I'm going to have to see him at the funeral. I hate myself for obsessing. This should not be about me or about Brian either. Unfortunately he has this way of preoccupying me.
I hate to say I'm glad for the distraction of helping Monica and the girls, but it is helping to keep me on track. I think if they were to turn to me individually or as a group and say, Caroline, you just don't matter, I think I would go into a tailspin the likes of which I have never known.
It's strange, but I feel Thomas’ absence less than when he was in a coma. At that point, I was seeing his body and just feeling torn apart that he wasn't really in it. Now I have this sense he is free and I hear him constantly in my brain. He's the one guiding things, he's in control.
Monica seems to be drawing on this, too. She's calm, resolved, focused. At least when it comes to business and funeral arrangements. The psychologist in our building has warned me this won't last.
"She's in shock right now. It's like when a limb is severed. The body shuts off the nerve endings. This is survival mode. She's getting through the funeral, doing what she has to. At a certain point the natural anesthetic will wear off and she will feel an explosion of emotion. Guilt, fear, anger, you name it."
I can't help but read me in there. The psychologist has no clue what Thomas has meant to me.
The girls are acting true to form. Kasey has emerged to rival Monica as the executor of the estate. A couple of times Monica has had to remind her whose spouse this is going in the ground and whose decisions they are to make.
Erin is quiet.
Except with me. She seeks me out constantly, talking about her groups, clothes, everything in the sun other than Thomas. This is normal, too, says the psychologist. She is filtering everything through her fairly fragile adolescent self.
Monica misunderstands it as selfish and has lectured her on more than one occasion. I think Monica sees herself in her daughter and that makes her unhappy.
Kasey would probably be all over Erin, too, if it weren't for the fact that she were already catching heat from her mother. I find Kasey surprisingly empathetic with her little sister.
She's growing up. You have to in a situation like this.
Back to Brian. He never did come back upstairs. The four of us women said so long to Brian, waiting for the men from the funeral home, with their dark, pinstripe suits and squeaky shoes. They zipped him in a blue velvet bag, and oh god, was that hard. In that single act, seeing his face get covered over, all the injustice, the total impossibility of it washed over me. But then, just as fast, the numbness set it.
The men in the suits were right there, with forms to fill out, distracting and focusing Monica. Not as cruel as it seemed.
Two days later we were gathered at Bushnell.
The national military cemetery south of Orlando. It is located in the country. The ride was long. Erin had headphones in the limo, Monica told her twice to turn them off.
"She's only thirteen, mom,” said Kasey.
For once Erin didn't dispute the implications that she was just a child. Folding her arms, she leaned her head on my shoulder and fell asleep, or pretended to, the headphones in her lap.
I'm only in the car, by the way, because of Erin. She insists I be there.
It's a little embarrassing, a little flattering.
I'm very grateful, though, because I don't have it in me to drive myself.
Through the country.
Orange groves.
Be strong, baby girl…
Fall apart later … you'll get your reward … you and me, George and Gracie. Wish I could remember exactly the first time he called me that, but I guess that was part of the mystique, a totally self-effusive humor, he said.
His hand is holding mine, the whole way, I swear it, and he has one for Monica and the girls, too, I don't know how that's possible but it must be.
"Do you think there's an afterlife?” I asked him once as we lay next to each other covered in sweat in the bedroom of his condo, always there, never my place, I barely wanted him to visit me there, he respected the boundary, unlike Brian, who doesn't know the meaning of the word.
"If there is I'm screwed,” was his first answer as he adulterously and deliciously put his hand on my breast.
My body began to sing for him, ready for another round. “Really, Thomas, what do you believe?"
"I think maybe what happens to you is just what you want to happen. If you need to go on, you do, if you have some purpose to come back for, you can, and if you want to just fade away, no one stops you."
"That's depressing."
"Why?” He makes my nipple hard, working the rubbery flesh between his fingers with all the skill of a doctor.
A fuck surgeon.
"Cause it's just a cop out, like grown ups always tell you. They don't know shit about the future, except it'll be worse than today."
"Turn over."
I roll to my back.
"Are you going to spank me, Daddy?"
"No."
He takes the butt plug from the dresser drawer-I'm always forgetting he has this shit lying around.
"Open, baby girl."
My pussy gapes first and my anus follows. I love when he tells me things like that, when he gives me the orders; I have to be dirty.
I grunt as he pushes it in place.
"That's … a bigger one…” I declare.
"You noticed."
"It's a little hard not to, Daddy."
"You can take it now, though, that's a good girl. All that practice has helped."
"Thank you, Daddy.” I blush, I glow, I gush. I love practice. “But what does this have to do with the after life?"
"It has everything to do with the afterlife.” He pushes the plug into place. “Because all we really know of heaven and hell is right here on Earth."
"If my grandfather heard you say that he'd throw a Bible at you. A burning one."
My grandfather was a dairy farmer, touched by the Lord. Touched in the head more like. He did things to his wife, probably even to the cows. No wonder he was such an expert on sin.
"I'm good at ducking."
"Daddy, may I suck you?” The butt plug is doing its thing, turning my insides to jelly, cramming my will, leaving me antsy, horny.
"No, baby girl. You're going to heaven first."
He makes me get up on my knees, pushing out my ass so he can reach my cunt. He works his tongue into the crack.
This is where his mastery shines. One or two men had given me oral before Thomas, usually drunk. Nothing like that feeling of waking up with beer breath in your pussy.
The men acted like it was some stupid dare or a bet they had lost. A couple of other men wanted to do it to me as a way to submit, but I never let them. It was their trip after all; they wanted to do this to me to get themselves off.
Slavery is selfish.
You're so pumped full of images and what you want done and you have to orchestrate your partner and he has to be the puppet on your string.
It's not raw. It's not real.
Thomas explained all this and said the way around it is you make it a game, you intentionally play and give yourself up to imagination, just like a little kid can look you in the eye and swear up and down she's a pirate and she believes it, but she's still in control of the role.
"A dominant empowers his sub, Caroline."
Thomas empowers me in many ways; one of them is oral sex.
With the butt plug in, my mind full of heaven and hell, he brings me off.
Present tense.
Guess I'll have to learn to stop using it where he's concerned.
The limo arrives at the cemetery. Endless green, a crop of white stones, row after row after row.
This will be a military burial, a military service. There will be shots fired, twenty-one of them, an honor guard, a presentation of colors.
Kasey takes her mother's arm as they leave the car. She has the bearing of a soldier in her black dress with her high heels she is several inches taller than Monica. Erin still has my hand. Her black dress is velvet. She has heels, too, though she's a tiny bit awkward. Her yellow hair is up. Someone wears it like this, a star in Hollywood she said, I forget who. A lot's gone over my head lately.
There are three more cars. Some of Thomas’ friends to bear the pall. There are so many more who aren't here. Monica didn't want a full funeral service, she thought Thomas wouldn't want a lot of crying, but I'm not so sure. People need to gather on occasions like this. And they need to cry. Thomas taught me that.
The weather is warm, low seventies and the sky is blue. So very blue.
No clouds.
It makes no sense. How can a day be so pretty? How can he be gone? He wasn't sick, he wasn't old, and he wasn't doing anyone any fucking harm. Why did the universe need him out of the way so bad? What god was so threatened by his shining star? Does everything have to turn out like shit?
Brian's there.
Standing by the grave.
I thought I would feel something where he was concerned, I don't.
A minister is there; he says words. I wonder what he thinks, about heaven and hell on earth, I wonder if he would put a plug in me and lick my pussy mad until I couldn't tell one from the other.
I wish I had a cracker or something; I'd throw it on the ground. Make Brian pick it up with his teeth, chew like a dog.
I wish I could ride home in the limo alone with the driver telling me things to do to myself, occasionally glancing in the rear view mirror to make sure I spank and pinch appropriately.
"…Into God's eternal bosom…"
Like he knows.
"…We pray for the repose of the soul … of Thomas … Frederick…"
I stop my ears. I don't want to hear his whole name. Not from this clergyman's lips. This is such a violation. This isn't what I wanted. I wouldn't have done it like this, don't ask me what I would have done but it would be different.
He should have been my husband…
Brian is beside me. “Caroline, are you all right?"
He talks low so no one else can here.
I can't answer him.
The service is ending, they have folded the flag, tight precise movements, a ritual of folding, two gloved soldiers, like tiny robots, a little dance of submission to country and agony and death, Monica accepts the flag, on behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful nation … he is on one knee, he gives her the flag, and she will have it forever, the flag of a fallen hero, and I am just shaking, I don't have two daughters to raise, I don't have a company left me, I don't have legitimate memories I can keep on the mantle, I am the whore, brushed back to the side, my champion is gone, who will speak for me now?
"Caroline, aren't you coming?” Erin is talking to me.
I blink, not sure for a moment where we are. “Coming … where?"
"Back to the car,” says Erin. “Caroline, what's wrong?"
I am feeling woozy. Have I held in too much for too long?
"Caroline is riding with me,” says Brian.
"Why are you riding with Brian, Caroline?” Erin wants to know with typical teenage nosiness.
"They're friends,” Kasey concludes, taking her sister's hand. “Come on."
Monica has her flag. Monica's with her daughter's. Monica's drifting away.
It doesn't even fully register until I am in the front seat of a green Honda Del Sol. Brian's car.
"What the fuck did you just do?"
He starts the engine.
"You just humiliated me, you fucking asshole. Now they think I'm your whore."
"No one thinks anything, Caroline."
It's too late not to explode. “No, you're the one that doesn't think. You just do and everything you do is insane. Let me out of this car, you are kidnapping me."
He pulls away; we are leaving the cemetery.
"Monica needs me. Erin needs me. Kasey needs me."
"Stop it, Caroline, who do you think you're fooling? You were about to collapse back there. You think that's what Thomas’ family needs right now?"
"You don't fucking know what anyone needs. You like fucking with my head, you're psychotic."
"I am trying to help,” he counters. “The only way I know how."
"I don't want your help."
"You are getting it anyway."
I glare at the road. “If Thomas were alive…"
"Put your seat belt on,” he says, not responding to my provocation.
The buckle clicks. He turns on the radio. I think about his song. Caroline Needs Pain. Did he really save me back there? Was I going to collapse? It's true, things were spinning. But still, he should have been more discrete.
"Where are you taking me?” I demand. “This isn't the way home."
"We're making a stop."
My heart thunders. “Brian, I'm not playing any more games with you, do you hear me?"
"I'm not playing games."
We turn off the black top onto a small access road, and then onto dirt.
There are oranges.
Holy shit.
"This isn't funny, Brian."
He pulls over, into the brambles. “Why are we here?"
"You talk in your sleep,” he replies. “I thought you might be missing your orchard time."
That's it. I have had it.
"Don't try to be him. Don't try to replace him. Do you hear?"
He shuts the car off. “I'm me,” he declares. “And no one else."
I swing open the door and bolt. I kick off my pumps and I run, straight down the nearest row of trees. I look over my shoulder. He's not chasing me. He's leaning against the fender, smoking. I keep running. Prick. I look back again.
He's still there.
Fine. I'll run clear to Orlando. Or whatever piece of civilization is on the other side of this orchard.
I get tired way too easily. Where's my stamina? I was on track. I ran all through high school, just to get away from home. I haven't missed a day jogging in six years, even as a drunk.
I stumble and fall. The ground receives me without comment.
Eventually I get back up.
Brian's by the car acting like he could give a fuck if I ever came back.
"I'm fine,” I announce. “Thanks for asking."
"You're a big girl, I knew you were fine."
I seize on this. “See, it's this same jealousy shit-you can't stand the relationship I had with your father. He was Daddy to me; I was his baby girl. Get over it. He loved me, Brian, he would have given the world to me, hell he already did."
"Funny, you saying I'm jealous, when you're the one brought it up."
Now I'm just pissed. I get in his face. “He was good, you know. The best. You can't hold a candle. He owned my ass, he could make me do anything."
"You only did what you wanted. That was dad's personality-he indulged women. He spoiled them and when they wanted more than he could give, he ran."
"Liar, Thomas was not a coward, you are."
"I didn't say he was a coward."
My pulse is racing, the more emotional I get the calmer he is. I can feel myself, slipping away like I always do with Brian. I have to be objective, that's it, no passion, one way or the other. “You said he ran, though, and that isn't so. He was my rock."
"Your rock … because he couldn't be Monica's."
"Monica needed too much."
"So he found you,” he says. “And what do you think would have happened if you started wanting more?"
My mouth hangs there in space for a second. This is a universe I've never gone to … at least not consciously.
"Your father wasn't perfect,” I recover. “He was the first to say so. What about you?"
"Am I perfect, do you mean? Yes, I am. For you."
My knees weaken. “You must be kidding,” I laugh it off.
"I'm the only man who can handle all of you. I won't run; I thrive off you as a matter of fact."
"Bullshit,” I spit back. “You take off every chance you get. You fight with me; you abandon me. Where were you at the hospital? Did it occur to you I might have needed you?"
"I was grieving my father. I had to do it my own way. And you didn't want me there. You needed the space to be mother hen."
"So by all means, call me a taker or whatever it was and reject me … after all you made me put up with. For god's sake, Brian, you pissed on me-and I let you."
"You didn't just let me, you liked it. And you blame me for that because you want to go on punishing yourself with unhappiness. Well I have a newsflash. Want me to tell you the real source of your guilt-way deeper than your mixed emotions about what you did to Monica?"
"Oh, yes, do enlighten me, Dr. Freud."
The sarcasm doesn't faze him. He's intractable. He's a fucking labyrinth and he's driving me completely crazy.
"As much as you loved Thomas, you resented him."
I snort. “Wow. Sign yourself up for a PhD for that. Or should we just get you a special award for projection, because that's what you feel, not me."
"I am disappointed in my father. There's a difference. I wasn't in love with him, I didn't want him as a mate, and I never felt sexually rejected. He just wasn't there for me, so I don't even know what I missed."
"You're lying, distorting and hiding.” I point my finger at his chest.
"I wouldn't touch me like that if I were you."
I feel the electricity like a hot whip. It's beginning … the power exchange, volatile, dangerous … satisfying in ways I know I shouldn't want but I'm not sure I can do without. “Are you threatening me?"
"I'm just informing you of consequences. If you don't put your hand down I am going to punish you, hard and fast."
"You're bluffing,” I poke him.
Brian isn't bluffing. He spins me, reversing positions so it's me against the car. He pushes me face down and holds me in place his fingers twisted in my hair. He pulls my dress up to the waist and pulls down my panties.
Ten times he spanks my naked ass. The heat is twice as intense, the sexual humiliation twice as great in the out of doors. Knowing anyone could come by and see me like this.
He turns me back around, face to face, my skin still throbbing. “Are you ready to apologize?"
"No, why don't you,” I rub the soreness.
"Okay,” he declares. “I will. What I said to you was wrong. You're not a taker. Maybe I have been a little jealous. Maybe I have come at you too hard and fast but there's a reason."
My eyes are watering, but I am starting to laugh.
"Because you're a dickhead?” I venture as he hands me a handkerchief from his corduroy jacket.
He smiles slantedly. “Well, that, too."
I wipe my eyes.
"I've wanted you from the minute I saw you. I saw through you, into you, I knew the submissive you were, I saw you were misunderstood, I felt your loneliness so bad it made me ache all over. I wanted to just hold you, tell you it would be all right. I wanted to prove myself in the only way I will ever be able to a woman. Through sado-masochism."
A part of me is ready to fall to him right then and there. But another part doesn't want to make it so easy. What would Brian learn if he just got his way, a robot, offering him no challenge?
How would he grow into the master he needs to be? How will I grow into the sub I should be, the woman I need to be?
I feel a hand on my shoulder. Thomas, confirming I am on the right track. “There's a lot more to life, a lot more to relationships than S and M,” I suggest gently. “You learn that in time, how to balance things."
"Don't start in telling me how young I am, Caroline. Age is an excuse for older people to defend their fear of risk taking. Who says we can't make a relationship thrive on sado-masochism? You don't just have to take your spankings from married men on the side."
Caroline brought him up short. “That's an awful thing to say, Brian. To me and to your father."
"My father is gone."
"He is as alive as we keep him in our hearts."
Brian's breathing was quick. “Let's make love."
"No, not now."
"Why not?"
Not until this moment had the full reality of his youth dawned on me. I wanted to be angry. I couldn't. That's just how it was. The younger you are the faster your mind can dart from thing to thing, the more filled with wonder you are. And the more self-pre-occupied you are. Not selfish, just more unabashedly indulgent. Thomas could get back there, through me.
But I'm too old for this.
"I'm not your personal playground, Brian."
"Yes you are."
I squirm away from his wandering hands.
"I'm going to train you so you can't do that,” he tells me.
I'm breathing so fast. Should I get it over with and just let him have my body? It's my only chance-to get to the next inevitable knock down drag out. And this fight will be the last. The beginning of the end of the entire relationship. “I mean it, Brian, I am not screwing around."
My tough talk falls on deaf ears. “Take off your clothes,” he tells me. “Hand them over."
I feel a rush, blood pouring into my nipples, my pussy. “What did you say?"
"You heard me, girl. I want you naked, ready to suck cock. You're still my sex slave. We never finished back in the motel room."
I'm transported there in a flash, the sensations overcome me. And the desire. “Someone could see…"
"Then I'll invite them over to join us."
"Like hell you will.” It's the twinkle in his eye wins me over, not the heavy dominant stuff.
I unzip the dress in back, lifting my breasts and pushing them outward.
He takes the dress from me after I pull it over my head. “Keep going."
It's inevitable from here. I am past the point of no return. I pull down my stockings, which are already covered in runs. I do the bra next.
Again I arch my back, displaying my cleavage as I unbuckle.
My breasts spring free in the open air.
"Give it here and hustle with those panties. I have been waiting all day to get at you."
I slide my panties over my hips. “Today is your father's funeral. Do you have any idea how brutally insensitive you are?"
"Enough to make you wet."
I turn over the panties and endure the humiliation of having him sniff them. No point in denying it now. “Can we just get this over with?"
"No, I think we'll drag it out as long as we can, thank you. Turn around. Slowly."
"What for?"
"I'm trying to decide."
"Decide what?"
"What to do to you next. Turn,” he repeats. “Arms over your head."
I pivot on my heels; my scent is filling the air. Fear and sex stink. Sure to arouse the bastard to new heights.
"Again, slower."
I give him the show he wants.
He has me face him again, cupping my breasts. “Tell me what my father did that you liked best."
"He made me laugh,” I say without hesitation.
My intent is to shame him, but it doesn't seem to work.
"I could tell that,” he nods. “You had that look about you."
"What do you mean?"
"When I was with him, I saw how he made women relax. They let their hair down. They were totally and completely female with him. They felt safe. Waitresses, the freaking toll booth operators. What did it take, all of five seconds? They got this glow from him and I figure you got a pretty good dose because you were a light bulb when I met you. I was so jealous, because I thought, I can't do that to a woman like Caroline. Couldn't in a million years."
"If you're fishing for a compliment…"
"Nope. Just a little diversion. You can get on your knees now."
"You really like fucking with my head, don't you?"
"I adore it, Caroline."
I sink into the dirt. “This means nothing. We have no future together."
He doesn't even dignify that with a response. The futility of my resistance is embarrassing. I hasten to unzip him. I hope he comes quickly.
"Do a good job, angel. Or I'll use the crop on you."
My toes dig in to the soft ground. My pussy yawns. The way he'd laid that whip on me in the store, as light as it was, had definitely done a number on me. I could only imagine him using it for real.
"We didn't buy the crop,” I remind him, craning my neck to see past his crotch.
"I already had one. I was just testing you that day."
"Did I pass?"
"You're here aren't you?"
I pull out his member, thick and hard. “I'll take that to mean I failed."
"There's nothing failing about how you use your mouth."
It's not the most noble compliment, but it will do at the moment. I make myself a circle, open, receptive. At the same time I suckle, a weird combination of mother and whore.
Not feeling like baby girl. But that's okay, I am what I am. Me, not the roles, Thomas taught me that. I look at Brian and I see how much he still has to learn.
I am teaching him now. A sweet sacrifice on my part. Brian uses my mouth like a pussy, like a cunt, while my sex cries out, wanting to be used. Even my ass is clenched in anticipation. The man has me on the precipice.
Come is my existence. The semen I crave, which will plunge me over the rim, down into the belly of the beast.
Brian's beast.
Our beast.
He shifts his weight, leaning on my shoulders. I take over the motions of my mouth, in and out with uncompromising speed. I must satisfy him. I must satisfy myself. I must drink.
The semen comes out thick and warm, I gulp the first spurt just in time for the second. It goes down smooth, my eyes are closed and I'm drifting, everything in sync, my hands reach around to grab his ass cheeks, tender, possessive. It's a hell of a risk on my part, ever showing a man I like him. I can please and Thomas made sure I never failed, but I am terrible at initiating.
Thomas wanted me to work on that.
Do you think he ever intended that would come with his own son?
Why not? It always came down to that for Thomas. If something seemed impossible, if you could show it on paper even, he would just shrug and say why not. If you could dream it then why not?
His hand strokes my hair as he vacates my mouth. “Lick me clean, baby."
I am so weak and empty without him jammed inside me. I lap with my tongue, just to recapture a little. How soon is it going to be until he's hard again?
"Come here, baby.” He wants me to get up, he wants to kiss and hold me again.
I literally cannot move. I lay my head against his thigh so he knows this isn't stubbornness.
Brian's tenderness chokes me up. He literally scoops me up into his arms, stronger and more capable arms than I realized, and carries me to the car.
He sets me down to open the passenger door for me and that's when I kiss him, probing, questioning, in a most female way. I want to provoke a response and I do.
He kisses the life out of me.
"Don't start things you can't finish,” he warns.
"You are one to talk."
He comes down hard, a swat to my ass. I gush.
Is he really strong enough to hold onto me? Do I want him to?
I back away, teasing, playing, testing.
One hand restrains my wrist. He lifts my hand in the air. It might as well be a steel cuff.
He moves his other hand to my pussy. We're about six inches apart. I squirm, the intensity too much on my clitoris.
"No,” he says as I try and interfere with my free hand. “Let me do what I want."
My arm drops to my side. Restrained by his will.
Pleasure courses through me; I am being dominated.
"You can't come until I say."
Oh, fuck; he was onto that again.
"Brian…” I bite my tongue, I whimper.
"Hold still."
I want to cry. I can't control this-I'm making myself so frigging helpless. I am so slick, I am drenched, he's working me, working me hard, right to the limit and holding me…
"Want to stop, Caroline?"
"No, I want more,” I gasp. “Please."
He chuckles.
And then he stops anyway.
I am left spinning, hanging.
I swallow any vestiges of pride. “Brian, I really need an orgasm…"
"We'll see.” He puts his fingers to my lips. “How the day goes."
I want to bite them off. I don't, I suckle, I can't help it, my eyes are slits, my mouth is an offertory, I want to be good, I want to earn my pleasure.
His little fuck slut.
Brian dries his fingers on my body. His touch is excruciating. “I don't know … if I can take this,” I shiver.
My chin is between his thumb and forefinger. The forefinger that has just owned my pussy. “Then end it. Say ‘dirt.’ And end it."
He's not fighting fair. I can end anything out here.
"May I get dressed?” I say instead, signaling that I will stay in slave mode.
I hang on the motions of his lips. Desperate for his next order. Got to keep moving, before I fall apart.
"You can put on your dress, not the underwear. And no shoes and stockings."
A smile wafts over my face, split second, heading north or east. What direction would heaven be anyway-if it is a real place?
"What?"
"It's something from the past,” I shake my head.
I don't want to hurt Brian. I don't want to hurt anyone.
Life did this to me. Can't blame people.
"Tell me."
"I can't."
"You will."
"Your father and I came to a grove like this one time, and we got really into it, and I lost my shoe somehow. We couldn't find it for like half an hour, oh, god, it was ridiculous.” I put my hand over my mouth.
I laugh and then break down into tears.
Brian is there.
Doesn't say a word.
"I … miss … him…"
"I do, too, angel. But not like you. I didn't know him that well. I guess … I guess that makes me a little mad, a little jealous of you."
I sniffle, as he strokes my hair. “Why do you call me angel?” I ask him. “I'm anything but."
"You're my angel because you saved me."
"What do you mean?"
"When I saw you,” he says. “I knew I could touch Thomas through you. I needed that, still do."
I try and kneel down before him again.
He keeps me on my feet.
"I want to pleasure you again,” I say shyly.
"I know, angel, but you're not in charge.” It's a soft reminder, but I feel it close over me … like iron bars.
"Yes, Sir,” I say, not at all sure what that means, if the word is right or what, we don't have the history and what the hell is the context anymore? Where does play leave off, reality begin?
Is this our addiction of choice, I wonder? Being lost in the sensations of BDSM, Master slave-the power dynamic.
Thomas visited here, but he was moderate.
Moderate in everything in the end. An iron will.
Apportioned, just what each person needed from him.
"Brian, may I do something else?"
"What, angel?"
"Play,” my voice chokes. Though the tears.
He smiles, understanding. I watch him take his clothes off.
"In the dirt,” he finishes my thought.
"Yesss…"
We get dirty indeed, covered in earth, covered in heaven and covered in hell. Thomas’ children, two of them at any rate, one boy, one girl, one by blood and one by grace … his grace. He will always shine on me, god in heaven, with my apologies to the religious. God in heaven, and Brian his instrument, iron rod, cruel biter at my pride, enforcer of my boundaries which only imprison me. But we are one underneath. How long have you known that, Thomas? How long did you walk the Earth planning to bring us together? You planned everything, I think, even your own failure and pain just to show something greater in the end, my beloved higher power. Sorry if this isn't more spiritual, but I'm not cut that way, I need my gods concrete, I need my lessons on the ass, I need my rewards in the now, hot and heavy. Caroline needs pain … and love … and discipline.
And she is in charge of them.