Chapter 4: Reassigned

Some days, David Blake enjoyed the daily railroad trip from Chicago. He could read with breaks looking out the window at passing scenery. This was not one of those days. His seatmate knew the men sitting across from David, and the chatter was too frequent to allow him to really get into his book.

For that matter, the book was a long, slow, slog at the best of times. He’d half-written a book on Paul’s teaching about marriage before he’d begun being counseled for his own upcoming marriage. Reverend Campbell’s advice, not surprising in itself, piqued his curiosity. Where had the parts of Christian teaching about marriage that postdated Paul come from?

From that single question, the book he would call Christian Marriage, Evolution of an Ideal had grown like Topsy. (At least he would call it that if he could find a publisher. David Blake’s opinion on Paul was one thing; he had a PhD in New Testament studies and taught the Epistles at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. David Blake’s opinion on church history wasn’t worth shit, and he knew that; he had no credentials in church history.) The Middle Ages had been fascinating, as had been the Reformation. Now he was on the nineteenth century, and the sources proliferated as their tendentiousness grew even more rapidly. One thing you could say for the distant past: enough sources had been lost that you could really get on top of what was left.

So he was disgruntled about the long-term project that had taken him two years now; he was disgruntled by his fellow passengers; he was disgruntled with the rain which soaked him while when he left the train to find his car in the parking lot.

When he got in the car and started the cassette he’d recorded of some psalms, the tape broke. This wasn’t the first time, and it was no great disaster. His wife, Jen, helped him study the Old Testament several times a week. The recordings of the Psalms were simply supplementary. He made the recordings himself and played them on his way to and from the station. When he figured that he knew those Psalms, he reused the tape. It shouldn’t have disturbed him, but it was the last straw.

When he got home, Jen greeted him with: “Guess where we’ll be next year?”

The way his day had been going, it had to be: “Moline?”

“Close. A three-point charge on the Mississippi south of Moline.” From her face, this was a joke. “However, Aldersgate is likelier.”

“Aldersgate?” If that was what he thought she meant, his whole day had changed. “In Evanston?”

“In Evanston. The one in London is taken.”

“Darling. You’re so kind to me.” And she was. He’d been worrying about himself; both his worry about the book and the book itself had been self-indulgent. And she’d been worrying about providing him with an easy commute. Commute? Hell! Aldersgate UMC was an easy walk from his office on campus. He didn’t know where the parsonage was, didn’t even know whether they had a parsonage, but getting there couldn’t be considered a commute.

His kiss, which started out expressing his gratitude, quickly turned into something much earthier. When they broke, she reminded him, “It isn’t decided yet, you know.” She added, “I’ll meet their Staff-Parish Committee two weeks from Thursday.”

After dinner, she left for a meeting of the Finance Committee. Having been pastor of a local church once himself, he thought the inclusion of the pastor in every business meeting was simultaneously an imposition and a temptation. But Jen was leaving Independence soon enough; there was no reason to suggest any change in structure.

While the front of his mind was supervising his cleaning up the dining room and kitchen, the back was playing with the structure of his book. The problem was that there had been an incredible assortment of twists and turns over the twenty centuries. A little of that had remained; a lot had disappeared. If he reported only what had remained, the book would give the impression of a triumphal progression of ideas. If he reported all the quirks, the book would contain enough words for several volumes of an encyclopedia.

Maybe he could alternate: ‘In this period, here are the competitive doctrines; in the next period, there were as many competitive doctrines, but these three remained when the others were forgotten.’ Well, whatever he would do, he needed to get on top of the material. And he needed a sound body to hold his decreasingly sound mind. Finished in the kitchen, he went upstairs to change into a track suit before settling down on his exercycle to pedal away with the book held open on a board in front of him. Maybe Jen’s good news had changed his mood, maybe it was being able to pedal faster when the book got too smarmy, he made better progress than he had on the train.

“Love you,” Jen said some time later. The meeting over already? Must be; he had got more than half-way through the book.

“Love you,” he answered. And he wanted her, too. The book he’d been reading had involved sex. It hadn’t quite mentioned it; but all the euphemisms, all the cautions against imposing too many male desires on the pure female, had evoked pictures in his mind of the desirous female who shared his bed. He pushed himself to get to the end of the chapter.

She was in bed waiting for him. He hung the track suit in the closet and joined her. Conscious that he needed to give them a chance to warm under the covers, he kept his hands to himself while he kissed her. Her tongue welcomed his. “Mmmmm. I do love you,” he told her, “and in Evanston -- if we’re there next year -- I’ll have the energy to show it.”

She laughed. “You mean you’re planning to wait four months to use this?” She touched his phallus. Her grasp completed its hardening.

“Nope,” he told her. “I have energy enough to show my lust, just not enough to show my love.”

If his hands weren’t warm enough yet, she’d let him know. He resumed the kiss. Meanwhile, he caressed all her softness before reaching the hardness at the peaks of her breasts. These called for more than fingers. As his mouth trailed down to the far breast, his hand approached her center. He prolonged his kissing of the smoothness of her breast until his finger was in position. Then he brushed her juices across her nubbin just as he sucked her nipple.