by Ava Lore
Saving Sins
Ava Lore
Copyright 2012 Ava Lore
Kindle Edition
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Kindle Edition, License Notes
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, the please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons either living or dead is purely coincidental.
Saving Sins
Ava Lore
Tara Fawkes stared up at the church facade. It dominated the skyline, huge and imposing. The statues adorning the outside might have looked judgmental to a stranger, but to Tara she finally felt a sense of relief, though it ran in tandem with apprehension. Tonight she was going back out on the streets. Tonight she was going full circle. Tonight she was wrapping up her unfinished business. They said that God never closed a door without opening a window, and while she didn't believe in God, she was ready to close a door forever. She wanted that window.
Running up the steps, Tara shook her hand out of the pocket of her heavy winter coat and placed her gloved fingers against the great wooden doors. Even through the thick soft fleece she felt the chill of the day, and it was going to get worse. Night was falling on Baltimore, and there was work to be done.
Pushing the door open, Tara stepped inside the church and breathed deeply. The smell of incense and burned candles met her nose, acrid and familiar. Just like all those years ago when she first came to the church, though back then the scent had seemed cloying, suffocating her where she stood. Not that it mattered, of course. Back then, her whole life had wrapped around her neck, weighing her down, wringing the very breath from her, so the smell of the church had been a minor annoyance at best. Now, however, it comforted her. And stirred memories.
She hadn't been back for almost four years, but in her chest, her heart skipped a beat, and for a moment Tara found herself huddling into her coat, fear and doubt curdling in her stomach. Then it retreated as quickly as it had come on—just a ghost of her old self, passing her by.
Squaring her shoulders, Tara swallowed, then nodded to the statue of Mary as she passed through the vestibule before slipping into the sanctuary. Stone walls loomed above her, and the windows, stained with color, filtered the last of the dying winter light through them. It was supposed to snow tonight, and Tara felt the oppressive weight of the ice-filled clouds moving in. When she was younger...
But that was then.
Taking off her gloves, she rubbed her hands together and peered around. "Hello?" she called. "Father MacEnroe?"
A rustle and footsteps off to her right. Tara turned.
Her heart stopped.
Piercing green eyes set in a chiseled face regarded her from the doorway leading off the side of the sanctuary, back into the church offices. Brown hair, always messy because, as she recalled, he never stopped running his hands through it, fell in thick dark locks against a clerical collar. For a moment she thought he didn't recognize her. Then his full mouth broke into a brilliant smile.
Her heart ached. Michael.
"Tara?" he said.
"Father," she breathed. She broke, running across the stone floor and flinging herself into his arms. "Father!"
He laughed, his deep voice resonating through her as he picked her up and swung her around—a little different now that she was a well-fed twenty three instead of drugged-out eighteen, but thrilling all the same. "Sweet mother Mary," he said, setting her down. "Let me look at you."
She stood dutifully before him, though her cheeks hurt from grinning so much. He looked just as beautiful now as he did when she had first met him. Even more so, actually, because now she knew what he was capable of. Now she was one of his flock, if not in the strictest sense of the word, then in the most important sense. Without Father Michael, she'd be dead. Or worse. She would do anything he asked. Even swallow her most secret feelings. She owed him. She owed him so much...
Oblivious to the buried turmoil she barely let herself feel, Michael placed his hands on her shoulders and looked her up and down. "My goodness, you've... grown," he said. "And you grew your hair back out."
Suddenly shy, Tara reached up and touched the long blonde locks that had taken almost three years to stabilize. "Yeah," she said. "The half-shaved look just wasn't...me, anymore."
He regarded her seriously. "It suits you," he said solemnly. "I'm so glad to see you."
"I'm glad to see you, too," she replied.
They stared at one another for a long moment before Father Michael coughed, and they both took a step back, as though through unspoken agreement.
"So," Tara said. "What are we doing tonight?"
Father Michael took a deep breath. "Going straight out onto the streets," he said. "Bringing hot food, hot drinks. Blankets and coats."
Tara raised an eyebrow. "Condoms?" she asked.
He nodded. "Those, too. But that's our little secret," he said. "No telling."
She nodded. She'd heard through the grapevine that Father Michael got in trouble with his superiors for handing out condoms to the ladies of the Baltimore night, but she knew he wouldn't back down. When she'd met him, he'd offered them to her, too.
The heat of the summer night lay against her skin, the air thick with water from the harbor. A trickle of sweat wended its way down her collarbone, dipping between her breasts as Tara let her hips sway, her ass jiggle, each bounce of her body belying the gnawing hunger in her belly, the ache in her head. She needed food. She needed dope. Her shoes—one dollar high heels she found at the goodwill—let everyone know what she was advertising.
Tonight was the night. No turning back now.
A car pulled up beside her. Her face was numb as she plastered a smile on it and stopped, turning to greet her first customer ever.
He was beautiful. So beautiful she almost didn't notice the clerical collar, but she didn't let it faze her. His cheekbones highlighted green eyes so intense she thought she might pass out. He couldn't have been more than thirty. She was lucky. So, so lucky.
“Looking for a date?” she said. Her voice came out strained, but she thrust her breasts out and pretended she knew what she was doing. Fake it til you make it. Yeah.
“Get in.”
His voice reached out and wrapped around her. Sensuous and sultry in the late hours. She could have straddled that voice and ridden it to heaven.
She got in.
The atmosphere in the car was heavy. She found it hard to breathe. Next to her, the priest was a gargantuan presence, a weight in the world, and she knew she was falling toward him, helpless to resist his pull.
She would fuck him tonight. She would suck his cock. She would do anything he wanted.
And he'd give her that fix that made it all go away.
“You seem young,” he said after a moment.
“I'm legal,” she said, staring at the rosary hanging from the rearview mirror. A Catholic priest. Naughty. “Twenty for a bj, more if you want more.”
He was quiet. The engine idled. She forced herself to meet his eyes, to study his handsome face. This was her fate. This was where it ended, just like her mother always told her, just like she knew it would when she left home two years ago.
His green eyes shone, and her heart stuttered and died in her chest, a thousand times over.
“You're new,” he said at last.
She swallowed. “So?”
His clothes rubbed against the upholstery, a rough, cotton sound that grated on her ears like sandpaper. She turned to stone as he reached over, his body drawing closer and closer to her.
Then he popped the glove compartment, and a long string of condoms fell into his hand. He held them out to her, and when she didn't take them he gently took her hand and placed them in it. His fingers were warm, dry, calloused. They brushed against the sensitive valley of her palm. Tickled. Danced. As though she were a regular girl, with desires and needs, her body responded to his touch.
It frightened her.
“You'll need these,” he was saying, “if you mean to go through with it,” It took her a moment to realize he had spoken. His voice was soft. Kind.
Tara stared incredulously at the condoms. He'd seen right through her.
“I can get you off the streets, if you want.”
What she wanted to do was to scream. She wanted to throw them back in his face. Wanted to break down into tears and hope he'd hold her.
He didn't know her, didn't know anything about her. She couldn't let them find her, and she knew he would fuck it up. There was nowhere else. Nowhere to be safe. Nowhere to be calm. The only thing that made her push forward were the drugs, and now that prospect was dimming with every second spent in this junker of a car. "Aren't I going to go to hell if I use these?" she snapped at him, sarcasm dripping from her words.
"No," he said. "You'll die if you don't."
"I'm gonna die anyway," she said, recklessly. Turning, she put her hand on the car door, but gentle fingers on her arm stopped her. "What?" she snarled, turning on him like a wounded animal. "A girl's gotta work."
He stared at her. His face, lovely in the light, like an angel. When she saw the guys most girls went home with she could barely repress a shudder. This man, though...it wouldn't have been so bad. He would have been a gentle introduction into the trade.
She should have known better. It was going to take her another week—or more—to work up the courage to try again.
His green eyes shone in the light of the streetlamps, and his face studied hers. He looked so sad, watching her.
Deep inside, his sorrow struck a chord, plucked a heart string. In her breast, there was an answering sorrow, so deep she lost her breath, and she wanted to hide her face in shame.
"Here," he said, pulling a card out of the pocket of his black shirt. "Please, take this. Come by the church if you need anything. If I'm not there, I'm out here."
"Whatever," she snapped. "I'm out of here."
"God keep you," he said.
She slammed the door behind her and stormed off down the street. In her hand, the card crumpled into sharp corners, cutting against her skin as she balled it up and threw it into the street.
The memory feathered against her, bringing a fresh flush of shame, even though Michael had told her there was no shame in suffering. Whatever she had done, she did to survive, even—and this always surprised her—the drugs. They had been a tool, he told her. Anesthesia for the soul. Just as the shock of surgery could kill you if you weren't properly sedated, so could the open wounds of the heart.
Sometimes, you needed to be numb to survive, and you used whatever tools were at hand.
Now, five years down the road, Tara thought she was getting closer to finding peace. Instead of living on the streets, she was in college, studying sociology. If it hadn't been for Father Michael, she probably would have died of a drug overdose before she was twenty.
Now, tonight, she was going out on the streets again, this time as Father Michael's companion, to help him minister to the prostitutes of Baltimore. Although minister didn't really seem like the right word... Help, perhaps? He helped. Small ways and big ways. Fresh clean needles, condoms, hot food and hot drinks on the cold nights, winter clothes, though of course you could never cover up too much or no one would know what you were selling. Standing out in the cold, half-frozen... she remembered those days. And if a girl wanted off the streets, she had only to ask.
So few of them did, though. She was one of the only success stories. Sometimes she wondered what had made her special enough to escape. She hadn't deserved it at all.
Pressing her lips together, Tara lifted her chin. "Let's go."
Father Michael reached out, one large, warm hand alighting on the sleeve of her coat. Tara imagined she could feel its heat through her clothes. "You don't have to do this tonight," he said. "The destitute will always be with us. You can leave if you like."
Inexplicable panic welled in her, and she shook her head. "No! I mean, no. No, it's okay. I'm okay."
The corners of his mouth quirked up. "Tara." He shook his head, and the way he said her name made her warm down to her toes. "Always putting on the brave face."
She blushed and backed away. “It's all right,” she said, this time far calmer. “I'll be fine.”
He studied her solemnly for a moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a rosary in silver and black onyx. Holding it out to her, he said, "Here. Wear this. It will help you."
Tara shifted, feeling awkward. This was the only part of their relationship that had been at odds with one another. "You know I'm not Catholic," she said. Or Protestant, or Jewish, or anything at all. She'd seen too much. She wanted to believe like Father Michael did, like her foster family did, but she just couldn't.
There were places that you couldn't come back from. Not entirely. Every once in a while she felt a cold dark shadow pass across her soul, and she knew she hadn't really escaped her past. The things she'd done. The things that had been thrust upon her.
"It doesn't matter," Michael said. "I want you to have it. Maybe think of it as a good luck charm. You do believe in luck, right?"
She frowned, but then a twinkle in his eye gave him away. He was teasing her.
"Father Michael!" she exclaimed. "You are trying to get a rise out of me!" Reaching out, she plucked the rosary from the air between them. "But how is it lucky?"
He shrugged. "I'm giving it to you and telling you it's for luck. Are you so rich in luck that you can afford to turn it down?"
No, she thought. She certainly wasn't. She lifted the rosary and looped it around her neck, pulling her thick blonde hair out from beneath it as it settled over her throat. "There," she said. "Happy now?"
"I am," he said. "Let's go load up the van, and then we'll go. You can tell me all about what's going on with you on the way."
*
Twenty minutes later they had loaded trays of hot sandwiches into the van and two giant samovars of hot water for making tea. In the back seat were stacks of condoms and even clean needles for the girls chasing their next dope fix, which was all of them. Tara studiously ignored the pile of needles. She didn't need that shit any more. She had a life, built away from all the sadness and anger of her childhood. She didn't need to shoot up to feel good or escape. She was happy where she was.
Together she and Father Michael drove out into the cold, dark Baltimore night. It was early December, but when Tara had met Father Michael, it had been summer. He wasn't one of those Christmas-only guys. He worked all the time, trying to help the girls on the street. That was his mission, he had told her. How he had found out it was his mission, she didn't know, but he'd lived in Baltimore all his life. He'd probably just seen a need and gone to fill it. She may not have been religious, but Tara could respect that.
"Tell me about your classes," Father Michael said as they turned onto the road leading into the heart of drug and prostitute country.
"Well..." Tara probed her brain for something interesting to say as shabby buildings passed them by. "They're not too hard, I don't think."
"Not hard?" he said. "Then why are you taking them?"
She shot him a look, but his mouth was quirked. He was teasing her again and she rolled her eyes. "Because I enjoy them. The class I'm doing this for—Urban Sociology—is really fascinating. I did a paper on homeless women and got an A. Th
e professor asked me if she could copy my paper and use it as an example for later classes." She was proud of that. "Honestly, I think it's easy because I'm good at it and enjoy it, not because it's not difficult."
"I know what you mean," Father Michael said. "When we're working hard at something we love, it's rarely work."
"Exactly." Tara smiled. When she'd been eighteen and penniless, she hadn't loved anything she did, whether it was stealing copper wire or begging for change. When the family who took her in had asked her to assist in the family business, she'd reluctantly agreed if only because she felt so indebted to them, but she'd found that she enjoyed the work. No heavy lifting, mostly answering phones and filing papers. No getting up in stranger's faces. No giving furtive handjobs for a fix. No puking in alleyways.
No shooting up.
Tara rubbed a hand over her face and concentrated on the buildings passing them by. The atmosphere inside the van was thick, but not uncomfortable, and she held her hands out and let the hot air of the heater flow over her stiff fingers and up the thick sleeves of her coat. "Anyway," she said, because she realized neither of them had spoken for several minutes, "I really love it. I'm thinking of going into social work, so... here I am."
"That's a tough line of work," Father Michael said neutrally.
"You do it," she said.
"I am called."
"Well, I think I should."
"Oh?" She stole a peek at him, but his face was neutral.
"Yeah. I mean... I got out. I should be able to help other people, right? You can't pull the ladder up behind you. That's not fair."
"It's less that and more that the work... it's crushing." His voice sounded strangled in the small space of the van. "So many people, and you can only help a little bit. It's very rare to be able to save someone from that life."
Tara swallowed. "You saved me," she said quietly.
Father Michael was silent for a long moment. "Perhaps," he said. "Here, Carrollton Ridge. I have a pretty good rapport with the girls here. It'll ease us into tonight's work."