Free The Proviso by Moriah Jovan

home
and family. Why had he come to church today?
    To purge Giselle Cox.
    He closed his eyes and swallowed. He could only hope
that the subject of chastity wouldn’t rear its ugly head, but the
second it crossed his mind, the speaker referenced cleaving unto
one’s wife. He hadn’t cleaved unto any woman in years.
    An ache grew like a cancer behind Bryce’s
breastbone.
    Chastity was relatively easy, self-stimulation
notwithstanding, when a man had a burnt-to-a-crisp face that made
women flinch.
    Until her , the Chouteau County prosecutor’s
lover. No flinching there—just raw lust.
    Brains. Muscle. Weaponry.
    That kiss, the one she’d initiated, the one he’d
taken away from her, the one she couldn’t control or take back.
    Bryce knew what he wanted from a woman. He’d come to
terms with it halfway through his marriage, but went mostly without
because he wouldn’t beg for bad sex. Good thing, too, since
Michelle had had a habit of indiscriminately fucking anyone else
who appealed to her.
    He looked around at the chapel, which was not that
different from the one he and his family had attended when they
lived just a couple of miles away, across the Missouri-Kansas state
line in Mission Hills. Fundamentally identical to any Mormon church
building, it was comfortable and spartan in its bland décor with no
crosses or crucifixes. No distractions.
    Bryce hadn’t set foot in one but a few times since
the fire. Had he expected anything to change in the past five
years?
    He bowed his head for the closing prayer, feeling
nothing but bitterness and anger at the abandonment of a God he’d
served so faithfully for over three decades.
    He’d subverted his nature and quelled his base
desires.
    He’d followed church teachings to the best of his
ability, all the while ignoring philosophies that called to his
intellect.
    He’d fulfilled his father’s expectations as a good
and righteous priesthood holder in the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints—
    —and spent every day of it in absolute misery.
    He should have listened to his best friend, his
college roommate, the only person who had ever told him the
truth.
     
    *
     
    “ You don’t want Michelle! You’re marrying her
because your father bought her act and you’re going along with his
program—as usual. She’s lying to you.”
    “ I think I’d have been able to figure that out by
now.”
    “ You’re too invested in being pure and righteous
to give a shit. What you are is pressured. The minute you got off
the plane from your mission, your dad started in on you, hammering
you to find a nice girl to take to the temple. Well, I’m here to
tell you, pal—Michelle. Ain’t. It.”
    “ There’s nothing wrong with her.”
    “ Oh, other than that she’s a promiscuous,
manipulative, deceitful cunt?”
    “ She’s not a c— That’s not true.”
    “ Cunt, Bryce. Say it. For once in your life, call
it what it is. Cunt.”
    Bryce said nothing, but he felt sick to his stomach
for even hearing it, much less that his best friend had said
it—about his fiancée.
    “ Don’t you walk away from me. Someone has to give
you the facts of life and I’m designating myself the official bad
guy. Your father is too damned myopic to see her for what she is.
Great guy, your dad, but unbelievably naïve.”
    Bryce’s mind had tied itself in a knot by this time
and his soul hurt. “You have never been able to back up what you
say about her.”
    “ You know what? You’re exactly right. So let’s
talk about you instead. I notice the women you like to talk to:
Smart. Edgy. I notice the type of women who catch your eye:
Muscular. Solid. A woman you can throw at a bed and fuck.
Hard.”
    Bryce stared at him, shocked. “I can’t believe you
said that.”
    “ Oh, what? That I actually noticed it or that I
called you on it? You’re not exactly the mild-mannered and
slow’n’easy type of guy. Peter Priesthood? Not you. You play
football like a savage. No one on campus