And now that she wasn’t here, not anywhere near here, I found my obsession spiraling out of control, like a drug addiction that demanded to be fed.
I imagined her voice filling the sanctuary after Rowan and the grandmothers left morning Mass. I pictured her face and her messy braid as I ran off copies of the Bible study worksheet for the next men’s group. I found myself googling pictures of Dartmouth and Newport instead of trawling through The Walking Dead forums. I even (creepily, I know) googled her family, scrolling through pictures of polished people at polished charity events, finally finding an old picture of her at what looked to be some sort of fundraiser for a politician. Her and a cluster of attractive people who were obviously her parents and siblings—her father, silver-haired and broad-shouldered, and her mother, svelte and elegant. A brother and a sister with the same expensive clothes and expensive, high-cheekboned faces.
I clicked the picture to see the image on its own, see a larger version of Poppy’s face. She was clearly younger, though not too young—in her early twenties maybe, and she was clearly unhappy. While everyone else flashed their wealthy, happy smiles at the camera, Poppy had only managed a firm press of her lips, her eyes directed somewhere behind the cameraman, as if absorbed with something only she could see.
A wave of unwanted jealousy and suspicion surged in my chest. Was she looking at Sterling? This seemed like the kind of event he would be at, from the little I knew. Or maybe she was merely gazing at the specter of her own unhappiness, her own dull future, spelled out in seating arrangements and menu cards?
I thought of the picture the rest of the evening, as I set up for the youth group. I also thought of her, of getting to see her on Thursday, and every few minutes I would catch myself smiling, smiling for no reason at all except that I would get to see Poppy again.
Tonight in youth group, we talked about Jesus being tempted in the desert, and in a dramatic turnaround from last week, I felt completely removed from the verses. I wasn’t in a desert…I was in a place with rustling green leaves and clear, rushing water.
What had changed? I wondered. Between last week and this week, between yesterday and today?
It was last night. It was the praying, the magic, the smell of her hair. The kiss that had sealed something, something that transcended the physical and the spiritual. They were no longer separate and divided, but one…and with that, the experience of her had crossed over from being confusing as hell to wonderful. Awesome. Not awesome in the cool sense, but awesome in the sense that it filled me with awe.
Shefilled me with awe. She made me see the world with a new sense of wonder, every tree greener, every angle sharper, every face more pleasant and delightful to help.
It wasn’t that the guilt had disappeared, however. I zigzagged from fantasy to recrimination, punishing myself with more runs, more pushups, more chores around the church, spending hours in prayer searching for an answer.
Why would God bring Poppy here if I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with her?
Was it truly so terrible for a man of God to have sex? The Protestants had been doing it for half a millennium and they seemed no more hell-bound than the Catholics for it.
And was it so wrong to want both? I wanted to lead this church, I wanted to help people find God. But dammit, I wanted Poppy too, and I didn’t think it was fair that I had to choose.
God didn’t answer. Whatever magic had been lingering in the sanctuary these past couple weeks hid itself from me, and in a way, that was its own answer.
I was meant to figure this out on my own.
CHAPTER 12
I was as restless as a caged animal on Thursday.
I tried watching Netflix, I tried reading. My house was already perfectly clean, my lawn mowed. The only thing I could focus on was Poppy. On seeing her tonight.
And finally, I gave up and went to my room. I sat in the chair by my bed and unzipped my jeans. I had been in a state of semi-hardness all day, and just the thought of jacking off—something I’d mostly denied myself for the past three years—was enough to get me all the way there. I gave myself a couple of pulls until my cock was pointing straight up, remembering how it felt to have Poppy’s wet cunt pressing against me. I leaned back, my jaw tight, finally giving up and reaching for my phone.
She picked up on the second ring. “Hello?” That voice. It was even huskier on the phone. I wrapped my hand around my dick and slowly stroked myself.
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the club.” I could hear her moving around, as if she were walking into a more private place to talk. “But I’m almost done. What’s going on?”
I hesitated. God, this was so fucking crass, but I wanted her voice in my ear as I did this. “I’m hard, Poppy. I’m so fucking hard that I can’t think straight.”
“Oh,” she said. And then, her voice filled with understanding, “Oh, Tyler, are you—”
“Yes.”
“How?” she said, and I could hear her moving again and then I heard a door close shut. “Where?”
“I’m in my room. My jeans are pulled down.”
“Are your legs splayed? Are you leaning back or sitting up?” Her questions were laced with want, with hunger. It made me grip myself harder.
“I’m leaning back. Yes, my legs are wide. It makes me think of when you knelt between them and sucked me off.”
“I want to do it again,” she purred, and somehow I knew that she was touching herself too. “I want to lick you from base to tip. I want to suck you in deep.”
“I want that too.”
“Are you using your whole hand or just your fingers?”
“My whole hand,” I said, and I was jerking myself in earnest now, wanting her to be here so badly.
“Hold on,” she said, and there were a few seconds of silence. Then my phone buzzed. “You have a text,” she said silkily.
I held my phone away from my face and nearly passed out. She’d sent me a picture of her fingers buried in her cunt. “You’re so fucking dirty,” I said. And then another one came through, this one angled so that I could see her black high heel braced against the edge of a desk.
Holy shit.
“I can hear you now,” she said. “I can hear your hand moving over your cock. God, I wish I could see it.”
“I wish you could too,” I said, and I managed to pull up the camera on my phone and turn on the video, all with one hand because no way was I slowing down now.
“I’m so wet,” she confided. “I’m making a mess. I’m in my boss’s office right now—mmm—it’s all so slippery and I wish it was your cock instead of my fingers, I wish it so much. I wore these heels today knowing I’d be digging them into your back later.”
I kept the image of her heels and that perfect cunt in my mind as I let her words work their magic. My climax jolted through me and I thrust up into my hand, groaning loudly as come jetted out of my dick, exhaling a muttered fuck as the orgasm slowly backed down.
“I love hearing you,” came her voice from the earpiece. “Your noises. I thought about them last night in my hotel room while I played with myself.”
“Naughty girl.” I sent her the video. “Now it’s your turn to check your messages.”
There was a pause and then I could hear the unmistakable sound of myself jacking off as she played the video, hear my groan echoing in her boss’s office. “Oh God,” she whispered, and it was clear I was on speaker now. “Fuck, Tyler. That’s so—if I were there, I would lick every last drop off you.”
“If you were here, it all would have gone in your tight little cunt,” I growled.
“Jesus,” she moaned. And then, “Yes,” which was followed by breathy little gasps that made my cock stir back to life. And finally silence, punctuated with a loud sigh and the chair squeaking as she sat up.
I heard the click as I came off speaker. “Tyler?”
“Yes?”
The smile was apparent in her voice. “Feel free to call me any time.”
Somehow, I managed to make it through the rest of the day, running until I couldn’t think, half-heartedly piecing together stuff for Bishop Bove’s panel proposal while I impatiently watched the clock (and tamped down guilt as I gathered notes about sexual sin.)
Around seven in the evening, my phone buzzed.
I’m home. Do you want me to come to the rectory?
I responded right away. I’ll meet you at the church.
Thursday night was the one night a week without any activities, groups or Bible studies going on, so the church was empty. It was still early enough in the evening to be light out, and I wanted the plausible excuse of counseling or budget stuff in case someone saw her walking into the church. Her coming to the rectory alone at night would be a little harder to defend.
I slipped in the back door and practically jogged down the hallway to the narthex, where the front doors were locked. I turned the bolt and opened the door, and there was Poppy in a short red dress and black high heels, lips red and ready for me.
I had wanted to be gentle at first, to share more of those deep sweet kisses that left us dizzy and stunned, but that dress and those heels…
Screw gentle.
I grabbed her wrist and pulled her inside, barely taking the time to lock the door before I pushed her against it and slanted my mouth over hers. I slid my hands under her ass and lifted her so that she was truly pinned between the wood and my pelvis, which I rocked against her as we kissed.
And that was when I discovered she wasn’t wearing underwear.
“Poppy,” I said, breaking our kiss to move a hand down between us. “What’s this?”
“I told you,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “You made me messy today. I had to take them off.”
“So you spent the rest of the afternoon bare?”
She nodded, biting her lip.
I pulled away from the wall, still holding her, and carried her into the sanctuary, using my back to push open the door. She wrapped her legs around my waist, and it was so natural, so right, to have her in my arms that I never wanted to put her down.
“Am I in trouble?” she asked, a bit coyly.
“Yes,” I growled, nipping at her neck. “Lots of trouble. But first, I’m going to bend you over and see exactly how bad you’ve been.”