Here was a knotty problem. Which way had they gone? Left, or right? Upstream, or down?
“Well met by moonlight, handsome stranger.”
She rose up out of the water, dark hair shimmering over her shoulders to cloak her breasts—and that was all that did. Her eyes were large, and slanted; her nose was small, but her mouth was wide, with full, red lips, and her skin was very pale. “How fortunate am I,” she purred, “that hath found a gentleman to company me.” She waded toward him, up out of the water. As she rose, watercress draped itself about her hips in a token tribute of modesty. Father Al managed to wrench his gaze back to her face, feeling the responses in his body that reminded him that priests are human, too. He swallowed thickly, turned his lips inward to wet them, and muttered. “Greetings, Lady of the Waters.”
“No lady I,” she murmured, “but a wanton, eager to do the bidding of a mortal man.” She twined her arms about his neck and pressed up against him.
It ran counter to every demand his body screamed, but Father Al pulled her arms loose, gently but firmly, and pressed her hands together in front of his chest, forcing her body away from his. She stared at him in surprise. “How now! Do not deny that thou dost want me!”
“I do,” Father Al admitted, “but ‘twould be wrongful.” He glanced down at her fingers, and noticed the tiny, vestigial webs between them. ,
“Wrongful, because thou art a mortal, and I a nymph?” She laughed, revealing small, perfect, very white teeth. “Come, now! It hath been often done, and always to the man’s delight!”
Delight, yes—but Father Al remembered some old tales, of how a water-maid’s seduction had led to death—or, failing that, to a steadily-worsening despair that had surely torn apart the mortal lover’s soul. He clung to the memory to give him strength, and explained, “It must not be—and the fact that I am human and you are not has little enough to do with it; for see you, lass, if thou dost give out favors of thy body where thou art lusted for, but are not loved, thou dost break thine own integrity.”
“Integrity?” She smiled, amused. “ ‘Tis a word for mortals, not for faery folk.”
“Not so,” Father Al said sternly, “for the word means ‘wholeness,’ the wholeness of thy soul.”
She laughed, a dazzling cascade of sound. “Surely thou dost jest! The faery folk have no immortal souls!”
“Personalities, then.” Father Al was miffed at himself for having forgotten. “Identity. The sum and total of thyself, that which makes thee different, unique, special—not quite like any other water-nymph that ever was.”
She lost her smile. “I think thou dost not jest.”
“Indeed, I do not. Thy identity, lass, thy true self, hidden away and known only to thyself, is what thou really art. ‘Tis founded on those few principles that thou dost truly and most deeply believe in—those beliefs which, when manners and graces and fashions of behaving are all stripped away, do still remain, at the bottom and foundation of thy self.”
“Why, then,” she smiled, “I am a wanton; for in my deepest self, my chiefest principle is pleasure sexual.” And she tried to twine her arms about his neck again.
Well, Father Al had heard that one before, and not just from aquatic women, either. He held her hands firmly, and held her gaze, looking deeply into her eyes. “ ‘Tis an excuse, I trow, and will not serve. Some male hath wronged thee deeply, when thou wast young and tender. Thou didst open thy heart to him, letting him taste thy secret self, and didst therefore open, too, thy body, for it seemed fully natural that the one should follow the other.”
She stared at him, shocked, then suddenly twisted, trying to yank herself free. “I’ll not hear thee more!”
“Assuredly, thou wilt,” he said sternly, holding her wrists fast, “for this young swain, when he had had his fill of thee, tore himself away, and tore a part of thy secret self with him. Then went he on his merry way, whistling, and sneering at thee—and thou wast lost in sorrow and in pain, for he had ripped away a part of thine inner self that never could be brought and mended back.”
“Mortal,” she fairly shrieked, “art thou crazed? I am a nymph!”
Father Al had heard that one before, too. “It matters not. There was never a thinking creature made to tear her secret self to bits, and toss the pieces out to passers-by; thus thou wouldst slowly shred thy secret self away, till nought was left, and thou didst not truly exist—only a walking shell would then be left. And this doth happen whenever thou dost open thy body to one who loves thee not, and whom thou dost not love. That breaks the wholeness of thy secret self, for we are made in such a wise that our inner selves and bodies are joined as one, and when the one doth open, the other should.
So if thou dost open thy body while keeping thy secret self enclosed, thou dost break the wholeness of thy self.”
“A thousand times have I so done,” she sneered, “yet I am whole within!”
“Nay, thou’it not. Each time, a tiny piece of thee hast gone, though thou didst strive to know it not.”
“Nay, not so—for ‘tis my nature to give my body and retain my self untouched! I am a nymph!”
“This is a thin excuse that thou didst first concoct, when first thy secret self was torn. Thou then didst say, ‘It matters not; I am untouched. This is my nature, to give of my body and not of my soul; mine only true desire is pleasure.’ And to prove it to thyself, thou didst seek to couple with every male that happened by—yet each time, thou wast more torn, and didst need to prove it more—so thou didst seek out more to pleasure thee, quite frantically—though in thy depths, thou knew it pleasured thee not at all. For in truth, ‘twas only an excuse.”
“And what of thee?” she demanded angrily. “Why dost thou rant thus at me? Why dost thou make me stay to listen, when I would turn away? Is not this thine own excuse, for the hot lust that doth throb within thee at the sight of me?”
Touché, Father Al thought. “It is indeed. Yet hath mine excuse done harm to thee? Or me?”
She frowned prettily, searching his eyes. “Nay…none to me. Yet I think that it doth harm to thee—for what is natural to thyself would be to grapple me, and couple here in wildness and in frenzy.”
“Thou dost read me shrewdly,” Father Al admitted. “Yet though ‘tis ‘natural,’ lass, it is not right—for thereby would a part of me be ripped away, even as a part of thee would.” He sighed. “It is a male conceit that a woman’s self may be rended by a one-night’s coupling, while the man’s is not—but ‘tis only a conceit. We, too, are made all of one piece, body and soul so shrewdly welded together that we cannot give of the one without giving of the other. And we, too, can be rended by a first coupling with a one who loves us not, and may seek to deny that hurt by seeking to lie with every maid we may. Thus is the legend born of prowess male, and many a young man’s soul is rended by the promiscuity that comes of thus attempting to prove himself a legend”—which is to say, a ghost. But if young men would speak the truth, they would own that there is little enough pleasure in it—for loveless coupling, at the moment when pleasure should transform itself to ecstasy, truly turns itself to ashes, and the taste of gall.”
“I think,” she said slowly, “that thou dost speak from hurt that thou hast known.”
He smiled ruefully. “All young men commit the same mistakes; all step upon the brush that covers o’er the pitfall, no matter how loudly their seniors blare the warnings in their ears. I was once young; and I was not always of the Cloth.”
Her eyes widened in horror. She leaped back, looking him up and down in one quick glance, and pressed her hands to her mouth. “Thou art a monk!”
He smiled. “Hadst thou only seen that I was male?”