Out of Heaven's Grasp (17 page)

My mother sipped at her tea. “You do need to be obedient, sweetheart.”

“But I
am
being obedient. And I didn’t hurt any of her kids. It’s just that she makes me watch them all the time so that she can go off and leave the house. I never have a moment to myself. I’m either teaching at school or making food or watching her dumb kids. And they hate me. They get in trouble on purpose, I swear. I think she tells them to do things so that I’ll look bad.”

My mother put her hand over mine. “Abby, before long, you’ll have your own children, and none of this will matter anymore. Once you have your own babies to take care of, then you’ll be more respected amongst the other wives. You’ll belong. And your relationship with Bob will become closer too. He’ll listen to you better.”

I pulled my hand away. I didn’t want to have children, even though I supposed it was probably inevitable. Bob came to my room every fourth night, and every time he was there, he made me have relations with him. It had become a little bit less painful, but it was still disgusting and humiliating. Bob was always trying to make me touch him. He wanted to kiss me and put his mouth all over my body. I didn’t like it. I always wished he’d just get it over with. Sometimes, though, he made me do it more than once. He would chuckle, saying that I made him feel like a young man again, that my presence there was a gift from God.

I hated all of it. I wanted to talk to my mother about it, but I didn’t know how, and I was ashamed of what had happened.

“Sweetheart, I know this isn’t what you dreamed of for yourself,” said my mother. “But it is God’s will, and if you submit yourself to it, I promise you he will reveal to you rewards for your obedience.”

“They hate my cooking, Mother,” I said. “The last time I made dinner for the family, none of the children would eat it, and Sally made a big show of making them something else to eat so that they wouldn’t starve.”

“Sally’s jealous,” said my mother. “That’s all. It’s an ugly part of our lives together, but it does happen.”

“But I don’t even
want
her stupid husband.”

“Abby!” My mother was shocked. “You can’t say things like that.”

“It’s true,” I muttered. “I don’t even like him. He’s old and he… he makes me do things I don’t like.”

My mother knitted her eyebrows together. “What kind of things?”

I couldn’t tell her. I just shrugged and looked down into my tea.

“Well, that’s the problem, then.”

“What is?”

“You need to pray to the Lord that he will give you a spirit of thankfulness and love for your husband. You must open yourself to the possibility of falling in love with him. That’s what God commands.”

“No. I can’t ever love him. There’s no way.” I took a drink of tea, but it was hot and it burned my tongue. I grimaced.

“Then you aren’t obedient,” said my mother. “You aren’t obedient in your heart. And until you submit yourself completely, then you’ll be miserable.”

My lips parted, and I stared at her in shock. I felt like she’d just betrayed me. She was saying that everything was my fault, when it wasn’t. I was doing the best that I could.

“You need to be obedient, Abby. Submit to your husband, and pray that God will allow you to love Sally even more, so that you melt away her jealousy. If you are faithful, God will use you to work wonders within that household. But if you are not faithful, it will become even worse.”

I buried my face in my hands. I didn’t see how else I could submit. I was already doing everything that they all asked of me.

“Pray to be given a spirit of dutiful cheerfulness, so that you can hear and obey joyfully,” said my mother.

She wasn’t going to help me. No one was. I was trapped, and this was going to be the rest of my life. Maybe she was right. The only way I was going to get through this was to accept it and stop fighting. I nodded dejectedly. “I’ll try.”

She rubbed my shoulder. “That’s a good girl.”

* * *

Jesse

I spent the whole night and the next day thinking about Erin. I was confused. I’d barely had a chance to talk to her before I’d had sex with her, so I didn’t know much about her, but I’d really liked her.

Well, what I knew about her, which was mostly the sex part.

But she must have liked me too, because she had initiated everything.

I thought about the way she’d kissed me the first time, how she’d pressed into me and run her hands all over my body. I thought about my hands on her breasts, the way she’d gasped when I touched her nipples, the wondrousness of being inside her.

I couldn’t think about anything else.

I got my phone out a lot and looked at her phone number and thought about calling her. But I wasn’t sure what to say.

Anthony got sick of me. “Call her or don’t, man, but stop talking about it.”

“If I call her, what do I say?”

“Ask her if she wants to do something,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Like go out to a movie or eat dinner or some shit,” he said.

“Have you ever done that?”

“Hell, no. I don’t call girls. I hook up with girls, and then I get on with my life. Getting involved with girls is a good fucking way to ruin everything. It’s how we both ended up here, man.”

He was right. I’d resolved not to get involved with girls at all. But the thing with Erin had just happened so fast, and it had felt good, and…

“She gave you a gift, man,” said Anthony. “Most girls are all clingy and shit, and they think that if you fuck them that you want to stick around and listen to them complain about their lives all the time. Which is bullshit. They don’t even know how good they have it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that ideally, all you want from a girl is pussy. If she gave you that and then sent you packing, consider yourself lucky.”

“But I can’t stop thinking about her.”

“Well, then fucking call her, man. I don’t know. But can we stop talking about her?”

So, eventually, I called her.

I went outside of Ephraim’s house, where I was pretty sure that no one would hear me, and I selected her number out of contacts.

I dialed.

I waited while it rang.

Then she picked up. “Hello?” she sounded wary.

“Um, hi,” I said. “It’s, uh, it’s Jesse?”

“Jesse?”

“Uh, yeah, from the other night.”

There was silence.

“We, um, we…” Did she really not remember me?

“Oh!” Her tone changed. “Jesse the cult boy. Right. So, how are you?”

“I’m good. How are you?” This phone call was a train wreck. I didn’t know how to talk to girls. At all.

“Good,” she said.

Silence again.

I took a deep breath. “So, the reason I’m calling is that I was wondering if you wanted to do something sometime.”

She giggled. “Oh, wow, that’s so sweet. What are you doing right now?”

“Um… well, nothing.” I hadn’t intended for it to be right now, though.

“You wanna come over?”

So I went back to her apartment. Her roommate wasn’t around this time. It was late afternoon, but Erin was already drinking Shiner Bock and lounging on the living room couch.

She offered me a beer, and we sat on the couch together.

She messed with the music.

I didn’t know what to say. I tried to ask her questions about herself.

“So, do you go to school?”

“Me? Nah. I might in a year or so, but I’m not responsible enough right now. I work as a waitress. I party. You in school?”

“No,” I said.

What else could I ask her? What else could I talk to her about? What did worldly girls like to talk about?

She changed the music again.

She grinned at me. “You want to fuck again?”

“Uh…”

She leaned close. “Come on, Jesse. You’re not going to reject me, are you? You’ll damage my self-esteem.”

No, I wasn’t going to reject her. I’d really liked having sex with her. A lot.

So, we did it again, and I thought I might have done better that time. I spent more time touching her body. I put my mouth on her nipples, which she seemed to like, and I rubbed that little nub between her legs for what seemed like hours, while she writhed and gasped and moaned.

Once I was back inside her, it was sublime again. The best thing ever.

After it was over, I felt tired, but Erin was wired. She made me get up and drink more beer.

But it was even more awkward after, because I still didn’t know what to say to her, and I still didn’t know anything about her. I’d had my fingers on the most private part of her body. I’d put my dick
inside
her. And yet, even though we’d been so close, I felt really uncomfortable around her. She made me nervous.

Erin seemed to sense the tension between us. “You know what we need? We need to loosen up. Let’s go out somewhere. I know a bar in town where they never card.”

We went to the bar, but it didn’t help, because we didn’t have anything to say.

Erin knew a bunch of other people there, and so she started talking to other people. We were there for about fifteen minutes before she basically abandoned me.

I’d catch sight of her once and while, talking to one group of people or the other.

She even came back to check in with me once or twice. She dragged me to meet a few people, but they didn’t seem interested in talking to me beyond finding out my name and shaking my hand.

After two hours of this, I decided it wasn’t worth it. I had to work tomorrow, and I was just sitting around alone in the bar. I’d given Erin a ride, so I went off looking for her, so that I could tell her that I was leaving.

I found her in the back of the bar, next to the bathrooms.

She was pressed up against the wall, her legs wrapped around some other guy. He was devouring her mouth, and she had her fingers tangled in his hair.

I was floored.

Stunned.

I stared at them, shaking my head, my whole body shaking. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I’d never been so embarrassed and hurt and angry in my whole life.

She opened her eyes, and she saw me.

She pulled away from the guy and gave him a little shove. “Hey, give me a second, okay?”

The guy turned to look at me, a smirk on his face. He shrugged and sauntered off.

Erin raised her eyebrows. “Hey.”

That
was what she said?

“You’re mad,” she said, rolling her eyes.

I let out a disbelieving laugh. “I was just coming to tell you that I was going home. I gave you a ride here, so…”

“That’s cool. I’ll get another ride.”

I shook my head. “Yeah, I bet you will.” I turned away.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She sounded annoyed.

I turned back to her. “I think it means what I said.”

She ran a hand through her hair. “Look, Jesse, I’m sorry if you misunderstood.”

“Misunderstood?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry if you thought that us screwing meant something. It was just fun.” She reached for me. “You had fun, didn’t you?”

I took a step away from her.

“I was trying to do you a favor,” she said. “You’re this guy from the backwoods who’d never gotten laid, and I was just trying to help. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or whatever.”

That stung. Her superiority. The fact that what had happened between us meant nothing to her. I clenched my hands into fists, and I turned around. I started walking.

“Jesse.” She ran after me. She put her hand on my shoulder.

I kept walking. “Don’t touch me.”

She grabbed hold of my arm and stopped me. “Hold up. I still want us to be friends.”

It washed over me like a wave on the ocean, consuming me in rage. I ripped her fingers away from my arm, squeezing her so tight I could feel all the bones in her fingers. “Don’t
touch
me, you worthless whore,” I growled.

Fear splintered over her expression. She tried to back away.

But I was still crushing her hand. In that moment, I wanted to destroy her. I wanted to use my hands to pound her down until she understood not to treat me this way. I wanted to show her that I was better than she was, that she was
nothing
.

“You’re hurting me,” she squeaked.

Good
, I thought. She was useless and sinful and worldly. She needed to be taught a lesson.

And then I let go of her so quickly that we both stumbled back.

My father’s words coming out of my mouth. My father’s thoughts filling my mind.

I was terrified.

I held both my hands up. “I-I’m sorry.”

I fled from the bar to my truck, where I sat gripping the keys, staring at the steering wheel, and shaking.