Balance of Power Shifted Read Online Free PDF Page B

excited while I took in how beautiful she was. Tall and slender with her long hair slowly getting darker as it got wet, she had a body that always seemed to be perfectly fitted to mine when we got together, which is what was going on right now as I stepped into her embrace.  My hands instantly found her perfect butt as her arms went around my neck and her soft lips found mine.  We stood there embracing for five full minutes as the water fell on our heads, oblivious to car accidents, funerals and everything else.  I had to back off my embrace at one point since I felt the she would break due to the force I was holding her.
    Turning off the shower, we both got out and dried off.  The whole time I just kept watching her, forcing her to nudge me and tell me to stop staring.  You really seem to have missed me she said as she reached down, grabbed hold of me, and led me to bed.  I don’t know if it was my emotional state or what, but love making that night was the slowest and most intimate I had ever known.

Chapter 4: Closing a Chapter
     
    M y internal clock woke me up around seven and I decided to head over to church and attend the 8 o’clock mass.  My parents and my grandparents had instilled in me the roots of my Catholic faith.  The term cradle to grave Catholic is appropriate for me, since I have never had any doubt about who I was in this regard.  I think what made me different, was that I actually enjoyed going to mass and the overall institution of what the church stands for.  Even on campus at Georgia Tech, I would always find some way to get to the Saturday evening or Sunday mass, much to the jokes of some of my fellow students and campus friends. 
    After putzing around brushing my teeth and cleaning up, I tried to get my clothes without waking up Fiona.  I was not quite successful and I heard her voice asking me what I was doing.  I said, “I’m going to mass and I hope to talk to one of the priests about confirming a funeral mass.”  Jokingly I said, “Do you want to come?”  Knowing the answer in advance, she just grunted and buried her head back into the pillow.  Fiona was also Catholic, but had a bit of a stubborn streak in her and resented being ‘preached at’ as she called it.  I think it really had to do with her state of mind on any given Sunday, which determined her attendance.
    It took about five minutes to drive over to St. Anne’s church.  Driving into the parking lot it appeared to be about half full, which was common for the 8 o’clock mass.  The 9:30 mass however was packed and usually had overflow parking onto the side streets.  I had been coming here since I was twelve and made my confirmation in front of the Bishop, which was about the time I realized that church was not just someplace I just showed up for on Sundays and holy days.  The church was what each person made of it.  From that point on, I joined the church youth groups and volunteered for causes such as ‘Feed the Hungry.’  In a way, the people of St. Anne’s became my extended family and brought to me a sense of community that I had not felt since my parents passed away.
    I have been interested in architecture for as long as I could remember.  I loved older homes and buildings, but loved churches most of all.  When I say churches, it is any church.  The vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows, and workmanship of marble and wood that went into the reverent creation of these places of worship.  St. Anne’s was no exception.  Built in the late 1800’s, it had walls made of local stone and a steeple bell tower.  Worshippers walked in through massive wooden doors reminiscent of a medieval castle.  As I walked in through these doors and took in the light streaming though the colored glass windows, a sense of peace came over me.  Walking down the center aisle, about two-thirds the way to the altar, I grabbed a seat in a high backed pew that must have been crafted when the church was built.  . The