Past Present by Secret Narrative

afraid for the first time in his life, in the knowledge that God had deserted him at the first sign of his weak lust, and his blackened soul, the vessel of his undoing. For even as he fled to the safety of his dwelling, his cock hardened at the thought of the golden girl, so recently crouched at his feet, ready to do his bidding.
    “I love her, God help me.” Reaching sanctuary, he fell to his knees, sprawled against his pallet, head bowed, hands clasped in prayer above his head. He prayed to God. “Father forgive me, for I have sinned,” and he vowed to stop all dalliances, and commit himself once more to his calling. Stripping off his robe, and standing naked in the centre of his single room, scourge in hand, he whipped hard. First, over one shoulder, and then the other, alternating, harder and faster, faster and harder. Although not fervently religious, Father Mathieu’s flagellation both scourged his soul, prepared him for full penance, and made his cock ache. As the knotted leather cut into his skin again and again, the satisfaction of penance coupled with the ejaculation that had threatened from the moment Leonora crouched at his feet and he fell to his knees, bloodied and sticky, the evidence of his weakness causing utter misery. He cried in pain and shame.
    oOo
    “Come hither, come hither wherever you are…I know you’re there you little minx…I shall fish you from your hole, or you can come out of your own accord. But I warn you… If I have to dirty my doublet reaching into that pit, you shall pay for your defiance. Come hither and all is well. You are in no trouble, sweeting.”
    Unable to hold her breath any longer, Leonora coughed and choked her way out of the hiding place, revealing herself, dusting down her kirtle, a cobweb hung from her flaxen hair, her face and hands black with smudges.
    “You look as if you have been in the chimney.” Edmund laughed out loud, the sound booming off the walls, ricocheting in the confined space. “How I wish I could show you. What were you doing down there? Do you not have chores enough?”
    “I came to clean, my Lord. If it please, my Lord, and, I…” the girl coughed a little, “…I…thought I heard a movement. Mice, my Lord, if it please, my Lord?” Dismay coloured her face as the pitiful lies caused a fresh bout of raucous laughter.
    “It displeases ‘My Lord,’” he mimicked. “It displeases him mightily to see yon beauty in disarray and to hear black lies drip from your honeyed tongue. A-dallying with the priest, I’ll be bound.” His final accusation, whispered, hissed, the sss sound slicing through the air like the swish of the executioner’s sword. The girl felt a shadow walk across her grave, and the room cooled to freezing.

Eleanor’s Journal: Rolling in Blue
    My darling, Matthew, the sky is streaked with the haze of contrails crisscrossing a canvas of blue. Fixing my gaze, I watch and note the point at which they cross. It is as two paths meeting. A momentary connection. A millisecond of contact before parting. Moving onward towards separate lives. Different destinations. I watch the smoky-white haze recreating the airway of craft moving in blue.
    At my feet, the Stationmaster’s planting reaches my senses. A riot in reminiscence of your fragrance floors me before you board the train.
    “Where are we?” a child questions his mother, and I wonder too.
    “Where are we you and I, in our journey across lifetimes? What era encompasses us? Are we among the falling bombs of the Blitz? The Swinging Sixties and Beatles hits? Platform shoes or five-bar Blues?”
    “I’ll see you on Friday.” You mouth as your train snakes out.
    I envision your journey, passing lowlands and marshes, singing with nature. The sound of the level-crossing warning brings me back to present day and the twenty-first century smile of autumn. Late come this year on the tail coat of an Indian summer.
    How my thoughts dance when I visualise us. Have you noticed how the