Gabriel's Inferno

“Now tell me about your meeting with Katherine.”

Julia had to wait a moment until her fingers stopped tingling before she began. “She was exactly as you described. But she was very happy I’d read Charles Williams. I think that warmed her up a little. She agreed to be my advisor.”

“And what did she think of your proposal?”

“Um, she thought it was derivative and so she suggested that rather than comparing courtly love and lust, I should compare aspects of the friendship between Virgil and Dante with the theme of courtly love. So rather than discussing lust and love, I’ll be discussing love and friendship.”

“Are you happy with that?”

“I think so. We decided that I should take Professor Leaming’s Aquinas seminar next semester because it’s going to be on love and friendship.”

Gabriel nodded. “I know Jennifer Leaming. She’s quite good.”

Julia fidgeted with the duvet.

He placed his hand over hers. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“No hiding, Julianne. What is it?”

“I e-mailed Professor Leaming a week ago to ask if she would be my director. That was before you and I had our, um, conversation.”

Gabriel’s eyes grew momentarily cold. “And what did she say?”

“She didn’t.”

“Jennifer is very busy. She’s untenured, and I doubt she has time to supervise graduate students outside of the Philosophy Department.” He paused. “When I told you I would find you another director, did you not believe me?”

Julia squirmed. “I believed you.”

“Then why did you feel the need to go behind my back?”

“I wanted to see if I could fix it on my own.”

Gabriel pressed his mouth into a hard line. “And how did that work out?”

“It didn’t.”

“Sooner or later you are going to have to trust me. Particularly about things having to do with the university. Or this isn’t going to work.”

She nodded, chewing the inside of her mouth slightly. “Tell me about your meeting with Christa.”

“I’d rather not. She’s a pest.”

Julia tried in vain to smother a smile.

“She’s far too busy trying to rescue her dissertation proposal to trouble us. I won’t accept her project as it is, which means she has to find another supervisor. And as you know, I’m the only professor supervising theses on Dante at the moment.”

“So Christa is out?”

“I told her today that I would give her until December eighteenth to turn in an acceptable proposal. And that was a gift. So don’t worry about her anymore. Her academic future hangs by a thread, and I’m holding the end of it.”

Good, thought Julia.

“I had an interesting conversation with my lawyer today.”

She took another sip of wine and waited for him to continue.

“He said that he’s going to look into the non-fraternization policy, but he strongly warned against any kind of romantic relationship with you while you’re in my class.”

She reddened. “Does that include kissing?”

“Assuredly, but he pointed out that the university is concerned primarily with sexual activity. So as long as we’re chaste and discreet this semester, I don’t think we’ll have a problem.”

Julia reddened even further and looked down into her wine glass.

“So you’ll have to keep your hands to yourself, Miss Mitchell, until I’ve turned your grade in. After that, well…” He grinned at her suggestively.

“You can’t be kissing me one minute and grading my essay the next.”

“At this point, I couldn’t be objective about your work even if I tried.

I’ll have Katherine grade it.”

“Won’t she find that peculiar?”

He smiled. “I’ll make an excuse. And I’ll buy her a bottle of sixteen-year-old Lagavulin. It would resurrect the dead.”

“You’re still proposing fraternization — of a sort.”

Gabriel cupped her face in his hands. “But it’s less serious than an affair and therefore puts us at much lower risk with the administration. I have my lawyer looking at all the loopholes.”

“I don’t want to be a loophole.”

“I don’t view you as one. Do you want me to stay away for five weeks and not see you at all? Not hold your hand or put my arms about you? Is that what you want?”

Julia thought for a moment, and the idea made her ill. She shook her head.

“I’d like to continue to see you, as friends of course. You’re still deciding if you can trust me, and we’re still getting to know one another. What the university doesn’t know won’t hurt us.” Gabriel took her wine glass and placed it alongside his on the card table. When he returned, he pulled her so that she was almost sitting in his lap.

“We can pretend we’re both in high school and living in Selinsgrove.

We’ve just begun dating, and because we’re good little teenagers and slightly old-fashioned, we’ve taken a vow of chastity.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“I have a vivid and detailed imagination when it comes to you,” he whispered. “And maybe I wish we’d been teenagers together.”

“So this is headed toward an affair?”

Gabriel was quiet for a moment.

“I had in mind something less tawdry. But Julianne, much of what our relationship will or won’t be rests entirely with you.”

She nodded to indicate that she’d heard him, and they both fell silent.

Eventually she closed her eyes, breathing in his scent and feeling strangely calmed by the regular rhythm of his heartbeat. Gabriel stroked her hair and whispered to her in Italian.

“Julianne?”

Silence.

“Julia?” He leaned down only to discover that she’d fallen asleep. He didn’t want to wake her. But he also didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye, and he wanted her to lock the door behind him.

He lifted her carefully and placed her underneath the sheets and comforter, hoping that she would wake up. But she didn’t. Gabriel regarded her little form, the way her chest rose and fell with her gentle breathing, her lips slightly parted. She was pretty. She was sweet.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent a chaste evening with a beautiful woman who wasn’t a relative. A chaste evening that was fraught with desire and passion and an overwhelming need…He wanted her.

But the old interior conflict loomed large in his mind. He did not wish to corrupt her, to make her like him. He did not want to make her vulnerable or cause her to bleed in any sense. He seriously doubted his ability to be involved with her physically and not lose control, for the mere sight of her in a towel had almost shattered his resolve.

This is what comes of years of unbridled lust — now you don’t even have the ability to court her like a gentleman. You want to make love to this girl without lapsing into fucking, but can you? Can you be sexually involved with her without treating her like a pretty toy that has been constructed solely for your carnal satisfaction? Can you love without sin?

Gabriel’s thoughts troubled him as he stared at the rosy-cheeked lamb that trusted him enough to fall asleep in his arms, oblivious to the passion that boiled in his veins. He emptied his pockets and turned off his iPhone before heading to the washroom. He turned down the baseboard heater, as promised, and quickly stripped to his t-shirt and boxer briefs. He took a moment to inventory Julia’s shampoo and bath products, committing their names to memory so that he could be sure to stock his bathroom for her next visit. He definitely preferred vanilla to any other scent. Although vanilla and chocolate…

He turned out the lights and climbed into her twin bed. It was far too small for two persons; in truth, it made Gabriel almost nostalgic for the residence hall beds at Princeton or Magdalen College. Almost. Those beds were barely tolerable for sleeping and certainly far from ideal for any kind of sexual activity. It was fortunate that such activity was off the menu for this evening.

As Gabriel rolled to his side, his hand fastened on a small, smooth piece of paper that was wedged underneath the pillow. He retrieved it and held it up against the sliver of moonlight that was streaming in from behind the curtain. What he saw more than surprised him for in his hand was an old photograph of him from his Princeton days. He recognized the varsity rowing jersey he was wearing.

How did she get this?  How long has she had it?  He slid the photo back under the pillow, the ends of his mouth turning up in wonder. Something akin to hope began to warm his insides.

He’d never been a fan of spooning; it was an act far too intimate for him. But tonight it was what he wanted. He curved his body around hers and stretched his left arm over her waist, placing a light hand on her stomach. They fit together perfectly. Gabriel sighed with contentment at the soft warmth of the young woman he treasured in his arms, his nose buried in long, soft, vanilla-scented hair.

Sometime around three o’clock in the morning, Julia opened her eyes.

A strong arm tightened its hold on her, and the scent that was Gabriel’s filled her head. She was wrapped in his arms, his chest against her back.

Although he’d moved seemingly in reaction to her anxiety, the sound of his breathing indicated that he was still asleep.

Julia looked at him in the darkness. How many years had she waited just to be sleeping at his side once again? She shifted slowly, so that she was lying on her back. With his eyes closed and a look of peace on his face, he looked much younger. Almost like a boy — a gentle boy with brown hair and pink lips who smiled sweetly in his sleep. Julia sighed her aesthetic appreciation.

His eyes flickered open. It took a moment for him to be able to focus on her in the dark, but when he did, he leaned over to press his lips against hers.

“Are you all right?” he whispered against her mouth.

“You’re still here.”

“I won’t leave you again without saying good-bye. Can’t you sleep?”

“I thought this was a dream.”

Gabriel smiled at her in the darkness. “Only for me.”

“You’re gorgeous, Gabriel. You always were, you know.”

“Nature’s cruelty — the fallen angel retains his beauty. But I’m ugly on the inside.”

She kissed him back firmly, trying to convey the truth of the words she was about to speak before they were audible. “Someone who is ugly on the inside wouldn’t have bought me a messenger bag and kept his generosity a secret.”

Gabriel stared at her. “How long have you known?”

“Rachel told me.”

“And did it make you more likely to accept it, or less likely?”

“At the time, only half and half.”

“I noticed you don’t use it anymore,” he whispered, reaching up to push the hair back from her face.

“I’ll use it again.”

“So you like it?”

“Very much. Thank you.”

He nuzzled his nose lightly against hers and smiled. “You were merely beautiful at seventeen, Julianne. You’re stunning now.”