Jamie
I was being punished or at the very least being put to some type of test. Those were the only two explanations for why God would have sent this woman to my confessional, and if it was a test I was failing miserably, which meant I would be severely punished. I looked down at my rock-hard cock, at how it strained against my black cleric pants. I had worn my typical clerics with white collar today, but the sight did not make me feel at all priest-like. In fact, I felt like an imposter and for the first time in eight years, I questioned my decision to serve the Lord in this capacity. I closed my eyes and tried to envision anything other than the picture she had conjured in my mind, the one of her kneeling behind that screen, her fingers trailing over her taut belly and dipping beneath her soaked panties. Maybe she hadn’t been wearing panties the last time she confessed. Maybe she had become so wet that her sweet cream soaked through her pants or skirt. Maybe she wasn’t wearing panties now. I gripped my cock and squeezed.
“Eva, did you touch yourself while you were confessing yesterday?”
Silence.
“Answer me, Eva. Did you dip your fingers into that soaked pussy of yours?”
“Yes, Father,” she said in barely a whisper.
“But you didn’t finish?”
“No, not here,” she said.
“Then where did you come if not here?”
“In my shower. I sprinted home as fast as I could and came against my hand.”
I suppressed a groan by biting my lip so hard that I tasted blood. I needed to stop. My questions were completely self-serving and not at all appropriate. But fuck, I couldn’t help myself.
“I know what you must think, how dirty and disgraceful I am.” She chuckled. “That’s funny. That I chose two of my mother’s favorite adjectives.”
“That’s what she called you when you were younger? Dirty and disgraceful?”
“Among other things, but yes, those were her two go-to’s. The two she used the most especially after she found me masturbating and sent me to talk to the priest.” She sighed. “Every week she would take me to see her beloved pastor. According to my mother, I was to use that time, that opportunity, to cleanse my vile soul.”
I needed to regain control and focus on the woman in my confessional. Clearly, she was struggling with her past, which unfortunately affected her present and her relationship with her mother . . . my stepmother. My cock relaxed a little, and I was able to continue. “Did those weekly meetings with the priest help?”
“After he validated my mother’s accusations, that I was troubled and that what I was doing was a sin and I was on the fast track to Hell, I stopped touching myself for a few months. So, in that regard, I guess he helped.”
“What happened after a few months?” I asked.
“My then best friend, Viv, happened. She had just moved from California, and we hit it off immediately. We shared many interests, played field hockey, liked to jog and go to the beach. But it was our interest in boys that made us soul sisters. Where my interest was in the fledgling stage, Viv was much more advanced. She had already slept with three guys out in California and was only too eager to tell me about her experiences in vivid detail. I didn’t have much to contribute since I had zero notches on my bedpost at that point. Eventually, my weekly priest meetings became no match for Viv and her stories, and by the middle of my junior year in high school, my curiosity and my hormones got the best of me. Viv had an older brother. He was a senior and popular. One day, I walked in on him and his girlfriend at the time having sex. He was pounding into her from behind, cursing at her, calling her filthy names and telling her she was beautiful in the same breath. I had never seen something so raw in my life. The way the girl let him use her body, the way he caressed and abused her simultaneously was so goddamn arousing that it was impossible not to watch them. So, I stayed out of view, or at least I thought I had, and watched them. He rode her, spanked her, filled her over and over again, and all she could do was ask for more . . . for him to give it to her harder. He tied her hands behind her back and continued to thrust into her. She came undone, her screams muffled because he had her face buried into his mattress.”
I licked the blood away from my lip and stroked my cock on the outside of my pants. Knowing that she liked it rough, that she liked what I had given to many women . . . fuck!
“That image took up residence in my brain, tempting me, taunting me. And then one night, a few weeks later I was sleeping over Viv’s house, and I got to experience Viv’s brother for myself. He had recently broken up with his girlfriend and was in his bedroom, his door wide open when I walked by in my pajamas. He had called me Tom and I froze. I didn’t put it together until he strolled over and called me his very own peeping Tom. I knew I should have been embarrassed for having had spied on him and his ex-girlfriend having sex, but I didn’t. In fact, it turned me on. So much so that he took notice. He grabbed me by the hand, kicked the door shut with his foot, and asked me if I wanted to be fucked, if I wanted him to give it to me like he had his ex. I nodded and breathed a yes, and before I knew it, he had rolled on a condom and gave me exactly what I had asked for. I was surprised that I came that night, multiple times in fact since I was a virgin. But then again, I was so wet that he was met with little resistance and slid right in. Afterward, I asked him not to tell anyone, especially Viv, that we had slept together. I didn’t know how she would feel about her best friend screwing her brother down the hall as she slept. But he didn’t keep his word, and by Monday morning everyone at school knew that we had sex . . . and that I liked it rough. As I expected, Viv flipped out and stopped talking to me, which hurt like hell. But what became unbearable were the looks that I started getting from the boys . . . and some of the male staff. I heard the whispers, and from the more brazen, the straight-up questions. Did I like to be tied up? Blindfolded? Smacked? Did I get off on being called dirty names while I was being fucked? I wanted to scream YES to all of the above, but I didn’t. I just kept my mouth shut and tried to fly under the radar as best as I could. Over time the comments died down, and attention was eventually cast to someone else, some other foolish girl who thought she could spread her legs without the world needing to know. I was happy that I was no longer the talk of the school and carelessly started to relax. See, to the boys I was yesterday’s news, but to the staff, one staff member in particular, I wasn’t. And he was still very interested in the rumors he had heard about me.”
Her phone rang. And I used that opportunity to figure out what to do. This woman was dangerous. This woman had the capability to make me forget.
No!
That can’t happen. I can’t break my promise.
“It’s David,” she said. To my surprise she answered my dad’s call, and I sat back and listened. Through the phone, I heard my dad thank Eva for coming to Thanksgiving dinner. He then went on to tell her that Marcia’s surgery was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. “David, can you tell my mom that I . . . that . . .” I heard her sigh, and then she seemed to regroup and reconsider and said, “David, thanks again for calling.” She ended the call.
“What were you going to say? Tell your mom what?”
“You wouldn’t believe me or at least you wouldn’t think I was being sincere.”
“Try me.”
“Okay. I was going to say . . . that I was going to say a prayer for her, that she would make it through surgery, that they were able to get all the cancer.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe you?” I asked. “Although you have been on a religious hiatus for awhile, I know you still believe in God.”
“How do you know I still believe in God?”
“Because you can’t be pissed at Him and not believe in Him at the same time. And right now, you are pissed as hell at the man upstairs.” She let out a huff. Out of frustration? Acceptance over what I had just said? It didn’t matter. She needed comfort. Someone to listen to her . . . to really hear her. “I have an idea. I will say a prayer for the sick . . . for the both of us.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice consumed with doubt and defeat.
I could have chosen any number of prayers for the sick, but I wanted to personalize this one. For Marcia. And for Eva.
“Almighty Father, please watch over Marcia tomorrow. Fill her and surround her with your unwavering love. Silence her fears and give her the strength she needs in this time of uncertainty. In you, I have faith and trust. Amen.”
“Amen,” she said. A few seconds later, she said, “I’ve taken up too much of your time. There must be a litany of sinners waiting outside for you, for you to cleanse their souls until the next time they piss off God.” She got up to leave. “Thank you, Jamie,” she said and left the booth.
Not Father, but Jamie.
She was hurting, and I wished more than anything to make her pain stop and to know everything. Yes, she had disappointed and disgusted her Bible beating mother by being sexually curious and active as a teen, but that couldn’t be the entire story. Something else must have happened to make Eva cut all ties with her mother and whatever that something was, the fallout had changed Marcia. I looked down at my watch. Confessions were over. Which was a good thing since I couldn’t think straight. My thoughts flip-flopped from wanting to be the support Eva needed while she wrestled with the feelings she had about her ill mother to wanting to bend her over the nearest pew and spank her ass for getting me so hot and hard, for making me want something I had been able to abstain from for eight years.
Get your shit together, Jamie. You made a promise. To your parishioners . . . to God.
Feeling desperate and unsettled, I left the church and visited two of my parishioners who had recently entered hospice care. But even as I prayed and tried to comfort them at this difficult time, my thoughts drifted back to Eva.
I needed to get my mind off of her, and there was only one thing, one person actually, who could make that happen.
I was knocking on my brother’s door a half hour later. Apparently, he and Liz were just about to sit down for dinner when I arrived. I felt like shit for just showing up like that, but when Liz graciously set a place for me at the table, I didn’t refuse. She was a hell of a cook, and there was no way I was going to pass up a home-cooked meal consisting of clams, spaghetti, and garlic bread knots. After dinner, Nate and I escaped to the spare bedroom, which was just one big man cave. Nate and Liz didn’t have kids yet, so this room served as a literal adult male playground with an enormous flat screen television on the wall, an Xbox, a pool table and a dart board. I went over to the dart board and retrieved the darts.
“Look, I like that you stopped by for dinner and some beers, but that’s just not something you do. What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just wanted to see my kid brother and admire his pretty wife. That’s all.” I stepped back and threw a dart, missing the center by only a fraction of an inch.
“Pretty wife, huh? Don’t think because you wear that collar it will protect you from my fist,” Nate said, punching me in the shoulder. I took a swig of my beer and laughed. Life had happened, causing us to drift apart over the last few years, but Nate could still read me. I suddenly felt like a real asshole. I liked seeing my brother and shooting the shit with him, but I had come tonight for selfish reasons. I had come to be reminded. I needed to be around the living, breathing, but paralyzed reason from the waist down. I should be the one in that wheelchair, not my brother. If I hadn’t been so self-centered, thinking with only my cock that night, Nate would be standing next to me. He would have been able to dance with his wife at their wedding, he would have . . .
This was why I was a priest. I owed God.
I purposefully kept the conversation light, and Nate seemed to let up and didn’t question me again and wonder why I had come for a visit. We played several rounds of darts and chugged a few beers before I called it a night. I kissed Liz goodbye on my way out and left. I chose to walk home instead of taking a cab. The chill in the air was refreshing, and the twenty-minute walk allowed me to clear my head. By the time I reached the rectory, I felt rejuvenated, my priorities straight. Going to see my brother had been a selfish but wise decision. I needed to be reminded of why I served God and would continue to serve Him . . . no matter who walked into my booth and confessed that she had masturbated in my presence, that she liked rough sex.
And just like that, my thoughts were once again taken over by Eva. Frustrated and pissed at myself for being so weak, I went to my bedroom and turned on the television. I flipped to OnDemand and found the first season of 24, my favorite television series of all time. I fell asleep halfway through the first episode, just to awake hours later to myself humping my fucking mattress. When I realized that it wasn’t Eva I was pressing my dick into, but my Serta, I abandoned my pursuit and took the coldest shower known to man.