THE SEX REBEL OF JESUSLAND, chapter 145

145. HOME.

When the trucks pulled into Ezra’s compound, Eve woke up. Adam was grateful that she had slept throughout the journey home, thereby missing the flight over the grim sight of the Wound of Washington and the drunken replaying of her rescue in the truck. He had cradled her head in his lap all the while, torn between watching the video, drinking, and sharing banter with the others, while Eve’s drawn, haggard, ten-year-older face lay in his lap like some kind of death-mask of his former beloved. She had escaped execution, but she still looked dead. They had done their best to kill her in jail before executing her.

As he looked at her, he felt he had contributed to her aging. All that sex he had had in her absence. The V-doll. Coming close with Ruth. Scarlet. How quickly he had fallen into his old ways. Led astray by his friendship with the devil, Ezra. He had betrayed Eve while she was suffering through her trial. Why? Was she a chain around his desires, that when slipped off, set him free to be what he really was, a heartless sex predator? What kind of a man was he? What was the real test of his manhood – his daring in helping to rescue Eve, or his weakness in subjecting females to his unbridled desire the moment she was out of the picture?

How could he say that he loved Eve when he couldn’t be faithful to her when she was suffering? Why did he not find solace where others found it – in the Bible, in the practice of his faith, in going to church, in prayer? Why had it been so easy for Ezra to lead him astray? Was he more faithful to Ezra’s view of what a man was than Eve’s view of what a man was? What did Eve expect of him? He didn’t know if she loved him – she had never said. But he knew he was not worthy of her love, that if she did not love him, she had every right not to.

“Can you walk?” he asked Eve.

She looked at him dumbly, silently, and he lifted her in his arms. She put his arms around his neck and nestled her head against his shoulder.

“What do you want to do, Eve? Are you hungry? Do you want to sleep?”

“I want some wine,” she said. “And some cheese. And some cookies.”

“I’ll get you all that.”

He sat her on a couch in his quarters. Ezra came in and he felt Eve flinch.

“It was all Ezra’s doing,” said Adam. “His money. His weapons, his trucks, his ultralights, his warriors.”

“Well, thank you, both of you.” She smiled. It was her first smile.

“Glad to have you back, Eve,” said Ezra. “You and me, we’ve traveled a rocky road. I know I’ve been a shit once too often, and I’m sorry.”

“What’s past is past,” said Eve. “You’re not my idea of a perfect man, Ezra, but you have your moments. You came through for me in the end. I’ve had time to think. I’m closing the door on many things. I’m wiping the slate clean for a new life.”

“Thank you, Eve,” said Ezra. “I guess I’ll always be a work in progress. Listen, are you going to take a nap?”

“I’m going to have some wine and cheese and cookies, and then I think I’ll have a nap, yes.”

“How do you feel?”

“Tired, but not weak. I feel strangely stronger than ever before.”

“We think you look pretty beat up.” Adam hated it when Ezra presumed to speak for him by saying “we” like that.

“They weren’t very nice to me,” said Eve. “But I did flexing exercises in my cell. A healthy body keeps the mind healthy.” She smiled to herself. Flexing exercises? It would be more truthful to call them masturbation sessions. She looked at the two men, these two proud men of Jesusland, and was buoyed to find herself still secure in her sexuality. She saw something new about these men: their inexperience. They had not been to the places she had been. They had not had their faith tested to the point where all the props fell away – friends, society, work, even God – so that the only thing that remained was the faith, or lack of it, in yourself. She wondered how they would stand up in such circumstances. She saw something else: their insignificance. Which in a way, included her own. We’re all currents in the greater electricity of life that crackles on swimmingly, with or without the benefit of our little circuitry.

“Well, I tell you what I’ll do,” said Ezra. “I’m going to cook a fabulous meal for you and Adam. If you wake up rested and hungry, you’ll get a great meal like you haven’t had since your sojourn in the arms of the law.”

“That’s Jesus sweet of you, Ezra,” said Eve, and now Adam was a little upset because he had wanted her to himself for the whole evening.

“By the way, Adam, don’t you have your hour interview with Jeremiah Luther scheduled for tomorrow?” asked Ezra.

“Yes, I do, absolutely.”

“It might not happen. Something odd has happened. We can’t find Jeremiah. Nobody knows where he is. The man got lost somewhere.”

Adam didn’t much care.

“Maybe his father called him back to heaven,” he said, and Ezra laughed. Adam turned to Eve to see how she reacted to his quip. But she was fast asleep, a sweet sliver of drool slinking out between half-open lips.