“You had sex with Søren while I was gone?”

“No, Silly. I said he hardly touched me. He didn’t have to. His soul touched me. His pain touched me.”

“You’re out of your mind. How did this happen?”

“I don’t know.” She raised both hands in the air to stretch. “After you left he asked me how I spelled my name. I said like Blaise Pascal, and then he told me about how Blaise Pascal, he was a mathematician who—”

“He hated the Jesuits. Wrote all sorts of slanderous, and therefore true, things about them.”

“That. Anyway, we were talking, and then I did what you said I should do and I took him up to the playroom—the one with the Francis Bacon painting over the bed—and suddenly I’m getting flogged and whipped, and then I had an orgasm from the pain alone. Then I was down here with my skirt on backward. I raided your fridge. You know kink makes me hungry.”

She lifted her bowl of strawberries and offered him one. Kingsley ignored them.

“Do you think you and your friend would tag-team me someday?”

“No. Eat your strawberries. I need to talk to the god.”

“Tell him I want to kiss his feet. Again.”

“I’ll pass that along.”

She waved her hand, shooing him from the room.

“Søren?” Kingsley shouted as he ran up the stairs.

“I’m in my room,” Søren called back. Kingsley had given him his own guest room to stay in whenever he wished. So far he hadn’t slept any nights in it.

“All rooms are my room.” Kingsley threw open the door to the guest room. Søren stood on the opposite side of the bed, an open silver suitcase in front of him.

“Very well, then. I’m in your room.”

“Can I ask you one question?”

“Ask.”

“What did you do to Blaise?”

Søren looked up at him.

“I’m not going to answer that.”

“Did you fuck her?”

“That’s two questions, and no, I didn’t. Are you upset we played? She said she’s allowed to be with anyone she wants.”

“I don’t care who she plays with. I want to know why she’s lying on my couch in a stupor claiming you gave her the best pain of her life?”

“The best? I’m sure that’s an exaggeration, but I’m pleased she enjoyed herself.” Søren smiled as he dug through the suitcase of kink toys Kingsley kept under every bed in the house. “I certainly enjoyed her.”

“So all that about not breaking your vows was, quoi?”

“There was no sex, and I didn’t marry her. Nor did I take money from her or refuse to obey a direct order from the pope.”

“What about—” Kingsley made a specific hand gesture.

“Well,” Søren said. “I did do that, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But we Jesuits aren’t nearly so hard-line or heavy-handed as the Curia when it comes to masturbation. My God, there are at least three puns in that last sentence. Entirely unintentional.”

“Stop joking. This is serious.”

“It’s not serious. Calm down, Kingsley.”

“I’m perfectly calm.”

“You’re speaking in tongues, Kingsley. I heard French and English, and some Spanish mixed in, and you’re speaking them all at the same time.”

“You’re a priest. A Jesuit priest. And I left the house for one hour and come back, and I’ve got a girl with afterglow on my couch eating strawberries claiming my ex-lover who is now a Catholic priest gave her the best pain of her life. I can’t ever leave my house again.”

“You know from personal experience it’s in the world’s best interest I beat someone on a regular basis. I spoke to my confessor, and he gave me leave to deal with this side of myself as long as I don’t break any vows. So there.”

“So there? No, not there. We’re not there yet. You—” Kingsley pointed at Søren. “You’re in a good mood all the time. And you talk. And you’re...nice. Well, nicer.” The word nice hurt coming out. “You’ve changed.”

“Kingsley—”

“It’s the girl, isn’t it? The Virgin Queen. I should have known.”

Søren eyed him with suspicion. “Kingsley, are you—”

“Give me a second.” Kingsley paced the room. His mind reeled. What had happened under his own roof? He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out tobacco and rolling papers.

“What are you doing?”

“I need a cigarette to calm my nerves. They’re frazzled.”

“You’re not a dowager duchess. You shouldn’t have frazzled nerves at twenty-eight,” Søren said. “And you shouldn’t be smoking, either.”

“My house, my rules. It’s a smoking house. Everyone has to smoke in my house. I won’t quit smoking, and if you stay here you have to start.” Kingsley quickly rolled a cigarette and licked the rolling paper to seal it.

“Then I’ll go back to the rectory.”

Kingsley flicked his lighter, lit his cigarette, took a long drag and glared at Søren.

“How do you give someone the best pain of their life without touching them?”

Kingsley raised the cigarette to his lips again.

He heard a snapping sound, and the cigarette no longer had a flame.