Father Brown in the Arctic

"Well, it's hard to explain... To whom have you promised to live with your husband?"

"To my husband", she shrugged. Of course! "and to his mother... and..."

"Never mind!" waved his hand father Brown. It was hard to talk about theology on those bases. "I have promised. To myself. And to another person... So to say..."

"I understand." nodded the girl. "A promise is a promise. But now... you are here. You are a guest. I must do something with you. Or at least, FOR you"

"If not... your husband gets mad?"

"Maybe".

"We can tell him... we have laughed together".

"It's a lie. Not a good thing".

"You're right..." admitted father Brown.

"And even without my husband... I FEEL I must do something for you".

"You had fed me".

"This is not enough. What can I do for you? Do you have a desire you can satisfy without breaking your promise?"

"Well... maybe yes".

"What?" smiled the girl.

"May I undress a bit?"

"Yes!", laughed the girl.

Father Brown undressed his torso, laid down on the bed where the girl and his husband had made love the night before, and asked the girl to lean over him. She did it, smiling and looking in his eyes. She was bare breasted already, and father Brown startled when he felt her breasts against his chest. They were warm, firm and tender at the same time. He put a hand on the nape of the girl, and she let him pull her head down to touch his neck. He stroke her hair, gently, breathing her smell.

And he did absolutely nothing else.

"Are you sure this is all I can do for you?" the girl asked.

"Yes. And it's a lot!"

The girl snorted. That white man was really, really strange. But she felt well, laying over him,

One minute later, she was sleeping like a child.

Father Brown did not sleep. He felt the warm body of the girl all over his own. Skin against skin. It was a very good sensation, nothing really sinful. He was doing nothing bad. And she too.

He thought again about the Orthodox priest and his wife. They were not rich, they were now in a foreign land, and of course they observed all the abstinences imposed by their religion. and the priest had told him they were quite a lot. Many more fastings than Catholic seculars did. And many more... well, abstinences...

But he had felt that they were glad to live together. And they could feel every night what he was feeling now, and likely would have felt never more...

Of course, no afterthoughts: he was a Catholic priest, and such renounces, to use a mundane phrase, were in the contract. But the girl, who was sleeping over him, could not understand what a wonderful and unique gift she was giving to him. If he would have tried to get something more from her, even with her consent, it would have been very worse than to break a vow that, after all, he could even recant. It would have been... Father Brown refused to think it over one more time.

Could he do something more as a priest? Could he be more "professional", more convincing, explaining why he could not "laugh" with the women?

And if so, how?

Yes, he had tried to introduce the concept of "God". Maybe in the wrong way. "To whom you have promised to live with your man?". He thought the answer was "to the Great Spirit" or something alike. And then he would have said that yes, he too had "promised" to some "Great Spirit", with the difference that his "Great Spirit" was the real one. Disputable assertion, maybe, but he believed so, and his job was to convince the other people that the things were going that way...

But the things, up there, seemed to be more complicated, or maybe too much more easy. The girl had promised to his man (and his family) that she would have lived with him. Just like to ask "to whom have you promised that you will pay the rent"... Maybe the "ancestors" had some rules in the ceremony, but, who knows... And however, from the "ancestors" to "God", it's a long way...

Anyway, he had shown nerve, character. The girl had understood that he felt for her what a man feels for a woman, but he renounced to her in the name of something he believed in. Something strange, for her. But right because it was strange, it was curious. Interesting. He had sown the seed. In a rough and ready way, maybe. But he had done it.

And with the serene conscience to have sown the seed, heated by the warmth of the girl, lulled by her breath, father Brown fell into slumber.

He was awakened to a very strange sensation. As if some very delicate hands were stroking him. Quite below. Very below. Too much below...

He opened his eyes and remained speechless. The delicate hands were the hands of the girl. She was no more laying over him. And her hands were caressing him... Right there!

"What are you doing?"

"I MUST do it", laughed the girl. "And I WANT do it!"

"No, please... I've told you... I cannot do it!"

"You do not do it: I do it!" she laughed even louder.

"I cannot even ALLOW you to do it!" he said firmly, catching one of her wrists. "I cannot!"

"You stupid!" she said. She was not laughing anymore. She pokes her free hand someone under the bed and when father Brown saw it again, there was a dagger in it. "You want to die?"

"If I die, you cannot do it!"

"If I hit you and you sleep, you do?"

"If I sleep, I cannot do it!"

"Yes, you CAN!", the girl said, laughing again.

She raised her hand with the dagger high above her head, almost touching the curved ceiling of the Igloo, and then she hit father Brown with the base of the handle of the dagger, on the head. With all the strength she had.

Father Brown went to the world of the dreams, and the girl took in one hand his penis, already quite hard. Before it could lose its thickness, she sits astray his hips, and, in a nutshell, she did what the holy laws of hospitality demanded her to do...

When the Inuit came back, he saw his wife and father Brown on the bed, covered by the furry blanket. He smiled and nodded: all as it had to be.

"Have you rested well?" he asked father Brown.

"Quite..." father Brown answered. He exchanged a glance with the Innuit's wife: she was smiling to him, with complicity.

"What do you have at your head?"

"Nothing. I tripped and hit something, but your wife had cured me well...". Anther exchange of glances. Anther smile from the Inuit's wife.

It was not a lie, indeed. He had "hit" the base of the dagger's handle. And the girl, once she fulfilled her obligations as a host, has cured his wound in the best possible way.

"I'm happy!" the Innuit said. "Time the dogs have a rest, and then I accompany you at the town!"

"No hurry. You should be tired..."

The Inuit looked at father Brown, intently. Had he taken a liking? Or did he fall in love with his wife? He smiled, man-to-man. I know how you feel, my friend, but the party is over...

"I not tired. I ready to kill a polar bear now!" he said, and laughed. Got the picture?

He went off the Igloo to take care of the dogs. Father Brown looked at the Innuit's wife. She had the eyes of a cat who had just eaten a mouse. A good fat mice.

His sex had been inside of her, father Brown thought, his semen WAS inside of her. And she seemed happy with the first issue and happy, or at least uncaring, about the second one...

"Well..." he said.

"Good bye!" she said. Smiling.

Right, that's it. Good bye.

He stood up, dressed up, and then turned back to look at her the last time. She was still smiling. Then, with a single move, she turned her back to him. He heard a sigh, or maybe a snort.

Some time later, when father Brown had the chance to confess to a Catholic priest, he had to admit that the blow on his head was not so terribly strong, and that he did not remain really unconscious all the time.

The confessor was a French priest, from the wine-rich land of Beaujolais. As penance, he gave him only six Pater, Ave and Gloria to be said...