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Edward Munson holds the vial to the window, the seal is broken, but there aren’t many villagers using green wax. Running his thumb over the rim, he picks the clumps with his fingernail. “Miss Cunningham?”
Chrissy’s lip curls. She has the unfortunate habit of smiling when she’s nervous. “You know that’s not mine.”
He steps towards her; she has to back up, pressing against the kitchen’s wooden prep table. “I know.” One hip grazing her skirt. Each word measured, sensuous, “But you know who’s it is.”
She inhales, nearly silent through her nose. He’s made her gasp before, louder than this. Licks his top lip, wonders if it’s just sex for her.
Wide-eyed, she nods. “Yes, I know who.”
Palm slapping the wood beside her. “Jesus, Chris, this will get us all out on our rumps, jobless, houseless. You should have told me, and I shouldn’t have to ask. Christ!”
“Don’t let the Vicar hear you talking like that,” she breathes. She’s got a mouth on her. He likes it when she scolds him.
“The Vicar can lick my asshole. And then thank me for the privilege. Maybe write a sermon on the experience.”
A throat clearing. The Vicar with his beautiful hair. Eddie turns, annoyed, still pressed against Chris. “May I help you?”
“I’m not going to lick your asshole.”
Eddie blinks. “Alright. I didn’t ask.”
“I think we can assume there was an implication.”
“There wasn’t.”
The Vicar grimaces, mouth bunching. “Then what was it?”
“I’m wooing my lady love. Using your butt-cheeks as an example. A jest.”
Miss Cunningham weasels out from under him, her breasts grazing his arm.
“Look, you’ve made her escape."
Chrissy hits his shoulder. Part of him is always grateful for the touch, any touch. To him, “If that was wooing, you’re wanting.” She says to the Vicar, “I’m not responsible for the nonsense out of his mouth.”
“What if that mouth was-” he begins.
She shakes her head, flushing. Loudly to Harrington, “We’re god-fearing, church-respecting folk, and we are happy to assist the local parson.”
Steven Harrington adjusts his collar. “Thank you. It’s nice to see someone appreciates the clergy.”
“Satan take me,” he whispers.
His eyes flick to Ed, but Harrington makes the choice not to hear him. “It has come to my attention there has been black magic in the village. Accounts of a witch. Purportedly selling love potions.”
Eddie holds up the vial. “Like this?”
The Vicar eases it, fingers brushing, warm and dry and surprisingly deft. He inspects it. Pulls another vial from his pocket. Green wax. A match.
Eddie grins, leaning against the table, “People will buy anything.”
“Lovesick fools with buy anything,” Steven agrees.
Chrissy is looking, brow crossed, at the day’s pies.
“Good thing you would never be so foolish, Vicar,” Eddie pokes, wiggling his eyebrows. In the middle of his barb, he dips a finger into the jam he’s been working on and nips it in his mouth.
Chrissy’s head jerks up. “Eddie, what did you just do?”
He frowns, finger still in his mouth. Pops it out with a suctioning noise, makes a face at Steve, then spins to her. “My sweetness, I simply tasted the filling, because we know our darling mistress demands the best…” he trails off. “You know who used the love potion?”
She nods.
“Did they put it in the filling?”
She nods again.
“Fuck.” Slowly, he droops his forehead to the table. “Chrissy,” he asks to the wood. “Do you, perchance, happen to know if the village witch is a fraud? Maybe her spells and potions and baubles are,” he thumps his fist with each ‘and.’ “As Harrington so judgementally put it, fake? Lovesick fools buying anything?”
A hand rubbing circles on his back. “Maybe take the day off?” she says.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Vicar present.” Harrington raises his hand. “And using the Lord’s name in vain-”
———————————————————————
Eddie sprawling in a pew, as Harrington stands at the podium, gesturing silently. The parson’s face lights up in mimed expressions as he mouths the words.
“Just say it out loud,” Ed shouts. “This is worse.”
“Miss Cunningham promised me you would be ‘no trouble.’” Harrington puts his hands on hips.
His head rubbing into the backrest of the bench in front of him. “Chris makes a lot of promises. She also said I could eat her out tonight, and that’s not happening.”
“Well,” Harrington walks towards him, his little shoes clipping. “You’ve been poisoned, or sickened. Lovesick-ened,” he’s proud of the pun. Eddie can see it on the man’s face.
He groans. “Just say your sermon out loud.” He rotates his head painfully, so he can see Steve as he comes closer; cheek on the pew’s backrest instead of his forehead. The wood presses hard, feels it in his teeth.
“You’ll make comments.”
“Me?”
“I can already hear your comments.”
“Really?” Innocent, trying to make a face without moving.
“Mmm, are you alright?” Steve’s tone changes, softer. “Can you lift your head?”
“Obviously,” he says, and tries, but instead slips like an eel onto the floor. His elbow smacks against the bench on the way down.
“Whoa, whoa,” Harrington tries to catch him, but manages only to get dragged down too. Steve’s hand on his forehead, checking for fever. “You’re burning.”
“Lovesick,” he echoes. Steve’s eyes are large and brown and looking at him with concern. “Only one way to fix it.”
Oh, Harrington is walking right into this one. He sees the man take him seriously. “What? How can I help?”
Edward flutters his eyelashes. “Kiss me.”
He must have misjudged the aching loneliness of being a village parson, because Steve does. Hard, as if possessed. He draws back looking horrified. “Forgive me.”
Eddie smiles, delighted. “Never.”