Falling From Grace: Student-Teacher Forbidden Romance

Chapter 15

[RECAP: Leonie has just confessed her forbidden crush... not realising that Father Gabriel was on the other side of the confessional box...]

It was obvious Father Gabriel knew. He was totally blanking her. He was avoiding even looking at her.

Leonie felt absolutely miserable.

Even when she gave the correct answer to a question, his response was curt and his eyes barely flicked over her before moving to someone else.

"What real life parallels inspired Miller when he was writing The Crucible?"

Nobody put up their hand and most faces looked blank. So Leonie raised hers, and as no one else did, Gabriel reluctantly chose her to answer.

"The rise of McCarthyism, and the witch hunt for Communists in the US."

"Very good." Gabriel's face registered no emotion as he said this, if anything there was faint irritation in his tone. He immediately turned to the board again, chalking up "Political parallels - McCarthyism".

Leonie wished she hadn't even bothered to respond.

Even Mai noticed the English teacher's attitude. "What's up with Father Hot? He seems to be in a really bad mood today."

Gabriel wasn't only short with Leonie, he was severe throughout the class and did not smile once. This at least was something of a relief, as it deflected attention from Leonie. It was still noticeable that he wasn't nice to her though.

She couldn't wait for the lesson to end, and grabbed her things as quickly as possible so she could escape.

But as Suki passed by with her two cronies, she smirked at Leonie and muttered: "I guess someone's no longer the teacher's pet."

Leonie ignored her but Mai gave Suki a sharp shove with her elbow, nearly sending her flying and causing her to drop the folders she was carrying.

Suki glared. "Watch where the hell you're going."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Mai said, faking remorse. "Did you trip over that great fat foot that's always in your mouth?" Then she grabbed Leonie and pulled her in the other direction. "Let's get out of here."

"I suppose everyone has a bad day sometimes," Figgy said, as they walked to the dining hall for lunch. "Perhaps he had some bad news from home. Or a headache." She was a kind girl and preferred to take a sympathetic approach.

"He's sexually frustrated," Mai said. "All priests are. Celibacy is completely unnatural."

"It's quite noble though, don't you think?" Figgy asked.

"No. I think it's idiotic," Mai said. "What's the point of having urges if you're supposed to spend your entire life resisting them? What good does that do, anyway? You could spend all that effort on something worthwhile."

Harry agreed. "Other denominations manage very well with married clergy. It's completely unnatural to force a person to suppress that side of life. How can they understand what it's like for their parishioners if they've never had a good shag?"

Leonie's mouth dropped open at Harry saying this. They were so blunt, these British girls. It sounded even more abrupt with Harry's upper class English accent.

She wondered if Father Stephen or Father Gabriel had ever had a "shag" of any kind, good or otherwise. "Do you think they try it out first before they take their vows?" she asked.

"They're fools if they don't," Harry replied. "They should make it a requirement before committing to celibacy. Imagine giving up chocolate before you'd ever tried it. You'd go quite mad, watching other people eat it, and torturing yourself wondering what it might be like."

This turned into a conversation about whether it would be worse to give up chocolate or sex, but Leonie tuned out. She kept wondering about Father Gabriel and if he had ever had a girlfriend before. He was so model good-looking that she could hardly imagine he hadn't. At her high school every single girl would have wanted to date him, if he had been a fellow student.

But he wasn't a student. He was a teacher and a priest, and totally off-limits.