A Fountain Filled With Blood

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before,” Clare said. “I think it’s better to think of your priest as an investment adviser. Let’s say you’re going to invest everything you have, and commit all your future earnings as well, in the hopes that you’re going to get a terrific return. Do you want to consult someone already deep into the market? Someone who may have opinions and self-interest based on his own experiences? Or do you want to hire an independent adviser, someone who has followed the market and read up on its history and all the different investment schemes? Someone with no vested interest in the outcome, other than to make sure you put your money where it will do you the most good?”

“Huh. I never thought of it like that.” The sun god stuck out his hand. “I’m Dennys, by the way. With a y.”

“Hello, Dennys with a Y.”

“And I’m Gayle. Also with a y.”

Clare took her hand gingerly. Those nails were scary. She wondered if she should figure out some way to spell her name with a y. Clayr?

“So tell me.” Dennys dropped his voice and the two women leaned in to hear him. “What’s it like? Being celibate? I mean, I can’t imagine it.”

“I bet you can’t.” Chelli giggled.

“I think you may be making a common mistake and confusing celibate, which also means not married, and chaste, which means…well, not having sex. Episcopal priests don’t take vows of celibacy. Lots and lots of priests are married and have kids.”

“You’re not married,” Gayle said.

“No, I’m not. How did you know?”

“No ring,” she said, pointing to Clare’s unadorned left hand. Clare was impressed. She knew women checked out men’s hands, but other women’s? It was a good thing she had been out of the singles scene for so many years. She’d have been eaten alive.

“Well, the church traditionally teaches that sex should be reserved for marriage. There’s been a lot of talk in the General Convention lately about redefining that to a mutually committed, loving relationship. I think…” she paused. “I believe that a priest has an obligation to be a model for her or his parish. To try to live very much in the open, in the way Christ wants us to live.”

“So no sex? Until you’re married? At all?” Dennys was clearly intrigued by the idea. She hoped he wasn’t the type of guy who got off on the idea of an unobtainable woman. Now that marriage didn’t stop people fooling around, it must be hard to find any really challenging conquests.

“That’s right,” she said, and as she said it, an image from her dream appeared in her head, the floating warmth, the hands, Russ rising out of the water. She could feel her cheeks heating up.

“She’s blushing!” Chelli said.

Clare smiled and hoped she looked composed. It was only a dream, for heaven’s sake. “I’m afraid you’ve caught me out. We priests are used to asking the personal questions, not answering them. Oops! There’s Peggy. If you’ll excuse me, I want to say hello to our hostess. Nice meeting you all.” She sidestepped quickly behind a waiter circulating a tray of chicken satay and made her escape through the crowd, headed for the open doorway through which Peggy could, possibly, have gone. If you don’t have to engage the enemy, Msgt. Wright’s voice echoed in her head, don’t stand there like an idiot, waiting to get shot. Retreat! There were times, she realized, when being a priest was a distinct disadvantage, and one of them was at a big boozy party where you were hoping to hear some hot gossip about the hostess’s nephew and his ex-lover.

The room she entered was smaller and cozier, with plump love seats and squishy chairs, instead of the sleek modular stuff in the living room. It had bookcases on its walls, mostly filled with photos and important-looking pieces of pottery. Clare decided this room must be called the library. Peggy Landry wasn’t one of the seven or eight people crowding the available seating, but Clare did spot Peggy’s nephew, Malcolm Wintour. He was even more beautiful this evening than he had been when she met him Monday morning, relaxed and younger-looking, with his honey-blond hair falling to either side of his face in perfect glossy wings. For a moment, she could feel the shade of her sister, Grace, beside her. Grace, who had always loved beautiful boys, sighing and saying, What a shame he’s gay….

The drinks waiter passed by and she deposited her empty glass and snagged a new one. She strode up to where Malcolm was standing and talking with two other guests, one a young woman whose fashion statement was “My clothes all shrank in the wash,” and the other a man a few years older than Clare, perhaps, with close-cropped hair graying at his temples.