Where I End and You Begin (20 page)

“I want to tell you,” he says.

I lean into him. “Then tell me,” I say.

He is quiet. The sound of the snow falling outside is deafening even as it muffles all noise.

“I lost my faith,” Daniel says suddenly.

My tongue presses against my teeth. I wait.

“I haven’t told Father O’Reilly,” he says. “I told him I just needed some time to think after my mother died.”

I can’t hide the small hiss of breath as I inhale.

“It wasn’t her, though,” Daniel says. “Her death wasn’t what made me stop. It was while she was in the hospital. She had breast cancer, but while I was there visiting her, I thought I’d visit the children’s ward, try to cheer them up. You know?”

He seems to be waiting for me to respond, so I nod my head.

“I met a little girl there. She had cancer, just like my mom, but she was only six years old. Her name was Sicily.”

I press my lips together. I know what comes next, but sometimes it’s just better if we say it, if we share it, if we let it all out.

Not for me, of course. I’ve said it plenty of times. Never works for me. But maybe I can help Daniel.

“She was... you know, she was a beautiful little girl. And I was studying to be a priest so I though I’d made peace with never having children, but she was one of those kids that makes you rethink things, puts doubt in your head. And I thought to myself, ‘The Lord is testing me. Testing my resolve. When I’m a priest, my whole parish will be my children. I’ll be able to be a father to all of them.’

“So I kept going to visit her. She had dark skin and dark eyes and she smiled all the time.
All
the time. I asked her one day why she smiled so much, and she leans in to me and she says, ‘Father,’—I’d told her I was going to be a priest, so she called me Father—she said, ‘Father, they givin’ me the
good shit
here.’“

He laughs, but it sounds a little like crying.

“And I tell her that’s good to know. And then she says, ‘When I get the good shit, I’m not so scared.’

“And I’m a shithead. You know? I’m a shithead and I tell her there’s nothing to be afraid of. Tell this little six year old who’s dying that there’s nothing to be scared of, but that it was all right to feel that way.”

His throat is closing around the words. The silence of the snow closes in like a tomb.

“She’s so bright, so sweet... I pray for her every night, asking God to make sure she pulls through, and to make her passing easy if he wants to call her home.”

I hear the soft movement of his shoulders against the sheets. A shrug.

“And she died,” he says.

The tears are there, at the edge of his voice, a vise around his thoughts, making it hard for him to get them out. I want to reach out and touch him, but I’m afraid if I do he’ll stop.

And I’m thinking,
No.

And I’m thinking,
I didn’t want this for you.

And I’m thinking,
Please don’t be sad.

But no one can fix it. It has already been done.

We’re stuck here, he and I, between a painful past and an uncertain future. He is a ghost, just like me.

“And anyway. She died, and I thought about how unfair and cruel it was. I asked my best friend in seminary why it had to happen that way. I mean, I knew shit like that happened, but I hadn’t understood it. And it wasn’t even the worst thing that could happen to a little girl. That was the worst part about it. So I asked my friend, I said, ‘Why did that happen?’ And he said, ‘Perhaps to test your faith.’“

“And that’s a stupid reason for a little girl to die. A terrible, stupid, horrible reason, except I’d thought it up myself, back when she was still alive, as if I were so fucking important a little girl had to die just so I’d understand the trials of Job. So I went to Father O’Reilly, and I asked
him.
And you know what he said to me?”

“No,” I whisper.

“He said, ‘Daniel, there is more to this than we can know. The Lord’s reasons are not our own.’

“And I said I didn’t care what the Lord’s reasons were. They didn’t matter. Testing faith? Put on earth to do her work and now it was done? Punishment? Some part of a bigger plan? Those are all
reasons
for killing little girls
.
What’s His fucking
excuse?”

And then the tears come, welling up and out of him, and I don’t know how to stem the tide, how to dam the sadness, so I do the only thing I’ve ever known how to do to make the pain recede. I kiss him. His cheeks, his brow, his nose.

Feel this,
I think at him.
Don’t feel that. Feel
this.

And then he does, and I am under him and the fissure between the past and the present cracks and opens, yawning wide, and I feel the sundering like a blade through my heart.

Daniel’s lips are on mine, the heavy weight of his body pressing me into the mattress, and I am undone. Something twists in my chest, so painful I see flashes of light behind my eyelids.

This is wrong,
I think. And then:
I don’t deserve this.
And then:
Did I bring this on myself?

But God, I want it so much.

His hands are hot, everywhere, and it’s an inferno beneath the blankets, molten desire slipping and sliding between us. Every inch of his body is pressed into mine, his chest, his strong arms, his long thighs, his possessive lips. My fingers are in his hair, clutching him to me, and he groans and shifts, his arms circling around me like iron bands, pinning me down. I couldn’t escape if I wanted to.

His tongue is on mine, our teeth clicking together. I hear his breath, ragged in his throat, but the sound is far away, coming to me through the rushing of blood in my ears, and when I try to find something resembling sanity, try to pull away, those lips, those teeth just find my throat.

My mouth falls open.
Oh God,
I almost say, but I stop myself in time. Would that remind him that this is wrong? This is wrong. This is wrong.
This is wrong.

But his devouring mouth is so tender, consuming me with such sweetness that I cannot bring myself to say anything. He has said no vows. He is filled with doubt.

And so am I. But even the greatest of doubts cannot override my pounding heart, my singing blood. The pain of dropping my defenses spears me straight through my heart, curving through my belly, lodging itself in the dark space between my legs. I part before him, my knees hooking over his hips, reaching up and pulling him into me, and Daniel groans as he comes to rest in the heated hollow at the apex of my thighs, the hard weight of his desire as undeniable as the wordless pleading that slips from my mouth.

His teeth nip at the hammering pulse in my throat, the soft waves of his hair brushing over my skin, the barest of teasing caresses, almost painful in their carelessness.

My hands abandon his hair, sliding down his back. Beneath his t-shirt his skin is scorching, the rise and fall of his muscles a burning hot landscape under my fingers. I trace the dips and mountains of his body, and it shifts beneath my touch, like sand. He is a desert, a man dying of thirst, and I lie beneath him, offering myself up as though I were a running stream.

Tears prick behind my eyelids, and I don’t know why.

His fingers slip beneath the hem of my sweatshirt, sliding it up my stomach, over my breasts, and he fights it until I am bared beneath him, the cold of the snowy night caressing my naked skin. He reaches behind me, fumbling with the clasp of my bra, his inexperience showing through, so sweet, so innocent, and then he kisses me again and I taste the salt of his tears in my mouth.

Or perhaps they are my tears, because he whispers to me. “Shh,” he says. “Shh.” And his hands are on my breasts and my world is just skin and flesh and hot and cold.

We are both breathing too hard, too fast for what we are doing, as though we are running away from something. His mouth closes around the tip of my breast and sucks me in, and I arch and moan and want to cry, he feels so good and I’ve done so much wrong to him now that I can never repair it, never atone.

It’s too late. The line is crossed. The past is past. The future is inevitable, and cannot be turned aside. I don’t have the strength to fight fate. And I never have.

Fingers hook over waistbands, and we are struggling together, straining and bucking free of our clothes, the heat of our flesh mingling together. His body heaves against mine, and I reach down and rip his shirt off, a move so smooth and practiced I should be ashamed, but I don’t care. I pull it from his head and toss it to the floor, and then we are completely nude, skin on skin, flesh on flesh, and I am shaking with nerves and desire.

Daniel runs his hands down my body, curving over the swell of my buttocks, then dipping hesitantly, curiously into the space between my legs. I’m hot and wet down there, slick and ready, and when he lets one experimental finger dip inside I sob with need.

“Please,” I whisper. It’s all I can think to say.
Please fuck me.

Please love me.

But it isn’t possible.

A night of passion and a lifetime of regret. I’m used to it by now. Our tentative friendship is burning away, going up in flames as he maneuvers himself between my legs and I reach down and hold his erection in my hand.

No condom. I don’t think a priest would have one, and it’s against his religion anyway, which makes me want to laugh so hard I cry. I’m on birth control...

I hesitate a moment, letting my fingers wander over him, He is hot and heavy and
good.
I stroke him, feeling the velvet of his skin slide over the steel inside, and then he groans and thrusts into my hand. He’s as ready as I am and all rational thought dissolves at the realization.

I lift my hips toward him, guiding him inside me.

I can’t help but hiss as he enters me, the feeling luxurious. A sin so delicious there will be hell to pay for it later, but it is too late, too late to turn back so we might as well run headfirst into the flames.

I hear old Pastor Mike’s sermons in my ears as Daniel pushes his way into my body.

“Repent!”
he screams, but I’m not the one who made me this way, and I won’t repent until I get an apology.

Then Daniel is fully seated inside me, stretching me out, and I think I can feel every ridge and vein of him pressing against my inner walls. We are gasping together at the feeling, my breasts pressed against his chest, my legs locked around his waist, my heels digging into his buttocks, and he rests his forehead against my shoulder, as though gathering his strength for what lies ahead.

I lift my hips, nudging him, encouraging him, and the simple gesture lets loose a storm.

He moves in me, pushing and pulling, dragging pleasure out of my body with his. He’s whispering my name, over and over, his hands tangling in my hair, and my fingernails are raking down his back as his pace picks up.

I’ve never been fucked like this before, or maybe I was just too drunk to remember if I was. I actually can’t remember the last time I fucked someone sober. Maybe I never have, because the sensations are flooding through me, overwhelming my rational thought, ripping away any sense or sensibility I may have still clung to. His body plumbs mine, his strength driving into me.

“Bianca,” he says, and it sounds like a sob, or a strangled prayer.

“Yes,” I tell him, and the heat builds and builds, blazing higher and higher, filling the space beneath the blankets, pushing away the cold, and he is everywhere, hands and fingers and lips and tongue and teeth, starving, dying.

I tremble beneath him as he goes harder, faster, until we’re both trying to fuck away the pain, and I cling to him, holding him close, wanting to give him the only kind of release I know.

He cradles my head in his hands and rains kisses down on my face, my brow, my cheeks, my mouth, and I return the attention hungrily. His body strains above me and I revel in it, letting my hands stroke over him, feeling every quivering muscle, every insistent heave of desire. My back arches and his mouth is on my breasts, his teeth teasing each tip into a hard little nub.

He moves in me, shifting me around inside, so alive and bright that I don’t want to open my eyes—when did I close them?—to look at him for fear I’ll go blind.

I’m sorry,
I think at him.
I’m sorry.

And I am sorry.

His lips capture mine in a kiss so sweet and soft, such a contrast to the hard rocking of his hips against me, that I suddenly wonder if any of this is real, if
this
is the dream, if
this
is illusion, our reality still intact, still untouched by ruin, but as my release builds, I know it isn’t. I want to stop time, to live in this moment, to never face the future again, but I can’t. It all slips by me, past me, until my whole body coils tight around him.

“Daniel,” I whisper, unable to say anything else, unable to escape, and then he twists his hips in just the right way and I’m tumbling over the edge, my body igniting like a firework. My voice rips from my throat, loud and raw in the silence of the dead city, and he answers me with his own moan as I come around him. My body ripples, dissolves, breaks apart and flies back together, over and over and over again.

Then Daniel stiffens, arches his back, and comes with a shudder of pleasure so powerful it seems as though he will break us both. The bed shakes and I toss and turn under him, holding him deep inside, and when at last he collapses against me, I hold him and stroke his hair as our sweat-slick bodies slide together. When at last he pulls out, he says nothing, only burrows down, pinning me beneath him, and I feel his body relax against me.

“Thank you, Bianca,” he says, places a kiss over my heart, and lays his head on my breast.

I close my eyes and wait.

Slowly, surely, he slips into sleep, and I lie there, staring into the blackness. I listen hard for the roll of thunder or a flash of lightning that summons judgment, but I don’t even believe in God, so why am I the one worrying?

Daniel’s head is heavy on my chest, his breathing deep and slow. The past is gone, and now I have to live with the present I have made, and I want to cry.