Entwined in the dark, Assumpta felt the breeze of Peter's sigh against her clavicle.
"What?" She said.
"Your skin." His hand moved like a cloud over her waist, drifting to her hip. "It's so soft." He let out another breath against her neck and she shivered. His fingertips danced on the goosebumps. "There's not a bed in the world that won't be a let down after this. You're ruining me for life."
"Simple solution comes to mind." She brushed her forehead against his chin, lifted her lips to the line of his jaw.
"Except for the simple part." He pulled her in tight. "I don't want to go."
"I know."
"And somehow, at the same time, I wish I was already there." He said then groaned into her hair.
"I know." She held him tighter.
"Except, of course, you'd still be just here, just like this, but, you know, in the spare room two doors down from Mum."
She chucked, "Well, here at least I can get up in the night without fear of meeting your mother en route to the loo."
After a silence he said. "I wish you could meet her. I wish she could meet you."
"The thought scares me half to death."
"Why?"
She leaned back to see his face, in what little residual light highlighted the shadows of her room. "What did she think of you becoming a priest?"
"Ah." He got it. "She was proud. Surprised, but glad."
Assumpta nodded. "What will you tell her?"
He lay back. "Well, the best opening line would probably be, 'Good news, Mum, there's a chance you'll get grandkids after all' – but it's probably a little early, if at all."
"That's a strange thought."
"Is it?"
"Not bad, just strange."
He took her elbow and pulled her up against his side, kissing her head as soon as it was in reach.
"What about your brothers? Surely they'll procreate at some point."
"Ben's gay. And Daniel is threatening to become a priest."
"What?" She got up on her elbow. "How do I not know these things?"
"Never came up."
She shook her head and then buried it in his shoulder as his arm went around her again. The silence was warm and sweet. God, what she'd do to fall asleep like this every night.
"Thanks for letting me stay." He said eventually.
"Don't mention it."
"Better awake here than asleep anywhere else."
"You're not sleepy?" She felt rather than saw him shake his head. It'd be so easy to run her hand down his chest. Down, down, down. "You know what's meant to help with that?" She said instead of racing ahead and showing him.
He chuckled but took her hand and held it firm over his heart.
"So Ben's the eldest?" She asked. Sometimes the best way to fall asleep was to stop trying so hard to do it. And here in the dark, close and warm and quiet, never was conversation so easy.
"No, I am."
"Ah, well that explains all your organising the community, bossing us around."
"You're one to talk."
"Hey, I'm an only child. We're even worse. Can't help it."
"Better. You're even better." He lifted her chin so he could kiss her. "You taste like red wine." He kissed her again as if to make sure. "It's what I always thought you'd taste like."
"You thought about that?"
"This comes as a surprise?"
It did, actually, but she didn't say so and squeezed him tight. How was it possible that she could love him even more? "I thought you were a lager man."
"Once upon a time." He kissed her again. There was no drive to it, that was all, a kiss, and another, as many as he liked. Only yesterday he'd bought her painkillers for cramps – day before yesterday, technically. He could see the read out on the alarm clock, just gone one in the morning.
It'd be so easy to pretend this was where he belonged, looking after her. And her looking after him, as if they really belonged to each other. It was more tempting a fantasy than even she was tempting, warm and smooth and soft beneath an oversized tshirt and boxer shorts that really presented no obstacle at all.
Maybe if he could just stop moving his hands over her body he'd be able to sleep. But if it was a choice between sleep and this, he'd take all that smooth skin and her every sigh, each breathy laugh against his neck and the tug of her kiss on his skin, the tickle of her hair at his nose and the scent of bordeaux. "Red wine like that always makes me think of you."
She was half asleep but she spoke. "Not of the sacraments?"
"No." Once upon a time, maybe. Not in a long time, now.
He'd moved away in his sleep, leaving only one hand on her breast. It was still dark and she couldn't see the clock without lifting her head. She watched his shadowed form and tried to savour it, being together like this.
"What's the time?" He said, startling her.
"I thought you were asleep."
"I was." He hadn't opened his eyes. "Tell me I don't need to get up yet."
She hoisted her heavy head off the pillow. "No, you've an hour at least."
He lifted his hand from her breast. "Sorry."
"Good dream?" She took his hand and put it right back, interlacing her fingers with his.
"No dream at all, thank god. I needed the rest."
She wanted to ask if he dreamed about them but didn't dare, didn't want to intrude.
"This is just the right shape, very restful place for a hand. What's the word – ergonomic."
She laughed.
"Oh, I'm dreading this." He wriggled his head into the nook beside hers. "Ever again leaving your bed must be madness."
"I don't know, I'd say the madness was putting it off this long. What would you have done if I hadn't stopped us – in the rehearsal?"
"I'd have kissed you."
"Just like that."
"It was in the script. And I wanted to do it. Thought the reality of it might help matters." He thumbed her nipple, smiling at its response. "And I wanted to do it."
"It might have changed everything."
"Father Mac might have sent me on retreat months earlier."
"You might have run away properly."
He considered her for a moment. Either it was getting light or his eyes were well-adjusted to the dark now; he could see the red of her lips. "I might have." His mind kept wandering back to whatever might be happening in that hospital in Manchester, no matter how much more appealing the image before him or any number of bitter-sweet memories.
She slipped her fingers out from between his and stroked up his arm. "It's only a few weeks. You'll be back before you know it."
"It's too long and too soon. But it's not as if any of this is unfamiliar to me, the longing for it and dreading it. I've witnessed death – lots of times."
"More than most. But this is different."
"Were you there?"
"When – oh, my mum? No. It was sudden. She was forty nine, healthy, as far as anyone knew. And then it was all over. Even if I'd been home, she'd have been unconscious. I'd never have known if she heard a word I had to say and what do you say anyway?"
"When you don't have the script."
After a moment she went on. "There were things I wished I'd said, of course, but better sudden than the alternative. Dad was sick for months. It was a relief at the end."
"You were there then?"
She nodded. "But after that I didn't have to go to church any more, so that answers for the relief." She caught his eye, smiled. "I was sixteen, self-involved as anyone."
"Sounds like self-protection as much as anything."
"Yeah, well, I guess Mum was hedging her bets. We couldn't put a foot wrong, just in case there was a miracle to be had. But she didn't expect him raised from the dead, so once he was gone, I was free to be a heathen."
"Do you have any idea how brave you are?"
"What's brave about it? Not as if I had any choice in the matter."
"Yes you did, in how you faced in, in what you became out of all that."
No question, he admired her more than was her due, but she didn't mind. "Maybe it would've been braver to stay, to face it."
"Who, your mum?"
"And the rest."
"The town."
"No, your man on the hill."
"What, God?"
"Don't sound so surprised."
He smiled, "Sorry."
"Don't give it up too easily." She said, struggling to maintain eye contact. "Okay?"
"What, faith?"
"Yeah."
He craned his neck, making sure she was looking right at him. "I'm not. This doesn't – I mean it's more likely the other way around."
"Peter, you don't have to explain it to me, I just -" She had her hand on his side, holding him at a distance, meagre though it was.
"No, it's not like that. If I'd somehow given you up and stuck at being a priest, I'd have resented, eventually, all of it. I'd have been a terrible priest but worse than that."
"So you gave up the priesthood to save your faith?" Her hand was on his hip now, as if to insist he tell the truth on this point. For sex, no. For so much more than that.
But for sex too. "I thought I made it pretty clear what I gave up the priesthood for, but it might just work out that way."
She slipped her fingers under the waist of his shorts and he breathed in deep, fast. Her hand was cool by comparison. He thirsted for every lick of her fingers across his abdomen, his thigh, his -
"You don't need to do this."
"I want to." She whispered against his bottom lip.
"It's not why I stayed."
"You think I don't know?"
"Just making sure."
She tightened her grip. "I love you."
He closed his eyes and held onto her.
I took a course at Uni entitled, "Sex, Death and Salvation in Asian Religions", which was a great way to fill the lecture theatre for the first week, but could probably be accused of false advertising... anyway, it strikes me as pretty close to an appropriate title for where this story is going, regional specifics aside. I've got a couple of ideas so there'll be a couple more chapters, but get your requests in quick. xx Amy
