The Eupeptic Sex of Maria Lynn Fuego

Maria awoke with a McDonald’s breakfast on her mind but it never materialized in her belly, instead dining on stale Doritos and a warm can of Mountain Dew. 

Maria had slept in her car again last night. Joel had relapsed and succumbed to his demons, embarking on a scary drinking binge that forced Maria out of the apartment for a few days. Living in her car wasn’t so bad. Cops hadn’t hassled her (so far). Nobody tried to attack her (and she was parked in a pretty rough neighborhood). In fact, a girl got murdered with a tombstone two nights back. They used it to crush her skull. 

Maria took a morbidly-curious tourist trip to the cemetery crime scene. The murder weapon was still there, restricted behind yellow police tape. The engraving read, Here lies Nathan Braverman, beloved husband 1934—1999. He sleeps with Jesus in God’s Holy Keep.

The whole fucking scene was just sad. Maria copped a local news rag to read about the incident. The article claimed it was gang activity. Drugs were involved but they didn’t specify what kind. Maria hated that. The type of drug was important. It was a newsworthy detail and helped explain the case. It added crucial nuance.

Anyway, this chick named Amia Loren Switzer stole a cache of “illicit substances” from the gang’s hangout on Leeman Street (little more than a condemned crack den) and they surrounded her in Greenlawn Cemetery and beat her up, ending her life by dropping the late Nathan Braverman’s headstone on her face.

What a horrific way to die. 

Maria finished her Mountain Dew, brushed Dorito crumbs from her lap, and then started her blue`97 Honda Civic and headed toward Central Falls to meet with Miriam. They had some heavy shit to discuss. She could feel her fresh breakfast growing agitated and acidic inside her. 

Maria was tired of playing Holy Saint Maria, performing miracles and healing the sick with the divine power of her erotic contact. She couldn’t navigate around the shame and guilt anymore. It wasn’t the sex; it was the lies. She felt like a con artist and that was a crappy way to feel. Unless you really were a con artist. 

And she wasn’t. Not anymore. She’d had an awakening.

She didn’t really know for sure if she’d healed that first guy’s gallstones with the bestowal of her so-called Holy Intercourse. He swore she had and referred others to seek her help, but Maria hadn’t diagnosed him in the first place and she believed in the placebo effect. The power of the naked brain could perform miracles.  

But now she believed that it probably wasn’t her healthy naked body that restored the ailing, aging bodies of her suffering-yet-horny clients. No way was her divine vagina a vessel of the Holy Spirit, as Miriam claimed. The health benefits of Christly Ritual Intimacy didn’t make sense to her anymore. Why would her pimping passion be as effectual as the Passion of Christ?  

She’d started suspecting Miriam was a spiritual grifter about a week ago. There were signs. Now she was convinced. She didn’t want to be a fucking faith-healer anyway, even if her libido was divinely guided. 

She liked helping people and she liked sex and fusing the two together had seemed like a kind of natural and positive Christian alchemy. Now she felt like a bad-faith dupe. A sacrifice on the altar of Miriam’s numinous confidence game. Coital Unction was a crock of shit. Coital Unction? Jesus. How could she have been so stupid? 

She felt her face blush hot with self-wrath and chagrin. Miriam had played her for a sucker. She never really believed. It was just about the money. The manipulation. The control.

She turned onto Broad Street, heading toward Jenks Park. She was getting close to Miriam’s apartment. It was hard to believe that in twenty minutes she’d be declaring her apostasy, severing ties with her forever. They’d been friends for so damn long. 

She’d have to remain resolute in the face of Miriam’s soothing, coaxing words. Words that slithered like snakes armed with mind-immobilizing venom. Miriam could talk her into almost anything and while this simple acknowledgement fortified her resolve, it also scared her. She didn’t want to be persuaded back into the Immaculate Chapel (spare bedroom), attempting to fuck away infection and fever.

It started with mild influenza. Miriam had been home, sick in bed with a fever and a head full of snot. Maria rushed over to nurse her back to health. She found Miriam shivering under a blanket, wretched and wan. Maria quickly crawled into bed with her and held her in a warm, fervent embrace. Things escalated from there and when it was over Miriam’s symptoms began to evaporate. She felt the sickness lift in real time. Her orgasm had eradicated her aching malaise.

That’s when Miriam decided that sex with Maria had cured her. 

It was a miracle. And she started hatching plans. Manipulating Maria was the first item on the checklist. And she achieved it with ease. Maria was too eager to believe. It was a weakness in her character. She trusted too much.

Maria pulled into the parking lot behind Miriam’s apartment building, the Chalcedon Arms, a giant slab of 1960s brick and mortar and little windows with thick glass that distorted the view. “Goldfish glass,” Miriam called it on her first visit and Maria had looked out at the warped, blurry world beyond the glass.

Maria left her car. The day was bright, laced with an autumnal flavor. There was a soft chill in the air but the sun was still warm. Maria was twenty-seven years old but this time of year still carried anxious, back-to-school vibes. She wondered if that feeling ever faded over time. How long did it take? 

The front doors were heavy and made of the same thick glass as the windows. 

She stepped into the vestibule. Two more glass doors blocked her final entry. There was a large grid of buttons with corresponding names on the wall. She pressed the button labeled Miriam Ananias and then stepped back to wait for the lock to release.

After a long silent minute, a harsh buzz sounded and the doors relaxed. Maria went inside.

Miriam lived on the 13th floor. Maria waited for the elevator, raw nerves simmering to the surface. She suddenly didn’t want to do this and considered aborting the mission. Miriam could get threatening at times. She had a fiery, brimstone temper that flared at the slightest offense. She would absolutely blow her stack at losing her supplemental income. Their friendship was doomed. Her renunciation of Miriam’s unscrupulous religious doctrine would be irrevocable. 

And possibly dangerous. 

The elevator doors opened. Maria stepped into the hall. A spicy smell she couldn’t identify hung in the hall like London fog. As she passed the procession of closed doors she heard the sounds of life within the units: the chattering babble of a television, a heated male/female exchange in a language she didn’t understand. She heard Janet Jackson behind door 124 and a small dog barked as she passed 123.

She stopped at 122. Miriam’s apartment. She felt her soul drop through the floor as soon as she knocked. Her heart hammered. 

She stood and waited, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She wanted to run. The caffeine from her morning Mountain Dew wasn’t helping her anxious state of mind either.

Random words occurred to her as she tried to formulate her escape plan: Hemorrhage. Unclean Spirit. Rebuke. Nephilim. Leprosy. 

Oh God. She was panicking. No atheists in foxholes. Get thee behind me Satan! 

Miriam opened the door and greeted her with a grin.

“Oh, hey baby! I didn’t know you were coming by!”

“Yeah,” Maria said, dropping her gaze to the frayed gray carpet. “Sorry. Um, may I come in?”

“Of course. Are you okay?”

“Yes. I’m good.”

“Your timing’s pretty good. I just scored some sticky Afghani shit. Black and gooey. Y’wanna get high?”

Maria shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Okay.”

“Great! Make yourself comfortable.”

Maria shrugged off her leather jacket and sat on the puffy green loveseat. Miriam sat beside her and plucked a glass pipe and a quartz hot rod from the cluttered coffee table. She ignited a small blowtorch and began heating the globular end of the wand.

“Hey, did you hear about the murder at the graveyard?”

Maria shook her head, playing innocent.

“Brutal,” Miriam said. Hey, by the way, I just talked to another prospective client. A really sweet guy. Name’s Gibson. He’s fifty-eight and was just diagnosed with stage-3 pancreatic cancer,” Miriam lighted the hash bowl with the glowing quartz wand. “It’s really sad to see. Anyway, I’m sure you can use your godly gift to cure him. I made an appointment for tomorrow at around noon. That cool with you?”

Miriam took a long drag on the pipe and then handed it and the wand to Maria.  

Maria took a hit and said, “I. I don’t know. Tomorrow at noon?” She handed the pipe back to Miriam.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” There was a bowl of cashews on the table and Maria began to nervously nibble from it, feeling self-conscious and afraid.

“Oh. Then no. I don’t think I can,” she told her boss.

Several beats of silence between them. Time seemed to freeze.

Miriam said, “Why not? What’s wrong?” Her smile had vanished. 

Maria’s first instinct was to give her an innocuous excuse and delay the final break with Miriam’s sex church. She plugged her mouth with three quick cashews.   

She felt the black hashish soothe her head and said, “I can’t do it anymore, Miriam.”

“Do what, sweetie?”

“I can’t keep fucking people with diseases for money.”

“What are you talking about? It’s your gift, Maria. You save lives.”

“Yeah, well whatever but…”

“But nothing Maria. God has given you a sacred gift. You know, God’s working through you. It’s God’s doing. You’re the vessel. He’s using you like a tool.”

Yeah, Maria felt like a tool alright. She swallowed the masticated nut-mush in her mouth and said, “I don’t want to do it anymore. I feel dishonest. The whole thing seems, well, kind of evil. The way we’ve been taking advantage of people. She plucked another soft nut from the bowl, nibbled, avoiding Miriam’s cold, unforgiving stare.

Miriam shook her head and sighed. “Y’know, you’re really putting me in a tough spot here, Maria.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to.”

“I have a responsibility toward my clients. Men are suffering. And now you’re refusing to help them live a life free from pain. Giving the sick and injured a new lease on life is a saintly pursuit. Why do you want to ruin so many lives? It’s selfish. And after all, it’s such a small, petty sacrifice.” 

Miriam plucked a nut from the bowl and tossed it into her mouth. “It’s tantamount to murder, is what it is. What, should these poor suffering souls just give up because you callously refused to rescue their lives? They should choose assisted suicide instead? Or suffer straight into the grave?”

“No. Of course not.” 

“You’re really leaving me in the lurch,” Miriam told her. She took a long draw on the hash hitter and then gasped and leaned forward, struggling to catch her breath. Her face went red.

“Are you okay?” Maria asked, nervous and concerned.

Miriam shook her head and pointed to her throat.

Maria realized she was choking on the cashew. She couldn’t breathe. 

Maria stood up and jerked Miriam to her feet. She moved behind her and hugged her, pushing her fist into Miriam’s abdomen. She delivered several upward thrusts. Maria had taken a CPR class in high school. She knew what to do. 

She performed the Heimlich maneuver again: five more firm thrusts to the diaphragm. The obstruction finally dislodged from her trachea and Miriam spit the cashew free. It landed on a plate crusted with the remains of a fossilized mystery meal.

Maria backed away from Miriam, who was gagging, coughing, filling her hungry lungs with fresh life-restoring oxygen. She fell back on the couch. Her hands were trembling as she wiped spittle from her lips with a balled-up napkin.

Maria said, “I just saved your life.”

“Yeah? So?” Miriam croaked in a tattered voice.

“So, that’s my final act of charity. Do something good with the life I just returned to you. Stop deceiving people. Stop ripping them off. Quit trying to manipulate them.”

“Are you kidding me?” she rasped angrily. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“I am the Holy Saint Maria. I work wonders. You should probably rest your voice now.” 

She grabbed her jacket and moved to the door. Miriam fumed but was too shaken and weak to stop her, or argue, or try to sweet-talk her back into the holy fold of therapeutic fornication.

Maria was free to leave. 

And she did just that.