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--- The Next Morning ---
--- 2nd of January, 1965 ---

The morning after approached quicker than the light summer zephyr, gently caressing the sand's lavish carpet, blanketing underneath the mist, crystalline sea.

The ambitious Monsignor's office along with the en-suite bedroom, linked with the austere office was once a battlefield. A battlefield of scrumptious coq-au-vin dinner, shared with one another, resuscitating the ambiance for the good old times' sake.

A battlefield of opulent lust, desire, and love. Wrinkled bed sheets and discarded blunt garments on the flooring. Feather even shrill moans and groans once echoed behind the four-wall rooms.

Wide, marvelously thick waves, collided through the dull walls of the old mental institution. They were rather like ghost whispers, swimming through the tempest of lethal silence as the grave. Discarded garments are replaced with invincible, painful emptiness.

The lust and desire were replaced with Hollow's best friends. Or rather, the hollow's incarnation. Cavities crying out loud for a change. A rich harvest of barrens. Emptiness. Sorrow. Loneliness. Compunction.

When the wee hours of the morning's hoary light filtered through the en-suite bedroom through the battered window, a chilly blanket swaddled Timothy who wore nothing else. He was as naked as a newborn baby.

Once he muffled with the palm of his mammoth, smooth hand a mere yawn, fanning his epidermis and thereafter rubbing with his fashioned in balled fists his groggy cocoa brown jewels, the British aristocrat came to his senses at last, flipping on the other side of the bed and fathoming the crude circumstance of waking up in an empty bed.

Waking in the emptiness with nobody else to snuggle in one another's arms, nuzzle their noses in a tender Eskimo kiss.

His Jude was missing and gone. It tore his heart into trillions of glassy, flimsy pieces, shattered as a luxurious pile of frustration, heartbreak, compunction, and misery. Frustration is a great deal of disappointment for being unable to alter the circumstances and most of all, bring the time back.

Heartbreak after making love to each other and most of all, giving his virtue to his one-of-a-kind rara avis and her disappearance spoke volumes.

He genuinely loved her with his entire heart and their feelings for each other drastically changed through the night. From the Monsignor and the patient, having dinner for the old time's sake to the lustful lovers that was clearly impossible with a few exceptions.

Compunction with a waterfall of questions, sprinkling in his mind and kept questioning himself was it worth. Was it worth giving his virtue to the former pious sister of the church?

Was it worth having a coq-au-vin dinner with her? Was it worth allowing her to make a dinner for both of them on a small scale? Was it worth even raising the topic of Friday night?

The intoxication had already ebbed out from his frail skeleton so the alcohol dwelt out of his blood.

Did the former nun opt somehow to bamboozle him and alluded him somehow to release her or at least a handful of patients? Did she have any secretive intentions? Were they part of her plan for escaping Briarcliff?

Moreover, the aspiring Monsignor didn't have any benevolent and solid intentions of arranging her release soon unless the court proved her innocence and collected more evidence behind Frank's brutal homicide.

Which wasn't committed by her both bare hands that aren't capable of murdering anybody except in self-defense and endangering her life. Even having coq-au-vin dinners or friendly conversations with the former licentious jazz nightclub singer didn't change the fact of keeping her behind the dull walls of the infamous asylum.

In the meanwhile, the British aristocrat bleated a grunt under his breath, concluding that his garments and boxers were discarded on the floor and no attire hugged his tall figure. Furthermore, his chestnut hair was scruffy and his chocolate brown orbs, glinting misery, heartbreak, frustration and solitude scanned the clock on his left side's nightstand, reading approximately six and a half o'clock in the morning.

It was high time for him to get up and get ready for the day. Crystalline, translucent tears rimmed his chocolate brown jewels after blinking a handful of times for a split second, sniffling until discovering on the other nightstand a plain note and recognizing ideally whose manuscript belonged to. It was Jude's, of course.

By judging her manuscript, it was exquisitely and intelligibly written even through her swiftness and hasting to pour every impulsive thought, consequently constructing with it a sentence until it forms an intelligible paragraph lastly. His pale-pinkish lips were twisted in a pensive pout after retrieving his discarded ecclesiastical garments which were forming his work uniform and dressing up himself, progressing with the preparation for the ready.

Subsequently, he approached the nightstand and snatched with childlike inquisitiveness the note, perusing it through the elapsing seconds, ticking as an antique clock in his whirlpool of thoughts and his coffee brown jewels surveying warily the text.

To my darling Timothy,

Good morning! I would like to apologize for dumping you on the same bed where everything happened last night. From the old good friends we used to be up to lovers and giving your virtue to me delightfully. I wish I could be the first person you've ever woken up next to. First and foremost, if you are about to blame yourself for why you're alone on the bed, it is actually my fault. I am still a patient and the guards will start looking for me through the halls and it's going to be not only my fault for not being in my ward, but also, you know. Hopefully I didn't upset you at all.

I've to admit that the last night was spectacular, Timothy! Thank you for giving me a chance to cook dinner on a smaller scale for the good old time's sake and spend a few valuable hours together! It was a wonderful opportunity to be back together as friends, but I don't know if I have told you this, I've always had impure thoughts of you nonetheless. Despite the betrayal and for using to hate you, I don't know how everything returned. With each day, my love for you grows rapidly. It's indescribable. You've been always on my mind, no matter the horrible times we had together or either of us.

For a priest and the first time we had, you use that mouth of yours quite well which amuses me. It makes me wonder if you've always been a devout Christian, especially a Catholic. I also realize I know the fewest important facts about you and your life in general. I would love to get to know you better. At least, I am trying to guess that your favorite color is actually...red. I will make sure to ask you more about yourself, because while I love the enigmatic, pious priest you're exactly, I really want to know more about you.

My love for you is unarguably plenty. I can't even describe with a thousand words paragraph my damned feelings and the way my heart covets you. I have never desired someone as much as I do you. There is nothing I could change about you. You are just perfection from your warmly benevolent eyes to your muscular, secure arms. I feel blessed for being called a rare bird and you liking my culinary skills.

I know how weird it's going to sound but you're absolutely cute. You don't have any clue how your English accent is making me smile and it's pretty attractive.

I wrote this note as an explanation, due to the circumstances that separate us. It's not that because I don't want every morning to wake up next to you and cuddle even feel your lips on mine. It's because I yearn every morning you're the first person ever waking up next to you and I hope you're not feeling lonely in the morning, Pisceian. If you do, keep in mind the unforgettable night we had.

I love you, Timothy,

By Jude

Within a handful of minutes after reading the brief note, the British compatriot managed to swallow a lump in the back of his throat, bubbling up in his Adam's apple.

A heavy, relieved sigh flushed his toned chest and after scanning each word, poured in each paragraph brought him a dab of relief and sheer felicity which he'd never expected after fathoming his crude cruelty.

Especially towards her for believing blindly Dr. Arden along with the once possessed young sister of the church and the murderous Santa Claus Leigh Emerson. A soft, childlike smile bloomed upon his baby-pinkish lips. The dolor fell off from his porcelain, still youthful complexion in a jiffy. His coffee-brown embers ignited the most fiery, vibrant coffee nuance, mottling his round, huge irises.

His heart rate increased surreptitiously significantly, drumming recurringly vehement in his ribcage. A bold blush touched feathery his chubby, well-sculptured cheeks. The younger man molted after taking his time to survey the fragments of the brief note.

Little did he know how his rare bird is full of surprises even as a patient, committed against her will and her once possessions along with remarkable paraphernalia snatched from her hands.

All of a sudden, Sister Bernadette rapped a couple of times on the office door, keeping his wits about her presence and his office phone on the hardwood bureau was ringing. Meanwhile, he rolled vertically the note and surreptitiously put it in his charcoal black slacks' pocket and scooted up to his hardwood bureau to answer right away the urgent phone.

"Monsignor, may I come in?" The stern, unwelcoming southern lilt of the head nun of the facility nagged at the younger man, hesitantly seating on his desk and grabbing the earpiece.

"Hold on a second, Sister! I have an urgent phone call and give me a minute only, okay?" After answering the phone call, consequently, the earpiece clung to his sensitive ear. The mirth petered off of his parchment, youthful complexion within a second, swallowing a lump, bubbling up in his Adam's apple and taking a deep breath. "H-Hello?"

"Monsignor! It's a relief to call you. We have something urgent to discuss!" The sternness punctured the senior woman of the cloth's Bostonian lilt, whereas Timothy gnawed on his lower plumpish lip and his heart sunk into oblivion. 

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✞ Do you think Jude and Timothy's love and sex possesses abundance of passion, desire and unconditional love as it supposed to be?✞

✞ What arey your thoughts of the message which Timothy left on the nightstand for Jude to spare some of her time to peruse it? ✞ 

✞ Last but not least, don't forget to check the song by Slipknot Goodbye. It is somehow inspired of this chapter, despite the difference between the genuine titles. ✞

✞ Don't forget to leave a honest feedback with your initial impressions, if you have genuinely enjoyed and liked the chapter. :)) ✞