Ruined Pie

“What a delicious dinner. The cook must be given accolades. I believe, if I’m not mistaken that would be you, Ms. Kathy.” The Reverend Father Carl Curtis gave Kathy Fergus a benevolent look where she was sitting at one end of the dining room table in the Fergus’s Mobile, Alabama, house, a Victorian cottage on one of the best streets in the historical district. Kathy Fergus wasn’t a member of his parish--she wasn’t even a Catholic--but her newly married husband, Sam, sitting at the other end of the table from her was, and Kathy had fussed over this meal.

Kathy was a fusser, and Father Curtis, a rather dapper and handsome man in his early forties, who also was somewhat of a fusser, was playing court to her. He could see that she’d been nervy and a little down through the meal.

“A truly fine traditional Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings. I can hardly wait for the pumpkin pie,” he said, patting his belly as if it had filled out, even though he went to great pains to make sure it remained flat.

“Oh, oh,” Kathy said in distressed, pushing away from the table. “I’m sorry. Please excuse me. I don’t feel at all well.” She fled the dining room, leaving a surprised and concerned Catholic priest looking crestfallen. He turned to Sam, who showed a bit of concern but more of reserve.

“I’m sorry,” Father Curtis said, “I didn’t mean to upset her.”

“She already was a bit upset,” Sam answered. “And it’s certainly not your fault. She ruined two pumpkin pies this afternoon trying to cook a decent one, and that set her on edge. But I think it could be more than that. She could genuinely feel ill.”

“From something going around?” Father Curtis asked.

There was a pause, and then Sam seemed to be steeling himself and said, “She’s pregnant.”

“Ah, I see.”

“I meant to tell you before, but I couldn’t find the right time.”

“How far along is she?”

Sam paused for a moment, and then shrugged, and said, “Four or five months.”

“You’ve only been married for two.”

“Yes, only two months,” Sam said, he gave Father Curtis a level look. This wasn’t going well. The priest was being very direct. There was no give there. Sam had expected that they would be talking around the issue at length, both understanding each other but not being so blunt in saying it.

“I see. Then that’s why--”

“Yes, that’s why we married on such short notice--in her church--and I didn’t discuss it with you beforehand. As I said, I was looking for the right time.”

“Who is the father? I don’t usually mean to pry, but in this case . . . for her sake as well as yours--”

“Her father is the father of the baby.” He gave the priest a moment to absorb that, and, in fact, it did seem to set Father Curtis back on his heels a bit. After a moment, Same continued. “It’s a boy. She had DNA testing done to be sure.”

“Yes, I see. I suppose I know why then. He paid you to marry her, I suppose. This house is very nice, and you’ve always liked nice things.”

“So have you, Carl,” Sam said, his voice a little hard. “Your rectory is as nice as this. You serve a rich parish. You aren’t any more ready to give that lifestyle up than I am, I don’t think. We’ve discussed this before. I was willing to make concession on that--if you did.”

The priest said nothing in response and Sam continued. “Yes, her father is paying for all of this. He wants what’s best for the child and he hasn’t been told directly that the baby is his. I imagine he suspects, though, and that’s why he’s so forthcoming.”

“None of it explains why you--”

“The baby could have been mine, Carl. The timing works out for me too. I was almost disappointed when I found out it wasn’t mine. But it could have been. I would like to be a father. It didn’t seem ever to be possible otherwise.”

“I see,” Carl said again. He often used the expression when he wished he wasn’t seeing something. “And are you going to cut off all connections, Sam?” he asked. “Will you be changing to Kathy’s faith? What is she, by the way? What religion does she follow? And if you’re leaving the church why, did you invite me for Thanksgiving?”

“She’s Methodist.”

“I suppose it could be worse. She could have been a Baptist or a Jehovah’s Witness.”

Sam gave a slight smile, but then he realized that the priest was being serious. “Yes, but, no, she’s willing to convert to Catholicism. Kathy thought it would be a good idea to invite you because she didn’t want her father to come this year. She couldn’t bear to be with him on Thanksgiving. He dislikes priests, so it was her idea to invite you--partially as a barrier to him coming. But she wanted you to come anyway. She said she could discuss the process of conversion with you. I wanted you just because I wanted you to be here. I thought we could talk. I didn’t count on Kathy being so keyed up tonight over a ruined pie.”

“But it’s not just a ruined pie, is it? It’s not that simple.”

“No, I suppose not,” Sam said. “Would you like some coffee?”

“I think not, at least not now. What I’d like is a walk in your lovely garden, if I may. I’ve often walked past this house before you acquired it and noticed that it has a fine garden behind it.”

“Certainly, if you’d like,” Sam said, standing from the table. “Perhaps you could help me clear the table into the kitchen first, though. You could get the dirty dishes by the sink and I’ll put the food away.”

“You don’t think Kathy--?”

“No, I think she’s in her bedroom for the night now. She won’t be coming back down. I do the dishes anyway.”

“Her bedroom?”

“Yes, we’re in separate bedrooms for now. Her bedroom is on the front of the house. We’re in separate rooms for the duration of the pregnancy, and maybe . . . it was just a one-time fluke, Carl. We didn’t . . . I’m not . . . we’d just been to a party and had too much to drink.”

“I understand,” the priest said in a tone that indicated that he probably didn’t understand at all.

When they’d cleared the dishes, they walked out into the garden together. The house was a cottage, but the gardens were extensive, including a fair amount of mature boxwoods, which created private pocket gardens here and there. It was in one of these gardens, well away from the house, that Father Curtis arrested their progress with a hand on Sam’s forearm.

“Where does this leave us, Sam?” he asked in a low voice.

“Us? I don’t see that it changes anything, Carl--that it should make any difference at all, except that I can stay in Mobile now. Kathy’s father has given me a job as well. In time, Kathy will get over the situation with her father. He wants his family near. He’ll dote on the baby.”

“And Kathy?”

“In time she’ll let him dote on the baby. She’ll want nice things for the baby.”

“That’s not what I’m asking, Sam, and I think you know it isn’t. This isn’t just ruined pumpkin pie, Sam.”

“I realize that. But you’ve seen how Kathy is. In time she will have forgotten even that it was her father.”

“I’m not talking about her father either. This isn’t just your relationship with Kathy and her father. Or with the baby.”

“You’ve seen that, too, Carl. If she reacts the way she does to screwing up a pie, how do you think she’d react to me telling her that I’m screwing you?”

“I’m afraid, Sam. Hold me.”

Sam pulled the priest into his breast, held him close, and the two went into a deep kiss. When the kiss was broken, Carl whispered, “I need to know that you still are going to be screwing me, Sam. I can’t just give you up like this.”

“You don’t have to give me up,” Sam answered. He turned the priest around and bent him over, with Carl grasping the arms of a garden bench. He moaned as Sam reached around and unbuckled and then unzipped him and pulled the black trousers down and off his legs.

“Give me a wider stance,” he muttered, and, with a groan, Carl set his legs farther apart. He groaned again, deeper, as Sam spread his butt cheeks with the palms of his hands and buried his face in Carl’s crack. Within minutes, Sam was standing, crouched over Carl’s back, his hands shoved up inside the black shirt with the clerical collar and his fingers working the older man’s nipples, while Sam’s hard cock invaded up inside Carl’s passage.

When Sam began to pump him, Carl, trying hard not to scream it out, gave a muffled exclamation of “Yes, yes. Fuck me. Punish me. Take me to heaven or hell but just fuck me hard.”

After he had ejaculated inside the priest’s channel and reached around and jerked Carl off with his hand, Sam whispered in the priest’s ear. “See, nothing need change. I’ll drive you home now.”

“Kathy--”

“She knows you were dropped off at the house for dinner and will need a ride home. Kathy isn’t a problem.”

Father Curtis begged to differ. A new wife--and a skittish one at that--and a baby on the way were going to be problems. Now wasn’t the time to argue about it, though. Sam was still inside him. He was going flaccid, but he was still inside him.

“She won’t expect me back right away. She’ll know that we’ll be sitting in the car in front of the rectory and talking for a while before you go in.”

“But we won’t be sitting in the car and talking, will we?” Father Curtis asked, his voice breathy from Sam still inside him, still stroking his nipples with his fingers.

“No, Carl, we won’t just be sitting outside the rectory and talking in the car. I’m not finished with you tonight. Not by a long shot.”