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CHAPTER FIVE

MERCY

E ven after three years, I hate when Reverend Gunner forces me to visit him at midnight. I hate even more that he’s making me do it tonight , a day after what happened at the Concho River.

I know I should be grateful. I know that I’m lucky Reverend Gunner and his first wife Madelyn adopted me after my parents died when I was eight, that they brought me into the Church of the Well and raised me out of the secular world, in the shining umbrella of God’s light. For ten years, Madelyn taught me how to be a good wife, how to cook and clean and be obedient. I thought I would be partnered with one of the soldiers, maybe even Raul. I fantasized about us leaving the compound and starting another ministry in some far-off place, like the ministries in California and Tennessee.

Instead, when I turned eighteen, Reverend Gunner told me I was to be his wife, that God told him he needed two helpmeets if he was to do all that he had been set on this Earth to do.

Three days later, I married him in the chapel, wearing my favorite blue dress. Favorite then, anyway. Not favorite anymore.

Madelyn sat in the front row and watched me with daggers in her eyes.

I think that’s why Reverend Gunner gave me a cabin of my own, a copy of the guest cabins, small and cramped. He doesn’t like visiting me there, though. So when he asks me to tend to his needs, I have to meet him in the suite attached to his and Madelyn’s home, the home where I grew up, the largest and grandest of all the houses on the compound.

He calls it our marriage suite. I walk there now.

The night is hot and sticky, even this close to midnight, and my dress sticks to my legs as I trudge across the campus. My cabin is only a few minutes away, and I know exactly when to leave so that I arrive at our marriage suite at midnight on the dot.

The door is unlocked, as always, and I push it open to find Reverend Gunner stretched out on the big, lavish bed in his boxers and a white undershirt, tapping away on his laptop. He glances at me as I step into the suite, eyes passing briefly over my body, my hair, my face. “Perfect timing,” he says, the way he always does. “Don’t forget to lock the door.”

As if I would.

I step out of my shoes and then turn the lock, sealing us into the marriage suite.

“So what do you think of that preacher?” Reverend Gunner says without looking away from his laptop. “A bit earthy, isn’t he?”

I reach back and unzip my dress, then pull it over my head and fold it up and drape it on top of the chest of drawers. I know I need to choose my words carefully.

“He’s intense,” I say. “But I felt God’s strength in him.” I don’t say what I actually felt—that it was as if God’s love flooded my entire body, and that I want to pray with him again, to feel that warmth radiating out from my center over and over.

“Mmm, yes, I sensed that, too.” Reverend Gunner shuts the laptop and sets it on the bedside table, then peers at me over the top of his reading glasses. “We’ll need that, you know. The devil is here, Mercy. Trying to destroy all that I’ve built.”

I think of the cold water of the river, of Raul staring at me from the darkness, his soul already gone to Heaven, and swallow the lump in my throat. “I know,” I whisper.

Reverend Gunner keeps studying me over his glasses. “The Deceiver was trying to get to me through you,” he says sternly. “That’s why he compelled you to disobey. Why he drew you out to the Concho.”

I don’t say anything, just stand there in my underwear, my body still warm from the heat of the night.

“This is why you’re not allowed to leave the compound,” Reverend Gunner says. “Why none of the women are. Women are too susceptible to the devil’s trickery.”

“I know.” I don’t meet his gaze, just stare at the quilt on top of the bed. Madelyn made it when I first came to live with them.

“You have to be careful. More careful than most.” Reverend Gunner shifts forward, forcing himself into my line of sight. “The Deceiver wants to see me destroyed, and you’re his way into me.”

I nod. This is not a new conversation.

“I told this Pastor Echeverría he can stay,” Reverend Gunner continues, “because we need all the help we can get. He might be unorthodox, but he’ll fight the devil. I can sense that in him.” He smiles. “Now, you’ll help set him up in the meeting hall tomorrow morning, won’t you? He’s going to lead a prayer session.”

“Of course, Rev—Sterling. ”

It still feels strange, even three years later, to use his first name

“Good. Now.” Reverend Gunner licks his lips. “Why don’t you come over here and help me destress?”

Dread shoots through me, but it’s not like I can refuse. I unhook my bra, letting my breasts fall free. My panties are last. Reverend Gunner watches me the whole time, his erection already tenting his boxers.

“Have you lost weight?” he says lightly, eyeing me up and down.

“I don’t know.” I haven’t, but I know better than to contradict him.

“You look good.”

My skin crawls beneath Reverend Gunner’s gaze. He watches me as I walk across the room, past the window that looks out into the Gunners’ grand backyard, full of flowers that Madelyn planted and tends to every day. She told me once, before I became Reverend Gunner’s helpmeet, that she wanted something lovely for the Soldiers of God to witness when they walked past their house on their way to training.

Raul. My throat constricts. I can not think about him. Not here. If I cry while I’m underneath Reverend Gunner, he’ll hit me.

“I’ve needed this,” Reverend Gunner says as I crawl into the bed beside him. He rubs himself over his boxers, and I already know what he wants me to do. It’s the same thing every time.

I pull the waistband down and guide his penis out. Even after three years, I think it looks strange, like some alien from a secular horror movie. I take it into my mouth anyway, and at least Reverend Gunner is always clean, so all I taste is his skin and the occasional burst of saltiness.

He groans as I tend to him, settling back into the pillows. Usually, when I do this, I let my mind go blank. In the first few months after our wedding, as he showed me what he needed in the marriage suite, I would try to pray. But that felt wrong. So now I just let my mind go empty.

But something’s different tonight. My thoughts won’t stay empty.

I keep thinking about Ambrose.

I think about him standing over me, his hands pressed against my head. I think about how my eyes were in line with this part of him, and I wonder, even though I know I shouldn’t, what he looks like behind his pants.

If he looks like an alien from a horror movie, or?—

A strange, unfamiliar heat throbs between my legs. I pull Reverend Gunner deeper down my throat, and for a split second, it’s Ambrose laying on that bed, and it’s Ambrose’s manhood between my lips.

The heat brightens. I squeeze my thighs together as if that might bring some relief.

“That’s enough.” Reverend Gunner’s voice breaks the spell. The image of Ambrose dissipates in my head, and I’m left with an uneasy wash of guilt.

He’s a good man, a true soldier of God, and I should not have thoughts like that about him.

“I want you on your back tonight,” Reverend Gunner says.

We change positions. I settle into the warmth he left behind on the blankets and spread my legs, knees pointed at the ceiling. If I drop my head to the side, I can look through the window and out at the garden. It’s brazen, how Reverend Gunner left the curtains open, baring our marriage to the world.

Reverend Gunner slides into me without any warning, grunting a little in surprise. “You feel good, Mercy.” He says it the same way he’s always complimented me, like he’s a teacher awarding me with a gold star.

“So do you,” I say by rote, even though he doesn’t, not really. He doesn’t feel bad, like he did those first few months, when every time he entered me it was like he was ripping me in two. Now it just feels odd, the way his hardness moves inside my body.

Reverend Gunner grunts, his thrusts quick and arrhythmic. I close my eyes and wrap my legs around his hips the way he likes, lifting my behind to meet him so he doesn’t complain that I’m not putting in any effort. If I wanted a wet fish, I’d fuck Madelyn , he told me once, then flipped me over and spanked me like a child, hard enough that it hurt to sit the next day.

That was still better than the first time I cried.

I pull my thoughts away from the past. I need Reverend Gunner to think I’m enjoying myself, and I rock my hips a little, making him groan in appreciation. With my eyes closed, it’s easier to think of pleasant things.

Like Ambrose.

The heat comes back, a molten gold between my legs. It’s wrong to think of Ambrose on top of me, thrusting himself up into my body, so I think about how he laid his hands on me instead. His hot touch. His dark, velvety voice.

The Lord bless thee and keep thee.

Ambrose drawing me against him and kissing me the way no one has ever kissed me before, so slow and deep that he has to hold me up or else I’ll collapse across the ground.

The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious to thee.

Ambrose unzipping my dress with a careful, tender precision, then kissing my bare shoulders after he slips the fabric away.

The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace.

Ambrose rising above me as I kneel in front of him, lips parted and eyes lifted as he presses his hands against my head, as he unzips his pants, as he?—

I gasp, eyes fluttering open. The hot, rising tide inside my core recedes, and Reverend Gunner keeps grunting on top of me. He’s nearly done; I can tell by the way his thrusts get harder and the way he squeezes the pillow beside my head. Sweat gleams on his brow, and his eyes are wrenched shut in concentration.

I turn to look out the window again. Madelyn has small garden lights installed in the flowerbeds, so they shine on the hibiscus and calla lilies, lush from the rains we’ve been having. Everything else is just shadows.

And then one of the shadows moves.

I tense beneath Reverend Gunner, instinctively lifting my chest. He pushes me back down.

“Almost—done—” he pants.

Someone’s out there . The thought stirs, but I don’t say it. There can’t be someone out there. Not at midnight. Not in Reverend Gunner’s backyard.

Someone killed Raul.

My heart pounds wildly. Not on the campus, I remind myself. Out in the secular world. The campus is locked at night. Guarded during the day by the Soldiers of God, all the young men of our congregation.

Young men like Raul…

The shadow moves again, fluttery as a ghost. There is someone out there.

“Reverend,” I whisper, fear tight in my chest.

“Say my name, Mercy,” he moans softly. “You’re gonna say my name as you come.”

I want to shove his sweating, thrusting body off me. I want to jerk the curtains shut and run into the little bathroom and stand under the hot water to rinse all this sin away.

But I can’t. Reverend Gunner has me pinned down against the mattress, and the shadow moving outside comes closer. Steps up to the window.

I cry out, my voice strangled and terrified. Reverend Gunner chuckles.

“That’s it, baby,” he grunts. “Come for Daddy. ”

A pale face peers into the glass, and with a shuddery, horrible jolt, I realize who it is.

Pastor Ambrose.

It’s undeniably him. I memorized his face this morning. He peers into the glass, sweeping his gaze around--

And then his eyes meet mine.

I want to scream. I want to weep.

Ambrose tilts his head, eyebrow arched. Reverend Gunner keeps thrusting into me, oblivious that we have an audience. And I’m too terrified to tell him.

And then Ambrose lifts his hand like he’s waving to me.

He smiles.

His lips move. I have no idea what he’s saying, but his eyes never leave mine. They bore into me with that same intensity as earlier, like he’s flaying my soul apart.

“There it is!” Reverend Gunner shouts, slamming himself completely into me, groaning as his hot, sticky wetness floods into me. Every muscle in my body goes rigid.

“You liked that,” Reverend Gunner says. It’s not a question.

“Y-yes,” I stammer, forcing myself to look up at him.

“Felt you come.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about. I’ve never had an orgasm. I don’t think I can. But still, I nod, too scared to speak.

When Reverend Gunner rolls off me, I flick my gaze back over to the window.

It’s empty.