“Nothing in my life felt right until you walked into my office, ready to save the preschool.”
“Nothing?”
“I was stuck. Bored. I didn’t feel like I had a relationship with God anymore. It had gotten stale.”
“Like a bad marriage?”
“Sort of?” He laughed.
“But everything is always forever with the Church—all the vows are forever.”
“I don’t know. Maybe that made sense when life was really short, but life is long. I don’t regret becoming a priest. If I hadn’t, maybe you and I wouldn’t be together right now. If you only want what’s forbidden, how else would I have gotten your attention?”
He had a point there. “Does that mean that you’ll get sick of me after a decade?”
“Are you ever going to stop surprising me?” His voice was laced with humor, as though getting sick of her was preposterous.
“Probably not.” If she had to resort to perpetually annoying him, she would do it for the sake of keeping things spicy. For now, she’d just have to keep him guessing with sex stuff. “I think I’d like to have sex now.”
“Do we need to talk anything else out first?”
They had so much to talk about, but that could wait. They had time. Right now, she needed him to kiss her. She needed his clothes—the ones that still had church-smell on them—to come off. She needed to drink him in. It was the only way that she would feel like this was really real and really for keeps.
“I think we’re done talking.”
* * *
—
PATRICK HAD STUDIED ANTHROPOLOGY in undergrad. The concept of liminal spaces—the confusing and ungrounded feeling of being neither here nor there in the middle of a rite of passage— stuck with him. He’d thought about it every time he’d performed a wedding ceremony and the bride and groom had appeared nervous. He’d thought about it as he’d poured holy water over a baby’s brow, anointed him with oil, and handed the child to godparents who seemed flabbergasted that someone was handing them a real human baby. He thought about liminal spaces when he was giving last rites, saying a funeral mass, or comforting a bereaved family.
After something ended and before something new, there was always the in-between. He felt as though he and Sasha were in a liminal space right now. He was no longer a priest. Sasha might know he loved her, but she didn’t necessarily know that this was a forever thing.
They were no longer just friends, but they weren’t yet lovers. Even this short time, the ride over and this conversation at her place, was too long to be in between.
So he kissed her again. He took her mouth in a way that was meant to tell her that he wanted her beyond all reason, that she belonged to him. And he let himself drink in the fact that she was finally his.
After an interminable moment, she opened her mouth to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him closer. The kissed stretched out beyond their first kiss, the one she’d cut her hair off to get away from.
He plunged his hands into the short crop of hair, sifting through the strands with his fingers. He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to the idea that he could touch her at will. She’d been forbidden to him for so long that he felt like a man who’d lived in poverty his whole life and won the lottery one day.
He didn’t want to waste a moment of it, but he was paralyzed by the riches he now had at hand.
She was the one who broke the kiss. Her lips were swollen and looked even softer and more enticing. “Take my clothes off.”
Her words brooked no discussion, so he reached around and unzipped the back of her dress. The way she looked at him, as though she was searching his face for doubts, didn’t make him move faster. “Let me savor this.”
One side of her mouth quirked up. “You’ve seen all the good bits.”
“No.” He shook his head as he pulled the sides of her dress to the front and yanked it down until her bra was revealed. It was lacy and wispy—her dark cherry nipples beaded up and pressed against it. Every inch of her made his mouth water. He bent down and sucked on one luscious tit through her bra. They were the perfect size and shape and he wanted to stay there forever. She gasped and held his head to her breast. With one hand, he pulled the rest of her dress off, leaving her in shoes and bra and panties.
He liked how it felt with her revealed to him, even though his vision was limited and her grip was so tight that he doubted that his scenery would change anytime soon. He felt as though he were drowning in her at the same time that he was learning her body.
He wondered if he would ever feel as though he had enough time with her. He let his hands wander because he was so impatient for her. He flicked her other nipple with the tips of his fingers, and her grip on his head slackened.
She let go of his hair and touched his neck and shoulders like she couldn’t be quite sure that he was really there. She moved slowly, deliberately, as though she needed to memorize his body before consuming it. His mouth wandered farther down; his tongue dipped in her belly button.
And then he was on his knees in front of her. It felt sacrilegious, this worshipful feeling of completeness he felt staring at the core of her through innocent lace panties. But it didn’t feel wrong. For the first time in a long time, he felt as though he were where he needed to be. He rubbed his nose against the soft skin of her gently curved belly and she shuddered. That she was just as affected by what was between them magnified the rightness in his spirit.
The atmosphere of rightness grew when he slipped his fingers in her panties and pulled them down, when he put his mouth on her center and kissed her there deeply. The smell of her made him so hard that he almost collapsed right there.
“Spread your legs, honey.” She was honey, nectar, the only food he would ever crave. She spread her legs and he opened her, sucking her clit into his mouth. She cried out and held on to his shoulders as he kissed her. She made incoherent sounds that reached down and stroked him like a hand. He didn’t stop, couldn’t. When she came on his face, he was surprised he didn’t join her because it was so intensely pleasurable to give her pleasure.
When it stopped, she knelt down in front of him.
The sounds that came out of Sasha’s mouth made him feel like a god of sex. He felt raw and exposed, as if his parts were outside his skin, and he hadn’t even been inside her. Fucking her was going to kill him, and he didn’t care. He hated that they’d denied themselves this since they’d met years ago through their friends, but also knew that neither of them had been ready.
“I knew you were the one for me the moment that I saw you,” she said, reaching out to touch his face. She looked flushed and debauched. He loved her so much that it hurt to stare at her too long. It hurt because she’d always been able to see inside him. She’d always admired him as a person, even when he didn’t think he deserved admiration.