Light and Wine (2 page)

She’s quiet, shifting her jaw and hands and weight, until I bring the brush down the length of her hair again, slower still, drawing a whimper from her throat.

“This morning, when I … when I was …”
She digs her head against my chest, like she’s seeking a place to hide.

“When you were what?” I encourage, bringing the brush back to her crown. “You know you’re safe here, Lacie.”

Her lips part and the sound that comes out is made of absence and insufficiency, missing and pure yearning. She wrings unsteady little fingers together before she speak

“When I was late to my first class.
 
Because I needed to touch.”
My heartbeat thickens. I taste each one under my tongue, and my voice drops to a charcoal whisper.

“Did you heed lustful thoughts?”
She whimpers, eyes closed, trembling at the edge of reticent need.
“I … I just … yes.” Her voice is soft, wrapped.
 
She swallows, and I can feel timidity twisting her fingers together.

I bring
my hand from her waist to her neck, laying my fingers with care over skin, bones, breaths, and powder pink rosary beads that make up her gift from me for her very first reconciliation and communion. Just touching, covering and feeling, my unpretentious embrace is rewarded with another sweet hum and her pulse skipping and then soaring under my palm. She arches, and her deep inhale is accompanied by a tempting little note caught between two precious lungs.
My chest expands while my heart swells with and for her confession. My spine straightens and both of my hands bring her closer, holding and reassuring.

“Go on, Lacie.”

Downturned black lashes sip at her pale skin.
 

“It wasn’t only once, Father.”
 

She lifts a hand from her lap and bends her more delicate fingers between my own.
 
Clasping them, she brings my hand down, until it’s resting against the pulse that keeps her sacred soul in her blessed body. She leans into me, granting so-desired warmth and pressure against my chest, and when she drops her head back, exposing her neck, the scent of roses opening, and tender skin, and home is almost overwhelming.

“More than once today.
 
Since my last confession, more still.”

Further turning her head, God’s most cherished gift to me brings both of her hands up to cover mine, covering her heart.

“Since the last time we saw each other …”

Wide open and penitent, sunlit irises find mine. She’s waiting, her lips parted but unspeaking, and I listen to her eyes instead.

I know she’s talking about the night before she left.
 
She’s remembering haste, and need, and shame, black lace and fading footsteps.
 
She’s caught up in the memory of too much, and not enough.

Soundless and deep pupils pour apology into mine, imploring the mercy and pardon and love that are already wrapped around and flowing through both of us.

“It’s all right,” I murmur.
 
“In your heart, you know it’s all right.”

She knows that we should confess and ask forgiveness for all transgressions, be they thought, word, or deed, and that to everyone else, what we have isn’t only prohibited, but profane.
 
This is the heart of Lacie’s struggle: knowing that allowed in anyone else’s eyes or not, her longings are sanctified, the same as mine.
 
 

This, here, us—this is pure.

And I want to supplant her fear with sweetness.
 
I want to show her that despite our seeming trespass, this love is safe harbor, not storm.
 

“Romans Thirteen, Lacie,” I whisper.
Her lashes
flutter like little wings while she looks up at her ceiling, searching her memory.

“Love does no harm to its neighbor.
 
Therefore” –I squeeze her fingers with my own, thankful for, proud of, and so fallen into the precious heart that pulses faster at my touch– “Love is the fulfillment of the law.”

I watch as beautiful little wings surrender, and the shy corners of her lips dare to curve up once more.

With her nod, t
empered care and cogent need of my own course through my veins. I hold her as close as I can, pressing my heartbeat to hers in effort to show her that what’s between us is God’s gift, and there is no wrong in rejoicing in His giving.
 
I want so much for the rhythm rushing through me to assure her that perfect love casts out fear and doubt, and that absolution had been granted long before she asked.

Her lungs expand between my palm and my own heart as her head sways to the side. She squeezes my hand in turn, and I hear exactly what she’s saying.

She’s welcoming me home.
 

Shifting my feet along the carpet, I close my eyes, too, counting the near to trembling blessings that fit flawlessly in my arms.

“Agna, carissima, delicia,” I whisper,
lamb, beloved, darling,
as I press my lips just under her ear, cradling her body with mine.

She shakes in my arms, and for a moment it feels like she might sob, but she holds steady, breathing shallow, quick breaths into the chest that’s struggling to contain a heart that knows when love is near.

Wholly moved, I bring my right hand over both of hers.

“Fulfill His sacrament, love.”

“Oh—” It comes out like a sigh, the words slipping transparent and breathless from her. “Oh, my God.”

Lids closed, but easily now, she’s almost entirely still and just above silent.

“I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee,” she continues, all of the tension in her against me. “I detest all of my sins because of Thy just—”

Pausing, she swallows again, her chest rising and falling under our hands.

“Because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, who art good and deserving of all my love.”

Calm covers me with her voice, washing over me like a clean breeze. I close my eyes and breathe her in, basking in perfect, plenary light. My arms relax, and I rest my forehead against the side of hers, loving.
“I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more,” she whispers, holding on.

Her reconciliation is full. Relief I can sense starts between her shoulders, pouring out over her chest. I feel it in each of her legs, pressed along each of mine, and I hear it compose a breath, right before she says, “Amen.”

Bringing my arms down around her waist, I gather and hold her the way I craved to when she first sat down.

“Through the ministry of His holy Church, I grant you pardon and absolution from your sins,” I whisper.
 
Brushing my nose up her neck and along her cheek, I give unspoken thanks for her tender scent afresh. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and—”

“Lacie?” her mother’s voice calls from downstairs. “Father Marc?
 
Dinner’s ready.”

I close my eyelids tighter instead of opening them. I know a floor below us plates are being placed next to silverware lying in wait, beside glasses of water and wine. It’s time for me to let her go, but I don’t lift my lids until nearly forgiven relaxes herself fully against my chest and nudges my jaw with her nose.

It fills me with gratitude and brings joy to my lips.

“And the Holy Spirit,” I whisper, kissing her temple.

With a nod and a mindfully measured exhale, she smiles as I return my eyes to hers. There’s a tremble in her lips though, and needy unfulfillment in her eyes. She’s giving every effort inside to pull herself together, and I know that each breath bringing essential oxygen to her veins is and will be for me.

“Wait for me?” I ask just above a whisper.
Her nodding increases
, unquestioning, and after a blink, she opens her hazel eyes once more. The glints of courage I find there feel like pleasure, privilege, and honor to me.

As surely as I know she struggles, I know her faith is stronger, and that she’ll wait because I’ve asked her to.
Gently shifting her
next to me on her bed, I place another kiss on her crown before standing on unwilling legs. I know she’ll join me at the table in a few moments, but my heart, my hands, and my soul are all reluctant to be parted from hers.

Stopping in her doorframe, I turn my eyes back to blushing and blessed.
Afternoon light streams in from her windows, casting glowing marigold and coral colored hues all across her. Long hair wavy-undone, blouse crooked and creased, she slides pink rosary beads between pinker fingertips, working to steady her breathing while pinkest lips murmur prayers too soft for even me to hear.

A sunset, a few hours, and miles later, I still can’t think of anything else.

Saint Casilda’s rectory is quiet with rest, and I’m alone in my room. Lamp-lit and bare, save for the crucifix above my desk, taupe walls feel simultaneously confining and insubstantial, much like my body. Love and longing, missing and memories are contained here, but only just.
Focusing my eyes on the Latin tests in front of me isn’t difficult, but concentrating is. With every beat of fresh blood, my heart sends renewed yearning coursing through my veins. I was just with the source of its weighted cadence a little while ago, but the length of days and nights before that—more than a week—is indelible. Try as I might, pray as I have, the last time we were truly together endures and unnerves even still.

“Marc …”

With eyes closed, I can still feel needy little whispers burning between her kisses under my ear.

“Father … Please …”
Lacie was on my lap in the chair I’m in now, straddling my hips. With my arms around her and my lips on her neck, too, delicately determined fingers left my hair to untuck black shirt cotton from black slacks.
I let her.

“I want you,” she whispered, light and hot and rocking along my body without a slip of hesitance. “Tonight. I want you tonight, please.”

Even as I gathered her completely to myself, cradling the back of her head and kissing her pleading lips, her hands continued. With the top button of my shirt undone, her right descended for the next while her left unfastened my collar. It landed on the carpet somewhere near our feet as she pushed both sides of the fabric apart, the warmth of her touch bleeding through my black undershirt.

Leaning back long enough for our eyes to focus and find, she pulled her blouse over her head and dropped it next to the cardigan I’d undone from her only minutes before. Black lace cupped small curves she’d grown coyly into, contrasting against softer, pale peach skin.

“I’m ready,” she insisted, lush and courageous eyes imploring my own.
Setting
my pen on my desk, I rub both hands down my face and inhale until I can’t any hold any more air. I seek focus as I do so, but
the hands pressed to my temples shake, and I can feel my pulse thrumming against my collar.
 
I catch my reflection in my small shaving mirror, and find I look as restless as I feel.
 
Dark-brown hair in disarray, it’s been a little too long since my last haircut, and coffee colored eyes clearly want for sleep as much as my heart does for peace.

Standing from my desk, I sip from a glass of water before walking to my single window that faces the garden. I gaze out for a few seconds, but there’s no abatement or distraction there either.
 
So I take another drink and lie down on my neatly made bed and stare at the ceiling. I concentrate on all my muscles and seek requiescence, but this is the very place I laid her that night.

My back grows warmer with the realization that I’m filling her silhouette.

When I picked Lacie up, her arms wrapped tightly around my neck. She kissed me as I carried her, and when I carefully placed her down, right here, she wrapped her legs around me, too, not letting air or sound or light anywhere between us.

“Please, now, please …”

Swift little hands dropped from my neck and down between us. Sliding smaller black lace out from under her skirt and down her legs, she worked with fervor as I kissed her, undoing belt and buttons until she found where I was immeasurably wanting, and slipped me free. For just a moment, hot, sensitive skin touched hotter, softer, even more sensitive skin and left us both unable to breathe.

I close my eyes and fold my hands behind my head, abiding the impulse to palm and press against physical yearning that aches and remembers.

With my chest covering hers, I could feel Lacie’s heart pounding to feel me where I was, between and above and sliding along for the first time. Dazed and desirous eyes opened wider under mine as I remained amazed and attentively still, and she lifted her hips up, parting her lips around the sound of need.

“Oh …”

Her breath was back and her voice was high, and I wanted to ask if she was sure. I didn’t want to open the most priceless gift either of us had ever been given until she was certain it was for me, that it had always been, but before I could find words, her right hand slid to my lower back and she pressed.