Chapter Seventeen
SEVENTEEN
“Haman’s hat!” Faye yelled.
Greg put down the romance novel he was reading in the foyer downstairs and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was late. Long past the time when Faye normally went to sleep, but she was working on something in her studio. He heard the wheel begin to start again. Satisfied that Faye was okay, he returned to his book.
Prince Caspian wrapped one arm around her waist. Her jawline tightened. “You, sir,” she said, her gaze drifting southward, “have an unusually large sword.”
He wasn’t expecting that twist in the story. He moved to adjust himself when his gaze fell on Hillel, perched on the sofa armrest beside him. The dog was staring at him, clearly judgy. “Don’t give me that,” Greg said, and reached over to give the guy a good scratch behind the ears.
After all, the little guy didn’t even have balls.
Meanwhile, Greg couldn’t read one page of that romance novel without his mind circling back to Faye.
He was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with him.
He kept having these intrusive thoughts, instincts that would appear in his mind without permission, which he would have to tamp down by reminding himself that it couldn’t happen because he might be a Paper Boy.
Faye would walk past him during business hours, and he would think about grabbing her ass. She would bend over the dishwasher after breakfast, and his eyes would drift to her cleavage. Granted, he had been eating a ton of baladur cakes since coming to live at Magic Mud Pottery...but that wasn’t the reason his pants felt tighter.
And frankly, the romance novels weren’t helping.
The worst of those intrusive thoughts came at night, though. After spending time together, he would head up to bed, his mind tumbling. It wasn’t just sex that he wanted. Sex felt way too tame compared to the fantasies now rolling around in his head, partially inspired by Prince Caspian and his exploits.
He envisioned ravaging Faye, the escapades he was reading about serving as a guide to giving her pleasure. He wanted to make her ripple with desire, explore her inner thighs with his tongue, before sinking his erect manhood inside of her...
Yep. He was definitely some sort of pervert.
Greg took a few moments to see if Faye would shout out again. When she didn’t, he returned to his reading.
“It’s not the size of the sword,” Prince Caspian said, angling his weapon into her belly, “it’s what a man can do with it, and believe me, my lady... I have been known to battle all night.”
“Mother—” Faye shouted.
Greg stopped reading. From his vantage point in the foyer, he couldn’t hear the rest of what Faye was grumbling, but she was obviously distraught.
Closing his book, he went to discover what was happening in the back studio. He found Faye sitting at her pottery wheel, wearing a green apron over pajamas, covered in clay. To her side, a dozen different sketches and drawings were laid out across the floor.
Greg raised an eyebrow. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she huffed, still pedaling.
She didn’t seem fine.
“I just...” she said, shaking her head, partly talking to herself. “I don’t even know what I was thinking.”
He grabbed a chair to sit down next to her.
“I thought I could try it again,” she said, nodding to a square vase that had been completed and was now drying on a back table. “Modular designs. I sketched it out and everything, like I used to do as a teenager...but of course, I can’t get the second piece right. It’s supposed to be a Havdalah set, a set you use at the end of Shabbat. All the pieces, for the candle holder and the wine and the spice box, need to come together.”
He analyzed the bowl she was working on. “It looks great to me.”
“Well, it’s not.”
She stopped pedaling, letting the whole thing crumple into clay at the bottom of the bowl.
“Why’d you do that?” Greg asked.
“What?”
“Destroy it?”
“Because it’s not right,” she said, before adding, “For a modular design, it needs to be perfect. The pieces, the edges, everything needs to be in alignment, or else it won’t work.”
Greg rubbed his chin. She was always doing that. Undervaluing herself. He didn’t see the warps, fingerprints, and misshapen lips that she was always complaining about. But he saw how she destroyed things before she ever gave them a chance.
“You ever think about leaving it as is?” he asked.
“Leaving what as is?”
“Your pottery,” he said, nodding back towards the wheel. “Make your modular pieces, whatever the final product looks like. Make it to the best of your ability, and if a piece doesn’t fit right...if something doesn’t come out just perfectly, so be it.”
“Nobody wants messed-up pottery, Greg.”
She was torturing herself for no reason.
He picked up the sketches she had made of her Havdalah set. Analyzing it for himself, he had to admit it was a clever design.
“Do you want to make modular designs, Faye?”
“What I want,” she grumbled again, “is ten working fingers.”
She was so damn stubborn. He couldn’t help but think it.
“Actually,” Faye said, suddenly, “maybe you can help me.”
Greg put down her sketches. “What do you need?”
“I’m thinking...maybe you can be my hands.”
He didn’t understand. She rose from her seat, gathering another apron, tying it at his waist before directing him to the seat at the wheel. “We’re gonna do this Ghost -style,” she explained. “It’s an old movie about a potter. But in our version, you’re gonna be my hands, and I’m going to direct them, okay?”
“Okay.”
She moved to take a seat behind him, her legs wrapping around his, her breasts pressed up against his back. His mind circled back to the romance novel he had been reading, and his body responded. She was, in every sense of the word, painfully close.
“All you need to do is follow my lead,” she said.
Greg cleared his throat. “Okay.”
She pressed her hands around his and began to pedal the wheel. He could feel the pressure building, and he worked to obey—taking note to mimic each touch, feeling the wet clay being shaped beneath his hands, guided by her own. His body began to respond when her hands drifted lower.
“Oh,” she said, sitting back.
The pottery crumpled beneath them.
Greg closed his eyes. Great. Now she would know he was a pervert. What kind of sick and twisted deviant gets aroused making modular pottery with a woman? Still, he felt the need to explain. “I’ve been...reading your romance novels.”
She rose from her spot. Also, fairly noted, moved away from him.
“No worries!” she quipped, her voice moving into that high-pitched trill that always happened when she got nervous, before she started chewing on one finger. She stopped, though, when she realized it was covered in clay.
“I just...” He pointed to his own back. “You were very close. And then your hand was...”
“I didn’t realize it would be there.”
“Right.”
“It’s very...” She made a weird gesticulating motion with her hands. “Tall.”
He squinted. “Tall?”
Now he was getting worried that there was something wrong with his penis.
“I just mean,” she said, backtracking, “it was an unexpected thing.”
He had to know. “Bad?”
“Nooooo,” she said, shaking her head, very adamant. “Not bad at all. Excellent, in fact.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
The room fell quiet once more. Her wild eyes drifted back to him. The red flush in her cheeks had now spread to her breasts. And those intrusive thoughts returned, to kiss her, to make love to her, to merge with her, body and soul...
The wise thing to do would be to head upstairs to their respective beds alone. Except she was so damn beautiful. Not just her physical being, but her soul. He had committed every curve, hair, bone, and breath to his core memory—but standing so close to her, clay beneath both their fingernails, it was those hidden and invisible pieces that he longed to explore. He considered it a strange affair indeed that she worried about being too much, because he found himself having the opposite problem—he always wanted more from her.
“Would you like a snack?” Faye asked suddenly.
“Actually,” Greg said, grateful for the reprieve, “I’d love one.”
“Great.” She sighed, her shoulders relaxing. “Then why don’t you just let me finish cleaning up back here. I’ll meet you out in the front foyer in ten.”
He shook off the sex haze he had found himself in and moved to do as Faye had instructed. He took off his apron. Washed up. Headed to the kitchen, gathering up supplies to begin making the charcuterie board for Faye and himself. Ten minutes later, as promised, she returned to the downstairs foyer area.
“Oh,” she said, glancing at the board. “You’re almost finished.”
“I know how you like it.” He grinned.
She took a spot across from him at the counter. “Listen,” she said, pushing one curl behind her ear, “about what happened back there...”
Greg moved to interrupt her. “You don’t have to... I know it can’t happen, Faye.”
“Right.”
“I just...” He shook his head, hating himself for not having more control over his own body. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
At least, he was going to try to keep it from happening again. In fact, he was going to stop reading romance novels and pick up a book on quantum physics instead. He would spend the rest of his life reading about math equations...and not thinking about Faye.
“Do you want it thick tonight?” Greg asked.
“Hm?” she said, sitting up taller.
“The salami,” he said, pointing towards the board.
“Oh.” She looked away. “Thick. Thick is always...good.”
He began slicing the way she wanted, before her eyes drifted back to his romance novel sitting on the couch. “So, what do you think of it?” she asked curiously.
“Truthfully,” he said, catching her eyes, “I love it.”
“Really?” She seemed surprised.
“Honestly, I was kind of sad I was getting to the end, and then I looked back on your shelf and realized it was only the first book in a six-book series about The Rogue Prince. The news basically made my night.”
She laughed. “Well, I’m glad you appreciate my stories.”
He finished layering the meat on the charcuterie board before twisting it back her way. “For you, my lady. For I shall not have anyone in this kingdom claim that I came but did not give my queen her fill...”
“Amazing how you can do that,” she said, popping a piece into her mouth.
“Wise words deserve to be recalled.”
“What book is that from?”
He caught her gaze. “Not everything I say is taken from a book.”
“Hm.” She considered his words before adding, “Noted.”
A noise appeared in the distance. Greg craned his ears towards the window. It sounded familiar. Something like a car, rumbling down the street at top speed...yet, given the time of night, it didn’t feel innocuous.
“What on Earth?” Faye said, heading towards her storefront window to inspect.
Greg peered past her, through the glass, into the darkness of the alley. A car was loitering in the alley across from him. He squinted, trying to discern who was inside the vehicle, when the voice that lived inside of him returned.
Justice, justice...
It echoed inside of him.
Justice, justice...
And then, it became a full sentence.
Justice, justice...you shall pursue.
The rest happened in a flash. An instinct that came over him, The Rogue Prince unsheathing his sword even before the threat had fully been unleashed, because he knew exactly what was about to happen.
“Faye, get down,” Greg said.
“What?” Faye said, twisting towards him.
“Get down,” he shouted. “Now!”
Dropping the knife, he jumped over the counter and sprinted towards her with only one thought on his mind—Faye was in danger.
He slammed his body against hers, taking her down to the ground. A blur of voices and shouting from the street beyond, their bodies thumping and then falling together—before there was a crash, and they were both caught in a downpour of glass.
He shielded her with his body. Felt the shards come down around them, blades against his back, skin, and head. All while that voice in his head, the one he had heard since waking up in Woodstock, screamed inside of him and refused to abate. Justice, justice, you shall pursue. Justice, justice, you shall pursue.
Greg lifted off Faye, checking her body. Running his hands down her face, scanning her form to see if there was blood or injury. Pupils clear. Limbs moving. She was safe.
“Greg,” she said, her voice quavering.
He stroked her cheek. “You’re okay.”
“You’re bleeding,” she said, lifting one hand up to touch a spot on his forehead.
“I’m fine,” he said. His only concern was her. “I’m fine, Faye.”
Quickly, he assessed the situation. Someone had broken the front window of Magic Mud Pottery. Shards of pottery alongside shattered glass now spread out through the front foyer. The voice returned. Justice, justice, you shall pursue.
“Wait here,” Greg said, standing up.
“Greg,” Faye shouted after him. “No. Don’t—”
But he could not stop. He would not stop. He raced out the front door and onto the street. The voice got louder. Justice, justice, you shall pursue. Justice, justice, you shall pursue.
His entire body on fire, a red-hot fury filled his core. He took off running down the street, his head on a swivel searching the darkness. He was halfway down the block when a blue sedan, burning rubber, came into view. Greg squinted, trying to see the license plate through the darkness. He had only enough time to make out the first four letters and numbers.
HX34
He committed it to memory.
Greg would have run after that car forever, but when he glanced back, Faye was standing in the middle of the street. Her hair disheveled, her pajamas scuffed and torn, she held a brick in one hand and an uncrumpled piece of paper in the other. He raced back to her. She handed him the note, tears in her eyes, her words scattered, hands shaking. Written in red ink over the image of a stick-figure woman being hung from a noose was a simple message:
NO MERCY TO JEWS
He did not hesitate. Wrapping one arm around Faye, he pulled her close to him. She buried her head in his chest, and a wail escaped her lips. He had never heard anyone sob so loud. He didn’t even know that such hurt, such pain, could be possible. And it killed him, broke him as a man in ten thousand ways, to feel her shivering inside his grip.
“I’m here,” he whispered.
“Greg,” she cried. “Oh, God... Greg.”
“It’s okay, Faye. They’re gone.”
She couldn’t stop crying. The words that had propelled him to action, that had finally appeared in their completion, screamed out inside his head. Justice, justice, you shall pursue. Justice, justice, you shall pursue. Greg still didn’t know who he was, but he decided that who he had been no longer completely mattered. Because like The Rogue Prince setting off across a kingdom to rescue his maiden, he knew what he had to do.
Justice, justice, he would pursue.