by Moriah Jovan
Giselle’s lip curled, but she had begun to consider it lately as she got another year older—and a lot more tired.
Tired of going to church and hearing about how to be a better wife and mother, being asked to take on extra tasks because she didn’t have a family to take up her time, feeling the outsider not because she had unorthodox opinions, but because she was a single woman in a church that was all about family.
“Celibacy’s not natural at our age, Giz. We’ve had this conversation before.”
Tired of not having a warm, breathing, naked man in bed with her every night, a man who would understand her and love her in spite of the sharp edges she didn’t want dulled, a man who would make all these years of celibacy worth the wait.
Giselle closed her eyes and took a deep, soft breath now that she had a face and a body to go with her yearning—that beautiful man with the burn scars and the magnificent green eyes who exuded sex and power, who had disapproved of her for reasons she didn’t know. She remembered his face and wondered how she could be so stupid as to allow herself—again—to fantasize about a man who was unavailable to her.
“Okay, out with it. Who is he?”
Damn Sebastian, his eye for detail, his unerring gut instincts. “I— I don’t know,” she admitted.
“What did he do to you?”
He took my breath away.
She looked down at her scarlet linen skirt and picked at a piece of nonexistent lint. “He was contemptuous of me,” she murmured. “I don’t know why. It made me mad and then we had an argument and then I— We . . . kissed.”
“That’s—uh, different,” he said finally, surprise heavy in his voice. “You let a strange man in your personal space long enough for him to kiss you?”
She could feel the flush creep back up her face and deepen at the memory of that kiss. She cleared her throat. “Um, well, I— I, uh . . . Actually, I kissed him.” Sebastian stared at her as she haltingly told him what happened, his astonishment growing with each word.
“When did this happen?”
“In April. At work. Hale’s client.”
“So that’s why you’ve been moping around for the past four months like a kicked puppy.” She said nothing. “He was contemptuous of you but he wants to fuck you.”
“I think so, yes. I don’t understand.”
“So find out who he is from your boss and ask him.”
Her head snapped up, her eyes wide in horror. “Oh, I don’t think so. The man dresses more expensively than you do.”
Sebastian said nothing to that. She knew he would empathize with any man of wealth beset by women whose interest in him was driven solely by his net worth.
“I can’t— There’s just no way I could work that out without looking like a whore.” Especially with that face, which must make it exponentially more difficult for him. “Besides, he made it clear what he thought of me.”
“What makes you think he’s a Rearden?” Sebastian asked slowly.
“He’s a warrior. You can tell. He’s bigger than you. He’s— The way he looked at me?” She sucked in another deep breath and released it slowly.
Sebastian pursed his lips. “You better be careful with that, Giz. Not many men could throw a woman on the bed, fuck her until she can’t walk, make her do exactly what he wants her to do—and then not carry that outside the bedroom. Bigger than me, huh? I can pick you up and toss you over my shoulder.”
“Yeah, a lot of guys could do that. No one’s ever had the balls to try. That’s my point.”
“No, no LDS man has ever had the balls to try. You haven’t given anyone else half a chance.”
She said nothing else for a moment. There was that other thing—
“He, um . . . he called me Lilith.”
“So he knows his art well enough to catch the resemblance.”
“That’s not the way he meant it, Sebastian. It wasn’t a compliment.”
He gave a Gallic shrug. “That only means he definitely wants to fuck you.”
“And that he’s pissed about it,” she said, trying to be matter-of-fact, to recover her nerves. “It doesn’t make any difference. I’m not going to throw myself at a rich man, much less one who doesn’t like me.”
“Would you fuck him if you got the chance?”
She looked at Sebastian without seeing him, her tongue running over her teeth in thought. Finally, she drew in a deep breath and whispered, “In a heartbeat.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened and he pulled away from her, blinking. “Giz,” he murmured, “that’s— Uh— Wow. You’re about at the end of your rope, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. I am.” She glanced at the clock and saw that she should have left fifteen minutes ago.
Sebastian relaxed again, took a sip of his wine, savored it, then lapsed into brooding. Giselle said nothing for a long while, too engrossed in her own thoughts to care much about his, but the lengthening silence finally caught her attention.
“Okay, I spilled my guts to you, but you’re the one swilling expensive wine like it’s orange juice. What’s your problem?”
Sebastian’s mouth twitched in thought and he still wouldn’t look at her. He took another sip. “Same as yours. I want a family. A wife, kids.”
That startled her. “Where’s this coming from? You’ve been a libertine since you decided proselytizing was for the birds halfway through your mission.”
“I haven’t fucked a woman since Vanessa left. Three years ago.”
She knew that; it was downright noteworthy. Possibly worrisome.
“I’m almost forty. I’d like to have someone at my funeral besides you and Knox—provided Fen hasn’t managed to kill either of you by then. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just getting too old to be that profligate, plus I think I maxed out my condom budget.”
Giselle chuckled.
“Ah, I don’t even know why I think I could have a relationship that lasts longer than a week and doesn’t crumble the minute I get out of bed.”
“You were with Vanessa for three months. That’s a record for you.”
He shrugged. “You notice I didn’t beg her to stay or chase after her when it was time for her to go back to school. And I sure as hell wasn’t interested in playing house with a twenty-year-old who was in love with someone else anyway.”
“Did that bother you?”
“Of course not. I’m an opportunist.”
“Was. Talk about my celibacy being unnatural.”
“Okay, so that makes me more pathetic than you are. What am I missing, Giz? I’m not hideous. I’m semi-literate. I have a fairly decent job and I can pay my bills.”
She pursed her lips. “For you, it’s all about the clothes. You go around in your cutoff jeans seven-eighths nekkid, strutting around like a Parisian peacock without a dime to your name, you’re relaxed, funny, having a good time. It rains women. I’ve seen you break out that freight train mojo, French accent optional, and damn, it works like a charm—and it would get any other man thrown in jail for assault. So you pick one or two, fuck ’em, send ’em home, and everybody had a good time.
“But then you put on a suit or a tux, you turn into cool King Midas and everything is Serious. Business. You don’t smile or laugh. You rarely speak. You’re totally unapproachable. The minute you put on that black suit—you need to find another color, by the way—women become the enemy and Versace is your suit of armor.”
“Giz, that’s not fair. I never wear Versace.”
“You need to find some way to mix the King Midas with the Freight Train, some workable concoction of your multiple personalities. Oh, I know. Buy some khakis.”
“Money and sex don’t coexist in my brain, Giz. You know that. It’s either one or the other and society—society functions—all about money. And I’m sure as hell not thinking about money when I’m up to my eyeballs in burnt umber and beautiful women.”
Giselle thought about that a minute. “Well, what about one of your clients? Don’t tell me you’ve not run
across one tall, curvy blonde CEO somewhere out there?”
“I’m Satan, remember? The minute a CEO figures out she has to call me to come bail her out, my chances are reduced to less than nil.”
She sighed. “If that reputation bothers you so much, stop being so subtle. Stop coddling people, letting them think they’re doing all the work and all you’re there to do is milk their bank accounts. Every time you go into a company, they see what they want to see—and you let them. You lead them gently to their enlightenment, you don’t force them to face their weaknesses head-on, then they think they did it all themselves. You’d never let me get away with that. All I ever hear is ‘Suck it up, princess.’”
“Well, of course. I don’t have time to be your invisible hand. Besides, people who can’t face their weaknesses are boring and I refuse to live with a boring woman.” He paused. “So are you going to church today or not?”
She sighed. “Not, I guess. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go today anyway, so I got Sister Evans to substitute teach for me.”
“Why? You like to teach.”
Giselle pursed her lips. “This week’s topic is the law of chastity.” Sebastian gaped at her for a split-second before he burst out laughing. “Me teaching a bunch of married women what does and does not constitute chastity is about as fun as going to church on Mother’s Day and being asked to babysit since, you know, I must not have anything better to do.” She scowled at him. “Shut up. It’s not funny.”
“Yes it is.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, still laughing. “Okay, well. Since you’re not going to church, come play tennis with me. That ought to make you feel better.”
“All right, but put a shirt on. I get tired of wading through the drool you leave in your wake.”
“Heh. Cheesecake after?”
“Absolutely not.”
“They have the low-carb version now.”
“Oh? Well, okay. You’re buying.”
“I always do.”
* * * * *
7: WHOSOEVER LOOKETH ON A WOMAN
When is this going to end?
Bryce looked at his watch. Ten more minutes of home and family. Why had he come to church today?
To purge Giselle Cox.
He closed his eyes and swallowed. He could only hope that the subject of chastity wouldn’t rear its ugly head, but the second it crossed his mind, the speaker referenced cleaving unto one’s wife. He hadn’t cleaved unto any woman in years.
An ache grew like a cancer behind Bryce’s breastbone.
Chastity was relatively easy, self-stimulation notwithstanding, when a man had a burnt-to-a-crisp face that made women flinch.
Until her, the Chouteau County prosecutor’s lover. No flinching there—just raw lust.
Brains. Muscle. Weaponry.
That kiss, the one she’d initiated, the one he’d taken away from her, the one she couldn’t control or take back.
Bryce knew what he wanted from a woman. He’d come to terms with it halfway through his marriage, but went mostly without because he wouldn’t beg for bad sex. Good thing, too, since Michelle had had a habit of indiscriminately fucking anyone else who appealed to her.
He looked around at the chapel, which was not that different from the one he and his family had attended when they lived just a couple of miles away, across the Missouri-Kansas state line in Mission Hills. Fundamentally identical to any Mormon church building, it was comfortable and spartan in its bland décor with no crosses or crucifixes. No distractions.
Bryce hadn’t set foot in one but a few times since the fire. Had he expected anything to change in the past five years?
He bowed his head for the closing prayer, feeling nothing but bitterness and anger at the abandonment of a God he’d served so faithfully for over three decades.
He’d subverted his nature and quelled his base desires.
He’d followed church teachings to the best of his ability, all the while ignoring philosophies that called to his intellect.
He’d fulfilled his father’s expectations as a good and righteous priesthood holder in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—
—and spent every day of it in absolute misery.
He should have listened to his best friend, his college roommate, the only person who had ever told him the truth.
*
“You don’t want Michelle! You’re marrying her because your father bought her act and you’re going along with his program—as usual. She’s lying to you.”
“I think I’d have been able to figure that out by now.”
“You’re too invested in being pure and righteous to give a shit. What you are is pressured. The minute you got off the plane from your mission, your dad started in on you, hammering you to find a nice girl to take to the temple. Well, I’m here to tell you, pal—Michelle. Ain’t. It.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her.”
“Oh, other than that she’s a promiscuous, manipulative, deceitful cunt?”
“She’s not a c— That’s not true.”
“Cunt, Bryce. Say it. For once in your life, call it what it is. Cunt.”
Bryce said nothing, but he felt sick to his stomach for even hearing it, much less that his best friend had said it—about his fiancée.
“Don’t you walk away from me. Someone has to give you the facts of life and I’m designating myself the official bad guy. Your father is too damned myopic to see her for what she is. Great guy, your dad, but unbelievably naïve.”
Bryce’s mind had tied itself in a knot by this time and his soul hurt. “You have never been able to back up what you say about her.”
“You know what? You’re exactly right. So let’s talk about you instead. I notice the women you like to talk to: Smart. Edgy. I notice the type of women who catch your eye: Muscular. Solid. A woman you can throw at a bed and fuck. Hard.”
Bryce stared at him, shocked. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“Oh, what? That I actually noticed it or that I called you on it? You’re not exactly the mild-mannered and slow’n’easy type of guy. Peter Priesthood? Not you. You play football like a savage. No one on campus will play racquetball with you anymore. You’ve publicly humiliated more than one of your professors and then forced them to defend the grades they gave you in retaliation.”
Bryce didn’t see himself that way. The man his best friend had described was . . . horrible. Not a nice guy. Totally not worthy of holding the priesthood.
“But get you to church or with your dad and your spine melts. You just can’t admit that the women you like are the ones who’ll go toe to toe with you intellectually and make you work to get them backed in a corner—and then you go in for the kill every single time. Funny thing? They like it. They come back for more, stronger, better, to throw it right back at you and the harder you have to work, the more you like it. They probably like sex that way, too. I’ll bet you’ve wondered more than once what it’d be like to slam one of those women up against a wall and fuck her.”
Bryce couldn’t breathe. How had he known? He fought those images constantly, the ones that came to him unbidden when in the company of women he found smart and . . . a little dangerous. He wrestled with those temptations and had gone so far as to stop talking to women he’d thought about in that way. He knew he couldn’t resist them if he spent any time with them, especially the brunette starlet who’d propositioned him with an explicit description she must have pulled straight out of his fantasies.
He gulped at that memory, at his desires, at his shame—because he’d had to stop and think about whether he wanted to say no or not.
“That’s who you are. Accept it, grab it, enjoy the hell out of it, go on with your life. There is no reason for you to deny who you are. You can still go to church and be a good person. The church doesn’t care how you like sex as long as you’re faithful to your wife. Face up to who you are and what you want, find a woman who wants the same things you want, who can match you in brai
ns and in bed and you’ll be just fine. There is no sin in that.”
“No, I— That’s not me. That’s not who I want to be.”
“You’re never going to be your dad and there’s nothing wrong with that. Fuck him if he can’t appreciate you for who you are.”
Bryce’s jaw ground and his hands clenched as he fought the urge to plow his fist in his roommate’s face.
“Gah. Fine. Whatever. Go ahead and marry Michelle. I’ll support you, I’ll be your best man, and I’ll never speak of it again once the vows are said. But I’m telling you now, you’re lying to yourself. Even if Michelle isn’t what I think she is and you have a nice, quiet little life together, it’ll still be the worst mistake you ever make—and you’ll live with it every single miserable day, wondering what else you could’ve had if you’d had an ounce of common sense and half that much courage.”
*
Bryce bent over and buried his head in his hands, shuddering from the agony of that conversation ringing through his head even after twenty years. Recalling it was a fairly frequent ritual by now.
Now, on top of everything else, he lived with the anger and bitterness of a disillusioned zealot: the irreconcilable differences between what he wanted and what his father had expected of him; Michelle’s infidelity and public piety; Michelle’s war of manipulation and deceit against which he had no defenses—
—and most especially the deaths of his four children and in such a catastrophic manner.
Bryce had no place in these pews.
Yet . . .
This was his cultural identity, a good portion of his own identity and what made him him. This church, this lifestyle, was all he’d ever known, all he’d ever wanted to know. He’d done everything asked of him, but now he felt empty, abandoned, unloved—and had since the week after he’d walked out of the San Diego temple at twenty-four a married man.
Bryce went home after sacrament meeting unable to stomach any more.
Nobody had approached him to say hello. He’d attracted some glances, but mostly of the preoccupied type, as if they had so much on their minds that they didn’t see him. He understood that. He remembered those days, his years as a lay clergyman on the fast track to bishop, when Sunday meant meetings from dawn until dusk, when he had had too much to think about to welcome new people. He didn’t want to have to introduce himself and then explain where he came from and his presence there.