A Last Touch of Grace

My new short story is out at Forbidden Fiction publishing! It’s not the first time my writing has combined sex and religion, but it is the first time I’ve included Roman collars and a vow of celibacy into the mix.

My own Catholic upbringing is probably innocent here–the idea for “A Last Touch of Grace” came after I watched a miniseries with a gorgeous  fictional Irish priest*. Suddenly I wanted to write my own version. It took a number of years to complete the manuscript, always simmering at the back of my mind (I owe some of how the plot shaped up to  conversations with my good friend “Hearts”). At first I wasn’t sure how to tell this story of childhood sweethearts reuniting and trying to reconcile their old promises with newer vows. One thing was certain: I knew Matthew’s introduction into the priesthood was rather bittersweet, and his friend and lover Iphigenia would ride to his rescue…or perhaps his downfall.

An excerpt to whet your appetite:

“And before he went into the Church, as they’d bargained, I vowed to him—because we had made our promise first, I vowed I would find him.”

Silence followed in which even she seemed not to dare speak further. Matthew, still helpless, leaned close to the grille, straining his ears.

“And I have, haven’t I?” she whispered at last.

He heard her low sigh, and then the rustle of cloth and dry skin as she rubbed her hands together in her lap. Familiar sounds, after enough years spent listening in this tight room. But they seemed suddenly new, transformed by the complete and baffling appearance—reappearance—of….

“Haven’t I?” she asked, her voice strained.

“Genie.” He breathed her name like it was the only thing he could do. Perhaps it was.

Her chair creaked as she shifted in it. “Nobody’s called me that for a long time. In fact, not since—”

“You should go.”

Iphigenia gasped, but recovered quickly. Her reply came with a snap like broken thread. “Aren’t you going to grant me absolution, Father?”

“Are there any sins you repent enough to warrant it?” Matthew tried to be as cruel as she was. Anything to drive her away, to end this.

“Maybe I have others to confess. Like blasphemy, shall I admit to that? That I would have you before God does? Not,” she continued, “that I’m really sorry for it, either.”

“Iphigenia, you can’t do this.”

“How could I do otherwise?”

Matthew gathered a breath. And then, because she would not leave, he did. He pushed open the door to the confessional and stumbled out.

He heard her muffled exclamation, then the creak of her door as she followed. Still in pursuit of him, as she had promised. The thought caused an odd, sharp pain in his chest. He turned to see her before he had time to gather himself.

Her mother had come from the south of the continent, a romance from her father’s Grand Tour. Iphigenia had her thick, dark hair and skin too rich a color for the pallid beauty most gentry preferred. So she’d never bothered straining for it—she and Matthew had spent long summer days by the stream in the woods, swimming, running along the mossy bank. Later she had taken to riding, and once she’d even convinced Matthew to climb in the saddle behind her. Perhaps she had ridden here. The end of her nose, where her tipped-back hat’s protection failed, was ruddy with sunburn. A familiar flaw. He caught himself before he smiled, and the pain beneath his heart twisted inward.

This small country parish church had Gothic pretensions. He stepped back into the narrow band of colored light cast by one of the high windows. She stepped forward into another one, crimson and azure light painting her white and green riding habit.

“You should go, Iphigenia.” If he truly wanted to hurt her, he should call her Miss Haworth. He knew that but he held back from saying it, at least for now. Not until he had to.

“I kept my promise. Do you not want to keep yours?” Her tongue darted across her lips, and the brightness in her eyes—so keen they were almost predatory—dimmed.

“I was a child,” Matthew said. “How could I mean it?”

“Did you mean it when your parents sold you?”

“They didn’t—But anyway, it was a long time ago.”

“Nine years,” she said, “five months, twelve days.” Her mouth twisted into something that wasn’t a smile. “I kept a diary.”

“Even I didn’t keep track of the number of days.”

“Well. That’s a difference between us.”

Matthew tried closing his eyes, but even when he wasn’t looking at her he could hear her voice. Its warmth. Her father’s gravelly, aristocratic drawl sweetened by a constant promise of laughter. Even now, he thought she might be ready to laugh—at herself, at him, at the ridiculous architecture of this church if nothing else.

“Maybe I am wrong,” Iphigenia said. “And if so, I’m sorry to trouble you. I don’t think I’m wrong, but I truly don’t want to—to make things worse for you. If I’m opening a wound that’s healed, tell me. If it’s not still raw and bleeding, then I know I ought to let it be.” A deep breath from her, while everything else around him was still silence. “Say it hurts you less than it hurts me, and I’ll go, Mattie.”

Behind his eyelids, wetness stung. He laughed at it. “Nobody’s called me by that name in a long time.”

When he knew tears wouldn’t drip, he looked at her. While speaking, Iphigenia had lowered her head, and now she raised it again to meet his eyes. He could never say who moved first. One of them took a step forward, then the other. They came close enough to whisper.

“It hurts,” he said. “Of course it does. But animals lash out in pain, Genie. Human beings have a choice.”

Standing between him and the door, she took a small step aside. Not far, but enough to give him a clear line of escape if he desired it. “I won’t steal a man away from God.”

“But you won’t let God steal him from you, either?”

Genie shook her head with a familiar twitch at the corner of her mouth. This was a real smile, or the promise of one. Gentle and sweet. She’d smiled like that before, when he was too young to really know what it meant.

He had vowed to marry the girl with that smile, to share the rest of their lives. They had thought it would mean swimming in that stream every summer, staying up roasting chestnuts on long winter nights, and his never needing to walk to her father’s house to borrow her books again.

“Tell me you meant it,” she said. “Tell me your vow was sincerely consented to, and I’ll go.”

***

For the full story, “A Last Touch of Grace” links and content notes are available on the Fantastic Fiction Publishing website and on my Stories page.

***

*The fictional Irish priest in question, in case you’re wondering how to picture Matthew, was Father Liam Phelan in The Hanging Gale. A very tragic miniseries that is very lacking in a romantic subplot for its priest. But Paul McGann is in it looking like a Botticelli painting with particularly lovely hair and sad eyes. All in all an inspiration my muse could never resist. And thanks again are due to Hearts, whose help was invaluable in overcoming that Catholic upbringing to understand a “priest kink.”

The post A Last Touch of Grace appeared first on T.C. Mill.