Goddess
Authors: Kelee Morris
Wife, mother, PTA president… Sex Goddess?
For Julia Nelson, it was only a faded tattoo, almost forgotten, like the sex-charged dreams that inspired it some 20 years ago.
For renowned, rugged-sexy
archeologist Dr. Ashland Stewart, it was his greatest discovery, the sacred emblem of
an ancient goddess culture.
Two symbols, eons apart, yet exact duplicates. It must be a coincidence. But when Julia and Ashland meet, their connection is instantaneous, powerful, erotic.
Julia’s suburban life is safe and comfortable. She has everything to lose.
Ashland’s world is remote archeological digs and flings with younger women. He’s sexually free but emotionally guarded.
Ashland awakens Julia’s long buried inner goddess with breathtaking passion and insatiable desire.
But their sexual adventure becomes increasingly perilous as their emotional barriers crumble. Will Julia risk falling in love and soaring to new heights, or will she return to her earthbound responsibility to her family?
GODDESS
Kelee Morris
Table Of Contents
Although Wisdom is but one, she can do all things,
and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;
Wisdom is more beautiful than the sun,
and excels every constellation of the stars.
Wisdom of Solomon 7:26-8:1 (approximate)
I’ve tried to pinpoint the day when my life veered off its safe, rational, coherent course onto a path that became increasingly murky, unnerving, and breathtaking. When my mind drifts back, it pauses at various milestones until it reaches a fall evening and a king size bed caressed by percale cotton sheets. Finally, my memory lights on a small blemish in a far corner of the bedroom ceiling, where white ceiling meets pale blue walls.
It was black, or perhaps brown, nebulous without my glasses. I knew it was just a distraction, but my eyes kept drifting back to it like leaves drawn to shore by a persistent current. It was probably one of the fat little spiders that obstinately made their way into our 110-year-old house. In the morning, if it was still there, I would dispatch it with a tissue, sending it to an ignominious grave down the toilet before one of the girls freaked. It would be quick, efficient, and unemotional, like so many of the daily tasks that occupied my life.
“You okay?”
My eyes leapt back to Matt’s questioning face hovering above me. I knew every subtlety of it. In the dim light leaking through the shades from a streetlamp, I could just make out the tiny hairs under his nose that he sometimes missed while shaving, the luxurious eyelashes that I envied, and the scar above his eye that he received at age eight when his older brother hit him with an errant rock fired from a makeshift catapult.
He had stopped moving inside me. I knew he was waiting for reassurance before he continued. He was polite. Everyone said so.
“I’m fine,” I whispered. I brushed his warm cheek with my fingertips.
He smiled, not wanting to know more. No distractions. Productivity was key, even with sex. It hadn’t always been that way, but life isn’t static.
He pushed deeper into me, exhaling his pleasure, bringing me back to the present. I dug my fingernails into his shoulders. He always liked that. “Oh god, Matt, yes,” I moaned—a little white lie to help him along. I had told him before we started not to worry about me. He was still exhausted from last week’s five-day business trip. Tomorrow he would leave again for O’Hare before I was awake. By the time I had my first cup of coffee, he’d be in Cleveland. Sometimes I felt like I was married to his dirty laundry. I knew that wasn’t fair. He worked hard. He loved his family.
Back to the present. “That feels so good, ” I murmured, careful not to be too vocal because I knew Lily and Anna were probably still awake.
“Julia… yes.” He moved faster, overcoming the jetlag. I could feel him getting harder. “Oh yes...” And then he was finished.
He withdrew quickly, touched my cheek, stroked my hair, and gave my nose gentle kisses, just like he always did. The routine felt comforting. It reminded me of who I was and what I had.
“You look tired,” he said. I wasn’t, but I offered him a reassuring smile to make sure he knew I didn’t expect more. He rolled off me and five minutes later I could hear his soft, even inhale and exhale. He was asleep.
I lay awake for a long time afterwards, forcing myself not to look at the clock. Matt was a lump of clay beside me, with no desire to be molded into anything other than what he was. He was satisfied with his life… our life. At least, I thought he was. He never complained, except about the minor inconveniences and frustrations of marriage and family. The challenge of raising three girls didn’t faze him in the same way it sometimes got under my skin. I opened my eyes and studied the black spot. Had it moved since the last time I looked? I couldn’t be sure. I was that spider, if it was a spider, waiting, waiting for something.
~*~
Eight o’clock and chaos was in full swing. I prepared lunches. (Peanut butter, heavy on the raspberry jam, for Anna, ham and cheddar, crust surgically removed, for Mackenzie. Lily would prepare her own lunch, if she remembered.) Anna sat at the kitchen table, nonchalantly chewing a bagel while she watched some inane Disney Channel show on her phone. As she bent over the tiny screen, her unruly brown hair flirted with the thick coating of cream cheese. “Hair, Anna,” I said. She pushed it away, only to let it tumble down again. I turned back to my task, knowing that even if one of her friends pointed out the white spots she’d missed, she would just wash them out in the drinking fountain without embarrassment. I admired her approach to life—take things as they come, never worrying about what would arrive next.
“I can’t find any clean underwear,” Mackenzie screamed down the stairs.
“Look in the laundry basket,” I yelled back, forgetting my resolution not to shout between floors.
“I did!”
Anna looked up from her show. “She can wear some of mine if she wants.”
I smiled at her generosity. “She’s not really looking.”
“Big surprise.”
Twenty minutes later, Anna had run out the door to meet her friends for the walk to middle school and a clean underwear-clad Mackenzie had been hustled to the corner, where our forever-accommodating bus driver was waiting patiently to take her to elementary school. I leaned against the counter, considering whether to pour myself another cup of coffee, when Lily strolled in, still dressed in her leopard print pajamas. She had brushed and braided her long, auburn hair and carefully applied makeup, but otherwise seemed blissfully unaware that the first bell at her high school rang a half hour ago. “Why are you still here?” I asked, trying to hide my annoyance, knowing it would only alienate her further.
She shrugged her shoulders and moved to the coffee maker. She poured herself half a cup of the thick brew I favored and then filled the rest with milk and several spoonfuls of sugar. Finally, she spoke. “There’s nothing going on first period.”
“So they just let you show up whenever you want?”
“Pretty much.”
She tested the coffee. I admired her muscular figure, outlined by the thin fabric of her pajamas. She was a talented speed skater. Watching her smoothly power her way around a rink reminded me of her favorite animal.
I decided to strike a conciliatory tone. “Do you need a ride to school?”
“Greta’s picking me up.”
I nodded. I’d have to text Greta’s mom later to see if she knew the full story. God knows Lily would never tell me. I could call the school, but it would probably get back to her. She was a favorite of the women in the front office. It was difficult to know when she was doing something genuinely wrong because everyone else seemed to think she was perfect. She made straight A’s, never missed a skating practice, and was loved by teachers, coaches, and other parents. She even occasionally liked Matt. I was the only one she considered a pariah.
“I’ll be around if you need a ride.” I scooped up my coffee and vacated the kitchen. Matt had been telling me for months to give her space and she’d come back to me.
I was sitting on the living room sofa, staring at my resume on the laptop, when I heard hurried footsteps on the stairs, followed by a brief, “Bye, Mom!” before the front door slammed. She’d actually said goodbye to me. I’d have to tell Matt about the progress we’d made.
I spent the rest of the morning trying to craft a career history out of an undergraduate degree in Comparative Literature, followed by a year in retail, a master’s degree in Spanish, eight months sowing wild oats in Barcelona with handsome but self-absorbed men, and two years translating deservedly forgotten Spanish literature for various professors. My lackluster career was followed in quick succession by marriage, three pregnancies, sixteen years of motherhood, and too many volunteer activities to count.
I finally closed the computer in frustration. It wasn’t likely employers were going to be clamoring for a 44-year-old mother with my background. There was no pressure—Matt was doing well—but imagining my present path stretching out in front of me made me feel like...
I remembered the spider or whatever it was lurking on our bedroom ceiling. Armed with a tissue, I went upstairs to perform my job as executioner.
The spider had vanished.
~*~
“You should start your own business.” Van plucked the olive out of my empty martini glass and slipped it between her full lips. We’d been friends long enough for her to know I wouldn’t be offended.
“Are we talking Mary Kay or a real business?”
“I would divorce you instantly if you tried to sell me any Mary Kay crap.” Van leaned back against the brightly polished bar railing, casually tossing one long, tanned, bare leg over the other. I didn’t look around, but I knew every straight man in close proximity was enjoying the view. “You’ve got outstanding organizational skills, you’re a leader, you’re poised, smart. You could do anything.”
“I can’t even get the principal to call me back.”
“He’s a dweeb, but you could work on being more vocal about what you want.” Van motioned with her glass to the young, hip bartender. He immediately abandoned the businessmen he was serving. “I’m buying the next round.” Van said.
I shook my head. “PTA meeting tonight.”
“The only way you’d get me there is with a triple shot of Hennessey.”
~*~
Vanessa Emerson and I seemed to have almost nothing in common except for our children, who both attended the same elementary school, and our love of a vodka martini. We’d met the fall Mackenzie and her son Jake started kindergarten. Van was an elementary school newbie, while I’d been around long enough to get sucked into every volunteer position imaginable. That morning, I’d been lugging oversized cardboard boxes out of the PTA storage room—junk that seemed to have accumulated unchecked since the school opened in 1921—when I heard a pleasant, meant-for-radio voice ask, “Need some help?” I managed to peer around the dusty container at the photo-ready face watching me with what looked like bemusement cross-pollinated with sympathy.
“Sure,” I said, expecting her to grab the other end of the load. Instead, she turned to two baseball-capped dads commiserating nearby.
“Some assistance, gentlemen,” she called to them. They turned, took one look at Van, and hurried forward to relieve me of my burden. I’m not sure if they even noticed me. Perhaps they thought Van had levitated the box for their amusement. I didn’t care. I liked her attitude. We became instant friends, even though Mackenzie had a strong aversion to boys and no interest in playing with Jake.
On Vanessa, jeans and a T-shirt looked like
haute couture
. Her home was an
Architectural Digest
spread. Trent, her tall, dark-haired, gorgeous husband, seemed to have been created by an ad agency. Even though he was extremely reticent, most people assumed a perfect marriage was part of the package.
So I was surprised when she asked, a couple of months after we first met, “How often do you and Matt have sex?” We were sitting on undersized chairs in an empty kindergarten classroom, packing up art supplies from a Halloween party the parents had thrown. I eyed her hesitantly. It wasn’t the kind of question most moms asked you.
“I don’t know. Once a month.”
She retrieved an errant marker from the floor, reappearing with a wry smile on her face. “Wow, that often.”
I rarely talked about sex with other women. My mother had many more commandments than the standard 10, and that was one of them. But I trusted Van in a way I never trusted my mother. “What about you and Trent?”
“Leap days and my birthday, if he didn’t get me another present.”
“I’m sorry. You guys seem so—”
“Perfect?”
“I know better than that. Nobody’s a perfect match.”
“I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing when I married Trent. I mean, I had never even had an orgasm. Maybe it was because he didn’t try, so it took the pressure off.”
I noticed her hand shaking as she matched up a red top with a red marker. “Do you think he’s gay?” I asked gingerly.
“He likes watching men’s swimming.”
“Have you ever asked him?”
“Once. He looked at me like I’d accused him of being a pedophile.”
I nodded. “So he’s a self-loathing homosexual.”
She laughed. Then Van poured her history into my lap.
She wondered if she unconsciously chose her boyfriends because their approach to sex was either incompetent or self-absorbed. She learned to fake orgasms for the former and not even bother with the later. She met Trent in the Modern wing at the Art Institute. He gazed at her as if she were a Cezanne. She wasn’t sure if she loved him, but she was tired of dating and ready for a family. Five months after their wedding night, they conceived a son. Trent seemed to consider his job finished.
If Trent had minimal interest in intercourse, his desire to perform oral sex was non-existent. He never offered and she didn’t ask. Then, three years and two months into their marriage, Van met Dave Cellini. She’d barely noticed him behind the counter of the Starbucks she frequented. He was the curly-haired kid who often took her order and nothing more. One day she was sitting at a table, making her way through dull emails, when he appeared by her side. “You like bold, right?” he’d asked. He refilled her cup. Something about the way he looked at her with those green eyes that almost matched his green apron was enough to elicit an invitation to join her. He eagerly pulled up a chair.
Trent was a successful financial consultant. Dave had dropped out of college to play drums for various alt country bands. He spent his days mixing Frappuccinos and his nights providing a backbeat for rural transplants and wannabes in dark clubs with names like The Horseshoe and Buckaroos. He was shy; it took him two more months to invite her to venture outside Starbucks with him. But when she accepted an invitation to hear him play with his regular band, the Pine Needles, and then followed him in her car back to his neat, one bedroom apartment, she learned that Dave Cellini had a talent she decided was worth more than a portfolio filled with Apple stock and gas futures. He was amazingly adept at oral sex. Five minutes after kneeling before her as she lay on his faux leather couch, one leg thrown over the back, she had entered paradise for the first time.