WHO Mary & Much WHEN Saturday afternoon WHERE A park / Much's apartment WHAT Some preaching activities followed by some less holy activities (wink wink nudge nudge) WARNINGS sex, references to rough sex,
On Saturday morning Mary woke up with a hangover and the bruised handprints of some overeager John imprinted on her thighs. The second one she didn’t notice until she was in the shower and she frowned at them, but was unsurprised; he’d gripped her like she was going to run away. Maybe some others had tried to run away in the past.
Mary didn’t think much of her work, morally. It was just a thing she did to pay the bills, and although others might have chosen to use words like ‘degrading’ or ‘empowering’ about prostitution, Mary didn’t think it was either. It was, more often than not, shitty work, but she didn’t care to consider whether it was good or bad. (Oh, didn't some people in her pantheon have some of their own thoughts about it though.) But sometimes, when someone seemed to be a little pushy, a little grabby, a little too full of bad vibes, Mary wondered if she was saving some other woman out there from further trouble tonight.
Probably she wasn’t, but Mary liked to sometimes think of herself as heroic, even as some guy had her pressed with her face against a brick wall while he grunted behind her. It wasn’t heroic work, and Mary thought (every single time) about whether Jesus was watching, and about what he thought of her.
‘Disappointed’ was usually the answer she came to. Or maybe ‘understanding, but sad’. Jesus had always been good at ‘understanding but sad’. He’d be angry too, about the men who treated her badly. And he’d want more for her than this. He'd always wanted more for her, right from the first moment he'd dragged those possessing demons out of her and brought her back to freedom. She had been born anew and fresh by the powers of Jesus Christ and now she sucked off strangers to pay for dinner.
Fuck. She needed to get a new job. It had been almost a year she’d just been doing the prostitution only, and surely it was time to take another foray into some office work. She was okay at office work, but her tendency to talk back got her fired, and her tendency to get bored of an office environment did the same. That or she had to disappear for a couple months and suddenly she was unreliable.
Sitting on her bed, Mary scanned through job listings to see what might appeal. Maybe somewhere with air conditioning and a lack of friction burns. She let the phone fall down into her lap for a moment and considered how getting a real job would involve contacting Isidore of Seville to get her resume looking both presentable and real. (Their ilk couldn’t exactly walk around with their real information on display. Though, the last time she’d recreated herself, when Mary had said ‘I honestly couldn’t give a shit’ about what the surname would be, Isidore had tried to give her Nikolayevna-Saltykova, prompting Mary to realise that she did give a shit, and she’d like Jones, thanks.)
Saint Isidore would be willing to help, but he and Mary hadn’t ended their last meeting on the best of terms. This wasn’t a surprise when it came to apostles- most of them hated her, even if it was a high brow thing they wouldn't stoop to calling 'hate'- but a lot of the 'lesser' saints were cooler with her. In any case, Mary was sure a bottle of wine would do the trick.
Mary marked down a few of more interesting (or less mind-numbing) options and then got dressed. Down in the bar she made herself some breakfast nachos in the kitchen, leaving a note for the chef that said she was in love with his guacamole, and included a little stick figure (with boobs) to represent herself enjoying said guacamole.
She was feeling, it had to be said, pretty good. Eating had even helped shake off the hangover.
Mary was hoping to continue these good feelings for the day as she headed out to get the train to the park she preached in. In her cut-off jeans shorts, Mary sat cross-legged on the A-Train seat, so as to have the least amount of her bare thighs in contact with the sticky plastic as possible. She lifted her phone camera up to a high angle, orange tank top and loose hair (almost fully back to brown) in shot.
She didn’t throw a peace sign in the photo, but mentally she was throwing a peace sign. She sent it to both Nicholas and Much, along with the follow up text: Off to share the good news about our lord and saviour tm, gorgeous day for being overly emotional in a park
Underneath her the familiar train rattled along and Mary closed her eyes, listening to the other people on the train around her. A mother was desperately trying to get her toddler to stop climbing over everything. A group of teenage girls were gathered around a phone watching a video. A man nearby was listening to music, his earphones leaking just enough for her to hear it but not enough to recognise it. The woman sitting closest to Mary turned the page of her book.
People. Mary’s people. She felt a rush of love for them all, even the ones she found annoying. She loved them because they were His, because He had made them in His image: page-turning, music-leaking, bounding toddlers, forever young and in need of a gentle hand.
Mary wanted so much to be that gentle hand, but she wasn’t always good at it.
Arriving at the park, the warm smiles of her little group – eleven of them today – made Mary feel like sometimes she really was doing right. They came here to hear her preach, to have her answer their questions in however manner she could. Sometimes she could tell they left with a sense of peace, and other days she knew she hadn’t been able to help them completely. That didn’t have to be a failure: Mary couldn’t be everything that everyone needed. She could only be herself.