Light and Wine (11 page)

“Aeternum.”

The word gleams in the air between us, enticing stillness I’d only just found into the need to move again. A coarse reprise of the sound that left my chest just moments ago comes out with all my air as my eyes close and my feet shift, and I lean all the way into my conduit to Him.

Lacie whimpers freely, unveiled on every level. She stretches her limbs so innocently a tremor rushes through me as I press her down, bearing all that’s left of burning light all the way into its so beholden little heart.

“Always, always, always,” she promises, fading into the faintest lilts and coos between little breaths while her fingers curl into my hair so gently and her legs endeavor to hold me closer.

Buried in her neck, sinking into the finally ebbing waves of flame and fulfillment, I nod. I slide enamored hands up her sides, and her pulse races deeply against my palms. Cradling her with care under my weight, I roll my hips—half in revelry, and half in want—to ensure I’ve given her everything.

“I
n saecula saeculorum
,” I promise eternity in the holiest of words, kissing her skin, longing to cover all of her with all of me.

“Mea lux, mea agna,” I whisper with more kisses.

My light, my lamb.

“Meum votum, mea fides, meum caelum.”

My vow, my faith, my heaven.

“Mea c
arissima, mea pulchra puella
.”

My beloved, beautiful girl.

“Lacie, Lacie, Lacie …”

Joyful notes surround me as I lift from kisses I know are making her smile.

Fervently pink cheeked under eyes flickering candlelight and glowing grace, Lacie beams as I look down at her. She brings her hands up and smooths her touch over my forehead and eyebrows. Small thumbs brush under my eyes and across my cheeks, along my jaw and lips and chin. She smiles higher as she comforts and assures me with her fingers, nourishing and upholding me with the most sincere affection as God lifts his thumb from my back.

The letting up of the Holy Spirit leaves a slow weight in me. My shoulders feel heavy under the loss of His contact, but then Lacie breathes.

And there’s only lightness.

Kissing along palms that still hold my face, I seek to ease myself from one of a kind love with just as much patience and prudence as I first filled her with. Her body doesn’t want to let mine go, though, and my own, even after giving all, is unwavering.

Shining eyes close as little glory lifts her hips to me, and moans long and soft and sweet.

God’s returned threads of human control back to my spine. He’s with us still, but in this lingering afterglow of grace, we’re man and wife.

Two as one.

In love.

Still holding my face even as she tilts her own back, Lacie shifts against silk and velvet. My lips continue caressing her small palms as I glance between us, and lift only to sink completely into her once more.

Tender-pink and softer than ever, she’s sodden-hot inside, and I bring her hips instinctively to the edge of the altar, tilting her form upward, not wanting her any less than full. She tenses beneath me as I do, and I open my kiss over the heel of her hand as I rock deeper in long, languid strokes. I watch our bodies move together, building harmony at our own pace, and when she comes once more, it’s a slow motion flutter, tight and gasping and lushly lissome along the length of me.

When I follow after, it’s dizzying, drawn out, and strips me every stitch as bare as she.

Leaning up, I join love on His altar, kneeling above her as I work to guide us slowly apart. With her fingers grasping my forearms and the lightest whimpers of missing, loving, and sweet, unaccustomed soreness filling my ears, I drape Lacie’s legs over mine and tilt her little hips up to keep our ardor inside her.

God’s dearest gift doesn’t let me go. She keeps her eyes and both hands on me while our breaths steady and our pulses compose. The scent of fully bloomed roses falls everywhere, softer than the velvet underneath us and nearly as supple as the cheek I stroke with transfixed fingertips of my own. The blush of ardent life there slowly subsides into pale pink as she traces from the corners of my smile to my hair.

Wanting to feel all of her blessed form and every hushed little rush of air whispering between her lips, I gather her closer. Shy lashes lilt and she hums a smile as I turn my hand, letting the backs of my fingers blaze a silent trail down her neck, ever-desirous for the delicate swell of life beneath satin-thin skin.

Married in His house and fulfilled in His hands, my wife curls closer as I spread my fingers gently between her breast and her side. With her eyes closed, she nestles her nose and cheek to my chest with the smallest giggle, and the sound is golden pure perfection, gingerly reverberating within the apse.

I can’t take my eyes off her.

I hold in my arms a moving heaven, who holds within her all of my hope and all of my happiness. Safely enshrined within her slender frame are meaning and purpose an angel would envy.

When her eyes open again, hazel and sable glimmer with fervor that the corners of her smile can’t help but catch, devotion, and I see the sun truly rise for the first time.

I want to speak.

I want to whisper of the intensity and expanse of her blessed perfection.

I want to tell her
forever and ever, here you are
.

But there are no words to encompass the breadth of certainty swelling inside my chest. I’m weightless in awe and at the same time filled with knowing my reason, and I am without a language to convey the heights and depths of my honor, ardency, and wonder.

Between hearts settling into steady harmony, from under tired lids, our eyes adore. We linger quietly in the warmth of love confirmed, and I want Lacie looking up at me this way every day. I want her touching me with grateful admiration that matches my own, forever.

With a higher smile, she fills little lungs under my palm and presses new-petal pink lips together before she speaks.

“Hi,” she says gently, sounding far more innocent than only seventeen.

I know the exact feeling.

“Hi,” I reply, smiling down, feeling her shyness matched in my own disposition.

But light’s soft sincerity has never been more resplendent. Trembles have mellowed into a calm chorus of affirmation, continuing to illuminate her and bringing us still deeper into unebbing grace. Even as her eyes search mine for courage and solace, she shines.

“What comes next?” she asks, timid-tender and shifting closer.

“Love,” I answer easily. Taking her hand in mine and pressing it over the beating center of my devotion, I fold my other arm all the way around her. “Come what may, for every day of this life and every moment of the next, I will love you, Lacie.”

She nods and swallows, her forehead beginning to show the tightness of apprehension.

“You’ll never have to take a single step on this road without me,” I promise.

As I kiss beside her eye, I note the fading scent of roses imbued in her skin. I kiss her cheek and her nose, and black lashes bow before me as she exhales. It’s a warm rush over my lips, and she angles herself so we can kiss with soft abandon. Slow and open, we kiss until the truth in our hearts sings glad tidings through both our bodies. We kiss until the worries in her forehead smooth, and the grip in her fingers returns to a sleepy caress.

Feeling the tiredness in her limbs, I move to stand and help her sit up. Perfection blushes in ever-glowing candlelight as I kneel at her feet, cradling a bare ankle and kissing her heel before glancing around for her clothes. With my eyes off of her and on our surroundings for the first time in so long, what I see moves my heartbeat to a warmer depth, somewhere between pride and protection.

Her cream-colored skirt and my clerical shirt are tossed to my left. One of her boots rests on its side against one of my shoes, and my tee shirt landed slightly further from the altar, near the steps. Nearby, under slacks that still hold my undone belt in their loops, I glimpse ivory lace.

When I knelt here, it was my intention to find and slide delicate fabric back up the legs that carried her to me, but as I look around and don’t see her sweater, I remember lifting that cotton from her long before we were here. I remember holding her and praying with her in the pew, and I remember how sodden-soft she felt on my lap. I remember how soaked through she was between my fingers and thin lace, and I think maybe returning that same lace to her now couldn’t possibly be comfortable.

Kissing the sole of the foot I’m still cradling, I’m rewarded with a tiny hum that’s almost a giggle, and I wish so much suddenly that we were in my bed. There’s no part of me that would change any part of this for anything, but in this moment, I long to wrap her in my sheets.

Standing as I tug boxers and slacks back on, I find Lacie’s eyes. They wait on mine as I pull my tee shirt over my head, and while I’m bringing it down my stomach, she sits up and reaches with both hands for my belt. Her irises gleam under my attention, reflecting adoration beat for beat as she buckles me together.

Bending for clerical cotton, I pick it up and when I bring it around light’s naked form, she extends her arms into long sleeves with a smile that brightens the whole chapel.

Deepened by confirmation, my pulse beats with the same one of a kind fervor it always has for this person. Leaning down, I kiss her worry-free forehead.

“Wait right here?” I ask, bringing the sides of my shirt together on her but not buttoning them.

Glowing love nods, holding my face as I brush both hands between her skin and starched soft cotton, almost too enamored with the look and feel of her in my garment.

“I’ll be right back,” I tell her lowly, lips over and along hers, kissing and missing already.

She nods again, and as I stand straight, pulling socks and shoes on without bothering to tie them, I can barely stand to take my eyes away. All bare legs and too-long black sleeves over her hands, little agna Dei smiles at me with newfound innocence and undeniable allure.

Beaming, my heart beats.

“Don’t you move, love.”

“I won’t,” she promises, voice light and toes wiggling as she tucks tousled locks of brown behind her ears.

“Hurry,” she tells me.

And I do.

Out the same doors I let her in, I jog across the dark parking lot with purpose coursing steadily through me. As fresh air cools my arms and fills my lungs, stars and orange light from the rectory’s porch lamp guide my way.

Inside the sleepy-quiet house that’s been my shelter for years, the air is cozy and familiar with the scent of incense and linen. It’s warm with comfort and memories as I move through the dark hallways. There’s thankfulness and nostalgia, and earnest peace of mind in my heart, but I know as I enter my bedroom, this place isn’t my home anymore.

The gift Lacie and I have been given goes beyond who we are as people. We don’t carry it, but are within it. No matter where we are on Earth or what we are—student, guardian, daughter, Father, man, wife—we are love, and love keeps us.

As sure as God laid the stars in the sky for light, He laid love in me to make Lacie shine.

Grabbing clothes from my dresser, I shut my door quietly behind myself and head back outside with truth and confidence guiding every untied step of my jog.

Back inside Saint Casilida’s, the remaining fragrance of roses and faint, familiar scent of violets greets me like an air of assurance. When I turn from the entry hall, dipping my fingertips into the holy water there and requesting His blessing before stepping forward, my heart brims with beats made of divine strength for what my eyes find.

Wrapped in my shirt, Lacie sits on the edge of the altar with bare legs swinging slowly. Her feet sway nowhere near the floor, and the center of her chest glows the lightest pink beneath rosary beads and between open black cotton. She holds something I can’t make out in her lap, and when she sees me, kissed-dark lips smile high.

And my cup runneth over.

“You moved,” I say, lighting up with her as I approach, curious to see what she’s holding.

“Just a little,” she replies, playfully coy as she continues slowly moving her feet.

Then I see what’s in her hands, and my swelled heart beats so deliciously deep I swear I taste admiration like honey on the back of my tongue.

“Forgive me?” she asks sweetly, brushing each of her thumbs back and forth over the small white strip of fabric that’s set me apart and brought us together.

“Ego te absolvo,” I whisper just as I have through hundreds of confessions, forgiving all, and overcome with grateful, gratified pride.

The moment I’m close enough, I drop the clothes I brought and lay my hands on cherished little knees. With my collar in her left hand, Lacie reaches up, bringing my mouth to hers as she opens her legs to let me closer.

Her kiss is gentle, welcoming promises, and her skin under my shirt is supple heaven. For beats I can’t measure, I forget I left and returned to dress her. I slide my hands up her sides, reveling in the feel of small curves underneath vestments that have never served a holier purpose than they do on this girl.