Thursday, February 27, 2014

The Virgin.

Here's a free read for everyone. If you like it, you might want to try billierosie's blog, or my published short stories Milk and Post Mortem.
 

 
The Virgin.
 
Mary’s seventieth birthday fell on a Sunday, so she went to mass, as she had every Sunday since she was a child. She’d missed mass once, when she was nine, and in hospital having her tonsils out, but the Irish nurse who gave her a blanket bath said it wouldn’t matter, and Jesus would understand. From the way the nurse bowed her head when she said the name of Jesus, Mary guessed that she was a catholic, too. When she was a child, a lot of the other catholics seemed to be Irish, including the parish priest, Father Doyle, who had a red face and who appeared perpetually angry. Once, during his sermon, he’d hurled a prayer book from the pulpit into the aisle, where it had burst apart, loose pages wafting among the scrambling dust motes in the shaft of sunlight.
 
How times had changed. No one bowed their heads when they mentioned the name of Jesus any more, and most didn’t bother to genuflect as they entered and left the pews. Unlike Father Doyle, Father Johnson was young and handsome, sweet natured, and English. If he’d let his fair hair grow longer, he could have looked like the picture of Jesus in the illustrated bible she’d had as a child, with whom she’d fallen in love, clean shaven and smiling and blonde. Mary crossed herself and looked up at the face of the plaster statue of the crucified Jesus behind the altar. He was handsome too, and she recognised that his dark colouring was probably closer to that of the original Palestinian Jesus, though she didn’t particularly like his beard. The statue’s head was turned slightly to one side, and it seemed to her that he was looking down on her and smiling. She loved that smile, and the statue’s smooth plaster skin. Once, when she had been helping with the flowers, she had reached out a bony hand and caressed the feet of Jesus, as Mary Magdalene must have done. Shivering at the memory, Mary crossed herself again, and looked up instead at the statue of the mother of Christ, serene in blue and white, her hands clasped in prayer, a virgin like herself.
 
Mass had finished, but as always, Mary remained behind for a few minutes, kneeling and trying to pray, while Father Johnson shook hands with his parishioners at the church door. The altar boy had snuffed out the candles, adding a whiff of hot wax to the faint smell of incense that seemed to seep from the stones, and the grey smoke curled up towards the statue of Jesus. In her child’s bible, the loincloth that Jesus had worn on the cross had been more ample, like a masculine version of the short petticoat that she wore under her summer dress, and not at all like the skimpy loincloth worn by the statue, which seemed hardly larger than a handkerchief. She pushed the thought of Mary Magdalene from her mind again, and turned to the marble statue of St Michael, in his carved armour, his sword raised to plunge into the serpent at his feet. He was supposed to be her defence against the wickedness of the Devil, but Mary didn’t feel that her love for Jesus was wicked. Jesus was beautiful, except for the beard, and she had loved him all her life, coming to mass every Sunday, to be with him.
 
In the beginning, mass had been in Latin, with strict rules. Men weren’t allowed to wear hats in church, and women had to cover their heads. Mary still wore a lace mantilla, held in place with kirby grips, but a lot of women didn’t even bother to dress properly, turning up for mass in shorts and tee shirts, their bralessness on show for all to see. As if to remind her of her lack of charity, her own bra dug into her ribs under her arm. Mary crossed herself, and asked the statue of Jesus for forgiveness, squirming to get more comfortable.
 
The altar boy emerged from the sacristy as Father Johnson returned from saying goodbye to the departing parishioners, and he held the door for the priest before leaving, with only a glance at Mary as he passed. Mary closed her eyes and imagined Father Johnson disrobing, removing the chasuble and the alb, and she pretended that all he wore underneath was a loincloth, like Jesus.
 
“Mary?”
 
She opened her eyes. Father Johnson had his hand on her shoulder, and his angelic face was smiling down at her. “Father. Sorry. I was praying.”
 
“Yes, but I have to lock the church, because of thieves.”
 
“Yes. Of course. Sorry, Father.” She pushed herself to her feet and picked up her cloth-bound missal, a useless theatrical prop now that the liturgy had changed, but like the mantilla, something she felt she ought to have with her.
 
Father Johnson stood back, to let her out of the pew, and he rested his hand momentarily on the small of her lower back, as though to direct her towards the door. Once they were outside in the sunshine, Mary tried to take her mantilla off while Father Johnson was locking the church, but the last of the kirby grips had managed to tangle itself in her hair, leaving the mantilla hanging over her eyes like a veil.
 
“Let me,” said Father Johnson, reaching into her hair. “I can see what I’m doing, and I’ve got two free hands.”
 
“Thank you.”
 
He freed the tangle without any difficulty, and passed her the mantilla and the last of the kirby grips, his hand touching hers. “Would you like a sherry?” he asked. “In the presbytery.”
 
Mary felt her heart flutter, and she struggled to keep her voice even. “That would be lovely. Thank you, Father.”
 
“Michael, please. I’m not on parade any more, even if I’m still wearing my dog collar.” He tapped it with a fingertip. “We can be a bit less formal.”
 
Mary’s mouth was dry. “Michael,” she murmured reverently, as if it were a prayer.
 
The presbytery was next door to the church, a large Victorian detached house. Mary had attended Catholic Women’s League meetings in the front room when she’d been young, but she hadn’t been inside for years. She caught sight of herself in the mirror, a thin woman with straight grey hair, slightly messed where the kirby grip had been caught. “Come through into the dining room,” said the priest, touching the small of her back again.
 
Mary’s shoes clacked on the wooden floor, and her hands were sweating, leaving dark marks on the cover of her missal where she’d been holding it. “Can I put these down somewhere?” she asked, holding up the missal and her mantilla.
 
“Of course.” He shucked his jacket off and hung it over the back of a chair. “Just dump them on the table. What sort of sherry would you like?”
 
“I don’t mind.” The kirby grips scattered as she put them down. “I’ll have the same as you.” An oil painting above the sideboard showed the crucifixion, with the two Marys and Martha at the foot of the cross, under a stormy sky, but at the far end of the dining room a pair of French windows gave out onto an enclosed garden with a bright green lawn surrounded by trees and shrubs, and a small paved patio with a wrought iron table and chairs.
 
Father Johnson handed her a small glass of pale sherry. “Manzanilla.”
 
“Thank you, Father.”
 
“Michael.”
 
Mary bowed her head. “Yes. Michael. Sorry.”
 
He pointed towards the French windows. “Shall we go and sit outside? It’s a glorious day. It seems a shame to skulk indoors.”
 
“Yes.”
 
Michael unlocked the French windows, and stepped back to let her go first. “After you.”
 
“Thanks.” There didn’t seem to be any flowers in the garden, but the warm air smelt delightful, and when Mary looked around all she could see of other houses were a few glimpses of roofs above the trees. “This is lovely,” she said.
 
He smiled. “It is rather, isn’t it? Do sit down, please. It’s a little like the Garden of Eden. But before the creation of Eve, in that I generally only get to sit out here on my own.”
 
Mary sat down, the legs of her chair scraping.
 
“Cheers,” said Michael, sitting beside her and raising his glass.
 
“Cheers.” She took a sip of the sherry, and choked. It was so dry as to be almost salty, and she felt as though she’d breathed in while a wave was breaking over her.
 
“Are you all right?” Michael asked, putting his glass down on the table and taking hers from her.
 
“Yes,” she said, still coughing. “It’s just it was drier than I expected. I’ll be fine. Thank you.” Michael placed one hand on the back of her neck, and the other on her thigh, which felt so wonderful that she’d have happily drunk bleach if he’d told her that was what he was going to do.
 
One of them must have knocked the table, because Michael suddenly let go of her, and stood up, watching the two empty glasses rolling on their sides. Wet patches on his trousers and clerical shirt showed what had happened to the sherry.
 
“I’m so sorry,” said Mary, a little breathlessly. “Are you all right?”
 
Michael laughed. “Yes. Just a little wet, and smelling of sherry.” He reached behind his neck to unfasten his dog collar. “I’d better get these things off.” He held out the dog collar. “Can you hold this a minute?” His other hand was already on the top button of his clerical shirt.
 
“Yes.” Mary took the dog collar from him, her fingers trembling as she watched him expose his chest, every bit as smooth as the chest of Jesus in the church. He slipped the shirt off, and Mary ran her tongue over her lips to moisten them. “Do you want me to hold that while you take off your wet trousers?”
 
He looked momentarily confused, but then he smiled. “I wouldn’t want to shock you."
 
Mary tried to ignore her pounding heart and stay calm. “I expect you’re wearing a loincloth, or something, underneath, like Jesus.”
 
Nodding, he passed her the clerical shirt. “They’re actually Ralph Lauren boxers,” he said, unbuckling his belt.
 
“Let me help you with your shoes,” said Mary, folding the shirt and dog collar over her arm and squatting at his feet. As she untied his laces, she thought once again of Mary Magdalene, anointing the feet of Jesus. “Would you like me to take your socks off while I’m down here?” she asked. “So that you don’t get them all dirty from walking around without your shoes.”
 
“Thank you, Mary. That would be kind.”
 
When she looked up, he lowered his trousers, and in the bright white of his boxer shorts she could see the elongated bulge of his penis, distinct from the other bulge where his testicles sat. It was the closest she’d ever been to a penis. She’d seen photographs and drawings in books from the library, and sometimes an actor on TV would be naked, but the bulge was real, and no more than a few inches from her face. She could have touched it.
 
Gathering up his clothes and shoes, he said, “I’ll just go and sort all these out. Would you like to pour us another sherry while I’m doing it? You saw where it all was.”
 
Numbly, Mary picked up the two empty glasses and followed him through the French windows, unable to take her eyes off his bottom. She’d never seen Jesus’s bottom, because he always faced her, with his back to the cross, but she felt that it would be perfect, just like Michael’s. In the sideboard, she found the bottle of Manzanilla, and carefully poured out the two glasses, but before she put the bottle away, she took a practice sip, to make sure she didn’t choke a second time, refilling the glass afterwards so that it wouldn’t show. With the taste of the sherry in her mouth, she waited by the sideboard for Michael to return, holding a glass in each hand, remembering the shapes she’d seen in his boxer shorts, and thinking about Jesus in his loincloth. If she’d had a free hand, she might have crossed herself.
 
She’d expected that Michael would have put on some clean clothes, but when he came back, he was still only wearing his boxer shorts, padding barefoot across the polished floor.
 
She looked at the right side of his chest, half expecting to see a scar where the Roman soldier had stabbed him with the point of his spear, but she dismissed the thought as foolish. Michael was probably too young, anyway. Jesus had been in his thirties when they crucified him, and Michael didn’t look much over twenty-five. “Today’s my birthday,” she said, passing him one of the sherry glasses.
 
Smiling as he took it from her, he said, “I shan’t ask you how old you are.”
 
“It’s all right. You don’t have to. I’m seventy. Three score and ten, as it says in the psalms. The days of my years. How old are you?”
 
It made him laugh. “I’m twenty-nine. I don’t think the three score and ten was supposed to be taken literally, any more than the creation in seven days, or the Garden of Eden. They were just convenient fictions to explain the way the world is. Some people lived longer, and some died young, the same as today.”
 
“Yes.”
 
“Shall I get out the deckchairs?” suggested Michael, nodding at the wrought iron furniture on the patio. “We might be more comfortable. The metal’s a bit hard and cold, even on such a warm day.”
 
“That sounds nice. Do you need me to help?”
 
“You could hold my glass, in case it tries to fall over again. Otherwise, I can manage.”
 
Mary took the glass from him with her free hand. Michael disappeared around the side of the house, and while he was fetching the deckchairs, she looked at the rim, seeing the sticky print where his lips had been. Touching her mouth to the spot, she imagined she was kissing him, and drank the rest of her own sherry in a single gulp.
 
Michael returned with a pair of deckchairs and set them up on the lawn, close together and almost facing each other.
 
Mary handed him his glass before she sat down. Stretching out her legs, she said, “The sun’s lovely, isn’t it?”
 
“Yes. I like to sit out here on days like this.” He took a sip of his sherry. “It’s private. No one can see us. I’m sure that there are people who’d think badly of me for sitting around in nothing but my boxers.”
 
Mary’s mouth felt dry, but she’d drunk all her sherry. “God has given you a beautiful body,” she said. “It seems a shame to hide it all the time.”
 
Michael nodded. “The sin of nakedness only exists in the minds of those who dislike it. Adam and Eve were naked in the Garden of Eden, and all of us are naked under our clothes.”
 
The sun seemed suddenly very warm. Mary tilted her empty sherry glass towards Michael. “I’m sorry. I don’t suppose I could have a glass of water, could I?”
 
“Of course. I’ll just go and get it.”
 
While he was gone, Mary wondered about taking her dress and her petticoat off. Her bra and pants would be like a bikini on the beach, she thought, although she’d never actually sat on a beach, or worn a bikini. When he returned with the water, she asked him about it. “Do you think I should take my dress off, too? The sun’s so lovely, I’d like to feel it on my skin.”
 
He handed her the glass of water. “You can if you like. I shan’t mind. It’s up to you.” The sip of the water was cool in her mouth, slaking her thirst and reminding her even more how hot she felt in her dress. “In that case, I think I shall take it off. Could you hold this for me?” She held out the glass.
 
“Of course. Do you need a hand?”
 
It made her smile. “Thank you. I live alone. I’m used to dressing and undressing on my own.” Kicking off her shoes, she unbuttoned the front of her dress, stepped out of it, and took off her petticoat, draping them over the back of the deckchair before taking her glass back from Michael. She’d thought she might be embarrassed, undressing in front of him, but he inspired her with such confidence that she felt she could do anything. She wasn’t naked, but she couldn’t recall the last time either a man or the sun had seen so much of her skin.
 
The two of them sat in their deckchairs, and Mary wiggled her toes like a child. Her underwear was supposed to be white, but too many trips through the wash had left it looking a greyish cream colour, closer to the colour of Jesus’s loincloth in the church than the brilliant white of Michael’s boxer shorts, and not even as white as her skin. It didn’t matter. She was so comfortable she could have taken it off and it still wouldn’t have mattered. She wondered if Jesus had seen Mary Magdalene naked.
 
“What are you thinking about?” Michael asked, when neither of them had said anything for a minute or two.
 
“Only how comfortable I feel.” It wasn’t just the pleasant caress of the air and the touch of the sun that she meant, it included Michael. “I don’t normally take my clothes off outside.” She drank some more of her water. “I was thinking about Mary Magdalene, too.”
 
“Mary Magdalene?”
 
“Yes. We’re both called Mary.”
 
“Do you have seven demons needing to be cast out?” he asked, smiling.
 
“I hope not.” Her bra dug into the side of her ribs again.
 
“Are you all right?”
 
“Yes. Why?”
 
“You squirmed when I asked about the demons.”
 
Mary laughed. “It’s just this bra. It digs in sometimes. I don’t think I’ve put on any weight, and it probably has nothing to do with demons. Maybe it’s shrunk.”
 
“Do you want to take it off? I won’t mind.”
 
“Can you hold this?” She sat up straight and held out her glass even before she’d thought about it. “I’ll need both hands.” Michael took the glass from her, and she reached behind her back to undo the hooks, slipping the straps off her arms. She felt more comfortable without it, but she noticed that Michael stared at her bare breasts as he handed her glass of water back to her. “Is something the matter?” she asked. She didn’t think her breasts were much to look at, but at least they were too small to have sagged.
 
“No. Sorry. I was thinking of something else.” Michael fidgeted in his seat, and it seemed to Mary that the bulge in his boxer shorts was bigger than it had been before. She’d read about erections in books from the library, and seen pictures, ranging from anatomical illustrations to the grotesquely massive phalluses of the ambassadors in the Aubrey Beardsley drawing, but she tried to dismiss the connection from her mind. She sipped her water, and a few drops of condensation fell from the bottom of the glass onto her chest, the cold a shock on her warm skin.
 
Michael smiled. “More demons?”
 
Laughing again, she wiped herself with her free hand. “No. Just cold water. Condensation on the outside of the glass. I’m happy. No demons at all.” The touch of her hand on her breasts made them tingle a little, as if they were changing shape.
 
The bulge in Michael’s boxer shorts had definitely changed shape, and was unmistakably an erect penis, some of its details clearly outlined by the tight fabric. He stood up, the sun behind his head like a halo. Extending his hand, he said, “Shall we go indoors? I shouldn’t want you to catch the sun.”
 
As if in a dream, Mary allowed him to help her to her feet, and she continued to hold his hand as they went indoors, leaving most of her clothes behind. As they walked barefoot across the grass, wearing only their pants, Mary thought of the Garden of Eden, though she didn’t think that Mary Magdalene had been there. “Are we going to make love?” she asked.
 
“Do you want to?”
 
“I am a virgin. I don’t know. What is it like?”
 
“It’s like going to heaven.”
 
Michael led her upstairs to a room bathed in white light, with a large bed in the centre, and they both took their pants off. Mary admired Michael’s erect penis, the first she’d seen outside of a book, and thought how beautiful it was, and how it suited him. He guided her to the bed, and helped her to lie down, on her back, with her legs apart.
 
Kneeling beside her, as if in prayer, he spat on his fingers, and touched them to the outside of her vagina, carefully spreading the dry lips, like Jesus healing the blind man in the Gospels.
 
In her early teens, Mary had touched herself, once, and although it had been pleasurable, the shame she’d felt confessing it to Father Doyle dwarfed the pleasure into insignificance. He’d have known it was her, even though she’d tried to disguise her voice, because she was the last one at confession, and he’d given her twenty Hail Marys and an Our Father, so she was still kneeling down saying her penance when he emerged from the confessional.
 
Since then, the only time she had allowed anything foreign inside her vagina had been when her doctor had sent her for a smear test. She’d even avoided tampons, preferring towels that looped over a cumbersome belt. However, the doctor had been insistent about the smear test, so Mary had agreed to see the nurse. The experience had been horrible. She had to take her pants and her skirt off, and lie back in a chair that had footrests in the air, her legs apart like a chicken about to be stuffed. The nurse had lifted her petticoat out of the way, and forced a horrible cold metal thing inside her, chatting all the time as if they were in a supermarket queue with the same special offer in their baskets, when it felt as if Satan himself were defiling her with his cold hard penis.
 
The gentle touch of Michael’s fingers cast out that pain, and the bliss she experienced banished forever the shame of confessing to Father Doyle. “Dear sweet Jesus,” she whispered, meaning every word, as healing warmth spread outwards to the rest of her body and her vagina opened like a lily filled with nectar.
 
Michael bowed his head, and kissed her breasts and her belly, his erect penis nudging her hip. Unlike the nurse’s metal implement, it was stiff and firm, but not hard or cold, and she wanted it inside her.
 
As though he’d read her mind, he knelt between her thighs and brought her knees up, steering the tip of his penis towards her waiting and welcoming vagina. The first touch sent a bolt of ecstasy through her body, like the taste of the host as it touched her tongue when she’d taken her first communion, the body of Christ inside her mouth. Michael pushed gently, and his penis began to enter her.
 
Mary moaned, wanting to push against him, to take him deeper inside her body, but her muscles had turned to jelly. “Please,” she whimpered. “Please take me.”
 
Michael clasped his hands around the small of her back, lifting and drawing her towards him, and the shaft of his penis slid the whole way into her, sending waves of delight through the rest of her body, like ripples on a still pool. Her vagina had taken on a life of its own, grasping his penis, which seemed to swell inside her, filling her far beyond her pelvis. Pleasure more intense than anything she’d ever imagined exploded through her, blasting her body to shreds, blinding her with its light, and leaving her twitching and quivering helplessly.
 
“Jesus.” She didn’t think her mouth had moved, the words came from her heart as she settled into a wonderful warm stillness. “My dear sweet Jesus.”
 
Michael’s voice seemed to speak to her from far away. “Mary? Can you hear me?”
 
She opened her eyes. It felt as if she were lying on her back on a hard floor, with the smell of incense in her nose. She could see Michael bending over her, but she could neither move nor speak. He took off his jacket, folded it, and placed it behind her head, like a small pillow, so that she was able to see the face of Jesus smiling down on her from above the altar.
 
Michael stood up, pressing buttons on his mobile phone. “Hello? Yes. Ambulance, please.” He told them where to come, and crouched down beside Mary, holding her hand. “There’s an ambulance on its way,” he said.
 
She tried to tell him how much she loved him, but her voice no longer worked. All she could do was close her eyes, waiting for an ambulance she didn’t want, and pray that her beloved Jesus would take her to him before it arrived.
 

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