Release Day Party
Like A Bird
by
Hannah Carrow
About the Book
Title: Like A Bird
Author: Hannah Carrow
Genre: Erotic Romance
Buy Link: http://amzn.to/1KSCxqJ
Rachel is a young widow with two children. She meets David, a Catholic priest, and they are immediately attracted to each other in a shocking and powerful way. They experience an extraordinary and glorious love which, over time, develops into a mindless sexual obsession that bears witness to the complete disintegration of her mind and takes her to the edge of madness.
She felt a sense of wonder and amazement that she had come across a creature such as he. He wasn’t there and then he was, and he would always be. After all, such things were often caught within the spiral of our dreams, the trickle of imagination, seized upon by thought and thrown about in some internal night.
Excerpt
Gaby appeared at Rachel’s house as soon as she returned, just as Rachel knew she would.
“Well,” Gaby said as they went into the kitchen to make coffee, “you have to say something now.”
There was a triumphant tone about her voice.
“What do you want me to say?” Rachel asked listlessly. She had no wish to explain herself. “You have seen what you have seen so you don’t need me to tell you anything.”
“How long has it been going on?”
“About three months.”
Rachel was too exhausted to tell her of their argument. It was bad enough that she had to speak to her at all.
“Three months! That long? What on earth have you been doing for three months?”
“What kind of a question is that?” Rachel replied.
“Well, you can’t go on much longer like this; someone will very soon realise what David is doing, if they haven’t already. How on earth have you got away with it for so long?”
Rachel grew angry and impatient.
“I didn’t plan for this to happen! I was perfectly happy before I met him, and now my life has changed beyond all recognition. How do you think I feel?” Rachel had begun to cry. “It’s true, I love him desperately,” she sobbed. “I love him more than you could possibly imagine. I love him, I love him. The reason my heart beats at all is because of him, the reason I am breathing is because of him, the reason I have no reason is because of him. Everything I am and will become is because of him.”
Rachel’s tears were partly because of what she found herself saying and partly because of the argument they’d had. Gaby put her arms around her.
“Rachel, Rachel,” she said. “It’s okay, it’s okay, don’t worry. I didn’t mean to upset you, but I do worry about you, that’s all.”
Rachel stopped crying and slumped in an armchair near the French windows. She gazed in a distracted fashion at the sea below; she was drained and worn out with all the havoc in her life.
“Anyway, we’ve broken up.” She sniffed. “I’ve had enough of all this creeping around the place. He’s like Peter fucking Pan: all he wants for us to do is run around all day like children, pretending everything is normal.”
“But what do you expect him to do? Leaving the church is not like playing hide and seek, you know. You don’t suddenly leave one day and say ‘thank you and goodbye’.”
“But what’s stopping him? It’s not like he’s having to walk out on a wife and children. Why can’t he just say ‘thank you and goodbye’? Will Father Joe come running after him and tell him he’s been naughty?”
Gaby looked at her friend. “What do you think he spent seven years of his life doing? Seven years, Rachel. You don’t just throw seven years of your life away because you have no wife or children. He has to answer to the church in Rome, not Father Joe. Father Joe doesn’t know or doesn’t care and he’s probably doing the same thing himself. David has to answer to God, but in a metaphorical sense.”
“Who is God anyway, Gaby! A man sitting on a cloud with a long white beard? I don’t think so. God is invisible, and how can you leave something that is invisible?”
“Rachel, you’ve lost all sense of yourself.”
“Oh really? I wonder why that is. Why are you trying to defend David? Whose side are you on? What the fuck do you know about anything? You can piss off too. Get out, just get out!”
She was so angry now, much like that day she had been when David told her of his brother. But this time there was no state of sexual tension. She was full of dark psychotic anger. Gaby turned to go.
“Believe me, Rachel. He will never leave the church,” she said.
She picked up her bag and left, slamming the door behind her.
About Hannah Carrow
I am an artist living and working in London. I spent my late childhood years at boarding school in Cornwall. I have always loved the countryside and the sea. I later attended St Martin’s School of Art in London in the 1980s and was awarded a BA Hons Degree in Fine Art.
Like A Bird is my first novel. It has been a story that I have needed to tell for a long time. My son suggested I should write it as much of it is true. Now that I am in my early sixties I can look back upon my life and remember it as it was.