"For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace."
- Romans 6:14
"A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward."
- George R.R. Martin
*
"I wish to offer myself up to you, to reconcile our past, to atone for what I'd done; to you."
Hannah Ansley was stunned still the instant she realized the voice of her first love, its sudden weight and the ghost substance of his words.
"Are you serious?" she spoke back to the voice mail; the sensation of blood pulsing at the base of her throat, "Parker; now, after how long?"
She had just entered her house, half past midnight, heaving a gym bag onto the kitchen table, along with her keys, her mind clouded, her skin still alert to the clammy texture of her sweats, her sex still tingling.
Hannah put the phone on speaker, and then set it down on the kitchen counter. She breathed heavily, tuned in to each breath, trying to wrap her head around this new thing, this echo.
"Has it really been fifteen years?" she asked the darkness of her kitchen.
Hannah, now thirty-one, , began to find the occasional gray in her thick copper blonde hair, which she'd pluck upon spotting. Otherwise, she looked and felt as good as she had when she was seventeen, before, during and after what she reflected on as the fragmentation by Parker.
"I know you'll have very strong reservations about returning my call." said Parker, his voice husky, wistfully sorrowful, "It's just that I was hoping I could talk it out with you; finally, and somehow resolve our past. There's, there's always something deep in me, nagging, something that keeps reminding me of the mistakes I've made, and-"
Hannah stood immobile during Parker's pause. Why now? she thought. How did he find me? The number's not registered. You never changed it dumb ass. Dad willing the house to you was a matter of public record. Remember? You're the one who never left town; wall flower, sweet and sour- Just shy of spent, Hannah swayed slightly by the space of counter where she'd placed the phone. She'd suddenly gone under a self hypnosis of reviewing memories she hadn't recalled for years. Across her mind's eye, there she was: heartily kissing Parker in Columbus Park, the two of them inseparable, belly laughing at even the most remotely humorous thing. There was the priceless shocked expression on his face the afternoon she'd pulled her mother's slip down in front of him, the time she'd given him head at the movies, the time he'd paid her back in the woods behind the house, the time she'd betrayed him, the time he'd broken up with her, the time he'd wanted her back and the time he couldn't have her.
"I think we can agree that there is absolutely no real reason why you should talk with me."
"You got that right hotshot."
"However, if you feel comfortable about talking- like- just call me. Take care Hannah."
Hannah drew a deep breath; the smell of Chase still in her nose. Mizz Skitters, the stray black smoke Maine Coon she'd taken in two years earlier, joined Hannah in the kitchen, purring as she walked a series of figures eight around and between her ankles, brushing her long bushy tail against Hannah's shins. Whiskey sour, buckwheat flour, she mused as the fall out of Parker's message settled like snow in the cracks of her long term memory. Suddenly, she screamed aloud, the sound of her frustration prompting Mr. Skitters to rush out of the room. I am not the same girl you messed around with back in high school Parker. Now there's the Chase, Chase and me. But what about you Park? Have you changed? I mean, we're all capable of it, aren't we?
Hannah waited a few seconds more before finally saving the message, and then proceeded to undress on the spot. She had forgotten how disappointed and angry he had made her, getting over him finally after months of lingering angst. But in that moment, twinges of regret, contempt and sadness tugged weakly in her gut, as she flung her musked sweats away with the toes of her left foot. An incredible build up of sexual tension had been on simmer since she'd left Chase. Now on the brink, Hannah could do nothing but yield. She felt the throb inside her sex, blood pulsing, relentless. This is okay, she convinced herself, too far over the edge to stop. It's fine. What Chase doesn't know won't hurt us, and the past shouldn't hurt us either.
"Oh God Chase," Hannah spoke aloud as she caressed the smooth slopes of her breasts and the perceptible curves of her ribs, "I want to eat your pussy so bad. Please; let me taste it. Hmm, haven't I been a good girl to you?"
Certain this time that she would not be preempted , Hannah sped down the hall to gather her props. She returned to the kitchen a moment later, with a towel, a water resistant cushion and a baby pool; four feet in diameter, a school of caricatured clown fish, dolphins, star fish and sea turtles parading around its circumference. Settling into the pool, towel folded beneath her back, cushion propped behind her head, legs raised and her pleasantly musked, brown haired, sex very near her face, Hannah licked the longest fingers of her right hand, and reached them to her vulva's clef.
As she massaged herself open, painting saliva on her unfolded rose, Hannah was realizing that her contempt for Parker had aged, weathered and felt more like a pleasant trickle rather than a surging flood. Her engorged clitoris exposed, Hannah proceeded to rub rapid fire vertical friction against it while she plunged the longest two fingers of her other hand to stroke the spongy patch of her G. Her recollection took her to the Parker fantasy she thought of through the times she'd loved and hated him: that sunny spring day in the woods behind his house, his naked brown skin, the swaying dapple shadows of branches and leaves along his flesh, his hard cock swelling inside her mouth, and then her crawling upon it, watching her pussy envelop it entirely, fucking him until the oblivion of completeness left her drooling.
Then there came the snap of a twig, a foot fall, and then another. Oh yes Chase, she thought. Please. Hannah could still smell her, taste her perfume in the corners of her mouth. As she closed her eyes and more quickly affected the friction of her fingers, she saw Parker disappear from beneath her, and turned to watch lovely Chase, glowing inside the light of a hundred candles that flanked her on either side: illuminating her magnificent eyes, the allure of her golden skin, the white honeysuckle orbs of her breasts and their mesmerizing pink nipples, her generous mouth and long fingers.
Hannah began to pant, the occasional breath catching in her throat, as she called to mind the scenes, the spectacular torment of her new lover's play and the succulent fruit that hung just out of her reach. Ivory tower, electric power, golden shower, please Chase; please. Half a moment more and Hannah began to tense, a seemingly pained grimace coming into her face. As the curl of her orgasmic wave hit, she grunted and began to cream thin arches of milky come, and then a clear cascade of urine drenched her breasts, neck and chin. Her mouth open wide, Hannah shuddered, panted and drank until the stream no longer reached her mouth. She lowered her legs, and let Her body finally go limp. In the ensuing silence of her afterglow, Mr. Skitters meowed plaintively from the kitchen doorway. Hannah, comforted in the knowledge that so precious few knew her darkest, most secret desires, took a long, relaxed, breath through her nose; and exhaled.
"I don't think you should call him." insisted Catherine, "He's right. You don't owe him a damn thing."
It was the following morning, and they had arranged to meet at Lenny's, on the Silus Dean highway. Catherine Wisneuski, pleasant, plainly pastel and generally aloof, had been Hannah's friend since the sixth grade. It wasn't a complicated relationship. They shared in each other's joys and sorrows. Hannah was Catherine's barometer for what the world offered in indulgences and Catherine showed Hannah how to conduct herself politely through a world that functioned through convention. The one cried on the other's shoulders when the need arose or treated her like shit when no one else was around to take it. Hannah's truth was that everyone was bound to hurt you, and it was Catherine's truth that one had to stick with the other that was worth suffering for.
"You're right." was Hannah's answer as she poured a cascade of syrup on her stack of four banana pancakes, "I owe him nothing."
"Right." agreed Catherine as "she took one of Hannah's sausage links and added it to her own plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and home fries.
"but." said Hannah as she held a fork full of dripping pancake aloft.
"But what!" asked Catherine, her mouth half full with scrambled egg, her brow furrowed, "But nothing."
She swallowed quickly, and then cleared her throat.
"Hannah, honey, the only possible reason for you to entertain him is for the sake of helping him to absolve himself, which we agree he doesn't deserve, or to possibly use the man for sex: or to make him pay, some how, for what he did to you."
Actually, thought Hannah, as she took two more mouthfuls of her breakfast, I was thinking about making both happen. But, Catherine knew her friend too long, too well, and so Hannah's eyes did, once met with her good friend's, betray her. Hannah could do nothing but look away from Catherine's "you lying sack of shit" stare.
"You are insane." accused Catherine, "What- How- What if he tries to hurt you? How will you be safe!?"
