The Pimple on Sarah’s Cheek

The Pimple on Sarah’s Cheek

by Jack Fay

I saw it for the first time on a Sunday morning. Sarah and I were sitting in our regular pew at Goshen Baptist Church on Old Jefferson Davis Road in Hepzibah, Georgia. It was Baptismal Sunday and a friend of ours, Nellie Gordon, was about to be born again. The galvanized tub had been rolled in from the storage shed out back and placed in front of the altar.

Reverend Naismith stood next to the tub, sleeves rolled up and a red-striped polyester tie tucked under a rubber apron. Nellie was in the tub, water up to her neck, shaking like an autumn leaf in a windstorm. She was holding her nose as tight as could be while the Reverend had one hand on the top of her head and the other hand gripping King James. The Reverend looked skyward for a moment, maybe waiting for a heavenly okay to proceed, and then pushed Nellie’s head down into the tub. Her backside slid along the bottom, and at the far end of the tub her bony feet broke the water’s surface. The Reverend held her head under the water for a second or two before letting go. Nellie bobbed to the surface, water streaming down her face. My Sarah clapped her hands together and called out for everyone to hear, “Praise the Lord.” Other voices followed, but not mine. I’m not against praising the Lord but I like to do it my own way, which is quiet-like.

Sarah and I have been together close on to forty years. Married in this same church, matter of fact. We gave our vows while standing in the same spot where Nellie was now coughing up water.

I reached around Sarah and pulled her close to me. I leaned over to peck her on the cheek and that’s when I saw it—right there on her left cheek—a tiny speck. Others would say it was a grain of sand kicked up from dirt in the church’s parking lot but I could tell from looking up close that it was the tip of a baby pimple. When my lips came in contact with Sarah’s cheek I could feel it on the tip of my tongue. The touch of it sent a tingle through my body. Sarah must have wondered why it was taking so long for me to finish a little kiss but she didn’t move an inch. I half expected her to say, “Virgil, what in the world are you up to?” The tingle grew stronger, filling me with a pleasure I had almost forgotten. I withdrew my lips from Sarah’s cheek, hoping that the tingle would continue, and it did. In a matter of seconds there was a rising in my pants.

“We have to get on home now,” I said to Sarah. She told me we should be among the first to welcome Nellie into the Kingdom of God. I told Sarah that God could wait. I almost had to drag her out the church door and into the car. “Land’s sake, Virgil. What’s so important we have to rush on home?” I told her she was about to find out.

Before the kitchen door had closed behind us, I spun Sarah around and gave her a kiss, smack on the mouth. When I touched her breasts she pulled back, but not so far as to break contact. “Virgil, what’s got into you?” she said. I took her by the hand and led her to the bedroom. She started to say something about cooking dinner but she stopped protesting when I kissed her again and began unbuttoning the back of her dress.

With the dress out of my way I looked for the pimple. It was still there so I clamped my lips over it. Was my imagination telling me that the pimple was undulating beneath my tongue? Was my imagination responsible for an erection bigger than I could ever remember?

Sarah didn’t resist when I eased her down on top of the bed. I kicked off my pants and kissed her. As I made love to her I kissed the pimple over and over again, exploring it with my tongue every which way. When the lovemaking was done I whispered to Sarah, “Can you believe it? Here I am, an old farmer in his seventies, going at it like a dog in heat. I bet all the folks down to the church would envy us, about doing it, I mean.” I let out a laugh that made Sarah grin. I said, “Let them eat their hearts out. How long’s it been, Sarah?”

She said, “It’s been three years, four months and one week.” She was smiling like she had won first prize at the Hepzibah cake baking contest.

Sarah pressed up against me and stroked my chest. She said, “I love you, Virgil.” We lay there, the sun streaming through the bedroom window, cattle lowing in the distance and the sweet smell of corn ripening in the field. Life was sure good.

She rose up on one elbow and looked down at me. “Do you like it, Virgil?”

“You know I do, Sarah.”

Touching it softly, she said, “I didn’t know how it would happen but it did. Proves what I knew in my heart all along.”

“What’s that, Sarah?”

“A wish can come true when a person prays hard enough.”

Jack Fay
Jack Fay former Special Agent, Army CID; security director for a major oil company; university adjunct; and author of 10 non-fiction books in law enforcement and security management. He currently resides in Atlanta where he owns and operates a company that sells online courses to private investigators and security managers.

3 thoughts on “The Pimple on Sarah’s Cheek

  1. At the age of 85, I found this a weirdly wonderful story. I was disappointed, though, only in the sense that in moving from the title to the opening baptism, I was sure that the story would involve turning the other, nether, cheek. AGB

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