A Touch of Heaven

he some higher echelon of priest? Surely he’s not a bishop? I don’t know what the hierarchy is. But somehow I sense it’s more, much more and stranger than that.

“Well…it’s this.”

My eyes widen as I watch, the world tilting and sliding…

With my mouth hanging open and a strange buzzing in my ears, I look not at Patrick’s face, but the air just behind him. The sight takes my breath away, quite literally. I gulp as I finally remember to breathe again.

There’s what can only be described as a disturbance in reality. It twists and warps and then there’s a snap like a high wind catching a sail, and two great shimmering, fluttering, feathered structures unfurl from his shoulders, perfectly visible and yet at the same time insubstantial and translucent as vapor.

Everything seems to drop away from beneath me. It doesn’t make sense. There is no sense to it, but Patrick leans forward, grabs my hands in his, the grip as real and tangible as the phenomenon behind him is impossible.

“Wh-what are th-they?” I stammer, even though the shape is unmistakable. I want to look away, but I know they’ll still be there when I look back again.

“They’re my wings,” says Patrick. “I’m sorry. I should have told you I was an angel.”

As I crumple into unconsciousness, I feel him hold me close again.

Chapter Three

I open my eyes in the dark. What time is it? Where am I? What the hell has happened?

With a struggle, bits come back to me in something of a jumble. Staring at the ceiling, I attempt to sort through them, pull them to the surface of my half-asleep brain. Some of them make me smile in the darkness, feeling sensual and slightly wicked. A little debauched.

As far as I can decipher, I passed out from pleasure again, had an orgasm so stupendous that I blacked out from the intensity of it. Or at least, I think that’s what happened. There’s no other explanation for me being awake one moment and out cold the next.

Does this always happen with Patrick? Boy, he’s good. Do his women always swoon when he makes them climax?

Still drifting and not fully with it, I stir and test my limbs in my usual exploration of possible pain. Everything seems fine though, better than fine. I wriggle my hips and wiggle my fingers and there’s barely a twinge.

Excellent. But it’s still a task to order my thoughts and clear my brain. In fact, the more I reach for it, the fuzzier everything becomes. Something’s sharp enough though, and I smile, gasp, almost reliving the delicious pleasure of Patrick’s mouth against me. My sex flutters as if he’s still down there, making magic with his tongue.

But still there’s something else bugging me. It’s big and scary, but I just can’t make it resolve. My mind keeps blanking when I grapple for it, almost as it’s automatically trying to save me from myself, and some appalling, astonishing secret or shock.

Then, still thrashing my brain cells, I freeze. It’s not memory though, just physical realization. My heart starts to pound.

Beside me, I hear a soft sigh, and to accompany it the sound of a body shifting against the mattress.

Oh, how wonderful. How wonderful and strange and unexpected.

I’m not alone.

Rolling to one side, I pat around and find that far from disappearing and leaving me to wake alone like before, Patrick is still here sleeping next to me. We’re both reposed on the top of the duvet. I’m naked and lovingly swathed in my favorite fleece throw again, and he’s just lying there, fully clothed, on his side with his hands tucked beneath his face like an angelic child.

Angelic? Oh God…

It all comes slamming back in with the force of a pneumatic hammer. The memory emerges from the lingering clouds of sleep. Something that just has to be a dream or some kind of mind trick, because it’s too crazy and far too far out there to be real.

I could swear I saw wings. Yes, wings, for heaven’s sake. Great big, honking wings, attached to Patrick’s shoulders.

Well, I say attached. That was a bit of a grey area. They seemed to be there, and yet they weren’t there. Beautiful, substantial constructions of immaculate, snowy-white feathers, yet transparent as if projected on a screen.

Crikey, it’s no wonder I passed out. Who wouldn’t?

They’re not there now though. Gingerly, I sit up and shake off my throw, and then, shifting my weight as little as possible, I lean over him. No, no wings. The back of his waistcoat is dark silk, smooth and undamaged, covering his strong back and certainly not hiding any supernatural appendages. Just to be sure, I cautiously reach across and touch the satiny cloth. There’s heat from his body, and his muscles are firm and resilient, but there’s nothing at all there that shouldn’t be.

I frown and my mind capers around a bit. What about hypnotism? Was he using the power of suggestion for some arcane purpose he’s yet to reveal to me? It has to be that. It’s a game, and I just don’t know why he’s playing it yet.

A little sigh interrupts my examinations, and I freeze. Rocking back again, I look down into Patrick’s eyes, so blue and still lambent despite the darkness. His expression is clear and innocent, but it could be hiding terrible danger.

“Hello.” He unfolds his hands from beneath his cheek and then unfolds himself up into a sitting position.

He’s so handsome. So like a man, a gorgeous one, but pretty normal. So not like any man I’ve ever known, or imagined knowing, perhaps not even a man at all. No, please, that’s ridiculous. He is a man. He’s got to be.

“What I think I saw… I imagined it, didn’t I?” Suddenly it dawns on me I’m as good as naked, and I scrabble for my throw and wrap it tightly around me. I wish I could reach my old velour dressing gown hanging on the hook behind the door. It covers me from neck to toes, and it’s substantial. “Are you some kind of hypnotist? Or something like that?”

“No, I’m afraid you didn’t imagine it,” says the so-called angel on my bed.

He’s quiet and unshakably calm, which only makes me almost judder with confusion and frustration. “Oh, come on. You’re not really telling me you’re an angel, are you? You’ve got to be kidding. You are joking, aren’t you?”

He shakes his head in answer.

“Well, that’s just great.” I’m still taking this in, and it’s hard. In fact it’s impossible. So many implications I daren’t even think about. If he’s scamming me somehow it’s bad, bad, bad. But if he believes it himself, that’s even worse. If he’s delusional… “How on earth can you be an angel when I’m not even sure I believe in them?”

I feel cold and sick. Maybe I’m the one going mad, not him. But if he is a dangerous lunatic, then how the hell can I see his hallucination?

“You don’t have to believe in me for me to exist.” The words are nonsense. They don’t compute. He scans me with those sharp eyes of his, and I can feel him reading my fears and doubts. He makes as if to move forward and embrace me, and I shrink back. How can something as delicious as the pleasure we’ve shared go bad so quickly.

I must get him out of here. I could be in deadly peril. My brain instructs me, but my heart and body still respond to his beauty.

Oh hell, do I still want him? Even after this latest bombshell?