The Wicked: A Love Story

Chapter Seven

Communion

For I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union.

-The Book of the Law

 The phone rang, and Marabeth touched the number that had called her before she thought of it. By the time she remembered who it was, and thought of hanging up, Jason had answered.

 “Marabeth?”

 “It’s awfully late.”

 “I know,” Jason McCord said. “I meant to leave a message but hit call instead. I did leave a message. I mean...”

 And then he said, sounding not very bright, “I left a message.”

 “Yeah,” Marabeth said.

 Myron had been the last to leave the house, with Anne. Peter and Joyce. Jim and Kris were gone, and as he left, Kris had been on the phone with whoever he was currently banging.

 “Well, since you’re on the phone, what was the message?”

 “I was just wondering how you were? After the funeral and everything?”

 “Well, my father’s funeral was days ago, so…”

 “Yeah. I mean, yes.”

 “Thanks for calling,” Marabeth said. And then she said, “You know that was sarcasm, right?”

 “I didn’t know what to do,” Jason said. “I didn’t want to jump in and presume.”

 “So you waited to make sure I’d be mildly pissed with you?”

 And then she said, “Look, here’s the thing, you don’t owe me anything, and I don’t want to act like some angry girlfriend. I’ve been the angry girlfriend. That shit is exhausting. Thanks for calling.”

 Marabeth, was swiping to end the call—she missed rotary phones and the finality of an actual hang up—when she heard Jason’s voice.

 “Yeah?” she said, and she yawned, and it started out as an affectation, but it was late, and she was tired.

 “I’d like to see you again.”

 “Yeah… all right,” Marabeth said.

 “Yeah,” Jason said.

 Neither one of them seemed to be saying anything, but neither one of them was hanging up, and Marabeth was walking around her apartment, looking at the wolf painted on the canvas.

 “Well,” Marabeth said with a shrug in her voice, “what are you doing now?”

Ryan always came to him, and so tonight Jim would pick him up and bring him back. He knew Ryan loved his apartment, and he knew Ryan had two roommates. They touched hands in the car, and Ryan smelled good. He’d been at the club because he was still the age where clubs were worth going to. They had never made sense to Jim, even though he was only about a year or two older. They drove in silence until they came to the long low beige modern building, parked and, catching hands again, came up the bush lined walk. Jim unlocked the door, and in the lit lobby they made out, hands on hips, and then on cheeks, exalting in the pleasure of not caring, of kissing in a public hallway before heading into the elevator.

 Ryan had been so good to him over the last few years, never a boyfriend, but better than most boyfriends with those deep dark eyes and the dark hair that, even half a day after shaving, always showed up on his handsome face. He wanted to treat him as good as Ryan always treated him, surprise his old friend. When they entered the apartment, Jim unzipped his pants and took his thick cock in his mouth. Ryan cried out, his voice high, and placed the backs of his hands on the door and then finally in Jim’s hair while Jim took all of him in.

 They were naked in the living room, and in the living room, against the sofa, Ryan thrust his tongue deep inside of Jim and licked him out from behind, took Jim in his mouth from behind. In the living room, they pleasured each other every way they could, and in between they rested, not speaking, sometimes laughing, both surprised by their lust and then starting up again before Jim led him to the bedroom.

 Jim had never shut his curtains and the place still smelled of Seth. Jim kissed Ryan on his mouth, tasting liquor and smelling his cologne. He felt Ryan’s tongue thick in his mouth, his hands strong as Jim remembered. As the sky turned grey and morning was coming, Jim fucked him. He surprised himself. He knew his own body so well, but now the orgasm took him unawares. He almost screamed as it was wrenched from his curling torso, and the force of sex nearly pushed him out of Ryan before the final wave doubled him over and, deep in the tight heat of Ryan, clinging to Ryan, he pumped him full of his seed.

“I’m sorry,” Jason said from where he lay in her bed. “I’m stupid. I didn’t know what to do.”

 He had just pulled his Jockeys on, and she was in her tee shirt and shorts wondering if she should put on a black negligee. No, fuck that. He didn’t deserve that.

 “It’s alright,” Marabeth said. “I’ve been married. I know men by now.”

 “Hold up,” Jason sat up, touching her shoulder.

 “Do you want me to go?” he said.

 “No,” she said, almost exasperated, “No, I don’t want you to go.”

 “Do you think we could try?” Jason said.

 Marabeth nodded.

 “Yes,” she said. Then she said, “Stay. Don’t go. But I want to read a lttle bit of what I’ve put off.”

 “The book your father sent you.”

 “Yes.”

 Jason got up. He was tall, broad shouldered. Small assed in his black Jockeys, his orange hair hanging to his shoulders.

 “I’ll make some coffee.”

 “You don’t have to do that.”

 “I’ll make some coffee,” Jason said, pulling on his trousers and leaving the bedroom. Marabeth went into her closet, digging through the mess of clothes and boxes she believed a forty year old woman should have organized better to find her housecoat. There it was, and how this place needed to be cleaned. She pulled the plush housecoat from between the air conditioner and the pair of skis she had taken from the laundry room. Jason entered the bedroom again.

 “Uh…”

 “They’re skis.” 

 “You ski?”

 “No,” Marabeth said. “But if I ever wanted to… You know?” she shrugged.

 Jason said. “Yeah. And… No, that’s not what I was even thinking about. I just had a question.”

 “Yeah?” Marabeth said.

 “Where do you keep the coffee?”

The Book of Pamela Strauss

I TOLD NO ONE where I was going, or even that I was going. I had been surprised to find two tickets, one for the journey south and another for the journey back already sent me. I took a cab to the great station in the center of downtown Lassador. Traveling up there I realized what a parochial soul I was. In my growing up, I never left our village, and only once in my life had I seen all of Germany, this land I had such a strange connection to which, from so far away, had caused us so much trouble and might be causing trouble again. I had come, in a train, a much different one, almost thirty years ago to, again, a very different Germantown, and I had hardly left it save to go to college. But now, if I were to travel east to Wilmington, where once there were only woods and farms fields, there were whole burgeoning neighborhoods and townships, asphalt roads that took one quickly where once it had taken me hours to reach, and now the downtown and this great train station had also come to life....