Passion Perfect

badtyler

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9] [Part 10] [Part 11] [Part 12] [Part 13] [Part 14] [Part 15] [Part 16] [Part 17] [Part 18] [Part 19] [Part 20] [Part 21] [Part 22] [Part 23]

In the end, Natalia didn't sleep a wink.

Father Joe was right - the Pope's letter was beautiful, but it was also dense and sometimes confusing, especially to someone operating on more adrenaline than sleep.  It spoke of facets of love, and balance, and the search for the eternal through human relationships.  And as she read Natalia had begun to realise that her life, to date, had been completely unbalanced.

She had always been first in line to give of herself.  No-one could accuse Natalia Rivera of being uncharitable, after all.  And whether it was baking dozens upon dozens of cookies for the church bake sale, or going without meals so that her son's belly could be full, Natalia had always been ready and willing to sacrifice.  And this trait extended into her romantic life too.

First Nicky, whose arms she'd run to as a frightened child, terrified of a self she couldn't live with.  She'd needed him as shelter, a place to hide, and so she'd given him her body in payment.  Later, when they were married, she'd sold herself in much the same way - this time in exchange for the normal family and easy life she knew Rafe had always dreamed of.  And Frank...Frank was a rinse and repeat mistake, familiar ground.

Sex for her had always been about giving - giving herself, giving pleasure, giving her body like it was a commodity to trade for safety, or normality.  It had never been enjoyable per se - not until Olivia.  But with Olivia she had swung too far the other way - taking, grasping, claiming, possessing.  Although she loved Olivia, it hadn't been beautiful like she'd wanted their first time to be.

The letter she still held in her trembling hands described the kind of beautiful love-making she'd been dreaming about.  There would be a balance of give and take, with every facet of love joining together like the colours of the spectrum to create a pure, white light.

I could have that with Olivia, she thought, hope rising in her heart for the first time in weeks.  We could do this.  We could make this work.

Because she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Olivia loved her.  She could feel it as an almost physical force whenever they were in the same room.  And like she'd said to Father Joe yesterday - love was what mattered.  The church wouldn't sanctify their union, but love would.  Love, respect, restraint, balance - with those, she could make this right.

Bolstered by this new-found sense of peace and confidence, she found herself laughing, quietly at first and then more and more freely, until finally she attracted onlookers - Rafe and her mother.

"Ma?" Rafe asked, a confused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.  "What is it?  Why are you laughing?"

She dropped the letter onto the bed and rose up to take him in her arms.  "I just realised that everything is going to be okay, baby," she said, holding him close.

Josephine snorted.  "How do you figure?" she said, sarcasm dripping from every word.  Slowly, Natalia's laughter died.

"Mom-" she began, but Josephine cut her off.

"You came home late last night," she snapped.  "What were you doing?"

Natalia swallowed hard, fighting the urge to cringe back like she was a frightened school-girl.  "Olivia, Emma and I went to the park," she said, only a little defensively.  "We ran into Selina and her partner and their nephew.  We joined them for something to eat.  Then I went to vigil mass and confession."

A deeply unpleasant sneer formed on Josephine's face.  "Long confession," she said.  "You had a lot to confess, hmm?  Like what you get up to with that so-called boss of yours."

Natalia flushed and Rafe looked between them in confusion.  "Ma?" he mumbled, a frown creasing his face.

Not like this, Natalia's mind screamed.  Don't do this mom, I don't want him to find out like this!

"Olivia is my boss," she said softly.  "And anything we may 'get up to' is not anything I need to confess."

A look of incredulity followed by fury rolled across Josephine's face.  "You lie to me in my own house!" she demanded, her voice raising.  "You think I'm stupid, Natalia?  First you carried on with that dreadful girl Selina - right under my nose!  And now you try to tell me this woman is just your boss?"

Natalia took a deep breath.  Rafe was looking at her with an expression of dawning horror.  "She's not just my boss," she said softly, but clearly.  "She's the best friend I've ever had.  She's my family.  And I love her."

Her declaration was like a solid object in the room.  It slid from her lips and coiled up on the floor like a sleeping cobra, then reared up, ready to strike.  And it struck Rafe first.

"What?"  He took a step back from her.  "Ma, what are you saying?"

The blood had drained from Natalia's face, but her voice was steady.  "If you're old enough to ask the question, you're old enough to hear the answer," she murmured.  She took another deep, steadying breath then found his eyes and held them.  "I'm in love with Olivia."

There was a moment of stunned silence before the explosion, a calm before the storm.  Natalia could hear nothing but the ticking of the clock on her bedside table, feel nothing but the pounding of her own heart.  Rafe's eyes registered shock, disgust, hurt, anger, confusion, all in varying degrees, rolling in and out like waves at high tide.

"Oh my God," he muttered.  "Oh my...no.  No.  I can't believe this.  I refuse to believe this!"

"I can believe it," Josephine interjected, suddenly reminding both mother and son that they were not alone.  Natalia's head snapped round.

"Of course," she said sharply.  "You knew.  When I was a kid, and Selina was here..."

"Awful girl," Josephine muttered, frowning.

"Who the hell is Selina?" Rafe demanded, but Natalia ignored him.  She couldn't deal with that now.

"What was so awful about her?  That she was my friend?  That she wasn't Catholic?  Or that she was gay?"  She turned to face her mother, crossing her arms across her chest.  Josephine threw her hands up in the air.

"I was trying to protect you!" she exclaimed.  "That girl was trouble.  Temptation!"  Natalia scoffed.

"Right, so throwing her out of the house that morning was supposed to remove the temptation, was it?" she demanded.  "It doesn't work like that mom!  You don't stop being gay just because the object of your affection isn't around."

"MA!"

Natalia snapped her mouth closed and turned to her son guiltily.  She had almost forgotten he was there.  "Rafe," she began, reaching out to him, but he flinched away.

"I don't understand," he said, a whining tone entering his voice.  "Ma, you're not gay.  Come on, ma.  You were married!  To my father, a man.  You can't be gay.  You can't."

Natalia's lower lip trembled.  Why did she have to say it out loud so soon after being able to admit it to herself?  Was this some kind of test?  God making sure she was certain about this whole thing?

"I'm sorry, Rafe," she said softly, wiping at a few errant tears.  "I...I think..." she closed her eyes, then shook her head.  "I am," she said at last, without qualifications.  "I am."

The shock of her declaration sent him reeling like a physical blow.  He shook his head.  "No," he pleaded.  "No...Ma, this isn't right."

"Rafe," she said, reaching out to him, but he flinched away.

"Don't touch me!" he screamed, and Natalia reared back as if struck.  "I don't know you.  You're not my mother."  He took one step back, then two.  "I'm outta here."

He got as far as the door before he was stopped in his tracks by a commanding bellow that brooked no contradiction.

"Don't you dare walk away from her!"

Natalia gaped at her mother, not quite able to believe what had just come out of her mouth.  Josephine was bristling with anger.  She grabbed Rafe by the hair, dragging him back into Natalia's bedroom and throwing him to the bed, ignoring his gasps of pain and disbelief.  "Grandma," he gasped, but one look from her quieted him.

"Shut your mouth you ungrateful wretch!" she shouted.  Natalia's jaw almost hit the floor, but her mother ignored her.  "How dare you speak to her like that?  How dare you?  Since the moment you were born she has done nothing but love you and care for you and put you first.  She's only ever wanted what's best for you.  You have been her entire world for as long as you've been alive.  Who are you to walk away from her now, just because she's made a mistake?"

Natalia picked her jaw back up off the floor as her own anger re-asserted itself.  "Love is not a mistake," she said, but Josephine waved her away.

"Oh, of course it is," she said dismissively.  "It's selfish and sinful and against God's word, Natalia."  Rafe was rubbing at his sore scalp, but he nodded along with his grandmother.

"Listen to her, ma," he said.  Natalia shook her head in disbelief.  An old anger rose up from a long buried pit in her stomach, burning through her throat, choking to be set free.

"You want to talk about sin?" she said, her voice deceptively calm.  "Because we can talk about sin, if you really want to."

Josephine turned to face her.  They stood opposite each other like two boxers waiting for the bell, with Rafe between them like a confused referee.  "What are you talking about Natalia?" she growled.

Natalia almost laughed.  "I'm talking about hypocrisy!" she exclaimed.  "I'm talking about you and dad bringing me up as a Catholic, saying prayers, going to church, believing in love and forgiveness.  And then-" she broke off, almost choking on bitterness and vitriol.  "And then...when I got pregnant-"

"Ma," Rafe interrupted, reaching out to her.  Natalia waved his hand away, not breaking eye contact with her mother.

"And then," she continued.  "When I most needed you to love me and forgive me...you betrayed me."

Josephine flinched as if she'd been slapped.  "We betrayed you?" she gasped.  "How dare you!"

"Ma, what is this?" Rafe demanded, standing up and forcing his mother to look at him.  Natalia turned her eyes onto him, the lines of her face tense with fury.

"You want to pontificate with her about sin, huh Rafe?" she hissed.  "With her?"  She turned back to her mother and spat the accusation like a bullet.

"If she'd had her way you would never have been born!"

TBC...