” Madeline says, extending her hand out towards the pastor. She places the other one on the face of Travis Durphy, palming his forehead like she’s taking his temperature. “I’m going disable that part of the brain that overwhelms him with fear and anxiety, and you’re going to help me do it.”

  “And why are we doing this?” the pastor asks.

  “Hey Durphy,” Madeline says, “Johnstone wants to know why he should help take the fear out of you. Got anything to say?”

  “Cos I prayed for it, Miss Paige. Every night I pray the Lord come give me strength and make me the man everyone thinks I should be,” Travis says. “I pray just like preacher tell me to, and nothing happens.”

  Madeline cocks an eyebrow at the pastor, wiggling the fingers on her still-extended hand. She says, “Grab on.”

  Father Johnstone does, folding his hand into Madeline’s. It’s warm, and he can feel that buzzing sensation again. His palm and fingers tingle hot, almost burning.

  “Now pray,” Madeline says, palm still pressed to Travis’s forehead. She shuts her eyes and leans in close to him, preparing herself to go to work. “If we screw this up, you’ll be burying another member of the Durphy family.”

  Las Vegas, NV

  I had it wrong.

  Every experiment involving Christian lingerie and church candles and the various excerpts and materials harvested from those religious texts—they were never going to work. No combination would yield the intended result. No whore would be spared my disease, nor would I ever be able to remedy it under my own accord. Prayer would fail. Confession would fail. As the clergyman stated, I had been viewing the faith incorrectly the entire time. It’s not a skill, not exactly. It’s a partnership.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I address the priest, a young Catholic man by the name of Father Wainwright. He’s potent. I can tell. “My name is Pollux,” I say.

  I’ve gone by many names during my time in Las Vegas: Mr. Thomas, Mr. Ross, Mr. Smith. Changing identities was a means to justify the end of hiding in plain sight, blending in, but I have nothing to fear anymore. I’ll be departing from this place they call ‘Sin City’ soon enough. The individuals running the sex trade have become wise to me, my reputation, and the rumors have spread well beyond Sasha and Desiree, as has the disease. ‘Pure evil,’ they refer to me as. ‘A walking plague.’ These men send their muscle to look for me at Caesar’s. They go room-to-room at The Four Seasons and The Bellagio, bribing front desk clerks for information, banging on doors. My picture is printed off from security camera footage and distributed. Gigantic men study it, fold it up into quarters, and continue the search at Excalibur, Luxor, and Treasure Island. They carry guns now. After what happened with Desiree’s personal detail, I’m now considered ‘extremely dangerous.’ Up until recently, they were only partially correct about that.

  “I’m going to test your faith,” I explain to Father Wainwright. He frowns in response; it can only be seen in wrinkles through the duct tape. After the third or fourth clergyman, I became tired of hearing them scream for help, hence, the tape.

  Like the sex-trade workers and underbosses of Las Vegas, the hotel and casino staff have also become wary of me. They too have their own little print-outs and security footage. On the game floors I extort them for money. Exact amounts remain unclear, but it’s definitely in the realm of several million. For a while they simply tried to win their money back, but no matter how many times they swapped decks or changed out the dealers, they failed to deduce my non-mathematical system of winning. This, along with the various reports and complaints about my behavior—both from guests and staff members—has severely tarnished my reputation in the city. ‘The cheat,’ they call me. ‘The whore killer’ and ‘organ collector.’ Even the lesser venues such as the Golden Nugget and Four Queens had me removed from the premises within minutes. Reading the intangibles aren’t necessary at this point; the city is done with me. They want me captured, killed.

  It’s why Father Wainwright and I must continue the endeavor here: a shoddy hotel room which charges by the hour. No security cameras. No room service or on-call staff to cater to my whims. Sex permeates the air, as does the fumes of the marijuana plant and other chemical compounds. Harsher substances such as crack and methamphetamine. Their scent sticks to the walls, impregnates the ceiling and lighting fixtures. Father Wainwright and I notice this. The whore sprawled out on the bed does not.

  “Heroin,” I explain to him. “A formidable narcotic. We’re going to see if we can get this poison out of her system.”

  I place one hand on the priest; the other I lay upon the whore. She is currently in the middle of what’s referred to as ‘an overdose,’ the point in which the body’s natura
l threshold for substance has been surpassed. Her body convulses, shakes. This was done intentionally.

  “She’s going to die if you don’t help me,” I say. “So focus. Pray. Otherwise, I’m going to leave you in the room with her corpse, under-stand? I’ll knock you out and put you in bed with her. I imagine that’d hurt your reputation, yes?”

  Father Wainwright doesn’t nod or grunt in the affirmative, but I feel his comprehension, his desperation. I feel him reaching out to the Lord for assistance, silently begging for help, and then the Lord reaches back. Warmth courses through his hand into me, then into the whore. It’s channeled, refined, and not a moment later, manifesting at the entry point of the whore’s arm. Narcotics and blood bead, growing larger until it’s leaking down and around her arm and onto the stained comforter. Shaking lessens, then stops. The whore stabilizes and the many wounds of past indulgences heal to scars.

  I break contact with the priest, checking the whore’s breathing and heartbeat. Fingers press into her neck, gauging a healthy pulse. She’s no longer slipping away, but she’s not conscious, either. It’s the fringe. The gray area. Death grazed her but couldn’t hold on.

  “You did well, Father Wainwright,” I say, turning back to him in his chair next to the bed.

  He’s aged roughly thirty years in under a minute. Bones have gone stale, brittle like classroom chalk. Skin resembles notebook paper that’s been crumpled and spread flat, in both texture and pallor. Father Wainwright is yet another in a short line of clergymen that this has happened to, a side-effect that can only be described as ‘hyper-aging.’ With the aid of these men, I am able to perform Craft, but it’s not without cost. Either they forfeit years of their life during the cast, or the cast itself somehow backfires, usually in the form of intense pain in the extremity or a debilitating headache.

  I peel the tape off the priest’s mouth. He’s not going to scream. Not when his vocal chords feel like wood for kindling. Father Wainwright smiles, tears building in glazed eyes. “I’m going home soon,” he says in barely above a whisper.

  As the light inside another man of the cloth dims, I realize that this is no longer an issue of personal skill or knowledge of Craft. It’s now a task of finding the right person to be by my side, my equal. I’ve abducted enough of their kind to learn that much. If I wish to take my Madeline back, the individual I seek must correspond with my spirit and personal inclinations. He must be a willing advocate.

  Laying my hand on that of Father Wainwright, I utilize the last of his earthly life to request a beacon, to give me guidance. A destination. Unlike Madeline, there are no tracks to follow, no scent to lead me. The hunter cannot hunt the unknown, and so I must put my faith in the hands of the deity. A path must be provided by the Divine.

  “Elk City,” Father Wainwright says.

  Those are his final words.

  The Fire

  Travis Durphy is fucking.

  Inside his ranch-style home, high-pitched screams emit as Heather Durphy gets slammed by her husband in a way she never thought he was capable of. Almost violently. Bent over the kitchen counter, on the living room couch, against the wall where family photos shake loose and fall to the floor from all the pounding. Travis plugs her—fucks her, his prick stabs so deep it’s practically in her guts. Heather feels what the gals at the salon call ‘the good hurt,’ when it’s been so long since you’ve had a proper lay it’s painful. Painful, yet gratifying. And so long overdue. Heather screams and groans, her mouth skip-repeating “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod” while her husband pummels her against the refrigerator, her entire body hot except for that one rosy cheek pancaked against the cool appliance. She’s covered in sweat and motor oil. Travis didn’t wash his hands or speak a word before jumping her bones, so now Heather’s breasts and ass are covered in smudgy black handprints. Her hips reek of lawnmower grease. The Durphys have at each other—kissing, fucking, squeezing, biting, screaming, coming—they come at the same time in the master bedroom, the guest bedroom, that little space between the toilet and the shower. Travis injects hot white orgasm inside his wife, so much it creams out, leaking down her thighs while he’s still pulsating. They fuck, come, fuck again. For hours the Durphys do this, regressing back to teenage years where energy is ample and foresight is lacking. They’re living in the now, the moment. Within this typically quiet ranch-style home, sweat spots stain the walls and faux wood siding. Warm micro-puddles brand the couch cushions and bedding and the rust-colored shag carpet of the living room. And all along their bodies are scratches and cuts from fingernails or the sharp edges of the coffee table. Travis Durphy lifts up his wife against a wall, one ass cheek per palm, and pounds her—fucks her so hard the drywall gives and makes a torso-sized crater in the hallway. Then Heather gets on top, riding her husband on debris and paint chips, caking her knees in dust rubble. Sweat and hairspray trickle down her face, tracing along her cheekbones and jaw, dripping, smacking on Travis’s chest. The Durphy’s consume each other until their muscles ache and throats go hoarse, until they go past the threshold: sore, spent and exhausted, but happy.

  “This is how we pay tribute,” Madeline says, walking back from the outskirts of the Durphy’s property to the main population of Pratt. Father Johnstone paces along at her side while Mary scouts on ahead, sniffing plumes of grass and random footprints left in the dirt. Her nose hovers over a bouquet of stomped-on dandelions, taking a few inquisitive snorts before she moves on to another area of interest.

  “It wouldn’t have killed you to be a little more upfront about your plans,” the pastor says. He shakes his head slightly, unsure as to whether or not he should feel some sort of shame over what he just help Madeline achieve. One might even say his recent actions are that of a disloyal servant, a traitor to the good Lord and his faith.

  “You really think I can’t feel that remorse coming off you right now?” she asks. “I’m fighting decades of Christian programming here, Johnstone. You and I both know you wouldn’t have gone along with it.” Madeline drags her fingers along her forehead, swiping the hair out of her eyes and tucking it behind an ear. She says, “Trust me, in some scenarios, the less you know the better.”

  “That’s the problem, Mad,” he says. “I was there and I’m still not exactly sure what happened.”

  Madeline’s palm was on Travis’s head, her other hand interlocked with the pastor’s. He prayed, begged the Lord to undo the damage he’d done to that boy so long ago. He asked Him to set things right. Then, not even a minute later, Travis’s eyes shot open filled with purpose. Aggression. He said, “I need my wife,” not even bothering to say goodbye. Travis turned on a boot heel, stormed inside his home and slammed the door behind him. That’s right around the time the screaming started.

  “We freed him, absolved his spirit,” Madeline says. “I told you, there’s more ways than one a man can be broken.”

  Father Johnstone extrapolates the idea. “I take it this was about your deity.”

  “Some people sing songs and praise Jesus for what they need. Our methods are a bit different.” She says this in a cavalier fashion, as if the pastor should get it by now.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” he says. A threat.

  Madeline stops in her tracks. “Did we break any of your rules, Johnstone?” she asks. “Did we not fix that man’s problem?”

  “I feel…” the pastor starts, pausing. His frustration keeps him from being able to form the right words. It’s taking a bit of effort on his part to keep from scolding her. “Compromised,” he says. “I feel like I’m compromising.”

  “It’s culture shock,” she says. “Just like at the church this morning. Just like everything else I’ve ever shown you.”

  “That’s the problem, Mad, you keep showing me after the fact. You do whatever you feel like doing and clue me in later,” he says, his voice raising.

  Madeline sighs, screwing her mouth tight, thinking. She stares at the spot over the pastor’s shoulder, into the distance where the daisy
hill lies: a pile of popcorn. Bumblebees crack and crumble, taken away as dust on the breeze. She says, “You’re the first one to have lasted this long.”

  “First what?”

  “Pastor. Man of God,” she says. “The others either got scared and ran off, or it wasn’t a good fit. I’ve tried being upfront before, Johnstone. A few times…and just like my parents warned me, it backfired,” Madeline says, frowning. “And now you’re on edge, worried about every little blind spot we pass. Worried about another Clevenger coming at you. I’m not trying to piss you off; I’m trying my best not to scare you away.”

  Father Johnstone’s anger subsides. Ever since the incident with old man Clevenger at the church and the conversation with Madeline that followed, a sense of paranoia has loomed over the pastor that has yet to go away. As much as he’d prefer not to admit it, she has a point. Had Madeline been forthright with him about everything, he would probably be in the Challenger right now, driving along the interstate with Mary riding shotgun. Destination unknown, but it would be far away from Pratt—that’s for sure. Like most people, he’d spend the trip counseling with the Lord and convincing himself none of it was real.

  “What did you mean by others?” he asks her. “You said there were others that weren’t the right fit. Have you done something like this before?

  “Well, that’s kind of—” Madeline is cut off, interrupted by Mary barking. She’s bolting towards the two of them from the distance. Neither the pastor nor Madeline noticed her sneak off during their exchange, but they can see the problem already. A veil of gray is slipping skyward just beyond the daisy hill, getting thicker as the seconds go by. Madeline breaks into a run with the pastor trailing behind her. Even with the heeled boots and satchel weighing her down, she manages to move swiftly. “High ground,” Madeline shouts over her shoulder, pointing at the peak of the daisy hill. She makes it to the bottom of the slope where the flowers bloom, scaling the incline. White petals and dust particles of dead bees kick up, and the pastor struggles, a stitch in his side that feels more like a knife. He can see the sky go dark as he follows Madeline, just a few paces behind her. She reaches the top of the hill and curses, screaming as Mary circles her feet, bounding through the flowers and barking at her owner to catch up. He reaches them, and Father Johnstone finally sees what Madeline is so upset about.