"I didn't say religious. We're all spiritual, under the skin. And sexual."
Uh oh.
Matt shifted position on the sofa. Temple tried not to jump. She succeeded.
"Okay," he said.
He was laying all this out very logically, like the good teacher he was. Temple wasn't fooled.
Homework was coming due. She listened intently as he went on.
"You have to realize that you're dealing with an overage but classically confused adolescent male. You know the home life I grew up in, the abuse. You don't know how deeply that undermines self-esteem. No matter that my grades were good in school, my behavior preternaturally perfect, that the abuse didn't scar me, that my looks were above average. To me, all that stuff outside the home was a lie. When people said I was smart, or well-behaved or handsome, I didn't believe them, because I knew how I really deserved to be treated no matter what I did or was. I hated their praise. It struck me as phony. My looks I hated worst of all. I wished for zits, buck teeth. I knew that--inside--I was really the ugly picture of Dorian Gray in the attic."
"That's terrible! Horrible. That's like an anorectic, who has what every woman in the world nowadays is brainwashed to desire, supreme slimness, and still sees herself as fat in the mirror when she's skeletal."
"Same issue, different approach. I hated it when girls, even some of the lay teachers at school, started cooing over my looks."
"You became a priest because you didn't believe you were handsome?"
"No, it's more complicated than that. I didn't have a decent role model for sexual relationships. There was the dirty little secret of the violence at home. I was mostly terrified of becoming like him, Cliff Effinger. To me, sex was violence. The physical outlet of martial arts let me glimpse the rage beneath my gold-star deportment. I didn't want to risk a sexual involvement, because I might find rage there too. Most of all, I never wanted to have children, never wanted to risk doing what was done to me to someone else."
''People don't usually become what they hate."
"Except in cases of abuse. There are three routes for a child of abuse: become a perpetual victim, become a perpetrator and victimize others; overcome the past and do neither. The last path is the least taken, because the early patterning is so unconscious, so impossible to overcome. I'm right to fear my own rage."
''But you understand the process so well; you help others with it."
"Knowledge isn't everything. I'm still surprising myself: Look at what I did to this place when I heard Effinger might be dead."
Temple looked around the restored but barren room. "You damaged things, not yourself or others."
"Brave new Temple." Matt looked down, then took her hand, the one that was still worrying at her hem. "When I saw you take that in stride, I really got scared."
Oh, Temple thought, this is so mature. This is such important stuff. And, oh, rats, Temple thought again. Maybe Matt is right. Maybe this is too much for me. I'm walking wounded myself.
"So," he said, "the priesthood saved me from the family demons. I could hide from women and children, yet serve them, care for them from a distance. My real father vanished, my 'fake'
father was a monster, but the parish priests were my ersatz fathers, and so encouraging of my vocation. By becoming one of them, I could become perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect, to paraphrase the New Testament. No one would think it odd that I avoided sex; it was part of the job description. The priesthood was a great place to hide out, and everybody praised me lavishly for my choice, especially since I was so good looking, they said. Even that became palatable as long as I didn't use it."
"When did it fall apart?''
"When I grew up, grew more confident in my ability to function in an abuse-free environment, I started analyzing more than my spiritual state of grace, and my outward actions.
I found some pretty corrosive, un-Christian buried emotions. By the time I applied to leave, I had built a case that clearly showed misguided motives. That's why celibacy was no problem for me.
I'd learned to deflect even the mildest sexual message. A lot of priests are casual nowadays about wearing the collar, but I clung to it. It was my wedding ring to Mother Church; it warned women off."
"And challenged some, I bet, even some Catholic women."
"Teenage girls, and older women. I was the pet of the flower society ladies, who were all over sixty. Still, I kept it harmless. The last thing I was going to do was take advantage of it."
"Poor things," Temple said, thinking of all those starry-eyed women mooning over Father Devine, who was so nice and so handsome and so impossibly unattainable, by vocation and inclination. No, not by inclination, by upbringing.
"I agree. What a waste of everybody's energy, including mine."
"So now what do you do?"
"You asked that at the tacqueria after I administered the anointing to Blandina Tyler, and my answer is still as muddy. I'm trying to settle my anger with the old days. You're right, given my lifelong abstinence and fear, I'm finding celibacy a hard habit to break. It's so safe, isn't it? So removed. I can even feel superior in a secular way, because of AIDS."
"And," Temple added, "your religion looks on most sexual behavior as sinful in some way, as far as I can tell."
"That's another reason I left. I was having a tough time reconciling what some of my parishioners did--good people trying to lead decent lives--with the letter of church law.
American priests have a particularly hard time with that; that's why we're called liberal."
"So you still don't know what you'll do?"
"No."
And he was still holding Temple's hand, which she was holding motionless. In fact, she was holding her entire body and mind in a state of suspended animation.
"No,'' Matt repeated, looking her hard in the eyes, "but now I at least know what I want to do."
Temple tried not to swallow, which was so obvious. "What?" she asked softly in a voice as hoarse as if she had laryngitis.
He answered with another question. "Would you ever consider... I'm not used to all these euphemisms ... sleeping with me, making love?"
"That's easy. I have considered it. Often." Temple saw more in his eyes than the surface question. "But whether I would actually do it would depend."
"On what?"
"On what's going on with you, and with me, and with us."
"You wouldn't have to be married . . . ?"
She shook her head. "I never have been. I've had hopes. Especially with Max. I made it out of high school a virgin, and was most disappointed about that. I mean, it wasn't the done thing, even for Midwestern girls, who are a bit socially retarded. There was a guy my freshmen year in college. We were both desperate to become worldly wise, and didn't have much chance of that with each other. But we liked one another and accomplished the landmark initiation without any trauma. I had a solid but unexciting long-term relationship with a man in Minneapolis, before we agreed to split. Then along came Max."
Matt lifted her hand, kissed the top of it.
Temple's suspended animation melted like milk chocolate in a hot saucepan.
"Max was your Real Thing," he said, gently prodding the past out of her, as she had nudged it out of him.
"So I thought. I mean, he swept into the Guthrie for a weekend stand and he swept me off my feet--literally--and out of there so fast it made my whole family's heads spin. It was so flattering, and exciting, and, God knows, I was in a rut there. But when you're dropped to ground after that kind of rush, the downfall is brutal."
Matt kissed her hand again. His brown eyes were warm with empathy and understanding and the intense fascination of dawning infatuation. No one had seen him look like this, Temple thought. No one but her.
"That's my problem," she said. ''You're not the only one with a conscience."
"You'd think I was," he broke in with the self-deprecating humor that was surfacing nowadays.
''You see. Matt, I've been kind of mad at
myself for being attracted to you from the first. I thought maybe I was being shallow, reacting just to surface, or I was on the rebound from Max.
And I felt guilty, like I was married to Max, and shouldn't be looking at another man so soon. But I've been looking, oh yes, and kicking myself, which is really punishing, considering my high-heel collection. And now that I know more about you, I can also worry if I'm interested because you're sexually inexperienced, and I can be in control, which is ego-building after the Max let-down, and if it's fair to follow up on my inclinations."
He frowned. "Relationships are hell, aren't they?"
Temple laughed. "You got that right. At best, we're all hoping to be honest and trying to be true. But we're only human."
"So," he said, "you haven't answered my major question."
"Women aren't used to saying these things first. It's more flattering that way. But, speaking from raw instinct, without letting scruples get in the way, yes, I'd sleep with you, especially if it didn't involve much sleeping. Besides, I feel an obligation."
He looked shocked for the first time during this rather shocking conversation. "Obligation?"
"Now that I know so much about you, I feel it's my duty to ease you into the real world. I wouldn't want you getting hurt by somebody else."
"I'm an act of charity? I don't think I'm flattered."
"Then we're even," Temple said.
"This is . . . hypothetical," he added. ''I don't honestly know how I'll react to the pressure of an intimate adult relationship. The intensity of the feelings, the sensations, scare me sometimes."
"Yup. Typical adolescent male. Tell you what." Temple gently withdrew her hand from his.
Matt looked worried. He should. She was having another one of her bright ideas.
"Why don't we zip back into our handy-dandy time machine and go back to post-prom night.
It's the last summer before we go off to college and nobody in the world is bothering us. But we're a couple of square kids from Podunk and we do have a few primitive rules. Just necking, no petting. Just nice romantic kissy-face, which girls are crazy about anyway, so you want to learn it right for the future anyway, and we have all summer to practice."
''Won't that be . . . hard on you?"
''It should be hard on you, and then some. But it's been done before and hasn't hurt anyone.
This is the nineties. Fools don't rush in like they used to, and, besides, getting there is all the fun.
Believe me."
Temple finally fulfilled one of her favorite fantasies. She edged closer and put her arms around Matt's neck, gazing deeply and playfully into his eyes. She wet her forefinger and ran it smoothly over his lips, upper, then lower.
"I promise," she swore tenderly in the instant before their: mouths met, "to be gentle."
Chapter 43
Mass Approval
Temple awoke Sunday morning Scarlett-O'Hara style.
First she blinked at the creamy white ceiling dappled in morning light, aware of surfacing from a long, dreamless, restful sleep.
Second, she slowly absorbed where she was--safe in her own bed ... as her mind dredged up memories of where she had been before this.
Her eyes fixed with fuzzy focus on the glittering clutter atop her dresser, then sharpened with returning memory. Oh, yes. . . Oh . . . my. All right!
Her mind backed up to replay surprising or particularly memorable moments. She was smiling. And giggling. And her toes were wriggling under the summer weight blanket.
Only then did Temple realize that a movie camera mounted on the ceiling would capture a fairly good replay of a famous scene from Gone With the Wind: the one when Scarlett wakes up the morning after Rhett had stormed up the crimson carpeted staircase with her in his arms.
No staircase. No crimson carpet. No Clark Gable. Best of all, no overtones of overriding anybody's inclinations. Other-wise, Temple decided with a luxurious yawn and stretch, her own personal scenario from the previous evening was definitely movie material.
An annoyed growl interrupted Temple's state of lazy satisfaction. She peered over the rim of her covers to see the black blur that was Midnight Louie waddling across hummocks of blanket, head lowered and green eyes angled at a possessive slant.
Temple's inconsiderate stretch had dislodged him from a comfy position at her feet.
Unrepentant, she pushed her feet into the spot he had vacated, now toasty warm. Lazily, Temple watched him resettle on the other side of the bed, which was virgin territory, being unoccupied.
She frowned. Louie would not take kindly to additional bed partners, not that any were imminent. Yet. Perhaps he had become a bit spoiled.
At the moment he was lounging on his side, fanning formidable claws as if to remind her of their recent usefulness on her behalf.
She sat up and leaned near to bring the big cat into focus. She admired the black velvet sheen of his forelegs, the almost steely pearl-gray-and-pink gleam of his talons as his cherry-red tongue darted between them to wash between his toes.
"You aren't the king of the queen-size mattress, Louie," she reminded him. "You are a guest, not a host. You happen to have hit me between engagements, but that doesn't mean that I intend to sleep alone for the rest of my natural life."
He looked up from his industrious grooming, the round green eyes staring at her as if to say.
You are not ''alone'' when I am here.
She held her tongue. After Louie's heroic role last night at the Crystal Phoenix, he didn't deserve being reminded of life's cold realities.
Temple stretched again, restraining herself so the covers I were not unduly agitated on Louie's side of the bed.
Honestly! Who ran this joint? Her, or the cat?
The bedside phone caroled as if in answer, an affirmative to the last alternative.
Temple squinted at the clock's red rectilinear numbers formed from dotted lines. She couldn't quite decipher these segmented numbers without her glasses, which were probably enthroned on the bathroom sink atop a pile of cotton balls bearing what was left of her makeup.
Still, the numbers' vague, fiery configuration suggested that it was damnably early on a Sunday for anyone to call. Unless . . .
She snatched the red shoe phone from the table.
"Hello," she said.
"Hello," he said.
Amazing what such simple syllables could convey all by themselves. Temple's Scarlett smile revived as she snuggled down in the pillow with the phone.
"Did I wake you?" Matt asked, perfectly polite and patently anxious.
"Not at all."
Mornings after were always awkward for all but the seriously jaded. Temple reflected. She stir-fried her brain looking for the just-right thing to say and help him out.
Before she could do more than lightly saute her little gray cells. Matt went on without her.
"I wonder if you'd be interested in going somewhere with me today."
Temple wound the coiled red phone cord around her forefinger, speculating on their destination. "What did you have in mind?" '
"Actually, I just remembered that I promised someone ... Sister Seraphina at Our Lady of Guadalupe. Would you go to mass with me this morning?"
Mass. Temple blinked and wished she had her glasses on so she could see the ramifications more clearly. Church was not the destination with which she had been stoking her always suggestible (and now seriously sensual) mind. Not exactly . . . romantic. In fact, a Catholic mass was rather scary to one of her cheerfully agnostic temperament.
"What time is it?" she asked while whipping her errant thoughts into a totally unforeseen direction.
Was he guilty about last night? Did he need to make a pilgrimage of penance to the nearest R.C. church? Last night had been decidedly pleasant and even promisingly steamy, but hardly anything a reasonable adult would feel compelled to disown. Except ...
"I did wake you," Matt was saying contritely. Or maybe he: wasn't saying it contritely; maybe Temple was coloring h
is simplest statements with the lurid crimson haze of her own anxiety.
"No, I just don't have my glasses on," she said, fussing. And a good thing she hadn't had them on last night, speaking of steamy.
"Eight forty-five." He told her the time with as much emotion as a hotel wakeup computer voice.
"And what time is mass?"
"Ten o'clock is the next one."
"Holy . . . hallelujahs, we've got to get moving. Or I do. Matt, isn't this awful short notice?
"I forgot about it with all the excitement last night." A pause escalated the awkwardness.
"The crisis at the Gridiron," he finally clarified. i had promised Sister Seraphina that I'd attend Mass at OLG this morning."
"This is important to you, isn't it?"
Another pause, not nearly so awkward, merely thoughtful. "It's been hard for me to go, yes.
Hard to see myself in a different role. Naturally Sister Superfine tuned in on that. She's right. I have to confront it."
"Are you sure that you want to go with me?"
"Yes."
''Even though I don't know much about mass?"
''Yes."
"Sure, I'll go. Um, do I need a mantilla or something?"
"No! Temple, that's ancient stuff. Women haven't had to wear head coverings in church since the Church modernized in the late sixties."
"Too bad. I've always wanted to wear a mantilla. So dramatic."
"You can wear one if you want to."
"No, I can't. I don't have one."
''You sound nervous. Maybe you don't want to go."
"Yes, I do. And, hey, you sound even more nervous than I do."
"Then I'll need the support. I'll meet you downstairs at nine-thirty, okay?"
"Okay," she repeated, not at all sure of that.
Matt hung up, thinking about Temple, not the imminent mass. As usual, she had read him right. He was nervous. How much did she have to do with it?
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