This is the original Chapter 15 from The Proviso, 1st Edition, linked from the first round of the Group Creativity Experiment, featuring “Litanie des Saints” by Dr. John.
The text isn’t available anywhere else because a) I took down the website it linked to and b) I took the 1st Edition out of print years ago. The Chapter 15 text was mostly unaltered for the 2nd Edition, only it became Chapter 16. I took it out of the 3rd Edition.
IT WAS EARLY morning before Bryce got home and stepped into a very hot shower. He leaned on the wall, took his hard phallus in his hand, and thought about Giselle, that night in front of the bodhisattva, what he’d wanted to do to her then, what he still wanted to do to her.
This is Giselle’s brain child.
What he wanted to do to her mind.
His head back, hot water streamed down his face as he thought about her, her brain, her body—
One gun in each hand. No … hesitation. No remorse … They had to dig the other one out of her hip.
His breath came harder, faster.
She just gave your IQ a blow job and she’s not even here.
He wanted that woman, her mind, her expressive face, her gestures and the humor that radiated from her body like her sweet perfume—hell, the entire gamut of her mood swings—across a dinner table from him, sitting beside him.
Talking to him.
Making him laugh.
Fucking his mind.
She put a gun to his head …
He wanted that woman, her warrior’s soul, her fearlessness, her ferocity—in his bed and underneath him.
In front of him.
On her knees.
Sucking his cock.
The way he’d fantasized the first time he’d seen her.
He sagged against the shower wall, his head low and his chest heaving, his orgasm having left him drained.
This just wasn’t going to work for him anymore. It wasn’t enough. It had never been enough and masturbation definitely didn’t qualify as a component of a chaste lifestyle—
—not that he had any reason to care anymore.
In that entire conversation, Bryce had learned only four things that actually meant anything to him: Giselle had very little experience with men; she had a brilliant mind; she had a dark soul like his, which she displayed like a trophy; and
I’m pretty sure she’s in love with you.
Bryce couldn’t think, could barely move, and only did so enough to slide down the wall and sit on the floor of the shower, knees bent, legs spread, arms crossed over them, head back against the wall. He stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out, then let the cool water sluice over him.
She owns stock in Duracell and has a shelf full of erotica …
He took a deep, shuddering breath and released it on a groan.
… her taste runs to kinky …
He didn’t care about Fen Hilliard. Didn’t care about Knox’s predicament—tragic, but oh well. Didn’t care about Taight’s war or that Bryce had nearly broken the man’s jaw. The only thing about Taight’s political problems he cared about was that Giselle had laid out an ingenious strategy for him. He didn’t care about anything in that whole saga except Giselle—and he didn’t even know why.
One overheard proposition and the glimpse of a nine-millimeter strapped around Lilith’s thigh; one kiss in a parking lot; one rendezvous on an ottoman at an art gallery: Why? Why had those few moments been so profound and why did he keep churning them over in his mind now eighteen months later?
She’s been … waiting for someone to sweep her off her feet … Congratulations.
Bryce snorted.
Giselle had grown up in the church and, according to Knox, still attended regularly. She also knew Bryce was a member of the church, although since he’d undressed her and propositioned her (assaulted her, you mean—no wonder she ran), she’d probably deduced a few truths about his state of mind.
At least he wouldn’t have to explain anything to her, nor she him. The goal of any dating relationship in the church was marriage; one didn’t waste time dating for any other reason, especially not at their ages. Chaste, thus rapid, courtship, then marriage in the temple for eternity. They could both recite the drill by rote, and in that context, her inexperience didn’t surprise him in the least.
Too bad for her, then, if she’d held out for a temple marriage all these years. It didn’t matter how badly Bryce wanted her; if he pursued her and she made that a condition of any kind of relationship, he’d walk away.
Bryce had mentally broken his covenants time and time again since he’d come home from the hospital alone, without his children, without his face. But without his face, he’d had no chance of finding a woman fascinating enough to break them in deed. He didn’t know how to charm, how to seduce, how to do what ordinary looking men knew how to do. He’d never had to learn.
Shit, Bryce, have you ever had to work to get a girl you wanted to go out with you?
No. His face had done all the work for him; he couldn’t remember ever having asked a girl or a woman out in his life. After he’d come home from his mission and gone north to UCLA, he’d had his pick of the most beautiful women in southern California. There was no shortage of beautiful women in Kansas City, either, so the invitations hadn’t stopped just because he wore a wedding band.
Monster.
He could let his wallet do the work for him now, he supposed, but that was no better than paying for sex and that he wouldn’t do.
Eventually, Bryce arose, turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. He roamed naked through his bedroom, nearly oblivious to the cold, and rummaged around for his wallet. Then, with it in hand, he went downstairs to the kitchen. Over the sink, he unfolded the leather and retrieved a small piece of paper that proclaimed him a church member in good standing: His temple recommend, his pass to the Holy of Holies, the House of the Lord, the temple of God. It had expired, but no matter.
He searched for and found an ancient box of matches. He lit one corner of the paper and held it while he watched the flame catch and flare.