Good Sex, Great Prayers

by Brandon Tietz

  “But you and I both know that’s not what it really is,” Father Johnstone says. “It doesn’t adhere to the Divine path. Not really.”

  “Oh, but it does,” he says. “See, I’m a man of history. I think it’s important to know where we came from. You and I are supposed to be able to coexist, believe it or not.”

  At this point, the man in the corner lifts his eyes away from the book, telling Pollux, “He won’t listen. A true man of the cloth, that one. Always has been.” He dips his brush back into the bowl again, coating it and applying the glaze to the paper. His voice, the pastor thinks—he’s heard it before but it’s since changed. Like Father Johnstone, he’s not himself anymore.

  “My associate is correct. You won’t believe it coming from me.” Pollux eyes the pastor who remains taped tight to the chair. He looks at him, through him. “My actions have made you leery. There’s no trust. Madeline, though,” he looks at her, gently swaying back and forth in the chair like a drunk. Blood leaks from the corners of her mouth, dripping off her chin and slapping the band of duct tape wrapping her torso. “You’ll believe her, won’t you? You’ve seen how this curse works already and you know she won’t be able to lie.”

  “I’ll be skeptical, regardless,” Father Johnstone says.

  “I have a talent for turning skeptics, Pastor.” Pollux resumes standing position, walking over to Madeline, he says, “Clear your mouth out.” She ejects a spray a blood, then another—this one much smaller in scale. “Now open,” he demands. Unlike the last time he made this request, Madeline doesn’t resist. She obediently widens the space between rows of teeth so that Pollux can have a look inside. He leans in, leveling an eye to her oral cavity and examining the various wounds within. With his left hand, he takes hold of her wounded cheek, slipping a thumb on the interior skin and gripping it like a Frisbee. Two fingers from his right hand are placed on the roof of her mouth, settling on the cut from the scalpel. Once again, Father Johnstone witnesses him make that same caressing motion, gently rubbing Madeline’s face and mouth. Shades of bruise slowly regress to maroon, then red, returning to her normal healthy pallor.

  “Are you sufficiently healed?” he asks. Pollux wipes the excess blood and saliva off against his pants.

  “Yes,” she says. The answer is short, concise, lacking personality or any of Madeline’s normal distinction. More mechanical. It’s Mrs. Tiller all over again.

  “Are you ready to answer questions?”

  “You know that I don’t have a choice,” she says.

  “Tell me about the first time you met Father Johnstone,” Pollux says. “Be thorough.”

  “It was my first day in Pratt. After I finished filling out the paperwork regarding my aunt’s estate, he was summoned by the local clerk’s office to escort me to her burial plot. He was a kind and accommodating man. Father Johnstone walked with me to the cemetery and stood as I evaluated the earth for impurity. I sensed none. His loneliness, however, was palpable. Father Johnstone, like many potential Secondaries, compensates for his lack of relationships with animalia companionship in the form of a Yorkshire terrier, restorative projects in the form of a 1970s model Dodge Challenger, and involving himself in the problems of others to feign the sensation of marital and intimate affiliations. He was aching for connection. I felt that. We went to the Presto Diner and I engaged in conversation with him, attempting to ascertain as to whether or not he knew what Josephine Paige really was. He appeared ignorant to it. Father Johnstone was more concerned with my comfort, and his sentiment towards me often wavered between surrogate daughter and young lover. That intrigued me. He possessed many of the qualities that a Primary looks for in a potential Secondary.”

  “See?” Pollux says to Father Johnstone. “First day in town and she was already sizing you up for use.” He turns back to Madeline, asking, “What made you decide to stay in Pratt?”

  “Convenience,” she says. “I had a house and a potential Secondary land in my lap. I had an extended collection of volumes at my disposal. The isolation of the town promised a relatively safe location for practice and its residents made for a sufficient harvesting and testing pool.”

  “That’s how you lure ’em in, Pastor,” Pollux says. He turns back to Madeline, “And what did you harvest?”

  Madeline lists off: “Hair, blood, skin, fingernail clippings, saliva, teeth, seminal fluid of the male, menstrual blood of the female, urine and fecal matter—both genders.”

  “No organs?”

  “Not human,” Madeline says. “Animalia only.”

  “I see,” Pollux says. “And how did you come to harvest these ingredients?”

  “Varying methods,” Madeline says. She frowns. It’s reminiscent of Sheriff Morgan, how he attempted to resist answering the questions he didn’t want to.

  “I’ll be blunt: how many men have you fucked in this town?” Pollux asks, checking over to Father Johnstone, smirking.

  “Fifty-six,” she says. No shame or regret. Just a flat admission that makes the pastor’s heart sink in his chest.

  “And how many of them were married?”

  “Forty-two,” she says.

  “That’s a whore right there,” Pollux says to the pastor. “That’s your ally.”

  He remembers walking into the Presto Diner, either to pick up Madeline’s newest round of treats or merely to check in on her. If it was one thing that stuck out about those meetings besides her natural allure, it was the reaction to everyone else seated amongst the various booths and stools, the glaring. They always looked at the pastor as if he was infringing upon their turf, like he had some ulterior motive that a man of the cloth shouldn’t have for a young girl like that. The reality is that her status as the town whore was well known, but the idea that she’d give an old geezer like a preacher a roll in the hay—that was simply too far.

  “Ask her why,” Father Johnstone croaks.

  “Excuse me?” Pollux appears caught off-guard by the imposition.

  “If she’s a whore, then I’d like to know why she does it,” he says.

  “Because a whore can never be satiated, Johnstone. It is a disease of the spirit. You know that.”

  “I’d like to hear her answer,” he presses. “Ask.”

  Pollux pauses, nodding his head slightly. Father Johnstone can tell this is not the direction he wants to take the interrogation. The facts are damning, yes, but their reasoning may hold redeeming qualities. “Madeline,” he says, “why did you sleep with all those men?” The question comes out strained.

  “To harvest so that I may advance my knowledge of the Craft, both practically and theologically based on the volumes of texts I had inherited,” she says. “If I was confronted again, I wanted to be prepared.”

  Father Johnstone nods his head. He’s comforted by this answer.

  “And are you prepared, Madeline?” Pollux asks.

  “Considering all factors and variables, I surmise a 51% chance of beating you in combat,” she says.

  “All factors and variables? That include you and your Secondary being taped up to chairs?” he asks.

  “Yes,” she says. “My Secondary and I are powerful. We’re in the favor of the Goddess while hubris leads you to believe you can overthrow her.”

  “So you know what he’s doing?” Pollux asks, referring to the man in the corner.

  “He is applying the living seminal fluid and blood of your tributes in order to make the text materialize for translation,” Madeline says.

  “And you know what volume it is, don’t you? You know what it does.”

  “Book XVIII is an ancient text that denotes the ascension to godhood—specifically, overtaking a deity by becoming one,” Madeline says. “You believe this will negate the curse on you, but these are desperate measures. Failure is likely.”

  “I’m willing to risk it.” Pollux addresses Father Johnstone, “I take it she’s never told you about the Book of Shadows before, has she?”

  “No,” Father Johnstone answers,
feeling foolish. He doesn’t know what to believe anymore.

  “And what of Christ?” he asks.

  The pastor shakes his head. Yet again, he feels grossly uninformed.

  “Well then,” Pollux smiles, looking at the pastor with sheer delight. “You’re in for a treat.” To Madeline, he says, “Tell him the story about his Lord and Savior…the one that we know. The real one.”

  Madeline recites, “The Virgin Mary was impregnated by a celestial force by God’s own design. Despite the controversy surrounding His conception, He was born to great acclaim and wielded power that none had ever seen before…power even He didn’t truly comprehend in His youth. However, He would learn over time, becoming proficient in the arenas of: alchemy, elemental manipulation, organic healing, and annulment of death. Most of these occurrences would be omitted from all Christian-based texts with the exception of a select few.”

  Water into wine, the feeding of 5,000, and His walk on the Sea of Galilee. These are the traditional acts of the Lord in which Father Johnstone and the flock have become familiar with over the years. He’s preached them for as long as he’s been at the helm. “An example of His sovereignty,” he used to say.

  “His life would be edited in the histories, skipping from His teen years to His thirties…the era in which fear and loyalty surrounded Him equally. His superiority made Him different from His fellow man, and by extension, an outcast. Christ would disappear into the desert for forty days, during which time, He instructed His disciples on the ways of what we now recognize as Craft. They learned how to combine herbs and plant life for medicinal purposes. He taught them to communicate with and harvest animalia. In the isolation of the desert, Christ trained these men on how to conjure large bodies of water and bring about rainstorms and lightning. They could manipulate the elements and bend natural law. It would be documented, composing part of what we now recognize as the Book of Shadows.

  “Upon their return from the desert,” Madeline continues, “the disciples would quickly realize that in the absence of Christ, their power was greatly depleted. They could no longer perform the abilities that they had been taught to full capacity. Rainstorms cast for crop turned out to be little more than drizzle; lakes for livestock to drink grew no larger than puddles. Words spoken to animalia fell upon deaf ears. The disciples sought Christ to enlighten them on their recent complication, and He said, ‘In the absence of the Divine, you’ll lack Divine power.’

  “And so was introduced the concept of the Secondary, a man of faith who lived for no other reason than to serve the Lord and God. He could also serve as a power source for those trained in the ways of Craft, although these pairings were not always successful. The clergy resented the disciples for their God-like ability and capacity to perform miracle, an ability that they themselves lacked. The disciples found cooperation with the clergy problematic and wrought with struggle, especially in instances of selfish indulgence. Pairings often resulted in rapid degradation of the clergyman and disturbance of the spirit. Casts would often backfire. Only rarely did the partnership between Primary and Secondary yield fruitful results, when ideals aligned and intentions were mutual.”

  Father Johnstone glances at the cleric writhing in the corner, dying. He becomes thinner and weaker by the moment, whereas the pastor remains strong, vital. His blood and certain aspects of his appearance may have changed, but the effects have not become debilitating.

  “Failed partnerships between the clergy and those skilled in Craft would eventually lead to a rift between the two parties, and so the monikers of ‘witch,’ ‘sorcerer,’ and ‘occultist’ would be coined in order to identify an enemy that shall not be suffered to live, and that propaganda would be spread for the next many centuries in the scriptures…the cause of much war and mistrust.

  “The Book of Shadows,” Madeline says, “details the actual history of Christ and His teachings. It is the missing gap that was omitted in biblical text, namely, the fact that Jesus Christ was the first witch and was ultimately responsible for causing an underground power struggle that spanned many centuries.”

  Pollux nods, satisfied. He takes a beat before telling the pastor, “I understand that’s a lot to take in. You’ve been living most of your life based on partial information, and that’s disheartening. I get that,” he says, although there’s no pity in his voice. “She could have told you this before but she found it appropriate to keep you in the dark. Now you know where you came from, though.”

  “What do you want from me?” Father Johnstone asks, seething with anger. He wants to hurt this man, craves to inflict harm upon him, but the binding holds. He’s helpless.

  “I want you to help set things right,” he says. “I want you to remember the part of what she said…how the relationship between Primary and Secondary will only work when ideals aligned and intentions were mutual,” Pollux recites. “Between the three of us, I think we may have accomplished that balance.”

  Father Johnstone almost catches himself laughing. He shakes his head, saying, “She’ll never work with you. Ever. She despises you.”

  “Not her. Him.” Pollux looks over his left shoulder, to the man guised by sunlight working on the translation. He continues to dip the brush and glaze the pages methodically, that is, until he’s summoned over. “Found him while I was on the road. Pastor Burke here, like me, was also exiled from his home. Had to reinvent himself…find his calling.”

  The man sets down his tools, assuming a standing position from the chair and walking out into the light. He stands next to Pollux, wearing the standard clerical uniform. Father Johnstone can’t help but notice the scars branching above the collar, reaching up all the way up to his ears and jaw. They look like burn wounds.

  “I offered to remove these,” Pollux says, touching the man’s neck gently with his finger. “Told him I could repair his vocal cords, too. They’d been cooked inside his throat some time ago, but he refused me…said it was important to remember what happened and where he came from.”

  Father Johnstone looks at the man’s face: gaunt and withered, yet familiar. He’s been trying to forget it for years.

  “He’s home now,” Pollux says. “Mason Hollis is finally home.”

  Elk City, OK

  I escape from Las Vegas.

  The majority of my fortune and possessions are left behind in the many high-end suites I never bother checking out of. Detectives will spend the next many weeks collecting and labeling articles of clothing, the preserved organs, and various religious paraphernalia. They’ll take photographs and dust the walls for prints, shaking their heads in shame and commenting on what a ‘sick fuck’ I must have been. ‘This one’s gonna fry for sure.’ Interviews will be conducted and samples will be gathered: blood, hair, fingernails, seminal fluid. Much like forging a spell, they’ll combine all of these elements to formulate a case and track my prior and present whereabouts.

  The hardship is that I don’t exist on paper. My documentation is either falsified or stolen, and therefore, can offer no insight. Any ‘clue’ they gather and analyze will lead to a path to nowhere, and so it is with great liberty that I depart the city, silent and unobserved. One piece of luggage is in my possession containing: two changes of clothes (a suit and civilian wear), two editions of the Bible, a bottle of Christ blood, one box of Christ’s body, one plastic bag of dehydrated labia, the sharpened crucifix, assorted toiletries, bottled water, and $1,800,000 in bundled cash.

  I purchase a late model Ford SUV from a local, offering him an additional $20,000 for his discretion. Greed compels him to accept, outweighing any suspicions or the sinking feeling that he’s seen my face before—perhaps on the television or a large billboard overlooking the strip. I’m gone before his inquiry becomes verbal.

  I disappear from Vegas and never return.

  * * *

  There is an Elk City in Kansas, and yet two more in the states of Idaho and West Virginia. My Secondary, however, is in Oklahoma. I know this. It is dictated by Divine power
, instilling a natural pull in direction not unlike certain species of animalia: birds that fly south for the winter or the great sea turtle migration. I’m compelled eastward, arriving roughly sixteen hours later on a Sunday, God’s day.

  It is the day in which I come upon Pastor Billy Burke during his sermon, which is conducted in a structure resembling a large shed. It holds roughly forty people. Despite its less-than-pious appearance, I’m drawn to it, to the man shouting at the helm within. They call him ‘the truck stop preacher.’ ‘A blue collar man of God.’ He travels from town to town to spread the Lord’s true gospel, a version in which sin is to be understood—not feared and avoided at all costs.

  “I see fornicators in this room!” he says. “Drunks, meth-heads, masturbators, and liars! I’m in the company of men that paid some poor gal $10 to bust a squirt in their mouth! And you know what?” he asks. “I understand. That’s why you’re with me instead of some virgin whitebred fuck, right?”

  And these men—these hard-as-nails truckers and day laborers—they nod, cheer, praise Billy Burke, shouting, “Amen!”

  “Just how in the hell is some man who’s never had a lick of cunt in his life supposed to tell you how to abstain? How’s a man who’s never indulged in sin supposed to understand it?” he asks. “Read about it? The news? Do you really think they get it?”

  “Fuck no they don’t, Billy!” one of them yells from the right side of the shack.

  “You want to stay on the Divine path,” pastor Burke says, “You gotta know what’s outside the lines.”

  * * *

  Billy Burke concludes his sermon.

  It is a sermon he’s performed many times in a multitude of locales.

  The flock files out of the oversized shack beaten, exhausted, emotionally broken and rebuilt. Reborn, even. This is not the routine service of: kneel, pray, stand, recite, sing, repeat. Pastor Burke has not become victim to apathy. He is a man that pushes his endeavor to the threshold, the absolute. He is like me. I linger at the back of the shed until the audience dissipates, watching him count money on a metal folding chair.