Magdalene

by Moriah Jovan

  I thought I’d never breathe again.

  “But...I have to be there when I told them I would and I really need the sleep.”

  “Um, that’s fine,” I said, distracted, unsettled. “Where are we going?”

  He flashed me that mischievous smile once again as he hailed a cab. “Ice skating.”

  “With...?”

  “You’ll see.”

  * * * * *

  Satine

  February 12, 2011

  He showed up on my doorstep in worn, faded jeans, hiking boots, and a fisherman sweater, all under a sheepskin coat. God, that man was hot, no matter what he wore, and I made sure he knew my opinion. He inspected my similarly clad body with an indecipherable expression, that poker face his only defense against me.

  “Like what you see, Bishop?”

  “Always.”

  “Come inside and I’ll show you how much better it looks undecorated.”

  He grinned and refused to budge one inch inside, as usual. “Did you get enough sleep?” he asked me once I’d locked the front door behind me and we trotted down the front steps.

  “More than I’d have gotten if you had come to bed with me,” I grumbled. “Don’t expect my gratitude.”

  He laced his fingers through mine, wound his arm around my waist and pulled me to him as if to rumba right there on the sidewalk. I wrapped my free hand around his neck and pressed my nose into the corner of his jaw simply to smell him and I felt his breath hitch when I touched my tongue to his skin.

  “Cassandra,” he whispered.

  “Mitchell,” I whispered back and nuzzled his ear, caught his earlobe lightly between my teeth. “You aren’t wearing your wedding ring.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  We stood like that for a while, me making love to him, upright, fully outfitted for winter, on an Upper East Side sidewalk on a cold Saturday morning. I felt his body tense more and more, his infamous control struggling with his lust.

  I knew he was vulnerable to me. How vulnerable, I wasn’t sure, but he had to have a breaking point and dammit, I would find it.

  Just then he drew away from me and nudged me in the direction of Central Park.

  “You get everything with your daughter patched up?” he asked after a moment, his voice hoarse. He wasn’t going to answer my question, but he didn’t really have to, so I let it go.

  “No. Nigel texted me. Congratulated me for kicking her out. Finally.”

  “It was that serious?”

  “He thinks that I am martyring myself in a misguided quest for my children’s approval.”

  “I see.” Which meant I agree. God help me if Mitch and Nigel ever got together to compare opinions.

  “Do you encounter a lot of that?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes. It’s...difficult to watch, not being able to do anything about it. Best I can do is send ’em to counseling if it’s serious enough.”

  “How about your kids?”

  He pursed his lips and he took a deep breath. “I believe,” he said slowly as he released that breath, “that the Lord gave me low-maintenance kids to kind of make up for the other stuff I’ve had to deal with. I mean, we’ve had our tussles, but my daughters were pretty young when Mina began to deteriorate and so somehow they just...understood that I needed their help and they grew up fast because of it.”

  Hmmm. By comparison, my family came up looking merely self-indulgent and spoiled rotten.

  “But as it happens,” he said slowly, “I got a little too complacent with Trevor.”

  “Oh? The perfect son?”

  “I guess that depends on how you define it. Caught him in bed with a girl two weeks ago.”

  So many wisecracks, so little time. “And?”

  “It was inevitable,” he mumbled. “I’ve— Neglected him. He’s spent more quality time with Sebastian the last four, five years, than he has with me.”

  That explained a lot.

  “And you feel guilty.”

  “Of course. What kind of a man lets another man raise his kid?”

  “And you chose Sebastian because...?”

  “Sebastian,” he said thoughtfully, “is a born father. And he had time to teach Trevor the things that would put him ahead in the game of life. You know, the things he taught me way back when, only now it’s twenty years later. He’s refined it and can back it up with a long string of successes. I didn’t have time to turn around twice in the same spot; I sure didn’t have time to do that.

  “But...he also taught him that the Church doesn’t mean anything. He taught Trevor to respect me and my beliefs, but that it didn’t obligate him and he had to make his own decisions. Told him before he could do that, he had to have some life experience.”

  That sounded perfectly reasonable to me and exactly the sort of thing King Midas would say. “You had to know he’d train him that way.”

  Mitch inclined his head. “I did. I was arrogant enough to think I could counter it.”

  “Didn’t you tell me he goes to church?”

  “And hates every minute of it.”

  “Do you make him?”

  “No. I kept waiting for the day he’d say, ‘No more,’ but he never did. He only goes to support me and as far as anybody at church knows, he’s a perfect son. It’s a complete act. I don’t really know how I feel about that. But after the, ah, incident, I forbid him from fulfilling the church duties young men his age do. He wouldn’t mind, but when he’s asked, he has to refuse, and that’s out of character. He gets hounded about why. It makes him uncomfortable, but he won’t admit anything that would reflect badly on me.”

  “Duties? Like what?”

  “The big one is blessing the sacrament. Same as what a priest does for communion, only our sixteen-, seventeen-, eighteen-year-old boys do it. With any other kid, if he came to me and confessed, I’d give him a stern lecture, try to determine if he just slipped up or if he doesn’t care, have followup interviews if he’s interested in getting back on the straight and narrow. But with Trevor it’s a moot point. He got caught. He’s not repenting of anything. And I already know that as soon as he leaves home, he’ll leave the Church.”

  Clearly, the man was miserable, and I touched his arm. “Mitch, I don’t get this. The kid’s smart, responsible, and respects you enough to do whatever he can so as not to embarrass you. And you’re grieving his lost virginity?” Mitch looked at me funny. “If that’s your only issue with him,” I said low, “I think you should congratulate yourself on a job well done. I wish I had done as well with my children as you’ve done with yours.”

  He remained silent, but I could tell he was thinking about that.

  “How much did Mina have to do with him?”

  “Not much,” Mitch murmured. “She tried to keep up with him, but he wore her out. Little boys— They can wear out a border collie. He was eleven the first time Sebastian offered to take him for the summer, and I needed to get him away from Mina so she’d stay in her wheelchair and rest.”

  “He doesn’t remember her?”

  “He remembers the invalid Mina. Not the awesome mom Mina that my daughters knew.”

  “And he’s had no women in his life?”

  “Not enough to make an impact.” I couldn’t imagine that. Usually it was the father who was absent in situations like that. “How much has Gordon been involved with your girls?”

  “He couldn’t be more involved if he lived with us, which I wouldn’t allow even if he wanted to. The good-cop, bad-cop dynamic, you know. That was my Achilles’ heel. Designer clothes, vacations, gadgets, clubbing— Way more attractive than anything I had to offer.”

  “Discipline.”

  “Of any kind.”

  “I understood Gordon to have no money, and never has had. How does he shower them with gifts?”

  I shrugged.

  “Ah.”

  “But that’s about to stop,” I said in a whoosh. “I cut him off yesterday, and Nigel won’t let him spend mone
y that way. Prepare to hear the screams of anguish all the way to Bethlehem.”

  Mitch said nothing and I glanced at him, though his expression gave nothing away. “Speaking of Tracey,” he said abruptly. Finally. “He called me.”

  I stopped, my heart pounding in my chest.

  “He wants to have dinner, you and me, him and Gordon.”

  Oh, good Lord. An ex-prostitute, her ex-husband, and her ex-husband’s husband having dinner with a Mormon bishop.

  “I think it’s a good idea,” he continued, as if he didn’t notice I was practically choking on my own spit. There went my grand plan to keep Mitch and Nigel as far apart as possible. “I like Tracey. He’s got a good head on his shoulders and he cares about you.”

  Well, of course. Nigel was my best friend and he was emotionally agile enough to be able to take care of Gordon’s needs and my needs in the most efficient and mutually beneficial way possible.

  We got to Fifth Avenue. Hailed a cab.

  “Nigel set me up in business,” I admitted as he handed me in and slid in beside me. “I couldn’t have done it without his contacts and advice. You know, who to accept as clients. Who not. How much to charge. He bought my black book from someone who wanted out.”

  “Thirty Rock, please,” he said to the cabbie, then looked at me. “What did you have to promise him to get him to do that?”

  “Gordon. Believe me, I got the better part of that bargain.”

  Mitch burst out laughing and I couldn’t help but laugh myself. Seen through his eyes, it seemed no more outrageous than any other business deal any of us had ever done.

  “Nigel,” I said hesitantly, unwilling to tell him but unwilling to keep it to myself, “taught me how to please a man.”

  Mitch started and looked at me sharply. “He’s bisexual?”

  “He’ll tell you no, but he’s never been completely immune to women. He certainly has a better-than-average understanding of female anatomy and it occurred to me that there’s no one better to teach a woman how to please a man than a gay man. It took awhile, though. Gordon and I...” My throat seemed gummed up for some reason.

  “Why,” Mitch asked slowly, “would a friend help you do this?”

  “Oh, he didn’t want to,” I hastened to assure him. “He knew if he didn’t help me, I’d find somebody else and it wouldn’t turn out well, because I didn’t know anything about anything. He had the right contacts and the sexual experience to teach me what I didn’t know, which was, well, everything.”

  “How did Gordon take this?”

  I tightened my mouth. I didn’t want to discuss it any further, but I would. Because it was Mitch and Mitch just...understood. Everything. “Gordon doesn’t know Nigel and I were lovers. It didn’t matter. We were divorced and he was in prison.”

  “But I thought you said—”

  “Nigel wanted Gordon. He would have done anything to help me if it meant uncoupling me from Gordon, and I didn’t want anything more, so we had a common goal. He helped me get out of my situation, protected me from my father-in-law until I could protect myself, paid off most of the debt Gordon had saddled me with. It took years. Everything he did to help me, start to finish, was so he could get what he wanted. If that meant fucking me for six months to teach me how to be a fabulous whore, that’s what that meant.”

  Mitch didn’t flinch at my nasty tone or vulgarities. He simply pulled me close, rubbing my arm until I relaxed against him.

  “Hmm.”

  “What’s that mean?” I muttered.

  “Nothing, I guess,” he said slowly. “Just— I have a different impression of Tracey now than I did before.” I waited. “Well, Tracey’s brilliant. What does he see in Gordon? Especially after what he did to you?”

  I could feel my face stretching with a slow smile, because, yet again, Mitch had said the unexpected and in no way did he let his personal morality get in the way of common sense. “I...don’t know,” I admitted. “He’s been in love with Gordon since...well, since they met, which was soon after we got married. Nigel was Gordon’s boss.”

  “And Gordon?”

  “Ha! I didn’t know it was possible for Gordon to love anyone but himself, but whatever he’s doing—which I don’t know—it makes Nigel happy, so...”

  “And Nigel loves you.”

  I shrugged. “In a BFF sort of way.”

  “Ah, BFFs. Got it.”

  I sneered. “My entire family is a gaggle of teenage girls, and sometimes the maturity level isn’t even that high.”

  Mitch began to laugh. “I’ve had two of my own and deal with a bunch of them every Sunday. No need to explain.”

  * * * * *

  Smooth Operator

  We got to Rockefeller Center to see a bus with children and teens pouring out of it, heading with much shouting toward the curiously empty rink. A phalanx of parents followed more sedately. Mitch watched with the interest of someone who was just checking that it was happening as planned.

  “This is your congregation?”

  “No,” he muttered absently. “Friend of mine’s. He was a brand new priest when I was a brand new bishop. I forget how we met, but we leaned on each other pretty heavily while we were learning the ropes. He had the advantage of seminary training and I had the advantage of high-level management. He got transferred here—Brooklyn—oh, five, six years ago, but we keep in touch.”

  “Brooklyn?” We exited the cab, held hands as we walked toward the ticket booth of the rink. “That’s not the richest diocese in the world. No priest would be able to afford this.”

  Mitch shook his head. “Nope. He sure can’t.” I stumbled, but he caught me. “Careful.”

  By the time we got down to the rink, there were a dozen children and a few adults already booted up and on the ice, but some of the ones who weren’t yet saw us.

  Their eyes lit up.

  “Bishop!”

  “Bishop!”

  “Bishop!”

  Men, women, children. Didn’t matter. They all wanted a piece of him and he was more than willing to give it.

  “Bishop! Cassie!”

  We both turned at the yell from across the rink. “Luis!” Mitch yelled back, then waved. I began to smile. It was the bouncer from Cubax, his wife and family in tow.

  “Bishop Hollander!”

  A broad smile broke out on Mitch’s face at that last shout. “Father Farraday!” He let go of my hand to clasp the priest in a bear hug once he’d joined us.

  They talked God shoptalk for a moment until a natural break in the conversation led Mitch to say, “Rory, this is my friend, Cassandra St. James.”

  The priest looked at me, then he glanced at Mitch.

  He knew.

  And even though I had never met the man before, I knew exactly how he knew.

  But the man had the good grace to smile widely and shake my hand, to appear to accept me at face value. The hesitation was minute, but I’d caught it and if I had, Mitch most certainly would have.

  I knew how it would go down: The man of God of one faith would call his good friend, the man of God of another faith, give him some vague advice about the woman who’d conned him and what she really wanted from him. I doubted Father Farraday would know I’d taken down my shingle years ago and that I whored for Blackwood Securities now, all under the eagle eye of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

  Unfortunately, Father Farraday wasn’t as clever about concealing his thoughts as Mitch, who gave nothing away and treated me as his beloved, a hand on my back, introducing me to what seemed hundreds of people.

  The music that poured out of the speakers was some innocuous bubble gum pop, and the three of us requested skates without need for payment. I looked around. Concession was open and the non-skaters were already lined up for hot chocolate and snacks, with no money changing hands. I cast a glance at Mitch, who just shrugged.

  “Allergies?” he asked wryly as he touched his gloved thumb to my face.

  “Yes, and I forgot my Benadryl.
”

  “Benadryl,” he muttered, shaking his head.

  We all sat to put on our skates, then set out slowly around the outside of the rink. I listened as the two men chatted about their callings. I might have felt left out were it not for Mitch keeping me close to his side, holding my hand, always making sure I knew he had not forgotten me.

  “Now, you know,” Father Farraday drawled, “half the congregation wants to skate with you.”

  I felt Mitch chuckle. “They’ll have to ask Cassandra. She’s got first dibs.”

  And again the priest glanced at me that way.

  “Ah, Mitch, can I talk to you a minute? I’ve got a parish problem I could sure use some advice on.”

  “Not now, Rory,” Mitch said. Almost anyone would have missed the slight edge in his voice, including Father Farraday, but not I; I’d heard it before. The Mormon bishop was receding in favor of the CEO of Hollander Steelworks—and the CEO of Hollander Steelworks could be a mean son of a bitch when he was crossed. If pushed, he would not play well with others.

  “Mitch—”

  “Not. Now.”

  Father Farraday froze and stared at Mitch. Mitch stared back, daring him to say another word about it. What had I thought when I first met him? That he was the ordinary man amongst the other, more extraordinary men in his milieu?

  No.

  Mitch fit right in with that pack of wolves he considered his family, as capable of the same ruthlessness as the rest of them.

  Father Farraday smiled again and clapped Mitch on the back and skated smoothly away to see to his congregation’s fun.

  Mitch looked at me then, his expression one of mixed regret and humor.

  “His colleague is in my little black book,” I muttered wryly, not surprised when Mitch flashed me a grin. “I guess the archbishop decided it’d be a good idea for Father Farraday to stake him out and find out where and with whom the good reverend was sinning. Nip that bad PR in the bud.”

  “You’re pricey, so how...?”