The Virgin. Tiffany Reisz

       8

      2015 Scotland

      “I DIDN’T KNOW,” Kingsley said, and Nora turned to look at him.

      “What didn’t you know?” she asked.

      “I didn’t know it was that hard for you.” Kingsley’s back rested against a bedpost at the foot of the bed and his eyes searched her face. “I didn’t know about the pain.”

      “It was fine after a couple days. Bad cramps, that’s all. Women are used to that.” She shrugged it off. The past was past. She still remembered the pain, but there was no reason for Kingsley to know how well she remembered it.

      “We should have been more careful, you and I,” Kingsley said.

      “We were fluid-bonded. It’s what we do. That’s the risk we take,” Nora said. “I don’t blame you. Or myself. Not anymore. Accidents happen, right?”

      “I’m sorry you went through that alone,” Kingsley said. “I should have said that a long time ago.”

      She smiled at him, grateful for the words. “You wanted kids and I knew it. It would have been too sadistic, even for me, to make you hold my hand during the whole process.”

      “I thought...” Kingsley began and stopped.

      “Go on,” Søren said. “We’re talking about it finally. Talk.”

      “I thought I’d lost my only chance to be a father,” Kingsley admitted. “I convinced myself of that, which is why I wasn’t there for you the way I should have been.”

      “You did the best you could.” Nora stretched out her leg and touched her bare toes to Kingsley’s. “We both did.”

      “I didn’t,” Søren said.

      “You were in Rome.” She turned to look at him. “You couldn’t have done anything.”

      “Somewhere along the way I did something wrong. If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have been scared to tell me,” Søren said.

      “I wasn’t scared to tell you,” Nora said, not entirely truthfully. “I didn’t want to drag you into this. And I didn’t need to talk to anyone about it. As soon as I knew, I knew what I wanted to do. No reason to talk to you about it.”

      “Except you belonged to me, and you were going through a difficult time,” he said. “I would have liked to have been there.”

      “And I would have liked my privacy,” she said.

      Søren took her hand and kissed the back of it. His way of saying “You win this round.”

      “That was you, wasn’t it?” Nora asked. “The motorcycle I heard?”

      “It was.” He gave her a penetrating stare as if trying to see the woman she’d once been and reconciling her with the woman in front of him.

      “Why did you come to me there?” she asked.

      “I had to,” he said simply. “If there was any chance, any chance at all I could speak to you or even see you, I had to take it.”

      “How did you know where I went?” she asked. “I was gone one day and by the next night, you’d found me.”

      “I knew where you would go because you did what I would have done in your place,” Søren said. “If I were scared and in pain and on the run.”

      “You would have gone to a convent?” she asked, smiling at the idea.

      Søren smiled. “No. To my mother.”

      “I would have loved to have gone to your mom’s house,” Nora said as she glanced at Kingsley who watched them both with quiet intensity. It had been her first instinct to leave the country and hide out at Gisela’s house in Denmark. She’d rejected it out of hand.

      “She would have taken you in,” Søren said. “You know how much she loved you. It didn’t matter I was a priest. She considered us married.”

      “I know. And I know she would have taken good care of me,” Nora said, recalling in an instant a thousand memories of Søren’s mother. Her Æbleskiver pancakes she’d made in winter. Listening to her and Søren playing piano together. The long talks she and Nora had while Søren was outside playing with his nieces. Nora sensed Gisela wanted Søren to leave the priesthood, get married and have children, but she never said a word about it. His mother respected their life together, their choices, even with all the risks they took. And Nora always loved her for not trying to change either of them.

      “You might have been happier with my mother than you were with yours,” Søren said, knowing how fraught her relationship with her own mother had been. Fraught until the day Nora’s mother died over two years ago.

      “Probably. But I loved your mom too much to make her pick sides between her only son and me. That wouldn’t have been fair to her,” Nora said.

      “Considering how I behaved that night, it’s safe to say she would have sided with you,” Søren said. Nora wondered how her life could have changed if she’d chosen to run to Søren’s mother instead of her own. That year at her mother’s convent had changed everything, and if she’d gone to Gisela’s she probably would have returned to Søren as his submissive in a week. “He sided with you against me.” Søren nodded toward Kingsley.

      “You can’t blame me,” Kingsley said without any hint of contrition. “You fucked up, and I wanted to rip your heart out with my bare hands. It feels good to say that out loud.”

      Nora laughed, and shockingly so did Søren.

      “I wasn’t very happy with you, either,” Søren said. “You left without a word. Didn’t tell anyone where you went, not even Calliope.”

      “That was the point,” Kingsley said, rolling onto his back. “How could anyone tell you where I went if I didn’t even know where I was going? I got to the airport and bought a ticket for the next international flight out.”

      “Where did you go?” Nora asked.

      “Greece,” Kingsley said. “Then Japan. I spent a month in Hong Kong, a month in New Zealand. New Zealand gave me island fever. I went to the Philippines next, and after that, the French Caribbean.”

      “Meanwhile I’m in upstate New York in a convent. Next time I split town, I’m going to your travel agency, King,” she said.

      “No more leaving,” Søren said. Nora crawled across the bed and kissed him.

      “Never again, I promise,” she said, meaning every word. They kissed again, Søren’s hand resting lightly on the side of her neck, pressing into her collar so she could feel it against her throat. She hadn’t wanted to talk about that year ever, but now that they’d opened Pandora’s box, she felt better, as if the last and final wall between the three of them was tumbling down at last. They should have talked this out years ago. She and Kingsley hadn’t ever talked about the pregnancy they’d ended, but Søren was right as he usually was. Ignorance wasn’t bliss. Ignorance was cowardice.

      “Stop kissing him,” Kingsley said. “Get to the nun-fucking already.”

      Nora turned her head and glared at Kingsley.

      “I’ll tell you about my first night with Juliette if you tell me about your nun. It’s a good story,” Kingsley said. “Deal?”

      “Fair trade,” Nora said, and held out her hand. Kingsley shook it. “But my nun didn’t show up for about eight months. Let’s see, I got there in June. It was almost spring when I saw her the first time.”

      “That’s