Saving Elijah

sort of twisted ceremony, a compulsion created because his father molested him or because he had too little serotonin in his brain.
    I opened the door and stepped out just before he got to it. Now we were both standing up, facing each other next to the car. He looked down at me. Good God. He put his hand under my chin, lifted my head so I would look up into his face.
    "You are quite beautiful, Dinah," he said.
    Well, come on, Peter, beautiful is going just a little far, don't you think?
    But just like that, he wrapped his arms around me and put his mouth to mine, and we were kissing. His lips were warm and soft and urgent, and his extraordinary hands, his graceful fingers, touched me gently, and I thought: Ooooh, this is going to be good.
    I had a sense of the power and mass of his body as he pressed himself against me, pulled me even closer with arms that felt solid and strong. I had never been embraced by so big a man, and I wanted it to feel safe. But nothing would ever feel safe.
    He stopped kissing me, then took a step back. "You seem tense, Dinah."
    "You're not tense?" I managed to say. "Not even a little?"
    "Not even a little," he said. He was smiling, tiny wry lines fanning out from the edges of his eyes.
    "Pretty sure of yourself, huh?" I raised an eyebrow, tried to be cool. Well, he had less to lose than I, he wasn't married. What did I have to lose, with Sam out screwing a young thing?
    "Not all that sure of myself," he said. "But hopeful. Very hopeful."

    *    *    *

    We made love in a huge bed with a carved wooden headboard and canopy, English colonial style. His bedroom, like the rest of the house, was decorated to the nines and snazzy, and the bed was completely draped in a gauzy fabric that reminded me of mosquito netting, as if we were in the African bush. It created the intended sensual effect, though, and the impression of being in a world apart. Peter was a skillful lover, attentive, generous, and uninhibited. He said all the right things, and afterward, he fell asleep.
    I tried to make myself doze, but I heard a sizzling sound and I saw the brightness through the gauze and I heard its voice.
    "Well, well, well, aren't we the little whore?"
    I sat up, trying to cover myself with the sheet. But I was naked and ashamed and there was no getting away now. The demon possessed me then, came at me and into me like ice sluicing through a warm stream, and I knew then that it wanted me all for itself and that it would allow no one else to have me, not my husband, not even a lover.
    I stayed very still as it entered me again, as its vapor filled every cavity of my body, adhering to my organs and the inside of my skin. Very still as it tried to warm itself up in my flesh, sucked the life from my life in the process of possession. My own obliteration.
    It celebrated with my body, and I was lost. Whirling, whirling, dancing—exhausting.

twenty-six
    The summer evening was a warm one, and when I got home Sam and Alex and Kate were in the pool. Elijah was standing at the pool steps, adorable in his sky-blue swim trunks, adamant in his refusal to budge from the small wood deck. The dog was on its haunches beside him, as if to back him up.
    The demon had let me go again, or left me, I wasn't sure which it was. How was I going to clean myself? No amount of washing could clean away this defilement.
    "Come on, Elijah," Sam said as I approached the pool from the driveway. "I'll hold you. You know I won't let you go."
    I got to the gate in time to see a determined, self-possessed Elijah cross his arms over his chest, lift his chin, and shake his head.
    Sam looked over at me and grinned. "Hope springs eternal."
    Just seeing Sam after what I'd done left me reeling. I stood outside the fence, keeping my distance. The evening air was fragrant with the scent of English roses. Pink Ruffles. This year I had yet to prune, fertilize, water, spray, or deadhead. Yet the garden had bloomed anyway, gloriously, as if in defiance of my neglect. Alex splashed water toward Elijah. "Come on, little guy."
    Elijah moved back quickly and wiped off his leg, then ran over to me at the fence. I bent down to hug him.
    "Come on, it's fun!" Kate's voice rang out with confidence and optimism. She'd announced a few days ago that boys were really okay, if you didn't set the same standards for them as for girls. A good thing, too, because she was wearing a bikini that was going to attract them like flies.
    Elijah rested his head against my