Page 36 of A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel 1)
He looks back up at Delphine. “Sometimes a kiss is more than a kiss,” he says, and there’s a faint edge of hoarseness to his voice. Saint’s fingers whiten around his glass, and I wonder if he’s thinking of that summer, of that wedding kiss the three of us shared.
Of a kiss that was so much more than just a kiss.
It was an omen.
An anointing.
Delphine squeezes his hand. Her engagement ring sparkles. “I won’t think less of you for kissing someone, and I know you’re too generous to think less of me.”
Auden doesn’t answer, but he does pull Delphine’s hand close to his mouth and he brushes his lips over the back of it.
“Is that an ‘okay’?” she asks.
For a minute, the wind picks up and rattles the glass with fierce, noisy gusts; the rain hammering the window sounds like it’s turned to sleet. Almost as if the forest itself wants to answer for Auden.
Finally he says, “Okay.”
Delphine turns to the rest of us. “And it’s okay with the rest of you?”
I look to Rebecca, who throws up her hands. “Fine,” she says. “But if I kiss someone, I’ll kiss them my way. Is that understood?”
We all nod.
“Poe?” Delphine asks.
“Yes, please!” I say eagerly, like the horny librarian I am. Then I clear my throat and try to sound normal and not perverted. “I mean, as long as ever
yone else is okay with it.”
And then we look to Saint. He drains the last of his whisky and puts the glass on the table. “Yes,” he says. “I’ll play. If you are willing to have me.”
There’s no doubt that by you, he means Auden, and the faintest frown pulls at Auden’s mouth at his words. But he gives a short nod.
“Excellent!” Delphine exclaims, clapping her hands together. “Let me just clear off the table here and get our bottle ready.”
I decide to refill my glass—as do Rebecca and Saint—and by the time we’re back, the table in the middle is clear, save for an empty bottle on its side, and the drumming, manicured fingers of an eager Delphine Dansey.
“This is perfect, you know,” she says, as we get settled around the table. I choose to sit on the floor next to Saint, and Rebecca perches on the arm of the sofa. “We never got to have this kind of fun as a group when we were in school. Now we can make up for lost time.”
I have to admit that if life had been different, if for some reason all six of us had been able to keep seeing each other, I’m sure we would have done lots and lots of wild things, and I’m sure at least some of them would have involved kissing. Maybe Delphine is right, and we’re reclaiming something that ought to have been ours to begin with.
“I think Becket should go first,” Delphine says. “Since he was the first to agree to my game. And also he’s the oldest.”
Becket smiles and leans his long frame forward to reach the bottle. The firelight gilds every exposed inch of his pale skin, his blond hair and eyelashes, and when he spins the bottle, the light glints and fades in a slow strobe on the glass.
The strobing light abates, the bottle slows. The bottle points at St. Sebastian.
“Well, Saint?” the priest says softly. “Are you ready?”
Saint takes a long drink, but it doesn’t seem like it’s for courage. More like for a moment to compose himself, so that when he answers, his voice is perfectly even. “I’m ready, Father Becket.”
“This would be hotter if Becky had his collar on,” Delphine whispers. Rebecca shushes her.
Becket goes to Saint and squats down, so that he’s eye to eye with the man he’s about to kiss. Even without his collar, there’s still something priestly about him. Maybe it’s the dark pants clinging to his long thighs, or the black shoes that give off a dull gleam from the fire. Maybe it’s in the way he presses his long fingers under Saint’s chin and lifts his face to his own. Or maybe it’s his expression, intense and holy, as he lowers his mouth and kisses St. Sebastian Martinez on the lips.
None of us speak a word—in fact, I don’t think any of us even breathe—as the game becomes real, as we watch Saint’s lips part under the pressure of Becket’s firm, surprisingly practiced mouth. His fingers are assured and insistent on Saint’s chin, and I can tell the moment his tongue strokes against Saint’s, because Saint gives a shudder that I can practically feel myself, feel all the way down into my toes.
I’m hypnotized, and everyone else is too. All the doubts, all the reservations and reluctance, are melting away in the heat of their kiss, and when I hear the sound of someone trying to control their ragged breath, I know without looking that it’s Auden. I know that no matter his earlier doubts, he’s caught up in it now, he’s as ensnared as the rest of us at the sight of our priest gently making love to St. Sebastian’s mouth.
