So it was debatable, keeping Cynthia. Sometimes he would glance over at her and, for a second or two, not even be able to recall her name. Gaped open and numb from his many experiments, what had once been fresh and tight was a faded memory now, and so, too, was the excitement she used to arouse in him. His biggest problem with Cynthia, though, was that she no longer believed in Jesus. Preston could abide just about anything but not that. He needed for a woman to believe that she was doing wrong when she lay with him, that she was in imminent danger of going to hell. How could he get turned on by someone who didn’t understand the desperate battle raging between good and evil, purity and lust? Every time he fucked some young girl, Preston felt guilty, felt as if he was drowning in it, at least for a long minute or two. To him, such emotion proved that he still had a chance of going to heaven, regardless of how corrupt and cruel he might be, that is, if he repented his wretched, whoring ways before he took his last breath. It all came down to a matter of timing, which, of course, made things all that much more exciting. Cynthia, though, didn’t seem to care one way or another. Nowadays, fucking her was like sticking his staff in a greasy, soulless doughnut.
But you take that Laferty girl, Preston thought, turning another page in the psychology book and rubbing his half-hard cock through his pajamas, Lord, that girl was a believer. He’d been watching her closely in church the past two Sundays. True, she wasn’t much to look at, but he’d had worse down in Nashville when he volunteered that month at the poor house. He reached over and took a saltine from a pack on the coffee table, crammed it in his mouth. He let it lie on his tongue like a host and melt, turn into a soggy, tasteless glob. Yes, Miss Lenora Laferty would do for now, at least until he could get his hands on one of the Reaster girls. He’d put a smile on that sad, crimped face of hers once he got that faded dress off. According to the church gossips, at one time her father had been a preacher around this county, but then—at least the way they told it—he’d murdered the girl’s mother and disappeared. Left poor little Lenora just a babe with the old lady who’d gotten so tore up about those chicken livers. This girl, he predicted, was going to be so easy.
He swallowed the cracker, and a little spark of happiness suddenly swept through his body, ran from the top of his blond head down his legs and into his toes. Thank God, thank God, his mother had decided all those years ago that he was going to be a preacher. All the fresh young meat a man could stand if he played his cards right. The old bag had curled his hair every morning and taught him good hygiene and made him practice his facial expressions in the mirror. She’d studied the Bible with him every night and drove him around to different churches and kept him in nice clothes. Preston had never played baseball, but he could cry on cue; he’d never been in a fist-fight, but he could recite the book of Revelation in his sleep. So, yes, goddamn it, he’d do what she had asked, help out her sick, sad-sack brother-in-law for a while, live in this shit hole of a house, and even pretend to like it. He’d show her his “mettle,” by God. And then, when Albert got back on his feet, he’d ask her for the money. He’d probably have to deceive her, feed her some bullshit story, but he’d feel at least a pang of guilt, so that was all right. Anything to get to the West Coast. It was his new obsession. He’d been hearing stuff on the news lately. There was something going on out there that he needed to witness. Free love and runaway girls living in the streets with flowers stuck in their matted hair. Easy pickings for a man blessed with his abilities.
Preston marked his place in the book with his uncle’s old tobacco sack and closed the book. Five Brothers? Jesus, what sort of person would put their faith in something like that? He’d nearly laughed in Albert’s face when the old man told him it had the power to heal. He looked over at Cynthia, half asleep now, a string of drool hanging from her chin. He snapped his fingers and her eyes popped open. She frowned and tried to shut her eyes again, but it was impossible. She did her best to resist, but then got up from her chair and knelt at the side of the couch. Preston pulled down his pajama bottoms, spread his fat, hairy legs a bit. As she began to swallow him, he said a little prayer to himself: Lord, just give me six months in California, then I’ll come home and fly right, settle down with a flock of good people, I swear on my mother’s grave. He pushed Cynthia’s head down farther, heard her begin to gag and choke. Then her throat muscles relaxed and she quit fighting it. He held her there until her face turned scarlet and then purple from lack of air. He liked it that way, he surely did. Look at her go.
34
ONE DAY ON HER WAY HOME FROM SCHOOL, Lenora stopped at the Coal Creek Church of the Holy Ghost Sanctified. The front door was opened wide and Preacher Teagardin’s ratty English sports car—a gift from his mother when he’d first gone off to Heavenly Reach—was sitting in the shade, same as yesterday and the day before. It was a warm afternoon in the middle of May. She had ducked Arvin, watched from inside the schoolhouse until he gave up waiting and left without her. She stepped inside the church and let her eyes adjust to the gloom. The new preacher was sitting on one of the benches halfway down the aisle. It looked as if he was praying. She waited until she heard him say, “Amen,” and then she began moving slowly forward.
Teagardin felt her presence behind him. He had been waiting patiently on Lenora for three weeks now. He’d come to the church nearly every day and opened the door around the time the school let out. Most days he saw her ride past in that piece-of-shit Bel Air with that half brother or whatever he was, but once or twice he’d seen her walking home by herself. He heard her soft steps on the rough wood floor. He could smell her Juicy Fruit breath as she got closer; he had the nose of a bloodhound when it came to young women and their different odors. “Who is it?” he said, raising his head.
“It’s Lenora Laferty, Preacher Teagardin.”
He crossed himself and turned to her with a smile. “Well, what a surprise,” he said. Then he peered at her more closely. “Girl, you look like you been crying.”
“It’s nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Just some kids at school. They like to tease.”
He looked past her for a moment, searching for a suitable response. “I suspect they just jealous,” he said. “Envy tends to bring out the worst in people, especially the young ones.”
“I doubt if that’s it,” she said.
“How old are you, Lenora?”
“Almost seventeen.”
“I remember when I was that age,” he said. “There I was, full of the Lord, and the other kids making fun of me day and night. It was awful, the horrible notions that ran through my head.”
She nodded and sat down on the bench across from him. “What did you do about it?” she asked.
He ignored her question, appeared to be deep in thought. “Yes, that was a rough time,” he finally said with a long sigh. “Thank God it’s over.” Then he smiled again. “You got anywhere you have to be for the next couple hours?”
“No, not really,” she said.
Teagardin stood up, took hold of her hand. “Well, then, I think it’s about time you and me take a ride.”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, they were parked on an old farm lane that he’d been checking out ever since his arrival in Coal Creek. It had once led to some hay fields a mile or so off the main road, but the land was now overgrown with Johnson grass and thick brush. His tire tracks were the only ones he’d seen on it for the past two weeks. It was a safe spot to bring someone. When he shut the car off, he said a little prayer, then laid his warm, meaty hand on Lenora’s knee and told her just what she wanted to hear. Hell, every one of them wanted to hear pretty much the same thing anyway, even the ones full of Jesus. He wished that she had resisted a little bit more, but she was easy, just like he had predicted. Even so, as many times as he’d done this, all the time he was peeling her clothes off, he could hear every bird, every insect, every animal that moved in the woods for what seemed like miles. It was always like that the first time with a new one.