Magdalene

by Moriah Jovan

  “I’m saying... Well, I’m asking you if you have been, maybe, implying things, making promises, kind of, well, leading a few of the sisters on. Maybe...pressing a couple of the married ones for...you know, things.”

  Mitch had no way to respond to that. He could only stare at Petersen while he tried to think of something—anything—to say that wouldn’t make him look stupid or guilty or both.

  “Who am I supposed to have been leading on, President?” he asked wearily, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Other than Sally.”

  Petersen named women Mitch didn’t even know, and Mitch could only shake his head in weary disgust. Petersen concluded with, “I’ll admit that’s hard to believe, but... What else am I supposed to think? It’s not a stretch when you went and married a hooker, knowing she was a hooker.”

  “Correction: I married a brilliant and accomplished woman who restructures companies.”

  Petersen’s jaw clenched. “Okay, then. What about Hayleigh Sitkaris?”

  His nostrils flared. “David,” Mitch growled.

  “No, I don’t mean sexually. I mean— Hayleigh’s run away a couple of times and...Greg has reason to believe you’ve encouraged that.” Mitch made another note: HS—deal with this ASAP. He was still writing when Petersen burst out, “Okay, look, Mitch. I’m just having a really hard time right now, between what I’m hearing and you getting your back up. Just tell me all of this is garbage and I’ll be on my way.”

  “Would you believe me if I did say it?”

  Pause. “Of course.”

  It was a dumb question. The die was cast and prolonging the conversation would only make the dull pain behind Mitch’s sternum increase.

  “Release me,” Mitch said abruptly, throwing his pen down and letting his hands drop heavily to his desk. “I’m tired. Thirteen years of service and all I get is...” He waved a hand. “This—indignity. Not even worthy of being backed up by my superior.”

  “Mitch—”

  Mitch stared at Petersen and growled, “If you believe I have done whatever it is I’m being accused of doing, then you can’t let me stay in this position. If you don’t believe it, then why are you here asking me about it? Maybe you should take a good look at the people who are pointing fingers at me.”

  President Petersen blinked. Pressed his fist to his mouth. Looked down at the floor.

  “I—” He stopped. “I don’t know,” he said, with a trace of wonder in his voice. He looked back up at Mitch. “Something’s wrong here, and I can’t figure it out.”

  “Then go home and pray about it until you do.”

  * * * * *

  Rich Man’s Frug

  I lay in bed listening to my husband decompress about his shitty day, watching him undress. Suit coat. Tie. Shirt. Pants.

  Garments.

  What looked like a plain white tee shirt and shorts that looked like an unsexy version of knee-length boxers.

  Two and a half weeks and I hadn’t gotten used to seeing those yet, although he normally took great pains to keep me from seeing them at all. He’d drawn a parallel to the religious garments other faiths wore, but wouldn’t go into detail as to what they symbolized. I wanted more information.

  I asked. He stonewalled.

  I asked Prissy. Who stonewalled.

  I asked Morgan. Who stonewalled.

  So I went googling.

  Ah, so the rest of the world found them as ridiculous as I did, to the point of dubbing them “magic underwear.” Unlike the rest of the world, however, I was married to a man I respected above all others—and he wore them. If he didn’t want to speak of it further, I would respect that the way I respected him.

  And that man paced in and out of the bedroom to the bathroom and back again, frustrated but running out of steam. His gripes were minor things, things any CEO had to deal with on a daily basis, things that kept him from his lab, things he’d probably handled a million times before and would have forgotten by morning otherwise.

  “I could find you a COO for the Steelworks, too,” I offered. “That’d give you time in the lab.”

  And off he went again, veering into Bishop Hollander frustrations. He didn’t name names, and I didn’t know enough people in the ward to make connections anyway (nor did I care), but other than that, those frustrations sounded suspiciously similar to the CEO ones.

  Humans. What do you do.

  He was nude, though he had apparently forgotten that fact as he grew more agitated with every word. I watched him run his hands through his hair and pace. Watched the way his strong back rippled, the way his tight ass and muscular legs ate up the square footage, the way his cock hung tantalizingly from the nest of sandy hair that trailed up his vaguely cut stomach and spread out over his muscular chest.

  We hadn’t gone dancing since our wedding day, but then, I saw no need to dress up and go to Manhattan to have pseudosex on a dance floor when I could have the real thing right here at home.

  He’d stopped speaking, but his gait was jerky, tense. He snatched his dirty clothes off the chair, wadded them up, and pitched them at the hamper. I’d never seen him do that before; he treated all of his possessions with respect, but most particularly his garments.

  My online searches had turned up very few faithful Mormons who were willing to talk about their garments publicly. And I was pretty sure that whatever any sympathetic person could have told me about the funny underwear would have been more informative and less insulting than the ex- and anti-Mormons who were more than willing to talk about them. Bitterly.

  I simply didn’t know enough to know who had an agenda, who didn’t, what agenda it might be, how much to believe in either camp, and how any of it applied to my questions.

  I hadn’t dared ask Sebastian, as I didn’t think he’d be any less insulting than the rest of the world, but I’d run out of people to ask.

  Almost.

  Mitch dropped on the bed and lay there staring up at the ceiling, his hands linked behind his head. He was grinding his teeth so hard I could hear the molars scraping together.

  “Wanna talk about it?” I said mildly.

  “Can’t.”

  “Ah. Wanna fuck?”

  “Yes.”

  I blinked. Stared at him. That question usually earned a blush and a wry smile. Whatever had him all knotted up would probably not be conducive to good lovemaking.

  “Roll over,” I said when he made no move toward me. He slid me a look, but did as I said and rested his head on his folded arms. I got out of bed to fetch one of the bottles of massage lotion we’d bought on our adventure to the adult toy store, then came back and settled myself over him.

  “I’m going into the office Thursday,” I said conversationally as I rubbed the orange blossom-scented cream into his back. The man was built like a god, really, though it usually took me a while to notice. He was both more and less than the sum of his parts. Understated. Droll. Oblivious to his beauty. Every day some small part of him—a gesture, an angle of his profile, a figure of speech—sneaked up on me and made me look again to see the whole man in a new way. “I have a meeting.”

  He grunted.

  I worked my way down his knotted-up back to his waist, felt him slowly relaxing. I got to his ass and swept my hand over one of the tight muscles with admiration for the sculptor who had carved out the work of art that was my husband.

  “Spending the night?” he rumbled.

  “Oh, no,” I murmured as I slid my hand down between his legs. He relaxed with a sigh and shifted to give me easier access. “And miss this? Never.”

  * * * * *

  Remedial Mormonism

  April 7, 2011

  “To what do I owe the honor of having received a summons from Midas the Second?”

  I almost laughed at the woman’s annoyance. Though I could see peripherally that she was leaning against the jamb of my office door, I didn’t look up. “Would it help your mood if I said, ‘You were right’?”

  “Exponentially.”

>   She walked in and plopped her little ass on a corner of my desk and said, “I still don’t like you.”

  “I don’t like you either. Frenemies?”

  “Sure,” she said, her fragile voice carrying a midwestern accent so broad it bordered on rural. “No pinky swears, though.”

  That did, in fact, make me laugh and I looked up at Giselle Kenard, who had played her mere cuteness well: well-worn boot-cut Levi’s, high-heeled western mules, and a white-embroidered gauzy yellow hippie-style blouse that floated down to her thighs. A matching length of embellished yellow gauze held her honey curls away from her face. She wore a pair of wide filigreed hoop earrings made from Mitch’s alloy that drew from the colors of her blouse and hair to flash sunshine. Her makeup was exotic and she had delicate henna tracings on the backs of her hands.

  I curled my lip. “How do you manage to be simultaneously under and overdressed? Tragically, I might add.”

  She smiled beatifically, her eyes calm. “I must have missed the dress code part of your summons.”

  This woman had dressed for me, to camouflage her true nature, to allow me to feel secure in my superiority using soft colors and fabrics, a mix of submissive female and country bumpkin, to present herself as an innocent, cash-strapped tourist in the company of a beneficent Wall Street barracuda. All the better for me—for anyone—to underestimate her.

  But I knew too much about her (and suspected more) to make that mistake.

  “What is it with the weird blue eyes? You, Hilliard, Taight, Ashworth.”

  “And three-quarters of my other forty-odd cousins. It’s a Dunham trait.”

  “It’s creepy as hell.”

  “Thank you. We planned it that way.”

  I snorted.

  “Just so we’re clear: If I didn’t need new shoes, I would’ve made you come to me.”

  And I would’ve gone, which she knew. “You don’t have shoe stores in Kansas City?”

  “Yes, but you see, I can’t get a saleswoman to show me what’s not on the floor.”

  “Because you are one of the grandes dames of Kansas City society, so you already get first pick of what comes in before it gets put on the floor.”

  “The grande dame. And I am very picky. You’d be shocked how small my wardrobe really is.”

  “I wouldn’t be shocked at how yellow it is.”

  “Matches my sunny disposition.”

  “And your husband doesn’t mind these little junkets?”

  “My husband,” she drawled, “doesn’t care what I do as long as I keep coming up with new and exciting activities that don’t involve a flogger or a third party.”

  “So you answered my summons because you want to pick my brain.”

  She smirked. “Quid professional quo.”

  “And you don’t mind.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, stopped. Pursed her lips. “We don’t want to see Mitch hurt,” she said low, her lazy accent now precise in its threat. “None of us cares about your prostitution, but it does make some of us think you could be playing with him till you’re tired of him. Mitch has had so much hardship and we love him dearly. He’s head over heels in love with you,” she concluded. “Nobody likes to watch people they love get their hearts broken. So, yes. We’re worried.”

  Shit. There went my glow of satisfaction from a productive morning’s work. “I’m not promising anything,” I grumbled, not knowing why I felt a need to answer to this pack of religious and political renegades, but unable to shut up. “Mitch is a grown man and the year deadline was his idea, not mine. And it’s not like you’re his real family, so none of it’s your business anyway.”

  She shrugged. “That’s debatable. However, since my money is on you, it’s in my best interest to make sure you get everything you need to prove me right.”

  “Good ol’ self-interest. I can count on it every time.”

  Giselle and I stared at one another for a long moment, two alpha wolves circling, assessing each other for the possibility of attack.

  “You wouldn’t have called me if you didn’t have an interest in the long haul,” she murmured. “You wouldn’t have rearranged your entire life on a moment’s notice to move in with him, much less a hundred miles away from your family and career, much less spend any time with him at church. You’d have stayed in your brownstone and made him come to you on the weekends to service you until his novelty wore off, at which time you’d have changed the locks.”

  Shit, when she put it that way...

  “Well, I didn’t call you to talk about church,” I said gruffly. “Not...exactly, I mean.” At her questioning look, I said, “I’m hungry. Let’s go.”

  Giselle garnered many looks—seconds, thirds, and fourths—on our way to the lobby, then as we headed down the Street to Nigel’s building, where one of his firm’s chefs awaited our lunch wishes.

  “Tons of meetings today,” I explained when I caught her confused expression. “All my dining rooms and chefs are occupied and I couldn’t bribe, threaten, or extort any of them for a table or food on such short notice.”

  “Ah.”

  As we walked, I made sure to clarify to Giselle that she was not to view my daughter as free childcare while she lived under the Kenard roof. The look of utter disdain Giselle slid me reassured me that no, these people didn’t work that way.

  “I,” she sniffed, “take care of my own child. He goes with me everywhere, including to work. If I can’t take him somewhere with me—like today—or if Bryce and I want to go out on a date, I have a mother who is only too happy to spoil Dunc silly. If she is not available, I have Sebastian and Eilis, or Knox and Justice. If they aren’t available, I have seven aunts to choose from. If none of them are available, I have twenty-odd other cousins to call on. And if none of them are available, I have a dozen young women at church who will kill for the chance to A, earn some money, and B, sit my kid. Trust me, Clarissa would be a last resort.”

  Sebastian’s family is large and tight. It doesn’t take much time with them to want to be part of them.

  I was quite envious of a support system like that. My siblings hadn’t spoken to me in years and I had never met any of my aunts, uncles, or cousins.

  “Where do you work?” I asked, just to be polite.

  “I’m the attorney for our charity—” I nodded to indicate that I knew of the Kenard Burn Victim Foundation. “And I teach martial arts.”

  “What style?” I asked snidely. “Gun fu?”

  A sly grin grew on her face, and I couldn’t believe I’d missed such blatant sensuality. She was as primitive as her husband, her sexuality guarded by some ephemeral razor wire few men would dare attempt to navigate. I would never again be able to see her as plain.

  “You know about that, then,” she said.

  “Everybody who had any interest in Knox inheriting OKH knows about it.” That shocked the hell out of her, and I preened. “You were not then and are not now low profile.”

  “Oh. Huh.” She paused. Her curiosity was now warring with her need to regain the upper hand. Her curiosity won. “So if Fen had succeeded in killing me...?”

  “Jack was prepared to splash what he knew and suspected all over the Journal, take it to CNN and Fox. Everyone was very relieved when you suddenly came up married.” Her mouth dropped open, and I smirked. “You Dunhams seem to think you operate in a vacuum.”

  “Um... Hm. Wow.”

  “But now that I’ve met you, I can see why your uncle wanted you dead.”

  She burst out laughing.

  It wasn’t until we were ensconced in Nigel’s private dining room, beverages poured, appetizers served, and our orders taken that I got to the point.

  “I’ve googled. Your church’s website is practically worthless on the topic. Wikipedia threw terminology at me I don’t really grasp and I couldn’t follow the link trail well enough to get a decent picture of it. I’ve asked my new friend at church, who is utterly brilliant, but she talks over my head, theologically speak
ing. Also, she shies away from topics she thinks are sensitive. Mitch is so vague about...everything...and I don’t know enough to ask the right questions to really pin him down. I even asked Ashworth, and he was as evasive as my husband and my friend. I assumed Sebastian would be entirely unhelpful. So since you offered...”

  “Okay. Where do you want me to start?”

  “Garments.”

  She snickered into her glass and said, “The old ‘magic underwear’ question.”

  I huffed. “As if any person of average intelligence would buy that. I just can’t get a straight answer from anybody to save my life.”

  “You’d be surprised how many people want to believe it.”

  “Of course they do,” I said smartly. “They’re weird. They’re ugly. Completely ridiculous.”

  She nodded. “Yes. Yes, they are. But I’ve been around them my whole life, so to me they’re as natural as breathing.” She took a drink, then said, “Okay. The basis of our doctrine, other than just believing in Jesus Christ, is the family. Generally, we don’t get married ‘till death do you part’ or at least, that’s not the ideal circumstance. We get married for eternity. Meaning, if we get married in the temple and if we’ve done what we’re commanded, then when we die, we get to be reunited with our spouse and our kids, so the family unit is restored upon death. As far as I know, no other Christian faith promises that explicitly or implicitly, although I suspect most people assume that’s how it’ll be for them.”

  “How does this happen?”

  “At the temple, you make covenants with the Lord. Kneel at an altar with your intended. Say ‘yes’ when asked, and there you go. If you’re going on a mission, you make your covenants—without the altar part—just before you go into training.”

  “What covenants?”

  “Completely unremarkable ones. Don’t commit adultery if you’re married. Don’t have sex before you get married if you’re not. Contribute your time, talents, and money to the Church. Observe the restrictions on the use of various substances. Obey the Lord’s commandments. Stuff every person of faith commits to do in one aspect or another. To us, they just become weighted a lot more heavily.”