Chapter 27
The following morning Michelle called Marcia to tell her that Divine had given her rave reviews about Connor. He was a man without any prejudice at all, she had said, as well as being a good listener and sensitive to the needs of others. As for the children, they were beautifully behaved and had active and enquiring minds. Michelle said that Connor's promotion to house-group leader was all but guaranteed. He only faced one more round of vetting, and that should be a formality, Michelle said. Each candidate for a leadership position needed to be assessed by a membership of the leadership team, and it had been decided that Charlene would be the one to evaluate Connor.
Images of the older woman bringing Michelle to climax flashed through Marcia's mind, and she instinctively knew that her husband would be able to rise to the challenge. She wanted to suggest to Michelle that she should accompany her husband for the evaluation, since they would be working as a team in the house group, but thought better of it. After all, Michelle would have suggested it herself, if that was what she wanted.
Sensing the younger woman's disappointment, Michelle decided to mention a task that she wanted Marcia to undertake. In the normal course of events, she would have deferred it till a while later, but Marcia's exemplary record with Alyssa and Divine gave Michelle the confidence that the young mom could take it in her stride. As has been noted already, Michelle could see a lot of herself in Marcia.
It had come to the attention of the leadership team that a young couple who had recently moved to the area and were hoping to join the church had some attitude problems with regard to minorities, in particular towards those people who loved members of the same sex. Dean, the 30-year-old husband, who ran his own very successful IT firm, had been heard calling himself a "fag" when he missed a putt on the 18
th
green of the golf course at the local country club. Jennifer, his 28-year-old wife and former beauty queen, had been reported by one of her babysitters (she had an infant baby boy) as saying that homosexuality was a sin and an abomination unto God.
While Dean was set to be counselled by a gay member of the congregation, Michelle and the team had decided that Marcia was the perfect person to teach Jennifer about compassion, diversity and equity. When Marcia heard that she had been chosen for this work, she was stunned. Michelle actually had to check that she was still at the other end of the line. Jennifer was head and shoulders the most beautiful woman in the church, with her long blonde hair, typically worn in a fabulous wave, her figure to die for (she had her own personal trainer, who came three times a week to their palatial home only a mile or so from where Marcia and Connor lived), and a face that would not have looked out of place on the cover of
Cosmopolitan
.
Marcia's meeting with Jennifer, which had been scheduled to take place at Marcia's home, would need to wait until the following week because the willowy beauty was in Colorado visiting her parents with baby in tow. Connor's meeting with Charlene, on the other hand, could take place that very evening, if Connor was available. Charlene's husband Tom was travelling out of state on business and wouldn't be back until the following day. Marcia told Michelle that as far as she was concerned Connor could make it, but she'd call him just to make sure. Michelle thanked the younger woman and asked her to tell Connor to contact Charlene directly to firm up details. She would be expecting his call.
When she got off the phone, Marcia felt a little miffed. She had had her sights set on Charlene ever since that day with Lana at the Pastor's residence, and now it was her husband and not her who was going to enjoy this woman's considerable charms. How could Marcia forget the way Charlene had eaten out Michelle's cunt, or the leonine roar she had issued when she came under the Pastor's wife's skilful tongue. As a result Marcia wasn't terrible gracious when she called her husband and told him about what she called his final interview before his promotion to house-group leader. She also failed to tell him that Tom wouldn't be at home. Let him work that out for himself, she thought. Either Charlene would tell him over the phone, or he would find out for himself all in good time.
As it happened, Charlene did tell him that Tom wouldn't be at home. She also said that John, her 17-year-old, would be staying the night with a schoolfriend, so they would have the place to themselves. It wasn't just the information he was receiving that was making Connor hard, it was the fact that Charlene was transmitting it in a very husky voice - nothing like he'd ever heard her talk before. It was arranged for Connor to swing by at around 7pm, which suited him just fine, as it would give him the chance for a shower and a shave. Charlene asked him if he would like to eat with her, to which he nearly replied "No, but I'd sure love to eat you!" Sensing his lack of enthusiasm for dinner per se, Charlene said she'd provide him with bits and pieces to nibble on. If Charlene had had the benefit of a video link-up to Connor's office, she would have been able to see that his attention had fully switched from the audit he was working on to the need to work on a not so little problem that had just come up. Merely on account of the way he was breathing and the unsteady timbre of his voice, though, Charlene could tell the effect she was having on the handsome accountant. It boded very well for that evening, she thought.
Marcia was in turns surprised and upset to see Connor return home shortly after 6pm. The surprise was because she had imagined that he would proceed straight to Charlene's place from the office. The annoyance was because of all the trouble he was going to before meeting with her. She nearly said something as he headed upstairs after greeting the boys, but thought better of it. All it would do was to upset her more. She answered her boys' enquiries about where Dad was going by telling them that he had some church work to do. When Mark asked if it involved the poor and underprivileged, Marcia responded that it did, in a way. That was enough for the boys, who still saw their father as something of a hero figure. Marcia wondered exactly how long this phase would last.
When he came down nearly half an hour later (far longer than he ever spent getting ready when he was going out with
her
, Marcia thought) he was looking and smelling a million dollars in his leather jacket, faded blue jeans and white leather sneakers. It was just as well that the boys were in the den wrapped up in a video game, otherwise they might have wondered what kind of poor and underprivileged their pop would be ministering to that evening.
He gave Marcia a kiss on the lips and a playful smack on the bottom, asked her to pray for him, took evasive action as she swung the nearest object to hand (a colander) at him, and, whistling merrily, headed to his car. It was a little after 7 when he swung into the O'Neills' driveway. He parked near the front door and walked the short distance to the porch. Charlene must have heard him arrive, or perhaps she was waiting for him, as the door opened even before Connor had rung the doorbell.
Charlene must have been a dozen years older than Marcia, but the Charlene that opened the door looked more like her sister. Connor wouldn't even have said her older sister. She was wearing an absolutely stunning dress - the kind of thing that Connor associated with weddings. It was in a cobalt blue colour and worn over one shoulder only (the left). It was difficult to say if it was a below-the-knee dress or an above-the-knee one because there was a significant split on the left hand side, where the dress revealed Charlene's sexy looking thigh. God knows what would happen when she sat down? How far would that split ride up her leg, Connor wondered.
He knew he would find out shortly, as Charlene took him through to the recent extension which had been styled after an English conservatory, featuring ferns and other large plants and rattan furniture, including a couple of armchairs and a long sofa (as he imagined one should call it). Charlene pointed towards the sofa before taking herself off to a small bar in the corner of the room. She came back bearing two long glasses of tequila sour garnished with lime peel. She had obviously checked with Marcia about the sort of drinks he liked. She asked Connor to move a small table across from the side of the sofa to a position in front of it, and placed the glasses down on coasters. She then sat down on the other side of the table from Connor, so that they were sitting perhaps a foot apart.
He tried not to make it too obvious that he was checking out her left thigh as she sat down, but he didn't make a very good job of it. As expected, the dress rode up and Connor's pulse rate went up with it. Not only his pulse rate, as a slight, but discernible bulge could be detected in his pants. Charlene engaged him in chit-chat about this and that for several minutes, but he was finding it more and more difficult to keep up his side of the conversation, as a combination of the alcohol and her fragrance seemed to go to his head and mess about with the synapses in his brain.
If anything was guaranteed to snap him out of his reverie it was the feeling of Charlene's hand on his knee. He was determined not to freeze, but the instinct overpowered his will. The elder's wife might have been testing his resolve for all he knew, wanting to see how effectively he could deal with temptation, but after all that had happened during the last week or so he felt somehow that he was going to be assessed on his performance in an offensive rather than a defensive role, as a football coach might have put it.
"Do I make you feel uncomfortable?" said Charlene, reminding Connor of Mrs Robinson from
The Graduate
.
"Not at all," Connor gulped, sounding about as comfortable as a pair of mismatched shoes.
"I know I am not as young or as beautiful as your wife," she went on, shamelessly fishing for compliments.
"Oh, I don't know," said Connor. "You're very, you know, I mean -"
"Well preserved for my age?" said the elder's wife, not making it any easier for her guest.
"No, I mean yes," stuttered Connor. "You're very elegant."
"You mean I dress well," said Charlene. "I hoped there was more to it than that. But I know I can't compete with those young things like Divine."
It was as well that Connor hadn't been taking a draft from his cocktail or he would have sprayed the contents all over the Swiss cheese plant. Instead he went a deep shade of scarlet and became very tongue-tied.
"Were you satisfied with her performance as a babysitter? I believe you had her last night," said Charlene with unmistakable innuendo.
