The Vicar of St. Dunstan's Ep. 23

The rain fell on the tent over the grave in heavy drops. Mother Mary Rufus stood with her brothers and sisters with their children in its shelter as I read the graveside blessing for their mother. Lucinda Parkhurst-Frazelton had come to the end of her long journey, and gone to her reward. It seemed a bit sacrilegious as I read the words that my thoughts wandered to the feel of her warm, wet, cinnamon fired mouth encircling my manhood, and with difficulty I focused myself on the task at hand.

A week earlier, I visited Lucinda in the hospital the last time. She was very alert and lucid that day; according to her daughter the nun, it was her last fully conscious day. The small woman seemed dwarfed by her hospital bed, wearing a pale blue nightgown on the clean, white sheets, her skin pale white and translucent. We talked about many things: about letting go and the promise of heaven, about her children and grandchildren, about her childhood and her parents who doted on her, about her husband and her expectation of seeing him again. It was ten o'clock in the evening, when she sighed and said: "Vicar, you've been so kind to me, made me feel like vibrant young woman again. Would you do me one more kindness?" Her voice was faint and tenuous

"Anything, Lucinda. Your kindness and generosity has been overwhelming, both to St. Dunstan's and to me."

"Let me make you happy one more time."

Lucinda was laying flat on her back; it was clear that she wasn't capable of much motion, and I doubted that she could even sit up unaided. Her bed could be raised to a full sitting position if needed, but I wasn't sure she could handle it. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Her eyes pleaded with me. "Raise the bed, Alfred, please. I want to try."

I pushed the button that elevated her; she rode up with her eyes close until she was almost sitting up straight. "Are you all right?"

"Fine, love, fine. My head's on just the right level. Take your trousers down; let me see it again." I buttoned my fly and lowered my briefs, leaving on my dog collar and jacket.

A lovely smile creased her lips as my manhood was uncovered, and she laughed in delight. "Come closer, dear, let me see this lovely boy," she whispered, reaching out to embrace my phallus as I came close to the bed. "Get up on the mattress, let's see if we can get you at the right level." I knelt on the mattress; between my long legs and her diminutive height, her mouth was at the perfect level to try to fulfill her wish.

Her grip was soft yet tentative, encouraging me to fullness with slow strokes. "Sorry I don't have any candy, but I think I can do it without this last time." She closed her eyes in anticipation as she opened her toothless mouth to welcome my erection, which became rock hard as I felt her gums chewing on me. It was unlike any encounter I'd had with her before: more insistent and eager. I grasped the corner of the mattress beside me to keep my balance, for she was making my legs weak. Pulling out, she guided me closer so she could get a chance at my scrotum. Her gums nipped and gobbled at my testicles, which brought me very close to the edge very quickly. Sensing this, she pushed me back to she could give my corona her last, full effort, sucking it in while stroking the shaft with her left hand and rubbing my oysters with her right.

It didn't take long for me to give her what she wanted: milky whiteness flowed from the sides of her mouth down her chin to her neck and the base of her throat. She was obviously tired as I jettisoned the last drops, so I reclined her back until she motioned for me to stop just short of horizontal. Her hands went over her skin, guiding the cream to her mouth where she savored every drop. I stroked her hair as she cleaned herself, purring contentedly, and fell into a deep slumber.

My consciousness returned to the graveyard with a start. I realized I'd just finished a paragraph and didn't know where to go right away. Pausing for a moment, I let go of the memory and continued the service, drawing a puzzled look only from her daughter the Mother Superior.

There were many mourners clustered near around us, including my Quilting Ladies, Mary, Sheila, and Mavis, Agnes , and members of the Vestry. Sister Mary Francis Xavier was there in habit as well, her usual energy and cheerfulness subdued; standing with Lucinda's grandchildren, who ranged in age from 30 to teens. I wondered how she fit in to this picture. Windsor castle sent a representative: a child of one of the Queen's cousins who told me prior to the liturgy at St. Dunstan's he spent most of his time attending funerals of minor peers and other nobility in exchange for his pension. Several executives of Lucinda's corporation and subsidiaries were there as well, standing stolidly in the damp holding umbrellas. Most of St. George's Covent were there as well, arrayed in rows like warriors going to battle. Many of my parishioners, whom I had seen the day before as we celebrated the Resurrection, came as well: Lucinda was well known and beloved in the area.

I finished the text, and Barbara and her siblings threw hands full of earth into the grave on the casket. They stood for several long moments in tableau, and I kept my place as the gravediggers approached to do their job. My seminarian, Kieran Hali, was beside me as acolyte, bareheaded with the rain streaming down his face, holding a bucket and holy water sprinkler. Lucinda's children turned and went to embrace their spouses and children, and a receiving line formed as people approached to pay their respects.

Many people approached me to murmur appreciation and chat briefly. Harry Hazleton was already bantering cheerfully with those around him, who smiled at his antics. Sheila's new husband, Sean Williams, came to take her arm. They had married a month ago in Devonshire after a brief courtship. I wanted to be there, but I was defending my dissertation the day before their wedding and my air connections couldn't get me back in time. Mary chatted with her granddaughter Agnes for a few moments before they turned to leave.

At last the group was finished, and the family repaired to the mansion for a light meal. It was a subdued and stately affair, Willikins the butler supervised the refreshments flawlessly as usual. A wink at Sister Mary Francis Xavier brought a slight, momentary smile in return as she sat by Barbara's older sister Patricia. I was siting next to the Mother Superior and murmured: "Why is Sister Mary Francis Xavier here?"

A look of fear passed her face momentarily, then subsided as she leaned over: "My sister Patty is her mother. She never knew her father's side of the family, so Mum was the only grandparent she ever knew. Mum always treated her with special kindness, even learning Sign to talk with her."

"I thought you said she was adopted?"

"Patty and her ex adopted her just before he left her. She raised Helen as a single parent while she traveled the word. They've had their problems over the years, but they made their peace just before Helen became a Postulant."

"Does Helen–Sister Mary Francis Xavier know who her real parents were?"

"Oh yes," came an usually soft reply. She leaned away from me to talk with her oldest brother.

I caught the young nun's eye and signed: I'm sorry.

Thanks, she signed back. It was time for her to go. She lived a long and good life.

Lucinda's family didn't appear to be a particularly warm bunch, and they drifted off fairly soon after finishing their meal. There were cordial hugs and kisses in parting, but stiff, distant, and aloof. Since I decided to stay as long as Barbara did, I found myself alone with the two nuns at the big table. Willikins the butler came to begin clearing the table, looking drawn and very old. He asked: "Will there be anything else, Miss Barbara?"

"No, Jeremy, that will be all. We'll talk tomorrow morning about what comes next. You can plan on two weeks off starting Friday, and rest assured the estate will take care of you."

"Thank you, Miss Barbara. I'll just get these into the washer and then retire to my rooms."

"Very good." The three of rose, and I followed the women into a study down the hall from the formal dining room. It was a library, with a fireplace and several comfortable chairs and sofas. A sideboard held an open bottle of red wine, fresh fruit, several cheeses and a loaf of fresh rye bread.

Barbara threw herself down on the chair and whipped off her veil and wimple, shrugging free her long, luxuriant, blond hair. Helen did the same, uncovering her short, red locks splayed in enough directions to qualify as a Heavy Metal fan. I made myself useful after unhooking my dog collar, pouring three glasses of wine from the sideboard and bringing the refreshments nearer to a small table before settling into an overstuffed chair by the fireplace. Barbara took up a glass to propose a toast: "To Mum."

"To Lucinda" The three of us clinked glasses and settled back into our chairs.

"There's a story I need to tell before we go much farther," Barbara began. "Mum had a secret, and now seems as good a time as any to tell the story."

A secret? Helen asked. What secret did Gran have?

"It's a long story, and a sad one. Among other things, Mum lied about her age."

"What?" I said, sitting bolt upright. "She wasn't eighty seven years old last June?"

"No," Barbara replied, "She was a year older than everyone thinks she is. It wasn't vanity: Mum was a year older than Dad was, and it wasn't considered proper in her day for a woman to marry an older man, so she docked a year to be the same age. But there was another reason. . ."

********

Christmas 1917 in a suburban Paris hospital, two in the morning. The duty nurse, Barbara Jenkins, sat at her desk in the Empire officer's ward, sewing on a small quilt. Her hands were small, like her frame, but they were quick and nimble. She liked the night duty for two reasons: one, it meant she had little to do with the military doctors, which she generally despised for their arrogant treatment of everyone, and two, she had time to work on her favorite hobby while on the job. Occasionally, a patient would enter the ward in the small hours after coming in from a casualty clearing station, but usually it was quiet.

One of her patients stirred in his sleep. The nurse went over and checked his chart: Captain S. J. McCoy, Canadian Cavalry. He was average height and under average weight; most of soldiers that spent any significant time on the Western Front were underweight. Age 25, enlistment date 24 August 1914; it was unusual for a front line soldier to survive that long. His hair was brown, his face handsome with high cheeksbones and his eyes blue under the bandages. Decorated several times for bravery, blinded by gas at Passchendaele on 5 November, superficially wounded in the thigh by shrapnel, with a subsequent infection due to contamination. The bacteria ridden Flanders fields that was so rich for farming contaminated almost every skin opening of the men who served there.

Captain McCoy was weakly struggling with his blankets and the duty nurse pulled them back. The patient immediately tried to scratch his leg, which she batted away until he gave up. Uncovering his thigh, she saw his dressing needed to be changed. "Now, now, Captain, stiff upper lip. You've been brave enough to take on the Boche a long ways from home, you can be brave enough not to scratch your leg until I tend to it. I promise I'll be gentle, sir. Do it for King and Country." Her voice was low and silky as she tried to coax him to submit to her touch.

"Not a Canadian, not a Canadian. Kicked out the blighter a hundred and forty-five years ago." His voice was faint, but it held an unfamiliar accent: a soft drawl heard nowhere in the British Empire.

A double take while she tried to place the accent. "Come now, Captain, you're in the Canadian Cavalry. You're in the King's service." She struggled to hold his hands down with surprising force.

"All right, I'll grant that, but don't pull that patriotic crap with me."

"Very well, Captain. If you let me change your dressing, you won't have to scratch your leg and irritate your infection. Be a sport, sir."

He sighed. "Well I've been a sport before, but I'll give it another try." He relaxed and let her removed her bandage, the corners of his mouth pulling up slightly in pain as she peeled back the tape.

She worked quickly to clean the wound and apply a fresh bandage. The infection didn't look bad, but she could imagine how much it itched. It was high on his thigh an inch to the right of his crotch, and in the process of changing the dressing she uncovered his genitals, The duty nurse was almost always professional in her care of the patients, but male genitalia always fascinated her. The Captain wasn't the largest man she'd ever seen, but he was the first uncircumcised man she'd ever examined. It nestled like a little worm on large testicles, and as she stared at it, it started to wiggle a little.

"Thanks, Ma'am, I feel much better. That's the best bandage change I believe I've ever had." He relaxed and settled to rest.

"You're welcome. You're a brave man, and you deserve all the kindness we can offer you." Looking around, she saw that none of the other men were awake; the soldier in the next bunk had bandages on his eyes. Sometimes in the dark of night, this duty nurse would perform a special service for the heroes she tended. Reaching out with her small, nimble hand, she grasped the white worm and pulled back its turtleneck.

It rose to greet her, coming out of its cocoon. Gentling encouraging it, she smiled as it grew under her firm tender touch. The Captain moaned and said: "Sweetheart, no one's ever done that for me before."

She looked at him with amazed: "A lovely lad like you, who's been in France for three years on the Front, a virgin?"

"I come from a place where we were taught to respect women. 'Never take advantage, never force yourself, always act like a gentleman,' Paw always said. My Paw also taught me to be careful of working women, and the diseases they could give me."

"Well, Captain McCoy, you're a very gallant as well as a very brave man. It's my privilege to reward you for the great sacrifice you've made for our great cause."

He snickered softly under his breath. "I know you have to give us this patriotic speech, Ma'am, but I'm an Old Sweat. I just do the best I can for my men and try to survive." He gasped a couple more times; the end of his fully swollen bulb was growing slick.

She bent over and drank in the musk coming off his skin. It was the most intoxicating thing she ever knew, and the only thing that tempted her from the tight self-disciple she exercised in war and peace. Work comes first, she was always taught, and after a good days work, moderation in the enjoyment of live's pleasures. Keeping her head close to her work, she took long draughts of the animal elixir that was seeping forth. It wouldn't be long, she knew from her secret experience.

The hours in the ward were always long and tiring. Nurse Jenkins had been there since November 1914, and it had been a long, grey struggle to keep her patients alive ever since. She'd gotten leave a couple of times, mostly spent in nearby Paris, but there weren't many ways a lone woman could entertain herself in a respectable manner and she tired of walking the boulevards aimlessly for hours. Once she had gone all the way back to England, to her family in the North Country, but she felt like an alien in her own home, and was uneasy the entire time. So, she took the night duty and sewed her quilts, giving them to refugees displaced by the fighting.

The sweet aroma filled her nostrils, and intoxicated her. Many times she had wondered what the precious liqueur she encouraged would feel like on her tongue, how it would taste, but she'd been shy about trying it. This was something described in one of her lectures at nursing school, but never discussed by the women she knew. Fear of what her mother might think, rest her soul, always kept her from sampling before, but this young man was different. There was something about him: he was different from all the others. The cock has grown to five inches long, and the head fascinated her at close range. It looked so supple and firm and ardent. Her mouth began to salivate.

Torn by several moments indecision, she finally gave in and engulfed the round fullness of his manhood. It was salty and sweet, and the reaction to her mouth was immediate. He reached down and began to stroke her hair with a trembling hand. She couldn't describe the feelings running through her as she devoured his manhood, only that it made her own crotch slick and eager.

Suddenly, a geyser went off in her mouth. Instinctively, she sucked it down, pulse after pulse, a strand leaking from her mouth, compulsively devouring the recently discovered nectar flowing from her hero. His hands trembled uncontrollably, his breathing came in great draughts, his body tensed and relaxed with every expulsion.

The fountain ran dry, and she quested after every drop that had escaped her. If only she'd known the taste was so compelling, she would have sucked all the cocks she had stroked to orgasm during the night hours over the past three years.

"Ma'am, words fail me in describing my appreciation for your kindness. Would you do the honor of giving me your name?"

Breathing heavily, she sat up and put her hand lightly on his head. "Nurse Jenkins, Barbara Jenkins, Captain McCoy."

"My pleasure, Missus McCoy, my pleasure."

"Miss."

"Oh, I beg your pardon. Miss McCoy. That was the finest Christmas present I've ever gotten, never better. Do you have a young man somewhere waiting for you?"

"No. Never. Been married to my work, I have."

"Well, Miss McCoy, my kindest friend, you have an admirer waiting for you in this cot, as long as God permits me to be here. The doctor tells me that my bandages come off in a few days, and I'll be able to see your dear face in the flesh. I imagine that you have the face of an angel."

Nurse Barbara Jenkins had fine skin, rather, it was fine before the years of toil and sleeplessness had worn it. She was not five feet tall, with a small but perfectly proportioned frame. Her mother had always told her that she was plain, so she replied: "When you can see me, Captain McCoy, you'll see that I'm just an ordinary woman. Well, less than an ordinary women."

"Please, call me Stoney, like my family does."

She gasped. "That kind of familiarity won't do, Captain, surely you know that. It wouldn't be proper for people from different stations in life. . ."

"I don't know that. Back home in Kentucky, we always call those we love by their given names. Right now I'd say that Barbara is the sweetest name in the world, my dearest Barbara."

"Please, Captain. There's a chance we might be overheard and such a mode of address wouldn't be proper. You may call me Nurse Jenkins, and I shall call you Captain McCoy."

His bandaged head shook in negation. "I'll never understand you English and your need for formality. So damned reserved it's a miracle you generate a new generation every few years."

"Please, Captain, don't be vulgar."

A snicker. "After what you've just done for me, I'm the vulgar one? All right, all right, angel, if that's how you have to have it. But let me say this: you are a beautiful woman to do what you did for a poor soldier, and if peace comes tomorrow, I'd like to claim you as my own."

The faint light couldn't cover the blush that filled her face. "You're very kind, Captain. Go to sleep. You need your rest if you're to recover from your wounds."

"Yes, Nurse McCoy," he said with a hint of teasing in his voice. "Will you be here tomorrow?"