Falling From Grace: Student-Teacher Forbidden Romance

Chapter 17

[RECAP: Leonie just messed up her first rehearsal due to being self-conscious in front of Father Gabriel. He's now asked her to stay behind...]

When the others had left, Father Gabriel turned his attention on Leonie. "What the hell was that?" He looked angry. He was so devastatingly attractive even when he was angry. Like a furious, dark-haired, blue-eyed saint.

"I'm sorry, I just couldn't get it all together today," Leonie said. It was normally so easy, that was the frustrating thing. Usually Abigail just came over her and through her, and she didn't even have to consciously try.

"That's not good enough. A production depends on every member of the cast playing their part to the best of the ability. We'll go through it again now. I'll read John Proctor. I need to know that you can at least manage the role, since you convinced us at rehearsals that you could."

He was grim, unsmiling. Leonie swallowed, felling even worse than before. Father Gabriel as John Proctor was both a fantasy and a dread. "On stage?"

"Here will do."

She briefly closed her eyes, then began.

She asked John Proctor, now played by Father Gabriel, to give her a soft word.

But he told her no. It was done with.

Gabriel's tone as John Proctor was stern, but there was a caress in his words as well.

Suddenly Abigail Williams was flowing through her veins again. The long-ago witch girl took over. She - Abby and Leonie - longed for John Proctor, she was desperate for him.

She begged him not to be wintry and cold towards her. She told him she couldn't sleep because she dreamt about him.

The stage directions called for weeping here but Leonie didn't even notice them, yet her eyes were moist. She hadn't slept recently, and it was because of him. He haunted her dreams.

Father Gabriel, as John, confessed that he did think of her "softly" from time to time.

Leonie felt the forbidden yearning. The married, pious farmer and the young girl half his age whom he had conceived a deadly passion for. The desire between both of them: Abby's pleading seduction and Proctor's resolve to fight against it.

They reached the line where John Proctor threatens to give Abby a whipping, and shakes her. Father Gabriel was actually shaking her. His hand grasped her shoulder as he spoke the line. Leonie found herself breathing heavily and not wanting him to stop. She gazed up him, seeing John Proctor's anger and desire on his face. His face. Not John Proctor's.

Abruptly he let her go and stood back from her. He looked horror-struck.

"My God Leonie, I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me."

She couldn't let him break away like that. She stepped towards him, standing close to him. She looked up at him, seeing the desire that was still on his face. Ignoring what he had just said, she asked: "What does it mean, 'clutched my back'?" She knew what it meant, and Gabriel knew that she knew what it meant.

He paused, only for a second. Then something overtook him.

"Like this." He grabbed her hips roughly and turned her around. He clutched her against himself, moulding her against his body. She could feel his hardness pressing on her through the fabric of her school skirt and his own clothing.

His breath was on her neck, his lips so close to her skin. "Like this. This is what he did." His voice was husky.

His hands gripped her waist, preventing her from moving away. Leonie could smell his scent, a fresh, male aroma with a trace of incense. She could feel the heat from his body. Anger and hot desire.

She could hardly breathe, she wanted him so badly.

He held her, so close. She was terrified to turn and break the spell.

"Like this, he clutched her back." Gabriel pulled her even more firmly against him.

Leonie was struggling to control her own breathing. She stood there, with him grasping her. Her breath caught in her throat in a small cry. He gripped her more tightly.

How she wanted his arms around her. How she wanted him pressing her to him. Never let go, hold me, take me...

But then he released her. She turned around to him, questioning.

"I dream of you, but I wake."

It wasn't the right line. It was the inverse of what Abigail was supposed to say.

Leonie's own voice was a whisper. She gazed at him, and he at her. For what seemed like ages they stood there.

Gabriel closed his eyes. Breathed out. A muscle clenched in his jaw.

Then he turned abruptly and strode out.