Charming the Vicar

by Jenny Frame

  “Bridge, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Open it. It won’t bite. Not like me,” Bridge joked.

  Finn smiled and opened the small box. Inside was a pack of cards with a bow tied around them. “Bridge?”

  “I wanted to make you feel better after losing your cards, and I thought of these. They are special, and I’m sure you alone would treasure them.”

  Finn took them out of the box and untied the ribbon.

  “Look at the signature on the pack.”

  Finn gasped. “It can’t be.”

  Bridge nodded. “These have been sitting in my family’s collection at our London house for years. Houdini gave my grandfather his own pack of cards and signed them.”

  Finn’s eyes were now full of a torrent of emotion. “Bridge, I can’t accept these. They’re a family heirloom.”

  “You can. My mother was more than happy to send them when I told her about you, and my brother thought it would be a wonderful thing for the famous Finnian Kane to use the Houdini cards from our collection.”

  Finn went to speak but couldn’t. She turned away from Bridge and paced to where a few bales of hay were stacked by the barn wall and sat down, staring at her gift.

  “Finn, are you okay?”

  Was she okay? Finn wasn’t quite sure. Thoughts of her past life kept playing over and over in her mind.

  Bridge sat down beside her, and Finn said with emotion in her voice, “I can’t say thank you enough. When I was young, I was always made to feel bad about my love of cards and magic. My dad—”

  Finn covered her face with her hands and shook her head, the cards sitting on her knee.

  Bridget put an arm around her. “What about your dad? You can trust me, Finn. Surely you know that.”

  Finn nodded, and opened the cards, shuffling them and getting a feel for the deck, and she felt the calm that had been missing since she’d destroyed her last pack.

  “My dad always made me feel ashamed of my love of magic. He said it was from the devil, and only sinners practiced magic. He caught me with a magic book and cards and he burned them right in front of me. I didn’t know then why he was so prejudiced against it, but I did later in life. Anyway, I bought another pack, and Carrie always kept them hidden for me. Dad never bothered her the way he did me. He hated me.”

  “I’m so sorry he did that to you. Why would he hate you?”

  Finn cleared her throat and continued, “When I was young I thought it was because of what I was. I was always drawn towards my masculine side—short hair, jeans, playing sport—and never playing with girls’ toys. I thought I embarrassed him. In that Charismatic Christian world, being like that is not a good thing, especially if you were the daughter of—” Finn hesitated.

  Bridge brought her hand to the back of Finn’s neck, and caressed her. “Who was your father?”

  Finn looked up at her and said, “My real name is Judith Maxwell.”

  Bridget appeared as if she was thinking hard, the name meaning something. “Maxwell, Maxwell,” Bridget murmured. Then she was still and turned her face to Finn. “You’re the daughter of Gideon Maxwell, the TV evangelist?”

  Finn nodded. Everyone knew the name Gideon Maxwell. He’d filled the newspapers for a few years.

  “Yes, I’m the daughter of the fake faith healer and preacher who conned thousands and thousands of people out of their hard-earned money and was sent to jail for attempted murder. You can see why if anyone found out what my real name was, my career would be over.”

  Bridge nodded, and instead of pulling away from her like Finn though she might, she stroked her cheek and said, “Why don’t we walk back to your cottage and have a quiet drink.”

  * * *

  Bridge had taken Finn’s hand when they left the festivities at the barn and had never let go. She didn’t care what it looked like to the villagers they passed in the street. Her lost sheep was sad, and she needed to make her feel anchored and safe.

  Every so often, Finn would stop briefly and look behind them.

  “What’s wrong, Finn?”

  “I’ve just got the feeling we’re being watched—I’ve felt that a lot lately,” Finn admitted.

  “Don’t worry about it. You always feel like you’re being watched in a small village, and remember God is always watching. Especially troublesome boys like you.”

  Finn laughed and the tension appeared to be gone.

  “Keep going. It’s good to get it off your chest,” Bridget said.

  Finn let out a breath. “I never knew my mother. Gideon told us and everyone who asked that she was dead. My first memories were sitting by the side of the stage with Carrie holding my hand, watching my father not only preach God’s word, but heal people and make them overcome with joy and God’s love, slain in the spirit as they call it. People literally threw money at him for his miracles. I thought he was a superhero or something, someone special God had chosen to channel his power. I believed it all, every word the Bible said, and when Gideon would chastise me for looking like a boy, and I realized I liked girls, I felt like God had forsaken me.”

  “I’ve seen the way those so-called miracle workers sweep people into their grasp, and it’s so alien from the God I know.”

  “You’re right. Sometimes I think I’m just like him. I can command an arena and show them miracles in return for money.”

  “That’s not true, Finn. You don’t promise people otherworldly miracles and take their money in exchange for false hope. In fact you’ve campaigned against these charlatans.”

  Finn laughed ruefully. “That’s not what the public and press would say if they found out who my father was.”

  “When did you find out he wasn’t a man of God?” Bridge asked.

  “I think it was around age ten or eleven that I started to have doubts about him. We travelled around a lot, all over, Britain, Europe, America, Canada. He played to huge arena sized churches, a bit like my shows today. Anyway, I was always moving schools as we went around the world. We were in America, the South somewhere, and I made friends with this boy who was really into magic. We were inseparable, but when I left, as we always had to, he gave me a book on magic and a pack of cards.”

  “The ones that your father burned?” Bridget said.

  “Yeah. Well, as I read and learned everything I could from it, including sleight of hand, cold reading, and suggestion, I started to notice similar tricks in Gideon’s act. I became more and more disillusioned, and then one day I went backstage and watched his right-hand man, Simon, reading information from the sign-up sheets all the audience fill out as they come in, and speaking into a headset. It didn’t take much to work out what the earpiece in Gideon’s ear was for. I felt like God, my whole belief system, was ripped from under me.”

  “I can imagine,” Bridget said. “It must have been so shocking. Did you confront him about it?”

  Finn nodded. “He tried to explain to me that God’s miraculous works can be difficult to see in everyday life, so he was just helping things along. It was all right to do as long as it brought people close to God.”

  “What did you do?” Bridget said.

  “I learned everything I could about magic so I could understand what he was doing. I told Carrie, and we both began to try to find out everything we could about his past. Turns out he was a failed magician from the performing circuit who found more money in turning to the dark side of faith healing and messages from God.”

  Bridget looked shocked. “You mean he had no faith?”

  Finn shrugged. “Maybe he lied so long that he began to believe his own lies about being called by God, I don’t know, but he definitely didn’t practise what he preached.”

  They arrived at the cottage and Finn let them inside and poured Bridge a glass of wine. Finn leaned against the fridge with her bottle of lager and continued with her story. “It’s funny, though, even though Carrie knew he was a fake, she never lost her faith in God or the afterlife.”

  “Belief in God
isn’t tied to one sect of the Church, or one religion or another, Finn. All you need is a personal relationship with God. When I’m alone with my own thoughts is when I feel him the most.”

  “Bridge, I was brought up thinking I was wrong—I was made wrong and that there was something bad in me, because of the way I dressed and who I was attracted to. Then—”

  Finn clammed up and Bridge walked right up to Finn and put a hand on her chest. “Then?”

  “I found out he had been lying to me. One day I opened the door to his dressing room and found him fucking John, his assistant. Can you believe that? He made me think there was something wrong with me, that God didn’t love me enough to change my feelings when I prayed for it, and he was gay the whole hypocritical time,” Finn said, fury in her tone.

  “Shh, it’s okay. I know how much hurt you must have inside you.”

  Finn pushed away from Bridge. “No, you don’t. You praise the God that let me think I was broken, that I was evil.”

  Finn stormed off into the living room, and Bridge found her holding her sister’s photograph. Bridge touched Finn’s shoulder, and Finn said, “I was fifteen when that happened and I promised myself that I would save all the money I could, and get Carrie and me away from him.”

  “When did you leave?”

  “Around sixteen or seventeen. The authorities were sniffing around my dad’s whole set-up. He was preoccupied by an impending fraud investigation, but I still didn’t have enough money to go, so I got hold of a bank card for one of his everyday accounts—he kept a few thousand there. I emptied it out and we ran. I’ve been taking care of Carrie ever since. I don’t have anyone to take care of any more.”

  Bridge turned her around and cupped her face. “Maybe you need someone to take care of you for once in your life.”

  “You, Bridge?”

  Bridge started to speak but couldn’t say what was in her heart. She turned away from Finn so that she wouldn’t weaken. “You know I can’t take that place in anyone’s life, Finn. As a friend—”

  “Stop hiding who you are, Bridge. You know what’s between us. It has been since we first met.”

  Bridge said nothing. She couldn’t turn around or face Finn now. If she did, she might lose control. The woman Bridge had kept locked under her armour for so long was fighting to get out.

  Without turning she said, “I need to leave,” and headed to the door.

  Finn was behind her in a second and put a hand on the door to stop her. “Stop running away from what you feel. That’s what you’ve been preaching to me all this time. I have to face what I’ve lost, and you have to face who you are.”

  “And who am I? You seem to know so much, Finn. Who am I?” Bridge said angrily.

  “Mistress Black, a passionate woman who knows what she wants and takes it. You are hiding a huge part of yourself behind your faith just so you have the excuse not to love anyone.”

  Bridge looked furious. “You forget, Magician. You’re not my type.”

  “Then prove it,” Finn raged. “Kiss me like you did the other day, and tell me I’m not your type.”

  “Don’t be so ridiculous,” Bridge said.

  Finn moved to within inches of Bridge’s face and said, “Prove it, Mistress. Prove that I’m nothing to you, or are you too frightened?”

  Bridge felt such an upsurge of fire, anger, and desire that she responded by kissing Finn with a passion that shocked her. Finn responded, and she felt Finn’s hands all over her. Bridge realized as she kissed Finn that she had never felt so much for any one person before. Not even Ellen. When she started to push Finn back onto the couch, she knew the part of her that was Mistress Black would not easily go back into the bottle, not while Finn was around.

  * * *

  Finn lay with Bridge on the couch, and her right hand went straight to those gorgeous legs. She ran her hand up Bridge’s leg and grasped her thigh. She remembered Bridge’s legs around her on the motorbike, and she got even more turned on. Her hips started to naturally thrust into Bridge beneath her, nothing had ever felt like this, nothing was ever Bridge, and Bridge was everything. Finn was losing herself to the lust she was feeling. She wanted to be inside her, filling her, being everything that Bridge needed. She moved her hand further up Bridge’s skirt and felt her silky underwear. She was about to touch Bridge more intimately when she felt her head pulled back by her fringe and her hand slapped.

  When Finn came back to her senses the woman looking up at her was the woman Finn had seen glimpses of at their poker night and in the churchyard. It was Mistress Black.

  Bridge said, “You’re going to have to learn that we don’t just take without permission, boy.”

  Finn groaned out loud. “I knew you were in there, Mistress. Please let me touch you.”

  Bridge gave her a sly smile. “Oh no. It’s not that easy. You pushed me to this, Finn, and no one pushes me.”

  Finn didn’t think she could get any more turned on but she was. She had never considered enjoying being dominated before, she was always the one in control, but with Bridge it was different. Everything was different with Bridge.

  “I’m sorry that I pushed you, but I wanted to see what was inside of you.”

  “Up,” Bridge ordered.

  Finn did as asked and was surprised when Bridge straddled her lap and started to scratch her fingernails down the sides of her shaved head.

  “You think I need to face what’s between us, and who I used to be?”

  Finn nodded. “Yes, I can help.”

  “Maybe that’s true. Maybe there’s some part of me that I haven’t come to terms with, but if I have to face it, then you have to face God.”

  Finn did a double take. “God? Why?”

  “You know you’re being pulled to church, pulled to God, since you came here. Although you promised me you’d come to church one Sunday, you’ve been putting it off with excuses. I know in my heart, you feel the need to have the comfort of faith in God that you had as a little girl before your father destroyed it.”

  Finn was defiant. “I’m Finnian Kane. I do not believe in God, and I don’t need him.”

  Bridge leaned into her and whispered while she ran her fingers through her hair. Finn was turned on, confused, distracted. Every nerve in her body was on fire.

  “What about Judith Maxwell?” Finn froze. “What does she believe, and what does she need?”

  Finn opened her mouth and nothing came out. She thought back to her childhood, about being that little girl watching her father preach of miracles and wonders of God. She remembered being scared, but knowing that she would never be alone because she always had God on her side. Losing that feeling didn’t seem to matter when Carrie was there, and she was surrounded by people while she worked, but now with Carrie gone, and her career on the brink, she had nothing but herself. An emptiness that she wanted Bridge to help her fill.

  She took her time and said, “Judith wants to know if there is more, because she believes she spoke with her sister that night and the consequences make her scared.”

  Bridge softened her touch and rested her forehead against Finn’s. “Come to church then. Face what you fear, face what you don’t understand any more, and I will face my own past.”

  Finn nodded and said, “I will if you come out with me for one night and show me the real you. The one that’s not a vicar, frightened of what her arsehole of a bishop would say. Mistress Black, let me see her, see you.” She felt Bridge stiffen. “If you do, Bridge, I’ll never ask it of you again, but we need to explore this. Please—I will be completely discreet. I promise, and you are in charge.”

  Bridge smiled at that comment. She let out a breath and said, “Okay. You’re right. I need to explore this, but I don’t know how it can ever work.”

  “Don’t worry about that just now. Worry about writing a sermon that’s going to knock my socks off.”

  That broke the tension and they both laughed. Bridge slipped off Finn’s lap. “I better go.”

&n
bsp; “Bridge, I had the best time today. Thank you, and thank you for the cards. They mean the world to me.” And so do you.

  Bridge kissed her sweetly on the forehead, and replied, “You’re welcome, Magician.”

  They got up and walked to the door. It was awkward. Finn didn’t know if she should kiss her goodbye so she joked to ease the tension. “Next time you give me a present, can I have a signed poster of your mother in that swimsuit?”

  Bridge smacked her on the shoulder. “Behave. I don’t want to think of you having lustful thoughts about my mother, thank you.”

  Finn rubbed the back of her head bashfully. Aching to have one last touch, she pulled Bridget into a hug.

  “Goodnight, Bridge. Thanks for everything.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Finn opened the door and was startled by a flash. “Something wrong?” Bridge said.

  “Just thought I saw something. It’s nothing.”

  When Bridge walked away down the path, Finn had the feeling of being watched for the second time that day.

  If there is a God, I hope he wasn’t watching me with my hands all over his vicar.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next morning Finn felt sick with nerves. She was stepping back into a church after all these years, and it wasn’t easy.

  She straightened her tie and splashed on some aftershave. It was a long time since she had worn a suit, and she didn’t feel comfortable, but Bridge told her to be smart, and she was learning she would do anything for Bridge.

  “Why did I agree to this?” Because you want to please her, and face your past.

  She walked over to her bedroom mirror and put wax in her hair before combing her fringe back into a top knot. Finn thought that was the smartest she could make her hair. She looked over at the picture of Carrie and her, backstage at one of her shows, and said, “I bet you’re laughing your head off at me, Carr. Making myself look smart and going to church.”