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i.
It’s almost too easy to burrow into Amber’s life, so easy that it’s almost disappointing, utterly anticlimactic in the grand scheme of things, but Patience’s career is one dwindling thread away from collapsing and she needs this. She needs Amber.
Patience was hoping that Amber would put up a fight, that she would be challenging to crack, but Patience is able to read her immediately: Amber Gemstone thirsts for power. She does not hunger for it, rather she thirsts for it—if the power were to drain away she would deflate along with it, slowly succumbing to a dehydrating impermanence. Amber worked hard for this. She didn’t have much, growing up.
She meets with Amber, says she wants to talk about how The System can help her marriage, and begins her grand plan. Gemstone Wife Cheats On Husband Jesse Gemstone With A WOMAN! headlines will ring through the news, spreading her name—the insider— infectious right along with it. The offers will pour in, and her plan is foolproof, clearly. The right scandal will put her name back in the journalism world, and it’ll all be perfect again, and there is no way this can fail.
It falls into place: Patience gives a soft compliment every once in a while—Amber is so smart for coming up with this, she’ll do so many great things in the future, she should have more power in the church, why doesn’t she have more importance? It seems to fluster her. Patience even gives her a look, once, a gaze that implies her own form of hunger, and Amber takes too long to look away.
At the end of their meeting, she drops the final bomb: Patience refers to her wife. You just have to find the right buttons to press, you just have to cut through the thistle. She’s a freelance journalist and her wife insults her work all the time, tells her she doesn’t know what she’s doing, that everything she does is pointless, and this makes the expression on Amber’s face transform from shock at the lesbianism to what Patience can only interpret as a sense of familiarity.
“Well, to be honest with you,” Amber says, tone awkward. “I had a similar instance with Jesse, recently. I understand how you must feel.” Patience has broken through her defenses, has defused the bomb of her right before the big explosion. A crack in demeanor. Something shines through—
and dies. Amber looks up. “But, you know, that’s why we have The System. To help with moments like this, hm?”
Patience nods, and she shells out $500 for The System. It’s a ridiculous price for some box that claims to cure all problems in a marriage—-everyone knows it—but it’s her way in.
Amber stops her before she leaves. “If it works for you and your wife, would you consider doing some commercials for us? We’ll pay generously, of course. It would be nice to get someone of your… perspective to promote The System.”
“Ah, yes, the token lesbian? Appeal to the gays?”
“It’s not like that—”
“I’m joking. I’ll think about it.”
ii.
And then Jesse Gemstone gets kidnapped, and then Jesse Gemstone gets rescued, and it’s the perfect time for Patience to reach out and ensnare. She calls Amber again, says The System worked for her but she still has a few questions and might be willing to take her up on that offer. She reaches out and reaches out and her arms grow past human length and Amber falls into them. The blinds are closed, in Amber’s office.
What about you, she says. Tell me more about how The System helped your relationship. You know, since he’s still devaluing you, and all.
“I—I wouldn’t say he’s devaluing me.”
“Sorry for the assumption. I just would hate to imagine the person you love doesn’t see all the worth you have.”
And then it’s out in the open, too blatant. Patience has ulterior motives, and Amber craves the ability to feel like she’s On Top, controlling something, a hungerthirst for the strings to be in her hands, influencing her husband through the skies. Yes, she loves him. Yes, she’s devoted, and she would never falter.
But it doesn’t count with a woman, so when Patience’s hands slide close, close, closer to Amber’s skirt, her own hands remain frozen at her sides, watching Patience move like Patience is some sort of venomous creature slithering up inside of her. The recording device continues recording nearby, and Amber groans.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Stop me if you don’t like it.”
Amber just remains stationary. When Patience’s fingers circle in, Amber does the unimaginable, the sick: she pulls Patience in for a devouring, kissing her down jaw — neck — collarbone. Patience slides her hand up the back of Amber’s blouse—
LOW BATTERY.
The recording device booms through the room—who the fuck made it talk? ---and Amber pulls away, locating the recorder and holding it up in fury.
“ What is going on?”
“I—”
“No, you know what, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be keeping this. Get out and don’t ever come back.”
Patience nods, leaves Amber to her hollowness. She spins only to stomp out the door, making a point of her anger. It’s a pity; Patience liked it when Amber kissed her, Amber touches with the ferocity of someone finally allowing herself to explore a newly-excavated desire, and Amber is pleasantly aggressive in her need—
“Wait, Patience.”
When Patience turns, Amber’s gun is pointed at her. Oh, right; she keeps that thing on her at all times.
“Are you seriously going to shoot me?”
“What,” Amber begins, moving Patience back into the wall of her office, the gun still poking into her stomach, “were you going to use it for?”
“Everyone wants someone who knows something,” Patience shrugs. “I was going to make a story out of it, sell it.”
They’re so close, and it’s still so intimate, so vulnerable. Amber slides the gun away, back into a handbag.
“I was never going to shoot you,” she says.
Amber drops the recording device and crushes it beneath a heel. She tries to pull Patience in again—it takes her by surprise, but it shouldn’t; Amber is hungry— and Patience stops her. She pushes Amber back into her desk chair, kneels as if in prayer, prostrates as if in prayer, and kisses Amber’s thighs as if in prayer. Sliding Amber’s skirt up, she whispers:
You can put it back.
“What?”
“The gun.”
Amber gives a mocking laugh, and Patience moans as she feels the cool metal of the gun press into her neck.
And she worships.
It isn’t worship. It’s submission. But isn’t that what all worship is, in the end? Amber is controlling her, her mouth, her touch. Amber has the power now. It’s all an exchange of power for her, Amber asserting her dominance.
So: she worships.
