It took everything Nora had to ring the doorbell instead of running back to her car. She truly did not want to be here, not at all, not one bit. She missed the safety and comfort of her dungeon at The 8th Circle. She knew who she was in her dungeon, at Kingsley’s house, at her home. But here, she didn’t know who she was here. Eleanor? Nora? Ellie? Someone else? Someone she hadn’t met before? Someone new? Or someone she’d forgotten how to be?
She hit the doorbell and paused, hit it again ten seconds later. She heard more laughter from behind the door and finally it opened. Mrs. Maywood stood across the threshold in her peach-colored polyester pants and white cotton blouse. Nora doubted Mrs. Maywood even remembered her but after a few seconds her eyes lit up. “My Lord, Ellie. Come in here and give me a hug.” She opened her arms and Nora stepped into the embrace.
“Thanks for having me over,” Nora said, trying to sound sincere.
“Don’t be silly,” Mrs. Maywood said. “You know you’re always welcome here.” She pulled back and smiled. Her thin white hair was like dandelion fluff on her head. She was a gentle and genteel woman and Nora felt instantly guilty for how much she’d dreaded coming to this sweet lady’s home. “How’s your mother?”
“She was good last time I saw her,” Nora said as Mrs. Maywood ushered her inside the house. She didn’t tell Mrs. Maywood she hadn’t seen her mother in about four years.
“That’s wonderful. We were all so happy for her.”
“She loves it at the convent,” Nora said.
“Better her than you, right?” Mrs. Maywood gave her a wink.
“Truer words,” Nora said. Mrs. Maywood must have heard about her books. At least she didn’t seem offended by them. Growing up she’d known a handful of religious people who wouldn’t read anything “secular” except for the newspaper. Not even Hemingway or Faulkner or Jane Austen. Unless it had a lady in a plain dress and bonnet on the cover, then it was considered suspect. Maybe Nora could write a kinky Amish novel. She wondered if she could work the word “plowing” into the title. She’d run that idea by Zach next time she talked to him. She liked to give him heart attacks.
“These are for you,” Nora said, pulling the bouquet of daisies out of the basket.
“Aren’t you a dear?” Mrs. Maywood said, bringing her into the big old kitchen which probably hadn’t seen an upgrade since Nixon was in the White House. “You remembered.”
“Remembered what?” Nora asked as Mrs. Maywood pulled a glass vase out from under the kitchen sink and filled it with water.
“Your mother used to bring me daisies. You don’t remember?”
Nora laughed, shrugged. “I guess I forgot,” she said.
“Your brain forgot.” Mrs. Maywood tapped her forehead. “But your heart remembered. Everyone’s out back. You should go get something to snack on. You look too thin.”
“God bless you for saying that.”
“Go, go. Have a snack. I’m just finishing up the lemonade. Back door’s through there,” Mrs. Maywood pointed at the door to the mudroom.
“That, I remember,” Nora said.
“Father Stearns should be here soon.”
Nora paused, stiffened.
“Oh?” Nora had no idea what to say to that. Why would Mrs. Maywood volunteer that information? What did she know? Was she testing Nora? Was she waiting to see what Nora would do or say?
“Soon as he gets here, we’ll have lunch,” Mrs. Maywood said. “Can’t eat until our priest has blessed our food, right?”
“Oh yeah,” Nora said. The knot in her stomach loosened a little. “Sorry. I’m a little out of practice at these things.”
Mrs. Maywood turned and gave her a long appraising look.
“You’ve been gone too long. It’s good to have you back.”
“It’s good to be back,” she said.
“You sure? You look a little pale.”
Nora decided a half-truth was better than a whole lie.
“Um…I went through a breakup a couple months ago. I’m still a little rocky.”
Mrs. Maywood gave her a look of pure sympathy.
“I know what’s that’s like. I’m a little rocky myself these days”
“I’m sorry.” Nora winced, embarrassed. “I’m talking about a breakup and you lost your husband.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t have to apologize for having a rough summer. Trust me, if anyone is going to sympathize with a woman going through a heartache, it’s me.”
“Thank you.” Nora’s face hurt from trying not to cry. “I just…I kind of lost my bearings.”
“And you came back to Sacred Heart to find them?”
Nora nodded.
“Then you’re looking in the right place, dear. If you can’t find them in the church, you can’t find them anywhere.”
“That’s what my mother would say,” Nora said. She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. Was it four o’clock yet?
“Your mother was a very smart lady.”
“So are you,” Nora said. Then she kissed Mrs. Maywood on the cheek. She hadn’t meant to do it. It just happened.
“You were always a sweet girl,” Mrs. Maywood said. “Even if nobody noticed but me.”
Mrs. Maywood winked at her and shooed her out of the kitchen. Nora took her basket through the mudroom and out the backdoor to the deck. The food table was overflowing already with crockpots and casserole dishes covered in foil, cake pans and pie plates and cookies hidden under dishtowels. Nora put her bottle of wine with the other alcohol, her cookies on the dessert table, her baguette with the other breads. All around her various members of Sacred Heart chatted and snacked on crackers with cheese, sipping on wine and American beers, which was a crime since there were so many better options in the giant blue Igloo cooler. She found German beers, Belgian pale ales, some nice IPAs, the good stuff. She went with pear cider. When she pulled her bottle opener keychain out of her pocket to open her bottle, she heard someone laughing behind her.
“Real Catholic girls bring their own bottle openers.”
Nora turned around a saw a woman smiling at her. She had brown hair, blue eyes, and a familiar-looking smile. They had gone to high school together, hadn’t they?
“The Eleventh Commandment,” Nora said. “Thou shalt never leave home without it.” She dangled her keychain from her finger before shoving it into her pocket. “I know you, don’t I?”
“Kelly,” the woman said. “Kelly Anderson. Well, Kelly Richter in high school.”
“Kelly.” Nora snapped her fingers. “Senior English class.”
“That’s it,” she said. “I was there when you got hauled out of class for writing a dirty story and you shocked the cock off that bag of bones, Father Jones.”
“I probably took a year off his life with that story. You go to Sacred Heart?”
“Eight a.m. mass. You?”
“Definitely not eight a.m. mass,” Nora said. “Although I still make it most Sundays. Eight a.m.? You must be a masochist.” Nora winced. Why did she say that? Could she not go four hours without using kink terminology in conversation?
“I have four kids. Of course I’m a masochist.”
“Four? Jesus H. Christ,” Nora said. “You aren’t a masochist. You’re nuts.”
Kelly laughed. “You’re telling me.”
“Are they here?”
“Oh yeah. Let’s see…” They stood at the deck railing and Kelly narrowed her eyes. She pointed at a little girl in a ballet tutu. “That’s Rosalynn, she’s my youngest. She’s five.”
“Adorable,” Nora said because she was supposed to say that. And the girl was adorable.
“There’s Jacob and David over there—my twins. They’re eight. And my eldest is Charity. She’s that tall stick over there with the curly brown hair who is smiling way too much at that boy.”
“How old is she?”
“Eleven last month.”
“Eleven,” Nora said. “That’s terrifying.”
Kelly found
this comment inordinately funny. “You’re telling me, lady. At least once a week I ask myself when I got old enough to have a child who can steal my clothes. What is up with that?”
“Don’t look at me,” Nora said. “I’m not a breeder.”
“I can tell. You look too well-rested.”
“Jealous?”
“Totally.” Kelly smiled when she said it and Nora knew she wasn’t jealous at all. That was fine. Nora didn’t envy Kelly’s life either. That was a good to know, good to feel. Even though things were messy right now, at least Nora knew she wouldn’t have them any other way.
“Is your husband here?” Nora asked.
“He works Saturdays. And Mondays. And Tuesdays. Basically he works all the time so I can stay home with the kids.”
“Do you ever get to see each other?”
“A few hours a week?” she said, shrugging. “But that’s life. When the kids are a little older, he can back off the six-day work weeks a little. Maybe we’ll even get to have sex again someday. I’m thinking 2016 looks pretty good.” Kelly laughed at herself.
Nora took a sip of her beer. Here she’d been feeling sorry for herself over how little time she and Søren got to spend together. Yet it seemed she and Søren, a Catholic priest, were having more sex and spending more time together than this woman and her husband who lived in the same house and slept in the same bed.
“Here’s to 2016 then,” Nora said, holding out her beer. She and Kelly clinked their bottles in a toast. “Thank God for vibrators and dirty minds.”
“Speaking of vibrators and dirty minds…” Kelly said, grinning at the unmistakable sound of a Ducati motorcycle engine roaring up the side of the house.
3
Nora tensed immediately. She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and checked the time—12:30. She had three and a half hours to go before she could leave. Three and a half hours to go without saying anything stupid. Where was her ball gag when she needed it?
“So, do you send your kids to Catholic school or public school?” Nora asked. Kelly had stopped listening. She was staring at Søren as he parked his Ducati motorcycle by Mrs. Maywood’s barn and took off his helmet.
“It’s a nice bike, right?” Kelly said.
Nora sighed.
“Yeah, Ducatis are very nice bikes.”
“How does a Jesuit priest get a hold of a motorcycle like that…” Kelly said. “You have to wonder.”
Nora didn’t have to wonder. She knew exactly how he got the bike. Søren’s father gave it to him as a bribe to quit seminary and Søren took the bike and became a priest anyway.
“You could ask him,” Nora said.
“No way.” Kelly raised her hands while shaking her head. “He makes me way too nervous. Doesn’t he make you nervous?”
“Oh,” Nora said. “Not really. He’s…you know, he’s fine, I guess.”
Oh God, could she sound any stupider?
“Fine is one word for him.”
“He’s a priest,” Nora said.
“Hey, I haven’t gotten laid in a while. Let a girl dream.” Kelly sighed as Søren walked toward the deck. Well, he didn’t walk exactly. He strode. The summer sun glinted off his blond hair as he came toward the house, turning it gold. He had to stop every five feet to hug someone or return a greeting. It was miserable being out in public with him. Her body ached to run to him, to throw her arms around him, to claim him so everyone would know he was hers and she was his. Instead she forced herself to look at the pond in the distance, a spot of silver in a sea of green grass. Kelly sighed again. “I would love to ride his motorcycle, if you know what I mean.”
This was now officially the most awkward conversation of her life.
“I bet he’s got a very, very big engine,” Kelly said, grinning. Nora wanted to throw up. “Wonder what kind of thrust that engine gets.”
“Motorcycles and car motors are measured in horsepower, not engine thrust.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” Nora said. “I need to find the bathroom.”
“Main floor, down the hall,” Kelly said.
Nora turned to go back into the house, and walked straight into a human wall of muscle in a fitted black t-shirt.
“Oh, sorry,” Nora said. “I didn’t mean to run into you.”
“You sure about that?” he asked, smiling down at her. She knew he expected her to say something rude like, “Out of my way, Blondie,” or “Stop being so tall, you asshole. You’re blocking the sun for the rest of us.”
Instead she could only mumble a quick, “Sorry. Bathroom.”
She slipped past him and felt his eyes on her as she made her retreat. Once inside the house she found the bathroom, shut the door, and leaned against the wall. She put her hands over her face and breathed deeply, trying to calm her racing heart. Was this a panic attack? No. Not a panic attack. She was just panicking. She wanted to cry but couldn’t name a reason for why other than “everything in the entire world.” Did Søren know women at his church did that? Stared at him like that? Made dirty jokes about him behind his back? Of course he knew. One didn’t go through life as a six-foot-four blond Adonis with the body of a professional soccer player without people noticing. She knew Søren didn’t care. Usually she wouldn’t care. Usually she would have found it funny. But today she felt like an open wound and everything that touched her hurt.
Nora heard a soft knock on the door and started.
“Almost done.” She washed her hands and dried them, opened the door. Søren was there outside the door.
“All yours,” she said and started to push past him. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to him, forcing her to stand right in front of him.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing,” she said. “How are you?”
“You’re white as a sheet.”
“I’ll go lay on the dock and get some sun. Time to eat yet?”
“Yes. Everyone’s eating. You missed the blessing.”
“Does that mean my food will poison me?” She could only hope.
“Eleanor?”
“I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here,” she said, tears filling her eyes.
“I know.” His voice was tender, caring, his priest’s voice. “But you need to be here.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you belong here, and it’s time you realize it. No one put a Scarlet A on your chest. This church is for human beings, not saints and angels.”
One tear spilled down her cheek and Søren brushed it away with his thumb. It was probably the only time today he would touch her this intimately. All she wanted to do was lean against him, wrap her arms around him, hold him until tomorrow, hold him until forever. But she couldn’t. It wasn’t allowed. Not here. Another reason she didn’t want to be here.
“I should go.” She tried to leave and he stopped her with his hand on the wall, blocking her exit.
“Say something, Eleanor. Talk to me.”
“I’m drowning here,” she said. “You threw me in the deep end of the pond and now I’m drowning. There. I talked to you. Now I need to go. People will notice.”
“Eleanor?”
She kept walking. Her name was not an order.
“Eleanor, turn around.” That was an order.
She turned around, faced him. The hall was lined with photographs from Mrs. Maywood’s life—her parents, her wedding day, her children, her grandchildren lined up on the dock in one picture, swimming in the pond in the next. Happy people. Normal people. Not her people.
“I know you’re drowning,” he said. “I’m the reason you’re here, the reason you’re struggling. Why do you think I want you to struggle?”
“Because you’re a sadist?”
“Because you need to learn how to depend on me again, to need me again.”
“You want me to be weak. Well, it’s working.”
He walked to her and she took a step back. If s
he could have magically made herself disappear right then and there, she would have.
“I would never want you to be weak. It’s a fool’s errand. But you’ve been a dominant so long so you’ve forgotten how to submit to me. Even worse, you’ve forgotten how to trust me. You don’t have to take care of yourself anymore. That’s my job.”
“We shouldn’t even be talking to each other.”
“I’m your priest. We’re allowed to talk to each other in public.”
“If I fuck up here, I could ruin your life.”
“You’re not going to ruin my life. You never could.” He sighed, shook his head. “Do you remember when that coach at your high school assaulted your friend Jordan?”
“Of course I remember.”
“What did you do after she told you?”
“I told her to talk to you.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew we could trust you. I knew…”
“You knew I could help her.”
“Right,” Nora said. “And you did.”
“I’m still the same person I was then. And I love you even more than I did then. You can trust me to help you. Try me.”
“Is that an order?”
“Not an order. A humble request. Let me prove to you I’m worthy of your trust and your submission.”
God, why did he make everything so difficult? Was it not enough she’d given up Wesley for him? Was it not enough she wore her collar for him again? Was it not enough she slept with him again, submitted to him again, let him own her body again? She’d even given up fighting him. And that still wasn’t enough. Did he have to make her need him like she used to? It felt like going backwards. She’d fought so hard for her freedom and independence that giving them up felt like losing the war. Worse, it made her feel like a kid again and not in the good way that people talked about. Being dependent on him again, needing him…it scared her. She’d already lost so much by going back to him. If she lost her independence, would she have anything left?
Something Nice: An Original Sinners Novella Page 2