She looked at his red tie, not wanting to look in his face.
"You see," Pastor Keen continued, "I have to ask Sister Keen to do a lot of my correspondence and she's not really so proficient at writing letters or contacting other churches and replying to email. For years, we have been coasting along in the dark ages where technology is concerned and having sporadic communication with other churches at best. I want this church to enter the twenty-first century in style."
He got up and Alice actually had to look him in the face. He winked at her. "No need to be so nervous, Alice. Your office is right across from mine." He opened a wooden door to an old storage room where they used to keep miscellaneous items. It was now furnished with a large desk, a computer, a telephone, an office chair, a tall gray file cabinet, and an empty bookshelf that had a huge Bible on top of it. There was a lone glass window, which was missing blinds but the window was so high up the wall that she could only see through if she tiptoed.
"Go on and try out the chair." Pastor Keen prompted her. "I hope you'll be very comfortable here."
Alice went over and sat in the chair. Indeed, it was comfortable but she was still uncomfortable in her mind.
"Now this is what I want you to do for this month," Pastor Keen said, pointing to the desk drawer.
She opened the drawer and saw that there was a notepad and a pen in there. She withdrew it and looked at him solemnly. Maybe she was misjudging him. He looked to be all-business and he had not given her any of his sexual looks. Maybe living with Blue made her hyper-aware and edgy. She reasoned that she had read Pastor Keen wrong.
"Now I want a church website, church letterheads..." By the time Pastor Keen was finished with his list, Alice was looking in horror at the pages and pages of notes. So, he really had wanted a secretary.
"Please make the letters that I told you about a priority…" he said, "and the church program. Now that you are here, we can have it every Sabbath. This will be a good time for you to practice time management too," He said, pushing his hand in his pocket and leaning against her door, "Because I won't be in for the rest of the day. Have a good day, Alice. I am sure you will find that I am not a bad employer."
She looked at him and almost felt repentant about the things she had thought about him in the past. "Yes, Pastor Keen," she said with a more friendly tone.
Pastor Keen smiled and left her to it.
In the following days, she found that the work was pretty challenging and yet quite fun. She had the responsibility of adding content to the church website. She worked with Derek, a volunteer from church who had built the website. She found this part of her job especially fun. She took photos, wrote up tidbits about the church and gave the New Song Band a prominent place on the website. She hardly saw Pastor Keen. He only came in to say hello and to give her even more work.
Sometimes various persons stopped by to schedule meetings with him or request his services as a Justice of the Peace. She began to understand how really involved being a minister was. Pastor Keen seemed up to the task and appeared to love his job. When he was in the office his phone rang non-stop and sometimes he closed his door so that Alice could not hear him counseling some poor soul or the other.
She had a face-to-face meeting with Sister Keen in her second week there. She came in quietly one Thursday when the printer was acting up and knocked on Alice's door. Alice was in the process of dragging out a piece of paper and did not hear her. She was quite surprised when she turned around, disheveled and sweaty, to see Sister Keen looking at her, a small smile on her face.
"How are you dear?"
"I am fine, Sister Keen," Alice said, panting a little, "Pastor Keen is not here you know. He had an appointment with... ahm...don't remember. It's in his appointment book on his desk."
Sister Keen smiled, "I actually came to see how you were getting on."
"I am fine," Alice said, looking into her round kindly face. She had her hair in a low bob. It was streaked with silver. Her face was unlined and she looked fresh and pretty, much better than three years ago when Alice had thought that she was looking at her with a faint dislike. Looking at her now, Alice could barely remember what she had found so disagreeable about her.
She had greatly misjudged both her and Pastor Keen and she promised to pray an extra prayer for the Lord to help her to stop judging his servants.
Sister Keen nodded. "What are you doing there?" She pointed to the printer and the stack of papers on her desk.
Alice sighed. "Printing out the program for the church's hundredth anniversary next month. It is going to be huge and it seems as if Pastor Keen is inviting the whole country."
"A hundred years is a long time," Sister Keen said. "It is a good thing to celebrate these kinds of milestones. 'Hitherto has the Lord helped us...' This is our Ebenezer year as a church. As for Pastor Keen and I, we've been here now since '86, eleven whole years. At least we have made a positive impact on this place."
Alice nodded.
Sister Keen leaned forward, "Alice, have you ever...?" she swallowed. "Has my husband ever...?" She sighed. "Obviously there is no easy way to say this. Alice, has my husband ever made a pass at you?"
"A... a pass?" Alice asked, her fears about Pastor Keen roaring back afresh, almost making her breathless.
"Three years ago, I saw how he looked at you," Sister Keen said, "and I thought...oh dear... I have really put my mouth in it." She had a distressed look on her face as she looked at Alice's shocked expression.
So she was not imagining things. Alice felt strange. Her instincts had been right. She knew it. "He has never made a pass at me but there was a time when I felt uncomfortable around him," she said to Sister Keen.
"Oh my," Sister Keen said. "Is it possible for you to forget this conversation? Forget I said anything?"
"But why would you suspect him of this?" Alice asked. "He's Pastor Keen, our beloved pastor. Everybody says he is above board in all his dealings."
Sister Keen clasped her hands and closed her eyes as if she were in pain. "I have to tell you this." Her voice was shaky. "Alice, when I heard that he was thinking of getting a secretary, I knew it was going to be you. I knew it because Keen has done certain things to young women in his past that were not always Christian-like. That was before he came here though. He has a type. Unfortunately, you fit that type."
She opened her eyes and looked at Alice, her eyes blazing. "A few years ago, I saw him watching you and I knew in my spirit that it was not good. He has always had a soft spot for you that is not holy in the least. So I've watched you, waiting to see if you were encouraging him in anyway. You see, Keen is trying so hard to stay on the straight and narrow. He is doing good things in the community and I have forgiven him for the past.
I see you with that young man Carson, and I see that you two are so in love. I admire that and I feel as if I have to do something about this situation. Keen won't listen to me, so it has to be you...you have to quit this job, Alice!"
"But I am just getting to like it…" Alice protested, "and I haven't even gotten my pay yet! I am getting it on Friday."
"Then quit Friday!" Sister Keen said forcefully. "Please, I know that you are not from a wealthy background. I know this job seems like a god-send but if you stay, you are actually putting yourself at risk. It was not easy for me to come here today. I spent two weeks begging my husband to fire you—to take himself out of temptation's way but to no avail. It is now up to you to make this decision."
Alice swallowed hard. Sister Keen was squeezing her hands together so tightly that she could see the tension on her knuckles.
"Okay. I will quit on Friday."
"Thank you, Jesus," she whispered.
"You should leave him!" Alice said, picking up a stack of papers and putting them on another pile.
"Leaving is never that easy," Sis Keen said frankly. "I have thought about it before. Don't believe that I haven't."
They heard the outer door open and Sister Keen groaned, "He's here!"
By the time Pastor Keen came around to the offices, Sister Keen's face was once again schooled in a placid, butter would not melt in her mouth look, quite unlike the passionate person who just begged Alice to quit her job because her husband loved young girls.
"Oh, hello Melvina," Pastor Keen said to his wife. "Come to visit with me?"
"Yes." Sister Keen got up. "Alice was keeping me company in your absence."
He smiled at Alice and said, a shade too fondly, "She's a great girl, isn't she?"
Sister Keen looked at Alice with her eyes saying I told you.
*****
Alice went home that evening feeling quite depressed. Her mother would have a fit when she found out that she was going to quit her job, but surely, she would realize that she had to. Sister Keen had personally come to warn her about working for Pastor. When she reached the top of her dusty lane, she realized that there was a crowd at her gate.
She had to squeeze herself through a whole wall of people to get into the yard where she saw Blue with his hands around her mother's throat, in a headlock.
Her mother's tongue was almost out and her eyes were rolling over in her head. Blue was still squeezing her throat, a crazed look in his blood shot eyes. Everyone was looking around, telling Blue to stop but no one was doing anything to stop him.
Her sister, Friya, was crying, and pleading, "No daddy, don't kill mommy!"
Alice did not stop to think. She took up a sturdy stick from a pile of wood in the front of the house and marched toward Blue with it. She raised it and hit him in his back. The wood made a thwacking sound against his slim frame and he looked around at Alice, releasing her mother in the process. Her mother fell to the ground struggling to breathe.
Blue growled at her and headed toward her threateningly. When Alice made eye contact with him, she realized that she was dealing with a man who was high on marijuana and not quite aware of what he was doing. She held up the stick defensively, but she did not need to worry. Blue realized that the community people were closing in on him and in his drug-addled state, he would not get the chance to hurt her. He looked at her and spat. "You! I am going to deal with you later!"
He walked out of the yard and Alice looked at her crying mother who was making a strange keening sound and clutching her throat because she was having difficulty breathing.
Little by little, the community people left and Alice was left with her mother and her sister and brothers. Her mother was sitting in the dirt, her long white skirt dusty. She had on a pair of slippers that had seen better days and her feet were caked with mud. Alice could see mud marks through the house. It must have been one hell of a fight.
"What happened?" she asked Friya. Her mother rested her head limply in her lap. Her throat looked like it was swollen.
It struck her that if she had not gotten there in time, her family would be on the news that night: Leo "Blue" Chapman kills his common law wife, Emilia Gould, in a crime of passion.
"Daddy told me to come sit in his lap," Friya swallowed, "and Mommy asked me how often he asked me to sit on his lap and then Daddy got angry and said he was already raising one cow and not getting any milk, so might as well he got some milk from his own cow. Then Mommy threw some water at him, and Daddy ran for his machete and they struggled with it through the house and then..." Friya swallowed, her slight body was trembling from delayed reaction, "they ended up out here."
"Has he ever touched you before?" Alice asked, her thirteen-year old sister.
Friya looked down at her foot.
Her mother had calmed down somewhat but she started crying in earnest when Alice asked Friya that question. Alice realized that this must have been something that was going on without her noticing. Maybe Blue had shifted his attention from her to his own daughter. Alice felt bile rising up in her throat and she felt like sitting in the dirt like her mother and howling. She should have hit the beast in his head.
When she told her mother later in the evening that she was quitting her job, her mother held her hand and started crying again.
"Don't quit the job, Alice. I beg you! You need to get out of here. You need to get out of here. You need to get out of here!"
She said it like a litany. Even in the dark when her mother lay down between her and Friya, she kept repeating it.
*****
Alice stayed at the job. She did not have the luxury of quitting. June past into July. It was a hot July. By the second week, Pastor Keen turned on the noisy air condition more often than not, spending more time in the office than usual. He did a lot of counseling in the days: couples counseling and sometimes grief counseling.
One Tuesday, he popped his head around Alice's door. She was jumpy around him, and that day was no exception. He had a rose in his hand.
"Hey I was passing Sister Winnie's garden and I saw this. Its beauty is as pure as yours." Alice had a strong desire to dangle a bunch of garlic near his face and watch him melt but he was not a vampire. He was a man who was breathing too hard when he was talking about her beauty.
He placed the rose on her desk and sat at the corner of her desk.
"Alice, your mom tells me that Blue tried to kill her."
Alice nodded numbly.
"He's an animal! Has he tried to touch you?" His eyes were set on her face earnestly.
"No. Carson would kill him!" Alice said.
"Ah, Carson." Pastor Keen swung his left leg. He was relaxed enough to do that and she was so wound up. "That boy has a mighty temper in him."
Alice did not respond.
"Have you two been intimate?" Pastor Keen asked. "You are a beautiful girl with a lovely shape: those perky breasts and that perfect butt. If I were your man, I'd have you. Hell, if I were Blue I'd have had you."
"Pastor Keen!" Alice gasped. He had never talked to her in that manner before and he was looking at her through half-masked eyes. He licked his lips obscenely.
She stood up. She should have quit one month before. She should have listened to Sister Keen and not her mother. She grabbed her bag and made to pass him but he stopped her with his hand.
"Stop acting like a naive virgin, Alice. I know Carson, and probably Blue, has introduced you to the pleasures of the flesh already."
"No!" Alice felt her heart surging. Her head actually felt like it was twice its size.
"Pastor Keen, don't do this!"
"Call me Kenneth." He drew her to him, his hands like bands around her. "If you shut up about this Alice, I'll double your pay. We could have a good time together. Nobody has to know." He was whispering in her ear and it caused her to feel a repulsion so great she wanted to vomit.
"You keep your Carson out of this and we'll do fine. I am so hot for you, baby. I don't think this first time can be with any finesse, but don't hold it against me."
Alice pushed him away and he held on to her, trying to kiss her. Alice's meager hands were nothing against his bulk. He hiked up her skirt.
She tried to scream.
He pulled down his pants and put a little room between them and she tried to kick him between his legs, but he countered her move, laughing at her.
"Who taught you that, you wild cat? Was it Blue?"
"Let me go, you pervert!" Alice choked out. "Let me go!"
"Alice, Alice, Alice..." he groaned, "You look so much more beautiful when you are angry."
He ripped her panty, held her by the hair and held her face down on the desk.
Alice screamed at his first thrust and felt the pain and degradation and the invasion of her innermost parts and her inadequacy to do anything about it. She sobbed. She didn't even have the will to fight anymore. After he was finished, she crouched in the same position. She felt his rough hands as they pulled down her skirt.
"I am sorry I was so rough," he whispered near her ear. "You are bleeding."
Alice moved her face away and got up gingerly. She wiped her face.
"Stop the crying, Alice, you know this was consensual." He had an earnest expressio
n on his face.
"You are an animal!" Alice said chokingly, "I am going to tell the whole church on Sabbath. You are the sick pervert who raped me and took away my virginity! I am going to let the whole world know! Everybody!"
Pastor Keen’s eyes widened. "You weren't any virgin! Your stepfather has been fooling around with you for years and you and that boyfriend of yours are too close to be just platonic!"
Alice grabbed up her panty and stumbled out of the office.
The outside grill was locked and when she turned back, Pastor Keen had the keys in his hand and a solemn expression on his face. "I am sorry, Alice."
Alice snorted. "I will never forgive you till my dying day, you scum!"
"Okay, I understand." He was looking a bit sweaty and slightly frightened. "I'll pay you not to say a word to anyone, okay. Just keep this quiet."
Alice sniffed. "Are you going to let me out?"
"Yes." He went into his wallet and took out a thousand dollars. "Here. I beg you don't say a word about this."
Alice took the money and when he opened the door, she threw it at him.
"You are no better than Blue! Well, maybe Blue is a little better than you because he doesn't go around acting like he’s a goody two-shoes when he's not! I am going straight to the police!"
She ran toward the road, sobbing. The road connected the preparatory school and the church, and she blindly headed to the entrance of the church grounds. She almost collided with her mother who was on her way home from work.
"What's wrong?" Emilia took one look at her devastated expression and shook Alice in fright. "What's wrong?" she asked again when Alice did not respond.
"Pastor Keen raped me," Alice said, choking up, "and I am on my way to the police station!"
Emilia's expression was a picture of disappointment. Before she could respond, Pastor Keen had driven up beside them.
"Alice, please reconsider. I can pay you to keep this quiet."
Emilia swung around and looked at him, a fierce look in her eyes. It was a frightening look to behold and the pastor recoiled. She walked with Alice to the bus stop but Pastor Keen followed.
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