by Sharon Sala
“Gladly,” he said.
“First, take off your shoes.”
“Yeah…right,” he said.
“I’m going to change the music.”
“It won’t get any better,” he warned her.
“It has to,” she said. “It can’t get any worse. Besides, you have rhythm. I can attest to that, because we’ve made love and it rocked my world. Anyone who’s as good in bed as you are has to have rhythm in his feet, as well.”
He didn’t know whether to be pissed off or proud, but he decided to reserve judgment as he took off his shoes.
In a moment the waltz was gone and the familiar strains of Willie Nelson’s whiskey voice filled the room.
“You were always on my mind,” Ben said.
January turned around. “Really? Why didn’t you ever say anything?” she asked.
“No…I mean, yes, you were, but that’s not what I meant.”
Now January was the one who was embarrassed.
“Look, mister, just what are you playing at?” she snapped.
He pointed to the CD player.
“The song—that’s the name of it. ‘Always on my mind.’”
January’s face turned red. “Oh.”
Ben stifled a groan. Now he’d done it. Not only had he physically abused her from head to toe, he’d managed to humiliate her, as well.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” he said. “I’m just no good at—”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, stop talking,” she muttered. January kicked off her shoes and walked into his arms. “Hug me,” she said.
“Now you’re talking,” he said. “This I can do.”
When his arms slid around her waist and his hands locked, she did the same to him. Then she turned her head, resting her cheek near the place where his heart beat loudest.
“Close your eyes,” she said.
“Honey, I’d much rather see you when we—”
“Benjamin, shut up. We’re not about to have sex.”
“Then what—?”
“Please! Do as I ask.”
This time he was the one rolling his eyes.
“This is on your head, or feet, as the case may be,” he mumbled.
“Close your damn eyes!”
He shut his eyes.
“Now quit thinking about me and just listen to the music.”
“Without moving?”
January gritted her teeth. “Yes, without moving.”
He stood still.
And heard her breathing.
And felt her palms growing damp against his lower back.
She was shaking, but by God, she was still with him. It wasn’t the first time he’d made a mess of dancing with a woman, but it was certainly the first time that one had come back for more.
“Do you hear it?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, and ran his fingers through her hair without knowing what the hell she was talking about.
“Do you feel it?” she asked.
“Lord, yes,” he said, and ground his hips against her belly.
January pulled back and thumped his chest with her fist.
“Not that! The music…the beat…the rhythm. For God’s sake, quit thinking about sex.”
“It’s not my fault you turn me on,” he said, and ran his forefinger from her chin to the hollow at the base of her throat.
January blinked. “I do?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, good and, uh…thank you.”
He grinned. “Don’t mention it.”
January sighed. “Please, can we try this one more time without you feeling me up quite so much?”
Ben frowned. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”
“Anything worth doing is worth doing well,” she said.
He put his arms back around her waist, waited until she slid her arms around his, and then closed his eyes.
And Willie Nelson finally pulled him under.
January was swaying where she stood, marking her motion to the rhythm of the song. Ben never knew when he started swaying with her, but before long she’d begun shifting from one foot to the other—moving in place.
He followed suit. It wasn’t hard. Just a matter of picking up one foot and putting it back down. He began to realize that the words of the song were forming a pattern, as were the percussion, the melody. Could it be this simple, after all—matching the motion of his body to the motion in the music?
“Ha!” he crowed.
January jumped.
“You scared me half to death. What’s wrong?”
“The music has repetitive motion.”
The delight in his voice made her smile.
“It’s called rhythm.”
“I never heard it before.”
“Probably because you were too busy thinking about sex.”
He laughed, picked her up off her feet and swung her around.
“Could be, but don’t blame me. All teenage boys come equipped with the same drive…engage, activate, then floor it.”
January shook her head in pretend dismay, but the light in her eyes gave away her delight.
“It’s probably a good thing we didn’t know each other in high school. You would have been one of those boys who continually pissed me off.”
“If you were as curvy then as you are now, you would have been right.”
“So let’s see what happens when we move around a little,” January said.
Ben grabbed her.
“Easy,” she said. “Arms around my waist, eyes closed, follow the music.”
“What about running into things and people? If my eyes are closed, I can guarantee someone’s going to suffer.”
“We’re not moving that much,” she said. “Just at first…just to get the feel of the music…okay?”
“Okay,” he said. “You’re the boss.”
“Ooh, I love it when you talk dirty to me,” she said.
He slid his arms around her waist and grinned.
“Close your eyes.”
He did.
The song had already ended and another one was beginning. Ben opened his eyes. She saw panic.
“What now?” she asked him.
“The music is different.”
“So find the motion in this song, as well. It’s in there. You’re a detective, for Pete’s sake. Find it.”
“Yeah. Right.”
He pulled her close again, then closed his eyes. The sway of her body was different, just like the music. It took a few moments for him to adjust his movements to hers, but when he finally did, it was there, just as before. To a man who’d never experienced this, it was magic.
He put one hand at the very base of her spine, letting his fingers ride the curve of her backside, as he slid his other arm beneath her shoulder blades, pressing her as close to him as he could.
“Do you feel it?” January asked.
“You don’t want me to answer that question,” he said, and buried his nose against the curve of her neck. “God, you smell good.”
“Tia’s taco sauce. It’ll do it every time.”
Ben grinned. “You are something, woman. Every time I try to make a pass at you, you make me laugh. You do know that, for a man, that’s a dangerous sign.”
“Stop talking and move your feet.”
“Just a little, right?”
“Right,” she said, and then breathed a sigh of relief when she was able to follow without having to dodge his steps.
The song ended. Another began.
And before Benjamin Wade North knew it, he was dancing. It wasn’t smooth. He was definitely eons away from becoming a Fred Astaire, but he didn’t look like a dying crane, and he wasn’t walking on January’s feet.
Another half hour passed. Ben managed to get through two rounds of elevator music without making a fool of himself or harming January. Finally she called it quits.
“Is the dance lesson finally over?” he asked.
She nodded as s
he padded across the floor to turn off the CD player.
“You’ll do fine.”
“I can do better,” he said.
She turned around. He was standing right behind her. This time he was the one who held out his hand. She sighed. The inevitable was here.
“Prove it,” she said.
Twelve
They were naked before the last echoes of the music died away. He took her first in the hallway, hard and without warning, and standing up.
January came so fast she screamed. When she could breathe again, she wrapped her arms around his neck and dragged him into her bedroom.
At that point Ben was the one flat on his back and losing his mind. He had brief moments of sanity that lasted long enough to see the glorious abandon on January’s face. When he came, it was like flying through an explosion—all heat and out of control. When it was over, there were tears in his eyes and January was in his arms. Lulled as he was by exhaustion and the sounds of a receding storm, sleep came easy.
Jay Carpenter had been furthering his plans. Besides the other disciples yet to find, he needed to make a special place apart from the men for the most important woman in his life. He had a new cot and blankets to set out, as well as a portable toilet he planned to conceal behind a stack of old wooden pallets. It was only right that she be given special consideration, and she would need no chains. A mother’s love and devotion toward her son were sacrosanct. He would have liked things to be more elegant for her, but that would not have been in keeping with the truth.
And it was truth that was driving him. The growing sense of urgency came from knowing his time left on earth was short, and there was so much left to do. Every time pain or weariness threatened to overwhelm him, he had but to remember the despair of hell.
With the rain still falling, and the wails and curses of his disciples fading from his consciousness, he got back in his cab and drove into the night. There was a box city under a certain overpass that would be full tonight. It would be a perfect place to preach the word of God as he searched for his missing flock.
Phillip Benton had seen hard times before, but never quite this hard. It had been more then eighteen months since he’d been laid off, and nine since he’d been evicted. His wife had taken their two kids and gone home to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Kentucky months ago. She’d cried all the way to the bus station, begging him to come with them, but he’d insisted he would find other work soon, and when he did, he would send for them again. It hadn’t happened.
Back in Kentucky, they’d been poor all their lives, but at least they’d had a house to live in and game in the woods to keep them fed. Here in this city that was the heart of the nation, they’d been out of their element, despite the dreams of bettering their existence. Now Phillip was too broke even to get home. Each day that passed pulled him further away from his family and closer to the edge of extinction.
Tonight, when the thunderstorm had rolled in, he’d taken shelter beneath an overpass along with at least two dozen others in similar condition. Normally they were people who would pass on the street without acknowledging each other’s existence. Even now, forced to be together by the presence of the storm, they still weren’t doing much talking, and the silence among them was eerie, so when the cab pulled up beneath the overpass, everyone looked. Even those who had drifted off to sleep woke up.
Jay saw their faces. Hope was gone. It lifted his heart to know that he could help. He could give them hope. The word of God was always good medicine for hopelessness.
“Good evening, brothers and sisters,” he said, as he got out of the cab.
No one spoke, although a few nodded.
He opened the trunk, took out a stack of blankets and laid them on the ground, then went back to the cab. By the time he got the box of canned food from the trunk, the blankets were gone.
“It isn’t much, but it’s filling,” he said, as he began handing out the small tins of Vienna sausages and potted meats. Then he handed two boxes of crackers to a thin, bedraggled female of an indeterminate age. “Would you help pass out some crackers to go with the meat?” he asked.
Her eyes shifted furtively, as if she expected to have to give him something else for the privilege of holding the food. But when he demanded nothing more than he’d already asked, she began to move among the crowd, handing out crackers as she went.
Once the people began to eat, the mood shifted. Jay had known that it would. A full stomach did wonders for depression. And giving these people something they needed, without expectations of them having to give back, made them more receptive to listening to the words of a stranger. As soon as everyone had been served, he lifted his arms and began to move among them.
“Take, eat and be blessed with the love of God,” he said. “For those of you who already believe, you are blessed. For those of you who don’t know God, or who doubt His existence, I am here to tell you that He’s real.”
Someone called out from the back of the crowd, “Yeah…so how do you know? What did He do, send you a Christmas card or something?”
Jay pointed up. “I know He’s real because I died. I died and was returned.”
There was a long moment of silent disbelief, then curiosity struck.
“What was it like?” someone asked. “What did heaven look like?”
“I don’t know,” Jay said. “I don’t know, because when I died, I did not go to heaven. I went to hell. I felt the heat, smelled the stench of evil and despair, heard the wails of lost souls, and I heard the devil’s voice.”
There was a collective gasp that rose even above the noise of the rain hammering down upon the ground. Then Jay continued. And he was a sight to behold, standing beneath the overpass with the wind tunneling through, his long hair and beard blowing, his clothing wet and plastered to his skin. The tumor growing in his brain had put suffering on his face. It gave him a gaunt, otherworldly appearance that, in their eyes, strengthened his religious persona.
“When I die again…and we will all die someday…When I die again, I don’t want a return ticket to the same place. That’s why I’m out here now, preaching to you about the dangers of disbelief and sin. Will you pray with me? Will you confess your sins before God right now and be born again?”
Several people moved forward, caught up in the emotion of the moment and their fear of following in the street preacher’s steps. Life on earth was hard enough. Going to hell when they died would be the ultimate slap in the face.
Jay began to pray, touching each of their heads as they came to him. Then he led them out from beneath the overpass, bathing them in what he called tears from heaven, thereby assuring them a permanent place at the hand of God. It certainly wasn’t a biblical truth, but it sounded good. And as the people stepped forward one by one, Jay asked them their name, then baptized them in the name of God. As they continued, a tall, bony man with a long, sad face stepped into Jay’s line of vision.
Jay reached for him, murmuring a prayer as he touched his head.
“And your name, my son?” Jay asked.
“Phillip Benton.”
Jay’s heart skipped a beat. Phillip. God had led him to Phillip. Now all he had to do was lead Phillip to his calling.
He patted Phillip’s shoulder after the baptism was done, and pulled him aside.
“Despite the chill of the rain, you feel unusually warm. Are you ill?”
Phillip thought nothing of the question, or of answering. After all, the man was a preacher, and where Phillip came from, that was a high mark to have next to a name.
“Yes, sir, I reckon I am,” he said. “Been having myself a bit of a cold.”
“So, Phillip, why don’t you take advantage of the back seat of my cab? I’ll be here a while longer. You could get comfortable out of the cold and rain.”
“Oh…I reckon I’ll—”
“No, no, I insist,” Jay said.
Phillip didn’t need a second urging. The thought of resting on anything padded was too enticing
to resist. He nodded his thanks and headed for the cab as Jay continued his work.
Time passed. The storm had yet to let up, but the food had run out. The people crawled back into their boxes and turned their backs to the rain and the man who’d given them a brief respite from their woes. No one had known Phillip Benton before, so no one missed him as the cab sped away.
Phillip had been asleep when Jay got into the cab. It was simple to put up the window between the front and back seats and hit the button to release the shot of ether. Phillip never roused as it filled his lungs, then dulled his senses. It would be morning before he would know anything, and by then he would be chained to the inside wall of the old blast furnace beside a man who seemed obsessed with pulling out bits of his hair.
Walter Lazarus, retired diamond broker from New York City, had moved to D.C. at his wife’s insistence, to be closer to their children. They’d found a marvelous town house only minutes from their son and his family, and less than half hour from their daughter and her family. It was, for the elderly couple, the perfect life.
It lasted six years before Walter got sick.
He hadn’t even known he was sick until he passed out on the golf course. By the time the test results had come back from the doctor, he’d begun passing blood. At that point, he didn’t need a doctor to tell him he was dying, and for Walter, it was okay. He was eighty-seven years old. He’d lived life to its fullest. His only regret was leaving his beloved Etta behind.
As often happens, cancer waited for no man, and three weeks to the day after his collapse, he was gone.
Etta and her family had wailed and grieved and given him the best send-off they could afford, burying him in the most expensive casket, with enough flowers to cover half a football field.
Etta had gone home to hold court with the dozens of mourners who’d come to pay their respects and now must be fed. It was an odd ritual—this expectation of eating large amounts of food at a time when the thought of a single morsel landing in Etta’s stomach threatened to make her ill. Still, Walter would have done the same for her, so she did what she had to do and tried not to think of her beloved husband lying six feet under.
