by Haley Pierce
Tom reached toward her father, then. He wrapped his firm fingers around the man’s shoulders and gave him an evil, penetrating look. He looked like a man on the edge of insanity.
“Take your hands off of me, you Satan,” her father spewed. He tried to escape Tom’s grasp, but he couldn’t lurch from him. Tom’s hands were too strange, too broad.
“Listen here, Pastor,” Tom said gruffly. “I need you to know something. Your daughter, here—the very one you lied to for all those months—is a person. She’s a grown woman who can make her own decisions in life. She can run around and fuck as many people as she pleases, and she doesn’t have to look to any God or any pastor for approval. Do you understand me?”
Nicole’s eyes traced from her father, to Tom, then back to her father, panicked. The look in Tom’s eyes made her brain ache with terror. She felt sure that he would tear into her father in another moment, ripping his face and his Bible to shreds. The moment was so high-strung, rich with danger, and she spun from them and back toward the road. She heard them yelling at each other even more, spitting insults, and she placed her hands over her ears, breathing wildly.
At the intersection of two dirt roads, she gasped, realizing, all at once, that none of this was worth it. She didn’t need to give her virginity away. She didn’t need that dirty money. Chrissy didn’t ultimately want to leave town now, anyway, since she was falling back in line with her ex-boyfriend. And what was Nicole going to do in the real world, when she knew that every step she took and everything she bought was a result of this dirty, sordid affair?
She reached into her purse, then, and she leafed the 50,000 dollar check from its safe position, deep in a pocket and folded exactly once. The orange sunset glimmered against the paper. She swallowed twice, hardly able to breathe, and then she tore the check into two pieces. The moment she did it, she felt great release, a realization that she didn’t have to be a slut to survive. She tore the check into four pieces, then, and then into eight, each time feeling more and more tears rush down her cheeks.
As Tom had said, she was a grown woman. She could do whatever she pleased. And—right then—she knew exactly what she needed. She needed love, like the kind she thought Tom could give her, if only she would rid the “money” factor from their relationship. She needed his kindness. She needed him to step back from his “bid” for her and realize that their relationship meant so much more than 50,000 dollars. It meant they could build a world together. It meant she could look across the field and watch him coming indoors, day after day, for the rest of her life. She didn’t feel she had the ability to convince him.
But beyond that, she also needed Jesus. She’d felt such sadness, hearing her father spew the words “sinner” and “devil” toward her. She’d been raised with love for God in her heart. And she yearned to return to the faith fully, and repent.
She’d done terrible, horrible things. She’d bid her body for money. She’d given in to her sexual desires with Tom, on more than one occasion, although she hadn’t gone all the way. And she’d abandoned her father, without allowing him to repent. What kind of person was she, truly? And how could she trust herself to continue with Tom like this, with such evil lurking in her heart?
She dialed Chrissy’s number from her stance on the road, wondering how long her father and Tom would spend fighting. She asked Chrissy to pick her up immediately, and she begged her not to ask too many questions.
“I’ll explain when I understand it, myself,” she whispered.
Chrissy’s pickup appeared on the dirt road about ten minutes later, rolling heavy across the rocks. Chrissy flashed a bright smile, trying to hide her worried eyes. Nicole crept into the side of the car, and Chrissy paused, lifting her finger.
“You didn’t kill him and leave his truck anywhere, did you?” she asked, her eyebrows high.
Nicole snorted, her heart easing. “Of course I didn’t. I took care of the truck. You know I’m too smart for that.”
Chrissy giggled, turning the truck back toward town. She cranked up the speaker, and the girls took turns singing the chorus of an old country song they both loved. The woman howled about a lost love, one she’d left behind. And deep in the corners of her heart, Nicole wondered if she’d just abandoned the only man who could possibly love her.
“He wouldn’t have seen me as anything but meat, right?” Nicole asked, her voice harsh. “I mean. I did introduce myself as a virgin, looking to get laid. I don’t know how else he could see me.”
Chrissy eyed her. “You spent nearly every night at his house for a week without having sex. I don’t think he saw you as a piece of meat, anymore. I’m not sure what happened back there, but you are so much more than that.”
Nicole frowned. “My father came. He attacked Tom. It was so messy.” She placed her face in her hands, a brief sob escaping her. The world felt like it was rotating backwards. “He punched Tom. And then—Tom started telling him I could sleep with whomever I want. It was so disgusting, Chrissy. I never want to see him again.”
Chrissy placed her hand on Nicole’s back, tracing her spine. “Shh,” she whispered, as Nicole cried on. “What are you thinking? Come on. Tell me.”
“I just want to be left alone, now. I want to go back to my dad. He’s so angry, so impassioned. And I did this to him. I should forgive him, like my mother would have. We should become a family again. And I should avoid Tom. I’m a nut case. I thought I could sell my body. That’s—an insane notion. Normal people do not think this way.”
“No. Don’t think this way. It’s only going to make you sick.”
Chrissy continued to coo as she drove them back to her house off Main Street, tracing Nicole’s spine, whistling along with the music. Nicole’s brain was a mess of information and thoughts, and she cried deep into the night, exhausting herself toward a final resolution.
She’d return to the church. She’d find peace, within herself. And she’d halt her sexual feelings for Tom immediately, like her life depended on it.
After all: her “after life” was depending on what she did, now. And if she repented as soon as possible, perhaps God—and her father—would take her back.
10
After he fought off Nicole’s father, Tom burst toward his truck, leaving the picnic behind. He felt he couldn’t rise above his anger, that it would literally choke him if he didn’t leave the scene. He heard the gruff breaths of Nicole’s father as he tried to chase after him, but Tom was too swift. He cranked the engine and spun his wheels toward the road. His fingers flexed against the steering wheel, aching from where he had struck the old man, moments after Nicole had fled.
But as he drove, he began to calm. And as he began to calm, the reality of what had just occurred hit him like a brick. Nicole had been a light for him in the previous few days, a reason for him to awaken at four in the morning and a great reason for him to come in from the fields. They’d assimilated into a kind of schedule, and he’d grown to appreciate her laugh, her smile, the way she told stories. In many ways, she’d already become his best friend in the world.
And now, it seemed that was all ruined. She’d run away from him and her father. Her thoughts about sleeping with him were probably completely voided. Despite having been s exceedingly careful about everything he’d done with her—working to maintain her virginity until she was ready—it seemed he had ruined it. Just as he ruined everything.
He slammed his brakes at the intersection near his farmhouse, startled, angry. He felt he had lost her, just as he’d lost Mandy. And what would she do with his 50,000 dollars?
That was probably it, he thought then. She still assumed he wanted her for sex, that they were in the midst of a transaction. She couldn’t know how much he wanted her in his life. But she meant so much more to him than that. Perhaps he could tell her. Perhaps it wasn’t too late.
He slammed into his driveway and ran up the steps, considering that this was a far different scene than the one he’d pictured in his mind. He’d imagined
Nicole leaping into his arms, them kissing on the porch with the sun setting behind them. He’d imagined her undoing her dress and standing before him, completely naked, her eyes gleaming with desire. He’d imagined fucking her tenderly, until she begged for him to do it rough. And then he’d oblige her, before completely losing his mind in lust.
The hours of the night stretched before him, then, void of Nicole, and stemmed with loneliness. He reached for a traditional Bud in the fridge, remembering the nice beer he’d left at the picnic site, and he collapsed onto the slumped couch. He watched television mindlessly into the night, mindlessly numbing himself from the pain of his existence.
Nearly two days passed before Tom did much. He hardly showered, and he struck up a traditional bender—the stuff of old Texas lore. He awoke with a beer, only rose from his seat to get another beer, and then bowed his head to a final, 12th or 13th beer in the evening. He was wasting away, killing himself. Abstractly, he knew that he was waiting for Nicole to come and save him. This was the Biblical way of people, wasn’t it? That they would save you?
On the third day, he yanked himself from the couch and rushed to the shower, suddenly filled with a desire to do something about his predicament. If Nicole wasn’t going to come to him, due to her shyness or her thoughts of sin, then he had to find her. He had to convince her that he was different than she thought. He’d bid on her virginity, sure. But he was so much more than the pervert she had ultimately perceived.
He realized, then, that it was Sunday—the day of church. He revved his truck toward the Main Street church, his heart beating quickly with the assurance that she was there. She had to be. He smashed to a stop in front of the whitewashed church, with its steeple penetrating the bright blue sky, and he rolled down his window, his eyes searching the horizon. It was nearly noon. It was nearly time.
Sure enough, the moment the church bell rang, the doors propped open. Churchgoers in long, flowered dresses and grey suits meandered from the belly of the church, their heads bowed. Several of them clung to Bibles, their eyes far away, as if they were still swimming with the spirit.
Nearly one hundred people erupted from the entrance without a single sight of his girl, of Nicole. But Tom pressed on, his head moving forward as the seconds ticked.
And finally, just as he knew she would, she appeared. She wore that simple, red dress, that tucked around her neck and bounded to her toes. Not a single inch of skin showed. Her hair waved easily down her back, and it wasn’t curled or overzealous. She looked conservative, pure. Good. And still, Tom’s groin stirred at the very sight of her.
She turned to speak to someone exiting the church behind her, and Tom’s heart stabbed, realizing she was marching along with her father, the pastor. He placed his hand on her shoulder, bowing his head. His face looked demure, honest, without the repellant anger of the previous days. Tom scratched his beard, sensing the tables had turned.
His mind buzzing, he watched as the pastor appeared to rush back into the church, as if he’d forgotten something. He left Nicole out by the corner, her hands on her hips. She swept her eyes toward the sky before closing them, with her chin tipped high. It appeared she was mid-prayer. But Tom knew he didn’t have much time to lose.
He snuck from his truck and rushed toward her, his cowboy boots clattering wildly. “Nicole,” he cried as he neared her, cornering her.
Her eyes whipped open with panic. Immediately, her body became angular, as if expecting him to strike her, to hurt her. She was protecting herself from his physicality, and the mere fact of this seemed to bleed anxiety through Tom. He halted his rapid movements and laced his fingers through his hair, searching for the right words. She wore no smile. He longed for the smile she’d donned nearly every night they’d been together, cuddling until the dark turned to light and he’d had to rise and flee.
“Nicole,” he whispered. “I know you’re angry with me.”
Nicole didn’t speak. Her lips were in a fine line across her face.
“And you have every right to be. I shouldn’t have bid on you like that, in the end. Ultimately, I learned that, with you, it’s not about the sex. It’s not about anything physical with you. I long to be around you. I long to speak to you and listen to you laugh. You’re the kind of person I want to wake up to in the morning, and the perfect person to go to sleep next to at night. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past week, it’s been that. Please. Understand.” His eyes searched her face, looking for signs of retreat from the pain and panic.
But it seemed she wasn’t giving in to him. She bit her lip, sighing. “Tom. I need you to leave me alone from now on, all right?” Her eyes swerved away from him, taking in the sight of his truck. Her body was still so closed off, all elbows and none of her usual, pulsing curves. She’d hidden them away.
As Tom wrangled with the truth of this, the pastor himself appeared beside them, his eyes dark. He placed his arm around his daughter, guarding her. It was clear: the boundaries had been drawn. “Tom,” he said. He had a slight bruise beneath his eye, where Tom had tapped a punch into him in self-defense. “I didn’t see you at the service,” he said.
“I’m not much for church,” Tom said, his teeth gritted. His eyes swept from one Pinder to the other, and his heart quaked with pain. Why wouldn’t she listen to reason? Why wouldn’t she hear that he longed for more of her than just her virginity? Just days before this, she’d kissed him while he slept. She hadn’t known he’d felt it.
“Tom, I think you should move along, now,” Pastor Michael said then. His voice had none of the zealous energy it had held previously. He was a new man, one completely sponged of his sins. And he was looking at Tom like a judge to a sinner. Tom’s fingers twitched.
“I hope you heard what I said,” Tom told Nicole, then. He spun on his boot, sensing their eyes on his back as he stomped toward his truck. He cranked into the front seat and revved the engine, choosing the country station he’d played for Nicole countless times in his truck. He forced himself to look away from her as he sped the truck back and into the road. He smashed his foot on the pedal and drove too quickly out of town, realizing he’d lost.
He’d lost Nicole, just as he’d lost Mandy. He’d lost companionships once again, and he was bound to spend the rest of his days alone.
But the tears wouldn’t come. He closed his eyes momentarily, nearly losing control of his truck around a curve. He stabbed his foot on the brake in panic and breathed rapidly, shoved to the side of the road. He needed to get it together. He needed to yank his life up by the strings and get back to the old ways: the four a.m. start times, the lonely nights, the long, sunny afternoons. Above everything else, he was a farmer. His place was on the field.
11
Nicole hung her head in the truck, waiting for her father to return from the church. Her heart still pattered recklessly, nearly ten minutes after Tom had left them in a lurch at the front of the church. She’d felt torn between them: her ex-lover and the father she’d just made up with. Standing there, between them, she’d remembered the terror and tragedy of their fight, and she’d longed to erase the memory. And so: she’d shoved Tom even further from her life.
Her father cranked into the pickup, then. He turned toward her, his eyes firm. “I’m sorry that man was ever in your life, Nicole. It’s truly a tragedy that you ever had to spend even a minute with that kind of devil.”
Nicole frowned as her father cranked the engine. Devil? She’d never sensed the work of the devil in Tom. And since she’d made up with her father, she’d been praying about him nearly non-stop, asking the Lord to forgive her for getting naked with him, for having such momentous, sexual feelings toward him.
In the fits of anger after Tom’s fight with her father, she’d rounded upon one, terrible thought: that Tom only wanted her for sex, and that he didn’t respect the God she’d grown up with and loved. And yet: the Tom she’d seen back at the church was pulsing with apology. What was it he’d said? That he didn’t just want her for
sex? That he yearned to be with her, to sleep beside her, to have her—body and soul—in his life?
It sounded too romantic to be true.
As her father drove her back to the home they’d once shared with her mother, Nicole cleared her throat, giving him a side-eyed glance. “Listen, Dad,” she whispered, her voice slightly high-pitched. “I was thinking I might go to Chrissy’s in a bit. Would that be okay?”
“Nicole. We discussed this. That girl is as sinful as they come. She nearly shot me. I suppose you’ve chosen to forget about that.”
“Not forget,” Nicole murmured. “There were so many extenuating circumstances. You know that.”
Her father sighed, jolting the vehicle into park in the driveway. He gazed up at the whitewashed farmhouse, shelled with the backdrop of a bright, blue sky. “I can’t forgive her right now, Nicole. Nor can I forgive him for how he treated your Godly body. Please respect my fatherly wishes, and do not proceed in friendship with either of them.”
Nicole bowed her head, feeling a weight on her shoulders. She opened her mouth for a moment, feeling the words pour from her. “You know, dad, when you sinned—did you expect everyone to forgive you right away?”
Her father didn’t answer for a long time. They listened as cars whizzed by, as one of them honked toward the pastor’s home. But silence beat on.
“Because I believe the word of God declares that we are all sinful, and that we must forgive. Like Jesus,” she whispered. “Mother taught me to forgive. And I think she would have wanted you to, as well.”
Her father cut his hand onto the door handle, his eyes flashing. He sighed. It seemed resolution coursed through him, even as he couldn’t look at her. “I cannot convince you of anything. I have given you all I can in the church. I have given you the word of God, as best as I can. And it’s up to you to know what to do with it.”