“That’s the plan. It’s not my plan. It’s my father’s plan, David’s plan, and David’s father’s plan. It’s an arrangement. You know. This is Sand Mountain. How we do it up here. In case you didn’t know.
“He gets a wife who understands her place, who is supposed to be delivered pure and loyal. She gets out of the house. They start a new Godly family. Simple as that.”
“You want to marry David?”
“No,” she says. “I didn’t say that. I said it’s my father’s plan. That means I don’t have a choice.”
“Sure you have a choice. It’s a free country.”
“Sand Mountain is not free,” Emma says. “My father’s house is not free. I have nowhere else to go. Nothing else to do. If I disobey, it is as if I have disobeyed God. I would be banished.”
“Okay. So you will marry David?”
“I hope not. But nobody is asking me.
“I hate him.”
“You hate who,” Michael says.
“David. My father. God.”
“Surely you don’t hate God,” Michael says. “Maybe you mean you hate how those around you use God wrongly to their advantage. It’s not God doing this to you. It’s is your father, and David.”
Emma looks at Michael.
“Maybe,” she says.
“How is college?” Emma asks.
“Wonderful. The city is so vibrant. I’m in a dormitory in Greenwich Village.”
“I thought you were in New York?”
“Greenwich Village is in New York. Near Lower Manhattan. It’s great. Lots of coffee shops. Good food. I’ve got some great professors. Students who want to learn.”
“I want to learn,” Emma says. “But they won’t get me any books.”
“I’ll get you some books,” Michael says. “What do you want to read?”
“Anything,” Emma says.
“How about The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Sallinger? Have you read that?”
“No,” Emma says.
“I’ve got a copy here. I’ll loan it to you.”
Michael gets up, walks to a shelf lined with books, retrieves a paperback copy, and hands it to Emma.
“Thank you,” she says.
“What’s your favorite color?” Emma asks.
“My favorite color? That’s an odd question for the middle of the night.”
Emma giggles.
“Blue,” he says. “I like blue.”
“You named your dog Blue.”
“Yes,” David says. “The color is neither black nor white. It’s a nice combination of the two. That’s the way life is, I think. It’s blue. Not down in the dumps blue, just a nice warm blue that’s pleasing to look at.
“It’s never as dark as it seems, and it’s never as bright as it seems. It’s just blue. Like life. But blue gets a bad rap for most for being low. It see it differently.”
Emma smiles.
“What’s your favorite color?” Michael asks.
“Black,” Emma says. “I like other colors. I like my yellow dress. I like my lavender dress. My white dress. But in the darkness, I am free.
“When it is black, I am free. So I like black, like the night.”
“It won’t always be that way, Emma,” Michael says. “I hope not, anyway. Not if you can do something about it before it is too late.”
Michael puts a hand on Emma’s, resting on her lap. She looks at the hands, his on top of hers.
She likes the stack they make.
Emma feels her nerves, from her groin to her neck, becoming enflamed, like someone just threw a match on a pool of kerosene. She looks at Michael in the eyes, and he is already staring at her. He slides toward her, opens his mouth slightly, and moves to kiss her softly.
Emma opens her mouth, accepts the kiss, and tangles her lips with his.
In her mind, she’s speaking in tongues just as the snake handlers do. She wants to shout the ecstasy.
Emma slides closer to Michael. She darts her tongue toward his. They touch at the tips.
“Ahhhh,” she says, wrapping her arms and legs around him after placing the book down on the couch, beside her.
Michael pushes his body into hers. She falls back into the couch, tugging Michael along with her. She pushes her groin into his, and he pushes back. He cock is throbbing into her groin, and she desperately wants to spread her legs and engulf it.
“Michael,” she whispers.
He moves his cheek to her cheek.
Her mouth slides to his neck, and she runs her tongue along its flexed ridges.
Her mouth waters, and her head coils.
She licks her incisors, and yearns to drink from Michael’s neck.
“Oh no!” she thinks to herself. “Not Michael!”