A COMET FOR TWELFTH NIGHT
Another slice of life at St. Dunstan's; for background, please consult the previous episodes Second in a flock of four. Feedback welcome.
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"Tell me, Vicar, was the Star of Bethlehem a comet?" It was a balmy fall day, and appropriate to have a bit of St. Martin's summer on Martinmas. The choir boys hadn't been very interested in my presentation on St. Martin, and I was filling my time with them before rehearsal by taking questions.
"What makes you say that, Jeremy?" I responded. Jeremy Ploughright was a tall lad in the choir, and at the top of his class in science. He was also one of the most forthcoming, and would discuss anything until stopped.
"Well, Vicar, we just learned in science class that a comet is going to pass by Earth next month around Christmas, and I wondered if that was what the Wise Men saw."
It took a moment to remember what I read about the subject of the Star: I'd done a paper on this for a class at Seabury in my Seminary days. "Hmmm, there's no conclusive proof which astrological phenomena was the Star of Bethlehem. There was a triple conjunction of Mars, Saturn and Jupiter that happened around the years 7-6 BC; Johannes Kepler suggested the this conjunction was the Star. Origen suggested in the Third Century that the Star of Bethlehem was a comet and there's a lot of support for that theory. I don't have a strong opinion either way. Tell me about the one that's coming." Freddie Burkitt's hand shot in the air, begging me to call on him. Freddie was one of Mavis Hazelton's grandchildren. "Okay, Freddie, tell us about it."
"Father, it's going to become visible around the feast of St. Lucy, December 12
th
, but it won't show a tail until Christmas Eve. We'll see it all the way to Twelfth Night, January 6
th
, although the best view will be in the Southern Hemisphere."
"Excellent, Freddie." Mavis was always proud of her oldest grandson, who was exceptionally bright as well. The choir director came into the room, and I led them in the Lord's Prayer before they filed out for rehearsal. Curious, I looked up the information on the comet on the Internet when I got back to my study, and refreshed my grasp of the theories around the Star of Bethlehem.
As coincidence would have it, Mavis brought my Tea around that evening. I told her about Freddie's knowledge of the comet and she puffed up with pride. "He's a bright lad, our Freddie. Takes after his father in brains, although he'd better not become the piker the old man is. Leaving a wife and five children on their own like he did, for an eighteen year old trollop! Forgive and forget, the Bible says, but that prick isn't getting any slack from me, in fact, I'd gladly hold open the door to Hades for the bastard."
"Mavis, the Bible doesn't say 'Forgive and forget'."
"No. I could have sworn."
"Look it up sometime. We'll talk about Freddie's dad another time. So Freddie's a talented lad?"
"Oh yes, Vicar, our pride and joy. In a few years, he'll be a scholarship boy, we're certain."
"Grand. By the way, this is wonderful, Mavis. You've outdone yourself."
"Thanks, Vic, flattery like that will get you everywhere." She turned and gave me a broad wink.
"How about some company for a while after?"
"Grand, Mavis. Bring your bag of fun?"
"Always, Vic, always. Thought about a thing or two I noticed last time I was here."
"What?"
"Just wait." I finished my meal, and led Mavis upstairs, my pants bulging in anticipation.
When we got upstairs, she stood on her toes and gave me a long, sloppy French kiss. I took off my jacket and dog collar, but stopped knowing she like to control how much she undressed me, and she liked to be pleased fully naked while I was dressed. Opening her bag, she showed me how she had run a ten foot length of high test fishing line through the chain of her nipple clamps; the far end held a safety pin like clasp at the end. At her bidding, I took the line and ran it up to a hook that was directly over my bed: my predecessor had a flowerpot hung there, directly over where his wife slept from what I understood. She disrobed; her plump, short body bounced onto the bed making it creak frighteningly. I found the length of rope kept in her bag, gave her a long, deep kiss as she lay there and asked her: "Will you have the usual, Mavis?"
"I thought a little variation tonight, Vic. Tie the girls up like you always do, but don't oil them. Put some of the fishing weights from my bag on the end of the line. I'll tell ya when it's enough."
I did a series of alternating figure eights and loops around her huge mammaries, but instead of tying the rope off around her neck, I ran the end up around the poles of my headboard, looping them around to tie them to her wrists. "Ooo, lovely Vic, wish I'd thought of that. Now put the clamps on. Ooowwwww, yes. Tighter, tigher,yes. Now the other one. Ooooooowwwwwwww. Same as the other one: tighter. Yes, yes, yes, stop. Let's get the weights out."
I recognized them from my rural American childhood: simple balls of lead with a small loop at one end to attach it to the line. They were huge, and felt like two pounds each. "Where did you get these?"
"Harry's trawling net. The clip on with a device like that on the end of the line is from it, too.."
"What if Harry misses them?"
"Hasn't gone fishing for fifteen years; hasn't even looked in the garage for seven. He won't miss them, and if he did, he wouldn't care. Clip a couple on the line and let them swing."
My bedroom had a high ceiling, and the other end of the line was hanging at chest height in front of me. Giving it an experimental pull, I stretched her buds a little, just to see how she would take it. She let out a long wail, then puffed and blew several times. "It's grand, Vic, it's grand. What a charmer you are, laddie. Put the weights on."
The weights pulled the chain up, lifting her heavy mounds. It let them swing, clanking at the middle, making her puff and blow to control herself. I took out another and showed it to her; she nodded quickly and pulled her hands down, tightening her tits more. One, two three more, and I could tell she reached her limit. The chain pulled the clamps up; her buds were distended for two inches and her boobs started to turn red from their confinement. Sending them swinging dramatically, I lay down next to her on the bed, almost fully clothed I traced my long fingernails across the stretched skin of her breasts, while licking my way around her huge, seven inch wide nipples avoiding the clamped nubbins. Mavis began to wiggle and squirm, moaning and yelping telling me that she was close to her orgasm. Back and forth the fishing weights went, pulling her nipples and breasts in rhythm as I worked on them with my fingernails and tongue. At last, she began to shudder, crossing the boundary to a massive orgasm, thrashing around regardless of the confinement, that lasted for almost seven minutes.
I released her, and she gave me a deep kiss. Standing me beside the bed, she undid my fly and pulled my pants to the floor, sticking my erection through the flap of my boxers. She gave me a two-handed hand job, going into my boxers to lick my oysters the whole time. The session stimulated me more than I imagined, and it wasn't long before I provided a white flood of spunk to cover her face and coat her tongue. Licking madly and guiding it with her fingers, she got every drop, swallowing it like a fine post dinner prandial.
The St. Martin's summer ended two days later, dispelled by dark clouds and cold rain. The Quilting Ladies were working on a great Christmas quilt, and granddaughters Jenny Button, Agnes Sterns and Betsy Clark were helping to speed the work. This meant fewer passing encounters in the Quilting room, but the ladies always brought my Tea, and when I didn't have an evening commitment, stayed to provide dessert.
Thanksgiving was always a day of absence. I had no real attachment to the other American civic holidays in exile, but the memories of my family gathered at the ranch on Thanksgiving always tugged at me: sitting around a groaning table of traditional Turkey, dressing and fixings to eat ourselves silly; playing cards all afternoon while our dinners settled; a day end horseback ride around the property regardless of the weather, sandwiches and pie around a roaring hearth in the evening. That day I stopped being a happy adopted Englishman and longed for the Plains of Western Kansas. Mary and Sheila did their best to give me the content of the occasion, but it was the 9:00PM call home after the conclusion of the family feast that kept the flame of my heart going.
Advent began its season of longing and hope, and my personal hope to see the comet on St. Lucy's Day was frustrated by cloudy skies and sleet. The one clear night was had was broken by a program at the local grade school; Mary and I looked for vain in the Vicarage back yard for the hairy star for half an hour afterward.
It was a cold, wet December 23. The streets were damp and the sky overcast, lending a peculiar sheen to the night as I walked back from the Sailor's Home Christmas Party. The men were grateful for the company, and that was what mattered to me: I hate the prolonged wallowing in Christmas sentimentality that precedes the feast itself for a month and a half. Thank God for England: it refused to go ditzy about the reindeer and snowmen and sappy melodrama that my homeland likes to snuggle with this time of year. St. Dunstan's had retrieved an ancient Tradition of Midnight Eucharist at my urging, and in three years the attendance had become respectable enough to keep it going.
Christmas Eve midnight: that was the time to roll out the tree and all the trimmings, to lose oneself joyfully in the celebration of the Savior's birth. The Quilting Ladies didn't quite understand why I didn't let them deck the Vicarage sooner; they thought that as an American I would want all the cheap folderol of my home culture's Christmas. There were a few good natured jibes about "Father Ebenezer", but in the end they respected my wishes.