SASHA HAD NO IDEA how she got home, but somehow she got out of a Lyft in front of her condo building with her purse and not looking like she’d almost jumped a priest in his own rectory with the likely salacious addition of a nun being able to hear.
Although she’d always been more of a cultural Catholic, there had to be some higher power that had allowed her not to fall on Patrick’s baloney rocket like her mother after coming back from juice fasting in the desert on anything with simple carbs.
She was so off-balance after the intimacy of her—encounter—with Patrick that she didn’t notice the light coming through where her door was open or the fact that her doorknob was hanging out of place on one side until she was on the top step.
She didn’t often miss the actual presence of a husband or significant man in her life, other than when she had to snake a pipe—and now when her apartment was potentially mid–break in was the only other time.
She should have gone outside and called the police. But she was exhausted and horny and confused. Instead of doing the smart thing, she opened the door as quietly as she could and grabbed a long umbrella from the container next to the door. She choked up on it like a bat.
The light and noise were coming from the kitchen, so Sasha walked that way after she slipped out of her shoes. Only when she saw who was rifling through her cupboards did she relax and put the umbrella down.
“What are you doing here?”
Her sister Madison turned around and shrieked, dropping a bag of quinoa that spilled all over the floor. “You scared me.”
“So I see.” Sasha looked at the thousands of pieces of pseudo-grain that her mother had purchased the last time that she was in town. “What are you doing here?”
Her sister composed herself and put the greatly diminished bag on the counter. “Why don’t you have any snacks without gluten?”
“I don’t have a gluten allergy.” Seeing that—as per usual—her sister wasn’t going to offer to clean up after herself, Sasha went to the closet where she kept the vacuum.
“Everyone has a gluten allerg—” It was a lot more satisfying than it should have been to turn on the vacuum and drown her sister out. It also gave her a few seconds to come to grips with the fact that she wasn’t going to be able to retire to the bathtub to rub thoughts of Patrick Dooley right out of her clitoris and to prepare for the onslaught of drama.
If Sasha’s great sin was that she always wanted what she couldn’t have, her sister’s was that she always got what she wanted and was never happy when she got it.
By the time that Sasha had triaged the floor/quinoa situation, she was ready to listen and nod and fix whatever was fucked up in her sister’s perfect life without rolling her eyes or complaining—within view or earshot of her sister.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m leaving Tucker.”
They hadn’t been married that long—two years—and this was the third or fourth time that her sister had made the declaration. It was, however, the first time that she had made it all the way to Chicago, so Sasha couldn’t discount the fact that this time might be for real.
She’d never liked her brother-in-law that much, but she hadn’t disliked him. It seemed almost unfair to dislike someone that dull. Their mother had been delighted when Madison had “snagged such a catch” (eye roll), and Madison had seemed as happy as she ever was—about two steps above miserable—at the time. So Sasha had kept her mouth shut until their mother had started hinting at the eligibility of Tucker’s younger brother. Then she’d sort of noped out in the most gracious way possible.
“What happened?” Sasha had some ideas. The first time she’d left him, he’d suggested that they go birdwatching on their six-month anniversary. The second time she’d walked out, he hadn’t told her that he was bringing his boss home for dinner. Sasha had never seen such fifties-housewife bullshit, but it was none of her business. Honestly, Sasha would have slipped the boss a hundred if she was married to Tucker—less time listening to him prattle on about painting miniatures.
Then again, Sasha would have burned all of Tucker’s pleated-front pants before the wedding and then denied all knowledge or culpability. But her sister had more fortitude than that. She’d married for security, and she was at peace with that. Or so Sasha had thought.
“Did Tucker give all of your money to a fin domme?”
“What’s a fin domme?”
Sasha shouldn’t have brought it up. This was going to be worse than the time she’d had to explain pegging to her sister to talk her out of leaving Tucker after Madison had found a strap-on in his drawer. And she definitely wasn’t going to think about pegging when she could still hear Patrick saying the word with a wry smile in his voice.
“That doesn’t matter. Did he lose all his money?”
“Of course not.” Her sister turned and started rifling through the liquor cabinet. Much more likely to find something gluten-free in there. When she found a bottle of red and two glasses, she turned back to Sasha.
Sasha took the glass Madison offered her and sat on the couch. “So what happened?”
Her sister’s brow furrowed, which hadn’t happened in over a decade to Sasha’s knowledge. Things were really dire if a Finerghty woman started laying off on injectables. “I’m not in love with him anymore, and I was just looking at him wearing his awful pants while talking about some bird that I’d never heard about and I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
“So you just walked out?” Sasha finally examined her sister’s outfit and noticed how off it was for her. Like Sasha, her sister had had proper decorum drummed into her practically from birth. Slacking was never allowed short of arterial blood loss. And even then, it was frowned upon.
“Yeah, I grabbed my purse and my passport. And I left.” Madison sounded bewildered by her decision.
“And you came here?”
Her sister took a big gulp of her wine and asked, “Should I not have? Were you going to have a boy over?”
Thinking about the boy she’d like to have over if it were possible to have him over wasn’t going to lead anyplace good. She had to put Patrick out of her mind entirely, but it was especially important while her sister was here. Even if Madison had committed the cardinal sin of leaving a marriage and possibly bringing scandal down on the family, she probably wouldn’t be able to stomach her thing for Patrick.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“We’re not talking about me.” Sasha took another sip of wine. “Did Tucker cheat on you?”
“God, no!” Madison reared back and made a sour face. “Can you imagine Tucker cheating?”
Unfortunately, Sasha kind of could. Her sister wasn’t nice to her husband, and it wasn’t his fault that he was deeply uninteresting. It wouldn’t surprise her if Tucker met a woman who shared his interests and left Madison for someone who appreciated something beyond the fact that he’d checked a box for her.
“Are you going to get a divorce?” That would cause the greatest scandal in Finerghty family history. It would be a cataclysm that might very well kill their mother and pickle their father in very expensive scotch. For one moment, Sasha allowed herself to revel in the possibilities of relinquishing her title as the disappointing sister, but concern for Madison ultimately won out.
“I hadn’t even thought that far ahead.” Madison squinted. “Do you think that’s even possible?”
“I mean, it is legal to get divorced in every state, still. Although Mississippi is teetering, I think.”
“Stop being facetious. How would I even live on my own?”
Sasha allowed herself one eye roll. Madison had never held down a job before, but she had skills. She’d mostly done volunteer gigs and sucked off the family teat before getting married. Sasha was fairly certain that Madison could figure out how to be an adult. “Get a job and some alimony.”
That brought a pall over the room. “Mommy always says that you’re way too independent.”
“And you and Mommy are living in a whole other century. Join me in the 2020s instead of the 1920s where virtually no one gets stoned for being a witch if they wear makeup.”
“Stop being sarcastic.” The judgmental version of her sister was back, and Sasha was much more comfortable with this dynamic. Pam had warned her that this was likely to happen the first time she’d had a breakthrough in therapy—that when she was around her family, she would regress.
Sure enough, it was happening now. But Madison had never let Sasha off the hook, and Sasha’s job was to reciprocate when her sister was about to come into the light of freedom and join the twenty-first century.
“Do you know how privileged we are?”
Her sister squinted and drank more. “Are you going to attempt to talk to me about race again? You know that I don’t see color, and donate every year to the NAACP—”
“No, Karen. I’m not going to make that mistake again.” Sasha gave her sister a warning look when she sensed her about to retort. “I’m talking about how we’ve been given everything our whole lives, and never had to work for anything. It kind of makes me mad at our parents. They didn’t prepare us for being disappointed—only being disappointments to them. Like, it’s not a promise that everything will work out if you get married to an ‘advantageous match.’ ”
“They just want us to be happy.”
“But they never wanted to let us decide for ourselves what would make us happy.”
“You’ve got a point there.”
Sasha thought this was going to be a bigger fight than it was turning out to be. But she really didn’t want to fight with her sister. She wanted to help her through what seemed like some very real turmoil.
“Did you ever love Tucker?”
Madison sighed. “Maybe?”
“You don’t sound so sure about that.”
“I think you’re right about our parents. They don’t know what happiness is because they were miserable.”
She’d never thought she’d hear her sister say anything like that. Their family religion might officially be Catholicism, but the true liturgy of the family had always been the gospels according to Moira and Steve. Their family sacraments were looking perfect, acting perfect, getting into the right school, and marrying the right person—preferably one that your parents handpicked.
Sasha had tried to hang on to some of it—the parts where she did what she wanted and didn’t lose her parents’ approval. But that plan wasn’t terribly realistic, so she’d moved far enough away that they couldn’t keep tabs on her through spies in the community.
And sometimes, in her head, she still couldn’t get free of the specter of ancestral disappointment at her choices. Her family religion was fucked.
“What can I do?” That was not a rite in the family religion. The question “What can I get?” was more a part of the ritual. Maybe that was why Patrick was so compelling. She doubted that he’d ever asked himself that question.
PATRICK HAD NEVER BEEN an avaricious man. Not even before he’d taken his vows. His ambitions before the priesthood had been humble and realistic. His family did well enough because they owned the building that housed the bar and a few other businesses, but he’d never seen himself leaving Chicago for warmer climates. He’d never regretted the fact that he didn’t eat at fancy restaurants like Jack and didn’t feel comfortable rubbing elbows with high society like his brother.
He’d never wanted something that he couldn’t have or that anyone else would say he shouldn’t strive for. Granted, he was a white dude, so there weren’t many things in that category. He knew that.
And he’d never thought that wanting something he couldn’t have would ever actually be delicious. But the way Sasha smiled, the sweet scent of her, the way she was so effortlessly competent and organized. It was intoxicating.
After she left him in the rectory—aching and alone—he went through his bedroom and straight into the shower. If he’d had a large store of extra clothing, he would have burned what he was wearing. He could still smell her on every bit of it, which was wild. They had barely even touched.
He wanted to do a lot more than hug her, and he let himself go there in his mind as he turned the water all the way to hot. He should turn the water to its iciest setting, but he couldn’t do that. He didn’t want to let go of how being around Sasha made him feel alive in a way that he’d maybe never felt.
It was as though his skin was on fire. Perhaps it was a good thing that they could never truly be together. He wasn’t sure he would actually survive being able to dig his fingers in that thick fall of hair, messing it up as he pulled her face to his.
Her lips would be so soft. They would turn a deep red after he kissed her for hours. Even though he knew that—in reality—he wouldn’t last very long if having sex with Sasha was an actual thing that was going to happen, he liked to imagine spending a lot of time exploring every centimeter of her body. He’d want to learn every freckle and scar.
As the hot blast of water hit him, he gave in and took himself in hand. According to the rules, he wasn’t supposed to even allow himself to do this. But this was an emergency. If he didn’t do this, he might actually maul Sasha the next time she gave him a sassy smile as she licked whiskey off her bottom lip.
Of course he could just avoid her, but he wasn’t about to lie to himself. He knew himself well enough to know that he wouldn’t do that. He could try, but he would fail. And the way he felt when he looked at her was sinning—what was one more sin to add to the pile? There was a line—actually acting out what he wanted to do with her—that he would not cross. He promised himself that and hoped that God heard if He was indeed listening to him anymore.
And then he shut thoughts of God out as he imagined sucking on Sasha’s probably cherry-colored nipples, hearing her cry out and moan with a throaty yell as he touched her clit with his fingers and found the spot that made her lose control.
That’s what he wanted—for her to lose control because of him. Maybe it was some sort of lascivious justice in his own mind; she made him feel like he was going off the rails, and he wanted to do the same thing to her. That’s why he’d said those things to fluster her when she was sitting in his kitchen, drinking his scotch, daring to look edible after a full day of grueling work.
He was a mess, and he had a feeling that she knew what she was doing. The part of him that didn’t identify with being a priest, the part that had been sleeping for a long, long time, felt entitled to seeing her fall apart. The brake pedal on that impulse, the vows he’d taken, kept that drive in the realm of his imagination but still allowed him to run free there.
He wondered if she’d like him to wrap his hand around her collarbone, mimicking choking her. He didn’t want to do that, but he sort of did. And he wasn’t going to allow himself to think about how much that turned him on—the thought of her pupils dilating at being totally at his mercy.
His forearm muscles strained as he worked his dick over faster and faster under the blast of the water. He could lube himself up with soap, but he didn’t deserve it. He wanted to know that he was sinning as he worked himself over for the first time in a long time to the thought of fucking Sasha from behind, admiring her plump ass as it bounced against his hips—fuck.
That was the last image in his mind before he came against the wall in the shower attached to the room where he slept alone because he was a priest and he’d made vows. Two things tempered the cataclysmic orgasm that made his knees unstable and his pounding heart practically echo off the walls: Sasha wasn’t here having a screaming climax along with him, and she never would be.
As the orgasm faded, so did Patrick’s resolve that indulging in thoughts of Sasha was superior to acting out his desires. Thinking about it only made him want her more. He was pretty sure Jesus had to think about turning water into wine or walking on water before he actually did it. Thinking about the impossible things he wanted to do to Sasha could only turn him down the road of making the impossible—having her—possible.
He felt stupid and ashamed. Still, he didn’t ask God to help him figure out what to do. He knew that he should make a confession, do his penance, and never, ever see Sasha again. He also knew that he wasn’t ready to do that. Maybe ever.