The Saint
I’m spending the evening with several Jesuits I went to seminary with. I should go now. Soon I’ll be home to you. Home, in case you were wondering, is not Denmark nor New York nor Wakefield nor any city, state or country. I’m home when I’m with you.
Jeg elsker dig. (Yes, I know how much it turns you on when I speak Danish.)
The letter was signed with an ornate S with a slash through it, Søren’s private signature. As she looked up from the letter she saw Kingsley watching from the doorway to the music room.
“What’s his name, Elle?” Kingsley asked from the doorway.
“Who?”
Kingsley walked over to her and pulled the collar of her shirt down. She knew he touched the slight red mark Wyatt had left on her chest from last night’s kisses.
“Tell me everything right now.”
“Kingsley, I’m in trouble.”
“Pregnant?”
“Worse.”
“What’s worse than pregnant?”
She brushed tears off her face with the back of her hand and took a deep breath.
“I think I’m in love.”
28
Eleanor
KINGSLEY TOOK THE NEWS BETTER THAN SHE EXPECTED. He listened and asked no questions, not even when she finished her tale.
“He’s in love with me, King. I never expected anyone other than Søren would ever fall in love with me. He must be a masochist,” Eleanor said with a grim and mirthless laugh. “I guess anyone in love with me would have to be a masochist.”
Kingsley laughed behind his tumbler of Scotch.
“You said it, not me. But I doubt he is one. Or even a submissive.”
“Then why does he want to do everything I tell him to do?”
“Because he is a vanilla teenage boy desperate to please, desperate to keep you. A male submissive submits out of desire, not desperation. And a man in love with a woman in love with another man is the secondmost desperate creature on earth.”
“What’s the first?”
“A man in love with a man in love with another woman.”
Eleanor laughed. Kingsley didn’t.
“I didn’t know I could feel this way. It’s not like I love Søren any less. I feel like I have this second heart I didn’t know was there until I met Wyatt. I didn’t know you could do that, could care about two people that much at the same time.”
“Welcome to polyamory.” Kingsley sat his drink down.
“Polyamory?”
“Poly means multi. Amory means love. It’s common in our world, having more than one lover. I don’t mean lover in the sexual sense alone. I mean loving two people.”
“Sounds like a nightmare.”
“Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said there were two great tragedies in life—getting what you want and not getting what you want? Polyamory is the tragedy of getting everything you want all at the same time. Still, anything’s better than monogamy, oui?”
“I feel … horrible.” She buried her face in her hands before looking up to stare at the piano. “But I can’t stop. Every day I tell myself, ‘Okay, I’ll break it off with Wyatt today.’ And every day, I don’t. We fooled around last night. We slept together, even. I’ve never done that with any guy before—slept in the same bed. No sex, but I wanted to. I wanted to tie Wyatt down and make him beg for it….” She exhaled through her nose. “Shit, did I say that out loud?”
Kingsley only grinned.
“You did.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. No one in this room can judge you. I’ve f**ked two different people today. And likely a third before the night is over.”
“That should help me feel less horrible, but it doesn’t. A little jealous, though.” She tried to smile.
“This should make you feel less horrible. He knew this would happen. I would say he wanted it to.”
“Søren wanted me to fall for someone else?”
“You think he is making you wait so long for him for no other reason than to torture you?”
“Well, yeah.”
“It’s part of it.” Kingsley sat back and threw his long booted legs up on the back of the sofa and crossed his ankles. “But the truth is he loves you. And he’s a Catholic priest. And he can’t marry you. And he can’t give you children. And he can’t hold your hand while you walk through Washington Square Park and kiss you under a streetlamp in the snow where all the world can see you. And if that’s something you want, he wants you to have it. Sex will seal you to him. You spend a night in his bed and you will never want to leave it. If you are going to get out, you need to do it now before it’s too late.”
“I want them both.”
“If le prêtre would allow that, would your boy allow it?”
She shook her head.
“No. He’d hate that. The first day he wanted to know everything about Søren. Now he flinches if I even mention him.”
“Then you have a choice to make. But make it soon and make it clean.”
“Make it clean?”
Kingsley sat his drink on the side table and, with adroit fingers, quickly unbuttoned his white shirt. He pulled the fabric to the side to bare a large scar that looked recently healed.
“Bullet wound,” he said. “Nearly killed me. Not the shot, however. The bullet shattered on a rib. They had to dig out thirty pieces of silver. You want to shoot someone? Have the decency to make it clean. In and out, straight through. No hope.”