by Keri Lake
“So, I have to sit and wait for that person to come after me before I can do something about it?”
“You’ve reported this individual to the authorities?”
“So many times it’s a joke. He has connections. Friends who can make things disappear.”
In a flash of memory, I recall the day I ran into her at the hospital, and the faint bruise on her cheek that caught my attention. “Who is this person to you, if I may ask?”
“Someone who refuses to remove himself from my life. I won’t say we dated, because I don’t think we ever did. Not even when I found him a small bit charming.”
“You’ve tried a restraining order?”
“What good is it, if no one bothers to enforce it?”
“And you can’t relocate.” I don’t bother to say the reason I suspect she can’t and risk sounding cold.
“I’m not leaving my grandmother alone in the same city with him. She’s too sick to move.”
“Seems you’ve exhausted all of my usual suggestions for these kinds of things. I know of one woman who sought refuge in a shelter for abused women.”
“I have a nice apartment. My own personal sanctuary. It’s unfair that I should have to leave and hide in a shelter with a bunch of other women and children.” Huffing, she turns to face me. “I consider myself a strong person, but he’s exhausted me. To the point I feel like my only option is provoking him, so he’ll come at me, and I can call it all self-defense. But you’re telling me my very soul is doomed if I do. If I provoke him that way.”
“Have you tried talking—”
“To a therapist? A police officer? A lawyer?” Arms crossed, she leans against the window frame, looking painfully beautiful in all of her despair. “They’ve all given me the same options.” Her hand swipes at her face, and it’s then I notice she’s in tears.
Leaning forward, I reach out for her hand, offering comfort, and I’m taken aback at the softness and warmth of her skin.
Turning toward me, she wipes her tear-filled eyes again before she dips her gaze toward where her hand is swallowed by mine.
Usually, I make it a point to refrain from unnecessary touch, unless for comfort, or when greeting my parishioners after mass. But I find myself studying the feel of her more than trying to ease her thoughts. For the briefest second, I imagine those soft hands across my back, nails digging into my skin, and at the shock of such a vivid fantasy, I release her.
Clearing my throat, I straighten in my chair. “I’ll see what I can do.”
She tips her head, guiding my eyes to hers, and steps closer, uncomfortably close, setting off alarms inside my head. Kneeling before me, she takes my hand and, without diverting her gaze, presses those shiny red lips to my knuckles. “Thank you, Father.”
I don’t even realize my other hand is balled to a fist, until I catch her quick glance to the side, undoubtedly picking up on my distress, and her lips stretch to a smile. Every muscle in my body is seizing up, blood rushing to places it shouldn’t, and I force myself to think of something else. The body I dumped the night before in a cesspool, the paperwork I’ve left to do this afternoon, the uneventful baseball game I watched two nights ago. None of it can draw me from the long subdued effects taking over me. The scent of hers, distinctly feminine and sweet, wrapping itself around my senses, like a noose to my better judgment. Swallowing a harsh gulp, I kick the chair back a bit to add some space between us, to clarify that, whatever this is, whether in my head, or really playing out before me, it isn’t going to happen, either way.
Her fingers curl around my thigh as she uses my leg to push to a stand, and once again, I’m yanked into unbidden fantasies of her straddled across me, her skirt draped over us, concealing us, as she rides me right here in this chair. “I won’t take up any more of your time. Thank you for listening.” Her downward glance and the smile that follows confirm what I already know—my whole body is hard, my muscles creating a tight fist around my lungs in a punishing grip that steals my breath.
As a fairly young priest, it’s not uncommon for me to get the occasional wayward glance, or inappropriate comment from a woman, but it is rare that my body reacts so out of control as a result. Nothing she’s said warrants my sudden inability to reel myself in, but that’s the beauty of women like Ivy. They have a way about them that makes a man, or priest, for that matter, ponder what those pull-worthy locks of hair would look like plastered to her sweat-drenched face.
Still rigid, I watch her saunter out of my office, and only at the click of the door do I dare look down to find the source of her amusement. My slacks are tented enough to shelter a village.
It’s been a long time since a woman toyed with my restraint that way, and a harrowing thought snakes its way down my spine, inciting a shiver, as a frightening reality settles over me.
Ivy is poison in my blood.
9
IVY
Exhaling a breath, I rest my head against the door to Father Damon’s office and shake off my nerves, before I head out of the church toward the rail stop. I’m not usually one to dress for attention, so the eyes on me, as I shuffle down the sidewalk toward the stop, make me want to crawl in a hole and hide, but it was necessary. A woman doesn’t try to seduce a man without a small bit of effort, and she sure as hell doesn’t try to seduce a priest without three-inch stilettos and a sleek A-line skirt. Pretty sure it was one of Mamie’s live-in prostitutes who taught me that.
I’m not exactly what I’d call a temptress by nature, either, seeing as the only sex I’ve had in the last eight years makes me want to don a habit and join a convent. But, as I’ve come to learn, sex can be a powerful and manipulative tool, if properly wielded. And as awkward as the exchange with Father Damon may have been moments ago, it proved one thing—even a holy man can be led astray.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t bother with someone so stern and aloof as Father Damon, but opportunity can be a surprising little bitch who shows up when you least expect it. When I came to the church last night, looking for some small measure of comfort after a stomach-turning encounter with Calvin, only to find it wasn’t the variety of churches that stayed open all night, I might’ve ended up paying a visit to Suicide Bridge. After all, I still haven’t confessed my sin, so why not make it a double-whammy damnation sandwich? Turns out, I didn’t have to damn my soul at all, because I found something much more troubling. Morbid.
Something that might have any other girl staying as far away from Father Damon as possible.
Unfortunately for him, I’m not any other girl.
History has proven, time and time again, that I’m an opportunist—admittedly, not always wise in my pursuits. And when I saw Father Damon drive across the lawn toward the back of the church, as if he’d gone out on a drunken binge, curiosity took over.
From my hiding place in the nearby bushes, I watched with interest as he dumped a body into a hole in the ground. Took a minute for me to realize it was the septic tank. Really, that alone should’ve disgusted me—and it did, for a brief second, until I imagined Calvin’s body sliding into that hole, never to be seen, or heard from, again. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so disgusting. Suddenly, it seemed like a solution to my problem.
So I spent the entire night plotting how I might rope Father Damon into my plan, when the answer struck me. I’m a witness to his crime. That alone makes me worth his time. Worth his attention. Worth striking some sort of deal with, for my silence.
One doesn’t just come out and blackmail a man like that, though. I know from experience of dealing with a criminal. They require manipulation, seduction, trust. Otherwise, I could very well end up buried in shit alongside whomever he stuffed into that hole. No, one has to preen them along, make the criminal see them as more than just a roadblock to their freedom. It’s not my character to cry in front of people, but I wanted him to comfort me, to feel a small bit of compassion. To see me as a person deserving of his trust.
When I was thirteen, I remember lying sprawled out o
n the bed, watching one of the women who stayed with us, a prostitute named Luciana, as she sat half-naked in front of the mirror, telling me that a woman’s body holds more power than any weapon a man could ever dream up. That, if properly manipulated, it could make kingdoms and empires crumble. At the time, I wondered if she’d bothered to take her medication she often left out in the bathroom sink, but I remembered those words, when I made the deal with Calvin to sleep with him once a week, in exchange for him not showing up at my work, or doorstep.
And it worked, up until a few nights ago, when the asshole let his buddies annihilate my apartment.
Ugh. Calvin would lose his shit, if he knew where I’ve been this morning, what I’ve done. But if I don’t do something, I’m stuck in this nightmare forever, and I’d rather suffer the deadly consequences of changing my situation, than cower from him for the rest of my life.
The rail comes to a stop, and I stand to exit, keeping my head low to avoid the unwanted stares, until my heels click against the concrete. I swap them for the flats in my purse and keep on toward the hospital, lighting up a cigarette along the way.
My shift doesn’t begin for another couple of hours, but I thought I’d pop in on Mamie and read her a bit of the new romance novel I picked up. In life, she was never a fan of the damsel in distress characters, and I often wonder what she’d think of me in my situation. According to her, my grandfather, the only man she ever married, physically abused her for years, until one day she decided she’d had enough. She up and left him, taking my father with her, and together, they bounced around a lot, living on the streets and in shelters. Until my grandfather finally died and willed her the house and a small bit of property—an act she always said was more forgetful than charitable, as he apparently didn’t think to amend his will after she left him. That was when she opened the doors to other battered women, prostitutes mostly, and eventually started a sort of halfway house.
Pausing at the hospital’s entrance, I put out my cigarette and take a seat on the bench there, stealing a moment to massage my aching feet. Thankfully, I won’t have to take the rail after work. Most nights, I get a ride home from my coworker, Clara. In exchange, I give her gas money and the occasional batch of my famous chocolate chip cookies, which she seems to appreciate more than the cash.
In the brief moment of calm, I think of Father Damon. I dare say the events from last night have given me a whole new perspective on the man, who I pegged as somewhat dark and broody, but virtuous to a fault. I had no idea a man like that, a priest, could be dangerous and deadly, as well. Like a fictional fantasy come to life. The reserved and forbidden pastor who isn’t as aloof and untouchable as he likes everyone to think.
A week ago, I thought him incapable of mounting a hard-on, but after today, mounting and hard seem fitting for the man, if the bulge in his slacks was anything to go by. A man like that, pent up with so much tension and restraint? He’d probably go hours on adrenaline alone, and revel in the sweat and toil.
Nothing like Calvin, who gets himself off and can’t stand the feel of someone else’s sweat on his skin, or the smell of sex on him afterward. He’s the kind of germaphobe who’d probably wear a mouth guard, if he ever decided to do something selfless for once, like go down on a woman, a thought that crimps my lips.
With a frown, I will away the thoughts of Calvin and make my way into the hospital, and up to my grandmother’s floor. She’s supposed to be transferred back to the nursing home today, or tomorrow, so I want to make sure everything is set for her discharge.
As I round the divider curtain in her room, I come to a screeching halt, my heartbeat pounding up into my throat.
Sitting on a chair beside her as she sleeps is Calvin. He smiles back at me, pressing a finger to his lips to quiet me.
Gaze shooting to Mamie again, I study her chest to be sure she’s breathing, and scan the scene for any sign that he’s hurt her. “What are you doing here?” I whisper through clenched teeth, eyes still trailing over her frail form poking through the thin covers.
Leaving his chair, he comes to a stop beside me, the proximity of him setting my teeth on edge. “Let’s talk outside, love.”
Muscles knotted in tension, I step outside the room with him, and he crowds me against the wall, bracing his hand beside my head.
“Where’ve you been all day?” With eyes a soulless shade of blue, he stares down at me, drilling right through me, as if daring me to lie.
“Church.”
His eye flinches, the way it does when he’s holding back the urge to slap me across the face. It’s a look I’ve seen more times than I care to admit. “Church,” he echoes. “Since when do whores attend church?”
A quick sweep of my surroundings shows the busy nursing staff, buzzing around the nursing station and in and out of rooms, none of them paying us any attention.
“My grandmother wants to reconcile her sins. I met with the priest.”
“Young? Old?” The stale stench of chewing tobacco on his breath makes me want to hold my own.
“What does it matter?”
Shoulders bunched, he curls his fist in my periphery, a warning to me. “Is the fucking priest young, or old?”
“Old,” I lie. “Probably in his sixties.”
Sneering, he relaxes his muscles and tips his head. “Good. So, you wouldn’t be inclined to fuck him, then?”
“I’m not having this conversation with you. Not here. Not now.”
Running his finger down my cheek sends a curl of disgust through my gut. “I left a gift at your doorstep for Saturday. I want you to wear it for me.”
“You … showed up at my apartment again?”
“Just to drop it off, baby.” Hands falling to the nape of my neck, he makes it look like we’re some loving couple having an intimate moment, instead of a psychopath and his beloved little toy. “Don’t worry, I didn’t go in.”
“And why are you here?”
“To remind you of how easily I can get to you, if I need to.” Lips to my ear, he lowers his voice to a whisper. “How easily I could have smothered her with a pillow just now, while she peacefully slept. Don’t fuck with me, Ivy. I fuck with you, that’s how this works.” Squeezing my nape, he licks the shell of my ear, casting another ripple of sickness down to my stomach. “And I truly enjoy fucking with you.”
Body trembling on a rush of adrenaline, I trail my gaze over the bustling bodies all around me, who have no idea this man, this bastardly piece of shit, just threatened me and my grandmother. Unfortunately, if any of them bother to intervene, they’ll probably regret it, and so will I.
“I can’t wait to see you Saturday, love. I’m hard just thinking about it.” He pushes off the wall and strides down the hall, leaving me rattled and ready to throw up.
Taking a minute to close my eyes, I breathe deeply and remember that, as dangerous as Calvin may be, I witnessed a man, perhaps equally as dangerous, discard a body like he was tossing out the morning trash. A reminder that even apex predators can become prey.
Therefore, I’m determined to make Father Damon want me more than anything. More than sleep. More than his impenetrable morals, or tightly guarded virtue.
More than the anger that will inevitably consume him when he finds out what I have to confess.
10
DAMON
I rub the towel over my wet hair, my muscles still burning from my hour-long workout in the rec room. Not even the cold shower that followed has soothed the massive case of blue balls I’ve suffered for most of the day, since my meeting with Ivy. Thank goodness for the alb, or the entire congregation would’ve gotten a front row view of sin in the flesh during evening mass.
In all my years of priesthood, tonight’s mass was probably the most troubling for me. Not only did I carry the oppressive weight of knowing I’ve buried a man in the back of the very church where I preach about mortal sin, but I also managed to work up the most painful hard-on I’ve had in years.
It felt like the days
before Isabella, when Val and I popped ecstasy and locked ourselves in the bedroom all day. Only times we emerged were to eat and use the bathroom. Much as I try to suppress those memories, I miss the smell of sex and the awe of seeing her naked body rocking against mine.
Only this afternoon, it wasn’t Val’s face that came to mind, but Ivy’s.
Another twinge of pain strikes my balls, and I grip myself through my boxers, desperate to relieve the ache blossoming there all over again.
I need distraction.
Turning on the TV gives me pause, as the news report shows a familiar apartment building—the one where I dropped Camila off a couple nights ago. One of the neighbors speaks to the camera, calling the girl’s inexplicable return a miracle. In the next scene, her mother sits on a couch, clutching a bathed and dressed Camila, saying, “Whoever returned her back home, I just want to say, thank you. I wish you’d come forward, but I thank you for bringing her home to me.”
Seeing the little girl with even a slight smile on her face makes me feel like it’s all worth it. The punishing torment of having violated my commitment to sanctity somehow seems less intense on seeing her reunited with her mother.
I wait to see if there’s anything about the man I killed. Not that I expect anything so soon. He hasn’t technically been missing any more than forty-eight hours, but anyone who might try to reach him wouldn’t know that. My guess would be a neighbor, investigating the barks. I’ll have to go back in a couple days to check on the dogs, make sure someone’s fed them.
Killing a person isn’t supposed to feel like doing the world a favor, and yet, that’s exactly what I feel. As if a weight has been lifted from the world. A darkness favoring the young and innocent, extinguished beneath the heavy concrete lid that’ll hide the stench and decay of what’s left of him in this world.