JACOB
Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. James 4:7
Why did she have to get under my skin so easily? What was it about Sedra that was driving a spear through my gut as I drove away? Glancing in the rearview mirror, I’d watched as she’d stared at the back of the truck. I saw every emotion flash across her face. Surprise. Fear. Sorrow and shame.
It was the last expression that hurt me the most. The girl had nothing to be ashamed of. It wasn't her fault she'd believed Jericho's lies.
He was an expert at telling them. I should know. I was an expert all the same.
But I'd given up the games of our youth. I'd taken a life - not intentionally, but does intention ever matter to the dead? Because of me, Cassandra was no longer breathing. She was dust in the wind, cremated by her family and scattered over the ocean she'd loved as a child.
It's you Jacob, only you, forever...
My fingers gripped over the steering wheel as her voice whispered in my head, the red needle of the speedometer pushing higher as my foot sunk down of the pedal. The shadow of trees became a blur, the road rushing beneath me faster than was safe. And as the memories came crashing back, no longer still pictures, but film with action and sound, I slammed my foot on the brake, and held on as the truck fishtailed while the rocks and dust beneath it were scattered.
The truck groaned as I pulled off onto a side road, the body lurched when I finally brought it to a stop. And as my forehead fell down to press against the steering wheel, I witnessed a memory that I would have given anything to forget.
Before Cassandra, I was never loyal to any one girl. Jericho and I had started our games at sixteen, two boys just coming into adulthood, who learned quickly that girls found them desirable.
It had been a break from our strict upbringing, a secret shared between twins. But, God, how those girls could play.
The first time we cornered one, the first time we discovered what a succulent drug temptation could be, we fell easily into its rapturous hold, emerging from that room as tarnished and changed men.
But that first taste had been so sweet.
Little Ellen Baker, a devout Catholic like us, had grown up in the same church. She attended catholic school and wore the uniform, her knee socks and the hem of her pleated skirt leaving just enough skin exposed in between for us to imagine what it would feel like between our teeth.
Her blond pigtails had disappeared as she'd grown, becoming a wave of long hair that flowed down her back with the sheen of finely spun silk. Big blue eyes that only saw God when she'd been a child, were opening onto her adulthood, being exposed to the handsome faces of the boys she'd known since they were children.
We didn't do it on purpose, but intent doesn’t always speak for action. And in a moment when we were left alone together, the three of us preparing for a charity dinner being hosted by the Diocese where we lived, we learned how addictive sin could taste as we explored the gifts of our bodies.
Deep down in that dusty basement, Jericho had been the one to start the game.
It had been a joke at first - a tease. Jericho's fingers slipping up her skirt, the flip of the hem giving us just a peek of what she wore beneath. Pink panties with turquoise ribbons at the side, innocent, pure and inviting. Ellen swatted at his hand but still smiled brightly. She liked being teased. She liked having both our attention.
Another flip of her skirt, a soft brush of a hand across the swell of her breast over her shirt. A kiss planted lightly on her cheek as the warmth of our breath rolled down her neck. I don't remember which one of us had been the person to lock the door, but once that lock was thrown, Ellen's clothes had come off.
Jericho bent her over a folding table, one of the ones that would be used to serve the parishioners their charity meal. Her small breasts pressed against the wood as he stood behind her, his hands exploring as I circled in front. Squatting down so I could watch every expression that flashed across her face as my brother stuck his fingers inside, I was hard beneath my hand, desperate to know what wet heat felt like.
She'd purred when he touched her in forbidden places, guilt a simmering flame behind her eyes. But she never said no, never told us that we weren't exactly what she wanted.
We took advantage of a childhood crush. Ellen had always followed us around like an adorable puppy that was looking for someone to pet her just right.
In that moment, hidden down in a basement full of tables and chairs, the nativity scene for Christmas and the white, glitter edged wings of the angels who would raise their voices in chorus, we obliged her the attention she sought, and we took our first taste as well.
Jericho hadn't yet penetrated that sacred space before her lips wrapped around me. And fuck, for days after I thanked God for her mouth. I praised it. I worshipped it. I could think of nothing better.
I wasn't the one to take her purity, my brother had that honor. And when virginal blood ran down her legs, she sang in the pain and pleasure he gave her.
It had been innocent at first, but things never seem to remain that way. Not love. Not forgiveness. Not tranquility or passion. Not my life after I'd left for college and before becoming a priest.
Jericho and I had worked our way through so many girls before I left to start my adult life. And every seed had been planted, every sin had been explored, every devious, dark and dirty cruelty had been brought to life inside me. I carried those tastes with me when I left, still clutching to them like the only island within a sea of lies and promises when I met Cassandra on Halloween night.
Ironically, I was dressed as a priest, she was a nun wearing a white habit. We'd met because of those costumes, but they hadn't stayed on our bodies long.
Divine sexuality, a woman born for sin. Her body was so beautiful that even time and God must have mourned its destruction. With long, dark hair and green eyes that were the color of fresh leaves in spring, Cassandra was everything I could have asked for. Her submission was absolute, her love of pain exquisite. She craved the sting of clamps and collars. She worshipped my body when I undressed in front of her.
She wasn't religious, but she found God when her arms and legs were bound. She didn't sing in a choir full of innocent youth, but she sang my name when her body came to life beneath mine. She didn't pray, but she praised Heaven when I pushed her over the edge of temptation into the deep waters of ecstasy that stole her breath away.
Through it all, I became just as addicted to her as she was to me. She didn't know it. I would never admit it. But I loved her after that first night I found her.
If one person can be made for another, Cassandra had been made for me. And I was ultimately the one to destroy her.
The coroner's report said it had been a blood clot. They blamed her veins, they blamed her health, they blamed the bruises on her skin that showed she was clumsy and often hurt. But most of the bruises had been from me.
I was the one who'd used clamps on her body, and I'd been the one to deliver pain with the palm of my hand. I'd been the one with my hand wrapped around her throat at the moment her climax forced her heart to pump harder making it possible for that clot to reach her brain.
Although her death had been peaceful - sex sending her into the open arms of eternity - it had been my hands that put her there, no matter what the medical examiner had to say.
I watched the color drain from her face as I shook her and screamed her name. I held her hand as the warmth seeped from her skin and the ambulance sirens blared as they tore down the road. I walked behind the gurney as they escorted her body away, and I cried alone that night begging God to forgive me for my sins.
It was the moment I chose to return to the Church, the moment I decided to give myself to God and never have sex again.
Yet, here I was, a celibate priest, sitting on the side of a deserted dirt road wanting to race back to that compound and steal away a woman who looked and behaved so much like the one I'd killed.
Where God had created Cassandra for my use, Jericho had created Sedra. I had to wonder if both the Almighty and the twin who understood my darkness hadn't known I'd be destined to fail.
I hadn’t been able to save Cassandra, but everything inside me told me I still had the chance to save Sedra.
My palms banged against the wheel, every curse word I'd avoided saying for twelve years rolling effortlessly off my tongue. And when I put the truck in drive and turned it around to head back to the main road, I didn't make a right towards my parish like I should have, I turned left toward Sedra instead.