After the couple catnapped on the king-sized bed in their bedroom for a handful of hours, the afternoon flew as quickly as an arrow, whereas the night hours knocked on the door. Hence, they got from the bed as Jude was brushing her unkempt, ruffled ringlet of honey curls, while Timothy was with her in the same room. 

"Timothy, I have no intentions of leaving our love child to root in a mental institution!" The middle-aged woman declared by brushing her hair with a brush as she seated before the dressing table and contemplated her own reflection. "Tomorrow we will flee for Boston, no matter how risky are circumstances to get her out." She furthered, seconds before adjusting the hair brush on the dressing table.

"I know, rare bird. She doesn't belongs here." The former priest ambled up to Jude by placing his mammoth hands on top of her shoulders, squeezing them as his fingers kneaded its cotton fabric beneath his long, dexterious fingers.

"Indeed! I don't know why they treat her coarsely without even knowing her story of her life." The former sister of the church muttered as the former man of the cloth pecked a soft kiss on the top of her head. "It's alook like arresting the wrong person and enquiring him over something in which he shouldn't be charged with."

"Definitely!" Then he moved one of his hands from her shoulders up to her ringlet of golden curls, tucking a couple of glossy honey strands behind her small ear. "It's unfair to judge someone by its book cover."

"Don't they know in Briarcliff she's our daughter," She swallowed a lump in her throat, by throwiing back her head by staring up at Timothy's youthful, handsome face. "I mean, our love child?" The blonde stammered as its heartache overtook her all over again when she mentioned the emphasized word love child. 

"They might know though we no longer work in this snake pit anymore,for our luck's sake!"

"I wasn't even ready to have a baby when I was a nun. Even as a young woman."

"I wasn't neither, rare bird! When we lied it wasn't our child and it was one of the criminally insane, the things got even worse. The lies didn't rescue us at all." The younger man responded in honeyed, beyond ashamed voice as he leaned by peppering feather, ardent kisses on her neck with his soft lips as she relished the moment by arching her neck, giving him a better access to her silken, white like vanilla neck.

***

Flashback

June 1942

25 years old Sister Jude was sitting in her office in the recently bought mental hospital by the Roman Catholic church. She has served God and its celibate life for 3 years when Timothy arrived 2 years ago and has chosen her as his right hand, besides they had coq-au-vin dinners every Friday night. He was actually slightly younger than her with a year though what it struck her first about him was his indisputable charisma, neat and handsome appearance, his decent, honeyed British accent which accentuated on his speech.

Since the young monsignor's arrival in the nuthouse, Jude and Timothy developed their relationship not only via the Friday night's dinners and long, logical discussions they shared together as a piece of memory, further they collaborated and shared similar views and spectacular, cunning ideas for improving the facility's role in saving wretched souls. Wretched souls, who have lost the light they were once granted to God and they have already lost its his divine tracks for peace and harmony. Wretched souls, who are already doomed in the darkness, destined to spend the rest of their days in a mental hospital, due to their deeds.

Even Timothy proved himself as a bashful, nevertheless considerate, loving, caring, intelligent, selfless and hardworking man with unarguable handsomeness which Jude hung the moon.

Before being part of Briarcliff and church's duties, she used to be a jazz nightclub singer though she had only once a boyfriend ever in her life and it was Casey, who not only ruined her life and leaded her to freestyle with the incessant seek for attention and love from the opposite sex, but also the insane quantity of boozed alcohol to mute the inner voices and the pain she experienced when she was yet with her ex-boyfriend.

Little did she know what this relationship might lead to eventually. When they encountered for first time, the both pious members of the church felt a profound, nevertheless, marvelous and mysterious connection they shared with one another. They were actually fated and namely meant to be together. Not just like friends. Not just like regular colleagues. It was something more than an ordinary, platonic friendship.

Even more Timothy was much different man as Jude figured out for herself from the beginning. He didn't remind her of the one-night stand lovers who were eager to strip each garment of her and treat her as nothing than their own lover they can own in a matter of minutes even a few hours only. They didn't respect her emotions and feelings, besides her own personal needs.
The young nun was inspecting by folding some of the recently committed patients in the asylum' filles, utterly focused on her own task in the late hours of the night where the insomnia commanded her youthful body.

All of a sudden, a handful of  raps on the mosaic glassed office door caught her attention as she looked up at the standing tall, masculine figure before the door, evoking plainly: 

"Yes? Come in!"

"Good evening, rare bird!" The young priest entered in her office by shutting the door, while the mildly older woman was sorting the inmates' files in alphabet order by putting them back in the drawer.

"Good evening, Timothy!" A coy, girlish smile distorted across her lips once she acknowledged promptly his presence which was one of the essential reasons why she was deliriously ecstatic, tidying her own polished hardwood desk as the younger man was approaching her desk, seating against her. "How your day passed?"

"As exhausting as always. One of the recently committed patients had to be exorcised earlier today though she didn't make it." What it upsetted the Monsignor was actually the patient's inability of surviving the exorcism which took its place in one of the austere wards inside the madhouse, despite the fact he, Father Malachi and Dr.Green tried their best to rescue the suffering patient with its fiendish, unholy creature housing her corpse. "She got a heart attack though we did try our best with Dr.Green and Father Malachi to save her life."

"Oh! I'm so sorry for hearing all this, Timothy!" The blonde cried, fixing her conservative dark wool that veiled her long glossy wavy golden hair. "God bless her family if she even has her own."

"It's alright, Jude! Indeed, she has. Her little daughter and father!"

"Oh! She has got a small family. At least, I'm praying my heart for her soul."

"Me either!" Suddenly Jude placed her hands on her bureau as Timothy took her petite, creamy ones into his larger, suprsingly smooth and warm ones as its thumbs kneaded the back of her hands which sent shivers down her body of sweetness and a tad embarrassment by casting a gape on them, chewing her bottom lip. "Jude," The young man ushered the slightly older lady to avert her absent-minded gaze from their hands by shifting it directly into his, meeting a pair of deep chocolate brown orbs. "How about your day? How it passed?" 

"It wasn't hectic just like the other days at all." She couldn't contain a demure giggle, escaping her dry, berry-coloured lips, highlighting her porcelain, pale complexion. "Although I'm not that exhausted."

"I understand. Jude, I know it has been 2 years since we're friends and colleagues as I have always relied on you," He commenced seriously listing, whilst the nun bit her bottom lip in unsettled manner as he darted his chocolate brown irises to her studious, assertive hazelish-brown ones. "You have done everything for me by cooking dinners, advising me and sharing piece of eensy moments along." She nodded excitedly, strongly agreeing with his words which melted her heart to edges. "I wanted to confess something to you though the abstinence was indeed the curse which abstained me from doing it." All of a sudden, when he emphasized the word confess, she couldn't repress freezed, paralysed motion over her. It was high time for her to listen to his revelation, in spite of the circumstances, without  interrupting his utterance.

" What a confession?" The blonde thought to herself as its her own echo rang in her ears, pondering.

"Jude, I know you have hidden it as an expression to me." Timothy took a deep breath, sorting his mashed mind what his impending words should be without making a bad impression to Jude or precisely embarrassing her. "I love you, my rare bird!"

Initially, she found speechless shortly after he declared his confession of loving her. How long it has been when somebody told her this?  No man has declared his tremendous love for her even Casey himself.

Not only she felt special and loved especially by the man of her dreams, moreover her folds were already soaked and yearned for his length filling the emtpiness and celibacy which tormented her for years. Years, when she married herself to God as each cell and her kwn body were sacred and once touched, even corrupted, they were unholy.

"I love you too, Timothy!" She confessed humbly as her rosy-coloured lips motioned like a string when he got from her desk by strolling up to her  without releasing her hands from his grip. Afterwards he lifted them up to his lips, peppering her parchment fists with feather kisses as she couldn't help but being flattered as well.

"I'm relieved I'm telling you this, regardless how long we know each other. Nothing can stop us, Jude! I assure you." Meanwhile he seated on top of her emptied desk by pulling her towards him in a swift tug as she got instantly from her chair and her face was hardly inches away from his, feeling his warm breath tickling her face.

"I've always appreciated everything but we can't do this." The former bed-hopping nightclub singer clarified softly until she figuted out his forehead rested against hers as their lips weren't even inch away from one another's. "You haven't forgotten we have given ourselves to God. It's just impossible to break our vows just like that and ruin our miracles especially yours with Rome." Suddenly she lowered her voice as he finally released her hands from his as the juvenile priest shifted his colossal ones to her waist, wrily chuckling. Fixing her hazel eyes on his abysmal, affectionate chocolate pools.

"It has never been against our ecclesiastical duties when it comes up to real love and sex, Jude Martin!" Timothy declared in lowered voice as he squeezed her waist from both sides, while she moved up to his face, cupping it and unable to resist by the way he spoke, rendered her to kiss him even more than to care about their took vows and their chastity. He was doing wonders to her even with a single word which he uttered up to this moment as she was on nineth cloud. "I would never regret for giving my virtue to nobody else than a loving woman. I'm ready though I'm going to be alright with the fact, if you're not otherwise."

"Don't be wrong, Timothy! It's alright." The thumbs of her hands circled his well-defined cheekbones until he pressed his lips on her soft ones, capturing them in a light kiss by closing his eyes, seconds before breaking it off at last. She closed clumsily her eyelids, relishing its sweet moment of their first kiss they shared altogether. After they broke off the kiss, their foreheads were pressed on one another yet. "I've always wanted this but I was afraid to tell you right away. It's highly doubted you know from where I come. From the ruins of the hell. From the darkness that trapped me years before finding God."

"If you are feeling the urge to share with me your past and what woman you used to be, then you won't feel the burden torturing your heart."

"Timothy, you don't understand to whom do you think you are giving your virtue! I just," The blonde desperate stammered, struggling to resume her sentence as once she talked about her past or it was mentioned as a keyword, she knew right away which old demon returned from the past to haunt her and most of all bring destruction to her own identity,tantalizing her with venomous thoughts resurfacing in her mind.

"Jude, it's okay when you don't feel comfortable to talk about your past now. Give yourself time and whenever you feel ready, tell me right away." As the younger man's honeyed whisper soothed her, then he sealed his lips with her in more forceful kiss as the older lady hankered for this by moving one of her elvish hands up to his hair, running vigorously fingers through his chestnut hair while his another drifted up to her wimple, yanking it from her head by releasing her waterfall of silken golden curls,descending down her upper back.

As their kiss advanced, it grew more ferocious as their wet tongues commenced dancing against each other, whereas they tightly shut their eyelids until hers won its domination over his, plaguing it inside his mouth, deepening the kiss as one of his hands combed her ringlet of honey curls with his handy fingers, twirling the curls on spirals.

In the interval, she straddled him as he was in the middle of her hardwood desk, maneuvering her to join him as her knees met the wood's material, bending against him as she seated on top of her desk.

***

4 months later

October 1942

The months progressed far from sluggishly behind the grayish, dull walls of the madhouse. The summer days have already died as its autumn ones were colder and prone to be rainy more especially in October.

Jude realized right on the second day after Timothy giving his virtue to her that there's a tiny life, growing inside her.

In the first weeks of her first, howsoever, unforgiving pregnancy the sister of the church was nauseating easily, vomiting each morning, being more moody and having odd food cravings which she has never experienced as pregnancy symptoms until she found out for herself. Even more the young woman's body changed drastically in the last months. From the bony, slender woman, she was getting bigger with the passing weeks. Jude started to being more concerned about her unborn child than herself or any other inmate inside this facility.

The love of her life hasn't discovered her pregnancy yet. When his right hand appeared to be more emotional and less serene in certain moments, he found it for perfectly normal though it was oblivious to him she wasn't as moody as how a normal woman must be.

Every night before going to sleep for a couple of hours, the young lady sung lullabies to her unborn child as she didn't know even its sex.

In one of the late October days when the former jazz nightclub singer was fed up with hiding her pregnancy from the Monsignor, she decided to tell him directly by pacing up in the dark hallways of Briarcliff when the patients were already imprisoned in their own wards to collect an extra good night sleep. When she stood nervously beside his office door, paranoid thoughts of the baby and Timothy's approval invaded her mind, exhaling sharply as one of her hands rubbed the pregnant belly she carried with herself for these fatiguing months.

"Don't worry, sweet child! Your Daddy will acknowledge your existence right here." Jude opted to reassure her child which lightly kicked inside her belly, where she protected him since day one after making love to Timothy. A sheepish, calm smile crawled on her face.

After taking a deep breath and reassuring the unborn baby, then she timidly tapped on the wooden door, keeping the priest's wits about her as he yelled to come in, she did it by opening the door by shutting it exceedingly.

"Hi Timothy!"

"Hi Jude! What brought you there, my rara avis?"

"We haven't got exactly a problem. But," The slightly older woman stuttered, playing nervously with her fingers by standing against her boss's desk, looking into his optimistic chocolate brown eyes. "We have something that prevents us from being clerical members."

"W-what do you mean with this? Of course, there might be an issue." He was uncertain even for what he was talking about by getting from his desk, walking up to her without taking his concerned eyes off her especially the apprehensive face which she wore as a mask. "Tell me what's bothering you."

In the meantime, she momentarily began unbuttoning her habit until it peaked to her abdomen, exposing a tiny bump which bulged until Timothy's mammoth, creamy hand reached for her swollen belly, caressing it gently with a blossoming smile on his face as his stare was rather focused on their unborn child rather than the future mother.

"It's beautiful." Jude rolled her eyes as shr was far from delighted from his reaction, scarcely realizing their goose is going to be cooked sooner or later. Then he shifted his gaze up to the love of his life's until his smile faded, recognizing her stoic facial expression, imprinted on her face. "Is there anything bothering you, Jude?"

"How do you think you fool? How we are going to be parents when the child shouldn't grow up and being raised in a place like this?"

"Jude, it's okay!" He cupped her face in the palms of his hands, attempting to alleviate her livid condition. "We will find ways to raise this child there, no matter what."

"We aren't even ready for being parents yet."

***

"So we're leaving for Boston tomorrow the morning, right?" She got from the dressing table, turning to Timothy by looking up at her face, admiring her ethereal, natural grace which she undeniably possessed.

"Indeed, my love!" Then Jude threw her arms around his upper back as he clasped his arms around her waist, capturing themselves a tight and warm embrace. "We will find Odette and get her out of the madhouse in no time. It's guaranteed."

"We will get her indeed out of this shit hole. But honey what if they find out we are actually her parents?"

"Do not overthink the things, rare bird!" The former holy man persuaded her wisely by rubbing her slender waist. Her chin rested on his broad, muscular shoulder. "We will be fine and cool with the inquiring looks we are going to earn from the others. She's our daughter and her welfare matters more to us than the others' opinions."

"I know! We are going to be as tough as cookies, not letting us to harm our daughter these lunatics even the head of the institution." They broke off the embrace eventually by leaving their bedroom, pacing up in the corridor until they descended the wooden stairs, heading up to the kitchen.

"Father McKenzie! Yeah! He's the main problem here." The younger man replied softly as Jude grabbed an empty glass, filling it with lukewarm water to soothe her nerves, hence, picking up a cigarette and liting it up by takimg drag of its length, blowing dim. In the meanwhile, the former holy man opened the window to come some fresh air.

"Definitely! Let's not forget he's dangerous aristocratic brat, known for raping a young woman, treating harshly patients and stealing the funded money which should be invested in Briarcliff." She sipped of the glass of water, reviving her body at last.

"I don't have any clue how such criminal weirdos are supposed to run facilities like Briarcliff."

"I don't know," The middle-aged lady took another drag of her cigarette, setting free dim, diffusing in the kitchen by clearing her throat. "Ask his employer!" She furthered as she couldn't suppress a raspy chuckle as her husband joined her.

"If you think his employer is being confronted by us to give us a rational explanation why they have elected a rapist and criminal to run a mental hospital, he would be as staggered and naively confused as a child who didn't know until now who's taking the boss position."

"It's such a shame people like Father McKenzie are always getting away with whatever shit to get something their greed hungers for more than they truly deserved it." Jude responded while Timothy prepared clean, unused plates for serving their dinner meals and the cigarette was between her plumpish lips as she commenced to prepare the dinner table by adorning it with silverware tools, handkerchiefs and at last but not least, serving some coq-au-vin in their plates. "The society should be ashamed of themselves even the system. It's abomination."

To be continued