We Are Here to Hurt Each Other

by Paula D. Ashe

What could be the kindling to ignite their spirits? Reason was worthless; most of them were slaves to drink and even fouler vices while the others were slack-jawed simpletons. Their lives were without structure or order, chaos was the frothing sea they swam in. Agitated, Jacqueline turns over and stuffs her hands beneath her pillow. As far as she can understand, the lower classes are without fear; of arrest, of disease, of death, of God. What then, of the Devil? She’d seen even the most villainous blackguards shudder in rapt fascination at lurid showhouse retellings of Goethe’s Faust. The deacon shifts beside her in his sleep and like a mischievous child caught reading by moonlight, she freezes. Her husband stills with an outstretched arm resting across her narrow hip. What of the Devil, indeed. On those few occasions when she and her Deacon were required to socialize with the other members of the diaconate, she met many men who wore thin robes of holiness, fabric easily singed by hellish depravities. Their cloth was merely costume. Jacqueline had been born to a family of actors and entertainers. Much of her love of the Church was the result of exchanging one sort of stage for another. If one could play at sanctity, could one not also play at villainy? Jacqueline eases into her husband’s somnolent embrace. Even then, his touch sends a trill of pleasure up her spine. She will have him again.