“Hey!” Juanita blurted, closing her thighs over the sister’s neck. “Let me catch my breath.”
Cawood looked up, her vision foggy; then she smiled. Straining, crawling upward, she pressed Juanita’s lips and their tongues met. They rolled over the bed, giggling in a pink embrace.
“You aren’t feeling guilty are you?” Juanita said, still sporting the traces of a Spanish accent. She rolled a fingertip around the sister’s hard and rubbery nipple.
“No. Never-anymore.” Cawood lied. “I’m sorry-I got caught up. You’re so beautiful.” Her hands slid over the Mormon’s full hips-dallied a second between her legs. A wave of passion rolled over them. “It’s Able, he came in with another crazy scheme.”
A hot emotion flitted behind Juanita’s eyes. “What now? He wants to put on an addition?” They both laughed. Building the Tower had consumed the lives of everyone involved. “A carport?”
“No,” she giggled. “Able loves the tower.” Cawood’s mind rolled over the notion. “So do I. It’s not that.” The sister remembered Able’s earnest face. She realized how important this was to him. How important their spiritual intimacy was. He trusted Cawood. “He’s just getting revved up again.” Juanita’s body went rigid. The Mormon’s hand clasped on Cawood’s wrist.
“Can’t he bother someone else?” She shook her head. “I like Able, don’t mistake me. I do. But always he goes to you.” She kissed Cawood again, her body softened. “What does he want now?”
“I can’t tell you.” Cawood sighed. She ran her hands over Juanita’s soft shoulders. “I want to. I do. But, he trusts me so much.” And he shouldn’t!
“Don’t you trust me?” Juanita’s eyes glimmered. “I won’t tell.” She patted the bed sheets, slid her hand over Cawood’s vulva. “You trust me with this.”
“I know, Juanita. I do.” Her breath caught, and she closed her eyes. This was what it was all about-relationships: the sharing of trust, of intimacy, giving and receiving access to the soul. But it was God’s. It was the Holy Mother’s. I’m so fucking bad. A desperate part of her mind searched her memory of Juanita’s apartment. Liquor, there had to be liquor. “Able won’t trust just anyone. And he trusts me.” Why not tell? Her mind snickered. The whole thing’s a joke!
“I like that about you.” Juanita’s warm spirit returned and they shared a kiss. “I guess he does too.”
Cawood remembered first meeting Able. She had been on a personal revival of sorts, after falling far from grace fifteen years after the Change. She had tried to blame the difficulties with her vow of chastity on the fact that the Change apparently halted her aging process, leaving her in the body of a young woman for far longer than any nun ever had before. Before long she stopped blaming anything at all, and dove into the erotic world of human sexuality. Vows and chastity were thrown to the wind, and she had cavorted with any interested man or woman.
God had left her behind with the sinners, so she would sin. But, she hit bottom after going on a drunken binge with two men she met at a Catholic sponsored conference on Poverty in the World of Change. She woke up naked in a hotel bathtub. As she hurried to leave, she discovered one of the men was dead from an overdose of barbiturates. Cawood was already struggling with the new realities of dying and the thought of becoming one of the walking dead was too terrifying. And for a time, she was scared straight. For a time, the fear brought her back to her faith.
She took this new passion for life to the lost souls in the streets of the City. They would shuffle out of their despondency long enough to listen to her loving words about God and faith, and while salvation was rare, she spoke the Word of God, and speaking it gave her the strength to remember her vows.
She spent the following years praying with ragtag groups of the lost and homeless, and revived her Bible studies. She worked at mission houses and shelters. Cawood even began to think that the Word held the answer for the Change-a reply to its dark challenge. Trials defined a person’s faith. And understanding the trials became her passion.
While working at a methadone clinic on Level Two she stopped on the street one day to speak to a group of forever-teen addicts who hung around looking for handouts. They’d given her the predictable guff, but she had hope for one of them who had hesitated before walking away. As she bent to retrieve her bag, a man stepped up to her. He was tall, blue-eyed and wore a deeply creased frown on his face. “You have Faith, Sister! Hallelujah!” Then he blushed. “I hope you don’t mind. I overheard what you said to those poor unfortunates.” He continued to blush. “Inspiring.”
“Thank you, sir.” She had studied his demeanor. His head was large, his visage somewhat wasted. “God’s love is the answer.” She gave him a longer glance. “You’ve accepted this, brother?”
“I have, and share the message with all His world. And I shall ever strive to do so. This darkness assails us from the outside and we must not allow it into our hearts. The sun no longer shines on us from above so those of us who remember it must remind our brothers and sisters who have forgotten. For the Light remains!” His thick lips moved expertly around the words.
“Sometimes they only see the clouds that cover it,” she had said, the man’s gaze was open and honest.
“That is why my mission is to building a shining beacon for all the world to see. A Lighthouse of Hope so the storm gripping the world will claim no more of our brothers and sisters on the rocks of despair. We must light the way.” He reached out a hand, and she clasped the warm flesh in hers. “I have seen the passion with which you speak. And you speak while so many are silent. That tells me there is a will to live inside of you, and a will to live is evidence of hope. I need that hope if I am to accomplish what I struggle so long to do alone. Sister, let me tell you of my mission for it comes Heaven sent, and I can carry this only so far alone. I think you will agree that there is but one choice for us.”
And Reverend Stoneworthy had told the sister of his mission. All of it: his fall from grace, the Angel and the Tower. He had already done much work, and the plans for the Tower construction were being drawn. But resistance among the gathered faiths slowed things. With her help he could expedite this mission. So compelling was the light in his eyes, so seductive was the passion of his revelation that Cawood saw this as a penance for all, and so she committed herself to the difficult task ahead.
She dove into the work like a heaven sent shower and scrubbed herself clean with endless meetings and protocol. Together, with the help of like-minded people of God from the four-corners of the earth, they labored to raise the funds to build Archangel Tower, and in its construction-they believed-the introduction to the manifesto for salvation.
And they succeeded. Combining their passion for God had made them unstoppable in their ability to influence and innervate. Gradually, the Tower grew slowly at first, growing in speed with each passing year-as its magnificence was understood. For as the structure grew, so also did its image as a beacon of hope. Stoneworthy’s mission became the mission for all. Within Archangel’s thousands of rooms would be headquarters for the world’s religions. Theologians would be called there to study the Change, to divine its meaning. Archangel Tower reached out to God.
Dark waves of guilt buffeted Cawood’s mind. Rest Your weary ones. Bless Your dying ones. Soothe Your suffering ones. Pity Your afflicted ones.
“Hello?” Juanita’s face moved close; a smile played at the smooth corners of her mouth. “I hate to interrupt.”
“I’m sorry.” Cawood smoothed her hair. “Just thinking.” Damn it, Able.
“Well, you just snuggle in here.” Juanita’s lithe body pressed hot and close. “I’ll try to get your full attention.”
Cawood felt a tingle run through her body from the base of her spine to her breasts. “You’re so sweet.” Her nipples rubbed the Mormon’s. “I’ve just had an idea.”