Miriam was, without a doubt, a whore. She was a whore in practice and in purpose, and the best damn thing the town—located deep in the mountains of Pisgah—offered. Her breasts were full and jiggled when she walked; her lips were red and tart like summer berries. Sometimes, she’d sing you to sleep after you finished in her. She might slip an extra buck or two out of your wallet when she left, but she’d leave a red mark on your forehead where she’d kissed you goodbye.
One of Miriam’s disciples, Hiram Maples, was at the funeral with his firstborn son, Quiche. If you asked Hiram why he named his son after a popular breakfast dish, he’d give you some shit about how his granny’s granny was a debutant at the egg festival in Savannah in 1886, and how she saved the whole town from an unhinged rooster. She grabbed an ax out of the lumberjack’s barn—conveniently situated right next to the town square—and lopped the bird’s head clean off its feathered body. It soared through the air, like the dove that Noah flung off the ark, and landed in her competition’s elaborately tall updo. Debutant golf, one might call it. Then he’d tell you how she made quiche for the town the next day after she won the pageant. And if you stood there and listened to Hiram say all that, then good for you.
Behind Quiche in line was Robby Packerwarst, who only slid out of school with his diploma because the principal, Anne Clime, knew she couldn’t look at his rotten face for one more semester. She hated Robby more than she hated her husband, who, funnily enough, stood behind Robby in line.
Arnold Clime, who measured six feet and five inches tall, towered over the funeral party like how the church bell loomed over the town square, all-seeing and trusted as the all-knowing, not about time but about the town’s pitiful politics and annual chili festival. He had to line his pockets twice so his money didn’t slide down his legs, all slippery from being weaseled from another man’s hand.
The line moved like wet cornstarch as the men hovered, dry-eyed, over Miriam’s corpse. They all stared at her tits, which the coroners made as visible and copious as they were when she was alive by wrapping duct tape around her chest. Eugene Wheeler, with his white Stetson over his heart, smacked them, keening to see them jiggle one more time. He was unequivocally disheartened when the firm flesh moved more like stiff dough than gelatin.
Eugene was as close with Miriam as a whore’s patron could be. He owned Honey Pharmacy, the town’s trusted marketplace for any and everything. For a cut of the profits, he let her use the supply closet as, for lack of a better word, an office. She labored in ten-minute intervals surrounded by milk crates of medicine, foil-wrapped chocolate, and a fluorescent-buzzing bulb that flickered in her eyes like a burning bush. A grab-and-go, 1930’s fast-fuck.
In line, the men reminisced about the robust pleasure they found within the warm arms of their whore. The softness of her seemingly ageless skin, pretty whispers against the lobes of their ears, the smell—a honeyed frankincense—of her brunette curls. Most importantly, the thought of the sacred valley between Miriam’s tits. When you flattened your tongue on her sternum and licked right up the center, the two colossal milky-mounds would rub your cheeks, and loom over you like dual earthshattering waves. Like the moment the Red Sea split and all the power of the Almighty rushed through your staff, through your tongue, and she was yours to mold around you, for you, for God, for the Israelites. Deep within her, long past the fetters and concerns of labor, on the road to Canaan, you’d sing the Song of the Sea until the salt of man had been expelled.
And as the pews filled, the only woman in attendance stuck out like a stain on a stark white tunic. Gladys Henley sat in the last pew, whose wood creaked the loudest, and rocked her screeching newborn while dousing every man who entered in a thick quilt of loathing. She sat with silent fury, a steadily stoked fire, that consumed her thoughts, and filled her head to the brim, so much so that she couldn’t hear Gideon’s wails over her monolithic disgust for the men in the room. She glared and scowled, and they scowled right back, before remembering this was their last few moments with their whore, and they weren’t going to waste it on Gladys Henley. So, they let her stare, and stare she did. She attempted to burn through them. Hoping their bodies would transform into ash and leave only the smell of forlorn pining and a modest task of sweeping up, and then she’d dump their remains in a ditch, or somewhere, ultimately, unholy.
The men of the town all believed Gladys was responsible for the Dirty Sunday debacle: the monumental twenty-four-hours that brought about the death of Jack Henley, who ran the Pisgah Times and served as the men’s North Star, and the death of Miriam. They had hated Gladys since Jack found her on one of his expeditions to the Carolina Coast. She constantly nagged Jack about finances and family time—she apparently didn’t understand that cards and smoke and whiskey and conversations among men played a crucial role in national progress.
The pastor, Tucker Boyd, nearly stumbled up the three steps that led to the podium when his eyes landed on the little alcove tucked away in the corner of the sanctuary. On the first Sunday of every month, Miriam led one-on-one devotionals with the clergy in that tight space to ensure her eternal salvation and their celibate devotion.
The other Sundays, Miriam spent languid in her own sanctuary—an unclaimed plot of land that sat on the edge of town. Without makeup or niceties, the only baggage she carried was an heirloom crocheted blanket and a ham sandwich. It was just her for a long while, where she’d sit and stare through her reflection into the muddy murk of the lake. The dense film of algae, thick and gooey and dripping with frogs, didn’t dissuade her. Instead, it formed a certain kinship with Miriam, who desperately wanted to sink to the bottom of the filthy lagoon, where no one would ever be able to find her again.
But Miriam’s solitude burst the day that Gladys Henley realized Jack’s devilish seed finally took root. Completely out of her mind, dehydrated, and unsure of where she was headed, Gladys stumbled into the orbit of the murky lake. She fell in a sobbing-slump at Miriam’s feet. And although the two had only shared a handful of words before then, Miriam picked her up, and gave her all she could—kindness. And kindness was not something that Gladys was often privy to.
Miriam was the only person who ever admired Gladys from afar, as Gladys had this witchy look about her that turned people’s noses up. Miriam, rather, obsessed over the sharp features and petite build of Gladys Henley. She wanted to scoop her up and put her in her pocket. So, when Gladys appeared at the lake, Miriam, for the first time in her life, let her hymen of vulnerability, pop

. The love they created there, under the chestnuts and within the algae, within each other, became sacred to Miriam.
Gladys couldn’t help but think of the warm muddy water washing over her feet as she listened to the pastor read, over the chorus of Gideon’s wails, Matthew 11:28-30 from his oiled, leather-bound King James.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
The scripture, the August heat, and the fact that the pastor had fornicated with Miriam dozens, if not hundreds, of times caused his light blue linen shirt to turn navy and the salt from his brow to slip into his mouth.
With each shameful word, Miriam came to the minds of the men and Gladys like a seductive prophecy. This was her oath. Come to me, weary and burdened; I’ll give you rest within my body. Take my yoke, my essence, my pleasure, and learn from me. I am gentle, oh so gentle and soft, and humble in heart; I will care for you like no one else ever could and you’ll find rest within me. For my yoke, the sweetest yoke, is easy and intoxicating; and my burden, even now, though I am heavy, is light.
As the men retreated outside after the service, Gladys nearly choked on the smell of fresh sweat and burnt tobacco. She plucked her breast from her linen, sack-like dress, and placed her nipple into Gideon’s dreadfully persistent mouth. The first pull of milk, along with the silence, was a relief; when the pull felt like a gnaw and turned painful, she felt relief from that, too. Standing over her lover, Gladys couldn’t tell if it was the baby’s pull or if it was Miriam’s that she felt, if the excretions were milk or her sorrow. If maybe she was pouring her essence out, hoping to funnel the life she held back into Miriam. However, it did not pour—it trickled, like an empty tap.
Gladys felt that devout anger pulse within her again. Staring at the shaped eyebrows and lined lips of her lover, and the slightly red brand on her neck, which the coroners clearly didn’t bother to cover as they were too focused on the denseness of her breasts, Gladys felt betrayed. Betrayed by the woman that was supposed to love her, care for her, make tender love to her by the lake, help her raise Gideon, help her forget the horrors of her marriage to Jack Henley.
And outside of the chapel, the men stood around, shooting the shit and swatting away battalions of flying insects—flies, gnats, mosquitoes, and locusts. In a pillar of cigar cloud, the scratching of matches created a melody with the clanging coins in Reggie Halloway’s pocket while he fixed himself to relieve the straining in his pants. Just the slight touch while thinking of his dear Miriam, plunged his mind into visions of delectable, mouthwatering sin. And then, he remembered the circumstances. What a damn shame that such a sweet woman, with a cunt like apricot jam, had to pass, when a woman like wicked Gladys Henley remained alive, sitting in their church, no less. What a damn shame that he’d never get his hands on Miriam again. What a damn shame that he’d have to fuck his baby-powder-pussied wife tonight, instead of Miriam. And finally, that Jack Henley was the luckiest son of a bitch he’d ever met, because he didn’t have to live in a time without Miriam and the prickly, intoxicating taste of copper and apricot.
The quaint church broiled in the August heat and was near bursting with the muggy aroma of embalmed cedar. Slicked with sweat, Gladys wiped her brow and pulled a golden tube of Miriam’s lipstick, used down to a nub, from her purse. She popped off the lid, and it got lost in the depths between receipts and checks and wipes and pacifiers, pens and powder, and a flask with only traces of moonshine left from when she filled it that morning. She smeared the borrowed burgundy over her lips, chapped like her nipples, piling on coat after coat, hoping to indefinitely stain them. Then, she puckered and placed her pout on Miriam’s forehead, leaving a thick imprint of herself on the corpse.
For Miriam and Gladys, Sundays were filled with communion, their own version of the Lord’s Supper. They devoured each other, worshipping in their love and feasting on flesh and faith. However, on Dirty Sunday Gladys didn’t show up for Miriam’s blood and body. Once she realized Gladys was far too tardy for any sensible explanation, Miriam left her crocheted picnic blanket and two ham sandwiches by the edge of the lake and sprinted back to town. Panting at the Henley’s cottage, with its desolate décor, she found Gladys on the floor, her body as solemnly still as the devil’s resolve.
She surveyed the offensive scene with the clarity of a scorned mother. Welts, the deep color of figs and dates, streaked with shades of pomegranate, scattered Gladys’s body. Shadows of Jack’s massive hands were scattered about her softest parts. And Miriam stood in a sea of Gladys’s own making, of Gideon’s call-to-arms—as red as the Nile had been during the first plague.
It was Miriam’s instincts that saved not only Gladys but little Gideon as well, when she shoved her hand up into her lover, biting her tongue so she couldn’t hear Gladys’s screams, and twisted the breach right side up. Gladys pushed with every ounce of strength and eventually, Gideon slid right on out. Miriam cleaned the layers of Gladys off Gideon, swaddled him in a square of cotton, and placed him in his mother’s arms. They fell asleep shortly after, unbothered by the bits of Gladys’s body coating the ground beneath them, drenching their arms and hands.
Miriam woke up shortly after falling asleep, unable to ignore the stickiness any longer. She cleaned herself up and, as she was about to get started on the floor, Gideon started wailing. She shushed and rocked and soon he was soothed enough to be laid down, but she knew he wouldn’t last long on the flat surface. So, she used her head. Miriam was smarter than people gave her credit for. She dumped the cross-stitch supplies out of Gladys’s wicker sewing basket and placed Gideon’s swaddled self in the basket. She then placed the basket in the bathroom, where she let the faucet drip. The faucet dripped as the sun fell from bright high noon to setting pastels.
And Miriam went back to the tired body of her beloved whose stringy-straw hair was matted around her face like sweetgum seeds. Miriam gathered a basin of warm water, soaped and soft, and gently brushed the tangled clumps. Gladys would stir, just barely, when Miriam tugged too hard. But Miriam liked watching her sleeping eyes squirm against her eyelids. She imagined that Gladys dreamt about sugarcane, bare legs, and the tender brushings of blushed cheeks.
Gideon woke the women screaming, the volume of his cries as loud as a grown man’s. A grown man’s cries, indeed. Jack stood, seething, over Miriam and Gladys, wrapped in each other like morning glories on a rose bush. He demanded an explanation. And Gladys, rather than proclaiming her love for Miriam, lied. She did not vouch for Miriam, instead handed her hot on a platter for Jack to bed. Since I have not met your needs, since I cannot lay until I heal, you may have her.
This revelation broke Miriam. The revelation that Gladys was no better than any man, that she would use Miriam’s body for pleasure or as a shield, or whatever she needed. But Miriam was a customer-comes-first type of businesswoman. She bed Jack. She bed Jack so well that his legs shook like the ground beneath them was roaring and ready to open, and he quaked and called out to God, and grabbed her wrists and yelled at her to choke him. She rode and rode and rode, lost in visions of Gladys, until the quaking stopped. Stopped all together, actually.
Don’t get it twisted, Miriam didn’t choke Jack to death. Jack’s heart gave out from feeling more sensations than he had since he was a ripe eighteen and because he’d consumed enough moonshine to force the livestock in the field to go belly-up. With only terror to hold her together, she unsaddled herself from Jack, covered him in the sweat-soaked marriage quilt on the bed, and left without a word to Gladys.
Miriam fled straight to Honey’s. She kissed Eugene on the cheek and proceeded to buy the thickest, most reliable rope she could find. Robby Packerwarst loitered in the back, shoving nuts and bolts and bubblegum in his pockets. He hardened in his britches as he watched Miriam test the ropes, slapping the two ends together, her elbows flung out like chicken wings. The men did not come to the simplest of answers as to what she would be doing with the rope. They imagined the ropes around her wrists and ankles, in her mouth, in their mouths and around their wrists and ankles, but never around her neck. The thought that she might have finally gathered the courage to take from herself like everyone else always had, never occurred to them.
In the dim Monday morning still drenched in dew, after Miriam ate a ham sandwich, she wrapped the rope like a twine scarf around her neck. At least in death, no one could fill her with the sorrows of humanity, or the filthy lust and need of men, and she may finally be allowed to just be empty, to be nothing. Under the sturdy chestnut tree that overlooked the lake, she leaped into the river, naked and weightless, save for one worry and the rope that hung from her neck. Bright, warm light hit her as her toes skimmed the water and the only heaviness in her mind was her final prayer: a desperate hope that God did not want to fuck her, too.
A year or so after Dirty Sunday, the men of the town would be hauled into the trenches of their fathers, into the endless night, to lend a hand in yet another Exodus. They’d all wish Miriam’s funeral had been their own, wished that she had killed them, or maybe she did, because they hadn’t felt anything, other than the clotting blood on their hands, since she died. Their bodies, which they sinned so dreadfully against, demanded penance. They contracted syphilis, bathed in boils, and sulked in bedridden decay with sores so deep they could see their creamy bones. They felt fierce shame when they imagined their palms as a dead woman’s damp pussy but couldn’t resist the urge to have just one moment of relief. They’d call out to God every hour like the old church bell that sang only one tune, asked only one question, had only one thought: why?
It was Quiche who asked, as close as he could, the question that needed to be asked. Who was he fighting, and for what? Young Quiche was right on the nose and at that moment showed an exciting amount of promise. But grenades fell from the sky like hail; one found purchase, nestled between his boots, cutting short his formation of the deeper question. Because what Quiche meant to ask, and was rudely interrupted, was: how much sacrifice, and to whom, would earn his salvation?
And later, when the war veterans decided they couldn’t look at Gladys Henley for one more consecutive Sunday, they shot her. Gideon was eleven. Reggie Halloway’s hand shook, as the barrel hummed against his palm, and the whooping of dismembered men filled his ears. As she fell, Gladys tasted that familiar bittersweetness. She tasted it all the way down, until there was no taste or thoughts, only light.
Gladys and the men would never learn the preciousness of their naivety. Eugene would continue to run Honey Pharmacy. Hiram would never lose the unbearable need to speak, he’d blab and blab and blab until he finally died, and the world would know just a fucking second of peace. The Climes would hate each other, and cheat and steal. The wars would rage on, ceaselessly, sometimes in righteous silence and sometimes in a mushroom cloud. Women would buy billions of tubes of lipstick in a myriad of shades, anything to hide the natural tint. And all the questions and pleading to the sky would never, will never, be answered. Forced to remain on the mountaintop, looking into a future that is untouchable, a candied promise to never be fulfilled, a land just out of reach.
The men didn’t quiet their passionate gossip when Gladys exited the church. A penny glistened on the gravel, a striking gem against a sea of rubble. When she bent over to grab the coin, none of the men even glanced at her ass. Gladys went home and the men took turns slipping into the church, repaying their respects to Miriam, for an economical amount of time, about seven minutes.
Amidst the sins of men and the blood of women, the only grace God ever showed was in those days when the water was as dark as wine, the cream like a tart apricot, and we all still believed He cared to listen.