A Kind of Communion

A couple of days later I saw him again, on the same loop. And a few days after that. Both times I managed to keep running and just smile. The same thing the next time, though he came up behind me, and we ran at the same pace for a while. Not talking, no awkward flirting, just two people matching stride by coincidence. When we got to that same intersection, I waved as I turned right and he reversed course. He waved back.

A few days more and we crossed paths again. He was ahead of me, and this time instead of ogling him I caught up with him. I realized we were just about the same height. We ran together again, still not talking, for a few miles. We split up at the same intersection, each of us smiling and waving at the same time.

The next time I saw him, he was running past me. He turned around and caught up to me. We smiled and nodded, but were otherwise silent. But when I got to the intersection and turned, he went with me. We ran together the rest of my loop. It was at the end of that run, as we were cooling off, walking around and around a food truck with a bottle of water, that we talked.

One of us laughed that we were officially running buddies. We stuck our hands out and shook.

"Joseph," he said.

"Eve," I replied. "Well, technically Evelyn, but most people call me Eve."

He chuckled and asked something about whether or not I was a great temptress. Then he blushed, adorably, up to his hairline.

I laughed. "It's a good thing you're not named Adam, I guess."

He laughed at that, too. We chatted for a while, that usual small talk you make when you're first meeting someone and deciding whether you like them. We laughed a lot. We sat on a bench together while we finished our bottles of water.

"Do you run here every day?" he asked.

"Yeah, just about." I looked at him, trying not to obviously admire his dark brown eyes. "I hadn't noticed you before last week." In my ears, it sounded like a clunky line.

He shook his head. "No, I moved recently. I tried a couple of different spots and routes. I just settled on this one a couple of weeks ago."

An alarm on his watch beeped. "Sorry, I've got to go. It was nice finally meeting you, Eve."

"You too, Joseph. See you around."

*~~* *~~* *~~*

After the assignation in the Confessional, I waited a month before I contacted Joseph. I wanted my assertion to be rattling around in his brain and him to be wondering what I meant. I wasn't surprised that he didn't contact me. I'll admit I was a little crazy.

I waited until a random Tuesday night and went to his church at almost 10PM. I wore the same black wrap dress, but nothing at all underneath. I had a pair of red stilettos, with a two inch platform and a four inch heel that almost literally came to a point. I had to carry them while I walked into the church.

As I expected, the door was unlocked and there was no one in the nave. I padded, barefoot, up to the dais and climbed onto the altar. I slipped my shoes on and crossed my legs. My hair was loose and I'd painted my nails a dark red, to match the shoes. I sat on the altar, leaning back on my hands, and wondered for a moment what the hell I thought I was doing. But, like I said, I'm a little impulsive, and a little obsessive. I wanted more of what I'd gotten a taste of.

I pulled my phone out of my purse and called Joseph. I faintly heard a ringing and wondered if that meant he was in his office working.

When he answered, I spoke casually. "What are you doing?"

"Working on this week's homily."

"Interesting. What topic?"

"Forgiveness of sin."

"Oh," I said. "I'm a great fan of sin and forgiveness."

He sighed heavily. "It's... Oh, never mind. What do you want?"

"You," I answered simply.

"Eve... I can't."

"You can. You want to. You will. Come find me."

"Where are you?"

"Guess." I hung up.

He didn't make me wait long. I heard a door open off to one side and steady footsteps. That little pause when he genuflected. More footsteps coming up the side of the dais, and then he was standing in front of me.

He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, with canvas sneakers. His hair was sticking up, like he'd run his fingers through it in frustration. I looked him over, standing there with his hands in his pockets. He was blushing and I could see he was half hard already, the front of his pants just starting to bulge. I smiled.

I sat up straight and uncrossed my legs. I spread my knees, just a little, and pressed my tits inward with my elbows. I straightened one leg and pointed my foot, it barely brushed his thigh. He didn't move, away or toward me. He looked at my chest for a long moment, then dragged his eyes to my face.

"You always wear that dress to church?" he said, with a rueful smile.

I reached behind and undid the tie, opened the dress and let it fall off my shoulders.

"I wore it to a funeral once."

I don't know why I wanted to press him so hard. I don't know why, but I wanted it to be as awkward and fraught as we could make it. In that moment, I wanted us both to be aware of all the taboos and break them anyway.

He gulped, shook his head. He looked down at his feet. I shifted on the altar, scooting closer to the edge so I could spread my legs more. I slipped the dress off my arms and it spread out behind me. He looked up, took in my nakedness. I held his gaze and shifted again, offering myself to him. For a moment I thought he'd run away.

The tension built between us and he stood there almost on tip toe, his every muscle straining. His eyes wide and his breath coming in great gusts. I felt just as tense, though I made every effort to look relaxed. I put my hands behind me, arching my back slightly so my breasts swayed. I tilted my head down, opening my mouth and tapping my top lip with my tongue. He groaned.

The church was completely silent. We both stayed completely still. The moment grew, and I couldn't let up. I stared him down, looking directly at his crotch, watching the bulge in his jeans enlarge. We both moved at the same time. I leaned up, reaching out for him. He grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it off. He stepped to me, and my hand found his waist band at the same time his mouth found mine.

He was desperate. He clamped his hands to my head and sucked the air out of my lungs. He mashed his lips to mine and his tongue shot past my teeth. I jerked his waist band to me and unzipped his fly. He broke the kiss long enough to reposition both of us, and then when our lips met again he was gentle. He tasted me slowly, our mouths moving in time and opening wider and wider. I wanted to devour him. I slipped my arms around his waist, sliding up his back, pressing him to me. Pressing him hard to me, and wrapping my legs around him. His cock jutted into my crotch and suddenly I wanted more, I needed more. I needed all of him.

I reached down and pushed his jeans off. He stepped back long enough to pull them off completely, slipping his shoes off at the same time. He looked glorious. His smattering of chest hair that led to a thin line down to his thick pubic hair. His dark nipples and a cluster of freckles on one shoulder. He looked at me, pausing and I looked down at my own body like I was seeing it for the first time.

My breasts are roughly average, my areolas are dark, and my nipples are long when I'm aroused. My stomach was flat, but crossed with surgical scars. His breath caught in his throat and he reached out. He slipped his hands up my leg, spreading it wider, and reaching between. He slipped a finger into my soaked hole and his eyes closed. I reached down and wrapped my hand around his shaft, twisting loosely and squeezing his tip gently.

He used his fingers inside me, thrusting slowly, seeming to test me or himself. I slid a hand up his chest and leaned forward to take his nipple in my mouth. I sucked him, licking his nipple, and swirling my tongue. I reached behind him, pressing him to me, and opening my mouth to take more of his flesh into me. He fingered me faster, finding my clit, and flicking the pad of his index finger over it. I shuddered and gasped and ground my forehead into his shoulder.

He responded by cupping my head with his hand and bending down to kiss me. We stayed like that, our mouths melding together, one of my hands on his back, the other gently stroking his cock. His hands at the back of my neck and testing my depths below. We stayed like that for ages, it seemed, tasting each other, exploring a little.

He pulled his hand out, broke the kiss and rubbed my juice on my lips, then on his own. When we kissed again, I tasted myself. I broke the kiss and brought my hand up, now with a drop or two of his precum on my fingers. I smeared it on his lips and then mine. We kissed again, and I tasted both of us. Then his tongue was deep in my mouth again and I rocked back, frantic to feel his cock inside me.

I reached down, to move his head to my opening, and Joseph shook his head.

"What?" I asked. We were too far gone to stop now.

"Just this," he whispered.

He pulled me down, so I was on my back. He caressed and kissed my breasts, suckling them like I had done him. He kissed down my stomach, stopping at every scar. He kissed lower, at the hollow of each of my hips, and then right at my center. My back arched involuntarily as his tongue found my clit.

He swirled his tongue around, then sucked my clit in, then used the tip to flick over it, to vibrate against it rapidly. He slipped a couple of fingers inside me, stroking down my front wall, finding that second sensitive set of nerve endings. He used his other hand to spread my lips open. My hand clamped onto his head, guiding him and pressing him to me. I bent my legs and pulled them up, opening myself further. My other hand alternated between my breasts, squeezing and pulling as his mouth kept working.

He paused, just long enough to blow air over me, and then sucked on my labia, inner and outer, on each side. He slipped his wet fingers back and forth, into the crack of my ass, and then returned to licking and sucking on my clit. He was fantastic. His fingers moved faster in my pussy and his tongue worked faster on my nub.

My stomach contracted; I panted and gasped. I let out a long groan.

Then he whispered, "Cum for me, Eve."

It was the hottest thing I'd ever heard. I opened my eyes and they rolled back in my head. I bucked my hips up into his face. The release roared through me and my heels battered the edge of the altar. As soon as I could, I pulled on his hair.

"Fuck me, Joseph. Fuck me now."

He stood up. I watched his face. I'm as sure as I can be that he had planned to leave then. I looked at him. I still had his hair in my hand, then he leaned down and I sat up. I kissed him. I kissed him as desperately as he'd kissed me at first. My tongue darted into his mouth, and I reached down and found his cockhead.

He shifted his hips and pushed his prick inside me. He grunted softly. I kept kissing him. I wrapped my legs around his waist and his hand roamed up and down my back. Then he leaned us both down and slipped his arm under my leg. My red heel bounced on his shoulder. He leaned on his elbows on the altar and fucked.

And fuck, was it good.

His cock was thick and he moved his hips in a rolling motion that hit all the right spots inside me. I was wide open, and somehow still tight around him and I clenched my muscles to hold him in. He groaned, low but loud, and it echoed off the stone altar and faded into the expanse of the church. He buried his face in my neck, kissing and sucking, his teeth nipping gently. I held onto his head, cradling him and murmuring in his ear. His hand found my thigh, and his shoulder bent my leg up, folding me in half, and opening me further to him.

I drew my other leg up to match and he shifted his weight, thrusting into me more deeply. I opened my eyes and they were wet with tears of pleasure. I looked up at the Jesus hanging over me and his smile seemed benevolent and approving. I felt a sense of calm wash over me. Another orgasm crashed through me, and I jerked up into Joseph's thrusts, catching my heel on the edge of the altar and grinding into him.

I realized I was talking, "Yes, baby, please, baby. Yes." Murmuring whatever nonsense came to mind as my body rocked under his movements and I pressed back to take him deeper still. He started moving faster, then pulled out of me abruptly.

I sat up, feeling like I was falling up, reaching for him, and the next thing my feet were on the ground and he'd turned me around. I bent down, elbows on the altar, my dress bunched up between my arms. Joseph stood behind me and fitted himself back in.

"Oh... Yes, man, yes." I gasped.

He grunted wordlessly, his hands holding onto my thighs and pulling me back with each of this thrusts forward. Then I spread my legs further, twisting my heels out and arching my back. I felt his hands slipping under me, gripping my breasts, holding onto me there. Then he started moving even faster, his grunts coming faster and sharper, long inhales of breath. My thighs knocked against the edge of the stone and I didn't even care.

He slammed into me a few more times. He let out a loud "oh", a quick jerking motion, and then he was still. My pussy clenched around him, milking his cock, slurping up his seed like it had a mind of its own. I laid my head down on the altar, and felt Joseph leaning down, kissing my spine between my shoulders.

He started to move away, and I reached back, found his hands and held onto him. He slipped himself out of me. We stood up and I turned to face him. He pressed me back, kissing me hard again, his arms wrapping tightly around me.

When he broke the kiss I held his head in my hands. I rubbed my thumbs along his cheekbones. I tilted his head so he would look at me.

Before I could say anything, he said, "I can't do this again."

I shook my head. His arms were still wrapped loosely around my waist. "We can."

He broke away, standing naked two feet from me, four feet from the pulpit, the crucifix hanging over his head.

"I made vows," he said.

"I know."

"I promised." He breathed in, and the next words were nearly inaudible. "I promised God."

"Fuck God," I spat. "God broke my vows."

I gasped, slapped a hand over my mouth.

We stared at each other. Something cracked. Something cracked inside of me and all I could do was pick up my dress and start to put it on. I turned away, and the next thing I knew Joseph had wrapped his arms around me again, and was holding me to him. I was shaking and so was he. I turned again and buried my face in his chest, expecting to cry. But no tears came. I just breathed in his scent, his taste, and let my hands revel in the feel of his skin on my palms. He held me tightly, his face buried in my neck, pressing me against the altar, his naked body hard but yielding. When I stopped shaking I moved my head to look at him. We kissed again, slow and deep, long enough that I actually felt a little dizzy.

He pressed his forehead to mine and we stood there holding hands. We were both out of words. I let go of him and patted his cheek. I picked up my dress, wrapped it around me, and I stepped out of my shoes. As I walked away I turned around to look at him. He was leaning against the altar watching me leave, the flush of sex just starting to fade from his skin, and his cock glistening with my cum. I thought he looked a lot more holy than the wooden figure hanging behind him.

*~~* *~~* *~~*

Before the assignation at the Confessional, we kept meeting at the park, on the run. One or the other of us actually asked what time each day we usually got there. We started planning meetings, planning runs together. We exchanged numbers and one day when it was cold and rainy and neither of us felt like running we went for coffee instead. We were sitting in the café, I was sipping some extra strong latte, and he was drinking his black. We were just chatting, flirting. He'd told a slightly off color joke about some politician that had struck me as the funniest thing I'd heard all week.

I laughed until I cried. Then suddenly I was crying for real. I wound up telling him about my horrible few years, the wreck, my husband, the lost baby. The guilt, the frustrations, the loss of my career, and my friends. I told him everything, pouring it out as our drinks got cold and the waitress occasionally hovered around nervously.

He listened. He just listened. He heard me out, and he didn't seem uncomfortable. The relief of telling someone, telling someone who hadn't already heard. Who didn't think they knew the details. Who didn't cut me off. It was a relief I didn't even realize I needed.

I collected myself, and apologized profusely, and he patted my hand.

"I've come to think of you as a friend, Eve," he said. "I hope you think of me the same way."

I smiled as I daubed the last of my tears away. "I really do, Joseph. I'm so lucky we ran into each other."

We chuckled at my weak pun. His watch beeped, and he frowned at it.

"I'm sorry, but I've got to go," he said.

When we stood, I held onto his hand. I pulled him to me and kissed his cheek. He blushed, and kissed mine.

More weeks passed. More running. More flirting. More jokes. I thought about him all the time. I replayed the conversations we had, walking around cooling off after a run. I had vivid dreams of him that woke me up, my pussy clenching around itself, and feeling a hollow ache I'd all but forgotten. I counted on those runs, counted on those meetings, to settle my day, to schedule my week. I counted on those conversations to ease me back into a kind of living that had begun to seem alien to me.

I'd been living, obviously. I'd been getting up every morning, keeping a routine. I'd been practicing my exercises and perfecting my adaptations for my injuries. I'd constructed this world around overcoming and surviving, but that's all it was. Joseph blew all of that up. Just being around him made me think differently about things, made me want to plan a future, plan for a return to a career I'd been good at.

After meeting him, I could think about my husband without guilt. I could tell him stories without polishing my husband into some kind of saint. I could talk about him as the man he was, as much as talk about the love he was. Joseph listened, and Joseph talked. He told me about the difficulties in his life. He talked about the hard decisions he had to make. He talked about his own tragedies. He told me about his love, lost to drugs and illness. He said that loss spurred him to the career he was in.

I kept edging up to asking him on a date, but the timing never seemed right. His work intruded unpredictably with last minute assignments. But he always made the morning run. He always made the morning run, and he always sat close on the bench after we'd cooled down. I'd notice him staring at me, and he'd find excuses to pick off minute pieces of lint or brush away a leaf that had already fallen off. I didn't mind. His touch felt electric. I made excuses to hold on to him for balance if I was stretching, or sit so my knee brushed against his leg. He didn't seem to mind.

Until another cold and rainy day. Another coffee at a different café. We were talking about something on the news, an earnest conversation this time. I kept staring in his eyes, finding the twinkle even when he was serious.

A woman walked over. She had to be sixty, her hair was steel gray and her eyes were bright blue, and she grinned nervously as she approached. Joseph turned to her and his face fell.

She smiled brightly. "Father Allen!" she exclaimed. "What a nice surprise, seeing you out like this."

She looked me over, then winked. "You know, we forget they're human sometimes, our priests. We forget sometimes they just need a nice hot coffee on a cold day."