chapter 10
Decca
If I’d had to imagine my wedding night, it would probably involve a midnight flight to somewhere tropical, a swanky hotel room, frilly white lingerie.
Okay, maybe not my wedding night. Only in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to marry. In fact, sitting here alone at Granny’s kitchen table, in Granny’s house, wearing Granny’s gown, seemed about right for any wedding night image I could conjure now.
And I wasn’t alone alone. Not anymore. I was only taking a moment for myself before my life changed into something I couldn’t recognize. A life of togetherness. Partnership.
Gus was out back, waiting for me to light the bonfire and bring out the tea and cakes I’d made. I couldn’t quite bring myself to join him yet.
The tarot cards filtered through my fingers again and again as my glazed eyes stared straight ahead. At nothing. At the warped seam of the plastic laminate countertop under the sink. At the refrigerator magnets, recognizing their familiar shapes and colors but not really seeing them.
The fridge kicked on, its electronic whir drowning out the echoing tick of the old clock behind me. Each tick mocked me, counting down the moments before everything would change.
Or nothing would change. Because we still didn’t know what this arrangement would look like. These moments could be life-changing. Or they could be entirely forgotten in a few days.
I shuffled again.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
I loved the waltzing beat of the cards, the soft flip of the cardstock, the feel of their worn surfaces skating off each other.
I could zone out to the muscle memory as my fingers caught the paper edges and knew how to move without my telling them. It required no concentration or focus, allowing my mind to soften and just be here.
Nothing jumped out at me this time, urging me to stop and draw. I kept going. At least the busyness of my hands gave my head something to focus on.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
Finally, one card stuck out from the middle of the deck, calling to me. I pulled it and shuffled again, my eyes as unfocused as my thoughts. Two cards stuck together, tripped up on their path back to their friends. I pulled them both and set the rest of the deck aside.
I flipped over the Fool. The first card in the cycle of the Major Arcana.
Of course. I’d have bet anything I’d pull that card tonight. It was the card of new beginnings. The start of a journey. It signified spontaneity and taking a blind leap of faith.
Wasn’t that what this whole venture was? A fool’s errand that I’d placed an uncanny amount of faith in? Wasn’t that the card I pulled the night I asked Gus if he wanted to do this?
The Fool told me I was still on track.
I turned over the next two. Shit. Judgement and the Four of Swords. Both reversed.
Oh, Four of Swords, reversed, you judgmental bitch.
“My eyes are not closed. I’m not avoiding anything,” I said to the woman lying in her tomb with the swords pointing at her body. Except maybe I was avoiding what was waiting for me out on the patio. Or up in our bed.
But no, he said we’d wait before we added the physical side. I didn’t need to be ready ready. Not tonight.
If the Fool was the first card, Judgement was the penultimate, and it basically showed me what I already knew about myself. That even though I was nearing the completion of something, I was reluctant to move forward.
Story of my life.
None of these cards predicted the future. That wasn’t what tarot did. Not for me, anyway. They were just pictures, really. Art. Like a Jackson Pollock painting, but prettier (no offence to Pollock) and much easier to glean knowledge from.
I pulled cards here and there, or I laid out a spread where the spirits of my ancestors could offer answers to particular questions. Many of the cards themselves were so familiar, each pull was like seeing the face of an old friend, or regressing into an old habit that I’d thought I’d kicked.
I’m looking at you, Four of Swords, reversed.
I sighed and replaced the deck in my herb cabinet and poured the boiling water over the tea to steep. I’d tried to blend the perfect herbs to celebrate our day of new beginnings.
Lemon balm for friendship, rose for love, spearmint for courage, orange peel and wild bergamot for clarity. The loose petals and leaves swirled in the pot. A fragrant mist eddied around me. It was too hot for tea, but it was more symbolic than anything. It certainly wasn’t doing anything for my nerves.
I nestled the mugs on the tray. The more I fiddled, the worse my anxiety grew. Would Gus notice if I didn’t join him after all? How bad of a wife would I be if I faked a headache on our first night of marriage?
Most of me wanted to rush out to him. Jump in the deep end and swim for my life. But there that was that other part. A tiny splinter of a part. The kind that slides right through a nerve in your fingertip and rubs it so raw you can’t concentrate on anything but the incessant, pricking discomfort. That part of me wanted to grab my keys, jump in my car, and drive somewhere where everything made sense. Work. My lab. A construction site where the digger disturbed an unmarked casket. Anywhere but here.
“Dec?” Gus’s deep voice called from the door.
“Coming.” I transferred the little cinnamon cakes I’d baked—dripping with luscious honey to represent the traditional honeymoon that we both decided it was better to forgo—to one of the old china plates I’d inherited, and added it to the serving tray with the tea to bring outside to enjoy our honeymoon bonfire.
I’d light it this time. I really would.
Tonight, I just wanted a little bit of special to mark the occasion. Maybe ours wasn’t a traditional marriage, but it wasn’t something either of us took lightly.
“Looks like it’ll be a good fire. I didn’t know if you knew how to build one.”
“Please. How could you doubt me?”
“Why? Because you’re a man and it’s a skill leftover from your Homo erectus days?”
“No, because I’m an Eagle Scout.”
“Really? You were a Boy Scout? I can’t see it.”
“Not Boy Scout. Eagle Scout. And I am one. It’s present tense. Once and always.”
“Oh.”
“You learn something new every day.”
“Gus, we’ll both be learning something new about each other every day for a very long time.”
“Should make for an exciting marriage.” He smiled and picked up a mug of tea, offering me the one in my favorite cup before going back for his. I played off his comment with a laugh. Then I remembered the Four of Swords, reversed.
He reached into his back pocket. Something blue twirled in his fingers once, twice, before he opened his palm to show me.
The lighter.
“Nice night for a fire. You ready?”
I bit my lower lip. My hand twitched at my side. The last time I lit the logs, I’d had to bring Granny out here in a wheelchair. She was seeing things by then. Talking to her Great Uncle Asenath in the flames. She introduced me to a cousin, Kizzie, I’d never heard of, laughing and chasing him through the apple orchard in her memories—or in another dimension. Back on Earth, the light of the fire had erased decades off Granny’s face.
It was then when I realized her body had already started shutting down for the long haul. She died two days later. In her bed. Me and some of her friends around her. It was a good death. At the time, I was content and at peace with her slipping bodily away from me. But I couldn’t help but dwell on how alone I was in the world.
“I—“
Lighting the fire tonight would be the perfect way to counter the memory. I wasn’t alone anymore. I had Gus. I had a family of sorts. I wasn’t alone before, either. Not with Bethany and Soula, but I was still the only Crowley left in my family, and that felt meaningful at the time.
Still, I couldn’t seem to lift my hand to take the lighter. My arm was too heavy, my muscles weren’t taking orders from my brain.
My eyes trailed from Gus’s hand to his eyes. He understood. He didn’t judge. Or maybe he did judge, and he was just too good of a man—too good of a priest—to let it show.
He smiled widely, his eyes crinkling in the corners in the way I loved. “Honestly, I’m a little relieved. It’s like, ninety degrees out here. I’m sweating in places I didn’t know I had.”
He was lying. Gus barely had sweat glands. He’d spent the past two summers complaining about how uncomfortable it was to bloat instead of sweat. But I appreciated the mood lift.
I pointed to the tray. “I made honey cakes. For our very brief honeymoon.” I lifted a teacake from the rose-patterned plate and offered it to him. His teeth sank into it, stirring the cinnamon and clove scented air, already sweetened with the delicate honeysuckle of my perfume, and darkened by the smoky amber of his cologne.
Golden syrup pooled in the corner of his mouth.
I couldn’t pull my eyes away from that spot on his lips, not even when his tongue licked it clean.
A fantasy flashed before my eyes. How good it would feel to climb up this giant bean stalk of a man, to pull his mouth close to mine and lick the honey off his lips.
My skin prickled with the gush of hot blood surging through my arteries. I fanned myself, suddenly noticing the sticky heat of the night air. I definitely had sweat glands, and they were working overtime.
“What shape is this?” He was squinting to examine one.
“Oh, uh… they’re tombstones. I wanted them to be little cakelets, and that was the only pan I had. Just pretend it’s something romantic.”
He laughed and took a bite. “Really good. I never knew you cooked and baked so well.”
“I live in a tiny town with not many takeout options. I have to cook. Plus, I learned from, well… you-know-who.”
“So, what happened to—”
“They’re not Greek, you know. Honeymoons. Everyone thinks they are. The common misconception is that, after a wedding, the couple would go off together for a month. A moon. Everyone would bring them cakes and honey to sustain them during their period of wedded bliss. In reality, it’s probably a Celtic custom. The couple would be given a month’s worth of mead—honey wine—in the hopes that they’d get drunk enough to conceive a child early on. Improved the odds of assuring paternity in a time when women had very little choice in whom they married.”
“That’s grim. But if you want to avoid answering questions, just tell me. You don’t have to change the subject.”
“I’m not avoiding anything.”
His amused look turned tender. “Dec, do you mind my asking what happened to your granny? You had no family at the wedding today.”
“That’s not true. The people who mattered to me were standing right next to me.”
“Bethany and Soula.”
“Yes.”
“Your mom and dad?”
I shook my head. Four of Swords, reversed strikes again. “I don’t want to talk about it tonight.”
“Do you... want to talk about mead and honey cakes and what exactly that signifies?”
I shook my head again. Then nodded. “I don’t know.” I didn’t know anything anymore. I was so full of emotion. All the emotion. Lust, sadness, hope. All swirling together in an uncomfortable cesspool of grossness.
“Aren’t we supposed to smash cake in each other’s faces?” He picked up another oozing tea cake. “I’ll let you go first, but you have to help me get it all out of my beard later.” He winked.
I’d forgotten Gus was a winker. Not in any sleazy way. His winking was always done to reassure and tease in a really sweet way. It made me melt.
He took the plate and sat in one of the Adirondack chairs, leaning back and relaxing into the heavy wood frame. “Come sit with me?”
“There’s no room.”
He smiled patiently. “That’s kind of the point.”
“Oh. I don’t think—”
“I do. I think we need this. A little intimacy. I think you’ll feel a little less skittish, but it’s just a hypothesis. I want to test it. Please?” he added at the end to soften his commanding tone.
I blew out a slow breath, shaking the tension out of my arms. If we were going to try to make this real, now was as good a time as any to start.
I perched on his leg. Delicately, like a bird. Trying not to give him all of my weight.
“Come on. All the way.”
I sank down, letting his strong thighs bear my weight. I slipped closer, and he wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me against his chest. I still wore my frothy, polyester lace gown with the bateau neckline and tiny bows at my collarbones. Gus still wore his suit pants and a blue button-down, only having removed his jacket and tie. The skirt of my dress billowed out over us as I curled myself inside his protective shell.
“You look beautiful today. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that earlier.”
“Is it because I’m not wearing black? Because this is a onetime deal. Family heirloom and all,” I fluffed out my skirt a bit more.
“No. My little crow.“ His eyes danced as he said the word. “You look beautiful as my wife.”
My wife.Those words squeezed my heart.
It was a shocking twist of fate. Me. A wife. His wife. How much I wanted to lean into this role. Heat bloomed behind my eyes. I laid my head on his chest. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice how deeply he affected me.
“Bite,” he instructed. I lifted my head as he brought a cake to my lips. “I won’t smash it.”
“You better not ruin my makeup.”
“The night is young. That remains to be seen.”
My eyes flicked to his, certain they’d find a hint of a joke in his expression. There was nothing but sincerity. Slowly, I leaned forward.
He watched me intently as I bit a crescent moon into the sticky sweet. I chewed slowly. It really was good. And really fucking sweet.
Then he finished the rest of the cake that he’d offered me, licking his fingers where the honey had touched before letting his head drop back to the chair.
A few minutes went by in companionable silence.
He was very good at ignoring the fact that there was supposed to be a fire blazing before us. Instead of watching the amber glow flickering in each other’s eyes, we stared into the brown dullness of logs only illuminated by the yellow, insect-repelling patio light. It was another tally mark on the long list of things I loved about Gus.
I’d fully relaxed into him, and I never wanted to leave. I’d be happy spending the rest of our lives just like this. Not talking, just being together. We’d done this a lot when he was in seminary, only it was over the phone. We’d talk about something for a while, then he’d go back to writing or reading. I’d go back to working on something, neither of us willing to break even that meager connection by hanging up the phone. Why would we, when we could wait it out until we’d get to talking about something else soon enough?
Maybe all this time, that was the long-distance version of this. Just holding each other in the quiet darkness.
The new moon didn’t add any light to the patio. Here we were under the black of night. The stars for our ceiling. Sharing our honeymoon cakes in surprising, wedded bliss.
“I keep thinking about that kiss,” he said after a while. His statement snapped me from the haze of a sleep I hadn’t consented to.
When I didn’t respond, he tilted my chin up to meet his eyes. “Have you thought about it?”
I nodded.
“I didn’t know it would be like that between us. Did you... did you feel it, too? You had to have. I saw the look on your face after.”
I wanted to pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I couldn’t. I nodded again.
“Decca. I’m going to kiss you now.”
Didn’t say anything. My breaths grew shallower as his hands reached up to my hair, twisting into my chignon that Bethany had crafted so perfectly.
Yes, Gus, wreck it. Ruin my hair. My perfect makeup. Rip my dress to shreds. I didn’t need it anymore. Kiss me. Ruin me. Fuck me. Do it now.
I twisted around in his lap to better face him. His eyes glistened in the moonlight, looking at my eyes, first one, then the other. Down to my lips that were still stained red, even though my lipstick had worn off long ago, and I hadn’t bothered to reapply in the hopes that he’d do this.
I was a frustrating contradiction of wannabe slut with no idea what I actually wanted or how to ask for it. I just hoped Gus would see the whore that lurked deep within and claw it to the surface for me.
His kiss was feather light. Just a brush of his lips against mine. He pulled me away from him, peering down at my face.
“You do glow in the moonlight,” his low voice rumbled.
I opened my mouth. “Gus, there’s no moon tonight…” I began, but he moved his hand to my jaw and rubbed his thumb over my lower lip. A moan slipped out from under my breath and one corner of his mouth turned up in a sly expression, not quite a smile.
“Your lips are so full. This bow, right here. I love this pouty upper lip. It’s slightly bigger than the bottom. I’ve always been fascinated with your lips.” He straightened his face, giving me the non-expression study-face again, only this time it was slightly starry-eyed. “I didn’t know what to expect with you, Decca, but it wasn’t this. I—”
He moved in again, this time kissing me more fully. He forced my lips apart and peppered kisses over the top one, the one he seemed enamored with. His tongue slipping out to discover my taste with a moan. His or mine?
My own mouth moved against his, my tongue flicking over his lips, gently nibbling before moving in farther, seeking out his tongue to entwine it with mine.
I was ravenous for his kisses, but it wasn’t enough. Under my thigh, I felt him grow hard, and I didn’t move away. I needed more.
We grew frantic. Every touch was harder, deeper, stronger. His hands slipped up the bodice of my dress, gliding over the satin fabric. The only layer between his hand and my breast. I didn’t need any support and the back of my dress was so low, a bra would never have worked. His fingers found my hardened nipple and teased it through the glossy fabric.
“Unzip it, please,” I begged. He stilled for just a moment before carefully, too slowly, reaching both hands behind me for the zipper of my dress.
Slowly, he pulled, the teeth unzipping smoothly, inch by inch.
Then he stopped.
Something changed in his eyes. His mouth clamped shut and his jaw tensed.
“Gus?” I put my hand on his cheek. He winced under my touch before looking down.
“I’m sorry. I can’t do this,” he said into his lap. He lifted me off him and stood. He didn’t even look back as he strode into the house.