“Someone else who looks for the loopholes in the rules,” Elle said, holding the large dusty hardback book to her chest. “A girl after my own heart.”
“I am an expert in Loophole Theology,” Kyrie said, dragging a chair over to Elle’s and sitting down. She pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees. She looked unbearably young right now and tiny. Elle was only five-three but she had curves. In shoes, Kyrie might have been five-three and she had stick-thin ankles. If she had curves, her bathrobe did a good job hiding them. “Test me. Give me a rule or a commandment or something, and I’ll find a loophole.”
“Um...how about the big one? ‘Thou shall not kill.’ Where’s the loophole there?”
“Spiders.”
“Spiders?”
“Spiders are the work of the devil. If God didn’t want us to kill spiders, he wouldn’t have allowed Satan himself to invent them and unleash them on the world. Spiders. Give me another one.”
“What about the priestly vow of celibacy?” Elle asked, giving Kyrie her best and therefore fakest innocent look.
“Celibacy means no getting married. So let priests have sex, but they can’t get married.”
“Yes, but the Bible also says no sex outside of marriage. So if they get married, they’re breaking the celibacy vow. If they have sex when they aren’t married, they’re breaking the command against fornication.”
“That is a tough one,” Kyrie said, nodding her head. “Wait. I got it.”
“What?”
“Hand jobs.”
“That is your answer to the issue of priestly celibacy? Hand jobs?”
Kyrie raised her hands and wiggled her fingers.
“A hand job isn’t sex. Right?”
“Not exactly, no.”
“I mean, you could give a priest a foot rub, right? That wouldn’t be sex, right?”
“Right,” Elle said, remembering all the intimate massages she’d given Søren at his command.
“And a hand job is like a foot rub but not on the foot. It’s a massage.”
“A really intimate massage,” Elle reminded her.
“But still, not sexual intercourse.”
“Definitely not intercourse.” Elle couldn’t argue with her.
“There. Loophole Theology saves the day. I have solved the crisis in the priesthood. Priests can’t get married. They can’t have sex. But they can get handies to their heart’s content.”
“Great. I’ll go give a priest a hand job,” Elle said, opening her book up once more. “Again.”
“Do I get points? I want my points,” Kyrie said. “I’m stuck at four.”
“You can have two points for spiders. Two points for hand jobs.”
“Yes. Eight points. Getting closer.”
“There are extra points if you actually give a priest a hand job.”
“Ew. No, thank you,” Kyrie said with a dramatic shudder. “I’m picturing Father Antonio.”
“What? You don’t find liver spots sexy?”
Kyrie smiled. “Men.”
“That’s right. You’re a girl’s girl.”
“Does that bother you?” Kyrie asked.
“What? That you’re a lesbian?”
“That.”
Elle stared blankly at Kyrie. Then she laughed. She laughed and she laughed and she laughed.
Then she laughed a little bit more.
“Elle?”
“Sorry....”
She laughed again.
“Elle, you’re laughing like a maniac.”
Elle playfully wiped a tear from her eye.
“I’m done laughing,” she said. Then she laughed again.
“Elle, seriously. Are you having a seizure? Is this demonic possession? Holy laughter?”
“No, none of those.” Elle finally took a deep breath and stopped laughing. “The irony of someone, anyone, thinking I’d be bothered by a girl who likes girls.”
“So I’m guessing you...”
“I’m bi,” Elle said. She was also the most famous submissive in the Manhattan Underground, but she decided not to tell Kyrie that part. Yet. “Which is either the best of both worlds or the worst of both worlds.”
“I’m an optimist,” Kyrie said. “We’ll go with best of both worlds.”
“I could use some optimism.”
“I could use some points. I’m still working on my twenty-five points. I think I should get more than four points for hand jobs and spiders.”
“You get one bonus point for using them in a sentence together.”
“So I only need sixteen more points until you tell me what you’re doing here?” Kyrie asked, grinning eagerly.
“Sixteen more points until you regret asking.”
“I can’t wait.” Kyrie stretched her legs out and let her bare feet hover in front of the fireplace.
“I can.”
“Is it bad?” Kyrie lowered her legs and looked at Elle. “Really bad?”
“It’s...you know.”
“Complicated.” Kyrie nodded. “Right, you said that earlier this week.”
“It’s still complicated. Things haven’t ceased being complicated in the last three days.”
“Maybe you only think they’re complicated because you’re inside the situation? And maybe if you were outside of it like I am, it wouldn’t be so complicated. You know, like a person trapped in a maze. You can only see what’s in front of you. But if you were above the maze looking down at it, you’d know exactly where you are, what’s happening and where to go.”
“It’s a nice thought,” Elle said, resting her hands in the cradle of the open book. “But I promise, there’s no way out of this maze. No matter how you look at it.”
“I just...” Kyrie smiled at Elle. “I want to help.”
“You can’t. But don’t feel bad. No one can.”
“Not even God?”
Elle laughed again.
“God got us into this mess,” Elle said with a tired smile. “He seems in no hurry to get us back out again.”
“Who’s us?” Kyrie asked.
“Stop.” Elle raised her hand in a warning. “You’re getting nothing else out of me tonight. I didn’t come down here to spill my guts. And I’m certainly not in the mood to give anyone my confession.”
“Why did you come here? Tonight, I mean. Is this your usual nine-o’clock hangout?” Kyrie asked.
“I used to work at a bookstore. I like being around books.”
“Me, too. You know my sister was a writer.”
“The one who—”
“Who was murdered?” Kyrie asked. “Yeah, her.”
“What was her name? I’d rather call her by her name than ‘your sister who was murdered,’” Elle said.
Kyrie gave her a strange look. And then a smile.
“You’re the first person who’s asked me her name after I mentioned her.”
“She only spent one day of her life dying. Who was she the rest of the time?”
“Bethany. Although her pen name was Marian Sherwood.”
“Robin Hood fan?”
“It was her favorite story, favorite movie, favorite everything.”
“What did she write?”
“Romance novels. The kind set in the past when everyone dressed better? What are those? The men with the great boots?”
“Regencies?”
“Those. They were good, too. I loved reading her books. She even dedicated one to me.”
“Do you have any with you?” Elle asked, desperate to read anything other than a book of Catholic theology or church history.
“I wasn’t allowed to bring them with me,” Kyrie said. “But they’re up here.” She pointed at her head.
“I’m really sorry about what happened to her.”
“It was on the news, you know. National news. Young mother and bestselling writer murdered by her husband. Well, it was on the news for one day and then something else more important happened. Some celebrity got divorced
or something.”
“Nothing’s more important than losing someone you love.”
“I thought so.” Kyrie sighed heavily. “It’s crazy that a romance writer would get killed by her husband. You’d never imagine a woman who wrote about true love for a living would be in such a bad marriage.”
“The face you show the world isn’t always your real face,” Elle said. “You can look at someone and think you know everything about them...but you don’t. We all have masks on. Or veils.” She looked pointedly at Kyrie. “I know someone who lives a double life. Actually...almost everyone I knew back home did.” Kingsley, Søren...all of them.
“So what are you reading?” Kyrie asked, clearly ready to stop talking about her sister. “Anything good?”
“Bulfinch’s Mythology. I’m trying to figure out what Sisyphus did to deserve his rock and rolling for all eternity punishment.”
“Nothing,” Kyrie said, taking the book off Elle’s lap. “Nothing anyone could do merits eternal suffering.”
“You sure about that? What about rape?”
“Nope.”
“Murder?”
“No.”
“Child molestation?”
“Not even that. I mean, think about it. Eternity, Elle. Forever and ever without end. Infinite time. No crime causes infinite suffering. At some point the victim dies, goes to Heaven and lives in bliss. If the victim’s suffering isn’t eternal, how can the punishment for a crime be eternal?”
“Hell is in the Bible.”
“So are talking donkeys. You see a talking donkey anywhere?” Kyrie asked.
“I know a few talking asses.”
Kyrie glared at her. “Hell is where we put people we don’t want to think about. Like my ex-brother-in-law who killed Bethany. I mean, he...” Kyrie paused and closed her fingers into a fist. “He slammed her head against the wall until she died, Elle. But you know what? Bethany’s in Heaven. She’s with God, and she’s happy and rejoicing for all eternity. And he, Jake...Jake was abused by his father so badly when he was a kid that at age thirty-five he still wets the bed when he hears loud noises at night because he thinks it’s his dad coming to his bedroom again.”
“That’s horrible.” Elle winced. “I know a man who was sexually abused by his own sister when he was eleven. But he never used that as an excuse to harm other people. We all have free will.”
“I’m not saying Jake shouldn’t be punished. But it’s like the maze we were talking about,” Kyrie said. “A person’s heart is a maze. When you’re in the maze, you can’t see your way to the center of it. Only if you’re above the maze can you look down and really see what’s happening. I think that’s how God looks at us. That way he can see the entire maze at once, can see where the twists and turns are, and where the center is. Jake was a victim, too. Do I love him? No. Do I hate him? Yes. But I want to forgive him. God says to forgive him. And if God expects fallible human me to forgive him, why shouldn’t I expect perfect, infallible God to forgive him?”
“You want to put a sign on the front doors of Hell that says Going Out of Business.”
“Good,” Kyrie said. “Hell is a fun concept. Hell is where you damn the guy who cuts you off in traffic or the girl who breaks your heart or the lady at the customer service counter at Sears who refuses to give you a refund on your underwear even though they fell apart after only one washing and of course you don’t have the tags still on it because who would wear their underwear with the tags on it?”
“Not that you speak from experience or anything,” Elle said.
“Once. I wore those panties once and they disintegrated in the washer.”
“Hand wash in the sink, cold water, soak overnight, hang to dry.”
“Where were you when I needed you last summer?”
“Here,” Elle said. “Pushing a rock up the hill, letting it roll down and then pushing it back up again. I’m still here.”
“I’m glad you’re still here. Even if means you’re pushing a rock up a hill every day. Even if it means...”
“Means what?”
“Even if it means me getting in trouble for talking to you during the Grand Silence.”
Elle had a feeling Kyrie wanted to say something else, meant to say something else. But she’d somehow lost her courage.
“You won’t tell anyone, will you?”
“Tell anyone what?”
“That I don’t believe Hell exists. It’s kind of a heresy.”
“I am a walking heresy,” Elle said. “And no, I won’t tell.”
Kyrie looked at Elle but didn’t smile. She didn’t frown, either. She simply looked at her as if trying to memorize Elle’s face. Elle let her.
“Anyway, I should go to bed,” Kyrie said, standing up. “You’re reading and I’m supposed to be sleeping. Instead of, you know, touching myself or something so I’ll end up in Purgatory.”
“You don’t believe in Hell, but you believe in Purgatory?”
“I do. That’s weird, right? I kind of like the thought that there’s a process you have to go through to get into Heaven. I mean, I had to fill out paperwork just to return a pair of disintegrated panties. Heaven has to have some sort of returns policy, right?”
“Red tape. No escaping it.”
“I should take a book back with me to bed. Something to help me keep my hands off myself. Any suggestions?”
“What do you like to read?” Elle asked, the standard bookseller question when any customer asked for a recommendation.
“I’m guessing there aren’t any romance novels in here?” Kyrie glanced up at the shelves.
“Nope. Trust me, I looked,” Elle said. “If you want anything fun to read, you’ll have to write it yourself.”
“Bethany was the writer in the family. I’m a reader. Any romances in there?” Kyrie nodded at her book of mythology.
“Sort of. There’s Leda and the Swan. More bestiality than romance, though. Psyche and Cupid’s pretty good. Daphne and Apollo. They’re my favorite. The original love-hate relationship.”
“Who were they?”
“Daphne was a forest nymph and beautiful beyond imagining. Apollo was the god of music, reason and healing. He came upon Cupid one day playing with his bow and arrows—”
“Masturbating?”
“No, I think these were literal bows and arrows.”
“Continue the story please. I’ll adjust my mental images,” Kyrie said.
“Apollo teased little Cupid about his prowess with his bow.”
The Virgin Page 17
