INTO THE VOID

CHAPTER 2: MARY

Mary

Mary my Magdalene

No alabaster to break but she’s got the fragrance of a queen

Like alcohol to me, intoxicate me like you are lean

I want another dose, I’m an addict and you are my promethazine

Mary

Mary my Magdalene

I am drawn by the texture of your chocolate skin

Blinded by the shine, blinded by your sheen

You are beautiful and everything in between.

Xaviere was up all night constructing the verses of this poem. Writing it was no problem; he did often read works of Edgar Allan Poe so he was not exactly new to poetry. The trouble was memorizing it. He had memorized The Period Table of Elements in a day when he was in the 7th grade. He knew the lines of Shakespeare’s 18th sonnet by heart and could quote the lines of the Magna Carta word for word. Committing things to memory was not exactly hard for him but this particular poem became a Herculean task.

As he lay down on the mattress at a top bunk of the Camp Crucifix boy’s room, with his eyes shut he whispered the words with much devotion as though he was reciting the Apostles’ Creed. He had the same demeanour but there was nothing holy about his intentions. Just like the prayer, these words were meant to invoke the response of a deity; Mary being the goddess he was trying to appease. He intended to declare his feelings in stanzas and rhymes her to the next day. He took off his glasses and put them in their casing then folded the piece of paper that carried on it the words he had been memorizing for the past hour. He put it under his pillow and proceeded to have the most erotic dream about Mary.

“Oh yes, right there. Yes, yes just like that; please don’t stop”. These words Mary said softly as Xaviere moved his fingers over her left n****e while he simultaneously sucked the areola of the right gently nibbling this elevation on her breast. She lay supine on a bed with him lying chest down on her; her legs curled around his waist. He moved slowly at first then gradually rhythmically increased his pace. With each thrust she let out a soft moan. She had her hands first on his neck, then she ran them down his spine and a point ran her fingers through his hair slightly grabbing hands full of it.

“Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes” she moaned, her breasts shaking up and down to the rhythm of his movement. “Yes yes, yes. I am coming…”

“Great is thy faithfulness; great is thy faithfulness…..morning by morning new mercies I see…” Xaviere was woken up by the sounds of the morning hymn which was accompanied by the old bell that was rung every morning in the camp. He sat upright; his shirt soaked in sweat and his chest heaving heavily. He raised the sheet that he had covered himself with the night before; looking at his shorts apprehensively to confirm whether he ejaculated or not. The moist, sticky fluid he felt on his upper thigh was confirmation that he did. Xaviere sat there for a while, trying to recall the scenes of his dream. He just could not remember the details. All he could see were flashes of Mary’s face and unclad breasts. He had had wet dreams before but why did this one feel odd? Why did he jolt up as though from a nightmare? He sat there and pondered.

“Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me…” He was snapped back to reality by the concluding words of the hymn. He jumped of his bed and ran to the bathroom. Today was a big day and no nightmare was going to hinder him. He brushed his teeth, took his bath, got dressed up and sprayed the cologne Andrew had got him; Tiger-scent: The Essence of The Wild. Today was the day he day he was going tell Mary how he felt about her or horribly fail at an attempt to do so.

Camp Crucifix was a 2-week holiday camp for catholic children meant to teach them how to be better Christians and members of society. Xaviere has come to this camp every year since the 5th grade; now he was in the 10th and this was the last year he was eligible to attend. He had seen Mary around in the previous years. There was nothing really striking about her; she was just a girl with braids and braces. It was not until the last day of the previous year’s camp that they started really talking. She told him about her social anxiety issues and her OCD. He told her about his social awkwardness; there was not really much to tell, it was written all over him. They discovered they had a lot in common and he discovered how voluptuous her body was. They also exchanged contacts. They had been in touch over the months and now she was volunteering in the nursery bed of the camp and so was he.

Xaviere walked briskly through the camp using a finger to intermittently adjust his glasses as they kept slipping off his face. He walked past the Crafts and Creativity group; they were using cardboards and paper to make origami and papier-mâché. He walked through the flower garden that led into the nursery bed. As he entered the room he picked up a watering can and walked further into the room. He could hear a slobbering sound from the other end of the room. He dropped the can down slowly and like those ninjas he read about in Trevanian’s books tiptoed his way towards the sound. He crouched just behind the stack of organic fertilizer sacks that were kept at the middle of the room. He raised his head and squinting behind his glasses, he witnessed the most shocking thing.

She used her left hand to flip back the strands of braids that got in the way as she used her right to cup something she had in her mouth. Her head bopped up and down. This was the source of the slobbering sound that Xaviere heard. There she was; his goddess kneeling before a man. He felt pain, a kind of pain that mere words cannot describe. He got up and just as silently as he came he left the nursery.

Shortly after, Mary saw him sitting alone under a tree. She came and sat beside him.

“Hey Xaviere, what’s up. I have been looking everywhere for you”. She said pronouncing the “X” separately as she always did.

“I, well… I have been around” he responded hesitantly his eyes fixed to the ground. He could not even look at her. There was no way to describe what he was feeling. It was a cocktail of emotions; anger, sadness, and hate. Yes, hate. He hated her for betraying the commitment she did not know that there were suppose to have. He hated her for throwing herself of the pedestal he had placed her and bruising her knees for some guy.

“Well. I just wanted to let you know that we are about to begin transplanting the seedlings to the permanent site. Do you know where the trowels are?

“No, I don’t but you can use a hoe since you act like one a lot.” Xaviere said this time looking her in the eye. His gaze was piercing and unshaken.

“How can you even say that? What are you…. I don’t understand”

“Oh you are choking on your words now? I guess that’s not the only thing that’s been stuck in your throat lately” He said still staring at her. She was speechless; her mouth agape.

“Please keep your mouth closed, I don’t want to have to keep looking at the semen on your braces.”

That was the last straw. Mary got up and hurriedly left, wiping the tears from her eyes.

He never spoke to Mary again. He did feel regret after some days but there were no way to take back those words and no way to reverse the hurt he had caused. This event had scarred him and was the reason he did not have a girlfriend that is excluding his shyness towards females. Now, her he was; adoring another woman but this time it was not some boyish infatuation. This was something different; more concrete. He wondered if this was the “Love” Disney spoke about.

“Do you copy?”

“I hear you loud and clear, over”

“Operation Sandstorm has begun. We have commenced agent activation. We will keep our eyes on the baby bird, over.”

“I want complete monitoring and evaluation. Keep your eyes on the nest and report back to me, over and out.”

Xaviere was on his way to the library where he had taken up a part-time job so he could make some extra cash. He had no idea that he was being watched by someone; someone propped behind a laptop watching live feeds from the surveillance cameras around the university. Who is this person? What was their business with Xaviere?