Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
A couple days later, she acted on that decision. How much she missed him might have compelled her as much as her worry for him, but since both were true, she had no problem with that.
When she called the school, Cherry said he was working at the church in the afternoon.
The thought of encountering Witford or Tisha upset her stomach, which pissed her off, so Vera put her ass in her car and headed that way after lunch.
Only one car was in the parking lot, a red Toyota four-door. Bastion had reported Witford drove a Lincoln Continental. His presence or absence shouldn’t matter either way. She wasn’t here to see Witford.
The doors leading into the nave were propped open, but it was empty. The clacking sound of a computer keyboard in use came from the hallway to her right. The sign posted at the corner said Church Office .
But before she headed in that direction, she stepped into the nave and moved down the aisle until she stood before the large cross. How did Rev feel up here? Or when he walked along the aisles, singing? Reaching out toward the souls that needed him.
Most people she could figure out. She understood what drove them, what fears and insecurities, the needs they had. Often it didn’t change anything, to know and understand. But sometimes it did.
Rev had brought forth things in her she thought she’d made peace with. She hadn’t. She’d just buried them, because with that kind of loss, she could only bury the body and move on, missing the soul of what was, and the connection that had been.
He wasn’t a preacher. He was a soul minister.
She left the nave and went to the office, finding a woman in her forties, with bouncy curled hair and well applied makeup. Her navy-blue dress was printed with white polka dots, and her gold name plate said she was Mrs. Byrd.
“Hello. I’m Vera Morgan, a friend of Rev’s. Can you tell me where I can find him?”
The woman looked up from her screen, the welcoming warmth in her brown eyes releasing Vera’s tension like air from a balloon, sending it sputtering away. In some corner of her subconscious, she’d absurdly imagined Witford putting her on a blacklist to keep her off the church grounds.
That cold look in his eyes, the venom in Tisha’s words, had rattled her more than she realized. It wasn’t like her.
“Well, lucky Rev. He’s doing his Garden of Gethsemane right now.”
“Pardon me?”
“It’s what he calls it. He goes into the contemplation garden behind the church to pray and think. He seemed like he had a lot on his mind.”
The secretary’s concerned expression was replaced by a speculative one. “You know, Rev doesn’t pay attention to what most of us find important. I’ve seen him hand two twenties to a convenience store clerk for an eight dollar purchase.”
The segue took her off guard, but since it was a story about Rev, Vera rolled with it. “Did the clerk take advantage?”
“He thought about it. You can see that kind of thing in the eyes. I was about to step in—we were on a church trip, and getting some snacks. But Rev was gazing at the boy as he waited, and humming to himself. That voice…” Mrs. Byrd shook her head. “Even under his breath, you want to listen close, because it brings on a feeling you want to have.”
“That’s a perfect way to put it,” Vera murmured.
“You’ve heard it.” Mrs. Byrd’s smile deepened. “Good. When the clerk gave him the right change and the extra twenty, Rev told him that being able to look in the mirror and see no tarnish made every day a good one. Then Rev gave him back the twenty and said he’d meant for him to take that for his mother. She apparently had a cold and needed some medicine. When that boy smiled, it looked like the first real one he’d had in a long time.”
Vera saw the scene in her head, as clear as if she’d been there. “Why’d you tell me that?”
“You looked like you expected me to tell you Rev couldn’t see anyone right now. But I’ve learned people come looking for him, at the right time, for the right reasons. And not just because he’s a pleasing man to look at.”
“I’ve noticed that.”
“You’re not blind, so I expect so.” Mrs. Byrd winked. “He’s not much on book learning. Says it doesn’t take hold in his mind. But between you and me, he may be the smartest man I’ve ever met.”
Mrs. Byrd waved a hand toward her door. “Take the exit at the end of my hall. Turn left and cut through the cemetery. You’ll see the garden entrance. If he’s deep into it when you find him, take a seat nearby and do your own prayer until it’s over. There are plenty of places to sit.”
“Thank you.” Vera turned toward the door, then paused. “Mrs. Byrd, what was the significance of the Garden of Gethsemane? I know it had to do with Jesus.”
“It certainly did. The Garden of Gethsemane is where our Lord spent His hours before His arrest, dealing with His fear and sadness about the trial ahead of Him. I think it was also where He let Himself really feel the sadness and pain for all of us. Are you familiar with John 11:35?”
Vera shook her head.
“‘Jesus wept.’ Shortest verse in the Bible, and possibly the most powerful. I think about it whenever it rains.”
Vera met the woman’s gaze. What she detected there suggested Mrs. Byrd had come upon Rev in the garden before, and knew firsthand what he sought there.
Perhaps she should leave him be. If he was talking to Higher Powers, nothing Vera could offer would top that. But the compulsion she felt to see him had grown overwhelming. Maybe it was being driven by reasons beyond her own desires.
Or she was just telling herself that.
Fuck it, as Cyn might say. Vera wanted to see him, needed to see him. She wasn’t dealing with another sleepless night.
“Thank you, Mrs. Byrd. It’s a genuine pleasure to meet a true friend of Rev’s.”
The woman’s shrewd eyes registered the word choice, and she nodded. “I hope I’ve done the same, Miss Morgan. Sure feels like it.”
As Vera headed down the hallway, she noted it looked freshly painted. The building wasn’t fancy, but everything was clean and well maintained. Even the base boards gleamed, no accumulation of dust or scuff marks.
Once outside, that trend continued. No pollen on the siding, no bug residue or abandoned webs. In a coastal city where everyone struggled against the effects of a sticky, humid environment, the keepers of this building were on the ball. They cared about their church. She had no doubt Rev was part of that effort.
In the cemetery, she saw a recent grave, surrounded by fresh flowers. The polished tombstone said Betty Miller had passed at the seasoned age of ninety-four. Beloved wife, mother, friend and teacher. A line of pretty stones was on the uneven marble top, twenty-eight of them. She wondered if they’d been left by her students.
Even beyond the grave, people always had more stories to tell. Sometimes that was when the best stories came out to be noticed.
A hedge separated the cemetery from the garden, but a powder coated black metal archway woven with bougainvillea provided an entrance. A plaque above it read, Give your worries to the Lord. Offer Him your hope and faith, to give both strength.
Nested in a cluster of rugosa roses to her left was a replica of the Weeping Angel statue in New Orleans’ Metairie Cemetery, her head resting on a pedestal, body and wings stretched out nearly straight behind her. At the base of the pedestal was a planter holding the fish shaped worry stones.
The garden was a mix of wild azaleas, tended flower plots, potted plants and more religious statuary. A large cross marked the garden’s center. As she worked her way through the maze-like plantings to reach it, she kept an eye out for Rev.
Then she heard a deep, guttural moan, a swallowed sob. It was coming from the left side of the garden, so she changed direction, heading for it. Every few steps, she heard it again, so she’d stop. Such a sound required stillness to absorb it. Yet when it became a cry, torn from the soul of the one uttering it, she quickened her step.
The lance through her heart told her it was him.
He was kneeling beside a stone bench, his back to her. In front of him, on a hill of mulch and surrounded by azaleas, was another angel statue, this one standing tall and strong, wings spread and robes billowing, as if she was in a strong wind. Her face was kind but stern, a finger raised in gentle admonishment to counsel silence, to listen to what was being offered.
Rev had his head down, his elbows on the bench, face cupped in his hands, his broad shoulders shuddering. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, his knees on the concrete pad around the bench. His back was rounded, as if what gripped him held on tight and hard, curling him in on himself. As she drew closer, she realized that between the sobs and cries, he was singing in a broken, rough voice.
“Judge not lest ye be judged…
“All things are possible through He who gives me strength…
“Let go… Just let go… Just gotta let go…”
Even now, in the throes of such personal anguish, the pitch of his voice, its ability to compel and mesmerize as he put random words to music, was not diminished. If anything, it held more power. His pain took strength from her body, making her sit down on another nearby bench, but it pulled her spirit right to him. The notes rang through the garden, keeping even the birds silent.
He raised his head, his eyes closed. When she saw his tears, she could feel his worry and agony. Only love could create a wound that deep.
Her strength came rushing back. She couldn’t refuse the compulsion that told her he needed a Mistress’s care as much as he needed God’s.
She took off her shoes and stockings. Having the pathway under her bare soles felt right, as if she were on holy ground. She came closer, until she could put her hand on his shoulder.
He didn’t start at her touch. He went still, until another shudder passed through him. Lifting a hand, he covered hers and held it tight. She went to her knees next to him, her arm across his back, her cheek pressing against it.
She’d been angry, wanting to strike out at Witford and his aunt, for the wrong they’d done him, wanting to make them suffer for hurting a man she already deeply cared about. But here, she was pulled into what mattered to him about it, and tears rose and spilled down her cheeks.
She wasn’t just crying for what his family had done, but what hers had, and how lost they all were, every one of them.
He turned, and suddenly he was holding her. Every fear and worry she had bubbled up and, in his arms, were washed away. She was safe and cared for, in a way she rarely let herself know she wished for. He knew, and understood. He saw and felt her, down to the soul.
She was a Mistress, a woman who could care for herself and others. She could care for him, which was why she was here. Whether she’d wanted to be here or had been called here, it didn’t matter. It was all the same.
She was also a child, wondering at the world, sometimes afraid and hurting over it. Just like him.
She understood why he was here, not just to seek guidance for his own pain, but for the suffering of others. He saw their isolation, pushed past and through it, took that feeling of being lost, alone and desolate, and tossed it aside for the lie it was.
But it could overwhelm him, as it would anyone. When he raised his head and she looked up at him, she touched his face. He gazed at her through wet eyes, his mouth firm and soft at once under her fingertips.
“Money and power, they not evil,” he said. “But a man’s soul can get sick and let them become a poison. Don't have to be a lot of money or a lot of power, just a lot in his world.”
His mind was on his aunt and cousin, she knew, but she stayed silent, listening.
Rev looked down at her hand, clasped between his. “We lost a kid last year because he had twenty dollars in his pocket from mowing a yard. Another group of kids beat him to death for it, but that wasn't why they did it. They beat him for not joining their gang, for showing them they didn’t have to be that, didn’t have to take what wasn’t earned. They wrote $20 on his forehead.”
She closed her eyes. She knew the kind of helplessness he was feeling. She and the other TRA women felt it whenever they couldn’t get someone in desperate circumstances to come to Laurel Grove or one of its sister shelters.
"Witford…he's a good preacher,” Rev said. “He want to be a great one, but he don’t realize that’s not what they need. He just needs to care about the people and let God guide him to the lessons He needs to talk to them about.
“He's gotten to be about Witford, standing over them on that pulpit, having people shake his hand, consider him important. We're only important as God’s instrument, and He gives us the gift of being important to those we love.”
Rev sighed. “Guess that can be one of my singing sermons, but how do I sing it to Witford so he hear? I don’t know, but hopefully God will know and tell me.”
She pressed her head to his shoulder, gripped his arms, a silent wish for the same. “Is it okay that I’m here?” she asked at length, lifting her head.
His beautiful lips curved and he touched her cheek, rubbing the tear track there. “I’d like to kiss this, hold onto it in my mouth, Mistress. Is that all right?”
At her assent, he leaned in, touched his lips there. Her fingers tightened on his biceps. “You’re going to give me impure thoughts,” she said.
He drew back and looked at her seriously. “Nothing impure about the way you make me feel, or the way I make you feel. Our bodies linked to our heart and soul. Can’t you feel it? I kiss your skin, and think about kissing more of it, all over, being inside you like I was the other day, and my heart hurts wanting to be that close to you again. You made it…sacred, that energy you were talking about. The way it’s meant to be.”
Rev was a devout, loving, balanced soul. He was also a powerful male who desired a woman and had no shame in the way he felt that desire. It made her all the more determined to be his Mistress. And thank the Lord and Lady, God, the Powers-that-Be, for the gift.
“Yes. Sacred.” Her lips tipped up. “Yet it feels so good it almost feels indulgent. What your people might call sin.”
“My people?” His eyes glinted at her teasing, then he sobered. “Sin don’t feel good. Not really. Not if your heart’s open to what’s right. Everything about touching you feels good, Mistress. Why’d you come to me here?”
“Something you said. About needing to get your head in the right place.” She held onto him tighter. “I’ve been thinking…have you ever thought I can be the person you can come find when you feel that way?
“I’m not trying to compete with a Power that knows way more than me,” she added, looking around them. “This is a way to get your head right with God. I just…you can have an earthly version of getting your head right with yourself. Someone to lean on when you need it. A Mistress can be that.”
“For a submissive like me.”
Because the typical interpretation of the word implied bad things about manhood or strength, the ability to protect and care for others, most men with a submissive orientation avoided the direct characterization, at least at first. But she wasn’t surprised that Rev had accepted it. He understood what surrendering control meant, and knew it wasn’t weak at all, not when done willingly, with that open heart.
“Teena Joy said nothing gives the Lord as much joy as giving Him your trust.” Rev appeared to have read her mind. “She said she thought that might be the source of His strength, our trust in Him.”
He helped her onto the bench, and slid his hands over her knees, removing tiny bits of gravel. “You could have scraped your pretty knees on that concrete.” He leaned in and kissed each one, his fingers lingering.
“Rev.”
He chuckled. His face still showed signs of weeping, but the contrast with his sensual teasing made her heart tilt. He glanced at the angel. “You two have the same look on your face, like you about to scold me.”
She pressed her lips against a smile and clasped his hands. He put his head on her knuckles, his wide shoulders a platform she could rest her free palm on. It wasn’t enough. She leaned forward to put her cheek on the back of his head, and then he turned it so her hair brushed his face and he could inhale her scent, his back expanding from the deep breath.
“What you said earlier, about inviting me to your home,” he said. “Is that invitation still open?”
“It is.” She straightened, and he did the same, looking at her.
“Then I’d like to take you up on it. Just for a night,” he added. “I won’t take advantage of you.”
“It never crossed my mind that you would.” She leaned back in. “But I intend to take full advantage of you.”