Foremost, A Man
The Reverend Gregory Thompson was awake, but as he did every night he laid staring through the encapsulating blackness without acknowledging its presence around him. Instead, he peered through it with a tunnel-like vision, gazing beyond it to where a singular, technicolor memory played on it's other side, a memory that shone beacon-like, carrying him back 40 years to the day when it became obvious to him that his wants and desires must be stashed away in his mind's deepest depths, lest they derail it all; his future, his mission, his eternity. Those wants and desires that had been hidden away his entire life, it should be noted, but for one April afternoon; one indelible, and undeniable, Sunday in Miami.
Like it was yesterday The Reverend recalled how the clerical collar had scratched the razor burn on his neck as he roasted hatless beneath the tropical sun. He recalled the children in swimsuits and flip-flops giving him a wide berth, as though he was begging for money, rather than trying to help them... to save them, even. He remembered the colorful, frozen cocktails the women carried down the boardwalk at one o’clock in the afternoon, and how they avoided his eyes as they passed him by. His cheeks burned as he recalled the way the more muscular men’s eyes warned him away before he even spoke to them. Moreover, there were those others, the ones who politely accepted a prayer card only to drop it to the sun bleached boards once safely past the “crazy preacher man.”
But then "she" was there again, slicing through the tourist throngs as she had on that day so long ago, just as she had every night since. She smiled as she approached. He had taken note of her straight white teeth, and the way the buttons of her blouse strained to contain her toasted brown skin, as though she were overripe, and in need of peeling. “Jou are too hot, mi Predicador," she had purred. "Come... I cool jou.”
She had taken his hand in hers, pressing it to her side even as her pretty, bare feet drew him into a dark cantina where she had leaned toward him at a table for two while an old, bearded man with compassionate eyes poured iced sangria into tall glasses. Above the table an ancient ceiling fan sighed delicious coolness onto his soaked shirt, and perspiring skin. Her plump, pink lips cooed lovely sounds at him, and nonsensical words, as if to engage a child. He slouched in his seat, the sun having drained his energy. He drank the sweet wine she held to his lips, and he bit into orange and lemon slices offered him from delicate fingers. Those slices had been sweeter even than the wine, and had burst with sugary syrups when punctured by his teeth... although her fingers were quick to wipe the stray juices from the corners of his mouth, and slow to linger there after, as if tempted to enter.
He could still recall it all, forty years later. The way her eyes never left his. The tiny beads of sweat like bubbles on her upper lip. The wooden banana crates stacked haphazardly against the back wall, and ready to tumble. The smell of frying tortillas, and the sounds of happy laughter from the sidewalk. He remembered his feelings of desire, guilt, and inebriation. He remembered how his heart raced in a way it never had before, leaving his head light, and his groin heavy. He remembered the desperate urge to get away, and the even stronger urge to stay, but mostly he remembered the bare foot that found it's way up to his lap under the table, it's toes kneading him, massaging away any remaining resolve.
He remembered more wine, and a dark, narrow stairway with loose, creaking steps. He remembered rounded, swaying hips barely concealed inside a summer skirt. He remembered eager eyes turning to ensure he was still following, their excitement feeding his. He remembered a dimly lit room with dust hanging in the valance. He remembered soft lips, and a beckoning tongue. He remembered pressing his own lips tight to keep the tongue out, but it had pried, and probed before slithering serpent-like inside. He recalled dueling with it before succumbing, whipping and lashing it with heavy breaths.
He remembered the way her bare skin felt against his, cool and soft... how the darkness of it contrasted with the pale of his own. He had absorbed her smells of perspiration, and her woman’s cassolette, exhaling them reluctantly. He recalled with a thundering pulse the way her nipples had caressed his thighs, and his chest, and he recalled bursting directly before he died.
He had awakened from death on a beach bathed in a tangerine twilight; shoeless, wallet-less, with even his clerical collar gone... but those things were of little matter. Couples walking the beach, lovers holding hands had looked at him without approaching; curious people, perhaps even concerned people. He had rushed past them to the water where he tried to wash away the smells, and the feels, and the sins, only to find that sand and saltwater could not scrub some things away.
Forty years later they still lingered in the dark of night, those sins and sensations. Forty years later her nipples still caressed his skin, and her tongue still probed his lips, looking for a way inside. She might have been a devil, that woman, but Reverend Thompson would have sworn she was an angel, his angel, an angel who showed him what it was to be a man. He remembered her lessons well, every night of his life, as they were lessons he hoped never to forget.
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