by Edward Lee
Hudson couldn’t believe such an implication.
“Are you receiving my meaning, son?”
“I’m . . . not sure, Monsignor.”
“In the real world you’ll be subject to the same temptations that Christ faced. We in the vocation all need to know that.”
“But I’m perfectly happy with a vow of celibacy.”
The monsignor smiled, and it was a sardonic smile. “Go out into the world first, and that includes the world of women. If you don’t, you’ll probably quit in ten or twenty years. It doesn’t do God any good to have priests that quit when they start feeling that they’ve missed out. It’s the same things with the nuns—good Lord. I’ve been around a while so I know what I’m talking about.”
Before the notion to ask even occurred consciously, Hudson began, “Monsignor, did you ever . . .”
The old man lurched forward in his chair. “Did I ever break my vow of celibacy? Are you being audacious enough to ask me that? Me?”
“I-I-I,” Hudson bumbled. “Not audacious, sir. But . . .”
“Fine. It’s an honest answer. God needs priests with balls, too.”
Hudson’s brow shot up.
“No, I never broke my vow of celibacy, and I’ve been a priest for almost seventy years.” The monsignor’s gaze sharpened to pinpoints on Hudson. “But I’ll tell you this. I almost did many times, but in the end, I resisted.”
“That’s . . . probably easier said than done.”
“Nope. I asked God to take the burden of my temptations off of my shoulder and onto his. And he did. He always does”—very quickly, the Monsignor pointed—“if you have faith.”
“I have faith, Monsignor.”
“Of course you do, but you’re also full of idealism—you’re too young to know what you’re talking about.” The old smile leveled on Hudson. “I’ll bet you don’t even masturbate—”
Hudson didn’t, but he blushed.
“I won’t ask if you do or you don’t, but know this, young man. There’ll be none of that shit after you’re a priest.”
Hudson had to laugh.
“All I’m saying is it’s reasonable in God’s eyes to get all of that out of your system before you take your true vows. That’s why I won’t give you a referral until you’ve gone out into the world for a year or so. You see, if I recommend you to a seminary, what I’m really doing is recommending you to God. Don’t make a monkey out of me in front of God.”
This guy’s a trip, Hudson thought. “I understand, sir.”
“Good, so where are you going?”
Hudson drew on a long breath. “Florida, I think. I grew up in Maryland, where I learned to shuck oysters. I could get a job doing that.”
“Good, a real-world job, like I’ve been saying.”
“A friend of mine lives down there now. We were acolytes together.”
The old priest’s eyes widened. “Is he in the vocation?”
Hudson chuckled. “No, sir, I’m afraid not. He’s, I guess, lost his faith, but—”
“Excellent. You can help him find it again while you’re shucking oysters in Florida and experiencing real life. The real world, Hudson. You need to know it before you can be a priest.”
“Yes, sir.”
The monsignor looked at his watch. “I have a golf match now. Make sure you clean all the windows in the chancellery today. Then you can take off. Go to Florida, live amongst the other people. Then come back in a year or so and I’ll get you into any seminary you want.”
“Thank you, Monsignor.” Hudson kissed the old man’s ring as he reached for his golf bag . . .
That was the dream. Hudson awoke late, slightly hung-over. He supposed a soon-to-be seminarist getting half drunk was easily more pardonable than soliciting hookers. He was proud of himself for resisting the temptation last night, but then . . .
Pride’s a sin, too.
Had it really been resistance, had it really been faith? Had passing up the prostitutes to help a poor woman really been a good deed? Or was it just guilt?
He hoped it wasn’t the latter.
He had very little money right now, especially after emptying his wallet to the poor mother last night. And he’d been let go at the Oyster House several days ago due to a recession-induced lull in local tourism. It didn’t matter, though; he’d be leaving for the seminary in Jersey in less than a week, and he could always get a meal at the church where he helped out with lay duties. He had to go there today, as a matter of fact, to help Father Darren prep for the late service. God will provide, he thought, and believed it. But still . . .
It would be nice to have a little cash for his remaining days in town.
Hudson grimaced when a knock resounded at the door.
Oh, for pity’s sake . . . It had to be somebody selling something. No one else ever knocked on Hudson’s door. He pulled on his robe inside out.
“Look, whatever it is you’re selling,” he preempted when he opened the front door, “I’m flat broke—” But the rest was severed when he looked at his caller.
An attractive but blank-faced woman stood without. The cause of Hudson’s jolt was her attire: a long black surplice and, of all things, a Roman collar. A female minister? he hazarded. Must be asking for donations—He could’ve laughed. Lady, you picked the WRONG door to knock on today!
Her blonde hair had been pulled back; her eyes were an odd dull blue. She was in her forties but striking: shapely, ample bosomed. A stout wooden cross hung about her neck.
“Are you Hudson Hudson?” the woman asked in the driest tone.
“Yes, and I’d love to give a donation but I’m afraid—”
“My name is Deaconess Wilson.” She stared as she spoke, as if on tranquilizers.
“I’m sorry . . . Deaconess, but I don’t have any money—”
“I’m here to tell you that you’ve won the Senary,” she said.
Hudson stalled. “The what?”
She handed him a nine-by-six manila envelope. “May I . . . come in, Mr. Hudson?”
Hudson winced. “I’d rather you didn’t, the place is a—” He looked at the envelope. “What is this?”
“It . . . would be easier if I told you inside . . .”
He stepped back. Obviously she was Protestant. “All right, but just for a minute. I’m very busy,” he lied.
She entered slowly as if unsure of her footing. Hudson closed the door. “Now what’s this? I’ve won the what?”
She turned and stood perfectly still. It occurred to Hudson now that whenever she spoke, she seemed to falter, as if either she didn’t know what to say or she was resisting something.
“The Senary,” she said in that low monotone. “It’s like . . . a lottery.”
“Well I never signed up for any Senary, and I never bought a ticket.”
“You don’t have to. All you have to . . . do is be born.” She blinked. “I’ve been instructed to inform you that you’re the twelfth person to win the Senary. Ever. In all of history.”
“Oh, you’re with one of those apocalyptic religious sects—”
“No, no.” The deaconess ground her teeth. “I’m just . . . the messenger, so to speak.” Then she flinched and shook her head. “I’m-I’m . . . not sure what I’m supposed to say . . .”
Crazy, Hudson thought, a little scared now. Mental patient with some religious delusion. Probably just escaped from a hospital.
She groaned. “You see, every . . . six hundred . . . and sixty-six . . . years, someone wins the Senary. This . . . time it’s . . . you.”
She reminded Hudson of a faulty robot, experiencing minor short circuits. Several times her hands rose up, then lowered. She’d shrug one shoulder for no reason, wince off to one side, flinch, raise a foot, then put it back down. And again he had the impression that some aspect of her volition was resisting an unbidden impulse when her hands struggled to rise again.
Shaking, they stopped at the top button of her surplice. Then, as if palsied, her fingers
began to unfasten the buttons.
Her words faltered. “Ssssssss-atan fell from Heaven in 5318 BC. The ffffffffff-irst Senary was held in 4652 BC. It was wuh-wuh-won by a Cycladean coppersmith named Ahkazm.”
Crazy. Pure-ass crazy, Hudson knew now. Yet, he didn’t throw her out. Instead he just stood . . . and watched.
Watched her completely unbutton the surplice, skim it off along with the Roman collar and cross. She jittered a bit when she faced Hudson more resolutely, as if to display her total nakedness to him.
I don’t BELIEVE this . . .
“Listen,” he finally forced himself to say. “You’re going to have to—”
The image of her body stunned him. Her torso was a perfect hourglass of flesh; high, full breasts; flat stomach and wide hips. Her skin shone in perfect, proverbial alabaster white.
Hudson’s eyes inched lower, to her pubis, where his speechless gaze was hijacked by a plenteous triangle of bronze fur.
This deaconess had one full-tilt body . . .
“I-I-I,” she faltered. The dull blue of her eyes seemed to implore him. “I’ve been instructed . . . to tell you that you kuh-kuh-can sodomize me if you ssssssso . . . desire, or-or-or I will give you . . . oral . . . ssssssex. It’sssss part of winning the Senary.” She seemed to gag. “It’ssss what they said to say.” Then she turned, quite robotically—showing an awesome rump—and foraged through some old cupboards.
“They said?” Hudson questioned. “Who’s they?”
“A Class III Machinator and his Spotter,” she told him, still rummaging. “They’re Bio-Wizards. They work in a Channeling Fortress in the Emetic District. They’re mmmmmm-achinating me. That’s why . . . I’m acting errrrrrr-atically. They’re manipulating my . . . will.” Then she bent over, to search a lower cabinet.
Holy moly! As wrong as all this was—especially for a future seminarist—Hudson couldn’t take his eyes off her physique. When she’d bent, the action only amplified the magnificence of her rump. “What are you looking for?” he finally asked.
“Ah. Here.” She straightened, holding a bottle of Vigo olive oil. She stood awkwardly then, and began smoothing palmfuls of the oil over her body. Hudson stared, stupefied.
What am I going to do? he thought. I’ve got a buck-naked deaconess with a body like Raquel Welch in Fantastic Voyage lubing herself up with my Vigo. This is insane. SHE’S insane.
She sat up on the dowdy kitchen table and lay back, continuing to spread the oil. Her skin glimmered almost too intensely to focus on for long. “They t-t-told me you’d like thissssss.”
“Uh, well . . .”
“I-I-I’m chaste, by the way—I have . . . to tell you that, too.” Now her hands were reoiling her breasts and belly. “It’s a prerequisite. Any Senarial Messenger mmmmm-ust be virginal, as well as a guh-guh-guh-godly person.” She pulled her knees back, then splashed some oil between her spread legs. “You kuh-kuh-can put it right . . . here,” she said, and touched her anus. “Would you like to?”
Hudson stared at the question as much as the gleaming spectacle. Simply thinking about doing it seemed more luxurious than anything he’d ever fathomed. But—
I am NOT going to have anal sex with a crazy deaconess!
“Or-or-or . . . here,” she said, now pressing the perfect breasts together, to highlight the slippery valley. “Just nuh-nuh-not my vuh-vuh-vuh-vagina . . . I mmmmmust remain chaste.”
The action of her hands, in tandem with the shining, perfect skin, nearly hypnotized Hudson. It seemed as though she were wearing a magnifying glass out in the sun; that’s how brightly she gleamed. His arousal became uncomfortable in his pants. This woman’s off the deep end. I need to get her out of here. Yet every time he resolved to tell her to leave, the image of her body grew more intense, silencing him, commanding him to watch.
Now her hands massaged the oil into the abundant triangle, which began to shine like spun gold.
This is too much . . . Hudson thought.
The woman simply lay still, waiting.
“You-you-you-you’re allowed to,” she droned.
Hudson reeled, staring.
“No,” he blurted, cursing himself. I want to, damn it, but . . . “You’re going to have to leave, miss. Are you on medication or something? Drugs? I could call a hotline through my church—”
“You’re-you’re-you’re . . . not interested?”
“No.”
“Oh,” she responded. “Okay.” Then she dully put her raiments back on, adjusting the white collar. She shambled to the sink to soap and wash her hands.
For land’s sake. What is going ON?
Hudson watched, mute, as she ground her teeth a few more times, winced, then headed for the door.
“You’re-you’re under no obligation, by the way,” she said, her back to him. “I’m-I’m-I’m ssssss-upposed to tell you that, and muh-muh-make it clear.”
“What is this Senary stuff!” Hudson barked.
“But if you’re . . . interested . . . Fuh-fuh-follow the instructions,” she feebled, and then she walked out of the apartment, leaving Hudson dumbstruck, painfully aroused, and smelling olive oil.
Did any of that really happen? He stared at the closed door for five full minutes. Perhaps he’d dreamed it; perhaps he was sleeping. He pinched himself hard and frowned. But if you’re interested . . . follow the instructions.
Only then did he realize he was still holding the envelope she’d initially given him.
He opened it and pulled out, first, a plain sheet of paper on which had been floridly handwritten:
YOU HAVE WON THE SENARY. ALL WILL BE EXPLAINED IF YOU CHOOSE TO PROCEED. SHOULD YOU DECIDE THAT YOU ARE INTERESTED, CARRY ON TO THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS AFTER SUNDOWN WITHIN THE NEXT SIX DAYS.
An unfamiliar address—24651 Central—was written below, which he believed was somewhere in the downtown area. Hudson read what remained.
YOU ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO ACCEPT, AND WHETHER YOU DO OR NOT, YOU MAY KEEP THE REMUNERATION.
Remuner—
Hudson dug back into the envelope and discovered another envelope.
It felt fat.
He tore it open and found—
Holy SHIT . . .
—$6,000 in crisp and apparently brand-new one-hundred-dollar bills. The bills were oddly bundled, however, in paper-clipped divisions of six.
CHAPTER TWO
(I)
“You gotta be shitting me!” Gerold muttered when he wheeled up to Worden’s Hardware Store. He’d always liked the place because it reminded him of days past—days when recessions weren’t strangling the economy and changing the way people shopped. Now everything was malls, Internet shopping, and Home Depots the size of naval vessels. Whatever happened to mom-and-pop shops? Modernity, that’s what. There was no place for them these days, just as there was no place for small, family-owned hardware stores like Worden’s where the people working there actually knew what they were talking about.
Hence, Gerold’s displeasure, after wheeling three blocks in the sun from the bus stop. The sign was a sign of the times: SORRY, WORDEN’S IS NO LONGER IN BUSINESS. THANK YOU FOR FIFTY YEARS OF SUPPORT.
Gerold had specifically come here for something, but now he’d have to bus to Home Depot. Shit.
He’d come here to buy about twenty feet of decent gauge rope so that he could hang himself. “Not today,” he mumbled and wheeled off. He wasn’t up for the extra bus to Home Depot right now. Looks like I’ll have to go to work tomorrow after all . . . ’cos I won’t be dead yet.
He’d already figured how he would do it, but it would have to be late. Gerold’s apartment was on the third floor (the only inexpensive apartment building in town with an elevator). He’d wait till two, three in the morning, tie one end of the rope to the balcony rail, then fling himself off. If anybody even woke up in the apartment below, Gerold felt sure he’d be dead before they could do anything, and he didn’t like those people anyway—a snitty retired couple who always ignored him and frowned w
hen he was doing his laundry. He guessed they thought a paraplegic’s dirty laundry was grosser than theirs.
Maybe when I hang myself, I’ll do it naked, with my catheter bag hanging. When those assholes come out in the morning for their coffee—surprise! The idea made Gerold smile.
Months ago he printed a how-to sheet off the Internet: the precise way to make a hangman’s noose.
The sun’s heat drummed into him, but in the time it would take the next bus to come, he could be home anyway. Several rednecks in a dented hot rod grinned at him when the WALK light came on. “It says walk, not roll!” one of them laughed. Gerold said nothing; he was used to it. His rolling trek continued, down the main road. Eventually, though, he stopped, and he didn’t know what caused him to do so. He sat there for several minutes, staring.
His eyes had fixated on a looming crucifix . . .
The church, he realized after several more moments. Why had he wheeled a block past his apartment? Subconscious, probably. The dying Catholic in him knew the never-changing rule: If you kill yourself, you go to Hell. No matter what. No exceptions.
It seemed like a ridiculous rule.
Shit, I don’t even know if I believe in Heaven or Hell . . . Still, without much forethought, he wheeled toward the high-ceilinged church, the same church he attended every Sunday. What am I doing? If I don’t believe in Heaven or Hell, then that means I don’t believe in God, and if I don’t believe in God, why am I rolling this FUCKIN’ chair toward the CHURCH?
A slim, dark-haired man in his midtwenties came out of the rectory/school building. He was toting a garbage bag. “How’s it going? Is there anything I can help you with?”
Gerold felt silly. “Well, um . . .” That’s when he recognized the guy—one of the church assistants. He wore black shoes, black slacks, black shirt, but no white collar. “I’ve seen you plenty of times.”
“Yeah, my name’s Hudson.”
They shook hands. “I’m Gerold.”
“I’ve seen you, too,” Hudson said.
I’m easy to remember. The young guy in the FUCKIN’ chair. “Oh, and you know, I think I saw you in the bar last night, the Lounge . . .” Gerold’s eyes thinned. “Er, well, maybe it was someone else.”
