"The Golden Rule"

There were three lines handwritten into the front of the little Bible, in pencil:

dew hon 2 udders
asp yew wood half
Dem due hunter U

Susan smiled to herself—she knew he thought himself clever. That did nothing for her faith, however, and she pulled off her choir robe lost in the thought. The bedroom's sanctuary breathed around her without a soul.

Weeks ago, she and Bryan had escaped the eyes of the world long enough to answer a year's worth of questioning; and in that small, dark window Susan found what the book in her hands had never offered: an identity entirely her own.

"Dah-da, dah-da, dah-da... crimson and clover..." she whispered tunefully as she folded the robe, remembering the song that greeted them when the car started again. Bryan had passed trembling fingers through her long, red hair, and crowned her beautiful.

But that was afterward. Half an hour before, he had been tentative and tacit. Her face had been aglow with the eldritch light of the moon, and he spoke of his disbeliefs: that they were here, now, in such intimate circumstances, in such violation of the laws of their lives.

"You're lucky," she'd replied, striking a tone that had never before left her lips. It took him aback, she remembered, and a sudden doubt had crossed his eyes.

Susan closed the dresser drawer, completely forgetting to stow the robe inside; the satiny garment lay folded atop it, careless as an abandoned water glass, leaving its own sort of ring in the surface of the day. She sighed, leaning against the wall, and stared into the thick, vague images of her memory.

Vague, but volatile.

Vague, but vital--things one dares not let go.

"You are not taking me home until I'm good and ready," she had breathed into his ear, and already condensation had blotted the moonlight. Bryan had started to move away from her then, but Susan would have none of it, grappling with him instead, long enough for resistance to weaken, for resolve to fade. Long enough, she thought, to falter and fall.

Just then, a knock at the door pulled her out of her reverie; Susan's mother stuck her head into the room. The small crucifix hanging above the door rattled slightly, as it always did.

"Honey? Are you not dressed yet? We're having supper in about five minutes. Do you want some?"

"Um, sure. I'll be down in a few."

"I think your jeans are in the dryer, do you need me to bring you a pair?"

"No, I'm just going to wear these," she replied, grabbing a rumpled pair of flannel pants from the bedside.

"Okay.”

The door clicked shut, and the new sense of self—wary as a kitten—crept back into Susan’s room. It carried in its mouth the words once wicked to her, now spoken so easily and without any genuine shame. It rubbed against her, the first inklings of instinct saying this is my territory, this body is mine. She thought of Bryan’s skin, and the unseen muscles moving beneath it all.

“…as I would have you do unto me,” she whispered, drifting to earth, and prayed her mother would not look in a second time.