John
The group met in a Baptist church on the outskirts of Austin. The church, twenty rows of wooden pews beneath blue and white stained-glass windows, held about thirty people, a smaller group than John Petersen usually saw in the more rural towns. People sat in the first four pews leading to the raised platform with a podium in the middle where on Sundays the preacher gave his sermons. John and the other board members sat on folding chairs to the right of the podium, facing the small group of believers.
Georgina Crane, the founder of the group and John’s personal mentor, opened the meeting with a prayer for all the unborn babies whose mothers had killed them. She thanked the Lord for the new laws that protected babies, prayed that the laws would soon extend across the entire United States, and invoked the name of Jesus. John bowed his head in respect with the rest of the group. Then Georgina took a deep breath and began to explain the action plan that she and John had discussed.
Find women who were pregnant. Who were at risk of killing their babies.
“The godless bureaucrats who run this city put prosecution of anyone helping to kill babies at the lowest level of priority. Unfortunately, there are still states that allow women to destroy the lives within them, and there are no laws stopping women in Texas from traveling to one of those states. While we work to change the laws of all fifty states, we still have to be advocates for life here in Austin. It’s up to us to stop a tragedy before it happens. This is the task the Lord has given us. We are his disciples. We are his tools. We are the righteous.”
John, waiting his turn, looked over the crowd, seeing the nods and hearing the muttering of agreement. In the fourth row, his high school friend, Wyatt, raised his arms and swayed, caught in a moment of rapture.
He checked the group for attractive women. Some days there were none. A lot of the women who attended the meetings were older. Some days, like this night, there were a few. He noticed one in particular, maybe in her early twenties, sitting in the second pew.
It wasn’t why he was there. It had nothing to do with his mission. But he was a man, and he accepted that the nature of men was to want sex. The nature of women was to submit to men.
Yes, he believed in marriage and in family. But he also had needs.
He turned his attention back to Georgina, who was beckoning him. This was his moment. He stood, crossed the stage, and took the mic.
“Don’t let anyone dissuade you from doing God’s work. You have to know what to look for.” He caught the eye of the pretty woman in the front pew. She was smiling at him. And she wasn’t with a man but with another young woman, one not quite as attractive. He felt a stirring of interest. How long had it been? He pulled his thoughts away from sex, damning himself and the young woman for distracting him. “Join groups that young women join. Make friends. Talk to them. Sometimes a woman might confide in you. Listen. Be nonjudgmental. Sometimes you can pick up on the signs. In those first weeks of pregnancy, they can be subtle. A lack of appetite. Bloating.”
“Missed period.” Someone called out from the floor.
“That too.” John waited until the laughter died down to continue. “Then—if you think she’s at risk—because a woman who harms her baby also harms herself—talk to me. If you think that the life she’s carrying is in danger, talk to me. We can come up with a plan together. There are ways to help. We will do nothing illegal. But we will ensure that she does nothing illegal either.”
He said the last because he assumed that there were police informants in the crowd. They usually were. The police had questioned him after the recent hit-and-run, but his phone data showed him to be at home, and although he remained on the cops’ radar for any “crime” involving abortion, they hadn’t found any physical evidence in the abandoned truck.
As he knew they wouldn’t.
He had been a little surprised when the police questioned him about Tom Martin’s death. He’d been questioned about so many things that he had done, but being questioned about something he hadn’t done was almost shocking.
Having had nothing to do with it, he hadn’t arranged for an alibi. Fortunately, he had one anyway. He’d been at a meeting with fifty people, and he’d been a speaker, so all fifty of those in attendance could attest to his presence.
He cleared his throat and made his last pitch. “If you should learn of anyone—anyone—helping a woman to have an abortion, come to me. Even if the city of Austin declines to prosecute, we can act. We can go to the office of the Texas Attorney General. And we can help you sue in civil court. It’s up to us, to all of us, to safeguard the lives of the most vulnerable.”
He turned the meeting back over to Georgina and strode back to his seat. He listened to Georgina, but he’d heard her pitch before. His mind began to wander—and from that vantage point, he could see the young woman in the second pew even better. She had long dark hair, a light complexion, and breasts that were just made for a man to fondle.
He didn’t know her name. Both she and her friend were new to the group. That wasn’t an obstacle. There would be punch and cookies after the speeches ended, and he’d introduce himself. He knew that sex outside of marriage was a sin, but he did important work. Dangerous work. He needed and deserved a release.
He also knew she was interested. He could feel her gaze.
Georgina was speaking about her hope for a nationwide ban, not much of a hope under the current administration in Washington, but it still had to be addressed.
He tried to keep his mind on Georgina’s words and not on the young woman, who continued to look at him and smile, but his body wasn’t listening. He needed to fight it. It would be downright embarrassing to have an erection when Georgina finished and he stood up on the stage. Worse, he’d be mingling with the crowd.
Maybe Brenda was right, and he did need to get married. Just find a woman who shared his faith and his vision. And who he could fuck whenever he wanted.
But thinking of Brenda didn’t improve matters.
She had been beautiful as ever when he saw her earlier in the day. He liked that she knew him well, knew what he was capable of, and yet didn’t reject him. He even liked her toughness. More importantly, he loved her. She had rejected his love, but that didn’t stop his feelings. It didn’t stop him from thinking about her lying in his bed, naked, submitting to him.
Thinking of Brenda in his bed was even more exciting than thinking about the woman in the second row.
He’d dated Brenda in high school. Afterwards, when he left town to work on an oil rig and she left town for college, she’d ended it. She returned to Austin for law school, and he returned for a job in construction, but she’d made it clear. It was over.
Why did Brenda have to marry that idiot Roland?
He knew the answer to that too.
Because Roland came from one of the oldest and richest families in Austin, even if he was something of a nonentity. Brenda had always been ambitious, wanting both money and power. He didn’t fault the ambition, as long as it was for the right reason. To do the work that needed to be done for the greater glory of God.
He hadn’t always been a believer. In the dark days after his parents died and Brenda left him, he’d turned to drink and drugs. He’d been pulled out of the gutter, quite literally, by a preacher who’d saved his soul and showed him the path that Jesus wanted him to travel. With his rebirth, he’d found a mission and a purpose in saving other lives. While all life was important, the lives of unborn babies, with the potential to be anyone and do anything, were the most innocent and pure, but were being carelessly discarded by those who denied the Lord Jesus.
For all her ambition, at least Brenda was on the right side. She was doing the Lord’s work. As was he. Even if he had to fight sometimes against temptation.
He forced himself to think of Jesus, of the Jesus he worshipped, not the weak simpering Jesus of the liberal churches, no, the warrior Jesus who drove the money changers out of the temple. He imagined Jesus storming into the homes of the Austin officials who’d voted to protect abortionists.
Georgina wound up her speech with a plea for donations. The crowd—such as it was—stood and applauded.
John stood and joined in the applause. Then he followed Georgina to the reception hall where the young woman with the ample breasts and long dark hair stood alone, a cup of punch in her hand, waiting for him.
Only he never got to her. Wyatt grabbed him by the elbow.
“John. I have to talk to you. I think I know a woman who’s in danger of killing her child.”
John gave a last glance at the pretty young woman. So much for meeting her. But it was probably just as well. That a young woman was at a Combatants for the Unborn event meant that she was religious. She should therefore be respected. Better to pick up a woman in a bar. There were plenty of loose women around who deserved what they got.
Then he turned to Wyatt. “Talk to me.”
“It’s my ex-wife.” Wyatt swallowed hard. “And it’s my fault.”