Midnight Mass (Camren)

CHAPTER 2

"And your tux is being delivered this afternoon, so don't forget to bring it inside," Camila was saying.

I sat up, rubbing my eyes and yawning. It was still dark, but Camila's heels clicked across the hardwood floor as she leaned down to give me a quick kiss. Even in the dark I could see her red lipstick.

I grabbed her elbows as she came closer, pulling her onto my lap. "C'mere," I said sleepily.

"I have to go," she protested faintly, but my hand was already between her legs, slipping past that red thong.

"Mmm-hmm?"

"I'm going to be late and...Oh. Mmm."

My fingers were inside her now, probing gently. "You were saying about my tux?" I asked huskily, feeling her getting slippery for me.

"It's for the gala on Saturday," she breathed. "For the opening of the flagship studio. Want you...oh. Oh my God."

"I know you want me," I assured her, pushing her thong farther to the side and then hiking up her dress.

"I mean—want you there. Means a lot to me."

Her voice had changed, and I looked up at her, meeting her gaze in the low light spilling in from the bathroom. "Please, Lauren. I want you by my side at the gala. I've worked so hard and I want you there to see it and tell me you're proud of me."

Her voice was almost shy as she admitted it, and through my sleep and lust-filled fog, my chest squeezed. "Of course, lamb. I'll be there. And you do know that I'm proud of you, right? Of everything you've done with The Danforth Studio?"

She bit her lip and nodded, and I took that opportunity to rock my groin against her. "I'm also so fucking proud of this pussy. I want to tell everyone I know about it. I want it on the front page of every society paper."

She laughed, but the laughing turned to moans as I finally sank inside of her, and those moans turned to cries, and my poor wife ended up being late to work. 

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I cultivate guilt the way a farmer cultivates land.

Long furrows of regret here, heaped mounds of shame there. I weed away the excuses and the rationalizations, I water the sprouts of self-loathing with more self-loathing, I harvest it all and store it away—silos of contrition and self-condemnation and the knowledge I can't ever atone for all the things I've done wrong.

The sister I didn't save.

The vocation I abandoned.

The wife I'm neglecting.

Of course, I know—cerebrally—that life isn't atonement. That sin and redemption aren't an exchange economy where you can pay x amount of guilt or service or sacrifice for y amount of sin.

But it sure feels that way sometimes.

I read somewhere that shame and guilt activate the reward centers in your brain, that indulging in these negative feelings actually gives your brain a small dopamine-fueled boost. And maybe that's all my guilt amounts to—an almost instinctive prodding of my limbic system, an addict unscrewing the cap on another swig because I can't help myself.

But I've lived with my guilt so long, I don't know how to let it go.

I don't know if I want to.

All of this stormed and circled in my mind that morning as I did my usual Tuesday morning routine. I went to the gym for a couple hours, drowning out my thoughts with loud music and sweat. And then I drove down to Trenton to help out a local soup kitchen, bundling hygiene items and sorting through old clothes.