by Dusty Miller
Husband and wife would have things to talk about.
Heather crunched bacon and dipped her toast in the slightly-runny egg yolk. He’d done a good job on it, but then she suspected Braden would do a good job on anything he tried his hand at and gave an honest effort.
She choked up for a second. Tears threatened and she was tempted to just let them come, to drop her fork and just cry. Maybe he would talk to her then.
He turned on random impulse and looked at her, and then turned back to the commentators as basketball players spun and fell past the lens of the camera. Shots flashed across the screen and it meant nothing to her, words were spoken and it was like gibberish. She tried to understand.
If she wanted to be a part of his life, then she would have to get over herself. That thought came very clearly, stark in its simplicity. Plenty of women, and men too, had left the Church. She’d always assumed it was in disgrace. Now she saw there could be other reasons, more important reasons than she had ever believed. She’d never looked at it from the secular point of view.
Her own family thought her vocation mad, simply mad. They didn’t understand it.
The two of them would have a lot to learn, especially her. The thought of making a mistake and doing something stupid and irrevocable made her chest tighten and her blood pressure rise.
She wondered when he would speak.
Maybe it was her responsibility this time.
“So.”
He must have been waiting for it.
He looked over, having shoved his plate away, and sat up a little straighter.
His arm snaked over and wrapped around her shoulder.
“So, what?”
An involuntary smile crossed her face, changing her outlook in spite of all her misgivings.
“So, what did you want to do today?”
He cocked his head and looked at her with interest.
“Oh, I don’t know. What did you want to do today?”
Her smile was broader this time, and her tightly-knotted abdominal muscles began to relax.
The shivery feeling of not quite being warm enough began to go away.
#
They agreed on a walk in the park, chilly as it was after the freakish warmth of the previous night. The path took them up a hill and out of the town proper until they arrived at a big open space. Strong sunlight beat down and the damp trail of dark wood chips steamed.
“This used to be Churchill Steel.” A hundred metres away lay a huddle of buildings, the two-story block walls and flat metal roofs punctuated by the gaping black holes of horizontal window openings up high.
Scrub, trees and bushes, all naked now in winter, provided a maze of cover. There was no snow, and underfoot were visible the cracked and crazed patterns of an asphalt surface, tilted every which way and missing in many places. Piles of rubble and debris rounded out the picture of post-apocalyptic decay.
“Let’s go look!” Heather’s mood had lightened considerably once the shock of his proposal had a bit of time to sink in.
It wasn’t the end of the world. She could always confess, repent, and make the act of contrition. Go on with her life. Her choices were clear, much as she might resent them.
“Sure. I’ll bet it’s all covered in graffiti.” Even from where they stood, the signs of previous vandals and trespassers were all too visible.
The words were there all right. All the kids knew them, and some of them had spray-bombs.
She took his hand and led him on.
“I’ll give you a kiss when we get in there.” There was a larger promise in her eyes. “I’ve never seen a set of ruins before. It’s very romantic, don’t you think?”
He laughed out loud and shrugged, happy enough to be with her.
Her face glowed with some resolve of her own and Braden willingly went along, taking over the lead, picking their way and checking the trail for holes and dead vines and things that might trip her up. The possibility of kids fooling around, or transients living in there came to mind.
The pair stood in an opening. What had once been a busy and thriving factory floor now held nothing but desolation. The wind soughed through gaps in the roof and through the doors, all since smashed or fallen in by now. A few frames held remnant panes of dirty glass.
Holding hands, they walked out onto the factory floor, pale sunlight slanting down in bright beams through the skylights, falling among the tall I-beam roof supports, and throwing the metal trusses and their geometric patterns into sharp detail.
He stopped and pulled her around. They hugged, not saying anything, and with Heather unable to look into his face.
They wandered further, into a smaller, one-floor set of former offices. Along one wall was a blackboard. There were still two battered metal desks in there, with drawers missing. Those and their contents had been scattered about the room along with other incomprehensible junk. Letting go of Heather, Braden wandered absently around the room, stooping low and coming up with a teacher’s pointer of all things. He strutted around with it under his arm like Patton and she laughed in spite of their present serious mood and the horrible dilemma he had presented her with.
It wasn’t unbearably cold. Sheltered by the wind, the place was a kind of portal into the mind of a child or a world that existed only in the imagination. Kids must play here all the time, she realized.
Looking around, Braden’s eyes lit up. There was a piece of chalk.
“So. General Patton, sir.”
He turned and tilted his head.
“Huh?”
“Ah. What’s the plan, sir?” She stood at attention, with her arms at her sides and her chin up. “Your all-encompassing plan for world—no, you’re too clever for that. No, it must be your plan for all-encompassing sexual domination.”
He grinned tightly. He nodded, looking at Heather anew. She would surprise him yet.
“Very good then.” Braden handed her the stick and she tucked it under her arm with a salute. “General Montgomery. Listen carefully, please, and then I shall strive to answer any questions.”
He picked up the small piece of chalk lying in the blackboard’s aluminum trough and began to go over the points, one by one. He drew lines like a football play, all arrows and x’s and dotted lines. He put in a couple of streets, marking his own house with his name. He drew a little house on the board with a squirrely arrow pointing towards it. That represented her place.
“Your best bet is to go back tonight. That way, you can say you got up early, and went out to have a look at the town. You did some shopping. You bought plain old black socks and baggy, sensible underwear. You had lunch and supper already and you just want to go to bed—”
“Hmn.” Braden had hit the nail on the head.
The odds of anyone discovering her absence were very small last night, and fairly slim this morning, but grew worse with every passing hour.
“Go on.”
“We can have sex before then. Good sex. Great sex. Right after dinner. Then I drive you to the vicinity. I know just where to park. You go in the side door, after dark, using the key provided by Intel. Then I climb up and bring you your bag. Or, I could just tie a rope on it and throw up a grappling hook. It’s just spare underwear and socks anyway. Pajamas and stuff.”
“True.” So, he had thought it all through, then.
“That’s how you’ll be going in tomorrow night, anyhow. That was my original plan.”
The only problem was that second day. Surely she would be missed by then. She would love to pull it off, though.
“What else?” She was gratified by his easy capitulation, but didn’t really trust him either.
A thought struck her. Birds chirped in the underbrush and sparrows flitted around the roof beams. Time was on his side. It hit her like that. She was right in town now.
“And then, first thing Monday morning, you set up an appointment with your Mother Superior.”
“What? Oh, Braden!” Her mood was suddenly spoiled, but there
was more.
“Seriously. You’re asking me to carry on an affair with a nun. Sooner or later it must backfire, and blow up in both of our faces. You must know this, Heather. Sister Heather. The only right thing to do, considering how I feel, is to either marry you—or leave you the hell alone.” A crow cronked and cronked fifty metres away, seeming to laugh at them.
It was for her own good, as well as his own good. He hoped she understood. Trucks moaned up the hill, heading for the bigger cities far to the south.
“So you’re saying…”
“I’m begging you to think about it. Please, Heather.”
There was a long silence as they looked into each other’s eyes and wondered what was going to happen next.
Braden went on with finality.
“Otherwise, I’m offering to make mad, passionate love to you, all night long if you want. One last time. We can take you back shortly before dawn at the latest.”
He put the chalk back on the ledge. There was a certain inexorable logic in it. She had to give him that much.
The pair clung tightly, unable to speak or look at each other, and then Heather pulled him out of there and they made their way back in the wan light of late afternoon. Neither could think of a single thing to say and so they didn’t say much at all.
#
Braden had errands to run and his vehicle needed an oil change. He had a little household shopping to do. They agreed it was an unnecessary risk for her to go with him, as he would be in and out of the car, sitting in the waiting room and such. Heather settled in on the couch. For what seemed like the first time in her life, she had hours to kill, no responsibilities and the TV to herself. The notion that Braden was giving her a chance to run for it did cross her mind after a while.
She set that thought aside with a kind of contempt. One way or another, this had to be settled.
She flipped through the channels, idly watching one show after another and finding nothing that really seemed relevant in her life. Women’s shows were only barely tolerable to one so disconnected. Reluctant to think too much, she eventually laid out flat on the couch and promptly fell asleep.
The sound of Braden coming in the door and stomping snow off his boots woke her with a bang. She sat up, blinking in the strong light of the open front door. The living room curtains were still drawn, which seemed to be one of his little idiosyncrasies.
The glare would have ruined the view of the TV. That had to be it. She knew so little of normal people, normal life. Braden had a TV in his room and one in the basement. Braden would have a stereo in the garage.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” Braden took off his coat and hung it up, then sat on his home-made boot bench to remove the footwear.
“That’s all right. I shouldn’t have slept so long anyway. Is it snowing out there?”
“Yeah.” His cheerful face turned her way as he stood.
She looked at the clock in the wedge-shaped curio cabinet, off in the far corner of the room.
“Oh, my.” It was twenty to five.
She got up off the couch.
“I’ll put the coffee on.”
“Thank you, honey.” Braden came over and they hugged, almost diffidently.
It was like they didn’t know where they stood, which was true enough she supposed.
He really did deserve some kind of an answer.
The only problem was that she had no idea of what she was going to say. She had no idea of what was going to come out of her mouth and so silence was golden.
They exchanged a kiss.
“I was thinking we could order a big pizza from Mama Laguna’s, the number twenty-one.” This had all been in Braden’s original plan.
Why waste time cooking, when time was so short to begin with?
“That sounds good.”
He nodded and gave her pat on the bum upon release.
Braden watched her ass carefully as she went to the kitchen to deal with the coffee.
There was definitely a seductive wiggle in there. He wondered if she was aware of it or if it was completely subconscious. Heather was all woman, and a woman is a terrible thing to waste.
Hopefully she would figure that out in time.
Strange thought, but it was all he had.
#
Heather waited on the couch until the pizza delivery fellow had left. Braden put the box on the boot bench and locked and bolted the door. He snapped off the light over the front door and then turned off the hall light. Taking the pizza out into the kitchen, he found that Heather had put a red tablecloth on for them and found a couple of his better plates. There was a single white candle burning in a simple glass holder in the centre of the table.
Braden grinned at the sight. What was on her mind? She was moving around out there. He heard the bathroom door close.
She had also discovered a few bottles of lager in the back of the fridge. Open ones stood in front of each plate. Braden put the pizza box on the counter. He pulled paper towels off the roll and put them on the table.
“Why don’t you sit down, honey, and I’ll take care of that.”
Her musky scent washed into the room.
Turning, his heart flipped to see her in a costume he’d been planning to surprise her with, but she must have found it on the upper closet shelf while he was mucking about with the furnace filter.
She’d powdered much of her body and face alabaster white. Her shoulders sparkled with tiny sequins. She held a single red rose. Another surprise, he’d forgotten all about them. She stood regarding him in confident authority. From her other hand dangled the whip he’d picked up. He wasn’t going to hurt her, just tease her a little. It looked like he was in deep trouble. Braden grinned engagingly, holding her eyes for a minute.
She wore black rosary beads with a dangling crucifix. She had tiny black cruciform earrings to match.
It was good to see she appreciated them as her chin lifted in defiance…
Around her neck was a wide black leather collar, studded with short pointy rivets. She had similar bands of studded leather around her wrists, and the tiniest pair of cut-off black leather hot pants he had been able to find. They had sharp studs along the hems of the legs and the waistline. Her halter-top was thin, black and very sheer, the only decoration the narrow seam of the edges itself. Her nipples poked at it from inside. Slowly she spun in front of him so he could take in her exposed back with spaghetti-thin straps, the long legs, the shorts with a curve of creamy buttock coyly peeking out. She had on black lipstick, and her fingernails and toenails were shiny jet black…the shoes were a lucky find.
He’d taken a chance with that. Her long and languid toes stuck out the front, and her heels and the sides of her feet were exposed by gaping cuts in the black leather. In every other way they were a boot, ankle high but with a Swiss cheese of holes cut in the material. There was black fringe beaded around the tops of them.
She tossed the whip aside. It landed with a clatter in front of the fridge.
“Please?”
“Well…okay.”
Braden sat down dutifully. He took a sip of his beer as she picked up his plate and put three slices of pizza on it. There was bacon, ham, cheese, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, pepperoni, olives, all kinds of stuff on it.
“Looks good.” She turned and set his plate on the table.
“Yes. You do.”
With a knowing smirk, she loaded up her own plate.
“Garlic bread?”
He nodded.
“As long as you’re having some too.”
Surprised, she looked up, and then laughed. She gave him a couple pieces out of that box.
“Yes, I think I will.” She took a couple of slices for herself.
She bit her lip and gazed into his face. He looked back objectively, blinking slowly. She sat down. He stopped eating and looked at her some more, very quietly now. A bit of red crept up her cheeks, visible even in the dim light of one candle and the small quartz LE
D light over the sink.
They ate for a while.
As hungry as they were, there was a lull in the conversation. She had three or four bites and Braden was just finishing up the crust of his first piece when she wiped her lips with a paper towel, pushed her chair back and dropped down under the kitchen table.
Caught in the act of downing a heft swig of foamy beer, Braden could do little but squawk in indignation as she crawled over and began tugging at the zipper of his jeans.
“Ah-ah-ah.”
“No?” She popped up, looking disappointed.
“You seem to forget who’s in charge around here. Besides, you might need your strength for later.”
“What? Hah.”
“One last meal for the condemned woman.”
He pulled her out from under the table and pointed at the chair opposite. Pouting, she went back to her place.
Leaving his penis sticking out for her to see through the clear plastic top of his modern kitchenette suite, Braden tucked into another slice of pizza, which was delightfully salty and with a thin, crispy crust that was done to perfection.
She watched, licking her lips still, and when she caught her breath she began eating again.
Scene Three
Braden put the lid down on the pizza box as there were still three or four slices left. He shoved it to the back of the counter. His pants were done up again.
Heather was running some hot water into the stainless kitchen sink, adding soap and putting the two plates, the only dishes they had made, into the water.
As she bent slightly to wash them, Braden bumped up close behind her, his arm snaking around to caress her right nipple. His other hand went down to finger her through a gap in the crotch area, finding her warm and wet already. He reached around and undid her shorts. They dropped to the floor and she stepped out of them. Braden nudged them aside with a toe.
“I sense trouble.” Her voice was chipper and yet serene.
Looking up, she examined the surrounding yards. Braden undid the fastenings on her silk halter top and flung the thing to one side, where it trembled on the edge of the abyss for a moment and then dropped from the counter to the kitchen floor.
