Late to the Party ✔

17. Knocking boots

She turned off the lights, like God couldn't find her if she took cover in the dark. Despite the late hour, she was wide awake, her mind charged with the memory of brown eyes, soft lips, and daring promises of more. She was distracted, had walked to the bathroom with her empty mug before remembering she'd wanted to put it in the dishwasher, had been halfway out the backdoor before realizing she hadn't brushed her teeth yet. Her body was begging for something she wasn't sure her mind was ready for, shivering in the humid August air, and she sat down on the edge of her bed, waiting for it to pass.

Maybe it was futile. She knew it was going to happen eventually, heard it in the echoes of those little moans Jeanie had let slip, could read it in the way the sound had anchored itself low in her lap, the questions that arose — if she could elicit more of them, maybe consecutively, a string only meant for her ears. Knew it from the eyes that'd stared at her all heavy and loving, like sticky honey, and how easy it'd been to let the Devil in.

If, in fact, it was the Devil who was at play here.

Before Jeanie left, before George's stretch of absence, there was a time when she hadn't taken much stock in the Bible at all. It'd been just a book she read at Sunday school, filled with tedious commands and adventurous tales. Step by step, she had made it into the thing that got her up in the mornings, helped her through her monotonous days. It'd given her a purpose, a set of rules to live by and create order in the chaos of her world, an explanation for all the bad that'd rained down on her in that past decade.

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

He had created her in her mother's womb, all the thoughts and feelings and desires, just like He had Jeanie, and she wondered now — why? Why make it so sweet? Why return Jeanie to her life if she was supposed to resist, like she had been doing for nearly twenty years? Why show the true faces of the hateful believers in her congregation and chase her husband away?

And Jeanie, with her patience and care, her concern for the kids she could've hated if she'd chosen to, how was she condemned to Hell, while self-righteous self-appointed judges like Sarah T from Bible study claimed themselves a spot in the highest ranks of Heaven?

If those were the kind of people who'd be admitted to His Kingdom, would she even want to join them?

She sighed and let herself fall back on the bed. A drop dripped from the faucet in the sink. Outside, the crickets chirped joyfully. Surrounded by rubber and concrete, the heady perfume of the gardenias and roses from her garden, and the cheap fragrance of the scented candles Missy had placed throughout the space, she closed her eyes and saw Jeanie again, that wink and that titillating smile. Her stomach filled with butterflies, the kind she thought her young mind had imagined, and she bit her lip and buried her head in her pillow, trying to breathe through the overwhelming sensation.

Then, a quick knock.

"Mare, it's me."

She sat up faster than a scalded cat, her heart beating a million miles per hour. She was lost, sure as shooting, because she yanked the door open like Jeanie would disappear if she was a second too late, and forgot to inhale air as she discerned the silhouette of that unfairly pretty face.

She was babbling as she came in, hands deep in her pockets, "I know I promised I'd give you time, and I will — but I figured we've been apart long enough and —"

"No, no, of course, I — I don't mind," Mary said. She closed the door, turned towards her, only the glint in her eyes visible, the lines of her body. "I was just —"