Magdalene

by Moriah Jovan

* * * * *

  Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani?

  April 22, 2011

  At one o’clock Friday afternoon, Mitch walked slowly out of the church building toward me, hunched over, his hands buried in his pockets, his head bowed.

  My chest felt like it had been kicked in and I walked, then ran, to meet him. He grabbed me and pulled me to him tight, buried his face in the crook of my neck.

  “Let’s go home, Mitch,” I whispered. “Let me take care of you.”

  He didn’t say a word all the way, just stared out the window at the passing scenery. Once we got home, he went into the library and shut the door behind him.

  I jumped when I heard a tortured roar and the crash of breaking glass.

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered.

  “They didn’t,” Trevor breathed from above me, on the staircase. I turned to see him staring at the closed library doors, horrified.

  “They did.”

  “Motherfuckers,” Trevor snarled and clipped the rest of the way down the stairs, grabbed his truck keys, and—

  “Don’t,” I said, catching his wrist.

  “Cassie—”

  “Don’t,” I repeated in my boardroom voice. “You’ll make it worse.”

  He glared at me, then jerked away. “Fine. I’m calling Sebastian.”

  “He knows.”

  That got his attention. “Did you call him on the way home?”

  “No.”

  “Then—” His eyes narrowed. “You’ve got something up your sleeve.”

  I looked away.

  “Cassie, what’s going on?”

  “Go to work, Trevor,” I murmured over my shoulder, though I couldn’t bear to look at him. His anger mirrored mine and we both winced with the next crash of glass. “I’ll deal with it.”

  * * * * *

  INRI

  Mitch felt a rage well up in him so great that he had no choice but to let it out in one long, racking howl. He picked up the poker by the fireplace, hefted it in one hand, then clutched it with the other and swung, shattering the glass in the barrister cases.

  Not good enough.

  Another swing, another pane of glass.

  A third.

  Fourth.

  Fifth.

  He dropped the poker and dug his hands into the cases, past the jagged edges left in the mullions, and grabbed the books—

  —church books of all types: biographies, doctrine, fiction, self-help.

  He pulled out an armful, vaguely aware of ripping his sleeve, and threw the books in the fireplace, snarling because there was no fire. He turned back for more, his shoes crunching the glass and grinding the shards into the rug.

  Another armful, cast into the fireplace with a thud.

  “Matches,” he growled, and snatched them off the mantel. He ripped a couple of pages from yet another book and crushed them in one hand, then set the ball afire, threw it in and waited, his chest heaving, until the first book had caught.

  He wished he had gasoline.

  He threw the poker, heedless where it went, but satisfied when it crashed through the window and sailed over the lawn before dropping with a dull thud.

  He turned away, digging his hands into his hair and howled again, lifting his face to the ceiling, that animal inside him rising, rising within him and taking over, the animal that had always been there and he had kept leashed for the last twenty-five years.

  Now he knew.

  Betrayal.

  “Where did you go?!” he roared. “I have given my life to serving you! I sacrificed my family for you— Another man raised my son because of you—and YOU LEFT ME!”

  He dropped to his knees and hunkered down, dug the heels of his palms in his eyes.

  “Where were you?” he gritted low, his chest caving with every breath. “Why did you leave me? You left me on my mission! You left me TODAY! WHY?! WHAT MORE COULD I HAVE DONE?!”

  He felt his body quake but nothing came out of his eyes.

  The bitterness of the utter humiliation he had suffered in that room still coated his mouth and his tongue. Sorrow and grief soaked him like ice water in winter.

  “Mitch.” He heard the whisper. Felt the hand soft on his back.

  My wife.

  “Come with me. Your arm and hands are bleeding.”

  He couldn’t speak. His vocal cords wouldn’t move.

  He trembled in impotent rage, unable to do anything except to calculate revenge he wouldn’t take although it would be only too easy to do so. He could afford to wage war on the Church and once Sebastian got involved—because he would—

  “Mitch,” she said again. Soft. Soothing. Calm and loving. “You’ve cut yourself.”

  The evidence of Cassandra’s love for him shone from those pictures, strewn about the table amongst the high councilmen who’d adopted a mien of compassion to judge him guilty of...

  ...exactly what he had struggled so not to do, and had succeeded in that.

  Mitch, don’t you have anything to say for yourself?

  Mitch, talk, please. If you don’t speak, we have to treat it like you’re guilty.

  And even if you are, this is an opportunity to repent. Start over. Clean slate. You’re married to her now, so that won’t be an issue.

  He’d sat silent, meeting their looks one by one until each one of them had looked away. Except Greg, who, sensing an imminent victory, had smirked.

  Mitch, tell us you didn’t do it. Please!

  Petersen had never looked at him at all.

  We put our trust in you, Mitch, and you broke that trust.

  Did they really believe that?

  He didn’t know.

  And no sign of any dawning comprehension initiated by the god he’d served so faithfully for so many years—

  —not even to the General Authorities, who had sat silent throughout.

  That was the greatest betrayal of all.

  I love you, Mitch.

  “Come with me,” she whispered, catching the lapel of his coat and gently tugging.

  He could do nothing but let her struggle to remove it.

  “We can’t stay here. There’s too much glass. Come with me, my love. Let me take care of you.”

  Mitch turned his head a little to look at her, that gorgeous woman who loved him, who’d admitted it, who wanted him to love her more than he loved Mina. Her eyes widened.

  “I’m gonna fuck you,” he snarled at her, the word erupting effortlessly out of his mouth after all the years he’d heard it, barely able to keep from saying it when stressed.

  Her jaw dropped and she took a half step backward. He watched her, expecting her to flee, but instead she held out her hand to him.

  His heart thundered in his chest as he grasped what that meant.

  Mina would have run from him, horrified. Terrified.

  Cassandra let him be who he was, the natural man, the bad boy, the animal.

  He put his hand in hers and he allowed her to pull him to his feet, but then he rushed her, picked her up, slammed her against the wall opposite the fireplace and glass.

  She wrapped her hand in his necktie once, twice, and jerked him to her.

  Crushed her mouth against his.

  Mitch ripped open his fly as they kissed. Violent. Desperate.

  He hitched up her skirt, pushed her panties aside and drove himself into her.

  Again and again, pounding her into the wall with every thrust up into her.

  “Good, Mitch,” she gasped against his mouth, his tie still wrapped around her hand, keeping him close. “Yes. More. Harder. Faster.”

  Taking.

  Not giving.

  He roared yet again when he came, didn’t care that she hadn’t. He needed the comfort of knowing she wouldn’t resent him, that she understood.

  Or did she?

  She began to struggle against him and, suddenly disgusted with her for doing so, he let her go and turned away.

  She caught him, her fingertips digging into his arm, into his cut,
and yanked him around to her. He opened his mouth to let loose on her, but she dropped to her knees and wrapped her mouth around him.

  His breath left him in a rush as he dug the fingers of one hand in her hair and pressed her to him. His head dropped back, losing himself in the feel of her tongue and teeth and lips caressing and nibbling and licking.

  Sucking.

  Running her tongue over the head, dipping it into the cleft at the tip, using her hand to squeeze and caress.

  Giving.

  Grief: gone.

  Sorrow: gone.

  Anger.

  Sex.

  Fucking.

  Taking.

  “Yes,” he hissed, tightening his hold in her hair.

  Guilt: gone.

  He looked down and watched her suck him off, her lips wrapped around him. Her eyes were open and focused up at him, intense and dark. One hand squeezed his cock, the other his testicles, and it shocked him to realize he was about to come a second time.

  Yet another roar exploded from his chest as he erupted over her nose, her mouth—that beautiful, talented mouth—over her tongue.

  Guilt: gone gone gone.

  Mitch still wouldn’t let go of her hair, even as she set about licking every bit of his cum from his flesh. A cat, really, licking and cleaning with love, her eyes closed now as she concentrated.

  His heart rate settled and his breathing smoothed out.

  He relaxed his fingers slowly, releasing her from his hand—his animal’s claw—and looked at it, his mouth falling open.

  What had he done?

  “Cassandra,” he whispered, completely horrified.

  She pulled away from him and glared up at him. “Don’t you dare apologize, Mitch Hollander.”

  That forced a sad, humorless chuckle out of him, and his hand dropped away from her as she stood, her face moist. He grimaced as he used his tie to mop the moisture away from her skin, the evidence of his rage.

  “I knew you had it in you,” she muttered wryly, taking his hand and turning, tugging him toward the library door.

  He still couldn’t speak, his mind unable to sort through the humiliation of the process, having had to endure it a second time, all topped off by violent—vile—sex.

  Maybe they were right about him after all.

  She pulled him up the stairs.

  Stripped him down.

  Put him in the shower, pushing him so hard he had no choice but to brace himself against the wall with both hands.

  Scrubbed him under the hot, almost scalding water and massaged his neck while he stood bent over, looking at the tiles of the floor and letting his mind remain empty.

  Feeling her hands minister to him with soap and one of her scrubber things.

  She turned off the water.

  Dried him off.

  Put the toilet lid down and sat him on it to dress the cuts large and small that ran up and down both arms, all over his hands.

  “How did you cut yourself there?” she murmured. He hissed when she poured alcohol into the gash in his side, then dressed it, too.

  Grabbed some Tylenol PM out of the cabinet and ran a glass of water, gave it to him.

  Pulled him up and out of the bathroom to the bed, pushed him down onto it.

  He looked at her naked body, still glistening with water droplets, watching her nipples pucker hard and her skin grow goosebumps because of the relative chill.

  He wanted her again.

  He reached out to cup one breast in his hand, flicking his thumb over her nipple.

  “Not yet,” she murmured.

  He scowled at her, but she only smiled, that mischievous look on her face that made her nose wrinkle, the one he so adored, which meant she had other plans for his pleasure.

  She opened his nightstand drawer and took out the bottle of anointed olive oil used for administering blessings, such as the one he’d given Sister Reyes. He almost protested, but he was too tired and besides, what difference did it make now?

  She knelt behind him and he growled deep in his throat when her suddenly oiled hands swept over the skin of his back. She didn’t knead his muscles, but caressed him, using the oil only to allow her fingertips and nails to glide over his skin, barely scraping, making him shiver with rich sensation.

  He felt himself falling asleep under her loving hands, felt himself falling sideways into the mattress, felt his cheek hit the pillow.

  Felt the glass cuts start to burn. Vaguely wondered if the one in his side needed stitches.

  Still she caressed him, then dragged his suddenly heavy limbs fully into bed.

  Covered him, even as his eyelids drifted closed.

  Kissed him gently, and smoothed his brow.

  Whispered, “I love you, Mitch.”

  * * * * *

  Twelve

  I let him sleep.

  He deserved it after all that.

  I called Trevor and asked him to come home. The boy had never been known to pull rank as the CEO’s son, but he was home in a flash, so I could only surmise that he had today.

  “Shit,” he whispered as he stood in the door of the library, staring at the blown-out window, the shattered bookcases empty of about a quarter of the Mormon-related books in the library.

  Tossed in the fireplace with the evidence of an aborted fire having barely touched any of them. Trevor moved to start another fire, but—

  “Leave them alone,” I said wearily. “He’s not done. He’s confused and tired. He’ll either burn them or put them back when he’s ready. Right now, I couldn’t guess which and I don’t want to do something he’ll regret later.”

  We walked around, the glass crunching under his work boots and my tennis shoes.

  “I think,” I said, looking at the floor. “I think we ought to just pull the rug out. There’s too much glass here. It’d kill a vacuum cleaner and still never get it all out.”

  “I can take it to the mill, I guess. See if some of the guys’ll help me get the glass out of it.”

  I simply nodded and waited for him to go get gloves from the garage. We cleaned out every bit of glass from the surfaces, simply sweeping it to the floor.

  We didn’t speak as we worked, rolling, tucking, making sure the glass stayed contained, moving furniture as we went. The piano was a challenge. The rug was long, and we struggled to get it out to his brand-new truck without spilling glass like a crumb trail behind us.

  “I’ll be back later,” he sighed as he climbed into the cab. “I’ll dump this and then go to the lumberyard, get some plywood and board up the window.”

  I nodded and went in to the kitchen to make noodles, Mitch’s favorite. It took me an hour or so to mix them and roll them out. They were bubbling in the stock pot and I was just taking a chicken casserole (sans noodles) out of the oven when—

  “Hope you made enough for us, too.”

  I almost smiled at the deep voice coming from the doorway behind me. “Of course. And I hope you brought booze.”

  “Oh,” Sebastian drawled, “so it’s that bad, eh?” I heard chair legs scraping the tile floor as Sebastian and the rest of Mitch’s honorary family settled themselves around the massive kitchen table.

  “Where’s Trev?”

  “Well,” I muttered in between taste tests of my concoction. I turned, wiping my hands, to see him and Eilis, Hilliard and Justice, Kenard, Giselle, and Ashworth, all sober. “We are now missing one window.”

  Sebastian’s eyebrow rose. “I saw that.”

  “He went for plywood.”

  “Where’s Mitch?”

  “Sleeping. He cut himself up pretty badly and he hasn’t slept much the past couple of weeks. I cleaned him up, gave him some drugs, and put him to bed.”

  Giselle looked down at her hands, which were worrying a ragged tissue. Tears streamed from her puffy red eyes down her flushed cheeks. She was a wreck. Bryce wrapped his arm around his wife and pulled her close, buried his face in her hair.

  Knox had the look of a madman, ready to k
ill—again. Justice wrapped one hand over the fist he had planted on the table, and caressed his back with the other. She pressed her mouth to his ear.

  Morgan nearly lay in his chair, his head resting on the seat back, his arms dangling at his sides, his attention on the ceiling.

  They hurt as deeply as Mitch did. He was their brother and they grieved.

  For him solely or also for themselves, I didn’t know. Probably a poisonous mix. Three people at that table had gone through this for things they had actually done.

  Sebastian pulled out a pack of well-used cards and began to shuffle, then laid them out for a game of solitaire. He didn’t seem particularly disturbed, but then, Sebastian wasn’t known for public displays of emotion.

  “Where are all your children?”

  “With our mothers,” Sebastian said.

  “And you’re not hyperventilating?”

  “By tomorrow I will be.”

  Nigel, Gordon, and Clarissa clattered through the front door, found their way to the kitchen. Clarissa immediately attached herself to me. “I’m sorry about Mitch, Mama,” she whispered. “But— When are you coming home?”

  I pulled her tight to me and whispered back. “This is my home now. Mitch is my husband and I love him. And you’re leaving in a few months anyway.” I paused. Smoothed her hair back over her ear. “Clarissa, it’s past time for you to go live your own life. Look around you, these people Mitch brought into our lives. You will never be without love or a place to land, but you need to learn how to fly now.”

  She knew that.

  She pulled away from me slowly and looked at me. Her college career was over and she had no reason to drag it out any longer; she had accomplished a goal she never intended to and she had no choice but to go with it.

  “Okay. Can I help you with dinner?”

  “It’s poor people food.”

  She shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I don’t like it.”

  Many somber salutations had been exchanged while little girl Clarissa said goodbye and adult Clarissa said hello. Nigel’s mouth was tight. Gordon was sympathetic, but understandably detached.

  “Cassie—” Trevor walked in and stopped short when he saw our guests. “Shit. Good timing. Can a couple of you come help me patch up this window?”