Page 61 of Pieces of Ash
ASHLEY
Morning sun streams into my windows, and I wake up slowly, breathing deeply and smiling as I recall dinner with the Ducharmes siblings last night. Since losing Tig, I haven’t spoken of her like that—with both affection and exasperation, but it felt good to remember her with laughter instead of pain. It felt…new.
To be frank, I don’t know the last time I thought about Tig without a deep and terrible ache, which is weird because her diary entries are so furious, so desperate, they should make me sad. And on one level, they do. They make me angry too. But at least twice, she says that she stayed alive for me. That countsfor something, doesn’t it? It makes me wonder if maybe—just maybe, despite her efforts to reject and conceal it—she loved me just a little.
Anders and Gus, in their own ways, have both insisted that she did.
My mind slips from Anders to Mosier, who still believes I am at school.
When Gus visited on Wednesday, he told me that he called Father Joseph from a pay phone, introduced himself, and asked the priest if he had reached out to Mosier yet. Yes, he had. But Mosier and his sons were on a business trip in Las Vegas when he called, so Father Joseph had asked that I remain up here a little longer, until he could get in touch with them. Gus said I was welcome for as long as I wanted to stay.
“You don’t think Mosier woulddoanything to Father Joseph, do you?” I asked Gus.
Something dark flickered behind Gus’s eyes, but his smile was brave. “Ain’t no man alive wants to tangle with a priest, precious.”
I, however, don’t share Gus’s certainty, and still fear for Father Joseph when I imagine him sitting down with Mosier to discuss my future. Mosier doesn’t have the type of temper that can be easily controlled. Not as far as I’ve seen, anyway.
And if anything happens to Father Joseph, Gus, or Jock—or Julian, for that matter—I would never forgive myself. These people, in various degrees of welcome, have embraced me in my time of terrible need, and I will always be grateful to them.
Julian.
Julian.
I close my eyes and sigh, remembering his chiseled face in the candlelight last night. Watching him with his sister—so effortlessly affectionate and loving—was a revelation to me. Nowthat I know how Julian’s face looks when he loves someone, I won’t ever be able to unknow it.
And how does it look?
Still rugged. Still masculine. Still beautiful. But softer, in a way that is tender, not doughy. Maybe even a little vulnerable—something I haven’t seen on Julian’s hard face at all until last night. I didn’t even know he was capable of it.
“Lord,” I pray, “help my terrible lust.”
But my heart is already racing, and that deep and throbbing ache is growing between my legs. Reaching for the hem of my modest nightgown, I pull it up, over my hips, to my waist, baring my sex under the covers.
Tentatively I trail my trembling fingers over the skin of my belly, landing on the triangle of curls at the apex of my thighs. I flatten my palm over the soft hair, as my breath grows choppy and shallow.
My fingers are the first to reach between my legs and slide into the hot valley of slickened skin, gasping when the pad of my finger inadvertently brushes over a nub of firmer flesh. I arch my back against the mattress, running my finger back and forth, a mewling sound rising from my throat as I pass over the little button.
I rub faster now, pushing my head back into my pillow and raising my knees to open my thighs wider. I moan loudly, then bite my lip to stifle the sound, my eyes rolling back in my head as my body explodes in wave after wave of almost painful pleasure, of intense contractions, like fireworks bursting inside my body. I pant and giggle at the same time, riding out this newfound bliss until I open my eyes and release my lip, which tastes slightly metallic. I think I’ve split it with my teeth, but I don’t care. I’ve never experienced anything remotely as earth-shattering on a physical level, and it’s left me feeling sated and spent.
I open my eyes and sigh softly. At some point during my orgasm, a warm heat rushed from between my legs, and the area I was rubbing is now soaked and slick from it. I fondle myself lazily for an extra minute before skimming my hand back to the hem of my nightgown to pull it down.
I’ve never touched myself like this before. Never dared, either at school or at Mosier’s house. I know the mechanics of sex, of course, and that having desire for one’s husband will lead to the kind of sex that will be pleasurable for both married partners, and, hopefully, fruitful.
But hearing a sanitary version of “how sex works” from Sister Agnes, who had no firsthand knowledge of the act, and experiencing my first orgasm, are two different things entirely.
Remembering Julian’s face across the table last night—his green eyes softer because of his sister’s presence—makes me feel confused and tired. Now that I know how he looks when he loves someone, I can’t help the impossible, ridiculous yearning that suddenly skyrockets to the very pinnacle of my longing.
For Julian Ducharmes to lovemesomeday too.
JULIAN
I was wrong about last night.
Noelle didn’t grill me when I went back to my room to go to sleep.
She didn’t grill me because she refused to speak to me at all.
Even when I put onPrinces et Princesses, her favorite movie of all time, she wouldn’t speak to me.
