by Lana Grayson
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
She hesitated, too afraid to reveal the truth to the man and priest suffering from her shared desire.
And I answered for her.
“You ache at all hours…” I spoke from experience. “You’re hot, always. Desperate. Thinking only carnal and terrible thoughts.”
“Yes.”
“And who is with you in these thoughts?”
“You are, Father Raphael.”
Pray for us sinners…
“You want to feel my touch. Hear my words.”
Honor groaned. “This is wrong.”
“It is, because you realize how badly you wish to experience it. Can you imagine me? My lips on yours…my hands free to caress your body—celebrating you, sanctifying you, perfect and soft.”
“Why are you saying such things?”
“You don’t suffer alone.” I twisted the rosary in my hand, pinching hard until I was certain the beads imbedded into my skin. “You are my prayer now, Honor. Every joyous and solemn word I speak is a shade of your name.”
She sucked in a breath. “We’re speaking in sins.”
“No. I’m being honest. It is a part of humanity—these desires are what make me a man.”
“But you have to be a priest.”
“And so…” I gestured to the space between us. “I have not indulged.”
Even when it might’ve been easy.
Even when I might’ve taken her, thrown her onto my desk, the floor, against a wall.
My worst demonic urges imagined her lying flat, naked, waiting on the altar with her legs spread, breasts heaving.
Slick and sacrilegious.
Begging in blasphemy.
If I was to sin, I’d lose myself entirely. And if I was to remain holy? It would be in praise of my vows, my faith, and my honor.
Now and at the hour of our death…
“We have a choice.” I declared it, loud, as if in Mass. This would be my most important homily. “We can surrender to this desire. I’ll take your virginity, and my vow of celibacy will belong to you. We will succumb, and this sin will be claimed.”
Honor shook her head. “Absolutely not.”
“Then we must do what people have done for ages.”
“Suppress it.”
“No…fight it.”
Honor crossed her arms. Didn’t she realize it offered more of her curves for my inspection?
No. She didn’t.
And that made me all the more wicked.
Eve…playing with the forbidden fruit without realizing the damning consequences.
“I have fought it,” she said. “But you are the one who keeps me close, Father. You wanted me here, in the choir, in the groups.”
“Yes, because I can protect you.”
Amen.
“How?”
I extended my hands. “Temptation is inescapable, but surrendering is a choice. We fear what we don’t know, the forces we don’t understand. If we wish to fight this, we must take the opportunity to understand what burns in us. If we discover why we would sin together, then we’ll have the power to deny it in our most basic instincts.”
“Deny it?” She repeated. “Do you think it’s that easy?”
“No. No test of faith is ever easy.”
Honor frowned. “I didn’t think we were supposed to test our faith?”
“Our faith is constantly tested. We must challenge our humanity. Deny the animalistic needs, terrible desires, and wicked perversions that would tarnish our soul.”
I spoke harshly. Too aggressively. Honor stiffened, and her beautiful expression twisted into confusion.
“Father Rafe, you speak as if all sex is…evil.”
She wouldn’t know. I didn’t expect someone of her innocence to understand.
“Yes, Honor. Every touch.”
“But—” Her words turned from hushed heat to quiet pity. I clenched my jaw as she looked upon me, too gentle to realize the truth. “That’s not what I imagined sex would be.”
“How would you imagine us then?” I asked. “Answer honestly.”
“Well, this…” She tucked her hair behind her ears. “This would be…dangerous. Wrong. Tempting and forbidden. Exciting, though I know we’d suffer for it.”
“Then you understand.”
“No, I don’t.” She frowned. “Sex between lovers, between a man and a woman, married and connected? That would be something…beautiful and holy.”
Poor angel.
Innocent angel.
“Sex is a declaration of power over another person.” An old darkness clouded my mind. I refused to let it take hold. I lost too many years to that evil. “The strong enforce their will upon a weaker body.”
“But—”
“It is raw, primal, animalistic. An invasion of body and soul.”
Honor frowned. “Some would call that the ultimate trust, Father.”
“And I see it for the truth—a moment when you are lost, without escape. You would be taken and made for a man’s desires.”
She shook her head. “Or you are made beautiful, safe, and lost only within tender affection and loving promise.”
“You’re naïve.”
“And you’re…in such despair.”
I wouldn’t allow her to pity me. “I recognize my desires because they are shared by all men. I have no faith in us.”
Honor glanced to the locked door. “Do you have faith in yourself?”
I tapped my collar. “Yes, though I struggle, as all men do. But I can control myself. I vowed to temper those thoughts, those desires, those sins.” I held her stare. “And you will resist as well.”
“How? Do you want us to…deliberately tempt ourselves?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind,” I quoted. “And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
“Shouldn’t we leave this to Him then?” she asked.
“We will not be rid of this lust until we understand it. We can hide from it. We can ignore it. But we will always be a slave to it unless we conquer it ourselves.”
Her lips parted as though she would argue.
As though she feared she would fail.
“I want to explore our temptations,” I said. “Bend our bodies to our spiritual limit and prove we are unbreakable in our vows. We will test ourselves so that we can be prepared to deny our weaknesses.”
Honor spoke softly. “And if we can’t do this, Father? If we surrender to it?”
“We won’t.”
“But if we do?”
“There is no if. We cannot fail.”
“Then why risk it?”
I wouldn’t have her lose faith so quickly. I seized her in my arms, just as I did before, just as closely and fiercely.
Only this time…I kissed the words from her.
And in that moment, she became mine.
Her lips parted, and a breathy sigh awakened the sinner within me. Her body pressed against mine, so soft and beautiful, graceful and holy that the erection pressing through my trousers desecrated her with dark urges.
I wanted this woman. In my arms. In my bed. Forever murmuring a soft prayer and offering forgiveness in a kiss to my aching lips.
Every nibble of her flesh tasted of candied apples and victory.
Would she taste as delicious pressed within my sheets? Would every inch of her skin shiver in goose bumps as it had now?
Her lips parted more, granting me that singular joy of flicking a curious tongue against hers. She groaned, and the quiet, throaty murmur echoed in the adoration chapel.
The praises I would sing to this woman from now on…
I imagined how the rest of her would feel, explored with my kiss, my lips, my tongue. Her silken skin would heat like fire. Her graceful
neck would pulse where I pressed my mouth. I’d bite the hollow of her throat, and I’d earn another breathy cry. Her breasts would heave in gasping, wanting waves. I imagined cupping her, offering a sable brown nipple to my lips.
If only…
I’d worship this woman. Ease my kiss lower and lower until I explored the soft path to the waiting crest between her legs, the Heaven which begged for its own adoration.
A kiss.
A lick.
A sin turned to beauty.
Her fingers tangled in my cassock, and the rosary beads cut into my skin. My soul screamed. I managed only a bitter and resigned grunt.
I pushed her away before my thoughts burrowed within a slickness that taunted my dreams.
She panted, torn from my body, shocked and confused.
My heart cracked, but it continued to beat.
The guilt of the kiss faded, cast away as I recognized the strength simmering between our bodies. I stood tall. Honor adjusted her blouse. Her lips were swollen and puffy from my ravaging…and yet she met my gaze with every determination I expected.
My angel.
She would best this temptation with me.
Or I would break us both in licentious arrogance.
“I stopped myself this time,” I said. “Are you strong enough to deny yourself?”
Honor didn’t smile. Her eyes widened with a naïve ignorance I envied.
“Yes,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“As you said, Father…” She seized a breath to end her shuddered gasps. “The consequences are too damning to fail. I can resist you, and I will deny myself.”
I took her hand. Her pulse raced, but she accepted this challenge with grace.
“My perfect angel…”
I touched her face, stroked her cheek, tangled my fingers in her hair. Then I pulled away, just to prove that I could.
She licked her lips, and I kissed her again, gently and softly. Her tongue met mine. She mewed, but she broke the kiss.
Pride would be her undoing.
If it hadn’t already conquered me.
“We have work to do,” I whispered. “I will teach you to resist this temptation, to defy sin, and to shield your faith from the most dangerous threat to your innocence.”
“The devil?”
“Me.”
I shook my head, memorizing the crook of her nose, the dramatic arch of her brows, the almond curve of her eyes.
This woman would be the death of me.
And I prayed I’d wake in Heaven.
7
Honor
The lights were out when I got home after the choir audition.
After the kiss.
It wasn’t late—St. Cecilia’s didn’t exactly have a thriving night life…despite what thoughts lingered in my mind of Father Raphael and his private sermon.
After I returned to the nave and earned my spot into the special choir, I schemed with Alyssa and Samantha about a three-piece harmony. Once it got late, I’d grabbed my bags and computers and headed home.
Not in any particular hurry.
It didn’t feel like home anymore…because it wasn’t. We lost the house after Dad died, despite his life insurance policy covering the remainder of the mortgage. Mom had used the money for other expenses. It was the polite way to phrase our misfortune to the few family members and friends Mom hadn’t driven away.
Her new apartment was small, and my bedroom a corner of the living room. Mom had offered me her room when I moved back, but it was just as tiny and leaked around the window. Even closed, the room had a bad draft. Mom didn’t care—said it helped the hot flashes. So many things in my life changing, and all of them at once, she had joked.
She forgot to lock the door.
The neighborhood couldn’t even be trusted to have a communal mailbox without extra locks. I’d have to remind her to be careful.
I edged inside and forced the door closed behind me, lifting the handle so it wouldn’t grind against the peeling linoleum. The lock clicked.
Home.
The thought still soured in my stomach. At least the extra choir practices meant another excuse to get out of the apartment. I hated myself for thinking it, but I hated even more the uncomfortable, greasy, weird feeling I got being at home.
Like I didn’t belong here.
No. Like she didn’t belong here.
Mom’s shoes cluttered the entry—two pairs, weather-worn and fading. I kicked them into the coat closet. The busted hangers had dropped the winter coats onto the floor. She’d left them there. I shook them out.
A single white pill tumbled from the pocket.
It crashed against the rug as soundlessly as thunder.
I sucked in a breath, checking the other pockets. Nothing in them but lint and crumpled receipts. The pill was a loner, one lost from over a year ago.
I hated to even touch the foul thing. If she knew she had an Oxy left…
I glanced over the apartment, dark and cluttered. Newspapers wadded near the door—she said she’d take them to recycling later. I made a note to toss them out with the garbage that night. The pots from last night piled in the sink—she wanted to let them soak a little longer. I’d start on them before they smelled.
The bills piled up on the table.
She put them off. I hated them the most, so I usually did that first.
But the electric company was closed, and the landlord didn’t like calls after hours. I spent my afternoon and evening at the church and didn’t have time to sort through the finances.
Not that I could focus on anything important now.
I drowned in my own thoughts.
No.
In my own slickness.
And how horrible and sinful and delightful and amazing had that discovery been?
My body betrayed my soul, my lips their own cautious whispers, and my heart the only defense it had against an untouchable, unobtainable man. Yet I had the power—no, the control—to pull away from his arms.
I had ended the kiss, returned to the sanctuary, and looked upon the altar and the cross and the sanctity of the church without guilt for the first time in a month.
I could do this.
I could fight the temptation.
At least…in the church.
At home, in the dark, those feelings returned. I warmed in the right and wrong places.
I forced a breath and focused on cleaning the entry and living room so I could get to my bed. I had homework to do. Plus, I’d promised I’d update the food pantry inventory spreadsheet. Theirs was made in Microsoft Word and with the aid of an adding machine, and I was pretty sure my head almost exploded when I tried to work it.
I really needed to sleep. When was I going to fit it in? Between my two summer courses, the choir practices, volunteering for the festival, and working at the food pantry I had no idea where I’d squeeze in more hours for the things we desperately needed. Like sleep. And working part-time. Or full-time, like we needed. I wasn’t ready to give up on earning my degree before finding a job, especially since I knew how difficult it’d be to find any good paying work in my field.
Unless…I had to shift my career goals.
I’d taken business classes at school. Despite growing up in the church and wanting to help others through charity and social work…those jobs didn’t pay the bills. The overdue bills.
And the debts.
Dad’s lingering funeral costs.
College.
I bagged the trash in the living room and groaned as the garbage overflowed.
How did Mom ever manage this on her own?
The answer was obvious—she didn’t. Not when she was still high and drinking or after the year she spent sobering up.
No one had said it, no one had even thought it, but I knew how it would look if I admitted to only moving home once Mom got clean and times were easier. But it was Dad who said to leave. He told me to focus on my education, my career, my life.
So I
didn’t end up like her.
The woman sharing my home wasn’t the Mom I remembered. She wasn’t the woman who raised me. She was better now. Human again, instead of the raging animal sneaking drinks and stealing pain medications.
And yet…I still panicked. I still checked. I still waited for the day she’d make a mistake and reveal that the past year of sobriety was a lie.
I was tired of sneaking into her bedroom and peeling the bottle from her hands, just so I could check to see if it was a beer or…
A bottle of water.
Good.
Why was it I could kiss a priest and yet feel more guilt for doubting my mother’s sobriety?
I cleared her nightstand of the extra bottles and magazines. Mom didn’t wake up, snoring in a twin bed. It wasn’t ours. She and Dad had shared a hand-crafted bed. I never asked where it ended up, lost and ruined. It’d meant the world to him, that bed.
He was an honest, generous, loving Catholic man who lived for his family and showed that love through his trade—carpentry. He’d made most of our furniture by hand.
And it was all gone now.
Nothing but memories remained.
I finished straightening the apartment. It could wait for a deep clean after Mass on Sunday.
A thrill tickled through me, something entirely inappropriate for the thought of returning to the church. I took a cool shower, changed, and snuggled into my mattress in the corner. My phone buzzed as I rolled onto my side.
I shouldn’t have looked.
I didn’t have the contact in my phone, but my secret messenger wasn’t so mysterious.
Sleep well, my angel.
As if I could sleep now.
The heat burst within me once more. I swallowed, but my tummy twisted in such a good way.
Who would Jesus text?
I gripped my phone and typed back, loving the delicious thrill.
Are you allowed to text me?
He replied immediately. Who would stop me?
This man? This priest?
No one.
How’d you get my number?
His message beeped. The phone tree.
Betrayed by the women’s club and its eternal preparedness. I took a breath, wishing my body would stop shivering in exquisite goose bumps. I typed a cautious message.
I was just going to bed…
I counted the seconds for his reply. What a coincidence. I’m already in bed.