The Blameless Bystander

© Copyright 2006, 2007

Chapter 13—Seduction of Satan

Tracey never truly doubted that she would bend to Jarrod's will and try to seduce Ethan. She was angry, but not hurt. There had never been any illusion that her relationship with Jarrod was anything more than value for value. They cuddled together and said nice things in the aftermath of sex. It was a facilitating cover for what was, in the end, an arrangement of exchange. If Jarrod had taken the trouble to use the smooth approach, she might have taken the assignment as a challenge instead of an insult.

"If only I had met James sooner," she thought wistfully to herself several times following her night with him. Once, during the Holiday recess she called him, to no avail. She found out from Shirley that he was in Florida on a truck with Bubba. "Some things are meant to be, and some aren't," she thought. Jarrod called her later that day. Old patterns bled through the layers of new paint.

It was the first time Jarrod had struck her. She had seen his flashes of temper many times, but was always able to tame it with a feminine wile. She let things get away from her and it served her right. Probably, that time with James—when she lost herself as feelings became passion—had dulled her instincts just enough to let Jarrod get out of control.

She had been with many men. It was always value for value, except when she was young and not yet schooled in her worth to men. Even her night with James was a thank you of sorts. Jarrod, Ethan; what difference did it make? Seducing Ethan wouldn't be easy. Jarrod would pay a lot for it, and extra with an 'I'm sorry' bonus to make amends for the slap. With luck, Jarrod might even become jealous of Ethan. Maybe she'd give Ethan a few extra 'therapy sessions' just to give Jarrod some food for thought. She remembered that Insurance Agents' Seminar in the Virgin Islands in March and how Jarrod promised to take her.

"Do what I do best," she said to herself, chanting back Jarrod's words. "Jarrod can be a bastard, but he can be so right at the same time."

************

Tracey was surprised to find out how easily the dropping of Jarrod's name would get her invited to Ethan's study at the manse. On a Friday afternoon she parked her car on the street, a block away. It was best to keep such matters private. After a check of her makeup and hair in the rear-view mirror, she reached inside her coat and sprayed a puff of perfume in her cleavage.

"If I can get him peeking in there," she thought, "the chase will be but over." Had men become easier, or was her skill perfected with so much practice? She waited for a snowplow to pass by and stepped out of her car. She locked the door behind her, unsure just when she might be returning.

Ethan showed Tracy into his study. "Just set your coat on the extra chair, Miss Jacobs. Can I get something for you—coffee or tea?"

"Tea would be wonderful," she cooed. As Ethan shuffled into the kitchen to prepare the refreshments, Tracey checked herself in the hallway mirror.

She wore demure clothes, intended to set the Reverend at ease. Her soft, gray-flannel skirt was hemmed just above her knee and her pink satin blouse with the wide-opening collar, drew attention to her bust line without flaunting it. The final touch was Jarrod's gold necklace. It played with the topmost fastened button of her blouse. As she moved it ducked in and out from behind the satin, getting glimpses of what lay beneath it—a reward for audacity.

"Oh, Reverend," she called out to Ethan, who was still in the kitchen, "I just have my boots with me, and I would hate to track snow on your carpet. Would you mind if I left them here in the foyer?"

"Whatever you want," he called back. "Make yourself at home."

Tracey waited for Ethan, absent-mindedly perusing the appointments in the room. He shuffled into the study, carrying a tray with a teapot and two cups, and other fixings. "I thought that I would have some, too," he said.

"I was hoping you would," she answered as she smiled at him. Ethan set the tray on a coffee table facing a settee. A set of chairs flanked it.

"Is this a picture of you?" she asked, pointing to a black and white of a young man standing in shirtsleeves on a summer's day.

"That's me at the seminary just before graduation."

"Very handsome!" she commented, giving him an expectant look.

Ethan cleared his throat. "That was a long time ago," he mumbled. "Let's have our tea before it gets cold." Tracey claimed one of the end chairs, leaving the settee to Ethan.

"Let me pour," Tracey offered as she reached out ahead of his. Her hand brushed his momentarily. Ethan pulled back quickly. "I'm so sorry, Reverend," she purred and lifted her head to make eye contact. "This is a job for a woman." Tracey filled both teacups.

Ethan nervously cleared his throat once more. "You see, my wife is in Indiana with our daughter. Normally she would do this. I'm afraid I'm not very good at...."

"It's not a job for a man," she assured him. They took a sip from their cups. "You have more important things to do—haven't you?"

Ethan paused; he didn't answer the question. "You told me on the phone that you want to use the church's property on the lake for a summer girl's camp." Ethan said.

"That's right, Reverend Chandler," Tracey answered. "It will give them a chance to be outdoors; out in nature."

"Yes, yes," Ethan harrumphed. "This is really a matter for Mr. Morris. I leave all business matters to him."

"Oh, I see," she pouted. "I just wanted to tell you all about everything. I've wasted your time. I'll go now."

"No, no," Ethan consoled her. "Don't go just yet. At least, finish your tea. We can talk about the camp if you want to."

"Well, I feel so silly now," she purred.

"Talk about anything you want," Ethan suggested.

"Let's talk about you," Tracey said, almost in a whisper. Ethan didn't see her do it; she deftly pulled her skirt higher, showing him just enough thigh as she crossed her legs.

Ethan glanced at the revealed leg. She was bouncing her shoeless foot as one knee rested atop the other. He looked away, afraid to be seen stealing the view. "I'm not important enough to talk about," he said. "I'm the mere Voice of the Lord."

"You must have to know so many things," she said, and leaned forward. She saw Ethan watch the end of her necklace play hide and seek in the opening of her blouse. "And understand so much," she added before he had a chance to answer.

"Yes, you know..." Ethan started, but she interrupted him.

"Like what motivates men—and women," she said softly. Ethan leaned closer to hear her. Tracey edged toward him, looking into his eyes. "I so admire men like you," she whispered and he felt her breath on her face.

Ethan froze for a second, and then pulled away, pressing his back to the settee. "Really, Miss Jacobs! We shouldn't be alone like this. I'm old enough to be your father."

Tracey stood and moved in front of him, trapping him in his place. She gripped the top rail of the settee with both hands on either side of him. As she leaned forward her blouse fell open slightly; the vapors of perfume escaped. Ethan drank in the feminine scent and watched the necklace as it hung swinging. His eyes ventured beyond—he saw promises of breast, encased in a flesh-toned bra. He sucked in a deep breath.

"I want you," she breathed into his ear. "I can't help myself. I'm so lonely—do you ever get lonely?"

"I can't—we can't," Ethan stammered, but made no effort to move away.

"Don't you get lonely?" she repeated softly. She let her lips graze his earlobe as she whispered it.

"Yes, but..." At that moment, the phone rang, granting Ethan a reprieve from desire. Tracey waited for the second ring, wondering if her efforts could recover from the interruption. She moved aside and Ethan ran to answer it.

"Ethan Chandler," he spoke into the phone and Tracey watched him. As he sat at his desk to converse with the caller, Tracey slowly walked to where he was sitting. "Just a minute...," he took the phone away from his ear and covered the mouthpiece with his hand. "I have to take this call. It's important," he meekly said. "Perhaps you could see your way out?"

Tracey placed her fingertips on his cheekbone and slowly guided them down to his jaw, lifting it a little. She shook her head slowly and mouthed the word "No", holding her lips in the 'o' shape for a few seconds.

She turned and inched herself away, trailing her fingertips across his face as she did. Ethan watched her walk across the room, leaving her overcoat behind. At the bottom of the stairs she stopped and looked back at him. He was still seated, holding the phone with the mouthpiece covered. She slowly unbuttoned the satin blouse and took it off, hanging it on the newel post before ascending the stairs.

When she was halfway up she heard Ethan resume speaking on the phone. "We'll have to make this conversation a quick one. I have to attend to an unexpected guest."

************

By the time Ethan finished talking on the phone and ran up the stairs Tracey was in his bed waiting for him. She heard him arrive at the top of the landing.

"Miss Jacobs—Miss Jacobs! You can't stay here. You have to leave." She was amused that he seemed to look in every room before entering his own bedroom with her satin blouse in hand.

"You brought my blouse; how thoughtful," she said, looking at him from under the covers with only the tops of her shoulders showing. "Would you put it with my other things?"

Ethan glanced at the chair in the corner of the room and saw Tracey's clothing neatly folded there. "What are you doing?" he asked with alarm.

"Waiting for you," she replied. "I was waiting for you to come upstairs. Now you're here. I'm waiting for you to get undressed and come to me." She pulled her bare arms out from under the blankets and stretched them out in a welcoming gesture.

"No!" he yelled. "Who are you?"

"I'm a woman," she answered. "I'm a woman who wants you."

"I can't have you. It is forbidden!"

"Don't you find me just a little bit attractive?" she asked in a coquette voice. "Why don't you just take off those clothes and come in here? You'll be glad; I guarantee it. I can do many things for a lonely man."

Ethan stiffened and his eyes glazed over. They were pointed at Tracey, but she could see that they weren't focused on her.

"Thou woulds't lead thy Lord to sin?" he shouted. He stretched out his arms toward her, fingers spread; his eyes opened wider. "Begone, Satan! Satan, begone! Thou shalt not live by bread, alone. Thou shalt not tempt me!"

"I don't want bread; I want you," Tracey said with a pout. "Come down here to me."

Hearing her words startled him and he shook the reverie from his head. His eyes focused down at her. "I am a man of God!" He reached down to her to pull her out of the bed, but she was as strong as he was. She grasped his shirt, pulling him down on top of her. She held him tightly. They were eye to eye.

"You're a man," she breathed, "You're alone and sad. You need the feel a warm, woman's body against you. How long have you been without?" She tightened her hold on him; felt him slowly relax until he ceased struggling. Then she pulled his face to her and kissed him. She held it a long time, sensuously suckling his lips with hers and snaking her tongue into his mouth. When he started to give back she turned him over and straddled him. Her nude body escaped from under the covers and then began unbuttoning his shirt.

Ethan lay under her, silent and passive, allowing her to disrobe him. His hardness pressed through his pants and she ground herself down on him to help her start moistening. She opened his shirt and lifted the undershirt to expose his bare chest. She ran her fingernails from his shoulders, past his nipples and down to his belly. He wasn't as big or powerful as Jarrod, had he had less body hair, but she wasn't there to compare physiques.

Ethan stared up at her, panting and saying nothing. Tracey wished to spur him, so she bent her head to his chest. Her breasts draped over his belly. She laved his nipples with her tongue; she felt his hands hug her head to him. She took one of his pebbles between her teeth and bit on it slightly. She heard him growl—the reaction she'd hoped for.

He lifted her—or, she allowed herself to be lifted—off him and turned her on her back. Ethan knelt between her wide-spread legs throwing off his shirts; his hand flew to his belt. In a second his pants and underwear pooled at his knees. Tracey saw his erection beneath the fire in his eyes and egged him on.

"Give it to me!" she cried. "C'mon, give it to me!" His hard penis pointed at her, dripping fluid.

"I'll show you!" he roared. He fell on top of her and pushed himself inside. He pressed forward; Tracey met him with an upward thrust. She tightened her vagina around him. The resistance made him work harder. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his back. He kept pumping her without pause. His face was pressed into the pillow alongside hers. He never cared to pause and look down at her, or to listen for her signs of pleasure.

Tracey knew when he was about to come. He grunted as he thrust into her. He slid out and did it louder as he returned to the end of her canal. On the third pass he yelled out. Tracey felt him spasm inside her as he pressed in to the hilt. It was done; she had claimed him.

When he caught his breath he withdrew and lay atop her. "Why don't you take of the rest of your clothes and get in here with me?" she said in a low voice.

Ethan complied, and as he rose to complete his disrobing Tracey made her way to the bathroom to clean herself. There was soreness in her core, for she wasn't really very moist when Ethan entered her. She accepted the discomfort. It wasn't the first time and she knew it would go away.

When she returned to the bedroom Ethan was in bed. He gazed at her nude body as she walked to her side and got in with him. His face was devoid of any expression; he stared at the ceiling as she pulled the covers up to her shoulders and shifted to her side.

"First Becky, and now me," he said out loud to himself. "How will I tell my flock that I, too, have sinned?"

"There is no sin," Tracey assuaged him.

"Oh yes," Ethan insisted. "The Sixth Commandment says..."

"For most men, it would be a sin," Tracey answered, placing a finger over his lips. "Not for you. You are different—above the Commandments. For you, it would be a sin to deny yourself to women."

"Yes; yes," Ethan agreed. "I see it now. It's what Judith was trying to tell me when she left."

Tracey and Ethan dozed a while and woke up and had sex again. They remained in bed, skipping dinner, conversing little and joining together as they wished. In the morning Tracey fellated him and then got up and dressed. Ethan looked up at her without speaking.

"Maybe we can do this again, Reverend Chandler—we'll see. Don't get up. I can find my own way out."

Tracey made her way to her car. She grimaced because it was covered with new snow and she wanted to go home and soak her aching body in a hot tub. She smirked slightly as she brushed off the windshield. Ethan had called her Satan and then changed his mind. She had denied it, but began to think that, perhaps, he had been right after all.

*************

Twenty four hours after Tracey exited Ethan's front door to find her snow-covered car, Ethan took the pulpit in his church. He looked out over the congregation; sitting packed together in the pews with their winter coats on.

"They've come to hear me," he said to himself. His night with Tracey had inspired a rewrite of his sermon. He planned on stirring them up anew against the hated teacher, O'Toole. He decided to veer away from that on this Sunday. There would be plenty of time to press the attack in later weeks.

"I am the Church; they are my flock," he reminded himself. "They must know the mind of the Shepherd as he tends them." He decided on a sermon that reflected his frame of mind, his mood, his outlook. "After all, will the flock not follow the shepherd, wherever he leads them?"

Scripture was always a good source for sermon material. It grounded the talk in unassailable truths, safe from doubt or challenge. Ethan knew all the scriptures, and better yet, he had new revelations that came to him as Tracey brought him to orgasm scarcely a day ago. "She must have been an Archangel, sent by the Father."

Through his angel, the Lord revealed to Ethan that he was unlike ordinary men. There were rules, laws and commandments necessary to govern their lives. How could Ethan impose them on others, and be subject to them at the same time? Judith's departure was the work of the Lord. She was out of the way, deposited in Limbo with their sinful daughter.

Ethan leaned forward, grasping each side of the lectern with a powerful grip. He felt strong, invincible, sent to be in a particular time and place.

"To everything there is a season," he broadcast with all his strength. The people sat hushed, ready to be soothed by the familiar, ancient passage. "And a time for every purpose under heaven."

"A time to be born, a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap," he continued. "A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance." The few listeners who realized he had skipped over a few lines gave him license.

"A time to embrace," Ethan threw his arms aloft as he bellowed the verse, and then lowered them and softened his voice. "A time to refrain from embracing."

"A time to be humbled, a time to be exalted; a time for thirst, a time to be satisfied," he went on, leaning forward to the throng. "A time to please, a time to take pleasing; a time to forgive and a time of retribution."

He straightened up again, found Jarrod in the corner of his eye, expecting his approving nod. Instead, his confidant looked puzzled. Ethan dismounted the pulpit and proceeded to the center of the church for the final hymn, "Faith of Our Fathers".

As he listened to the words they sounded a dissonant chord in him. "What 'Fathers'?" he asked himself silently, scorning obeisance to passed-down wisdom. "Do the scriptures belong only to ancient men?"

The congregation passed by more quickly than usual as Ethan greeted them at the door. When all had left Jarrod approached him.

"It was hard to understand your sermon today, Ethan."

"It was from the scriptures," Ethan answered, staring straight ahead. "The people will think on it and come to understand."

"Ethan, I know that passage well and I would say that you took some liberties with it."

Ethan turned to face his friend. "Why shouldn't I? Who is to say that I do not have my own revelations?"

"You're flirting with a cruel seduction, Ethan," Jarrod warned. "Don't get the idea that you're invincible. If the people think you're leading them astray, they'll send you to hell in a rowboat."

"I think I know Satan when I see him," Ethan countered. "And, I can handle him."

Jarrod sighed. "At least you look more rested than have recently. How did it go with that Miss Jacobs I sent to see you about the girls' camp?"

*************

Snow covered the fairways, but the dining room at the Bates Country Club was open all year. At a corner table in mid-week Ed and Nathan met for lunch.

"I need your help on this, Ed," Nathan pleaded.

"I don't get it, Nathan. Only last week you were defending the guy."

"He's become more trouble than he's worth," Nathan replied. "And I can't be looking over my shoulder all the time, worrying that he'll blab about seeing me with David last November at the winery."

"So that's it!" Ed exclaimed. "Honestly, Nathan, I don't think he'll tell on you."

"Probably not," Nathan agreed. "This way, I'll make sure."