Retreat

Do you remember that one hot summer?

...We'd felt a strange pull towards church.

We took a walk in the afternoon with that one sole intent:

To try each church door we passed...  See if we could get in.

We kissed several locks, as the expression goes...

and wondered about the openness of the House of God. 

Then we turned the knob to the Lutheran cathedral, without expectation, and it gave way, and groaned... 

We stepped in.

Between the cool dark hewn boulder walls, we were not sure where we'd landed.

When our sights adjusted, we were in the side chapel... not the church proper.

There was a baptismal font, simple and central.

We eyed its beauty. We couldn't help ourselves and fingered the white marble with silver veins, in the dim light. The sparkling gold fixtures, and plumbing, and the adjacent small service alter led our eyes across the room, further into the dark.

Yes, there was an organ. Along the far wall, its pipes extending overhead. Stunning.

For so small a space, Extravagant; but true. And we didn't dare reach across, to play, lest the noise alert anyone. 

We were conscious of trespassing.

I stood rooted to my spot, lifting only my lids to take in the magnificence of the place. Looking up, the ceiling was celestial, vaulted, as in the undercurve of a dome.

A cool breeze was whipping the painted cirrus clouds over pristine cobalt. 

There were no putti, only us... floating on clouds, ephemeral.

Rose of Sharon anointment in the air... I determined to make that scent mine. 

Ours.

Maybe we felt like making love. 

You drew away from us with respect for me and propriety, letting go of my hand...

and I gave you space as you leaned into a pew. Praying for our future no doubt. I watched your profile, silhouetted from the light filtering behind, falling warm... in reds, yellows and blues... down from the high stained-glass windows. 

If you didn't have so much esteem for me, you would have laid me down nude across that marble alter and we would have been sanctified, skin of our skins pressing deep, orificed... mouth to mouth to mouth to mouth. 

I didn't pray. It has something to do with my father's death, and you said, once outside, in the sunlight, that you understood though you wished it were otherwise, almost. 

Almost, because that would rewrite our script, wouldn't it...

 ...and would we have it any other way?

I went back to that church. On my own.

I knelt in the place as I remembered it. My profile aligned with the outline left in memory, fitted as we are, now.

I took note of the stations of the cross. Heavy and notched. I hadn't noticed them then. I made the customary blessing: in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Time passing, as it does.

Bowing my head... I am grateful you are doing as well as you are in your job, and for all your successes. It's why you are not with me for the moment. 

The place doesn't have the coolness it did.

It has heat, this time. 

I don't talk to God. We have moved passed that in personal relationship.

We sit, in each other's presence. Silent.

Me in him. Him in me.

I ask for nothing.

My notion of sin has changed accordingly. 

The very concept is the Sin itself, and all It touches, consequentially tinged. 

It was my high school creative writing teacher Ms. Specter who once told us a pathos ladened drama of her maiden trip to Greece, in which a Greek romantic had climbed up the trellis to her balcony and stood naked before her in his torched desire— horrified when she turned on the light!-— having entered through the wrong window. And she said with lascivious grin, if you don't know what it means to "smell a man, then sorry!" ...giggling, Victorianly. 

I recall this because, suddenly I smell Man, made flesh. The scent of arousal so strong, I sense it through clothing and across distance. My eyes closed.

I lift my countenance, still kneeling. Your tallness means that I am face-to-face with your pressing invitation. Wordlessly, your eyes say a man should steal away from daily obligations once and again to meet his mate, half-way.

I unclasp my hands and unbuckle and unbutton you. The zipper descends partly by some invisible encouragement... as with the Will of nature. 

Have we had this fantasy before?

I know you like to watch me... work you over.

Hand to mouth.

It's not a hunger. It's indulgence, like ice cream. I linger on your hardness as the treat that it is, and not some vegetable side dish, pushed around at a tiresome formal dinner party, on the tick of company dime. 

You don't dare touch me. It's not part of your paradigm, yet, in this sacred setting.

I touch myself for you. Skirting like seashell, parting at the rim, ruffled. It's pink and green with cream. You picked the dress yourself and pause to admire its full effect...

And the glowing ecstasy in my face.

I guide your idle arm toward my body, and you begin to explore it like a parched man upon a deserted isle, lapping supple hills up to the laced thongs. You know all at once what it means when a woman fills the cup of your hands, with abundance, in a movement overflowing like a sonata.

It's a boundary in this sanctuary that you thought we would not cross, but you've accepted that a different kind of holiness is possible, in the eyes of God.

Or maybe it's because we are already consummated.

I don't disconnect. The pulse of pleasure is too strong. You run your lips in waves along my slender right arm and reach for the center of my body, moist and hallowed. You ease a strong thumb to clit and press forefinger across the petals of the slit, soft and melted, slipping in gently to check my pulse as it quickens to your tender manly touch.

I can hear you call for me, soundlessly, in this holy space:

Come for me, baby...

...and it's instantaneous, my release prompting yours, and I draw your essence down my throat taking in every last drop, as pure white chocolate syrup, till you are emptied.

I finish. And cross myself in your spirit.

I am alone, and the chill of the place is as it was... that one hot summer.

I gather my purse and fix my dress.

I'm glad we came, even if, only by myself... this time.