[ To an extent he does admire the dignified stoicism with which Vanessa seems able to meet these unspoken but implicit challenges any amount of time spent in Duplicity would suggest -- clearly it was no exaggeration that she's been here for quite some time already -- though at the same time he also can't help his own innate instincts to feel critically towards such an attitude as well; absolving himself of the burden of God's judgement is a notion that Irving can hardly bear even think about, let alone ever consider a freedom.
Even more than the sex, it's the prospect of Duplicity's Godlessness that most fills him with a deep and hopeless dread, how easy then it would become to simply step off the path towards righteousness and give in wholly to hedonism and sin, to deviancy, to wicked, shameless depravity--
... It's a fearlessness he's never been capable of, to be so unerringly confident in both feeling worthy of God's love, while at the same time also permitting himself to act without reserve in the ways his baser instincts and urges have been known to compel him to.
Irving's always felt he could live quite easily without sex before he could ever live without God. He can live with the repression, the restraint, the constant sacrifice and deeply buried sense of shame, in exchange for a world he can understand, order he can take comfort in rather than being lost among chaos... and yet here he stands, so desperate for any sign of God at all that he's here today attending a Catholic Mass, turmoil in him already brewing like a storm for the slips he's made already. Quota be damned, he must seek out better, God honouring ways of meeting it, if indeed he intends to at all.
(Not that he can disclose as much to her, obviously; what would she think of him to learn that a week or so in he's already met his first quota, succumbed both to temptation and aphrodisiacs as easily as any nonbeliever would?) ]
I am grateful to your hospitality-- though I am not nearly so improper as to presume it decent at all of me to intrude within your private chambers so soon after making your acquaintance. [ He smiles demurely, walking alongside her anyway, following wherever she may choose to lead him. ] Only if you deem it appropriate, of course.
[ Being a submissive, he doesn't actually have any money to buy her tea, though, so it's also somewhat of a relief that she's chosen to offer up her home. Irving looks at her for another moment, blinking before the rest of her implications sink in fully, at which point he quickly looks away again, heat spreading to his ears. ]
Nor would I ever presume... [ He clears his throat. ] You are quite safe with me, Miss Ives. That much I can promise you.
WELL GOOD BECAUSE CW MORE OF THE SAME!!!! + (implied) internalized homophobia
Even more than the sex, it's the prospect of Duplicity's Godlessness that most fills him with a deep and hopeless dread, how easy then it would become to simply step off the path towards righteousness and give in wholly to hedonism and sin, to deviancy, to wicked, shameless depravity--
... It's a fearlessness he's never been capable of, to be so unerringly confident in both feeling worthy of God's love, while at the same time also permitting himself to act without reserve in the ways his baser instincts and urges have been known to compel him to.
Irving's always felt he could live quite easily without sex before he could ever live without God. He can live with the repression, the restraint, the constant sacrifice and deeply buried sense of shame, in exchange for a world he can understand, order he can take comfort in rather than being lost among chaos... and yet here he stands, so desperate for any sign of God at all that he's here today attending a Catholic Mass, turmoil in him already brewing like a storm for the slips he's made already. Quota be damned, he must seek out better, God honouring ways of meeting it, if indeed he intends to at all.
(Not that he can disclose as much to her, obviously; what would she think of him to learn that a week or so in he's already met his first quota, succumbed both to temptation and aphrodisiacs as easily as any nonbeliever would?) ]
I am grateful to your hospitality-- though I am not nearly so improper as to presume it decent at all of me to intrude within your private chambers so soon after making your acquaintance. [ He smiles demurely, walking alongside her anyway, following wherever she may choose to lead him. ] Only if you deem it appropriate, of course.
[ Being a submissive, he doesn't actually have any money to buy her tea, though, so it's also somewhat of a relief that she's chosen to offer up her home. Irving looks at her for another moment, blinking before the rest of her implications sink in fully, at which point he quickly looks away again, heat spreading to his ears. ]
Nor would I ever presume... [ He clears his throat. ] You are quite safe with me, Miss Ives. That much I can promise you.