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“See, I asked myself the same question. What was that thing that ripped itself out of my body? As soon as the question formed in my mind, the answer took shape. It was a combination of pictures and words and…justKnowing.
“Iknewthat the thing inside me was a demon, and it was the reason I’d been bad all my life. I also knew that my sentence was over. The only good thing that evilthingever did for me was pave the way for me to get out. The bars it squeezed through—they softened like taffy. And the security door at the end of the block stood wide open. So. I slithered on my belly out of those bars, and I followed in that thing’s footsteps and walked out of Big Mac. But that’s where the following stopped.
“I was no longer beholden to evil. I was reborn, and in this new life, I had a new purpose. I didn’t know what that purpose was yet, mind, but I knew the Working would reveal it to me in its own time.”
“Why do you call it the Working?” Cora asks. Her face is open and curious. Innocent and beautiful.
“That’s just the word that came to me. I’ve thought about it plenty since then. It might be God. It might be somethin’ else, something ancient that put us here on this marble in space and can kick us all off just as easily. All I know is: One, it’s an active force, not passive; and Two, it has a purpose. It’s ‘working’ to put things the way it wants them, and it’s chosen a few of us insignificant people to be its hands and feet.”
Cora’s brow furrows while she thinks on that. Then she says, “Did it reveal your purpose like you hoped?”
I meet her eyes. They’re like the ocean after a hurricane. “It did.” It led me here, to the others, and to her. “And—” I pat her bottom, signaling story time is over. “Now, little darlin’, it is time for you to get your beauty sleep.” I release her and peel off my shirt. “Gonna use the john. Want you naked when I get back.”
She sits up like she’s been jerked by puppet strings. “What about the pajamas?” There’s panic in her voice.
I want her naked, because she’s a woman, and I’m a man, and I want to feel her skin on mine. But that’s not the answer I give. “You need healin’,” is what the Knowing brings to my lips. “We both need to be in our natural state for that.” Like a lot of things I say, it just comes out, and I feel the truth in it, once it’s said.
It’s not a surprise that Cora needs healing, but what does surprise me is that the Working wantsmeto do it. I mean, Doc tried with her wounds, and his Gift was useless. Grim’s touch didn’t make her drop dead. Jud can’t see into her heart. I assume my Gift won’t be able to directly help her, either. But maybe it’s not my Gift she needs.
Earlier, the Working showed me that Cora needsallof us to make her whole again. Just like all of us need her. I wonder if that means the kind of healing she needs isn’t something a Gift can accomplish. Maybe the seven of us assholes were chosen becausewewere the only ones who could helpher.
Guess we’ll see.
With a mental shrug, I leave to get ready for bed in Cora’s tiny bathroom. When I get back, she’s cocooned in blankets up to her chin. Her clothes are with mine in a pile on the floor—such a good girl—and the pajamas are still on the foot of the bed where I put them.
“You likin’ that big ol’ bed?” I would have helped Scrap and Doc make it, but I was out hunting that pelican. The two of them did a good job. And Cora. She made the sheets, I hear.
“It’s nice,” she says
“Nicer when you’ve got company, I imagine.” I cock my head, considering all she’s been through. “Or not.”
“Nicer with company,” she says, surprising me. A tentative smile curves her lips.
“You got room for one more in there?”
Another nod, but this time, her eyes show a little too much white. She’s nervous, but she won’t be for long. I’ve learned I can calm her with soothing words and touches. She’ll melt for me, be putty in my hands, and I’ll shape her into something stronger and less broken, Working willing.
I hook my thumbs in my drawers. “Gonna strip down to my birthday suit.” I want her prepped so she doesn’t go to that dark place on me again. “Ready?”
“Nothing’s going in me, right?” she says on a rush. Then she stammers. “I mean—I guess I—maybe I—what are you going to do? To heal me?”
“That depends on you.” I shove the drawers down and kick them off, and I’m before her naked as the day I was born. “However it goes down, need you to know what I said earlier still stands. I’ll never do anything you don’t want or need.”
Her jaw firms, and she nods. She trusts me, and that’s worth more than all the cash in the world before the Virus made it obsolete.
I spread my arms wide—I got an impressive wingspan—and let her look me over. I’m proud of my body. Hard work and weights have cut me up one side and down the other. Plus, I got tatts. Lots of them. Even though they’re not of nice things, I never got a complaint from the ladies on the ink, but then, I’ve never courted a lady as sweet as Cora. What will she make of my goat-headed devils, upside-down crosses, and pentagrams? Will she like the dark angel wings Scrap put on my back, erasing the most egregious of my prior allegiances?
I make a slow circle so she can see everything, and I don’t do that flexing shit. I’m not here to show off for her. “Take a good look at your daddy, little one. This is all of me. Every inch belongs to you.” Especially the inches that will salute her when the time comes to give her pleasure.
I can’t see her throat, because it’s covered with blankets, but I’d bet my left nut she just swallowed hard.
“You hold up those blankets for me when you’re ready,” I tell her. “I’m in no rush.” I settle in to stand patiently for a spell, but Cora doesn’t need more than a few beats of my heart.
“I’m ready,” she says, and her arm becomes a tent pole, raising the blankets from underneath.
I accept the invitation, sliding in beside her. I don’t give her time to think herself into a panic before scooping her to me and wrapping her in my arms like when I told her my story.
There ain’t no clothes between us now. Her skin is cool on mine, like rose petals freshly plucked from the bud. Her breasts are small and pillowed against my chest. I wiggle my knee between her legs until we’re twined together like the moonflower vines climbing the mailbox at Mama’s house. I’m the main vine, and she’s clinging on for support.
