Jesus Was a Man After All - Revamped

Jesus Was a Man After All

She wears her best wedding gown. It feels right for her to celebrate the happiest moment in her life on the eve of our anniversary. I comb her hair not knowing her true intentions.

I serve the dish she so loves, okra, tomatoes, and brown rice. She takes her time eating to savor every bite. I wonder how we will spend the rest of our special night. We finish our dinner together.

“Take me for a ride, Paul. I want to see the river by Audubon Park” she tells me. We drive to the Mississippi River. “Paul wait here and let me go ahead. I just need a few moments to myself.”

“Are you ok Rosa? Usually, I can see your aura through your clothes. Tonight I just see your dress.”

“I just need some space, honey.”

She walks across the levee and down to the grassy area by the river. Behind her back, I stand on the levee watching her. She gazes into the dark rolling waters of the river and looks as though she might quietly extinguish herself there.

I find her in her solitude. I hold her tight and kiss her like on our first date. Finally, she discloses to me her dark intent.

She says, “Why do you stick with me? I should release you to be with another woman. Freeing you is a heart-wrenching decision for me. But now the time of reckoning has arrived. I must face the devil bravely. There is no turning back now.”

“Rosa, you better get your butt back in the car. If you make a move toward that river I’m going to tackle you.”

“Paul, I used tush massage to fleece young men for money. You were one of them.”

“We got our money’s worth” I quip.

“Are you crazy? I gave ya’ll bare bottom rubs! The massage board would’ve revoked my license had one of you snitched on me.”

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them. You brought happiness to those men, including me. It was worth every penny. Now I get it for free.”

“You are a male chauvinist pig.”

“Yes, but I’m lucky to have a massage therapist for a wife.”

“I gave up massaging long ago. I am a barmaid now.”

“Well you haven’t lost your touch. When you work out the knots in my neck it feels like heaven.”

“It is like riding a bicycle. You never forget how. But will God forgive me for suicide? Will I go to hell for it? How can the Lord All Mighty condemn me for unburdening myself of my life of shame?”

“I can’t comprehend a life without you,” I say.

“But you’re my cousin and I seduced you.”

I reply, “You were the best looking girl on the block. Besides that, we’re second cousins. Our marriage is legal in all fifty states.”

“Darling, I recollect us playing for nickels and dimes out on the corner” she answers.

He says, “You are gorgeous, just like your Mom. Beauty must run in our family.”

“Paul, my middle name is trouble. I’ve caused my family no end of heartaches. Marrying you was the best thing I ever did. But my parents think ours is an unholy union.”

Paul says, “All the way, in the beginning, the Bible had cousins in wedlock. Genesis 24 verse 4 ─ ‘Go instead to my homeland, to my relatives, and

find a wife there for my son Isaac.’ In fact, Biblical scholars find evidence that Mary was the daughter of Jacob and Joseph was the son of Jacob’s brother. Mary and Joseph were, therefore, first cousins.”

“But Joseph didn’t make love to Mary. In fact, he was a virgin.”

He laughs, “If you believe Joseph didn’t sleep with Mary I’ve got some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.”

“Well, maybe he had experiences before tying the knot with Mary. But once hitched he was celibate except for that one seminal act of impregnating Mary. God gave them his green light to make whoopee without sin, so Jesus and the whole Christian shebang could be born” she sermonizes.

“Brilliant! But honey God doesn’t play favorites.

Cousins don’t have to be the parents of Jesus to wed. Nowhere in scripture is a marriage between cousins prohibited.”

“Tell that to my father. Paul with all that beef you eat you may face the grim reaper before me. You must quit eating beef. Promise me to become

a vegetarian when I pass on. I want you to live long and be a father. Be strong for me now. I need your support now more than ever. I can’t face this without your courage”

“It isn’t your time yet my love. You are needed here” I say.

“Don’t do this to me. Don’t make me feel guilty dammit. Quit that shit. Now I’m going to say farewell. Be a good husband to someone. You never did know how to say goodbye” she says.

I say “Come home with me.”

“Shut the Screw up! I mean it. No more groveling” she says.

“I’m going to hold your hand. You are going to walk with me back to the car” I say.

She says, “Stop it, Paul! I’m a free woman. No man tells me what to do.”

I say, “No. You’re going to do as you’re told.”

She says, “Oh, Paul. You know how much I get turned on when you take charge of me.” She takes off her wedding ring. “Keep this for me. I can’t take it where I’m going.”

I say, “I’ll never marry again.”

She says, “Crap. I feel selfish having you wait for me for the rest of your life.”

“Rosa, if you ever lift a hand to hurt yourself

I’ll physically restrain you. Then your sex privileges will be revoked for an entire year.”

“You wouldn’t dare! Oh, I bet you’ll make your own fun. I do it too. Hah! Two can play at this game. Let’s see who cries uncle first!” she says.

“I’m well versed in abstinence having grown up

with two sisters in a house with paper thin walls.”

She replies, “Please don’t put me on a diet of no sex. I’ll lose what’s left of my marbles.”

“You’ll face that music if you ever try to hurt yourself” I warn.

“If I were a man you’d have me by the balls.”

“Cheating on me is pardonable but self-harm is an absolute no-no. Now, get your fanny in the car and no more night trips to the river, ever.”

“Me, an adulteress, why go out after soy dogs when I’ve got barbecue tempeh at home?”

“What you need is a good roll in the hay,” I say.

“Take me for a tumble lover man.”

“The fireflies are out tonight. Let’s walk down the riverbank.”

“Is that so you can lead me to a secluded spot and have your way with me?”

“Lift your skirt my Gal! We are going on a Louisiana Hayride. With this here pocket knife those panties will come off lickety-split.”

“Paul, these sweet nothings cost twenty dollars. Are you sure you want to shred them?”

“We’ll collect the rags to keep from littering.”

“Giddy up horsey. But for this rodeo ride, I’m going to mount you. Don’t fret one bit about it. After all, I am your cowgirl bride.”

My blade makes quick work of her panties. She says, “I bet you brought that knife just for this purpose. You Boy Scouts come prepared.”

Our phosphorescent friends shed light on the grassy swards. Our floating flashbulb friends illuminate us imprinting my retinas. Our tail haloed friends blink merrily to the tune of her deep-throated warble to let me see the passion play of her face as though she were a soul rising in ecstasy from purgatory into heaven.

“Honey, let me take you home. I couldn’t make it without your cooking” I say.

“Oh shit. I hope you love me for more than my cooking.”

“I was making a joke to lighten your mood.”

“Well, it worked. Escort me back to our apartment. That roach motel sounds like paradise now.”

“I can’t cook but that I can do. Let’s go home.”

“My legs feel weak. Pick me up and carry me to the car” she says.

I carry her like a bride out of a darker shade of midnight. “Say lover man; let’s get in your car and cruise. Take me out for Chinese” she says.

“With you in your wedding dress, they’ll think we’re newlyweds,” I say.

Rosa says “Honey, my caged bird is ready for a jailbreak. This will be our second honeymoon.”

We arrive at our down and out apartment blues.

I say, “Since you made gestures of self-harm, you need a taste of what giving up sex for Lent is like.”

She replies, “You mean after the riverfront no more for the whole season? Oh no, don’t put me on a sex fast” she pleads.

I say, “We’ll just talk until Fat Tuesday. After your stunt by the river, you need a reminder. This evening I’m taking a vow of chastity.”

She tells me, “If we’re going to do chit-chat, we need an icebreaker. So, God do you remember your high school teachers? My school days seem eons ago. Yet, I remember Ms. Heidi Goebel. She would slam your willy into the wall if you didn’t watch your grammar. She was a bitch Goddess.”

She elaborates, “Then there was Mr. Sanders my American history teacher. He was the bomb. Of course, you’re a guy so you won’t understand. But to me Mr. Sanders was a gorgeous Sheik. I used to get off on him in the girl’s room after class. He just turned me on, I don’t know why.”

I ask her, “Do you miss the hospital?”

She smiles. “Yea, those staff people were angels. It never could be my way of life. But boy did it cater to my gift of gab. I doubt I’ll ever have people listen to me shoot the breeze, like that again, but there were so many rules.”

“Yes, they had as many stipulations for behavior as a papal encyclical. And then there was that DSM book. It was their bible. Did you grow up in a church?” I ask.

Rosa puts her hands in her lap as her legs fall open. She says, “I know what you mean. My father and mother are strict Catholics. They have really old-fashioned religious beliefs. They’re even more conservative than Baptists. They act like they’re living in the Spanish Inquisition. My father spanked me if he caught me with condoms. If he suspected I was having sex he told my teachers to monitor me. I can’t tell you how humiliating it was. He even made me do pregnancy tests and show him the results. He also made me take ovulation tests forbade me to leave the house when I was ovulating. I felt degraded. I love my heritage and my people but I couldn’t tolerate this.”

She bundles her cinnamon hair into a ponytail. I gaze at her beautification. She gets all fidgety and steps out to the kitchen. She slips behind the bead curtains hanging over the door to our boudoir. Her femininity is disrobed in a fit of desire. I see her soft curves silhouetted by the red lamp light emanating from our bedroom. Like the parting of the red sea, she slips the dangling strands apart. My eyes close.

She says, “Oh come on. These New Orleans nights are hot. I’m just getting comfortable.”

She dons her pillbox hat festooned with tobacco lids twisted into cones. She says, “Paul, how do you like me in my hat?”

“Put a picture of you like that on a billboard to advertise jingle hats and drivers would have a hard time keeping their eyes on the road.”

She says, “Men are nothing if not predictable. But you gotta love em just the same.”

I look at the crinkly ceiling finish and retort, “Women are nothing if not unpredictable. But you gotta love em just the same.”

She turns around with an impish smile and replies, “Aren’t we a silly pair?”

I say, “I wonder at how our gender roles might seem bizarre to an anthropologist from Betelgeuse.

But you know your gift of gab is better than marmalade on toast.”

“Oh yes, no breakfast is complete without foreplay. Even Jesus loved Magdalene too much to neglect her carnal needs” she pleads.

“Lead me, dear Beatrice, to understand how you came upon this knowledge.”

“Jesus was a man after all. I know men. A man created the Lord’s Supper to feast on the body and blood of Christ because the male finds God through feeding his hunger. Men are cannibals who devour the hand which feeds them. They confuse the offering with the woman.”

I smile. “I’ll drink to that. Now let’s call off the sex strike in the name of Yahweh.”