by Sosie Frost
She trembled.
“Honor—”
My angel ripped her hand from mine and bolted from my office.
I hated to swear, hated the vulgar words and profane meanings, and yet nothing expressed my frustration more. I bit my tongue and clutched my rosaries before my temper overwhelmed me.
No.
Not temper.
Guilt.
Hell wasn’t a place or an idea. It was guilt. The realization of my sins and of the sins I’d committed against those innocent to my desires.
And yet, even as I stood, even as I dressed for the second Mass and prepared myself to lead yet another ceremony, my mind raced with the guilty thoughts.
Not for what I had done.
Not for the vows I broke.
Not for the woman I lost.
But because no matter what prayers I whispered or confessions I gave, I’d never forget last night.
She was a sin I would never regret.
Chapter Fifteen – Honor
“I really hope Jesus is tone-deaf.”
Alyssa declared it after a particularly poor rendition of the Alleluia. Deacon Smith shushed her.
Samantha giggled. “Was that blasphemous?”
God only knew. Everything was a sin—or at least, it looked that way to a sinner.
“Look, guys.” Deacon Smith sighed. “We have three weeks until the festival. Can we please pick a song so that we can practice said song so we aren’t humiliated at our own Battle of the Choirs? You know. The one we organized?”
Alyssa sighed. “I vote Ava Maria.”
Deacon Smith would pop a vein. “Everyone will sing Ava Maria! We need something stellar. Something that will really show up those other choirs.”
Samantha giggled. “Amen.”
I couldn’t fault Deacon Smith. We rehearsed a dozen different songs, but nothing felt right. And our latest piece was scrapped after we encountered a bit of…competition.
“This is getting real,” I said. “The other churches we invited? They’re taking it a little too seriously.” I crinkled the paper in my hand. “The Lutheran Church down the road just stapled their set-list to our doors.”
Most of the choir groaned and laughed.
Samantha tilted her head. “I don’t get it?”
Deacon Smith smacked the piano and ordered us to open our hymnals again. “We just need more practice. I’m thinking of scheduling another night.”
The choir grumbled. I opened my phone’s calendar. Every day had an event or a crisis or a class or a job of some sort. Women’s group. Choir practice. Festival organization. Food Pantry. Classes. Part-time hours I’d begged to work at the library for extra money.
Mass.
Four days had passed since my night with Father Rafe and the Mass that followed. I tried not to think of the passionate moments I’d spent in his arms, but my memories burned for him. I closed my eyes and saw his body. I knelt in prayer and remembered his touch. I sang, and I felt the press of his lips against mine.
Lust had blinded me to everything but him, and longed for more. He had filled me so impossibly, so perfect that without him I suffered in a terrible loneliness.
No penance was this cruel.
Deacon Smith clapped his hands, and everyone stood.
Uh-oh. Had he been talking?
Yes.
I stood in my place and tried to peek into the hymnals of those near me. No dice. I’d have to guess.
“Let’s try again.” Deacon Smith counted off the song. He gestured for us to hold the first note before moving to the next chord of the song.
I sang a perfect C. Everyone else started on an A#.
And that sounded unholy.
“Whoa.” Deacon Smith blinked. “Honor, what song are you singing?”
“I…” My mind blanked. “Amazing Grace?”
“Yeah…” Alyssa snorted. “We’re on Mary The Dawn. What’s gotten into you?”
Good question.
The choir groaned. After I sang another three ear-piercing mistakes, the cell-phones whipped out and everyone whined for a break. Deacon Smith finally relented, giving us fifteen to banished whatever it was that keyed us so out of tune.
It was me.
Alyssa and Samantha collapsed in the pews, but they waved me over with a smirk.
“Part of me almost wants to do badly at the festival,” Alyssa said. “Just so I could repent with Daddy El in private.”
Samantha shook her head. “Not me. Daddy El’s been a bit too grumpy lately. I’d rather be the one who makes him smile again. I hate to disappoint him.”
I did too. And I feared I had in the best possible way.
“Why are you so quiet?” Alyssa offered me a licorice whip from her bag of snacks. I took it, but I forgot to take a bite. “You’ve been weird all night.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just running myself ragged.”
“No wonder. You’re acting like a little Mary. Save some good works for the rest of us.”
No faith or works would save me now. “Just trying to stay busy.”
Samantha dug through the snacks until she found the Skittles. “Even God rested on the seventh day.”
But I hated to think what would happen if I finally rested, let my guard down, realized the truth of what I’d done.
“Hey…” Samantha tossed a Skittle at me. It thunked off my forehead. “Everything okay?”
I frowned and bent to pick up the candy before Father Raphael had a fit that we were eating in the sanctuary. “I’m fine.”
My friends shared a worrisome glance. Alyssa leaned close, her voice low.
“Is this about your Mom?”
I stiffened. Samantha touched my arm.
What was going on?
“What about my mom?” I asked.
“You know…” Alyssa shrugged.
I didn’t.
“In the bathroom?” she asked. “After the women’s group meeting?”
I slowly shook my head. Samantha smacked Alyssa’s arm, and they both silenced.
No, no, no. They weren’t keeping this from me. My chest tightened, but I didn’t let it show.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. It was nothing.” Alyssa faked touching-up her perfect ponytail.
Samantha downed a fistful of Skittles to avoid talking. “Yeah. It was probably just an aspirin.”
Now I did panic. My jaw tensed so much it popped, and I clutched the pew with trembling fingers.
“What are you talking about?”
Samantha twisted her fingers in her skirt—too inappropriate for the church and entirely too short for anything that would tempt Father Raphael. “Okay. Some of the women said they saw your mom take a pill in the bathroom after the women’s meeting.”
Oh God.
She rambled a little too fast. “But they didn’t know what it was. And your mom scooted out of there pretty quick once the others came in.”
My stomach pitted. “Have they…told anyone?”
Alyssa looked sheepish. “It’s nothing. Things have been pretty boring around here, and you know how these old ladies get. It was just gossip.”
Gossip that would turn us homeless.
The help we received from the charities were only offered to those who were clean. Recovering. If Mom had started using again…
But she wasn’t.
I’d have known. I’d have seen it. Heard it in the slur of her speech. She still felt like the clean and sober stranger in our home, not the lazy and disjointed mother I remembered.
I hoped.
I hadn’t been paying that close of attention. And I had been busy, running back and forth between classes and meetings and work and volunteering. I was hardly at home, even though I’d specifically returned to help her.
And I hadn’t.
I’d been home for two months, and I hadn’t done a blessed thing for her besides cleaning the apartment, organizing the bills, and begging favors
from others so I wouldn’t have to help her myself.
I clutched my phone and stood. “I…I’ll be back.”
“Wait,” Alyssa said. “I’m sorry. Really. It was probably nothing.”
Or it might have been something.
I escaped the sanctuary, and my heels clipped against the stone. I didn’t escape through the front of the church. I darted out the side entrance, into the back of St. Cecilia’s second lot. The corner property was large enough for picnics and events—or for an entire festival that was coming too fast.
I followed the path to the shrine surrounded by meticulously trimmed roses blossoming around a bench. The Mary garden was a small section of earth tended for the Holy Mother, where the remnants of the communion wine was often poured after Mass.
I plunked onto the bench, breathing in the cool night air. His footsteps carried behind me. I recognized them, and that only made the guilt worse.
I didn’t look at him.
“Do you think Mary ever embarrassed Jesus?” I asked. “One of those mom moments?”
Father Raphael hadn’t expected the question, but he thought only for a few silent seconds.
“I think everyone has mom moments.”
“Some are worse than others.”
“Do you remember the story of when he was a boy, and he was lost for three days in Jerusalem? Mary found him sitting in the temple with the other teachers.”
“Yeah.”
“It wasn’t written, but…” He smirked. “I bet she had some choice words for him in front of the rabbis before she dragged him away.”
I shrugged. This was a different humiliation. Not the imagined scoldings of a worried mother, but the pained revelation of a hurt daughter.
Mom wouldn’t give up her sobriety.
Would she?
“Honor, what happened?”
I didn’t look up as he approached. “Do you think we’re being punished?”
“Why would you think that?”
“I deserve it.”
“Do you?” His voice lowered to the wonderful and soothing growl I expected from him.
The night pressed close around us, darker yet with the sway of his black robes. I feared looking at him, wondering if I would see the proud priest cloaked in humility or the sensual man, naked and fierce, tattooed with his faith.
“I won’t confess to anything, Father Rafe.”
“What happened…what I did to you, it was…”
I expected him to feel this way. “Don’t mourn for my virtue. And don’t try to save me.”
“Why?”
“Because I won’t pretend that night didn’t happen.”
His temper was short tonight. He baited me, poised on the edge of his own patience. I turned, facing the same man who had invaded my dreams to comfort me in the time we spent apart.
“Why won’t you let me help you?” He stepped closer. I stood to retreat into the shadows as he loomed over me. “I took your virginity. I’ve left you in a state of sin. I…” He lowered his voice. “I came inside you, Honor.”
“Like a proper Catholic.”
“I’m serious.”
“And I’ll confess to being a little more modern than the teachings.” This was the awkward conversation, but it was good to have. “I’ve been on birth control since high school. It was meant to help regulate my cycle. We didn’t see a problem with it.”
“And the sins mount.” He sighed. “Though this one is prudent.”
“Sorry.”
“Honor, I would apologize to Christ for everything I did, but first I must apologize to you.”
“Why, Father?”
He breathed deep, through gritted teeth. “I’ve ruined you.”
“Again…I’m more modern than that. My virginity was mine to give, not a man’s to take.”
“Wouldn’t you have preferred to save it? To offer it to someone who could love you, marry you, give you all that you desire?”
He wouldn’t hear my honest answer.
“Instead I seized it. I desecrated it in lust.” His voice lowered. “And if you hadn’t left when you did, I’d have done it again.”
Silence.
I stared at him, trembling. He confessed under the moon, the stars, before me and God and the whole of creation. My voice was a whisper, its own secret and willing admission.
“Father…now that we’ve been together…can you imagine letting me go?”
Silence. He didn’t answer. My soul spoke for us both.
“Can you imagine me with another man? Someone who would hold me as you have? Spoken those words? Kissed me like you did?”
He turned from me. There was my answer.
“Father…can you imagine another man ever taking me as you did?”
I expected his hands, his kiss, the fierce closeness of his grip as he dragged me against his body. Father Raphael kissed me, his tongue stealing my words and transforming the horrible, ugly truths I might have uttered into a soft mew of desire.
“No,” he hissed. “I can’t imagine it. I won’t. It pains me, my angel. Taking you was a sin, but keeping you will be my final damnation.”
“Then you understand why I can’t confess.” I clung to him, meeting the fire of his gaze and expecting brimstone. I saw only haloes of perfect light, etching him in quiet reflection. “The only sin from that night is regretting anything we did.”
His kiss overwhelmed me once more, and a shared shudder rolled through our bodies. It demanded forgiveness, a peace, a sanctity only we could give each other.
“Meet me here tonight.” His words were a solemn command. “Midnight. Promise me, my angel.”
“We can’t.”
“You will meet me here.”
“Why, Father?”
“Because tonight…” He looked upon me with such adoration, such fierce possession, I feared what would happen to my own sanity if I denied him this wicked meeting. “I will restore you, Honor. Tonight…I will show you how truly holy you are.”
Chapter Sixteen – Raphael
All of our sins were committed in the dark. Why did my angel shine brightest during the night?
She entered St. Cecilia’s, slipping through the vestibule and into the sanctuary which awaited a service just for her. I locked the church behind her. She tip-toed to the altar. The door to the nave closed behind us.
And we were alone.
Honor turned, lingering before the altar as though she thought she would be cast upon it.
Not yet. But soon.
She studied the work I had done. Candles lit the sanctuary, bright and flickering. The light reflected from the stained glass and bounced in dark hues of reds, blues, and greens over the white linen folded over the altar. The incense teased in the air. Dusky. Sacred.
It was the first time I felt comfortable in my own church in a week, and it was because I dressed it for my angel.
“Father?” Honor wore only a soft dress, modestly hugging her curves. Her eyes widened. “What are you doing? This is…”
Blasphemous.
And it was meant to be.
The thoughts tortured me for too long. The guilt became a constant burden, and the shame an unrelenting companion.
And so I let it go.
I let too much of myself go.
I reached for her, my fingers tangled in my rosaries. I brushed my finger first over her lips to silence the questions.
“If I am to sin…” My words blessed and cursed us both. “I would celebrate it, just as I celebrate my faith.”
I kissed her, delighting in the honesty of those words.
I could take her. I could have her. We could be together, if only for this moment, if only in this one declaration of complete and total spiritual anarchy.
I’d give of myself to join with another. And I’d lose my soul for a single moment to taste, touch, and feel the gifts of her body.
What was mine would be lost and damned if only so I could praise her.
Her lips quivered,
soft and hesitant. She murmured soft words against me. A prayer.
“What’s happened to you?” she whispered.
I tangled my hands in her hair, across her curves, along her softness. Nothing compared to the press of her body against mine.
This was a sin worth reverence.
“I want you,” I said. “Here. Tonight. I need to make you mine in every way—our bodies, our souls, our hearts. I want to own you.”
“I do too…” Honor brushed her fingers along my cheek. She wasn’t meek or mild, but she was just as gentle. Too gentle. It’d only make me take her harder. “But you don’t belong to me, Father. I can’t let you destroy yourself. This is a sin.”
“Then it is the sweetest sin.”
I kissed her again, trapping her against me, losing myself in her candied apple scent and silken touch. She was smaller than me. Fragile. Beautiful. She closed her eyes as I touched her and surrendered with my kiss.
She had always been mine. Tonight I’d prove it.
“Take off your dress.” My command rolled a shudder over her body. “Kneel before me.”
Her fingers teased the straps of her dress, silken material that marked the end of something righteous and the beginning of our own destruction.
The dress fell away, and her panties slid to the floor. My Honor stood before me, naked, trembling, and gazing over the church with a bitten lip.
“Here, Father?” She looked over the church. “Are you sure?”
For weeks I’d struggled against my desire. Harsh and vile and all-consuming.
I’d prayed. I’d fasted. I’d sought comfort in old books and exercise and charity. None of it helped. Nothing eased my desperation to take her, rut her, seize her within a display of utter sacrilege.
If I was to violate her, then I would violate myself and everything that made me. My desires would not save me, and so I would worship the object of my lust.
Honor drove me to madness.
Only my angel would save me, sating those perverted desires with her own sacrifice.
She knelt before me, naked and beautiful. Every curve dark and rich. She shivered. Not fear, but in lust. Desire. The same heat and passion which tore through my body and mind.
I stood before her, savoring the power coursing through my veins.
I didn’t remove my cassock. This night wouldn’t honor the man beneath the collar, but the one who wore it. The last of him. A baptism of sin as I felled an angel with me.
