CHAPTER 25
Suzanne entered Sacred Heart’s sanctuary and found it empty. She’d made one final appointment to talk to him; she had a few questions left to ask, but the questions weren’t why she came. What she really wanted was to apologize for her suspicions and thank him for helping her believe, if not in God again, at least in one priest.
Wandering the perimeter of the sanctuary, she studied the plaques on the wall, images of Christ’s passion with Roman numerals engraved on them. She stopped at one plaque that showed a woman kneeling in front of Jesus holding out her veil. Suzanne furrowed her brow and tried to remember the woman’s name. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d prayed the Stations of the Cross. Maybe she never had.
“What’s your name?” she asked out loud as she started to dig out her iPhone.
“Veronica,” came a voice from behind her.
Suzanne spun around and saw a woman standing at the end of a pew with her arms crossed over her chest. The woman wore a tight black skirt that hugged her shapely hips, strappy high heels, a fitted red blouse and a mysterious little grin on her stunningly lovely face. The woman looked familiar. Extremely familiar.
“Oh, God,” Suzanne said, suddenly making the connection. “You’re Nora Sutherlin.”
The woman nodded as she uncrossed her arms and pushed a strand of wavy black hair behind her ear.
“Guilty,” she said with the kind of smile that told Suzanne this was a woman who had possibly never experienced a moment’s guilt in her life. “And you’re Suzanne Kanter. You’re even more beautiful than he said you were.”
Suzanne blushed and shoved her shaking hands into the back pockets of her jeans. As intimidating as she found Father Stearns, she’d never felt half as nervous as she suddenly felt around Nora Sutherlin.
“Um…” Suzanne began and rolled her eyes at her own awkwardness. “Well, you are as beautiful as he said you were.”
Nora Sutherlin, unlike her, didn’t blush. She only stared at Suzanne with her darkly intelligent eyes.
“One question,” Sutherlin said.
Suzanne blinked.
“One question? You have one question for me?”
Sutherlin shook her head.
“You’ve been hounding him all summer. Following him. Breaking into the rectory. You even went to see his sister. You’re tenacious. I can appreciate that. It is, however, time for you to leave us alone. You know he’s no danger to his congregation. I can only assume you’re still here for other reasons. Reasons I don’t have to guess at because, let’s be honest, we’ve both seen him.”
Suzanne’s blush deepened but she couldn’t deny the truth of Sutherlin’s words. Her attraction to Father Stearns was still too fresh a wound to bother denying.
“Yes,” Suzanne admitted. “I’ve seen him.”
Sutherlin raised her eyebrow, obviously hearing the deeper truth to the words. She smiled again, uncrossed her arms and sat on the arm of the pew.
“I said one question and that’s exactly what I mean, Ms. Kanter. You can ask me one question—” Sutherlin held up a single finger “—and I’ll answer it. Truthfully. Without subterfuge or disingenuousness. I will tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to whatever one question you ask me.”
Suzanne’s eyes went wide.
“Next you’re going to tell me I won the lottery,” she said, scarcely believing her ears.
“Only the truth lottery. But this prize comes with a price. I’ll answer your question, but the answer will be off the record. And you can use nothing I tell you to hurt him. And you can take nothing that I tell you to find out more. If a single word of mine appears in print, I will have Kingsley destroy your career so thoroughly you won’t even get a job as a weathergirl like your old professor suggested. Do you understand that?”
Swallowing hard, Suzanne nodded. She heard the threat in Sutherlin’s voice and knew she meant every word. That she even knew about her old prof suggesting she become a weathergirl was a sign this woman’s world was not one Suzanne needed to linger inside a moment longer than necessary.
“Also, once I give your answer,” Sutherlin continued, “you will leave me, Kingsley and Søren alone. We will cease to exist to you. You will banish us from your thoughts, your memory, your conversation and your vocabulary. Can you accept that?”
She couldn’t imagine completely banishing Father Stearns from her memory. Her body still tingled when she thought of his hands on her arms. But she would try. For the sake of the truth, the whole truth, she would try.
“Okay. I accept. I’ll be going to Iraq soon anyway. Time I moved on.”
“Yes,” Sutherlin said. “It is. Now ask your question, and we can all move on.”
Suzanne didn’t have to pause even one moment to think of her question.
“Are you and Father Stearns sleeping together?”
If she’d thought such an inquiry would faze Sutherlin, Suzanne was highly disappointed.
Sutherlin looked neither shocked nor scared at the question. She leveled her dark green eyes onto Suzanne’s face.
“You really want to waste your one question on something you already know the answer to?” Sutherlin asked.
Suzanne’s stomach fell a few inches. She’d hoped…believed…at least wanted to believe… But it didn’t matter. Sutherlin had been a virgin even at age nineteen. Whenever she and her priest had become lovers, she’d been at least a legal adult.
“No, I suppose not.” Suzanne sighed heavily. “How about this? The conflict of interest that’s on that anonymous tip someone sent me—what is it? Is it his sister Elizabeth? She practically confessed to killing their father.”
“She did kill their father, and she did confess to Søren. And Søren refused to reveal her confession. I overheard it at the funeral. And he’s been worried for seventeen years that Elizabeth would find out I heard. But no, that’s not the conflict of interest the church is worried about.”
“Then what is it?”
“Søren’s father was a very wealthy man when he died. He got half his wife’s fortune in the divorce and with his ruthless business acumen, he’d trebled it by the time he died. And when he died, he left every single penny to his only son. Nearly half a billion dollars.”
Suzanne gasped. “But…his father had sent him away after what happened with Elizabeth. Nearly killed him.”
“True. But when his father had no more sons and had no relationship with either daughter, he had a change of…whatever he had in his chest in place of a heart. But the money wasn’t a peace offering. It was a bribe. Priests take vows of poverty. To accept all that money, Søren would have had to leave the priesthood. For nothing and for no one will he ever leave the priesthood.”
“So what did he do?”
Sutherlin grinned.
“What any good priest would do. He tithed. He gave ten percent of the money to the church. Five percent to his old Catholic school in Maine. And five percent to this diocese. The rest he split in half and gave to each sister. He kept not a single cent for himself.”
Suzanne covered her mouth with her hand and turned away. In her head she quickly crunched the numbers. Five percent of five hundred million dollars was…
“Twenty-five million dollars,” Suzanne breathed. She turned back around. “He gave that to this diocese?”
“He did. You know how it works. Parish priests get transferred all the time. Yet Søren’s been here for almost twenty years. How does he get such an exemption? He bought it.”
“I wondered why they hadn’t moved him around, moved him up the ladder.”
“He likes it here.”
He likes his privacy, Suzanne realized.
“What would you call giving a promotion to a man who’d donated twenty-five million dollars to your corporation?” Sutherlin asked.
“A conflict of interest,” Suzanne whispered. “I’d thought…I thought he might be a predator. Or, you know, because…with you he had…”
“Sex? You thought the conflict of interest was about sex?” Sutherlin laughed as if that was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “This is the Catholic Church, Ms. Kanter. And the Catholic Church has been winking at sex for two thousand years. It’s the money that makes them nervous.”
Suzanne shook her head. Too many thoughts crashing about inside it.
“He gave away it all? Every penny?”
Sutherlin nodded.
“He did. Stubborn asshole priest. When he and Marie-Laure got married, he got access to his massive trust fund. Once she died, he gave every penny of that away too. He was born to be a priest. Money doesn’t interest him. That’s the conflict of interest. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get on with my life without worrying about a reporter hurting Søren.”
“You call him Søren?” Suzanne asked, the question coming out before she could stop it.
“Of course I do. It’s his name. Why do you ask?”
“He said he only told his real name to the people closest to him, to the people he trusted and who knew the real him.”
“That’s very true.”
“How long have you called him Søren?”
Sutherlin’s face softened as she turned her gaze away from Suzanne to smile at the image of Veronica holding out her veil to the fallen Christ.
After a long silence, Sutherlin looked back at Suzanne.
“Since the day we met.”
Suzanne nodded and said nothing. Those five words told Suzanne everything she needed to know. Father Stearns and Nora Sutherlin had something, a connection, an intimacy…something deep and unexplainable, something untouchable, unreachable. The night that Suzanne had begged him to make love to her, he’d said that he did not belong to himself. She thought he’d meant he belonged to God or the Church. Now she knew he meant Nora Sutherlin.
“I’m leaving now,” Sutherlin said. “And you should too.”
“I’d like to at least tell him goodbye. Or am I not allowed?” Suzanne asked. The question held no sarcasm. Whatever Nora Sutherlin told her to do, she would do.
“I’ll allow it. He does like you. I don’t, but I’m a little biased.”
“I can see that.”
Sutherlin raised her chin at Suzanne’s words and somehow knew she’d misspoken. Slowly Sutherlin walked toward her, her hips swaying with each step forward. She’d never been in the presence of a more immediately, viscerally sexual being in her life.
“No, you can’t see that,” Sutherlin said, coming to stand in front of her. “You can’t see anything. Not me. Not him. Not us. We do not exist, remember? Do you know what I am?”
Suzanne shrugged her shoulders in confusion.
“You’re…a writer.”
“I am. I’m also one of the most famous dominatrixes in the entire world. I used to be Kingsley’s number one. Did you know that?”
Suzanne swallowed again.
“I might have heard some rumors.”
“Believe them,” Sutherlin said. “And know they are only the tip of the iceberg. I once had a Texas cattle baron pay me fifty thousand dollars to brand him with his own branding iron. I had a Silicon Valley CEO pay me sixty thousand dollars to piss on his face. I have put the rich and the famous in the hospital. And they paid through the teeth for the privilege of it. I have a police file as thick as Kingsley’s cock, and yet I’ve never been convicted of any crime as an adult. Why? The cops and the lawyers and the judges live in Kingsley’s pocket. And one or two of them lived in mine. In the city, I can get away with murder.”
Suzanne straightened her shoulders and looked Sutherlin directly in the eyes, something that took all of her courage.
“Are you threatening me, Ms. Sutherlin?”
Sutherlin only smiled.
“No. Of course not. All I’m saying is that I’ll do anything to protect him. Anything at all. But there’s no need to worry. I’ve hurt people. I’ve hurt them badly. I’ve left permanent scars on some clients. Some outer scars. Some inner. But all that pain I’ve inflicted…it was all consensual. I’ve never hurt anyone without their permission. All I’m saying, Ms. Kanter, is…” Sutherlin leaned forward and pressed the lightest, softest, most terrifying kiss onto Suzanne’s lips before pulling back an inch and whispering, “There’s a first time for everything.”
And with that, Sutherlin took one step back. And another. Then she turned on her heel and walked out of the church.
Suzanne took a deep breath. She raised her hand and found it shaking. War zones, she reminded herself. She’d been in war zones. This woman shouldn’t terrify her.
Determined to get a shred of her dignity back, Suzanne ran from the sanctuary and saw Nora Sutherlin heading toward a Porsche that had pulled up to the curb.
“Wait!” Suzanne called out and Sutherlin turned around.
“Yes?”
“Just one more question…please.”
Sutherlin smirked.
“One more. But make it a good one.”
Suzanne nodded.
“What’s he like…you know, in bed? I have to know. I’ve never been so attracted to someone in my life. And I’ll never get to be with him. Can you just tell me that?”
Sutherlin looked positively shocked by the question.
“In bed? Me and Søren? We aren’t sleeping together,” Sutherlin said.
“But…but I asked you if you were. And you said not to ask questions I already knew the answer to.”
Sutherlin nodded.
“Exactly. Of course we aren’t lovers.” Sutherlin slid on a pair of chic black sunglasses. “He’s a priest. That’s gross.”
Once more Sutherlin turned on her heel and walked away. This time Suzanne let her go.
She watched as Sutherlin reached the Porsche. Two men got out of the car. No, not two men. One man and one teenage boy. The man was Griffin Fiske. And the teenage boy was… Suzanne narrowed her eyes at him. A beautiful young man, whoever he was. Almost angelic in appearance. Shoulder-length black hair, eyes so brightly silver she could see them shining from ten feet away, pale skin, thin but only in that teenage boy way…even his wrists still had that teenage boy delicateness to them. Suzanne looked more closely at his wrists and saw they bore gauze bandages. Bandages? She made the connection finally. Michael Dimir—the boy who’d slit his wrists in the sanctuary—he would be seventeen now. Griffin Fiske and Nora Sutherlin gave each other a quick kiss as the boy, Michael, unwrapped the gauze from his wrists. Sutherlin gave his wrists a thumbs-up before she kissed him quickly on the lips. The boy leaned back against Griffin Fiske’s chest as Fiske wrapped an arm possessively around him.
Michael Dimir…with Griffin Fiske? What the hell…
“Jesus, what kind of church is this?” Suzanne asked herself out loud.
“My church,” said a familiar voice from behind her.
Suzanne only smiled as Nora Sutherlin patted the boy, Michael Dimir, on the cheek. She looked back, raised her sunglasses, gave Suzanne an arrogant wink and headed toward a BMW in the parking lot.
“Do you ever just want to beat the hell out of the woman?” Suzanne asked.
Father Stearns released a heavy, much put-upon sigh.
“Every day of my life.”
Laughing, Suzanne turned around and faced him. She found him holding a small but exquisite bouquet of white roses.
“For me?” she teased.
“No.” The slight smile left his face and he gave her a look of the deepest compassion. “For Adam. I think it’s time you visited your brother’s grave.”
Suzanne fell silent. Her throat clenched. Tears welled in her eyes.
“I will go with you. You won’t be alone,” Father Stearns said as he handed her the flowers. Suzanne held them to her chest.
“Okay,” she whispered. She looked up at him and tried to smile through her tears. “He’s buried—”
“I know where he is. I also know where he’s buried. We’ll go now. I’ll meet you there.”
Suzanne couldn’t even speak to thank him. She merely headed to her car and drove to the city cemetery where the family had laid her brother to rest. Public ground. Unconsecrated ground. When she made it to the graveside, Father Stearns was already there with his perfectly blond head bowed in silent prayer.
“I still hate the Church for refusing him a Catholic burial,” Suzanne admitted as she laid the flowers on the grave. While on her knees she pulled some stray weeds off the tombstone.
Adam Gabriel Kanter. Born July 3, 1978, died November 1, 2006. The Lord hath given him rest from all his enemies. II Samuel 7:1
“I can’t blame you,” Father Stearns said. “But I can help there.”
Suzanne looked up and saw Father Stearns pull a vial of water out of his pocket. He opened it and sprinkled it over the ground.
Holy water.
Suzanne added her own tears to the holy water that he poured onto the ground.
“You’ll pray for him, won’t you?” Suzanne asked. “I can’t. I just can’t believe enough to pray. But it would mean something to me if you did.”
“I will pray for him and for you, Suzanne, every day.”
“I’ll never see you again, will I?”
Father Stearns didn’t smile.
“I think our paths were meant to cross. And perhaps it’s best they do not cross again. Not in this life anyway.”
Suzanne took the hint.
“Thank you…for everything. For Adam. For being a good priest, a good man.”
“I’m as human and as fallible as anyone. But thank you. Your faith in me is heartening. Maybe someday you’ll find your faith in Him again.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But don’t hold your breath.”
Father Stearns nodded. He reached out and caressed the arch of her cheekbone.
“Goodbye, Suzanne. If you ever truly need me, you know where to find me.”
“War zones,” she reminded him with a smile. “I can take care of myself.”
His fingers grazed her lips like the softest kiss.
“I know you can.”
He dropped his hand and started to walk off. At the edge of a cemetery she saw a Rolls Royce waiting.
“Your trust fund,” Suzanne called out suddenly remembering one last question. “Nora Sutherlin said you gave your trust fund away. Who did you give it to?”
Father Stearns kept walking.
“Rolls Royces don’t buy themselves, do they, Suzanne?” He stopped in his tracks, turned around and winked at her before walking off again toward the Rolls.
The wink seemed so familiar. Nora Sutherlin had winked at her just like that.
Just…like…that…
And Suzanne realized she’d been had.
She stared after him, after the Catholic priest who’d single-handedly bankrolled New York’s kink Underground. The story of the century walked on and walked off. With one phone call she could ruin him, ruin the diocese, bring more shame and infamy onto the Catholic Church than all the more horrible but less torrid sex scandals combined.
“Nora Sutherlin…” she sighed as she watched the erotica writer’s lover get into the backseat of the Rolls. “You lucky fucking bitch.”
Suzanne turned back to Adam’s grave and smiled.
“I miss you, big bro,” she said. She kissed her fingertips and touched the tombstone. She left it at that. Next time she came by the grave, she’d stay a little longer.
Suzanne pulled out her cell and hit the first number on her speed dial.
“Hey, you,” she said when Patrick answered.
“Hey, you okay?” Patrick asked.
“I’m actually amazing. Wrapped up the whole Father Stearns story once and for all.”
“Good. Done with that?”
“Completely. Wasn’t even the sister. You were right. He’d donated some money that raised the church’s eyebrow. He won’t be bishop although he probably should be. But whatever. Want to get some dinner?”
She tensed when Patrick didn’t answer immediately.
“I don’t know. Is this dinner? Or is this a date?”
Suzanne returned the pause with a pause before answering.
“It’s a date.”
* * *
Michael obediently closed his eyes and tried not to sneeze or flinch.
“This is ridiculous, Nora,” he said. “I feel like I’m getting married.”
Nora grinned.
“Nothing so formal or terrifying. Collaring ceremonies here at The 8th Circle are just an excuse to publicly humiliate a sub and razz a dominant for falling in love. Griffin is way overdue for much razzing.”
“Is the guyliner part of the humiliation?” Michael opened his eyes when Nora finished adorning them with eyeliner.
“I know Griffin. He’ll pee himself when he sees you in eyeliner. One of his weaknesses.”
“Awesome.” He took a quick breath. “I can’t believe this is real. It is real, right?”
Nora took a step back and angled his face into the low light. She nodded approval at her own handiwork.
“Yes. Very real. And it’ll feel very real when it stops being fun. The first time Griffin puts his foot down about something you don’t like…the whole collared thing really sinks in. But it’s worth it. You find the right dom, and it’s completely worth it. Just enjoy the honeymoon period while it lasts.”
Michael looked at Nora as she capped her eyeliner pencil and put it away. She looked so weird tonight wearing all white. White skirt, white blouse, white collar around her neck. He was in all white too—white pants, no shoes, white button-down shirt untucked with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.
“He’s taking me to Key West for a week tomorrow. Speaking of honeymoons.”
Nora adjusted her collar.
“Good choice for same-sex couples. Have you two figured out the school/living situation in all this excitement?”
“Yeah. He’s getting a new place that’ll be easy to get to by the train. I’ll just be in the dorms during the week and be his on the weekends.”
“You going to tell everybody at school that you’re the bisexual collared submissive of the richest trust fund baby in New York?”
“Maybe not this semester.”
Nora grinned.
“Good call. Your mom handling everything okay?”
“Yeah. Better than I thought.”
“Mothers can surprise you sometimes.”
Michael went over to his backpack and pulled a photo folder out.
“Here. I better give this back to you. Griffin might snoop.”
“Thank you,” she said, taking the photo back. She opened the burgundy folder and smiled at the picture. “God, they were sexy as hell, weren’t they?”
“Seriously,” Michael agreed as he looked over Nora’s shoulder at the black-and-white photograph. In the picture he saw an eighteen-year-old Father S sitting casually in an armchair in a dark suit, tidy and pin neat. At his feet sat another boy, only a year younger, with longer dark hair and his Catholic school uniform artfully rumpled with the jacket abandoned, the tie loose and the collar open.
“Kingsley and Søren…I think this is the only picture ever taken of them as teenagers. Looks like they were studying, working on something. Wonder if anyone else other than us kinksters get it.”
Michael had gotten it. He understood. Young Kingsley’s neck bore two bruises that anyone without any kink experience would simply assume were hickeys or love bites. But Michael knew those marks, had borne them on his own skin. Lips hadn’t made them, nor teeth. A thumb and index finger pressing into the skin had left those bruises. Kingsley had been pinned down by his neck during sex with a young Father S.
“We all have to start somewhere, right?” Nora asked, closing the folder and tucking the photograph away. “Søren and Kingsley have no shame at all that they were lovers when they were kids. Kingsley just doesn’t want anyone to know he’s a switch.”
“I won’t tell. I promise. Not even Griffin.”
“I know,” Nora said. “We better go. They’re waiting.”
Together they left Father S’s private dungeon at The 8th Circle, the club where he, Nora, Griffin and Kingsley did their hardest playing a couple of times a week.
A few doors down was Griffin’s private dungeon. Michael had already been warned he’d be spending a lot of time naked and tied up in this room. Even now as he entered it unfettered and fully clothed, he felt naked and bound. Nakedly vulnerable. Bound to Griffin.
Looking around as the entered the room, he saw Father S and Kingsley Edge talking to each other in hushed tones. Both of them wore all black apart from Father S’s white collar and a white handkerchief in Kingsley’s pocket. An incredibly beautiful woman with ebony skin wearing a jaw-dropping ivory dress sat on a black leather sofa. Kingsley snapped his fingers and the woman rose and came to his side. It must be Juliette. Nora had told him about her—Kingsley’s Haitian secretary who kept both Kingsley and all of his business interests in line outside the bedroom while Kingsley kept her in line inside. Juliette gave him a dazzling smile and Michael’s knees nearly buckled from the force of her beauty.
Nora guided Michael to the center of the room and stood next to him. Griffin entered, wearing black pants and a black silk shirt and no shoes. He took one look at Michael and made a beeline for him. Before they could meet, Nora interposed herself between them.
“Whoa, slow down, Fiske. You don’t get to kiss the sub yet. Down, boy,” Nora ordered and Griffin playfully bared his teeth at her.
“Then let’s get this over with. I need to kiss him. Now. Right now,” Griffin said, trying to step around Nora.
“Patience is a virtue, Griffin,” Father S said as they all formed a loose circle around Griffin and Michael.
“I haven’t seen him all day. That’s as much patience as you’ll get from me,” Griffin said.
“It’s a start,” Father S said. “Go ahead.”
Nora stepped to the side and Griffin pulled a black leather collar out of his pocket, clasped it around Michael’s neck, buckled it and locked it shut. Michael closed his eyes as Griffin’s arms came around him.
“I love you,” Griffin whispered as the tiny lock in the back of the collar clicked shut. “And you belong to me.”
“Yes, sir,” Michael said, smiling. He opened his eyes and Griffin kissed him deeply, passionately and without reservation.
“Gross,” Nora said. “Those two guys are kissing. That’s disgusting.”
“It’s quite unnatural,” Kingsley agreed. “I shudder at the very thought.”
“Is that so?” Juliette asked in her rich, melodic Haitian accent. “Then what were you doing with that young man last night?”
“Business meeting. We were discussing the ledgers at the Möbius.”
“While naked?” Juliette asked, batting her eyelashes.
“It was an informal meeting,” Kingsley said.
Michael had to stop kissing so he could laugh. At least here among these weirdos and perverts, he and Griffin would always find acceptance. And maybe if they were lucky, others would accept them too.
“Griffin Randolph Fiske,” Father S began, “you are now the proud owner of Michael Dimir. He is like a son to me. If you hurt him in any way that he does not want, you will answer to me.”
“And me,” Nora said, stepping forward to give both Michael and Griffin quick kisses on the cheek.
“Et moi,” said Kingsley.
“Et moi aussi,” said Juliette.
Michael swallowed a lump in his throat. He knew Griffin would never do anything to harm him, but it moved him beyond words to know he had all these amazing people on his side if he did.
“Don’t worry. Not going to happen,” Griffin said, taking Michael by the hand. “But I would like to hurt him in the ways he likes right now. So unless you want to watch, scoot.”
Griffin made the shooing gesture that had worked so well on Michael’s father.
No one moved. Griffin glared at Nora.
“What?” she asked with feigned innocence. “We all want to watch.”