The Virgin
“That’s for me to know, and for you to beat out of me.”
And she did.
* * *
Kingsley opened his eyes and stared out upon the ocean before him. It had been a week since he’d seen Juliette coupling with her lover in their garden. A week since she told him to go. A week since he’d chosen to stay for no reason he could think of except he wasn’t ready to go back yet. He’d tried to push thoughts of Juliette out of his mind, but thoughts of Elle had come and taken their place. Every evening he walked alone on the beach at sunset, a slow ramble from his hut to the edge of the bay and back again.
Kingsley took a deep breath. The vastness of the ocean spoke to the submissive in him. He was nothing compared to the endless waters. Their power and might humbled him as nothing else could. Vaguely he wondered if this was how Søren felt when he contemplated God. Small. Humble. Unimportant and yet loved despite all that. No. Surely Søren never felt small or humble. Not even God could humble that man.
Søren...for months now Kingsley had kept thoughts of Søren at bay. They’d intruded, of course. There was no escaping them entirely. But now Kingsley invited the thoughts in, let them swim to the shore and walk along the beach beside him.
“I miss you, mon ami,” Kingsley said to the silent shadow that strolled beside him. “But I am still so angry at you.”
The shadow didn’t speak. Kingsley kept walking.
“With Elle...it wasn’t like you and me. Or you and her. I had to work to love her. It didn’t come easy. You chose her over me and it hurt, and it will always hurt. But I learned to love her despite all that, and that should tell you how close we are that I could overcome how much I wanted to hate her. You were right about her, about what she could be to us. But I was right, too. I was right about what she is and what she needs. I was right, and you didn’t listen to me.”
Kingsley paused and faced the waters. The wind blew through him and he inhaled the clean salt air. The sound of the surf drowned his every word, his every breath. He could hear nothing but the ocean.
“And now she’s gone. And it’s your fault. And it’s my fault.”
The shadow at his side bowed its head. Kingsley pulled a length of carved bone from his pocket. A broken piece of what had once been an antique riding crop.
“What happened between me and Elle...it was between me and Elle. Not you,” Kingsley said, readying himself to toss the bone fragment into the ocean. “You had no part of it. And that’s why you were angry, no? That’s why you did what you did and made her run away from you, away from us?” He lifted his arm to throw it as far into the water as he could. “Because there is a part of her that has nothing to do with you and you were...”
And then Kingsley understood. He lowered his arm.
“And you were scared.”
From behind him he heard Juliette’s voice.
“Who was scared?”
20
Upstate New York
“PREGNANT?” KYRIE REPEATED. “You were pregnant?”
“I was,” she said.
“And you...”
“Had an abortion.”
“I see.” Kyrie’s voice was calm. Elle gave her credit for that.
“I’m not making this easy for you, am I?” Elle asked. “Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse...”
“It’s okay,” Kyrie said. “I’m still here. Is that why you don’t go to Mass?”
“I’m excommunicated.”
“You can still go. You’re just not supposed to take communion.”
“Consider me quietly protesting that aspect of Catholicism.”
Kyrie said nothing and Elle pitied her. The poor girl, a virgin, a nun, and here she was fighting off sexual, possibly even romantic feelings for a woman who’d fucked a priest and had an abortion.
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you about me, about why I’m here,” Elle said. “It’s a lot for one person to carry.”
“Too much for one person to carry,” Kyrie said. “That’s why I want you to tell me.”
“Regret asking yet?”
“Not yet.”
“You might if I keep talking.”
“Keep talking,” Kyrie said. “I want to know it all.”
“Not here. Not tonight. It’s cold out.”
“Tonight,” Kyrie said. “Before you change your mind. We can go to my room if you want somewhere warmer.”
“No. We should go to mine. They put me up on the third floor away from everybody else.”
“What? Do they think pregnancy is contagious?”
“I think Mother Prioress thinks sin is contagious, and I’m a carrier.”
“We’re all carriers. Original sin, remember?”
Elle laughed. “If you saw the crowd I used to run with...let’s just say we put the original in original sin.”
“Who were they? Your crowd?” Kyrie asked as they walked back to the abbey.
“I don’t know what you’d call us. There’s this man—Kingsley Edge. He has a town house on Riverside Drive in Manhattan. That’s where all the rich people live, if you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know. So he’s rich?”
“Filthy.” Elle smiled. So many memories flooded her mind—good and bad. “He owns and operates a big S and M club. There’s a group of us who practically live at that place.”