“Come on, Gracie, you simply must
meet the new curate!” squeals Roberta as soon as she’s set eyes on you.
You’ve known her for too long to believe that there would be any point in
trying to resist so you let her drag you through the park. You really don’t
know why you bother with these picnics but now you’re here you might as well
get on with it. You only half-hear Roberta ranting on about what a “pleasant
young man” the new arrival is. She’s always had a thing for “men with the
calling”, the whole village knows it, and every single clergyman who’s ever
passed through this place has had a taste of her enthusiasm. “Father James!”
she shouts, still pulling you along. If she goes on like that your arm is going
to fall off. Where does she take that strength from, at 84?! “This is our
Gracie. Such a helpful girl! Very good with needle and thread, always helps
mending the servers’ robes, they keep tearing them, I don’t know how they do
it!” While Roberta has talked, you have blinked. Repeatedly. Surely that
can’t be him?!!! He’s much too young. And, hell, much too attractive –
brown eyes, soft, deliciously curved lips, glossy hair, and a marvellous body,
tucked away in a simple but stylish black suit. Now he truly is heaven-sent! He
smiles, stretching out his hand, “I’ve heard about you. I do hope you can
give me a hand with some of those chasubles, they look an awful mess.” His
hand touches yours and you flinch. Of course you are a reasonable, down-to-earth
person and you’ve long since given up on something like love at first sight
happening to you, but… there is something. You can tell he feels it too; his
eyes darken as they stare into yours and he lets go of your hand very quickly.
Silence. Roberta has found a new victim to lavish her attention on and is
disappearing. You’re left staring at the ground, at the shrubbery, at the sky
over his shoulder. “Well, I suppose I’d better get myself a cup of tea,”
you finally manage to say. He nods. “Yes. Very nice meeting you.” His voice
sounds strained.
You
take a deep breath and knock. There are footsteps and then the door opens. Even
though you’ve braced yourself, you’re not prepared for…well, for him. You
haven’t really seen him since that picnic, if you don’t count mass. And mass
definitely doesn’t count, considering you spent most of the time looking
everywhere else but at him. Although during the sermon you couldn’t help it
and promptly ended up thinking about what kind of underwear he might have on.
You force a polite smile on your face. “Good afternoon, Father James” you
say brightly, stepping into the sacristy. “Hello, Miss XXX.” “Oh, please,
don’t call me that, no one does. I’m Gracie.” You hear yourself saying.
Damn, where did that come from?!!! He smiles and you almost melt, vowing to
never ever say anything to make him smile at you ever again; it’s just too
much of an effort to stop yourself from grabbing him and snogging him senseless.
“Call me James, then. But…can I call you Grace? It sounds more… mature, it
has more…I don’t know, dignity. Or grace. Grace has more grace,” he grins,
pleased with himself. You can’t help laughing. “Grace is fine. Shall we get
down to it, then? Erm, work, I mean” you blush. ‘Just keep your stupid mouth
shut’ you think, but he’s smiling again. “Yeah, let’s.” Two hours
later you’re a nervous wreck. He’s been trying on every single chasuble, and
you’ve been pulling and tugging and pushing needles in here and there, and
it’s just absolutely impossible not to touch him while doing that. You’ve
caught yourself staring at him more than once, when he’s changing from one
robe into the next, standing there in his grey pullover that is so unfairly
tight fitting around his broad shoulders. And what’s worse, you’ve caught
him looking at you too, thoughtfully, from the side, when you were busy folding
garments away. Fortunately or unfortunately you’re through with it now so you
can get out of here and clear your head. You’re tidying up silently, when all
of a sudden Penelope, the cat that seems to belong to the church rather than to
any person, gets her mad five minutes, jumps up from where she’d been dozing
and hops through the room like a crazed kitten. It doesn’t take long before
she’s swept the little box with the pins off the table. Hundreds of them
scatter over the floor. “Damn!” you shout and quickly add “Sorry,
Father.” “James, not Father,” he corrects you, crouching down to pick the
pins up again. You join him, sighing, and the two of you crawl around the room
for five minutes until the last pin is safely back in its box. You stand up
again, wiping your hands on your jeans, and find yourself with your back to a
shelf, James right in front of you, so close you can feel his warmth and smell
his aftershave. He stares at you, and as much as you want to, you can’t break
his gaze. From the corner of your eye you can see little specks of dust gliding
through a beam of sunlight in slow motion. His breathing is shallow and quick,
his lips part slightly and he slowly leans forward, closing his eyes, when
there’s a knock on the door. He spins around and goes to open, while you try
to compose yourself, reasoning with your mind to spare you the thought of what
was just about to happen, at least until you’re out of here, and detained in a
place of safety. You nod at the young woman who’s just come in to talk about
her baby son’s christening, and slip out of the door, mumbling something like
goodbye to him.
You
push away the bar of chocolate. Better get back to work, you promised him the
chasubles would be ready for the weekend. But you know you won’t be able to
concentrate, today you spent half of the time undoing the seams you’d just
sown because they were all wonky. If you don’t speed up soon… The doorbell
rings. You look at your watch. Half past eight in the evening, and you don’t
expect anyone. Oh well, probably another erratic pizza delivery. You slouch to
the front door. It isn’t a pizza boy. It’s James. In trainers, jogging
bottoms and a sweaty top. “I’ve been jogging, and then I saw your car… can
I come in?” he pants. “Sure,” you say, although you’re not at all sure
that this is a good idea. Next thing you know is that you’re standing in the
living room, both obviously embarrassed, neither of you with anything to say.
“I’m working on the robes,” you state flatly. “Yes, yes” he mumbles
absent-mindedly. This is getting more and more awkward. Why did he come here, if
he doesn’t have anything to say? He takes a step towards you and you don’t
know whether to run away or to fling yourself into his arms. He swallows hard.
“I want you Grace,” he croaks. The room starts to spin around you. You just
stare at him. “Please,” he continues, “I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I
don’t know what to do anymore.” He reaches out his hand, but you swiftly
turn around. “NO!” you almost shout. “Grace…” he begs. “No!” you
repeat, storming into the kitchen. You know that was a bad idea. He’s
following you and there’s nowhere you can run. So you just stand there and
look blindly down into the sink and wait. He stops in the doorframe. You turn
around. “No to what?” he asks calmly. “Just say that you don’t want me,
if that’s what it is.” He moves towards you. “Just say it and I’ll
go.” You blink, desperately trying to keep away the tears. “I don’t
want…” you begin. You know it’s the easiest way, just lie. Tell him you
don’t want him. Break his heart. But you will anyway. And you can’t lie, not
about this. “I don’t want…this,” you finish and turn away from him. He
slips his arms around your waist from behind. “Oh Grace, Grace,” he mumbles,
his lips touching your neck. “I don’t want to put you through this,” you
sob. He abruptly lets go of you. “Yes, you’re right. I know you’re
right.” You don’t say anything, you close your eyes, wishing you could get
away from this. Why him? Why the one and only person you can’t have? A couple
of seconds later you hear the front door close behind him.
It’s
Saturday morning. You finally finished those damn chasubles. You push open the
big wooden church doors. He’s not there. You don’t know whether you’re
disappointed or happy. ‘Happy,’ you tell yourself, although you can’t even
pretend to believe it. You put the robes on one of the benches and turn to
leave. “Grace!” You tremble at the mere sound of his voice. He comes running
towards you. “I’ve brought the robes,” you say meekly. “I don’t care
about these f**king robes, I need to talk to you,” he replies angrily, and he
looks like he means it. “Father James?” someone calls. “Are you here?”
“Never got a moment’s peace,” James presses out through gritted teeth.
“Come on!” He grabs your hand and starts dragging you towards one of the old
confessionals. “James –” you protest, but he hisses “Sssshh!”, jerks
open the door and pushes you inside. It’s almost completely dark, there’s
only a bit of light filtering in through some cracks. There are footsteps in the
church and the person calls for James again. You’re standing close together,
straining to listen, breathing heavily. After a while the footsteps fade again.
You can feel his breath on your face. Your heart beats so loudly you’re
convinced he must be able to hear it. Neither of you moves. “Alone at last,”
James whispers. You know you should push past him and get out of here, but you
don’t want to. You let him run his fingers through your dark hair, pushing
some strands behind your ear. His fingertips move down over your neck to your
collarbone, so lightly it makes you have to lean your head back and close your
eyes. You feel his hands on your shoulders, then he runs them down over your
bare arms and intertwines his fingers with yours. He leans closer and finally
kisses you, softly, innocently, with dry lips. His hands squeeze yours tightly
and you fully expect to collapse at any minute. You gently run your tongue
across his mouth and with a sigh he parts his lips and lets your tongue slide
inside. You kiss like that for ages, your tongues only just about touching,
clinging to each other like ship-wrecked until it just isn’t enough anymore
and you let go of his hands to grab his head and pull him as close as possible,
pressing your body against his. He responds immediately, as if he’d only
waited for you to signal that you want more. He pins you against the back of the
confessional, and from one second to the next his hands are all over you, on
your breasts, in your hair, between your legs. Hastily, you begin to undo his
shirt, button-by-button at first, then virtually ripping it open. You run your
hands over his smooth chest, down to his taunt stomach and up again to his firm
nipples. He pushes up the thin fabric of your flimsy summer dress and you
automatically wrap your legs around his waist, fiercely grinding against his
hips, desperate for the pressure of his hard-on against your crotch. All the
time you haven’t stopped kissing, greedily now, doing stuff with your tongues
that is a clear indicator of what’s going to follow. Now he pulls away from
you, but only for a second, and then his mouth is fixed on your neck, sucking
and biting your flesh, while his hands are busy with the fastening of his
trousers. Things can’t seem to go quickly enough and you struggle to help him,
pulling at his belt, tugging and pushing his trousers down and finally reaching
inside his pants to realise that there must be a God and that he can’t mind
what you’re doing because otherwise your new curate wouldn’t be so
spectacularly well endowed. You moan in anticipation, dying to feel him inside
you on the one hand, but on the other hand completely unable to get the thought
of sucking his gorgeous cock out of your head. But there’s not nearly enough
room for you to go down on your knees, the confessional clearly having been
designed for other things, and anyway, James obviously has different plans for
you. Almost unaware you’ve been massaging him, running your hand up and down
his shaft, increasing rhythm and pressure until he grabs your wrists and holds
them together over your head with one hand. He looks at you for a second and
despite the relative darkness you feels his eyes burning into yours, full of
desire. He doesn’t even bother with pulling down your knickers, just pushes
them aside, his fingers brushing over your wet pussy for one delicious second
before his hand is in your hair again pulling you towards him. He kisses you
again, pure passion this time, and before you can react in any way, he thrusts
inside you, making you absolutely breathless. It takes you what seems like hours
until you’re even able to groan, completely overwhelmed as you are by the
feeling of him inside you. Somewhere in the back of your mind you still know
that this is completely insane, that you’re risking way too much here, but you
can’t help it anymore, it’s too late, you’re completely losing control.
You’ve freed your hands from his grasp and are now running them over his back,
sweaty and tense through his shirt, while he holds on to your waist guiding you
to the rhythm he wants. Every time he pulls out of you a tiny bit you feel like
screaming in frustration, you don’t want him to ever stop this, and as soon as
he’s fully and deeply inside you again, you clench your muscles around his
dick, unwilling to let him move away again. His heavy breathing drives you
almost insane, and you find yourself repeating his name over and over again,
louder and louder as you realise how much it turns him on. He’s f**king you so
hard now it would be painful if it were anyone else, but with him it’s simply
heavenly. He’s moaning as well now, his voice a strange mixture of helpless
and horny that makes your clit throb even harder, and when, a couple of seconds
later, he screams out, pushing inside you a final time with incredible force,
you shudder against him, an incredible orgasm shaking you so hard you’d pass
out if it wasn’t for his strong arms and the feeling of his hot semen filling
you. You hold on to each other in the darkness for a very long time afterwards,
and when your head finally clears up, you feel dizzy with happiness and
frighteningly vulnerable. But not as vulnerable as you know he feels now.