The Now Former Lady Deveroux

Chapter Nine

"I have a question, and you're not allowed to mock me for it," Samantha says, slowly stepping from stone to stone within the creek. As lovely as its gentle current was last night, it was even more peaceful tonight, and her toes gently curl against the slick moss and soft mud below.

Esther shines in the moonlight, the beams of its light casting shadows all along her naked skin, so breathtakingly smooth in the evening air. Samantha finds the little goosebumps covering her skin, which surely cover her own as well, to be adorable.

"Now I am quite excited to hear it," Esther replies, turning to give Samantha her full attention.

Samantha pauses, a little whisper of her pride inside bristling at admitting she was thinking about such things as what consumes her mind tonight. "Why do you believe in a God?" She asks at last.

A smile takes hold of Esther's face, smug and light, and her head rocks back to allow her eyes to gaze up into the night sky. "It's working," she mutters proudly.

Samantha splashes her, giggling. "No mocking."

"Kinky sex with a nun?" Esther's laugh rumbles through the stream. "That is what it took to pique your interest in theology?"

"I should rather think it related to my interest in you, dear." She purses her lips, and repeats, more sincerely than perhaps she would like. "Why do you?"

"Well, it feels as natural to me as breathing. Am I to believe that all that is, is here by nothing more than an accident of nature?"

"I was content with the idea all my life," Samantha responds simply.

Esther takes a moment to think, her slick legs slipping out of the water as she steps amongst the river stones, careful of her footing and surely enjoying the task of hunting for a safe place to stand. She reaches down and recovers a particularly round and smoothed pebble and considers it in the palm of her hand, then gently places it back down once satisfied with it.

"I suppose I find it to be a fairly functional belief," the Sister tells her. Her voice remains measured and active, as though she was being especially careful with her choice of words. "When my own capacity for something such as compassion is exhausted, I bolster myself with the knowledge that God may sustain me past my limits. It supplies my desire to do good with foundation."

Samantha crosses her arms and mulls over this for a second. She sits down on the bank of the river, gently moving a nearby towel over so that her bare bottom need not rest into the grassy edge. "If it is nothing more than functional," she frowns, "then why must I believe?"

Esther's head lifts up to gaze upon her. "Must you?"

"Society seems to believe so."

"Society often misunderstands God for its own purposes," she rebuts, donning the cool and practiced veneer of a woman of theology. Samantha had not often seen Esther in such a way, but she knows that whenever the Sister did engage in a discussion like this, she quickly grew more academic and perceiving. "The church, the Sisters," she continues, "they give my life structure, invite me into a deeper sense of love."

And, partially forming from the place of guilt inside of her chest for having led Esther to be with her, Samantha responds, "They would disapprove of this love."

"I'm coming to suspect they are wrong in so doing," Esther asserts, and bashfully adds a moment later, "You have been quite... convincing to that end." She looks cute as she brushes her hair back behind her round ear, and for a moment Samantha regards her the way one might admire a beautiful painting, elegant and masterful. "The fruits of the spirit are love, joy, kindness, and so on. I suppose that anything that promotes these convictions within yourself could rightly be considered God." She then turns to face Samantha, smiling a little from the delight of sharing this side of herself with the woman. "What has stirred your interest?"

Samantha debates lying to her, though mostly out of a feeling of mild embarrassment. "Sister Pullwater has offered me Minnerva's position."

Esther bounces in place with excitement, clasping her hands together before her chest while her face beams. However, with a breath longer to reflect on its possible consequences, her enthusiasm tapers, and she exhales a simple and disrupted, "Oh."

"I've not come to any decision," Samantha assures her.

"Are you looking for my advice?"

"Desperately."

Esther tilts her head to the side. "I can't make such a decision for you."

And Samantha nods, figuring that would be the case. It would have been easier for the Sister to solve the dilemma for her, but she'd never really thought Esther would give her a straightforward answer to the question. "But how do you feel upon hearing it?"

Esther nods. "On the one hand, ecstatic. On the other... terrified."

"Tell me why."

"Oh, Samantha, it could be so good for you," she sighs supportively. "You seem delighted in proximity to this life, and it appears to summon forth the best sides of you." Esther pauses, and Samantha knows well the feeling that must be stuck in her throat. "And at the same time... we'd lose a great deal of privacy if you moved into the convent."

"Indeed," Samantha agrees, mournfully adding, "As wondrous as this is, I'm not sure that I could survive on prayer retreats alone."

"Nor I," Esther says quietly. She quickly shakes away the dread within her. "But it shouldn't be enough to stop the decision in its tracks. If God has called you, I don't want you to turn it away on my account."

Samantha rises and wades into the water once more, walking past Esther with an affectionate squeeze of her shoulder as she goes. "I don't know how to know if He has," she admits. Staring off into the dark and slumbering woods around them, enjoying the moonlight through the gaps in the trees, Samantha raises her hands to her hips and shakes her head. "Christ, I'm actually frightened of it all."

"Do you want it? Gut instinct, don't think."

And her voice remains stagnant in her throat, her emotions frozen in their tracks. Samantha isn't sure how to answer her, much less answer herself, and after a few frustrated breaths, all she can say is, "I can't answer. I'm not sure." She turns back to Esther with the moon in her eyes. "Please help. What should I do?"

Esther's face softens and she shrugs peaceably. "That which completes your soul."

"Isn't that what love is for?"

To Samantha's mild frustration, Esther giggles. Seeing the furrowing brow on her, the Sister approaches, slow in her step to mind the slippery ground underfoot, and takes Samantha's wrists into her hands. "How small you think, my love," she chastises sweetly. "A soul cannot be completed by love. Not from humans, anyway."

"And God does?"

"Yes," she affirms.

Samantha frowns once more. "But I don't believe in a god."

"Even now?" Esther stretches her arms wide, taking Samantha's with hers, and leans her head back to embrace the skies above. Her voice abounds with a sort of majesty in it as she continues, "Under the stars? Wading in this creek? Dreaming of what you'll do to me once we step back inside?" She steps forward and meets Samantha's eyes again. "This stirs no feeling of the divine within you?"

While Esther's closeness certainly stirs something in Samantha's heart, she feels none of the accompanying divinity that the Sister relates. She searches and searches inside of herself only to come up short, and looks away dejectedly. "I don't know. I don't know how to know."

And Esther takes Samantha's face between her palms, looking upon her sincerely and gently. "You don't need to. That's what belief is for." She kisses Samantha's forehead. "You find the good in the world and call it God." A kiss upon her cheek. "You find the good in others and call it God." A kiss upon her lips. "You find the good in yourself..."

"... and call it God," Samantha exhales, completing the triplet. They hover in one another's space, the familiar and comforting smell of Esther's breath filling her nostrils.

"Prayer is just a state of awareness," Esther instructs. "Hymns are just songs that bind people together. The robes are just a reminder that I am more than just my body."

And as she kisses Samantha again, unassailing, the former noblewoman feels that emptiness within her, the one which so often was only assayed by the exhortation of her vanity, presses forth. She feels it within her like the brooding of a prophecy, like the urgency of destiny, yet cannot help but grow weary of its constant failings to bring her peace. She looks down, a trickle of shame entering her being as she cannot meet Esther's loving eyes.

"I've never known who I am if not beautiful and desirable," Samantha whispers. "It's all I have ever been. It's all anyone has ever expected of me."

And Esther leans in to force Samantha to look at her again. "Do you think I would stop desiring you if you were buried in a habit?"

"Yes," she admits.

And once more, Esther laughs at the frailty of Samantha's perspective. She embraces her, wrapping her arms across Samantha's shoulders while her chest bounces against her with each chuckle. "Samantha, I would still desire you if all you were was an idea in my mind," she affirms, kissing the side of her neck. "I take great joy in my fortune to have fallen for a woman more beautiful than I knew women could be, but you are so much more than that."

Samantha's fingers claw against Esther's shoulders, gripping in like Esther was the only person who could possibly confirm that she was, in this moment, a truly living being. "What am I?"

"Interesting. Charming. Kind, though you sometimes like to pretend otherwise," Esther says quickly, and after a breath, adds, "You hum when you're happy. You've let yourself grow and change. You're patient with the children, such that I could never imagine you as anything other than an excellent mother." She squeezes a little tighter. "When we're in the heat of passion, my body gives in to your touch, to be sure. But it is the look of care and concern in your eyes that my heart succumbs to. I've grown to love a woman who is in the halfways of the reformation of herself, and I can only scarcely process how much more I will grow to love her as she takes shape."

Samantha kisses her, resolved in the belief that if Esther felt she could be someone worth loving, then perhaps she just might be.

-- -- --

The slow rise and fall, that was surely it. Mediative, comforting, warm - the familiar and strange delight in the scent of her breath. It was that Esther was breathing, no - sleeping. It was something you did when you trusted someone, sleeping.

Samantha always slept poorly beside Revier. It wasn't just his snoring, or his cumbersome and musky smell wafting all around her. It wasn't just the mattress that was too billowing and soft, as was his preference, nor the scratchiness of his beloved duvet he insisted upon. No, it had been the sheer dismay at his side, the pit in her stomach when she looked at a man that was nothing more than a means to an end. It was wondering what he would do when he caught her; she was never so foolish as to believe she could never have been caught.

It was the knowledge that he was a soldier. An officer, sure, there was a difference. He was not accustomed to the brutality of the sword, the thunder of a gun in his hands. He was a sailor in the same way that Samantha was a wife to a husband. When cannons fired at his command, it was not because he held the igniting flames in his palms.

But death was his art, just as seduction and lies had been hers. He thought nothing of it, possibly even enjoyed the attention from superiors that it brought to him. She had always known this, sure, but it wasn't until she'd seen the fire in his eyes when the truth of her was told to him, that she truly understood it. But the fear was there, even in bed.

In Esther's sleep there is a peace - gentle, entreating, fulfilling. She grips onto Samantha's nightgown not because she is afraid of what the woman underneath her might be doing, but because she desires her closer, ever closer. Esther buries her head into Samantha's chest like she wishes she could crawl inside it, has a force behind her pressure that is powerful and longing.

And it's peaceful. Painfully so.

She'd never had the pleasure of a woman asleep in her bed before Peter's cottage. For all her lovers, used and discarded, she had never allowed them to be in her own bed. For all her thoughts of whisking a girl away to the countryside, she never did, and despite the feeling inside of her which wished to abandon her husband for any woman who was blushing at her, she was not willing to give up the comforts of her life.

The half of Esther's body laying upon her tells her what a fool she must have been.

Oh, it was impossible to sleep when watching the girl was so enrapturing. The curves of her cheeks, the curling frizz of her hair, the sweet incline of her back underneath the covers. She stays awake, witness to an honor like she had never been given access to before; like each of Esther's breaths were laurels while the tug of her fingertips were medallions.

But neither can she remain awake forever, and despite her unwilling attempts earlier this evening, Samantha cannot sleep. Midnight is likely gone and past, hopefully not by too much, and Esther has reached the depth of slumber where she does not move anymore. Samantha carefully adjusts underneath her, scooping the woman into her arms, and lifts Esther off of her. She rolls onto her side, glad to see that the Sister is a heavy sleeper, and tries to shut her eyes and will herself to unconsciousness.

The night does not take her.

And so, figuring Esther would not resent her too deeply for the intrusion, Samantha presses her lips to her forehead, gently rousing her. Those hazel eyes, which look dark and deep in the low light, blink open heavily, foggy until they slowly recognize her.

"... yes, dear?" She mutters, smacking her lip and lifting her head.

Samantha brushes the hair behind Esther's ear, letting her fingertips drift slowly over her skin. "I was counting the hours until I could next tell you that I loved you, and found the wait unbearable."

"Samantha..." She says dozily, her mouth breaking open into a beaming grin, aided by the soft inhibitions of waking. She tilts her head back, grabbing hold of the former noblewoman's hand and kissing it. "You sappy doll," she accuses. "Come hold me."

And so she pulls Esther back into her chest, affectionately petting her hair.

"I was sleeping so well," the Sister's voice rumbles into her collarbone.

"Forgive me for interrupting it."

"Forgiven," she yawns. "I was having a strange dream I likely would otherwise have forgotten if I slumbered on."

"What was it about?"

Esther hums out a laugh, low and weary. "So, I was in the sanctuary of the church - St. Bartholomew's - and it was dark and cold outside. I, I was going around and extinguishing all the candles, so I could go to sleep, putting them out one by one." She pauses for a moment, lifting up and allowing her eyes to watch the wall, hunting for the disappearing memory of the dream in her mind.

"I think I was using my fingers to do it, sticking them into my mouth after each one so they'd be wet and it wouldn't burn," she shakes her head, a little incredulous. "How gross, they'd have ash from the wicks. Regardless - that's what I was doing.

"Meanwhile, you... you were behind me, relighting each one and begging, 'No! No! Don't go to sleep yet! It's too early!'" She squeaks happily, giggling into the cotton gown underneath her.

Samantha lets a puff of laughter leave her. "What then?"

"You woke me up."

"Liar."

"Not in the slightest!" She leans back, feigning offense. "See how tired my eyes are?" She points to the gray circles under her lashes. "I could never have invented a story such as that whilst so sleepy."

Esther yawns, as though to prove her point, then buries her head back into Samantha's chest, letting herself be wrapped back up into her arms. After a few breaths, the Sister asks, "Why are you up so late?"

"I've been watching you, mostly," Samantha admits. "And considering my decision."

"And?"

"No clarity yet," she shrugs, her head rolling against the pillow.

"It'll come," Esther assures her, though Samantha isn't sure. The former noblewoman feels a warm and telling poke against her leg, just at Esther's hips, and already knows what the woman is going to say when she whispers, "Now that we're both awake, you ought to kiss me."

Samantha lowers a hand down her abdomen, sliding it underneath them to run her fingers around the leather band on Esther's leg. She enjoys the way it causes Esther to push into her a little more. "I think I just might," she concludes.

And then her mouth is upon Esther's, gentle at first, only to be taunted into more force as Esther's tongue sneaks between her teeth. She lets it explore her, eager and perhaps a little hasty, just as the Sister always was, before she slowly pushes the woman off of her and climbs over her.

Hovering above Esther is a place Samantha is growing comfortable in, and she always enjoys the not-so-demure look that flashes across the Sister's eyes each time she does. Her lips, then teeth, play with the space below Esther's collarbone, unhurriedly sucking it in and adding yet another soft, purple bruise to join the others upon the girl from their sessions the last two days.

"You're quite covered in marks, dear," she purrs.

"Oh, aren't they gorgeous?"

"I ought to add a few more," she replies, and Esther is already nodding.

So Samantha's mouth works down her chest, selecting a particularly soft patch of skin that would be easy to hide underneath her robes, and allows her kisses to be long and sweetly forceful. The rest of her body lays down into Esther, her thigh slipping between Esther's, and soon the woman's breaths are growing strained.

Esther places a hand on her back. "Would you move your leg forward slightly - oh, yes," her head rolls back as Samantha grants her request.

The nun grinds her hips along Samantha's thigh, up and down as a few humming moans rumble around in her chest and throat.

"Your endurance is impressive," Samantha tells her. "I've quite lost count of the number of times today."

"If... if each were a currency, I could take you to the market," Esther giggles.

And Samantha smiles as she increases both her speed and force, enjoying how Esther's fingers grip tighter into her back. "So difficult to tire out," she utters, "and just as challenging to grow tired of." She brings her lips back to Esther's mouth. "You're so beautiful."

It doesn't take much longer for Esther's breath to give out, sighing into the room as a small wet spot covers the front of her nightgown and makes it stick to Samantha's thigh. Samantha continues kissing her as Esther's eyes remain shut tightly and the feeling pulses through her, and she revels in just how comfortable it is to be intertwined with her like this.

She strokes a hand across Esther's cheek, until a little while later the woman is asking, "What about you?"

Samantha shakes her head, her lips upturned graciously. "I quite enjoy just watching you. The little contortions of your face are adorable, and it gives me great pride to know that I have caused them."

"That was lovely," she concludes in agreement. Soon after, they are resting in one another's arms, cuddling like the night could go on forever and the dawn would never come. Esther's lips brush against her jaw. "It has somehow reminded me of my first time."

"Oh?" She perks up. "Do tell."

Esther nods. "His name was Michael. He was sweet, a bit awkward though. Not many of the boys showed interest in me because of my rebirth, but Michael," an amused puff of air leaves her mouth, "bless him, I'm not sure he was aware most women possessed different parts than I. Poor guy, I think he believed all of mankind possessed a cock."