Marriage and Murder

by Penny Reid

  I twisted my fingers and faced Sienna and Shelly again, a lump in my stomach. “No. Listen. It’s bad. I can’t seem to get enough of him. I think about doing it—with him—all the time. The poor man has me waking him up in the middle of the night.”

  Even now, even after the swelling guilt, even after promising myself to be less of a sex fiend, what had I been doing leading up to our wedding shower while Cletus persisted in his diligence to help my mother?

  I ignored everything of pressing importance and filled my time with Cletus.

  I ignored Mr. Leeward’s calls about my “inheritance,” overwhelmed by it all. I ignored and pretended not to notice the way folks in town stared and whispered after my arrest, despite the fact that I hadn’t actually been charged with anything. I ignored and avoided all wedding planning activities, suggesting to both my mother and Ashley that we just call the whole thing off. Neither would hear of it and, despite not attending, my momma helped with the last-minute details for the wedding shower. She also finalized the remainder of the wedding week plans, tasking her assistant to be present, just in case she was “busy elsewhere,” to ensure the events progressed flawlessly.

  At least she was finally out of bed, doing something.

  What I did: I went to work; I took my momma dinner and gave her hugs, cheered by the slight improvement in her mood but concerned by this plan for her to go on the run; I daydreamed about taking advantage of my sweet man. And when I wasn’t ignoring or doing any of the above, I was literally taking advantage of my sweet man.

  My relationship with Cletus felt like the only thing in my life going right—so very, very right—and I worried. Giving our shared moments so much of my focus and attention didn’t seem proper for me or fair to him.

  Shelly and Sienna spent a few seconds sharing a look, but it was Shelly who said, her tone flat as a board, “Yes, poor man.”

  “Stop. I’m being serious.” I half leaned, half sat on the porch rail. “Shelly, you said something earlier today about him showing up tired to work?”

  “Yes. He’s been tired and sloppy. I sent him upstairs for a nap last week.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I’m the reason.” I clutched my forehead, ready for a reprimand. It was not okay for me to be tiring him out so much when his schedule was so full.

  “I feel so sorry for him,” Sienna said, not sounding sorry for anyone.

  Ignoring her comment, I continued, “I’m being selfish, I know I am. But he keeps going along with it. I’m worried.” Now that I was actually talking about things out loud, I realized the extent to which selfishness had cast a shadow over my self-image. I was not this person. I was not. I will be better . . . after tonight.

  “Jennifer, you are mixed up.” Sienna sighed. I felt her examination of me. “But you shouldn’t be worried. If Cletus wanted you to stop or pause or give him a breather, he’d ask.”

  “I don’t know that he would. He loves me, I know he does, and sometimes I think he’d never say no, even if he wanted to.”

  “Jenn, is that really what you think?”

  I twisted my lips, peeking at Shelly. “Maybe?”

  “No, Jenn. No.” Sienna shook her head adamantly. “Cletus is one of the most self-actualized people I know. If he didn’t want to have sex with you—or even if he did in general but needed a break—he would tell you. He’s the sort of person who is always going to prioritize telling you the truth over worrying about your feelings. I know this because he and I have this in common.”

  “You care more about being honest with Jethro than hurting his feelings? Really?”

  “Telling the truth will always hurt less than a lie.”

  I sighed, feeling a little better, but . . . not really.

  “Agreed.” Shelly lifted her water glass toward Sienna. “Given Cletus’s inability to spare yours—or anyone else’s—feelings, I don’t understand why you’re worried.“

  “Because it doesn’t change the fact that I’m lusting after him like a harlot instead of focusing on things that matter. What does that say about me?”

  “That you are a harlot?” Shelly guessed.

  “Exactly.”

  Shelly’s confusion was obvious. “And?”

  I glared at her. “Shelly.”

  “I’m with Shelly on this.” Sienna tilted her wineglass toward Shelly. “Harlots have orgasms. Given the choice between harlotry and chastity with the man I love—for me personally—I’m going to choose harlotry ten times out of ten.”

  “No, y’all. I’m being disrespectful. I’m thinking of him like some sort of sex toy.”

  “As you should.” Shelly nodded, like this was only right and just.

  “Oh my God, Shelly.” I covered my face and peeked through my fingers. They didn’t understand. How could they? “Listen, I’ve been raised to approach sex like any good, Christian Southern woman should approach everything else in life.”

  Sienna and Shelly once more swapped looks.

  “Go on. How does any good, Christian Southern woman approach life?” Sienna egged me on.

  “Carefully. With restraint, hospitality, and politeness. But also, without embarrassing my family.”

  “Or enjoying yourself too much?” Shelly said.

  I squirmed.

  “No, Jennifer. Shelly is right.” Sienna stood from her seat, and I heard her steps cross to me before she peeled my hands away. “Listen to yourself. You are talking about a man you sincerely, deeply, soulfully love. And who loves you just the same. I may have been raised in a Catholic family, but my parents spared me the shame when they taught us about sex. In fact, I probably could’ve benefitted from a little bit of shame.”

  I huffed, not understanding. “What does—”

  “Here.” Shelly set down her water glass and skootched to the end of her seat. “You’re the one who brought up God, Jenn. So let’s talk about God. Do you think, honestly, God would give us these bodies that are capable of doing and feeling these glorious sensations if he wanted us to feel shame about it?”

  I said nothing, but I had the thought, She sounds like Cletus.

  “But that doesn’t mean we turn it—sex or anything else—into the center of our universe.” Sienna used her grip on my hand to thread our fingers together, looking at me like I was cute and wonderful, but also maybe like she felt a little sorry for me. “Take tomatoes as an example.”

  “Tomatoes?”

  “If all you ever did was think about tomatoes, all you did was eat tomatoes and buy tomatoes and live your life with the singular goal of surrounding yourself with as many tomatoes as possible in order to achieve peak tomato lifestyle while ignoring other relationships and responsibilities, that would be a waste of a life and ultimately bring nothing but unhappiness. And you’d eventually die of cancer from eating so many tomatoes.”

  “I . . . uh—” I laughed, not following.

  “It’s the same thing with sex. Or money. Or fame. Or fortune. Or anything else that might feed a very specific part of your psyche, maybe even speak to a piece of your soul. But no one ‘thing’ on earth is ever going to satisfy you completely, forever.” She released my hand and used her fingertips to push a strand of hair from my temple, gifting me a patient, gorgeous smile.

  I was so mesmerized by the sparkly charisma of Sienna’s stellar smile, I muttered, “You haven’t had sex with Cletus,” without thinking.

  Shelly barked a laugh. It was so sudden and unexpected, especially since she rarely smiled, let alone laughed, it startled me out of my Sienna-smile haze. Heat crawled up my cheeks.

  “Oh my goodness.” Shelly wiped at her eyes, a big old grin on her exquisite features.

  Sienna, also laughing, shook her head and stepped back, crossing her arms as she considered me. “Well, I could say, ‘You’ve never had sex with Jethro,’ but that’s the thing. I don’t love Cletus like you do. You don’t love Jethro like I do. Neither of us love Beau like Shelly does.”

  “But that’s also part of the problem.” I ap
pealed to both of them equally. “What we’re doing, it doesn’t feel like ‘making love’ sometimes.”

  A hint of concern dampened Shelly’s lingering grin. “What does ‘making love’ feel like?”

  I thought about it for a moment, having trouble finding just the right words, so I settled for the first that came to mind. “Warm, cozy, sweet, sincere. I guess, in my teenage fantasies, what I always thought it would be like.”

  “And what you’re doing with Cletus now . . .?” Shelly lifted an eyebrow, her concern persisting.

  “It feels—” Heat rose anew to my cheeks, my ears, up my neck, but I ignored it and forced the words out. “Sometimes rough, hot, hard, painful, but in a really good way, you know? It makes me feel lost but awake. I don’t know how to describe it, I guess.”

  Sienna blinked a few times, like my description had caught her off guard, but she said, “That’s a pretty good start.”

  I wasn’t finished. “It feels animalistic, primitive. While making love feels more civilized, enlightened, refined—”

  “Polite,” Shelly supplied, crisp and succinct. “You think making love is polite and the other—let’s call it ‘humping like rabbits’—is rude?”

  I cringed at the phrase she used, but I supposed it was a fair description. “Maybe. Does that make sense?”

  “It does.” Sienna cut in. “But what I don’t think you understand is that part of the benefit—the joy—of being in a fully consensual relationship with someone is that you get to do whatever it is you want to do with that person—as long as they consent.”

  “Consent is key.” Shelly leaned back in her chair again, folding her hands over her stomach. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s between you and Cletus, and no one else. You and Cletus.”

  I frowned, processing this statement, It’s between you and Cletus, and no one else.

  “Plus, you love each other. If you both want to hump like rabbits, then hump like rabbits. If you want to make love, make love. If you want to dress up and role-play something completely scandalous, do it.” Sienna laughed, sounding joyful. “You get to share your kink, whatever that is, with someone who is amazing, and who adores you. So let him share it.”

  “My kink . . .” What even was my kink? Did I know? Did everyone have a kink? What if I didn’t have a kink?

  “And when he wants to share his kink with you, be open to it,” Shelly added.

  Sienna nodded, like this point was extremely important. “Yes, be open to kink.”

  Goodness! Did Cletus have kinks?! He’s never mentioned any. Just the thought of Cletus sharing his kinks made me want to find him right now, demand a list, and start . . . doing it, whatever it was.

  “But, if you hate his kink, tell him.” Shelly’s voice turned stern. “No one should be forcing another person into nonconsensual kinkery.”

  “Yes! That.” Sienna pointed at Shelly but continued to address me gently, “If you don’t like one of his kinks, or he doesn’t like yours, talk about it. Find new kinks together. The sex part of a successful relationship is all about finding someone who has compatible kinks, and then indulging them. Together.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  *Jenn*

  “Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.”

  Edgar Allan Poe

  I took three things away from my conversation with Sienna and Shelly:

  1. Lusting after Cletus didn’t make me fundamentally weird or wrong.

  2. What happened between me and Cletus was no one’s business but ours. If he was happy, I shouldn’t fret unless he spoke up and expressed concern.

  3. I couldn’t let my desire for Cletus become the center of my universe. Whether I liked it or not, there were other things needed doing, other situations I’d let linger in favor of indulging my Cletus fantasies. It was time to confront those things and situations. Once done, I could get back to the Cletus fantasies, in moderation.

  Which was why I’d decided to stop by my mother’s house after the wedding shower instead of heading home with my man. There’d be plenty of time for us to be wrapped in each other. Neglecting present pressing issues and worries would only make those issues and worries worse in the long run.

  In the spirit of confrontation, I knocked on my momma’s door, waited a tick, then entered. “Momma? I’m here, and I brought you food from the shower. Are you feeling better?”

  I understood why my momma couldn’t come to the wedding shower. Cletus had suggested she wear gloves all day to avoid leaving fingerprints, but we both knew this was a silly idea. She couldn’t wear gloves on a sunny spring day without raising eyebrows and suspicions, even more suspicions than her absence from society.

  Most folks had just assumed she’d been torn up about my father’s death, seeing as how they’d been married for so long and had two children together. In the end, we’d decided to perpetuate this story by having her feign a lingering illness instead of attending the shower at the Winston homestead. Of course, the unmarked van along the street outside her house raised a few eyebrows, and folks were starting to whisper more and more about the possibility of her being a suspect.

  They didn’t whisper these thoughts to me, obviously. Especially since I’d been the one arrested.

  Regardless, I did feel badly about continuing to keep Ashley in the dark and hoped I’d get a chance to make things right in the future. I’ll throw her wedding shower! Maybe I’ll ask Drew to jump out of the cake. It was an idea I tucked away for later.

  “I’m in the back office, dearest. I felt a little better, so I decided to finalize the seating plan for the reception.” Her wan voice traveled down the hall, and I knew some of the words were for the benefit of the FBI, still watching the house from the road and listening in daily.

  I carried the covered plate of food to the office and stopped just inside the doorway. She’d been telling the truth; my mother sat in the office chair working on the seat assignments, a pile of RSVP cards on one side of the keyboard, a printed-out spreadsheet on the other, and a seating diagram on the computer screen.

  “You do look sick still,” I said, even though she looked great. Turning to face me and wearing a small smile, I noted that she’d showered, put on makeup, did her hair, and had dressed in a cream-colored pantsuit, the jacket hanging on the back of her chair. My heart did a sad flip-flop because it was the outfit she’d planned to wear to the wedding shower today.

  My momma waved me forward, opening the notebook we used to write messages back and forth when I visited. This had been my idea and started up right after I’d been released at my arrest. It was so nice to “talk” to her again. Understanding the extent to which she was being watched by the law had been a relief. Now we could circumvent their systems.

  Placing the loaded plate on top of her desk, I said, “I have just a few simple things, since I knew you weren’t feeling well,” while unwrapping a giant plate covered in a sampling of the yummiest dishes: spinach dip and homemade pumpernickel bread, veggies and smoked salmon dip, fancy cheeses and artisan sea salt crackers, sausage pie, coleslaw, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, green beans with bacon and onions, and collard greens (also with bacon).

  “I suppose I should eat something.” Her eyes twinkled but her voice sounded pitiful.

  I worked to keep my laugh at bay as she pointed to what she’d just written in the notebook while also digging into the food with gusto.

  “Please do eat, at least the crackers,” I said as I read her short note,

  Do you have pictures of the shower? How are you? You look wonderful! How was it? Did y’all play the games I sent Ashley? Did you apologize to her for my absence? She’s done so much!

  “I’ll try to eat. Do you mind if we just sit quietly for a while and put something on the radio? I’m so tired.” My momma, picking up her plate, darted out of the office and tipped her head toward the kitchen, her way of asking me to follow.

  “Sounds good. I’ll put on a record
.” I picked up the notebook and pen, writing my response to her questions as I walked to the living room. Once there, I paused my writing to select a classical bluegrass recording and set it on her record player. Cletus had related Alex’s advice regarding records. They were more difficult to filter out using computer programs than digital recordings, which was why we’d started using them over the past few weeks.

  I finished my handwritten responses and joined her at the kitchen table, pulling the camera Shelly had used to take photos of the afternoon’s event. My mother poured us both a glass of wine and embraced me with a tight hug before we both took a seat. She then proceeded to eat all the food as we corresponded via her notebook.

  I do have pictures, here’s the camera. I’m good, but I’m worried about you. More later re: that. Thank you! Sienna helped me pick out my outfit. She’s so good at that kind of stuff. It was fun. You were missed, we played all the games, and Beau was sure to take video so you could see the fun. Ashley was gracious as always and didn’t seem to mind. She and Drew were very cute and won most of the games, was great.

  I want to discuss the plan for your “escape” before things get too much farther along. Are you sure you want to do this? Do you really want to run away with this man? I feel like it might be unnecessary. Maybe you could go in and amend your story? Tell the truth?

  I turned the book to face her, studying her expression. She’d never spelled out what had happened from her perspective that night. If Mr. Repo had left anything out during his one meeting with Cletus weeks ago, then we were still in the dark. I couldn’t wait to get her out of the house so she could actually speak.

  My mother read my note, smiling, frowning, nodding thoughtfully, and sighing when she got to the end. Lifting her gaze, which looked equal parts torn and determined, she picked up the pen and wrote,

  Glad the shower went well and can’t wait to see the photos and videos. Baby, I feel so—