In my American southern Gothic portmanteau, i am uninhibited, when it comes to the opposite sex. Not surviving on pornography alone. Listening to voices in my head. My ink becoming my mind’s apothecary, fantasizing debauchery with ex my mother-in-law, Annachelle, as my insanity reaches a boiling point…between her and sweet ice tea. Suffocating in humidity, letting the good time roll. The ceiling fan spun lazily, her scent of “Magnolia Aprodisac,” clinging to balls in my sack. The chifforobe in the corner held her unmentionables as my mind began to wonder. Same old story…my wife had gone to town, riding a crooked pony, but in reality, it was tempting the “Cujo,” in me.
The ceiling fan’s hum was the only sound keeping time with the thrum of my pulse. Annachelle had left her silk robe draped over the chifforobe door, deliberately, I was sure. She was naked and I was to be her Benedictine in the rye. Her labia major winking at me as if asking for a cigarette. She straddle my guilty omens as if a cat licking its chops. My precum bleeding through my jeans. She fucked me well. Her blue veined tits full, sagging, but not enough to lose my eyes as I capitulated to her tongue working in tempo. Now stripped down to my gunny sack and cock, her thighs trembled against mine…eschewing the moment. Clawing at my shoulders as if she was peeling okra or something unholy, but didn’t seem to hinder the blaze in her cunt as her hips rolled. A shadow passed by the window oustide…Just three hours before. I came home from from my nightshift to find my wife, Musette and her mother outside among the Magnolias, dancing arorund a Maypole naked and bonkers. With Tina Turner singing on the sterio, “Proud Mary
THE NEXT MORNING, the humidity clung thicker than Annachelle’s perfume, and I woke with her thigh still pressed against mine, her breath sour with last night’s bourbon. The ceiling fan groaned like a dying preacher, and outside, the magnolias drooped under the weight of their own blossoms. That’s when I remembered how it started, not with the dancing, not with the whiskey, but with a single sentence whispered under a harvest moon: “You ever think about how close blood can get before it stops feeling like sin?”
Musette was in the kitchen of the reliquary, with the aroma of the coffee beans awakening my senses. Her clitoris unraveling, humming “Amazing Grace,” as I entered. Wearing my kit on, a cop fcr the city of Savannah, cheek-kissing Musette. Wed to her in unholy infatumony. Followed by the Mother Superior Annachelle, fresh from her shower wearing a long black robe and wimple
Musette didn’t turn when I entered. She knew I was there. The way a prey animal knows the shadow of the hawk. ”Mother,” she said, her voice syrupy as the grits she was stirring, ”you slept well.” I let the silence stretch, let the ceiling fan chop at the thick air. My hand drifted to the collar of my robe, loosening it just enough to show the sweat-slick hollow of my throat.
”Your husband,” I said, each word deliberate, ”has a talented mouth.” Musette’s humming faltered. Her fingers pressed deeper, her hips rolling against the counter’s edge. A low, breathy sound escaped her throat. ”I know,” she whispered. ”That’s why I married him.”
I crossed the linoleum floor, that same cracked linoleum I’d scrubbed a thousand times, that had witnessed a thousand sins, until I stood behind her, close enough to feel the heat radiating from her bare back. Close enough to smell him on her, too. The mingling of our scents in this kitchen, this little chapel of perdition.
”You watched,” I said, my mouth inches from her ear. ”You watched me take his cock into my mouth. You watched him bury his face between my legs like a man dying of thirst.” ”Yes.” She didn’t stop touching herself. ”I watched. And I came so hard I nearly passed out.”
My laugh was a low, guttural thing, the sound of a predator amused by its cub’s audacity. I reached around her, my hand covering hers, guiding her fingers, faster, harder, deeper. Her breath hitched. The spoon clattered against the pot. ”Did you think,” I murmured, my lips brushing the shell of her ear, ”that I would stop with one night?”
”No.”
”Did you think I’d be satisfied with sharing?” Her hand trembled under mine. The humming had stopped, replaced by ragged gasps. The kitchen filled with the scent of burnt grits and sex and that heavy magnolia perfume I’d drenched myself , the one I knew drove him mad.
”You want him,” Musette breathed. It wasn’t a question.
I bit her earlobe, hard enough to draw a sharp cry. ”I want to take him apart piece by piece. I want to hollow him out and fill him with me. I want him to wake up in the middle of the night with my name on his lips, not knowing if he’s dreaming or drowning.”
”And me?” Her voice cracked, raw with want. I pulled back, spinning her to face me. The apron was soaked through, clinging to the curves of her breasts, the hard peaks of her nipples. Her eyes were glassy, pupils blown wide, her lips parted like she was waiting for a sacrament.
”You,” I said, gripping her chin, ”will watch. You’ll taste. You’ll touch yourself until your fingers cramp and your cunt is raw. And when I’m done with him, when I’ve licked every drop of sanity from his bones, you’ll crawl to me and thank me for letting you witness the destruction.”
Her legs buckled. I caught her, pulling her against my body, the damp wool of my robe soaking into her skin. My hand found hers again, still slick, and I pushed her fingers back between her thighs. ”Keep going,” I ordered. ”Don’t stop until I tell you.”
Outside, the magnolia leaves stirred in the heavy air. Somewhere, a screen door slammed. The cop, my cop, was coming back from his morning patrol, his boots heavy on the porch steps. I could already taste the bourbon on his breath, the fear and desire mingling behind his eyes. I slid my hand into my robe, finding my own wetness, imagining the moment he would walk through that door and see us: his wife, dripping and obedient, and her mother, still wearing the wimple like a crown, my thighs glistening with the evidence of our shared sin.
The ceiling fan groaned. The humidity pressed down like a hand on a throat.
And I smiled.
”Welcome home, Adagio,” I whispered to the empty air.
The door swung open.
