Back to Brian. He never did come back upstairs. The four of us women said so long to Brian, waiting for the men from the funeral home, with their dark, pinstripe suits and squeaky shoes. They zipped him in a blue velvet bag, and oh god, was that hard. In that single act, seeing his face get covered over, all the injustice, the total impossibility of it washed over me. But then, just as fast, the numbness set it.
The men in the suits were right there, with forms to fill out, distracting and focusing Monica. Not as cruel as it seemed.
Two days later we were gathered at Bushnell.
The national military cemetery south of Orlando. It is located in the country. The ride was long. Erin had headphones in the limo, Monica told her twice to turn them off.
"She's only thirteen, mom,” said Kasey.
For once Erin didn't dispute the implications that she was just a child. Folding her arms, she leaned her head on my shoulder and fell asleep, or pretended to, the headphones in her lap.
I'm only in the car, by the way, because of Erin. She insists I be there.
It's a little embarrassing, a little flattering.
I'm very grateful, though, because I don't have it in me to drive myself.
Through the country.
Orange groves.
Be strong, baby girl…
Fall apart later … you'll get your reward … you and me, George and Gracie. Wish I could remember exactly the first time he called me that, but I guess that was part of the mystique, a totally self-effusive humor, he said.
His hand is holding mine, the whole way, I swear it, and he has one for Monica and the girls, too, I don't know how that's possible but it must be.
"Do you think there's an afterlife?” I asked him once as we lay next to each other covered in sweat in the bedroom of his condo, always there, never my place, I barely wanted him to visit me there, he respected the boundary, unlike Brian, who doesn't know the meaning of the word.
"If there is I'm screwed,” was his first answer as he adulterously and deliciously put his hand on my breast.
My body began to sing for him, ready for another round. “Really, Thomas, what do you believe?"
"I think maybe what happens to you is just what you want to happen. If you need to go on, you do, if you have some purpose to come back for, you can, and if you want to just fade away, no one stops you."
"That's depressing."
"Why?” He makes my nipple hard, working the rubbery flesh between his fingers with all the skill of a doctor.
A fuck surgeon.
"Cause it's just a cop out, like grown ups always tell you. They don't know shit about the future, except it'll be worse than today."
"Turn over."
I roll to my back.
"Are you going to spank me, Daddy?"
"No."
He takes the butt plug from the dresser drawer-I'm always forgetting he has this shit lying around.
"Open, baby girl."
My pussy gapes first and my anus follows. I love when he tells me things like that, when he gives me the orders; I have to be dirty.
I grunt as he pushes it in place.
"That's … a bigger one…” I declare.
"You noticed."
"It's a little hard not to, Daddy."
"You can take it now, though, that's a good girl. All that practice has helped."
"Thank you, Daddy.” I blush, I glow, I gush. I love practice. “But what does this have to do with the after life?"
"It has everything to do with the afterlife.” He pushes the plug into place. “Because all we really know of heaven and hell is right here on Earth."
"If my grandfather heard you say that he'd throw a Bible at you. A burning one."
My grandfather was a dairy farmer, touched by the Lord. Touched in the head more like. He did things to his wife, probably even to the cows. No wonder he was such an expert on sin.
"I'm good at ducking."
"Daddy, may I suck you?” The butt plug is doing its thing, turning my insides to jelly, cramming my will, leaving me antsy, horny.
"No, baby girl. You're going to heaven first."
He makes me get up on my knees, pushing out my ass so he can reach my cunt. He works his tongue into the crack.
This is where his mastery shines. One or two men had given me oral before Thomas, usually drunk. Nothing like that feeling of waking up with beer breath in your pussy.
The men acted like it was some stupid dare or a bet they had lost. A couple of other men wanted to do it to me as a way to submit, but I never let them. It was their trip after all; they wanted to do this to me to get themselves off.
Slavery is selfish.
You're so pumped full of images and what you want done and you have to orchestrate your partner and he has to be the puppet on your string.
It's not raw. It's not real.
Thomas explained all this and said the way around it is you make it a game, you intentionally play and give yourself up to imagination, just like a little kid can look you in the eye and swear up and down she's a pirate and she believes it, but she's still in control of the role.
"A dominant empowers his sub, Caroline."
Thomas empowers me in many ways; one of them is oral sex.
With the butt plug in, my mind full of heaven and hell, he brings me off.
Present tense.
Guess I'll have to learn to stop using it where he's concerned.
The limo arrives at the cemetery. Endless green, a crop of white stones, row after row after row.
This will be a military burial, a military service. There will be shots fired, twenty-one of them, an honor guard, a presentation of colors.
Kasey takes her mother's arm as they leave the car. She has the bearing of a soldier in her black dress with her high heels she is several inches taller than Monica. Erin still has my hand. Her black dress is velvet. She has heels, too, though she's a tiny bit awkward. Her yellow hair is up. Someone wears it like this, a star in Hollywood she said, I forget who. A lot's gone over my head lately.
There are three more cars. Some of Thomas’ friends to bear the pall. There are so many more who aren't here. Monica didn't want a full funeral service, she thought Thomas wouldn't want a lot of crying, but I'm not so sure. People need to gather on occasions like this. And they need to cry. Thomas taught me that.
The weather is warm, low seventies and the sky is blue. So very blue.
No clouds.
It makes no sense. How can a day be so pretty? How can he be gone? He wasn't sick, he wasn't old, and he wasn't doing anyone any fucking harm. Why did the universe need him out of the way so bad? What god was so threatened by his shining star? Does everything have to turn out like shit?
Brian's there.
Standing by the grave.
I thought I would feel something where he was concerned, I don't.
A minister is there; he says words. I wonder what he thinks, about heaven and hell on earth, I wonder if he would put a plug in me and lick my pussy mad until I couldn't tell one from the other.
I wish I had a cracker or something; I'd throw it on the ground. Make Brian pick it up with his teeth, chew like a dog.
I wish I could ride home in the limo alone with the driver telling me things to do to myself, occasionally glancing in the rear view mirror to make sure I spank and pinch appropriately.
"…Into God's eternal bosom…"
Like he knows.
"…We pray for the repose of the soul … of Thomas … Frederick…"
I stop my ears. I don't want to hear his whole name. Not from this clergyman's lips. This is such a violation. This isn't what I wanted. I wouldn't have done it like this, don't ask me what I would have done but it would be different.
He should have been my husband…
Brian is beside me. “Caroline, are you all right?"
He talks low so no one else can here.
I can't answer him.