“Thank you, Monsignor.” Hudson kissed the old man’s ring as he reached for his golf bag . . .
That was the dream. Hudson awoke late, slightly hung-over. He supposed a soon-to-be seminarist getting half drunk was easily more pardonable than soliciting hookers. He was proud of himself for resisting the temptation last night, but then . . .
Pride’s a sin, too.
Had it really been resistance, had it really been faith? Had passing up the prostitutes to help a poor woman really been a good deed? Or was it just guilt?
He hoped it wasn’t the latter.
He had very little money right now, especially after emptying his wallet to the poor mother last night. And he’d been let go at the Oyster House several days ago due to a recession-induced lull in local tourism. It didn’t matter, though; he’d be leaving for the seminary in Jersey in less than a week, and he could always get a meal at the church where he helped out with lay duties. He had to go there today, as a matter of fact, to help Father Darren prep for the late service. God will provide, he thought, and believed it. But still . . .
It would be nice to have a little cash for his remaining days in town.
Hudson grimaced when a knock resounded at the door.
Oh, for pity’s sake . . . It had to be somebody selling something. No one else ever knocked on Hudson’s door. He pulled on his robe inside out.
“Look, whatever it is you’re selling,” he preempted when he opened the front door, “I’m flat broke—” But the rest was severed when he looked at his caller.
An attractive but blank-faced woman stood without. The cause of Hudson’s jolt was her attire: a long black surplice and, of all things, a Roman collar. A female minister? he hazarded. Must be asking for donations—He could’ve laughed. Lady, you picked the WRONG door to knock on today!
Her blonde hair had been pulled back; her eyes were an odd dull blue. She was in her forties but striking: shapely, ample bosomed. A stout wooden cross hung about her neck.
“Are you Hudson Hudson?” the woman asked in the driest tone.
“Yes, and I’d love to give a donation but I’m afraid—”
“My name is Deaconess Wilson.” She stared as she spoke, as if on tranquilizers.
“I’m sorry . . . Deaconess, but I don’t have any money—”
“I’m here to tell you that you’ve won the Senary,” she said.
Hudson stalled. “The what?”
She handed him a nine-by-six manila envelope. “May I . . . come in, Mr. Hudson?”
Hudson winced. “I’d rather you didn’t, the place is a—” He looked at the envelope. “What is this?”
“It . . . would be easier if I told you inside . . .”
He stepped back. Obviously she was Protestant. “All right, but just for a minute. I’m very busy,” he lied.
She entered slowly as if unsure of her footing. Hudson closed the door. “Now what’s this? I’ve won the what?”
She turned and stood perfectly still. It occurred to Hudson now that whenever she spoke, she seemed to falter, as if either she didn’t know what to say or she was resisting something.
“The Senary,” she said in that low monotone. “It’s like . . . a lottery.”
“Well I never signed up for any Senary, and I never bought a ticket.”
“You don’t have to. All you have to . . . do is be born.” She blinked. “I’ve been instructed to inform you that you’re the twelfth person to win the Senary. Ever. In all of history.”
“Oh, you’re with one of those apocalyptic religious sects—”
“No, no.” The deaconess ground her teeth. “I’m just . . . the messenger, so to speak.” Then she flinched and shook her head. “I’m-I’m . . . not sure what I’m supposed to say . . .”
Crazy, Hudson thought, a little scared now. Mental patient with some religious delusion. Probably just escaped from a hospital.
She groaned. “You see, every . . . six hundred . . . and sixty-six . . . years, someone wins the Senary. This . . . time it’s . . . you.”
She reminded Hudson of a faulty robot, experiencing minor short circuits. Several times her hands rose up, then lowered. She’d shrug one shoulder for no reason, wince off to one side, flinch, raise a foot, then put it back down. And again he had the impression that some aspect of her volition was resisting an unbidden impulse when her hands struggled to rise again.
Shaking, they stopped at the top button of her surplice. Then, as if palsied, her fingers began to unfasten the buttons.
Her words faltered. “Ssssssss-atan fell from Heaven in 5318 BC. The ffffffffff-irst Senary was held in 4652 BC. It was wuh-wuh-won by a Cycladean coppersmith named Ahkazm.”
Crazy. Pure-ass crazy, Hudson knew now. Yet, he didn’t throw her out. Instead he just stood . . . and watched.
Watched her completely unbutton the surplice, skim it off along with the Roman collar and cross. She jittered a bit when she faced Hudson more resolutely, as if to display her total nakedness to him.
I don’t BELIEVE this . . .
“Listen,” he finally forced himself to say. “You’re going to have to—”
The image of her body stunned him. Her torso was a perfect hourglass of flesh; high, full breasts; flat stomach and wide hips. Her skin shone in perfect, proverbial alabaster white.
Hudson’s eyes inched lower, to her pubis, where his speechless gaze was hijacked by a plenteous triangle of bronze fur.
This deaconess had one full-tilt body . . .
“I-I-I,” she faltered. The dull blue of her eyes seemed to implore him. “I’ve been instructed . . . to tell you that you kuh-kuh-can sodomize me if you ssssssso . . . desire, or-or-or I will give you . . . oral . . . ssssssex. It’sssss part of winning the Senary.” She seemed to gag. “It’ssss what they said to say.” Then she turned, quite robotically—showing an awesome rump—and foraged through some old cupboards.
“They said?” Hudson questioned. “Who’s they?”
“A Class III Machinator and his Spotter,” she told him, still rummaging. “They’re Bio-Wizards. They work in a Channeling Fortress in the Emetic District. They’re mmmmmm-achinating me. That’s why . . . I’m acting errrrrrr-atically. They’re manipulating my . . . will.” Then she bent over, to search a lower cabinet.
Holy moly! As wrong as all this was—especially for a future seminarist—Hudson couldn’t take his eyes off her physique. When she’d bent, the action only amplified the magnificence of her rump. “What are you looking for?” he finally asked.
“Ah. Here.” She straightened, holding a bottle of Vigo olive oil. She stood awkwardly then, and began smoothing palmfuls of the oil over her body. Hudson stared, stupefied.
What am I going to do? he thought. I’ve got a buck-naked deaconess with a body like Raquel Welch in Fantastic Voyage lubing herself up with my Vigo. This is insane. SHE’S insane.
She sat up on the dowdy kitchen table and lay back, continuing to spread the oil. Her skin glimmered almost too intensely to focus on for long. “They t-t-told me you’d like thissssss.”
“Uh, well . . .”
“I-I-I’m chaste, by the way—I have . . . to tell you that, too.” Now her hands were reoiling her breasts and belly. “It’s a prerequisite. Any Senarial Messenger mmmmm-ust be virginal, as well as a guh-guh-guh-godly person.” She pulled her knees back, then splashed some oil between her spread legs. “You kuh-kuh-can put it right . . . here,” she said, and touched her anus. “Would you like to?”