The Riches of Mercy (38 page)

"Please don't stop me," she said.

"Who's stopping you?" Natalie touched her temple. "We're just beginning."

Meredith lifted her head and met Natalie's intense, passionate gaze. "Our whole loves."

Joy came to Natalie's face. "Our whole lives."

Meredith lowered her mouth. She resisted consuming Natalie with one taste, to give instead of take, to love. She wanted to love with more than with her tongue. Her heart ached. Her loins ached.

Natalie's grip tightened in her hair, so deliciously Meredith could barely catch the warning.

"We have time," Natalie said.

But Meredith had not tasted this in so long. She traveled along folds, sought heat. Found places to made Natalie scream and let go. Or hold on tighter. She remembered. Prison was a woman's sea of offers, of loneliness and lust. And pictures of Natalie in her Bible.

"I need you," she said, breathing in, kissing Natalie's thighs.

"I need you, too."

An affirmation. The frenzy receded. Meredith settled into the moment. She lapped, instead of strafed. Natalie writhed underneath her.

Meredith circled once more around Natalie's clit, and then moved lower to the source. She circled again, tentative, until Natalie whimpered.

"Please."

Meredith slipped inside, pressing with her tongue, with her whole face, and she touched the pulse with her fingertip. Natalie's hips rose. She froze and Meredith felt only what moved inside. Blood rushing, muscles vibrating.

"Oh God," Natalie cried, shuddering against Meredith.

Only when she twisted away, panting, limp, did Meredith let her go.

"That felt so good. I haven't felt that way in a long time."

Meredith rested her chin on Natalie's stomach, gazing at her with wide eyes.

Natalie blushed. "Come here."

Meredith slid up Natalie's body, stopping to kiss each breast, and then her heart. Natalie caught her in a hug and they rolled onto their sides.

"Really?" Meredith asked.

"Geez, Meredith. I got two kids. All I want to do is go to sleep."

Meredith grinned.

Natalie propped herself up on an elbow. "You mean you, uh."

"Sometimes. Usually, um, after you visit."

Natalie brushed hair from Meredith's face, and then leaned in to kiss her, tasting herself, nuzzling Meredith's cheeks until Meredith giggled and pushed her away.

"I love you," Natalie said.

"I love you, too."

Meredith was restless. After making love to Natalie, what she'd obsessed about, and almost feared for so long, the goal achieved, other things began to slip into her mind. Stir her body. She had focused on one thing, and had let that obliterate everything else. But now Natalie was tracing her arm and she squirmed.

Natalie's touch left her. "Are you--"

"Earlier, um."

Natalie grinned. "I remember earlier."

"You said, 'Oh God,' when you, uh."

"Came like an earthquake?"

"Oh, was that what it was like?"

Natalie reached for Meredith's hand. "It was amazing," Natalie said.

"But when you--was that, you know, just a saying? Or were you--"

"It was definitely a prayer. From my lips to His ears."

Meredith rolled onto her back.

Natalie tugged on her hand. When Meredith didn't respond, she rolled onto Meredith, half-covering her torso, and met her eyes.

"It's just--" Meredith said.

"Should I?"

"Stay. I want you. I want." Meredith's hands settled onto Natalie's shoulders.

"Meredith. Tell me what's going on?"

Meredith shook her head, closing her eyes. She'd had to ask. She'd had to know the answer. But she didn't know what to do with it. She didn't talk about this in her letters, not about God, not about what Natalie was doing. She realized, with Natalie's dark eyes above her, curious and open, Natalie had tried.

"Dear Merry, the sermon today..."

"Dear Merry, Angel took the boys to Sunday school..."

"Dear Merry, I read this passage and..."

"Oh, God," Meredith said.

"That was rhetorical."

"I just want to be with you. Only with you." Meredith opened her eyes in time to see Natalie's narrow. "I talk about this stuff in group therapy, in regular therapy, in the chapel, in the yard. I can't talk about it with you."

"But you--"

"I was just surprised."

"You make me happy." Natalie kissed her neck. "And He's a part of you."

"He makes you happy?"

"The whole package." Natalie kissed along Meredith's collarbone. When she tried to move lower, Meredith tugged her back, eye-to-eye.

"I need you here," Meredith said.

"Like this?"

Natalie slid her hand between them, finding Meredith, who spread her legs wider, linking her ankles around Natalie's calves, locking her in and moving with her, body against body like they'd been in this rhythm their whole lives, and not only a few times.

"Yes," Meredith said.

"You like this?"

A hopeful expression spread across Meredith's face. "Maybe a little more."

Natalie pushed two fingers into Meredith. "Like this?"

"Like that. Natalie." Meredith urged her closer. She grabbed Natalie's hips, rocking in tandem, meeting each thrust of Natalie's fingers. "I want you inside me," she said. She wanted Natalie to block out the rest of the world.

Natalie was moving too fast, her fingers were too hard, overwhelming Meredith, who could only jerk against her, trying to keep up, losing the battle of the pace. "Natalie," she said, a plea, but she was being swept away, being separated from her sense of control, and then her fears, and then her entire body.

She met Natalie's eyes but the gaze broke as Natalie bent to kiss her, consuming her breath just like the rest of her body and Meredith fell apart beneath her and Natalie--Natalie remembered--sinking down on Meredith just as Meredith came, adding weight, a sense of being crushed, so she could crest, and cry out, and be filled one more time. Everything became Natalie.

She coughed, almost a choked sound, and Natalie eased up, just enough for her to breathe. She could see Natalie's face again. She wet her lips. "Yes. Just like that."

"You're so easy."

Meredith hugged her close and then let her go.

Natalie rolled onto her back. "When do we do that again?"

"Having sex with you for twelve hours straight is not going to solve any of our problems," Meredith said.

"What problems?"

#

Natalie stumbled out onto the porch, wrapped in a robe. Inside, with the sun streaming in through the windows, it was almost warm enough for the air conditioner. Outside, there were hints of fall's arrival. The air was crisp. The lake shimmered, inviting her closer.

Natalie's leg complained, missing the warmth. Limping to the stairs to retrieve something from her car caused a greater protest and she hesitated, hand on the banister. If it was just the leg, she wouldn't care. But it was her side--the pain moving through her reconstructed hip, radiating up her ribcage. Her whole life, they'd told her. This would be her whole life.

She turned away from the stairs and hobbled back inside. Meredith still slept. Curled up in the comforter, half in Natalie's vacated space already, seeking warmth, she appeared young and at peace. This girl, who was free now, could have anything.

"Hi, I'm unemployed," Natalie muttered as she went to her purse. "And I can't walk. And I'm over thirty. My mother told me that means I'll never get married. And I hate kids." She swallowed two Advil, considered, swallowed a third. She had a big day ahead of her. Her heating pad, her comfortable couch-- they were far away.

She kept the pills with her. Percocet, even, if she didn't want to drive, or move, and just lie there in the bliss of being pain-free.

Like Meredith was doing now, stirring, no taint of prison on her, washed away by making love, by walking outside.

Natalie moved closer.

"Hi," Meredith said.

Her smile was so radiant Natalie leaned down to kiss her. A hand clamped down on her arm and pulled. Heart pounding, leg aching, she settled onto Meredith, lifting only high enough to see her face.

"Hi."

Meredith's hands moved to her hair, threading, drawing her into a hungry kiss. Natalie responded as Meredith's leg rose between hers, bending at the knee, bringing Natalie closer by virtue of desire quickly turning to desperation.

"God," Natalie said. "You're gorgeous."

"I need you." Meredith scrambled for Natalie's hand, yanking it between their bodies.

"Wrong hand." Pain radiated through her bad side.

Meredith let her go, faintly grinning, eyes closed. Natalie righted herself, sliding her hand to Meredith's center, finding her wet.

"What do you need?" Natalie asked.

"I need you. Inside me. Take me." Meredith's eyes stayed closed, but she babbled, searching for the phase to make Natalie's fingers thrust into her, strong and sure. "Natalie."

Natalie rocked her hips, leveraging herself against Meredith, seeking to go deeper. Her own urges brought her against Meredith's leg, seeking relief, but she couldn't be bothered to adjust the awkward angle. All her focus was on Meredith. Feeling Meredith's nails dig into her arm in response.

"More," she said. Meredith thrust up to meet her.

"Don't stop," Meredith said in return, moving with her, stroke for stroke, moan for moan. "Don't ever stop."

#

At home again, but not feeling so empty, Natalie mulled how to update her Facebook status. Sometimes this took hours of her day. She swapped stories and videos with her former co-workers, casual acquaintances, envious of their work, wishing she could give advice on their briefs, but she was rarely asked. She was an outsider and was treated like one. A diversion.

Patrick would only send her pictures of the kids. He wouldn't talk about the law.

Clarice, though, would ask her to proof things, and send her emails, and asked her to the movies, though they never hung out when Natalie was in Charlotte.

"It's like you're in prison, not the other girl," Clarice wrote. "I have her on Google alerts."

Natalie's friend Melanie, whom she met at the art museum on a lunch break two years ago, had started having lunch with Clarice once a month after Natalie quit her job. To consult on Meredith's case, at first. Now they were planning a dinner party.

"Bring your kids," Melanie wrote.

Impossible.

Natalie wrote as her status update, "Things are getting better."

# #

Chapter Forty-Three

"Dear, Merry," Angel wrote. "I'm sorry my letter is late. I've been writing it between shifts, on paper in my locker, or in my glove compartment, or at home, but it's hardest there. The noise, you know. I let the kids draw you a picture. It's included. If you were here, querida, this would be like reading my blog."

Meredith hung the drawing on her wall, a mass of purple scribble and orange streaks. There were four other pieces of paper enclosed, and one post card of the state capitol. In the back, everyone in Angel's family signed in different colors. She hung the post card up, too, signatures forward.

She started with the piece of paper stained with coffee.

"There's a new patient on your ward no one likes. Mr. Cranston. Your neighbor's father. She comes sometimes. Once she even brought your boys and let us play with them while she talked to her father. They don't get along. He doesn't get along with anyone. He needs you, Merry. They're going to take part of his liver out. But it won’t be enough."

She flipped the paper over and found numbers for a football pool, and Angel's annotation. "I lost. Gambling is a sin, si? And cursing is on the rise. It's Mr. Cranston's fault, but still, it's on the rise. We're the animals, Merry. Not you. It's like
Othello
.

"We don't talk about you much at the hospital, even though your picture is still there. We don't want to jinx anything. If we don't fill your absence ourselves, maybe you'll come back and do it."

She folded the paper and took a deep breath. Most people were at Sunday morning services while she sat on the picnic table. There were perks to being at services. There were fewer perks to sitting outside on a chilly morning. But Robin was out here, jogging from fence to fence and back again. Meredith counted her steps.

Robin noticed her. "Want to join me?"

Fifty-six steps, from fence to fence. Meredith shook her head. "I'm not big into that, I have to say."

"Not big into exercising?"

"Yeah."

"And not big into eating."

"Depends on what they're serving."

"Tell me about it." Robin hovered beside the bench, standing. She wouldn't sit down unless invited. Personal space was all they had left in prison. "And you're not into church."

"Well, not this church." Meredith patted the bench.

Robin sat. She was out of breath.

"You either?"

"The only God I worship is money."

"Seems more like Satan."

Robin gazed at her, wide-eyed.

"I mean, it got you here, didn't it?"

Robin pursed her lips. "What got me here... It's bullshit. It's all bullshit. Maybe it's Satanic bullshit. How would I know?"

Meredith shuffled her papers.

"Good letter?"

"They're all good letters."

"Even the painful ones?"

"Especially the painful ones."

Robin nodded. "I don't get letters. Husband calls once a week but I can't hold onto him with my hands."

"This one's from a co-worker. He's telling me about an obnoxious patient at the hospital. Violating HIPAA, I guess. The patient's related to my neighbor."

"You're from a small town, right?"

"Yeah."

"So everyone knows everyone."

"Like you wouldn't believe. Well, like prison, actually."

"I wouldn't. I don't even know my neighbor. Much less the relatives. Or the medical status."

"The worst part of being here. Being separated from everything I know. From everyone."

"Yeah. I feel the same way. I want to go back to doing what I was doing and I can't."

Meredith nodded.