Ralph had been born into the Foursquare Christian Church. Fundamentalist Christianity scared him beyond any sense of belonging, but he was eerily comfortable with the purgative rites and often dropped in on rigid churches when he was feeling weak.

His brother, Daniel, had entered the ministry in the family church. It was through the church that he dealt with the inherent craziness of his family. Being a part of the revelatory structure of his family allowed him to define his family, rather than being defined by them. After successfully establishing a parish he was, still, spiritually thirsty and began to examine old religion, before God thought to allow Ezekiel, Paul and John to dream about hellfire and salvation. He recognized his life in the dictatorial God and the indifferent desert. His search took him through Islam and before, to a curious place where Daniel now worshipped in Arab clothing, overseeing a congregation of converted fundamentalist Christians wearing the vaguely semitic robes and exercising the judgement and sensibility of Abraham’s ancestors.

Ralph followed his older brother’s transformation with fascination. He recognized the attempt to fashion a life that reveled in madness under the umbrella of God, and often sought out his brother’s congregation when his visions struck him speechless.

Daniel contacted me after Ralph’s suicide, alone among his siblings, to talk. He told me he hadn’t been sure if anyone had thought to call me. We commiserated together over the tragedy of Ralph’s life. I knew that Daniel’s religious outlook would preclude him from thinking suicide had any positive aspects. I knew, also, that Ralph’s suicide had probably awakened demons of his own, and that he would not be prepared to view Ralph’s death objectively.

Our conversation moved me to write Daniel a letter in which I expressed the positive aspects of Ralph’s life and his death. Daniel responded with another phone call. He was relieved, he said, to discover he was not the only one who had loved Ralph not only despite his madness, but because of it.

I was feeling undirected when I returned, once again, to Phoenix, but I was unwilling to face this lack of motivation head on, so I sought out Ralph’s brother, Daniel.

When I visited the church I picked a Wednesday evening prayer service. Ralph had told me they were more informal, like spiritual discussion groups.

The prayers were lively dialogues which divulged intimate details about members of the congregation and then discussed possible actions, from an Old Testament perspective, on a problem relating to these details. I shivered, listening to the melodramatic prayer stories. I wondered if Ralph had ever mentioned me; if any of the others had ever discussed me.

I knew Daniel shared Ralph’s gifts of eloquence and charisma. He was also mesmerized by tradition. Ralph had never understood why Daniel had folded an overzealous Christian upbringing into the pre-Judeo Islamic spiritual cauldron of God, although he supposed it had something to do with Daniel needing to emphasize mercy over justice in his life, and to acknowledge the randomness of God’s blessings and curses. Ralph shared the same background, so Daniel’s proclivities suited him, too. There is no justice for a bio-chemical freak, only mercy.

Daniel held the aura of One Who Knows Things. His flock depended on this hinted-at revelation and kept him before them, commenting on their lives, as long as they could, even after services, clinging to the podium, forming a huddle of rapacious disciples. I lingered behind as the supplicants dispersed.

I noticed Daniel looking back at me on more than one occasion, and indicated with my eyebrows and my hands that I wanted to talk to him but could wait.

He was dressed in a robe that mimicked the Christian-white sack cloth of prophets and messiahs. I imagined him on an Arabian, decked for martial review. Although I knew better, I expected an accent, a high, dark, northeast African lilt, passed on, like his fine Slavic features, through his paternal grandmother.

When the church cleared he approached me. His robe flowed ceremoniously around him, catching the air, clearing a path for him. I could see Ralph’s resemblence to him. Imperious. Both of them.

I extended my hand as he aproached. I stifled an urge to step back in somatic awe. I remembered how gullible Ralph was. I imagined he probably had a crush on this brother, this Man of God. Daniel looked as though he had felt the crush of many people’s feelings. He looked as though he expected it. I suddenly felt competitive.

“Pleased to meet you. I remember meeting you once before, at some sort of holiday gathering.” He stated it. The fact. Just stated it. His handshake was firm, swift. He made a flourish as he retrieved his hand and rested it on his quilted leather belt. He rocked back on his heels.

“I, ah, wanted to talk about Ralph, what you know about him.” I recalled the biblical verb to know.

“I see.” His chin remained high. He was built like a monument, just like Ralph, only broader. Ralph had been David; lithe, relaxed. Daniel was Henry VIII. “I enjoyed your letter, speaking to you on the phone. I’ve been expecting you.”

I looked at him, directly, even though he was scanning me from an angle. “Was he, ah, here, ah, did you talk to him much before he went to Portland this fall?”

“I see.” Daniel took a step toward me. His height seemed to expand just enough so I got the impression of meeting him across a plain. “Yes. He was here before he went to Portland. Dad called me the day after he died.” He expanded himself vertically and leaned in toward me. When I looked at him, we were eye to eye. I saw some black alloy glinting from his retinal floor.

I looked down. I wondered how long he’d been a Man of God. I wondered about his calling. He’s good at it. He lives the part. “This is not a professional visit,” I kept my voice level, low. “I’m here for personal reasons.”

“Curiosity, then. About me?”

“Looking for confirmation. About Ralph.”

“Okay.” His eyes twinkled, then beamed, a quick, piercing, probe, then twinkled, again.

I smiled. Glancing into his eyes, I noticed reflected light behind him.

“You’re essentially a fundamentalist,” I blurted. He scrutinized me. I averted him by abruptly breaking the silence. “I mean, your family, too, is fundamentalist. Ralph was a fundamentalist, too, just not a Christian.”

“Ralph was a pagan,” Daniel said. He motioned me to the left down a hall.

“I know,” I tell him as I follow.

We entered the sacristy. Daniel was leading me, he explained, through a variety of rooms to his apartment in back of the main sanctuary.

He smiled, rubbed his chin and looked at me from an angle, clearly amused. His eyes are gray, I noticed. Anthracite gray. I looked at Daniel again, as though repeating an accusation.

“A traditionalist, yes,” he drew a vowel out, then a consonant. He nodded his head and barred his chest cautiously with a diagonal arm, as though remembering a vow. He was still smiling, still closed mouthed. “Why, may I ask,” there was a lot of stretch in the fricatives, “do you care?” His head was almost at right angles to his body. He stepped to the side of an arched doorway and directed me through.

I faced him as I entered. “I’m aware of your family’s religious background. I believe Ralph’s peculiar mysticism was rooted in his family. I wonder how it’s playing itself out in your life. Is your church spirit filled?”

Daniel’s laughter erupted in a delighted spurt, his eyes sounding me. It seemed that he reddened, but that may have been an aura. Another aural brother. “Well, yes, you could say that.” We faced each other under the arch. He nodded his head dramatically. He adjusted himself for possible frontal defense. He thrust his groin toward me.

“I have to tell you then, I’m not a Christian. And I’m not a lost soul who hasn’t heard the word of God. I’ve chosen not to follow Christianity. I’m not a part of your flock. You should know that. I mean, if we’re going to,” I pause for emphasis, “have a straightforward conversation. Especially about Ralph. You can assume Ralph and I were similar, spiritually.”

“You’re right.” Daniel was smiling, still, this time wider, warmer, less surprised, mysteriously pleased. “I always intimidated Ralph, spiritually. What he never knew was that he intimidated me.”

“You’re not married.” I tried to affect an inquisatory stance, surveying the room dramatically, as though the layout of his living quarters tipped me off. I could tell from his continued amusement that I was not successful. I wondered what he saw as he studied me.

After a moment he laughed again. I had guessed he might move away from me; back or to the side. He remained with me, facing me. I didn’t close the distance between us, but in incremental, hardly detectable ways he took up slack until I thought I felt his heat. “No, I’m not married. I was...” He cropped his sentences into a detached rhythm. He seemed to be speaking from a different dimension, now. “...it ended before I defected. Before I was exposed to true Monotheism.”

“Is there anything you want to know about me before we, well, talk?” I felt as though he knew something about me that made us both more comfortable. I remember him telling me of the volumes of letters he had discovered, copies of letters Ralph had written me and sent or not sent, volumes of my responses, volumes of journal entries about me. Many of them sexual.

“Yes. Do you want me to explain to you why Ralph died?”

I smiled, but my eyes felt tight. “No,” I responded quietly. “I know why he died. I know my part in it.”

“Do you believe I had a part in it?” His hands were at his sides. He flexed his fingers.

“I think only those who take a part have a part.”

Daniel renewed his smile and turned toward a side counter. “My routine is to prepare dinner at this time. Would you join me?”

As the evening commenced Daniel would turn to me, lean in to me, touch me on the shoulder, on the upper middle back, quickly and with significant pressure, to make a point.

“Sometimes I feel like one of the old Hebrews, when I am struck with the likes of a particular woman. Like Abraham. Or David. Or Solomon. I don’t question lust. It seems like a sacrament, when I want someone.”

He wasn’t eating much. I could feel him kindling, knew he was burning fuel. I had been eating since he started cooking. Dinner was served buffet style in his kitchen, along the counter. We ate standing up. He fussed with the condiments.

“Did you feel that way when you were married?”

“Yes, that’s why I’m divorced.”

Danny, or Dan, may be available, after all these years, I realize. No one can keep up with such a man forever.

I looked away. He was standing in front of me, looking into my face, “What were you thinking about, just now?”

I smiled. “Ghosts.” Without my consent, Danny’s image morphed into Ralph. I realized I had stopped smiling.

Daniel peered soberly into my eyes, turned away, raised his voice, “Then you’re a Buddhist. Or a Roman Catholic. No wonder you are looking up Ralph’s old haunts.” Daniel chuckled.

“Or a pagan,” I added.

“The Old Testament. Lots of men of God lusted after pagan women.”

“Married them into the family. Claimed them as they became widows. Probably converted them.”

“Not always. Sometimes they didn’t even marry them. Abraham’s bastard by Hagar founded Islam. God prophesied it. And Solomon, all his political marriages. Hundreds of them. Can’t imagine him worrying about religious conversions. Besides,” his voice lowered, he leaned toward me, “sex is kind of a conversion.”

“Have you ever spoken in tongues when you’ve had sex?” A language of grunts and groans. A language I spoke, fluently.

He whirled around and stared at me. He backed me against the counter, pinned my arms behind me, and rubbed his torso against mine, seeking out my nipples with his, probing my belly with the flat of his dick. He groaned, interlacing his fingers with mine, nuzzling my neck. He was grunting, saying something sub-lingual. My body translated.

“I hope Ralph is watching this,” he moaned, low, into my neck. He reached roughly between us, pulled back both sides of his robe, anchoring them beneath his belt, and brandished his dick at my mons. “I want him to remember what he left when he left life, when he left you.”

I dismissed thoughts of Ralph and Danny.

They did not return, afterward.

I stand in front of the mirror in his master bathroom. I am looking at myself, recreating the way Daniel insists on watching my expression, checking whether my eyes are seeking out his. When our eyes meet, he vocalizes.

I spread the bodice of my bathrobe and stare at my breasts, guessing at what Daniel sees, recalling how his fingers curl when he gazes at them.

Daniel walks into the bathroom. I press toward the vanity counter to allow him passage. He stops behind me and brings his face into frame in the mirror, to the left of mine. “What are you doing?” He looks hard at each of my breasts, then at me.

“Remembering last night.”

“Ahhh,” he looks up at me, nods, and brings his palms flat over my nipples.

He begins to massage and clip my nipples, snatching the very tip between the lower flanges of his fingers, until I arch my back and chorus, “Ahhh.”

He pushes my upper body down onto the cold porcelain. I wince and jerk upward. He takes advantage of my angle, fastens me into place with his hands and nudges my lips apart with his dick. “Let me see if I can help you remember.”

As he drives home some startling reminders, I watch his head loll, eyes half lidded, in time to his strokes. His hands begin a separating massage of my outer vulva as he seeks deeper purchase. I imagine the sight of his dick, at retraction, bridging the charged space between us, florid, glistening.

I can feel the pressure of pulled skin around my anal sphincter each time the heels of his hands press my flesh away. My asshole sucks at the stimulation, then relaxes, inviting more pressure. My hips sway involuntarily to increase the pull. I open my eyes to the mirror and see Daniel staring at my asshole as my hips undulate and my sphincter opens and closes. He moans and begins a deep, high, punching rhythm. I know he is thinking about driving his head through my sphincter. I know he is hoping, wildly, that I want him to do that. I close my eyes and rock against him, rolling my hips high, enhancing the separation of his massage. His hands move up and begin massaging my cheeks. His fingertips gently pull at the lip of the hole, his flanges pull my buttocks out and away. He continues to stare at my asshole.

Each time I feel a fingertip pull at my anus, I moan, low and flat, roll my hips, and try to suck the morsel in. “Puncture me,” I am trying to tell him, “see how I take it.”

I feel a dollop of something warm and wet drop onto my anus. My asshole swallows it, greedily. I moan again, and look into the mirror. Daniel is gazing at me, spit dripping off his chin. I want him to dip his finger into me, back there. I can see he understands. I think about the prohibition against sodomy in the Old Testament.

I whimper and grind into him again, this time pressing against him, displaying shamelessly. He catches my gaze in the mirror and abruptly pulls himself out of me. I gasp. I will try, but I am not sure I can take his dick up my ass without introduction. I feel his hands drop down to my vulva, again, and pull my lips tight away from my opening. The walls of my vagina gush involuntarily. Daniel drives his head through my swollen slit and then quickly withdraws all but the tip. He starts thrumming the opening chords of my vagina as though he is performing the outline of a new composition for me, entreating my response. I accept it, salivate over it, lick at it, suck at it.

I moan and lean further into him. With his hands anchored against my thighs, he retracts and holds himself at bay. I am almost uncontrollably incited, but something about this suspension of pressure implores me to wait. I feel the fingers of his left hand move in close over my vulva, surrounding my hole. He is separating me. I attend to his eyes in the mirror. I am dribbling. He moans. I feel a hard, round, smooth pressure at the mouth of my pussy, exciting the turgid need I have for him. His head slides in and out and around the depression; my body plays with his movements. A swift change in pressure, directly onto my pussy mouth, a convoluted sigh, a quick shifting of my thighs by his maneuvering hands...swift, sharp, deep, he thrusts into me. My desire emits a light, orgasmic shiver. Another moan; is it him or me? His dick spreading me to fit him like a custom glove.

“Into me, into me,” I am chanting as his thrusts become longer, harder, exciting the length of my core with his crown. Hotter. Deeper. Wetter. Nastier.

His thrusts become shallower, sharper. Deep inside my belly, I am ballooning. “Straight into me,” I plead. “Oh no, oh, no,” I am murmuring. “Into me. Oh. Straight into me.”

He gasps with each burst of slick friction against his dick.

His third plunge touches me off. My lower torso trembles. I grunt. An explosion of sucking ignites inside me.

He groans. His penis stabs into my satisfaction in several quick, sharp, deep surges. I feel his hips lock into automatic, burying his pleasure deep inside me. My soft insides circle around him, enclose him, soothe him to detumescence.

“It overtook me,” Daniel gasps, after several minutes. I see his chest heaving over my back. He looks at me in the mirror. His eyes are gleaming. “That was a body lock. It’s called a body lock.”

Body Locks. Auras. Brothers.

I am seated on the toilet, recovering. My legs are shaky. Daniel is detumescing before me, his dick dawdling in my face. He is over me, his arms massaging up and down my back. I am a little anxious. I am settling into the wake of some very exciting anal stimulation and I know my colon is considering a bowel movement. His hands travel down my spine. One finger slips between my cheeks and seeks out my asshole. He is reading my thoughts.

“A ritual cleaning. That’s what you need,” I hear him murmuring into my back. Along the side of my cheek, his dick is stiffening again. Men of God.

“Nnnnooo,” I moan, and pull at his arms lightly, try to nudge him away with my head. I am not in the habit of eliminating for lovers.

“You’ll like this. You like it here.” He is insistently slipping the tip of his lubricated finger in and out of my anus. “I want you to be clean when I take you here.” His voice is lower, more intent.

The device he uses is an ordinary enema bulb. It’s syringe is thin and shiny. As it slides into my ass he readjusts his groin and nudges at my lips with his head. I tease the tip with my tongue and my lips until he jams the syringe up my ass. I gulp in his dick. I feel his abdomen rumble against my forehead. He moves the syringe in and out of me, lubing me with the instrument. I am no longer feeling shy; the stimulation is mesmerizing. I want him to know what I’m feeling. I dribble on my fingers and move them behind his dick, over his scrotum, up his perineum, to his anus. He flinches. My finger insistently pokes at his sphincter as my colon relaxes and he feels the syringe sink more deeply into me. He sighs loudly. His asshole gives way. My finger punches in. He gasps again, leans over further. My finger takes full advantage. I feel his colon contract and push against the force of my finger. He has gotten the message. He shoves the syringe into me to the hilt. He squeezes the bulb. My colon contracts, then expands. He mutters, “Hold it, hold it!” I clench my haunches. He pulls out the syringe. I hear the bulb clatter on the top of the toilet tank. He pulls my cheeks apart. My bowels release. I pull my finger out of his ass. His groin ruts against my face. I feel his balls against my lower lip and extend my tongue to tease them. He pulls back and raises my face roughly. “Into the shower.”

I improvise when I step into the tub. I stand on the edges and grasp the shower head. Turned away from him, hanging from above, I lower myself, bending my knees, spreading my thighs, my ass jutting out. The warm spray sheets around me, into all my crevasses. He soaps me down completely, lovingly washing my face as he prods my spine with his dick. His hands start working my bottom, spreading it, aiming it. I can feel soft, sudsy water sliding down my skin. His fingers are slick with lubrication. They slip into my anus frequently, sometimes probing, sometimes reminding. I cannot see his reflection in the porcelain but I imagine his eyes are closed. “I want you to be cleansed with my seed,” he growls. “Oh, brother, look at this.”

As I hang from the shower head, I think of sizes and the mucousity of turds I have borne. I wonder if the widest violation I’ve ever experienced of my colon was a turd or a dick. Knowing I’m empty allows me to bear down with ease while he brandishes himself up my ass. Knowing that I will be embalmed with silky seed and I will be emptying myself in autonomic contractions, like a second coming, I produce warm, moist stigmata.

Later, I would accompany him, berobed, into the church on Sunday evening, late, 11:30 or so. He would “plug” me on the altar. I would suck him while he rehearsed his sermon. I would be on my knees, recessed in the pulpit, feasting on his dick. Sometimes he would surprise both of us and come. During sex in the church he would raise his chin toward the sky, but watch what was going on with his dick.

“I want to take you like an animal, before God,” he tells me.

I want him to. Like the rutting animals Ralph and I were. I crouch on the altar, arching my back, feeling oestrual.

“I want to see your full cut,” he is moaning, almost inaudible. Knowing he wants to take me this way is more than enough foreplay. I can smell my scent, heated, emanating from my pubis, through my panties. The cathedral ceiling amplifies it like a sound. I know, beneath my panties, my vulva are red, swollen, shiny, the muscles tensing about the core, creating a slight, seductive indent at the mouth. I can feel my panty crotch settling into the slickness, pulling me further apart. God would not be able to resist. I would not want Him to. My vaginal sphincters nibble at the feeling of something other than me pressing against my skin. “Pagan love,” he murmurs, “pagan mistress.” He pushes my panty crotch aside with his swelling and lunges into me.

Text & Graphics © 1999 by Gail Rae Hudson

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