The Place They Are Safe

by Alan Spencer

  Preacher Linley glowed with pride.

  He loved showing off the church.

  "I'm so glad you're here. I hope you decide to stay with us, Mr. Tripdick. Everybody wants this to work out for you."

  Muttering in the pews, heads were lowered in reverence as they muttered prayers and confessed their sins. There were ten, maybe twenty people, deep in spiritual prayer.

  "Oh, don't be intimidated by them." The preacher led Mark down the center aisle. "This is where we cast our sins away. God listens here." He whispered, "But if you're outside this steeple, God isn't listening. Praying is wasted breath outside of Meadow Woods. Here, we have a direct connection with the heavenly one. Our words touch His ears, as does His forgiveness. It touches us so deeply."

  Shutters, subtle sounds of relief, and happy tears were a constant. Walking the carpet, Mark's skin tingled with a strange heat. A presence. The air was heavier in here, as if the air itself was a body, a blanket of living flesh, and it was enveloping him.

  "It's God you're feeling." The preacher pointed to an older woman who was on her knees with her hands stuck together praying, her eyes shut tight. Tears spilled from the slits down her cheeks. "Some, like Martha, don't ever want to leave, so I bring them meals. There are showers and beds in the basement. They would starve to death otherwise, how they pray and worship so intensely. They don't stop."

  Mark was confused why the preacher was bringing him up to the front, and why he was guided to the life-sized figure of Jesus on the cross with his crown of thorns and staked hands. The figure's flesh was so realistic, it was alarming.

  The preacher whispered, "It isn't the body of Christ, but there is real blood inside this body. That's flesh you're looking at. It circulates blood like a human body. A very small amount is Christ's blood. It's what helps along the miracles."

  Mark snapped his fingers in realization. "So this is what makes life after death possible, right? The weather, the new landmarks, everybody's wishes coming true, the blood of Jesus, that's it."

  Preacher Linley lowered his head. "No, it is not. Jesus has nothing to do with this. But you're on the right track. The flesh."

  Tears crawled out of the preacher's eyes. He couldn't talk anymore, so overcome with emotions. He dropped to his hands and knees, then he began to pray, raising his head up to the statue that Mark swore was a living, breathing thing.

  "Preacher, hey, what's wrong? Tell me what happened. Did I do something? I take it back, I swear. Whatever I said, I apologize."

  Mark shook the man by the shoulders. He was un-reactive, on his knees. The prayers rolled off his tongue in Arabic, Italian, bits of English, and then it fell into obscurity, speaking in strange tongues. Without the preacher, Mark was lost in the grand church. He turned around to escape the building. The air was thicker, suffocating, as if something was trying to enter him. Those in the pews kept praying. Men were bared to the flesh except their underwear, glistening in sweat and ragged in the face. Women were depleted, leaning against the wooden pews for dear life as cracked and bleeding lips issued words of confession and sin. The place stank of unkempt bodies, and when he powered through those exit doors and into fresh air, Mark was so grateful to be out of the holy place.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Mark was so worked up leaving the steeple he failed to realize someone was calling out to him from the other side of the street. It was Lindsey Jenkins. A picture of a thirty something housewife wearing a denim dress.

  "So you're coming to the block party tonight? Mark? Mark? Hello there. Can you hear me?"

  He kept picturing all those people in the deep worship. It was hard to think about anything else. "Huh? What?"

  "Are you going to the block party tonight?"

  Lindsey's eyes were so perky and needy, Mark feared disappointing her. "Yeah, sure. Is it here?"

  "You'll know where it is. Just listen and follow the sounds of fun."

  That said, she was already talking to someone else about her block party. Lindsey Jenkins was a social outcast in school, Mark remembered. The kind to sit alone at the lunch table, or to bring her food into the library, a special consideration by the school's staff, because she got picked on so much by the other kids. She answered phones in the principal's office to relieve the secretary's on Tuesdays and Thursdays over the lunch hour. She really had no friends, and it was because she couldn't afford the best clothes. She also smelled bad. Her dad held a bottle of liquor longer than a steady job. Her mother was on disability, suffering from the effects of a brain tumor. But here she was, Lindsey chipper and planning social events. She was already down the street, handing out green paper flyers, one of which he clutched in his hand. Mark stuffed it in his pocket, not bothering to read it.

  Mark decided he had enough of this random craziness.

  He wasn't sure where to go next, so he decided to try and locate his old house.

  Mark found himself in the woods again. It was the best way to reach his old home. No time to think, he caught Aimee Webb skulking through a set of trees and hiking to a new point that overlooked the ocean near the beach. Always looking out, she was obsessed with the water. A hint of fear troubled her face. She was seeking something. Waiting for it to come at her.

  He wouldn't trouble her, so he moved on, slipping between four different shacks built for hunters, praying he didn't stumble upon Jackson and his semen stink. He pictured Aimee and Jackson rolling in the leaves, naked, and having at it, one fat body hammering into a thin body.

  "God, this place is fucked up."

  "You're right to question this place."

  The voice came from a dip in the hill ahead of him.

  It was Reyna Hawkins. She was sitting on a fold-up chair in front of an easel stand. Reyna was painting on canvas. He thought she was painting the woods, like a still life, but she was actually painting Mark's profile up close. It looked exactly like him, every feature.

  "How are you doing that? And so fast?"

  "Anything that pops into my head, I paint it. So I guess you popped into my head."

  Mark remembered their meeting yesterday didn't end pleasantly, despite her being Elizabeth's best friend, and despite them having a friendly history.

  "Don't you find it strange, being able to do that?"

  "I've painted everybody in town from memory. In the past, I always had trouble figuring out what to paint. My dad, when I was in junior high, cleared out a section of the garage, and he created a studio for me. I disappointed him when I couldn't get motivated to paint. Now I can't stop. I've drawn pyramids. The Aegean Sea. The Nile River. The Berlin Wall before it was taken down. Moments in history, like Lewis and Clarke's travels. George Washington when he first learned he'd be the first president. Motivation's all I've ever wanted, and I'm full of it. I can't stop."

  She paused from her painting and turned her head up to him. "I'm really sorry about the other day. You're still figuring this place out. It's a lot to take in. People react differently. It's in our nature to question things."

  "Hey, I don't want trouble. I just don't want to be like those two in the woods."

  "Oh, they've found their good, whether they realize it or not. We all do. Aimee and Jackson have used their gifts differently than us, that's all."

  Reyna went on painting, leaving him standing there in silence, so Mark moved on. It wasn't much longer when he caught another person in the woods. They were hunched over a typewriter this time. Derrick Collins was so engrossed in typing, he refused to acknowledge Mark's presence. The man caught Mark in his peripheral and muttered, "Fuck off. I'm writing."

  Then forget it. Dickhead.

  Crossing through another patch of woods, he came upon a familiar sight.

  The drainage ditch.

  The drainage ditch was two five foot concrete walls designed to subvert flood waters. Kids climbed the fence that blocked access to it, though now the fence was gone. Looking at it, Mark decided to walk its length for the hell of it. It would be a good compass to find his
old house. Walking the wall, he was surrounded by gray concrete that was covered in graffiti, anything from gang signs to "I love so and so," or "So and so sucks," and R.I.P. epitaphs.

  After ten minutes, he stumbled upon another person.

  Cassie.

  She was standing in front of the concrete wall drawing a pair of testicles in orange spray-paint. These nuts are the best nuts you'll ever have in your mouth, she scrawled in paint below it.

  "Wow, what a caption."

  Mark startled her, and falling from her crouched position, she landed on her side, and Mark couldn't help but burst out laughing. "The look on your face, it's priceless!"

  Cassie got back to her feet. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a red a-shirt without a bra on. She didn't wear bras. Cassie had been sent to the principal eight times in her high school career because of her anti-bra stance.

  She wasn't sure what to say to him. Her face remained unsure. She was still embarrassed about the other night and the tent scenario.

  Mark knew how to make her laugh. "These nuts are the best nuts you'll ever have in your mouth." Mark danced around as if his nuts were as heavy as anvils. "These nuts are extraordinary! Wow, can I have some more of those nuts! They're just so damn tasty!"

  Cassie smiled, then laughed at his dance. She offered him the can of spray paint. "You want a shot? Come on, top my nuts."

  "Oh, I'll top your nuts all right."

  He searched for a clear spot on the wall, and when he did, Mark sprayed a circle the size of an apple. "Step one, you determine the destination. Then step two," he drew a large arrow at the circle, "you point the way. And step three," he wrote out the caption: THIS WAY TO YOUR MOTHER'S ASS, "you give them a direction to go."

  Cassie bent over, broken up with laughter. "Oh my God! Oh my God, Mark! You used to refuse to do this kind of stuff. You were too afraid you'd get in trouble. You should've! You totally should've! I bet you've got way more cool things to spray on these walls than I ever did."

  Mark tried to hand her the spray-can back, but she declined.

  "Give us another zinger, then we'll talk."

  Cassie had him do five more captions, all variations of mothers and their asses and what to do once they got there. They walked the concrete levee for an hour talking about how they missed being teenagers. Then Cassie turned serious.

  "I thought about what you said, and I wanted you to know that I respect Elizabeth. She was a great person. And anything you do with yourself now, she would be proud of you. I'm sticking my neck out to say I'm crazy about you, Mark. I've missed you so much. But whether you fall in love with me or some other woman down the line, you wouldn't be disrespecting Elizabeth's memory. She would want you to be happy. And I want you to be happy."

  Hearing that relieved him. It was one of the first sane, human things he heard anybody say for a time.

  Mark took her hand and held it as they walked on and talked some more.

  They kept walking until they reached Cassie's house. Her house was yellow with white trim around the windows. They entered through her back screen door and were drinking ice water in her kitchen. He had never been in her house before. They were friends, but not that close, spare walking the drainage ditch at night with Peyton and talking at school, but that all ended when Cassie started dating Duke.

  Cassie sat on the kitchen counter. "I remember a certain pair of boys who enjoyed leering from the woods up at my bedroom window."

  The instinct was to apologize, but she stopped him. "I enjoyed the attention. It made me feel sexy. And I know you liked me. You weren't like Peyton. You had more ambition than sex."

  She slipped off the counter and sauntered up to him, her eyes wide and glossy. "I know you liked me then, but I dated Duke. I squandered my chances with you. It's my fault."

  Mark read into her teary eyes. "You didn't squander anything. I'm here now. Let's make the best of. Whatever it turns out to be."

  Cassie met his gaze. She whispered, "Whatever it turns out to be."

  The actions were frenetic and lust-filled. Spit out of the kitchen, Mark's shirt was off, though it hung by his left wrist before he finally flung it off. He hiked down Cassie's jeans after she struggled to remove the leather belt that slapped his calf on the way down. Their bare feet scuffed the wooden floor. The moment he shifted out of his underwear, he worked off Cassie's panties to her knees. His hard-on painfully throbbed. She put his hand between her legs so he could feel her wetness. Moving, tumbling forward, they landed on her bed. He slid right in. It'd been so long since he'd had sex, it wasn't thirty seconds later, and he was already close to finishing. He warned her, "I better slow down." But she pumped him into her harder, wrapping her legs around him, driving him inside her, their bodies slick with sweat, and she purred, "Oh, I'm not worried. I want you to finish."

  Her lips grazed his ears. When her tongue probed inside of his ear, the action caused him to ejaculate, and after three releases, he didn't feel used up. She was frothy with his seed, and she loved it. Cassie told him to listen to the wet smacking sound of her pussy, listen to their juices slather together, and it wasn't much longer before he came again, and she laughed, "Come all you want."

  Spinning him around, she was on top of him. Nipples in his mouth, her ass cupped in his hands, she moaned, "You're almost biting me too hard. Almost."

  A lance of heat worked up his back and spread at his testicles, an animal heat, one of testosterone and hunger. Mark had the potency of a sixteen year old, and more! The source of his words was deep down in the primordial cortex of his manhood. He spewed the words, "You think you're in charge, that you can tell me what to do because your cunt is taking my dick so good?"

  Cassie was caught off-guard by his talk, pleasantly shocked that Mark Tripdick could be that dirty. He interrupted any chance of her talking back by lifting her up and taking her from behind, clutching her ass with both hands and driving, driving, driving, and he couldn't help but loose it again.

  "Oh my Gaaaaaawd!"

  "Keep fucking me," she turned her head back to leer at him, her eyes in slits, her mouth slightly open on the verge of the big orgasm all women dreamed about. "It's close...you're so, so close."

  And now the heat up his cock was for real. This would be the final release. His body had been re-calibrated to match Cassie's. Their orgasm was synchronized. The impossibility of it was undermined by the sheer brilliancy of the sensations. It wasn't just the sex, it was how his heart beat so strong, how his muscles burned with vitality, and his blood flowed so hot. And before long, he came again, and this time Cassie reached around him, digging her nails into his buttocks as she came, whinnying.

  They fell together a heap on the bed, spent.

  After five minutes of naked spooning, Cassie said, "You're not questioning why that happened, are you?"

  "Why what happened?"

  "Why you were able to shoot like four times and not be done. How we came at the same time and everything."

  Mark hadn't questioned it. He wanted to own the achievement, and the only way to do that was to not say a word about the impossibility of it.

  "It was still good, right? Even though I had...help."

  "Of course it was still good. That's how you have to think from now on. Enjoy the good things. Stop questioning stuff. I promise everything will become clear, and you'll be even happier than you are now."

  "Is that even possible?" He kissed her shoulder and stared at her naked body, so taught, so pale, so sexy, so perfect.

  "Yes, more happiness is possible."

  They laid together and fell asleep, napping for several hours, before they woke up hungry.

  After a shower together, Cassie had changed into a blue summer dress. He discovered a nicely folded stack of new clothes for him to wear. So convenient, Mark thought.

  Cassie called out to him from her bedroom. "This place anticipates anything we may need, and I think you're starting to like it."

  "I'll admit it's handy. My other clothes are covere
d in sweat and your gross vagina."

  She played along, just like in high school. "I'm covered in your dirty dick smell."

  Mark changed into beige khakis and a t-shirt that read "Chuck's Stack Voted Best Stack Ten Years In A Row" with a picture of a rack of steaming ribs slathered with barbeque sauce. Dressed, he searched Cassie's fridge for something to eat. He found it empty save for a giant block of cheese without a label, bottled water, and a bottle of wine. "Man, I'm starving. How about we go out and eat?"

  The clock with the rooster picture in the middle read five o'clock. They had been sleeping the entire afternoon.

  Then it hit him. He had no worries. No stresses. Mark had spent the afternoon with a woman he enjoyed the company of and had the craziest sex in his life. He didn't have cancer anymore. He could live the rest of his days doing whatever he liked.

  He said it aloud, "Am I some kind of an idiot? Why did I freak out about this place?"

  "People always question a good thing."

  "So where do we go to eat?"

  "Besides Chuck's barbeque?"

  "Yeah, what else is there?"

  "One place."

  Cassie came into the room, wearing that blue summer dress, a modest number that covered more of her body, except her arms, and what showed a generous amount of cleavage. Her eyes were a brilliant green. She was glowing. Healthier than she appeared minutes ago. Or it was her smile? He didn't know what it was.

  She hugged him close. "It's so much better now that you're here with me."

  "I agree." His stomach swelled with air, and it growled. "And I'm starving."

  Cassie took his hand and guided him out the front door. The moment they stepped out onto the porch, Peyton's truck roared up the driveway. Peyton poked his head out at them. "Hey, you guys goin' out to eat? I'm starving."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE