Chapter 8: Morning Devotion
Dawn was a gray suggestion at the window when the door opened again.
Marcia hadn’t slept. She had lain coiled like a spring, every nerve screaming, the taste still haunting the back of her throat. She had scrubbed her stomach raw with a wet washcloth in the dark, but the smell seemed baked into her skin. When the silhouette appeared in the doorway, she didn’t startle. She just watched, her heart a dull, dead weight in her chest.
Sarah padded in on bare feet. She was wearing one of Sidney’s old t-shirts, the hem hitting mid-thigh. Her hair was sleep-tousled, her face soft in the weak light. She looked like a sleepy angel. She stopped beside the bed and looked down at Marcia.
“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” Her voice was a morning rasp.
Marcia said nothing. Her eyes tracked Sarah’s movements. Sarah pulled the neck of the t-shirt to the side. In the gloom, Marcia could see the pale curve of her shoulder, the top of her breast. There was a slick, pearlescent streak gleaming against her skin.
Sarah gave a small, self-deprecating smile. “He’s… insatiable this morning. Must be the clean country air.” She let the shirt fall back, then, with a quiet deliberation, she pulled the soft cotton garment over her head in one smooth motion.
The dawn light bled into the room, painting Sarah in shades of silver and dove gray. Her body was a study in youthful curves. And on her, more vivid than any tattoo, were the streaks. Smears of him, drying shiny across the swell of her breasts, a more concentrated splash just above her navel.
Sarah knelt on the edge of the mattress. The springs creaked. She didn’t speak. She simply took Marcia’s face in her cool hands, her thumbs stroking the hollows of Marcia’s cheeks. Her touch was almost clinical. Then she guided her.
Marcia’s face was pressed into the soft, warm valley between Sarah’s breasts. The smell was immediate, fresher now, less metallic, more like the sea. Sarah’s skin was silky, heated from sleep. Marcia’s nose was flattened against her sternum. Her lips were pressed to damp, salty skin.
Sarah held her there, one hand cradling the back of her head. She leaned down, her voice a hum against Marcia’s brow. “He begged me to tell you,” she whispered, and her words vibrated through Marcia’s skull. “He said, ‘Tell her how good she’d feel. Tell her how tight and warm she’d feel around my cock.’”
A sound escaped Marcia then—a muffled, animal whimper against Sarah’s skin. Her body went rigid. Her hands, trapped at her sides, clenched the sheets. Her mind was a riot of no. But her tongue, as if divorced from all will, darted out. A tiny, quick flick. It tasted like dawn and sin.
Sarah shuddered, a full-body tremor. Her grip tightened. “That’s it,” she breathed, her voice losing its casual morning tone, deepening into something rougher. “You want it. You want to know.” She shifted, dragging her skin across Marcia’s mouth, coating her lips. “He’s in the shower. Singing. He has no idea.”
Finally, she released her. Marcia fell back onto the pillow, gasping, her mouth wet and open. Sarah looked down at her, her own breathing slightly quickened. The evidence was smeared across Marcia’s face now, a glistening mark of fealty.
From the floor, Sarah picked up a cup. Another innocuous plastic bathroom cup. It was half-full. She held it out to Marcia.
Wordlessly, Marcia took it. Her hands shook so badly the liquid sloshed, threatening to spill over the rim. She looked into the cup. The fluid was opaque, still holding the faint warmth of his body.
She didn’t hesitate. She brought it to her lips and tipped her head back. She drank it down in three large, consecutive gulps. It was thicker than milk, warmer, with a taste that was becoming grimly familiar—a taste she was starting to crave on some cellular level. She swallowed, her throat working. She drained the last drop, then ran her tongue along the inside of the cup, scavenging.
Sarah watched, her blue eyes wide and fascinated. When Marcia lowered the empty cup, panting slightly, Sarah let out a low, incredulous laugh. It wasn’t mocking. It was amazed. “Wow,” she said softly. She took the cup from Marcia’s limp fingers and tossed it toward the wastebasket. It missed, clattering on the floor.
She slid off the bed and pulled the t-shirt back on, the cotton now hiding the map of their transgression. She looked almost normal again. Bubbly Sarah. The sweet girlfriend.
“We’re going into town later for supplies,” she said, her voice returning to its light, conversational tone. “Sidney wants to fix that wobbly step on the porch. I told him you make the best blueberry pancakes. He perked right up.” She leaned over and, with a startling normalcy, kissed Marcia on the forehead. Her lips were dry and chaste. “Sleep if you can. You look like you need it.”
She left, closing the door softly behind her.
Marcia stared at the ceiling. The taste in her mouth was no longer a violation. It was a fact. A component of her, like blood or bile. She could hear the distant rush of the shower stopping. Sidney’ off-key whistling echoed down the hall.
She pulled the covers up to her chin. The sheets smelled of her lavender laundry detergent, and underneath, the faint, unmistakable musk of him. Of them. A new, terrifying thought blossomed, cold and clear: this wasn’t something being done to her anymore.
She had drank it. Willingly. Hungrily.
She closed her eyes. She didn’t see her husband’s face. She didn’t see a memory of her son as a boy. She saw the empty plastic cup on the floor, lying on its side in a strip of now-golden morning light. She saw Sarah’s knowing smile. And she felt, beneath the shame, a coiling, desperate anticipation for what the next visit might bring.