Nu Alpha Omega

by H. Claire Taylor

  She looked to her boyfriend for courage, but his lustful gaze didn’t actually help. Instead it brought to mind a few of his stranger expressions that, in a private setting, his lust had crested into over the past few weeks. Turns out, his orgasm sounds didn’t get any less strange the more comfortable the two of them became with that particular level of intimacy. The most recent encounter, just earlier that morning, popped into her mind and before she could shut it out, the situation was blown into bas relief—Mason’s inability to finish, the growing exhaustion in her forearm and mounting anxiety as she kept an eye on the clock and the list of party preparations that still needed to be done repeated in her brain, her desperate shot in the dark to speed things up by shouting, “The power of Christ compels you!” but most of all, how instantaneously that had worked on him, resulting in him shouting, “Peace be with you! GNUUUUH!” through gritted teeth.

  Jess wondered if she should say a few words first or just jump right into the miracle making. But she needn’t have worried about it, because Kate, as always, had a plan. She explained to the onlooking crowd that filled the dining room and overflowed into the study and up the stairs what they were about to see. As if anyone didn’t already know.

  Ugh. This just seems so showy.

  IT IS.

  Should I not be doing it? Isn’t it bad to be showy about your faith?

  SURE. ONE SHOULD NOT PRAY IN PUBLIC TO APPEAR HOLIER THAN THOU. WELL, NOT THOU. JUST THE GENERAL THOU. OBVIOUSLY NONE OF THESE HUMANS ARE HOLIER THAN YOU.

  So I shouldn’t do this.

  DO NOT TWIST THE LORD’S WORDS.

  I’m not trying to. Sheesh. You’re just being confusing. Again.

  WHY DO YOU THINK I GIVE YOU MIRACLES, DAUGHTER?

  To ruin my life?

  NOOO.

  Sure seems like it’s to ruin my life.

  IT IS NOT. THINK.

  Why don’t you just tell me?

  THOU SHALT THINK. IT IS BETTER THIS WAY.

  Okay, you gave me my first miracle because you’re a football fan.

  NO. WELL, YES, I DO ENJOY THE SPORT, BUT THAT IS NOT WHY I BESTOWED THAT PARTICULAR MIRACLE UPON YOU.

  The second one you gave me to save lives.

  WRONG AGAIN.

  Figures.

  HOW MANY PEOPLE DID YOU RESURRECT?

  I don’t know, seventy-eight?

  THAT IS EXACTLY RIGHT. STRANGE THAT YOU KEPT COUNT. BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER. SEVENTY-EIGHT PEOPLE. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY I PERSONALLY SMOTE OVER THE COURSE OF YOUR RESURRECTION CAREER?

  More than seventy-eight?

  YES. MORE THAN SEVENTY-EIGHT. TWELVE THOUSAND AND FIFTY-TWO.

  Kind of strange you keep count. Almost like you enjoy it.

  CLEARLY I DO NOT PARTICULARLY CARE ABOUT SAVING LIVES. CREATING THE AFTERLIFE SPARED ME OF THAT HEADACHE. NOW THINK HARDER.

  Fine, fine. I already know the answer anyway. I perform whatever miracles would be the most helpful to convincing those around me that I’m not crazy.

  PRECISELY. AND HOW MIGHT YOU CONVINCE OTHERS OF THAT IF THEY NEVER WITNESS SAID MIRACLES.

  Yeah, yeah. I get it. Miracles are made for showing off.

  BINGO.

  An elbow to Jessica’s rib interrupted her conversation, and she looked up to see everyone staring at her silently. Judith, who must have delivered the jab, stood on one side of her, already gnawing a gluten-y roll and staring expectantly. “This is where you miracle the shit out of everything,” she said.

  “Oh. Right.” She cleared her throat and raised her hands above the spread.

  Time to show off.

  And as the energy seemed to radiate out of her palms, she slowly swiped them over the length of the food until she was fairly sure not a single baked good had been spared of her grinning portrait.

  She stepped back. Now it was just a matter of dealing with the fallout. She would like it to be pleasant, but she didn’t dare hope for better than not terrible.

  She raised her eyes from the table to gauge the reaction of the potential pledges, who Kate had called to the front of the crowd. That’s when she spotted a familiar snub-nosed face.

  “What the hell?”

  Courtney Wurst stared back at Jess, a mixture of fear and defiance in her eyes. What the hell was she doing here? It had to be bad. The suspicion that Courtney had something to do with Eugene’s stories freshman year had never been fully scrubbed from Jessica’s mind, even after Leslie had confessed to the betrayal. No, Courtney’s presence was, by proxy, either Eugene’s or Jimmy’s presence, and she wanted neither of those men around her miracles or in the sacred—albeit messy—space of the NAO house, even if it was only through a satellite like Courtney.

  Hurrying around from behind the long table, Jessica made straight for the Wurst girl, cutting through the crowd who was slowly and cautiously moving toward the miracle to inspect it for themselves.

  “Cover for me,” Jess said as she passed Kate, and the VP obliged, shouting, “Dig in!” to the onlookers.

  Jess grabbed Courtney’s arm just below the shoulder, gripping it as hard she could and the girl didn’t resist as she was dragged out of the fray and through the front door. The front yard was quiet except for the ruckus starting to pick up inside as a horde of drunks realized they had a blessed carb feast set out for them.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Courtney?”

  “I just—”

  “Cut the crap. I know you’re lying.”

  “I haven’t said anything.”

  Jessica paused. Okay, that was true. “Well, whatever you were about to say was a lie.”

  Then Courtney Wurst said two words Jessica never thought she’d hear. “I’m sorry.”

  “What?”

  “I’m … I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”

  Jess grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Who are you working for?!” She flinched against how melodramatic that sounded.

  Courtney held up her hands. “No one! I swear.”

  Jessica let go of her and stepped back. “Oh really? You swear?”

  “Yes, I do. And I say that knowing you can smite the crap out of me if you find out I’m lying, which I’m not.”

  Okay, this made no sense. “Then what the fuck?”

  “I— You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Sorry, I shouldn’t have come.”

  “Ugh.” Jess let her head roll on her shoulders as she tried to collect herself. “Well now I have to know. I can’t just not ask when you show up then say I wouldn’t believe your reason. Don’t tell me Chris sent you here with some do-gooder but completely misguided idea of winning me back.”

  Courtney shook her head slowly, staring at Jessica like maybe she was the crazy one. “I haven’t talked to Chris in years.”

  “Well shit. Okay. Then go ahead.”

  Courtney exhaled in a whoosh. “I want to join Nu Alpha Omega.”

  “Yep. You were right. I don’t believe you.” She crossed her arms over her chest and waited for the real explanation.

  “I’m serious. I— I need a change.”

  “And I’m serious when I say White Light Church is totally incompatible with Nu Alpha Omega. It’s basically the opposite.”

  Courtney nodded agreeably. “I know. That’s why I want in. I haven’t had anything to do with White Light since high school.”

  “Whoa. Wait. Really?”

  “Yep. I just couldn’t anymore. I just— It didn’t make sense. Reverend Dean, he turned on my mom. After you resurrected him—”

  Jessica held up a hand. “First of all, I didn’t do that. He was never dead. I’d actually decided to let his swine-ass stay dead.”

  Courtney narrowed her eyes, then slowly nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, that makes a lot of sense, actually. Huh.” She shook it off. “Anyway, after that, he turned on my mom. She became the church scapegoat. And she would just sit there and take it. Still does, for all I know. I haven’t asked about it.”

  “Aww … had to watch your mothe
r publicly ridiculed? Sounds terrible.” Jess flashed a forced smile. Did Courtney really think she could come here and play the pity card to erase years of torture? “Ever heard of a woman named Destinee? She’s spent the past nineteen years being Jimmy’s scapegoat, too, and her daughter has had to sit through way more bullshit than just watching her mom willingly take the beating.” She pressed her lips together and cocked an eyebrow at Courtney. Check and mate.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s … fucked up.”

  “Oh-ho-ho! Look who’s all fired up. Cursing, even! Well I’m convinced! You’re a whole new person. Obviously not the same one who spent most of her life trying to rid me of the few friends I could scrape together.” This feels so good. Turns out, Courtney’s appearance at the party, while still a potential issue down the road, was almost like a gift.

  Sure, everything about her words, tone, and posture seemed genuinely remorseful, but Jessica was no fool. Courtney had never officially gotten back at her for their Noah’s Ark disagreement at the zoo when they were eight. This could be that. It would be the perfect plan, waiting over a decade before payback. Then showing up and destroying the one thing that Jessica was finally building for herself. Except Jessica was onto her.

  “But they didn’t treat my dad that way. He had his own affair. Multiple ones, I’m pretty sure. Nobody cared. He’d been lured by the women, apparently.”

  “Still not sure why you’re telling this to the embodiment of original sin,” Jessica said. She sighed, feigning boredom even though this was easily the most riveting and gratifying thing that had happened to her since she saw Chris punch Greg straight in the nose at prom.

  “I probably don’t deserve to be in Nu Alpha Omega after all the stuff I’ve done to you over the years, but if there’s even a slight chance I could be, then I have to take it. I don’t have another path to follow right now.” She stuck her hands in her pockets and stared at the ground. “I figured that if White Light is wrong, maybe the things they say are wrong are actually right. So I was hoping that you could find it in you to eventually forgive me. Not right away, obviously, but eventually.”

  “Probably not,” Jessica said.

  Courtney nodded and turned to head down the walkway toward the small gravel parking lot.

  “Wait.” I can’t believe I’m going to do this. She chewed her top lip. This was a terrible idea. Why wouldn’t she just let Courtney leave and enjoy waving bye-bye to an obvious thorn in her crown? “You can try. I won’t stop you. If you want to pledge, you can. But you have to get by Kate, who’s pledge mistress. And I’m going to fill her in on you. All of it. She’s better at vetting people anyway. She’ll be the gatekeeper.”

  Courtney nodded. “So should I—” She motioned first behind her toward the cars and then pointed back toward the house.

  Jess nodded and against all of her better judgment said, “Yeah, you can stay.”

  Courtney walked to the front door, but before she could open it, Jess added. “And you bet your ass I’m going to be watching you, Wurst. I can change my mind on this.”

  The music had started up again and sound flooded out as the front door opened and then shut again, leaving Jessica alone on the front porch.

  She heavily suspected she’d just made a terrible decision.

  “Again!” Kate shouted at the line of pledges who stood underneath the sprinkler in the front lawn. They began at the start, reciting the thirteen commandments that had been established for all Nu Alpha Omegas.

  Jessica continued her mindless doodles on the graph paper in her lap that she should have been using for her business stats homework. She already regretted declaring business as her major, and it hadn’t even been three months since she’d walked into the college counselor’s office on her mandatory pre-semester visit and defaulted to her Father’s suggestion after her stupid idiot counselor Kenneth had delivered a dry, rehearsed lecture about the importance of picking a major before junior year.

  She shivered as a gust of chilly early-October air rushed over her where she sat on the front porch swing next to Judith, who sucked casually from her e-cig and watched Kate work her frightening magic.

  “Not loud enough!”

  Jess glanced up as Kate continued to pace up and down the line, just out of the reach of the sprinkler herself.

  “Again!”

  And the pledges began shouting the commandments again.

  “One. Do not judge. Two. Do not spread rumors about your sister. Three. Ask permission before tagging or posting photos. Four. Jessica’s word goes …”

  The list went on, but Jess stopped paying attention after that. She only ever bothered listening until commandment four, where she got to watch Courtney say, “Jess’s word goes.” Even if the whole sorority came tumbling down, Jessica would always have that memory of her old nemesis’s mouth forming those words. It could sustain her through a lot of bullshit, she suspected.

  The other pledges, though, Jessica was starting to feel sorry for. With the cold front moving through, it was not a great time to be under a sprinkler. She leaned toward Judith. “Kate is kind of scary when she wants to be.”

  “That’s a good quality in a pledge mistress, though.”

  “I guess.”

  Judith didn’t seem concerned. “I’m just glad I didn’t have to be the pledge mistress.”

  “Same.”

  Judith shivered and Jessica adjusted to share the blanket. “Thanks. I genuinely wonder how Kate does it all sometimes, you know?”

  Jessica nodded. “She does seem to be constantly on. But it spares me having to do everything. Or anything, really.” She paused. “Can I tell you something in secret?”

  Judith exhaled then looked at Jess. “Of course. You know I don’t really talk to anyone anyway.”

  Jessica sucked air into her chest, hoping some courage might sneak in along with it. “Male orgasms. They’re supposed to be weird, right?”

  Judith was kind enough to wrangle in the openmouthed amusement that flashed onto her face. “Sure. Now just come right out and tell me what Mason does when he blows his load. My curiosity is officially piqued.”

  Her cheeks heated and she almost laughed. “He shouts things.”

  Judith nodded and motioned with a wave of her hand for Jess to elaborate. “Yes, most men shout things when they come.”

  “Praises. He shouts praises.”

  Judith cocked her head slightly to the side. “Then I’d say you’re doing something right?”

  “No.” How did she even say this? “Not praises for me. Praises to God.”

  Grimacing unabashedly, Judith slowly shook her head. “Ooo … I dunno, Jessica. If some guy started shouting praises to my dad whenever he got his rocks off, that might be a deal breaker.”

  Jessica put her head in her hands. “My sex life is so doomed.”

  “Don’t say that!” Judith patted her on the back. “There are much weirder things a guy could say in that situation.”

  “Like what?” she moaned into her palms.

  “Like, um. Well, I can’t think of anything, actually.”

  Lifting her head again, Jessica looked desperately into her friend’s eyes. “I think I literally exorcised an orgasm from him not too long ago.”

  Judith howled and almost fell off the swing, catching the attention of a few of the pledges. Kate ran over to the closest and began shouting. “What are you looking at? You staring at Jessica? You think she’s here for your entertainment?”

  “No, ma’am!” the pledge shouted.

  Jessica cringed, and once Judith recovered herself, said, “I’m not entirely comfortable with the hazing.”

  “Rites,” Judith corrected sardonically.

  “Sure. I mean, I get the purpose behind them, but do they have to be so … brutal?”

  Judith shrugged. “I mean, this is nothing, comparatively, but I get what you’re saying. Personally, the thing I most dislike is just how exhausting it all looks. Like, wouldn’t Kate’s energy be better spent d
oing, I don’t know, anything else? Makes me want to nap just watching it.”

  Kate sprayed Courtney in the chest with the garden hose, causing the already wet girl to flail wildly at the stream of water.

  Jess chuckled. “I will say I’m enjoying watching Courtney get hazed, though.” The Wurst girl spit out a mouthful of water and Jessica chuckled again.

  “Why do you hate her so much?” Then Judith paused, held up her hand, and amended with, “I know why you hate her so much, but why don’t you believe she wants to change?”

  “Why should I believe her?”

  “I don’t know. I believe her, though.”

  Jessica leaned back to get a better look at Judith. “Really?”

  Judith shrugged. “Yeah. When Kate filled me in on her, I went and talked to her myself. I even baited her. She didn’t bite. Not even a little bit. People change.”

  Jess chuckled dryly. “Do they?”

  “Haven’t you?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Didn’t your beliefs do a one-eighty not that long ago?”

  “Sure, but then they did another one-eighty and ended up in the same place.”

  Judith shrugged. “You have a lot more at stake in the case of betrayal than I do, that’s obvious. I’m just saying that maybe you should start considering at what point you might take Courtney’s remorse serious. It’s possible she’s changed, because it’s possible that anyone can change. Figure out the benchmarks she has to hit before you’re convinced.”

  “I dunno.” Jessica gathered up her work and stood, so Judith did too.

  “That’s fine. You’re the boss around here anyway. But it takes a lot to do what Courtney did. If she’s genuine, and if you forgive her, she’ll likely be the most loyal follower you have.”