by Selena Kitt
Clay’s eyes brightened. “You asked for it...”
“No, no!” Erica protested, twisting from side to side under him so he couldn’t reach her bottom. “But wait… do that again, what you were doing before...”
He frowned. “What?”
Erica put her wrists above her head. “Hold my hands up here. By my wrists. Yes, like that.”
“Now what?”
“Now put it me.”
Clay eagerly complied. Erica sighed happily, feeling him slide inside of her, taking the weight of him, the heat of him, so hot inside she felt like the core of the earth pulling him toward her center.
“Oh, Erica,” he whispered. “Oh God that feels so good. I can’t stand it. I can’t...”
“Hold me down,” she whispered, urging him with her voice, her hips, “Hold me down and take me. Yes, like that. Do whatever you want to me, Clay. I’m totally yours. Do whatever you want.”
“Oh God!” he exclaimed, hand tightening around her wrists, hips thrusting deep, deeper, deepest, Erica taking all of him at the end, feeling his final release not just between her thighs, where he was spilling his seed like a white river of molten liquid, but in the way he squeezed her wrists in his hands, with the same rhythmic pulse, keeping her locked in his little prison of pleasure.
“Mmm.” Erica kissed his cheek as he started to come back into his body. “That was a very good lesson. I learned how to throw newspapers and you...”
Clay lifted his head and looked down at her. “And you have newsprint all over you.”
Erica glanced down to see his handprints on her thighs, her waist, even her breasts. The ink from the papers had rubbed off on his hands and then rubbed off on her skin.
“Something to remember you by.” She giggled. “Now you’d better take me home. I have to meet my best friend at Hudson’s tomorrow to pick out a wedding dress, so I need my beauty sleep.”
“No you don’t.” He kissed her nose and shook his head. “You couldn’t get any more beautiful. If you did, my head would explode.”
“Well we can’t have that. I hate cleaning up messes.”
“That explains the swallowing.”
Erica laughed and punched him in the arm.
Chapter Seven
“Erica?” Leah hesitated in front of Erica’s bedroom, calling softly. She rapped on the door—such a foreign gesture. Before things had gotten so complicated, Leah would have just walked into her room and climbed in bed with her best friend. But they weren’t just best friends anymore. Leah was about to marry Erica’s father, and whether they liked it or not, whether they talked about it or not, that changed everything. Erica’s mood changed like the wind lately. One moment they were the best of friends, the next you’d have thought Leah was responsible for all of the failings of the Western world.
“Go away!” came the muffled reply.
Leah sighed, knocking again. “Erica, can I talk to you?”
Rob could sleep through a nuclear blast, but since Grace was born, Leah had slept lightly and she’d heard Erica leaving the warehouse late at night, coming back in the wee hours of the morning. Leah knew the pattern well—she’d done it herself when she was sneaking out to meet Rob. Erica clearly had a new love interest, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it was Clayton Marshall Webber III.
“It’s almost noon. Are you going to sleep all day?”
Leah heard Erica’s gasp and a moment later the door flew open and Erica stood there in a pink satin robe, holding the ends together with one hand, her hair a tousled mess, eyes bloodshot. Without makeup to cover it, Leah could see the dark circles under them.
“What time did you say?”
“Noon,” Leah repeated, watching Erica bolt to her dresser, rifling through her clothes.
“Shit!” Erica stepped into a pair of panties, pulling them up. “I’m late!”
“For what?” Leah sat on Erica’s bed like she used to, looking around the familiar room, everything frilly and pink. “I thought we could go to lunch at Hudson’s. I wanted to buy you jewelry to wear for the wedding. As my bridal gift.”
“Can’t today.” Erica hooked her bra, pulling a white sweatshirt over her head, making more of a mess of her blond hair. “Have you found a place to have this shindig yet?”
Leah sighed, shaking her head. “I hate to go to the Justice of the Peace. I don’t know how in the world I’m going to plan this wedding on such short notice. I may have to give up the idea, I don’t know. How are we going to find a reception hall on this sort of a notice? It’ll have to be the fastest wedding planned. You’d think I was pregnant or something!”
Erica snorted. “And what about invitations?”
“Well as soon as we know when and where!” Leah rolled her eyes. “Rob said he’d have a courier hand deliver them if he had to, in order to save time. Tomorrow we’re going for the blood test and to apply for the license.”
“Blood test,” Erica muttered. “Right.”
Leah frowned, hesitating before asking, “Erica, where have you been sneaking off to at night?”
Her friend paused as she reached for her dungarees. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on, you can tell me. We’re best friends, remember?” Leah reminded her, watching Erica pull on her pants. “Is it that boy Clay, the one you invited to Christmas dinner?”
“If you must know… yes.” Erica scowled, grabbing a hairbrush off her dresser. “But don’t tell him.”
Leah flushed, shaking her head. “I won’t.”
“I know better.” Erica scoffed. “Now that you’re getting married, you’ll tell each other everything.”
“Why are you so mad at me?” Leah wondered out loud. “Is it because I’m marrying your father? Because I thought we were over that...”
“Over it?” Erica snorted, yanking the hairbrush through a tangle. “Yeah I’m over it. Besides, he’s not my father. And you’re most definitely not my mother.”
“What?”
Erica opened a jar of cold cream on her dresser. “My mother wasn’t even my mother, so as far as I’m concerned, none of you can tell me what to do.”
Leah sat up straight, frowning at her friend’s reflection in the mirror as she spread white stuff over her face. “What are you talking about?”
Erica rolled her eyes. “Look, I know you’re living in your own little world right now, and everyone’s walking on eggshells trying to protect you, but God, Leah, you aren’t the only person in the world. You’re not even the only person in this house.”
Leah’s heart felt like it was beating in her throat. “What do you mean Rob’s not your father?”
“You know the blood test that proved he wasn’t your father?” Erica asked, using tissues to wipe away the white cream on her cheeks.
Leah nodded. She had been so grateful to Father Michael for volunteering to do some digging while she was still at Magdalene House and see if he could prove, one way or the other, if Robert Nolan was her biological father, as Leah’s mother had initially claimed. The test had mercifully come back conclusively ruling him out as her biological father.
“Yeah, well… you and I have the same blood type.” Erica rubbed foundation on her face from her compact with a sponge, covering the dark circles as best she could. “That blood test ruled him out as my father too.”
Leah gaped at her. “How… what…?”
“I’m adopted,” Erica explained patiently, dusting her face with powder. “They adopted me when I was a baby. From Magdalene House. How’s that for a kick in the pants?”
“Wow.” Leah blinked in disbelief. They had talked a little since Leah had come home—Leah had told Erica about living at Magdalene House, the girls she’d met there, her experience of pregnancy and birth, but Erica had been moot about what she’d done and what had happened while Leah was gone. Leah knew something had happened, because she had seen Erica taking part in the Mary Magdalene ritual, but she didn’t know how to appro
ach her about it. How could she tell Erica she’d seen her that night?
Finally, she just blurted it out. “I’m a Magdalene baby, Erica.”
Erica stopped applying her lipstick, only the top one painted. “What?”
“My mother told me. Finally, she told me the truth.” Leah swallowed, meeting Erica’s eyes in the mirror. “She and your mother… they were in the Mary Magdalenes together.”
“I know.” Erica looked thoughtful, painting her bottom lip. “But I didn’t know you were... I should have realized...”
Leah made a face. “It’s not great news, but it’s better than thinking Rob was my father.”
Erica smacked her lips together, turning to face her friend. “Just how much did your mom tell you?”
“Not much.” Leah shrugged, taking a deep breath before taking the plunge. “But I already knew most of it, Erica. I was there… I saw you… I saw your Dad—er… Rob. I saw you both.”
Erica blinked in surprise. “I saw you too.”
“You did?” Leah gasped, wide-eyed. She held out her hand and Erica took it, coming to sit beside her on the bed. “How did it happen? How did you get involved?”
“It’s a long story. It started when I found my mother’s journals, from before I was born... well, adopted. You aren’t going to believe this.” Erica laughed, shaking her head. “But my mother was in love with Father Patrick.”
Leah nodded. “That’s what my mother said.”
“She told you?” Erica raised her finely arched eyebrows. “Anyway, you know me and secrets. I have to poke my nose in everything.”
Leah laughed. “Curious kitty cat.”
“It was all so mysterious and scandalous, and I just kept on, wanting to find out more. I kept thinking I was going to infiltrate this secret society and expose them and what a big story that would be...” Erica laughed at the way Leah was looking at her. “I know, I know, curiosity killed the cat. And before I knew it, I was drugged up and strapped to a cross...”
“They drug you?”
Erica wrinkled her nose. “That’s not all they do.”
“I noticed.” Leah couldn’t get the images out of her mind, the Marys in white being pleasured on one half of the room, the Magdalenes in red being gagged and bound, sometimes whipped, on the other.
“How in the world did you get involved?” Erica wondered out loud.
“There was a girl at Magdalene House,” Leah explained. “I told you about her. The redhead who reminded me of you. She was one of the Magdalenes. She told me about it because she wanted me to come with her for the ritual. I guess they were paying girls to be, like, waitresses…?”
“Oh the attendants. The girls in blue?”
“Yes,” Leah agreed. “I mean, it paid a fortune. Fifty dollars! I thought I could use the money to run away from Magdalene House with my baby. Besides, I didn’t really quite believe her, not at first. I just thought… I don’t know what I thought. But I didn’t expect to walk into that...”
“Who would?” Erica chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. “Anyway, once I found out that Daddy… Rob… was involved, well… what could I do? If I told anyone, he’d get in trouble too. Besides, they make it pretty clear, once you’re in, it’s a lifetime sort of commitment. If you tell… there are consequences.”
“Father Patrick told you that?”
Erica gave a little shudder, reaching for one of her Keds. “He scares me, Leah.”
“He scares me too.” Leah remembered the way he’d been at their dinner table, so smug and patronizing, telling her she was a sinner in the eyes of God, that her baby was a bastard, unclean, and would remain unbaptized. After everything she’d seen, knowing now what she did about what Father Patrick had done, not only to Erica, but to Erica’s mother as well, his holier-than-thou attitude astounded and offended her.
But of course he thought he was above them, above it all. Untouchable. Leah had been around nuns and priests her whole life, and she’d learned her lessons well. It was hard not to think of them all as infallible, even invincible. She remembered her mother’s words—he was like a living god—and shivered. They took young, impressionable girls and brainwashed them into their ritualized sect, drugged them, abused them, and used their years of Catholic indoctrination about the infallibility and irreproachability of the church to keep them from revealing the secret.
It made Leah burn with anger. “It all scares me, Erica. I’m afraid for you. It’s like some well-oiled machine. The Mary Magdalenes have sex with the priests and the girls who are unlucky enough to get pregnant end up at places like Magdalene House, forced to give up their babies. And the church profits from it all. I don’t care how much hush money they give them, it’s not enough. It could never be enough!”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Leah hesitated, puzzled at her friend’s sarcastic reaction “My mother said they make double that on the babies they adopt out. They’re profiting from this everywhere you turn. Even the girls who aren’t Magdalene’s—I told you about that sweet woman, Jean, the one who was mentally retarded? Her family just left her there, and they put her to work in the laundry. And they get away with it. Either they brainwash everyone into not talking about it, or if that doesn’t work, they scare them silly. Besides, who’d believe it, even if you did say something? It’d be your word against… what, a thousand clergy?”
Erica’s smile was grim as she came up from tying her shoe. “I know.”
“Those poor Magdalene girls,” Leah murmured. “My friend, Marty, she ran away to Australia so she could keep her baby. She agreed to an arranged marriage and went halfway across the world just to get away.”
Erica hopped off the bed, lifting up the pink bed skirt, looking for her other Ked. She pulled it out, triumphant, but then she sneezed, rubbing her eyes. “Yeah, well, at least the Magdalenes can have more babies.”
Leah gasped, feeling tears sting her eyes. “What a cruel think to say, Erica. You can’t just replace one baby with another. It doesn’t work like that. People keep telling me, ‘You’ll get married and have another…’ Even my own mother said that. A baby isn’t like a pair of shoes or a toothbrush.”
Erica stood, pulling her blouse up, exposing her belly, yanking her dungarees low with her other hand. “See that?”
“Your appendix scar?”
“They took out more than my appendix.”
“What do you mean?” Leah looked over at her as Erica sat, pulling on her other tennis shoe.
“They sterilized me.” Erica bent to tie her shoe, her voice muffled. “They sterilize all the Marys.”
Leah blinked, too stunned to speak. The Marys don’t get pregnant. That’s what Marty had told her. Or had she said can’t get pregnant?
“Oh Erica...” Leah put a hand on Erica’s shoulder but her friend shook it off. “I had no idea...”
“Spilled milk and all that.” Erica shrugged. “Turns out, my mother—Susan—she had the same scar. She was adopted by her mother, who also a Mary and had the same scar. All from Magdalene House.”
“Oh my God.” Leah put her head in her hands. “How could they?”
“Anyway, I’m late.” Erica got up, heading toward the door.
“Wait, Erica,” Leah called. Her friend turned, annoyed. “My mother said your father—Rob had made some sort of deal with Father Patrick, to keep you out of it...”
Erica raised her eyebrows. “How ironic.”
“Do you think...” Leah didn’t even want to think it, let alone say it, but she had to. “All those pictures we found. Those movies. Do you think that was the trade-off he made?”
“I don’t know what Dear Daddy is into, or how far into it he is,” Erica snapped. “You know him better than I do. What does he say?”
“I haven’t asked him,” Leah admitted.
“Well, you’re going to marry him,” Erica reminded her. “Maybe you should do that before you take a walk down the aisle with the man?”
“I’m not sure I want
to know,” Leah breathed.
Erica laughed. “Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.”
Then she was gone, down the hall and out the front door.
Leah went out to the living room and turned on the television, sitting on the sofa, but not really watching the episode of Tic Tac Dough. She was too lost in thought, too buried in never ending questions that seemed to have no answers. Tic Tac Dough gave way to soap operas—Search For Tomorrow, followed by Guiding Light—but the drama unfolding on screen was nothing compared to the drama unfolding in her own life.
Finally, she got up, stomach rumbling—Solie had packed the refrigerator full of Christmas leftovers—and she glimpsed something on Rob’s desk under the loft. She walked over, seeing it was an envelope addressed to Sergeant Robert Nolan. The return address was simply U.S. Army. Leah knew her future husband had been a sergeant in the army during WWII, but she and Erica had been young then and she didn’t remember much.