First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1)

by Abigail Barnette

  “Yeah. No. Should I do that, though? I mean, spend all night having sex with you then go to your church? It sounds…disrespectful.” She chewed her lip, her brow crumpled in concern.

  I took her hands and pulled them to my lips, then dropped them to my lap. “I appreciate your concern. We can stick to oral tomorrow night, then.”

  She walloped me with her pillow.

  On Sunday morning, I showered and dressed in the downstairs bathroom, so Penny could spread her makeup and toiletries all over the sink in the master. I needed to invite her to leave some things there, so her toothbrush didn’t have to feel like the child of divorced parents. I’d just finished combing my hair when I heard her call, “Ian?” from the living room.

  “Yeah, Doll, on my way.” I straightened my tie, took my jacket off the hanger, and headed out the door.

  Penny leaned against the back of the couch, her black wool coat folded over her linked arms. She wore a navy dress with gray polka dots, and a gray cardigan. She’d neatly straightened her blond hair and curled the usually messy ends under meticulously. She gestured to her outfit and asked, “Is this conservative enough?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine.” I hadn’t thought she might be nervous about her appearance or how to dress. “I like your hair.”

  “Thanks.” She reached up to touch it. “I thought since your sister would be there I should forgo the bedhead look. I didn’t want her to think it was, you know…”

  “Actual bedhead?” I supplied.

  Penny nodded with a weak smile. “Yeah. That.”

  “You’ll be fine. If it helps, she’s not going to like you the first few times she meets you, anyway.”

  “That doesn’t help.” Penny sighed. “I just want this to go well. I know this is important to you.”

  “It is. But what’s most important to me is that you were willing to come along, even if it’s just this once.” I helped her with her coat then put on my jacket and my long gray trench coat. We ventured out into the chilly November wind. A few snowflakes drifted down from the gloomy sky.

  “Oh, no,” Penny said in dismay. “This is crazy. It can’t snow yet.”

  “You’ll be in a church today. Pray that it doesn’t.” When she didn’t laugh, I said, “I’m sorry. It wasn’t a comment on your beliefs, or trying to change them. I was just trying to be funny.”

  “Oh, I know,” she said with a smile. “You were just failing to be funny.”

  The narrow lot of St. Basil’s was nearly full, but I snagged one of the last spaces and led Penny inside. Her heels clicked on the checkered tile in the vestibule.

  She looked around with wide eyes. There were a few men in sport coats, others in button-downs and khakis. Teenagers in jeans and faded T-shirts accompanied their mothers and fathers. That particular demographic eschewed a business-casual approach: polo shirts for the men, silk scarves and chunky jewelry for the women.

  “I feel really overdressed,” Penny murmured.

  “Don’t feel that way,” I reassured her. “You look beautiful, and besides, my parents always insisted that you should dress well for mass, since you’re in the presence of God. It’s just respectful.”

  Even when we’d been so poor that our roof was falling in, Mum had scrubbed us up and slicked down our hair, and though we’d eaten beans and toast for quite a few dinners, we’d all had Sunday clothes.

  Penny smoothed her skirt. “Okay, is there anything I have to do?”

  I shook my head. “No, God knows you’re not Catholic. You just have to come into the church, sit in the pew beside me, stand when we stand, sit when we sit, kneel if you’d like, and smile warmly at my sister. Oh, and don’t take communion. You can just stay in the pew when we go up.”

  “Go up?” She blinked at me.

  She might have needed a full lesson. It blew my mind that she’d never been to a Catholic mass, not even for a wedding. “I promise, I’ll give you direction. Please, don’t be nervous.”

  She should have been more nervous to meet Annie, but I would rather have cut out my tongue than tell her that. She didn’t need her anxiety compounded. I’d told Annie we were coming, and that would have given her ample time to prepare an assault. I’d be in her crosshairs, as well; I expected I would get a scolding about whether or not it was appropriate to bring the girl I was sinning with to church with me.

  On the way into the sanctuary, I dipped my fingers in the holy water and made the sign of the cross, noting Penny’s close observance. She looked as though she would be taking notes, if she’d had a pen. Inside, I led her to the votive racks, where I dropped a ten into the donations box and lit candles for my mother and father, and Robby and Cathy.

  “What’s this for?” Penny whispered.

  I lit one more for my sister’s child, whom I’d never met. “You light them to remember your loved ones who’ve passed on.”

  “Oh,” she said quietly, and I knew I didn’t need to explain who the votives were for.

  I crossed myself as we stepped away.

  We went to find a spot in our usual pew, but I didn’t see Annie anywhere. I’d hoped I would make an introduction before I went to confession, but my sister hadn’t arrived, yet. Well, it wasn’t as though she would recognize Penny, anyway. I genuflected at the end of the row, then stood back and gestured Penny in. She sat and slid down a bit to make room.

  “I have to go bother Danny for absolution. Will you be all right on your own for a second?” I asked her.

  “Um. Maybe.” She looked around, wide-eyed. “I’m a little freaked out by the chanting.”

  At the front of the church, Dan Holmes called out, “The fifth glorious mystery: The coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth,” and the rest of the congregation began mumbling the Our Father in response.

  “Ah. Yeah, I could see why that would be unsettling.” I scratched my neck and looked away. “It’s just praying the rosary. Nothing scary. Sit tight a minute?”

  “Oh, the rosary!” She smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand, startling the woman seated in front of her. Quieter, she said, “Sorry. I should have known. I’m just a little nervous.”

  “Don’t worry, you’re doing fine.” I held my breath and headed to the sacristy. Hopefully Danny would make my absolution quick.

  I slipped out of the sanctuary and down the short hall in the vestibule, to the door marked, “Private.” I knocked and called, “It’s Ian.”

  Danny opened the door, adjusting the microphone clipped to the collar of his vestment. “Cutting it close this week. I should be out there getting ready for the processional. You better not have many sins.”

  “I always have many sins,” I reminded him, shutting the door behind me. “I don’t have time for the full rigmarole today. Penny’s waiting out there.”

  “Penny!” Danny looked past me, as though he could see through the closed door, the vestibule, and into the sanctuary proper. “You brought her?”

  “Things have been going really well. I thought it might be a good time.” I shrugged and couldn’t disguise my smile. “Did I mention things are going well?”

  “You’re lucky Mom’s not here.” He paused. “No, you’re not lucky. You’re going to hear about it when she finds out she missed the chance to meet the woman who’s been stealing her baby brother away.”

  “She’s not going to be here?” I asked, for total clarification. “I told her I was bringing Penny. Where’d Annie run off to?”

  “She and Dad are on the ladies’ altar society marriage retreat to D.C. She must have forgotten to mention it. They’re going to mass at the National Basilica today.”

  “Good for them. They deserve to get away,” I said. But bullshit Annie forgot to mention something like a trip to Washington D.C. She just didn’t want to meet Penny.

  “Uncle Ian, if you’re serious about wanting Mom to meet this girl, you’re going to have to bring her to the house. Do you have any idea how much I hear about this?”

  �
�I can only imagine.” It was why I’d been keeping my phone calls with Annie brief. “I wanted to keep my relationship with Penny private while we got to know each other. This is a first step, and a pretty big one. She’s not religious at all, but she’s here because she knows what this means to me. She’s the one, Danny.”

  “I’m happy for you. But if she’s the one, you’ve got to somehow trick Mom into meeting her. She’s ready to put your tackle in a mason jar over this girl.” He stepped up to give me a hug. I slapped him on the back, and I felt the wire for his microphone under his chasuble.

  “Oh no.” I took a step back, shaking my head. “Tell me that wasn’t on.”

  Someone knocked on the door. “Father? Your microphone is on.”

  Danny pushed the robe aside and checked the little black box at his hip, looked up from the glowing green light at the top, and gasped, “Oh, fuck me.”

  “For Christ’s sake, turn it off!” I waved my hands at him until he flipped the switch. “This is worse than the time you left it on when you were having a piss!”

  “Oh, every priest has done that!” he hissed at me.

  Cold sweat stood out on my brow. “Penny… She’s sitting out there, right now… Fuck, I hope she’s sitting out there right now, and she hasn’t run away!”

  I flung the door open and launched myself out, then composed myself as I walked back to the sanctuary. When I entered, the stares of some of the other parishioners bored holes into my back, but I kept my head held high and pretended I had no idea why they were looking. The only person in the church who mattered to me at the moment, was the slender blond sitting ramrod straight in the pew as I approached. I genuflected and slid into my seat, not daring to look at her.

  “Sorry about that,” I said, my tie suddenly feeling quite like a garrote.

  I heard a sputter, and turned to see her covering her mouth in an attempt to hold back her laugh.

  “I’m glad you found that funny,” I tried to scold her. But it really was funny, now that I knew she wasn’t furious with me. “Danny is going to get a lot of complaints today.”

  Penny giggled and whispered, “Well, tell your sister that if she puts your tackle in a mason jar, she’s going to get a complaint.”

  * * * *

  I spent all of mass keenly aware I was being stared at. The other parishioners seemed to be divided between amusement and annoyance, so it wasn’t safe to make eye contact with anyone. But there was one person’s scrutiny I felt far more strongly than the others. Penny watched me like an anthropologist studying my culture. That was probably what was happening in her quick little head. She would remember every hymn and response, and would be able to pass for Catholic, now, once she sorted all the information in her brain. I envied her intelligence and memory. She would have made a fantastic con artist.

  After mass, I avoided everyone. Even Danny, since being seen speaking to each other would just cement the incident in the minds of everyone who had forgotten it. If there was anyone who’d forgotten. But perhaps facing acquaintances and strangers would have been preferable to actually discussing with Penny what had happened.

  We got into the car and pulled into line to leave the lot. We were on the street before I tried to start a conversation. “So…”

  “If your plan with the microphone mix-up was to make my first visit to your church even more awkward, congratulations,” she interrupted me, doodling a heart in the fog on the passenger side window.

  I couldn’t tell if she was mad or joking. “That bad?”

  She looked over at me, but I had to keep my eyes on traffic as we approached a four-way stop, so I couldn’t see her expression.

  “I’m just teasing,” she said, and my chest muscles eased from their state of panicked cramp. “It wasn’t terrible at all. And I got some really, really good news out of your nephew’s mistake.”

  “Well, now that you know I’m spending my spare time doodling hearts around your name in my notebook, I’m not sure I can look you in the eye.”

  “It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have the woman who loves you know how much you love her,” she said. “If you caught me talking about you without my knowledge, you would probably want to change your address.”

  No, but I did want to change hers. My home felt a lot lonelier these days, when Penny wasn’t in it. “It would be that bad, would it?”

  “Yeah. I have a lot of fantasies about our future.”

  Our future. Saying it made what had been only possible absolutely certain. “So, you’ve picked out the names of our children, then? Planned our wedding?”

  “Have I named our children? Are you kidding? I’ve seriously researched the benefits and risks of epidurals on pregnancy websites.”

  I should have admitted I’d already considered and lamented the fact that, owing to my divorce, we couldn’t be married in the church. It was a relief to know I wasn’t the only one whose daydreams turned to practical concerns. “Yikes.”

  “Kinda makes ‘she’s the one’ seem less embarrassing, now, doesn’t it?” She paused. “You like to read, right?”

  “Aye, I do.”

  “Right. So. Okay, are you ever reading along, and something happens, something so earth-shattering for the characters that you can’t believe they’ll ever recover from it, so you skip ahead to make sure that everything turns out okay?”

  “Chapter sixty-nine of A Dance With Dragons,” I answered automatically. It was the first hardcover book I’d ever actually thrown on the floor in anger.

  “And when you saw that whatever was happening actually turned out okay, you still wanted to read the book, right? Knowing the ending at that point didn’t ruin the rest of the chapters for you.”

  I bit my cheek. There was no sense in giving her spoilers. “Yeah, after I saw that everything in A Dance With Dragons turned out all right for Jon Snow in the end, I felt much better.”

  “Well, that’s how I feel about us,” she said, and I bit my cheek again to stop myself from begging her to never compare our love to A Song Of Ice And Fire, ever again. She went on, “No matter what happens between us between now and then, I know that at the end, we’re together forever, and it takes the pressure off. That’s what your nephew’s bad judgment with the AV equipment helped me realize today. So, don’t worry about it.”

  I would have to thank Danny, then, I supposed. After I gave him another sound cursing out over his carelessness with the microphone. After the pissing incident, I would have thought he would have learned his fucking lesson.

  I put my hand on Penny’s knee. “So, epidural or no epidural?”

  “Oh, epidural all the way,” she laughed. “But that’s a little ways off.”

  If this Bahamas job happens, it will be more than a little way. There was no reason to ruin our entire Sunday glooming about that. “Agreed. Right now, we should be focusing all of our efforts on rehearsing the conception.” I checked my mirrors and changed lanes. We would have to go to her place so she could grab some clothes for work the next morning. Even though I already knew the answer, I asked, “Would you care to do that, right now?”

  “I think that’s a fine idea.” She dropped her hand on my thigh and walked her fingertips slowly upward.

  It was a good thing I didn’t go to confession, after all, because in about an hour I would be working that absolution off, anyway.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was used to coming home from church and finding Penny waiting for me. Sometimes, she’d be dressed and ready to go out to lunch. Other times, she’d be naked and waiting in my bed. On an occasion I would never forget, she’d been in the bathtub, keen to give me tantalizing flashes of her sudsy skin, making me wait until she was done with her leisurely bathing.

  I’d been on my knees, worshipping her cunt from the moment the towel had touched her skin.

  Coming home today, she was at my side, so I didn’t know what to expect. The moment the elevator doors closed, she practically mauled me.

  “Easy n
ow.” I laughed in shock. “If you want to fuck in an elevator, I have a more private option upstairs.”

  “I know. I just can’t keep my hands off you. Don’t complain, just go with it,” she teased.

  When we got inside, she took off her coat and headed straight to the clock-face window in the living room. She still did that first thing when she entered the apartment, and it never failed to charm me how much she admired the view.

  “Wow, it’s really snowing,” she said, squinting out at all the flurries.

  “Maybe you’ll get snowed in.” I hung up my coat and joined her by the window. “We could have a ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ situation on our hands.”

  “I hope you don’t drug my drink,” she said dryly.

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “That’s a line from the song. She’s like, ‘hey, what’s in this drink,’ or something. That song is disturbing.” She stepped back. “You know what we should do?”

  “Fly to Miami and escape the winter while we still can?” I suggested.

  She made a face. “I like the snow. I mean, not this early. But after Thanksgiving, with the lights on everything and the stores playing holiday music, I really dig the snow. I was going to say that we should grab a blanket, go up to the roof, and snuggle.”

  “In the snow?”

  “Not in the snow. You have that little porch thing.” She pointed up. “Come on, if it’s too cold and you don’t like it, we can always come back inside.”

  “Coming inside is exactly what I wanted to do today,” I said with a suggestive lift of my eyebrows.

  “Shut up.” She still blushed beet red at my double entendres. Which was odd, considering that twelve hours ago I’d had her on all fours in my bed.

  “Fine. I’ll go upstairs and freeze my bollocks off, all in the name of pleasing you.” I put on a dramatic sigh.

  She rolled her eyes. “I promise I’ll warm them back up for you.”

  We took the duvet from my bed and lugged it into the elevator with us, then rode up to the solarium. The flurries of snow had definitely intensified, blowing onto the covered furniture.