Touch Me, Feel Me...

...It is not, you will understand, my habit to be found holding hands with an achingly beautiful lady doctor. Not even with, as in the case in hand - as it were, one radiant with late-term pregnancy.

H, of course, would take a dim view of it. One imagines, too, it not playing well at any subsequent Consistory Court - 'conduct unbecoming', 'clerk in holy orders' and all that stern stuff. Does happen of course, from time to time. Not to me thus far that is, but the odd parson or two has had to face being brought to Bell, Book and Candle for such matters. Not a pleasant experience for any concerned, one can well imagine. By report - and this is quite shaming - the woman of hue deemed scarlet frequently copping far more of the blame for leading a 'good vicar' astray than the man himself who often, one knows, made most if not all of the running.

Pure (if one may say it thus when one ought in truth call it 'impure') lust is one thing - the whole 'Vicar Always Ringing Twice' much in the manner of the errant postman malarkey. More naughty than nice, but not necessarily utterly wicked. Nor indeed is the Eve in question always utterly without fault. One recalls the young hunk of an innocent curate so caught out, who escaped with but a written warning when it emerged in Court that the local WI had run a book on who would be the one to relieve him of his clearly troubling virginity. (It was the grocer's wife - 5/2 second favorite - if you must know.)

But far more troubling are those times when some parishioner pitches up at the Rectory door in deep personal distress, only to find herself bedded 'as part of the healing process'. 'Tis a handy clue - if you ever hear that line of defence being used at any aforementioned Consistory Court, then you know full well that the man should at once be taken outside and shot. True enough that this is not always any blatant abuse of position or power; can as easily be more professional sympathy morphing into human empathy, moving thence to personal caring, to mutual warmth and so to bed. (In, however, such cases the only possible judicial approach is filthy guilty before being proven beyond any shadow of any doubt and then still not really convinced innocent.)

Avoidance of any such temptation - or shall we say bedevilment - is banged into the thickest of all seminarian skulls these days. Whole screeds of episcopal parchment are scrawled with sound, if baffling, advice about 'maintaining appropriate professional boundaries' or 'transference avoidance mechanisms'. So much, indeed, is the wind put up the average cassock on the matter that I have even heard of one poor Catlick fellow who asked a somewhat dazzling woman seeking confession on matters adulterous whether she wished for a chaperon!

Over-compensating by half, many a cleric will run a mile backwards (try that in a cassock!) to avoid being seen to be too touchy-feely with the halt, the lame or the vulnerable. Not quite on the old blunt Army line of these things - 'One pace forward everyone with two parents! Not you Corporal Wilson!' - but close. Funnily enough, I have, I am told, a rather soothing pew-side manner. Never really imagined it was my kind of thing, but apparently 'tis so. H herself will tell me that folk have stopped her in the street and passed decent comment on how I have helped them through their troubles. Even the occasional note from the diocesan secretary to advise me that my 'surveyed sympathy satisfaction quotient' has exceeded this year's regional average weighted target. (You can imagine the simple, heart-felt joy that the latter brings!)

Are we then back to this achingly beautiful doctor and the whole my-hand-in-thy-hand thing? Indeed so. Is this then me exercising my professional magic once more? Au contraire, as it were, 'twas she hers. 'Can't hardly grasp a tin of beans,' said I to her, 'without it hurting like buggery' by way of stark explanation of my presence in her surgery. Was this then the exclusive prelude to her grasping my mitts with hers and giving them a thorough going over by way of differential diagnosis? Absolutely. Did I though silently opine that were there other circs. applying I would rather more than not be perfectly content to be so held for a decent spell? I cannot, in truth, claim not.

Was though, in conclusion, any fleeting fantasy on my part swiftly dashed when said achingly beautiful doctor let go my hands with not 'Darling, we know it cannot be...', but 'It's either osteo-arthritis or gout or both. We need more tests to be sure'? Must you ask?

May indeed, now, need to rethink the whole touchy-feely thing from my end. Met, this very morning, some hearty fellow in the High Street who insisted on shaking my hand with vice-like grip and a fiercesome pump action to drain the very Fens. Have to say that my resultant loud yelps - call them screams - of naked agony quite roused the attention of all within a good hundred yards, not to mention entirely robbing this slight moment of social intercourse between parson and his parishioner of its rightful and proper pleasure.

Am having, therefore, to consider viable alternatives. Raising one's closed hands in greeting in the manner of some Hindu ascetic is one possibility. Could be a bit tricky that if they only get the idea that I am praying over them. I do of course, and they know I do, but it's not something about which one likes to make any kind of public fuss.

Another option - one that does appeal and should be efficacious if causing some anxiety in more sensitive souls - is to break out that old favourite seminarian tee-shit with the wondrous motif: 'Back off! Do I look like a f*$%*"g people person?'