It arrived. She brought her fist to her mouth to hold back the sound that rushed to escape. One of pleasure and pain. The pleasure of the moment. The painful truth that in the experience, it was already over.
Back to life. Her life.
Julie Cooper lived.
Pleasure and pain. As the throbbing eased, she thought of Andie and Raven. Julie’s eyes welled with tears. What would they think if they knew the truth about her? If they knew what she did, how she touched herself? Would they still want to be her best friends?
They wouldn’t; she knew they wouldn’t.
Earlier that night, as she had peered in that window with her friends, she had been afraid, so afraid, that Andie and Raven would see how excited she was, that they would know what she was thinking, what she was feeling.
She had been so ashamed, she had wanted to die.
Her thoughts returned to the dream. In it, she had been that woman; she had crossed to the man and had eagerly taken his penis into her mouth.
Remembering, her stomach rose to her throat. Unlike the real scene she had viewed, it hadn’t ended there. Suddenly, her blindfold had been stripped away. She’d lifted her eyes.
And seen the hideous, red face of her lover.
She’d had the devil inside her mouth, his penis, his sperm bubbling up, gagging her.
She had clawed at him then, trying to free herself. He had tipped back his massive horned head and laughed. She couldn’t escape him. They were joined forever.
You have the devil inside you, girl. You always have.
Julie drew her knees tighter to her chest, her father’s voice ringing in her head, the devil’s laughter with it. She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could blot them out. Wishing she could crawl out of herself, become someone else, someone new and clean and good.
Clean and good. The way she hadn’t felt in a long time, not since the terrible Easter morning so many years ago. She drew in a shuddering breath, the memory unfolding in her head. She had been seven years old, standing in front of her bedroom mirror, gazing admiringly at herself. In her new Easter dress, bonnet and white patent-leather shoes, shoes so shiny and bright she could see herself in them, she had felt like a princess. A beautiful princess.
She had giggled and whirled around, her long blond curls swinging with the movement. From downstairs, Julie had heard her two brothers playing, laughing and tussling with each other, from the bathroom down the hall her mother humming “Amazing Grace.” The new baby had been asleep in the nursery; her father had been running through his sermon one last time. This was her father’s first big sermon for his new congregation here in Thistledown, and Easter Sunday was the most important day on the religious calendar. His new congregation expected something especially rousing today. Julie had heard him tell her mother that he didn’t want anything to go wrong. Not this time.
Julie ran her hands over the dress’s tissue-like fabric, liking the way it rustled against her legs. Something had gone wrong at their last church, the one in Mobile. Julie didn’t know what, she only knew that some men from the congregation had come to see her dad one night, and after they left she had heard her mom crying.
Not long after, they had moved here, to Thistledown and Temple Baptist Church.
Julie pirouetted again, delighted, wishing she could dress like this every day. When she grew up she would, she decided, tilting her head this way and that and smiling at herself in the mirror. She fluffed her hair and pursed her lips, imitating the way she had seen an actress do it on a shampoo commercial. Would the other girls think she was pretty? she wondered. Would they like her?
Maybe today, she thought hopefully, beaming into the mirror, at the egg hunt and picnic after the last service, she would make a friend.
“What are you doing?”
At the sound of her father’s angry voice, Julie froze. She dropped her hands and turned slowly to face him, her heart thundering. “Nothing, Daddy,” she whispered.
He took a step toward her, his expression thunderous. “I’ll ask you once more, daughter. What were you doing?”
She swallowed hard, past the sudden knot of tears and fear that choked her. She hated when her father got this way; it scared her. She never knew what answer he was looking for, never knew what she had done to anger him.
“Just … getting ready for … church, Daddy.”
“Linda!” he bellowed, vibrant red starting at the place where his clerical collar met his neck and moving upward.
Julie took an involuntary step backward. “Daddy, really, I wasn’t doing anythi—”
“Vanity is the work of the devil,” he said. “It tempts us, teasing and cajoling until we love ourselves more than God.”
She shook her head. “No, Daddy, I wasn’t—”
He was across the room so fast she didn’t have time to react. He grabbed her bonnet and snatched it from her head, taking some of her hair with it. She cried out in pain.
“Don’t lie to me! I saw the devil in your eyes. I saw the admiration, the self-love for your reflection.”
“No, Daddy! Please—”
He grabbed the hem of her dress and yanked it up over her head. She heard the delicate fabric rip, an awful wrenching sound. A sound she felt as if a physical blow. Sobbing, she tried to cover herself, naked save for her underwear and tights. “No … please … I didn’t mean to be bad,” she begged. “Give me another chance. Please, I—”
He turned her toward the mirror, forcing her arms to her sides so she would face her nakedness. “See yourself, sinner.” He shook her so hard her teeth rattled. “What’s to admire now, I ask you? Without the Lord, what are you but dirty flesh and foul spirit?”
As if from a great distance, Julie had heard her mother’s cry of distress, her brother’s muffled giggles. Her father had released her, and she’d crumpled to the floor. Only then had she seen her mother standing in the doorway staring at her with a look of pure horror, her brothers behind her, both of them making ugly faces at her.
A sound of despair had flown into her throat like vomit, and she’d held it back. Just as she’d held back her tears, her self-pity. Such expression was just another form of vanity, her father said. Another form of self-love over God-love.
Her father had ordered her mother to find her something less provocative to wear, something that wouldn’t tempt her to stray from the path of righteousness.
She had gone to church that day in a plain brown jumper and scuffed loafers; she had gone marked by sin, so vain and wretched she wasn’t even allowed to wear pretty dresses and bonnets like the other girls.
Instead of welcoming smiles, she had been greeted with curious stares from the other children. Their gazes had slipped over her, and they had wondered, she knew, why, on the highest holy day of the year, the reverend’s daughter was dressed the way she was.
They hadn’t had long to wonder. Her father had told them.
He had been at the pulpit, delivering a rousing sermon. As he spoke, his fiery gaze kept coming back to her.
“You’re sinners!” Her father’s voice had boomed through the church. Around Julie, people shifted uncomfortably. “He died for you. For your sins. He died so you may live.”
He paused a moment, then brought his fist crashing down on the pulpit. “Sinners!” he shouted, swinging his gaze to Julie’s, seeming to pin her to the pew.
He lifted a hand and pointed. At her. Directly at her. “Sinner,” he said softly. Then louder, “Sinner!”
Julie had gone hot, then icy, clammy cold. Tears had flooded her eyes and she’d sunk down in the pew. She’d