JACOB
For the wages of sin is death… Romans 6:23
I spent a few hours in my office after leaving the rectory. Grateful for the quiet morning that led into a quiet afternoon, I spent my time speaking to the Diocese regarding issues affecting my town. As usual, their offer of assistance was paltry at best. Nobody cared about a town that had little to offer in tithes - a town that had been all but forgotten by the larger cities that sat hundreds of miles from its borders.
Praying had never done much good. Although, I wasn't sure I could blame God on that fact. Maybe it wasn't His fault for not listening. Perhaps it was mine for never having been very good at praying loud enough to be heard.
On that thought, I sat the pen I'd flipped through my fingers for over an hour onto the surface of the desk, my heart pained by the people who had next to nothing, but still had the decency to attend God's service dressed in their finest. To the resilient, having barely enough to survive was still a blessing to appreciate without question.
I couldn't help my anger on their behalf. They were members of a Church that could afford to help them all, but chose not to. Even then, and even though they were only scraping by, the people of the town gave what they could to the parish whenever they heard God's calling.
With that thought in mind, I darted a glance to the clock. Confessional hours started in less than three minutes and I had one hour reserved for the dark, foreboding box, and one for the reconciliation room.
Often, I sat alone in both, left to the company of my innermost thoughts, but I would still wait in case a parishioner was in need. Slipping out from behind my desk, I walked from my office to the sanctuary, my eyes widening to find Eve sitting in a front pew, her gaze turned up toward the stained glass windows designed with images of a cross and a dove.
Jewel tones bathed her face from the light pouring in from the windows, the dance of color across her skin almost as beautiful as the marks she wore from me.
Dressed in one of my plain t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants that were practically swallowing her small body, she sat in reverence and deep contemplation. I hated to disturb her, but I feared someone would walk in and find her.
In a larger parish, her presence wouldn't have been questioned, but everybody knew everybody in this town and a strange face was an oddity not easily ignored.
Laying my hand on her shoulder, I spoke softly. "Eve, I need you to return to the rectory."
She opened her eyes, tears shimmering within the soft green. "Will we ever go home, Elijah?"
The question caught me off guard - the name she used still driving a spike of anger and jealousy through the most sensitive parts of me. I should have corrected her, should have taken the time to explain a fact her battered mind would find impossible to comprehend, but I was too afraid of losing what I'd found in a woman who awakened me in ways I hadn't known in over twelve long years.
"We are home," I answered, sliding onto the bench beside her. "This is your new home."
I wasn't sure how I would continue to hide her, but I wasn't thinking clearly when it came to her. Even now, while bathed in the jewel toned light of the sun shining through the large windows, my body responded to this woman in ways unfitting for a priest.
Beyond that, my mind picked up on her submission to my will, on the manner in which she'd been warped and manipulated to be the perfect meal for a man with an appetite such as mine.
Silence fell between us, a heavy blanket stuffed with all the horrors of the past few days, by the question of right versus wrong, and by the uncertainty of my brother's purpose for everything he'd done and still planned to do.
"You're like two different people," she whispered, her sudden words catching me off guard for how observant they were. I would have explored further, pushed her to explain, but the large entrance door at our backs creaked open and stole away the time to question her.
Glancing back, I noticed the long red hair spilling down Annabelle's shoulders, the distraught look on her face as she darted a glance in my direction before making her way to the confessional. Knowing I was not inside, she still opened the door and climbed in, a silent plea to confess whatever evils she believed existed in her head.
"Eve," I whispered, hoping with everything I had that Annabelle hadn't noticed the strange face of the woman sitting next to me. "I need you to go back to the rectory for a few hours."
"Please," I added when she didn't immediately respond.
Rather than speaking, she simply nodded her head and cast me a strange look before pushing up to her feet. I waited until she was down the hall leading to the rectory door before turning my attention to the confessional.
Sucking in a deep breath, I realized there wasn't enough oxygen in the room to ease the panic I felt for what Annabelle would say. But I was a priest, regardless of the choices I'd made in the past few days, and I had a calling to help all of my parishioners no matter how uncomfortable is was for me.
With heavy steps, I walked to the confessional, opened the door and climbed inside the dark box that felt more like a coffin today than it ever had before. Sitting in the seat, I rested my head against the wall at my back and opened the small door that closed off the screen between the two compartments.
As soon as it was opened, I heard her small voice. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been three days since my last confession and I accuse myself of the following sins."
I wanted to skip the formality, wanted to bypass having to listen to whatever it was she had to say, but this was my cross to bear as much as hers. Although I hadn't been the one to use her body and cast her aside, in her mind, I was. I would take the weight if it helped ease the burden from her shoulders.
It was at least a minute that I listened to her breathing. "What do you wish to confess?" I finally asked.
Soft sobs echoed from the other side of the screen, her voice broken as she listed out her transgressions.
"I had sex with a man who was not my husband. It wasn't adultery, but fornication. Even though I know it's wrong, I have the desire to do it again."
My eyes closed as my hands slid over my thighs to grip down. We both knew what she believed she did with me, and I couldn't continue the formality any longer. "Annabelle, what happened can never happen again."
Another choked sob was her response. Waiting for her to speak was my own personal Hell, waiting to hear how her heart had been torn open by an evil within the world that had used her to get to me. She was innocent despite the choice she'd made - despite the lies she'd believed.
"I knew it was wrong, Father Hayle," she whispered just loud enough for me to hear. "I knew that I should have resisted. But I've had these feelings for you for a long time. I ruined you...and myself...and all I want, all I think about, is doing it again."
My teeth clenched so tightly that pain shot across my jaw.
Through her sniffling, she kept talking, kept telling me what she believed I'd done to her. "I need to unload this, from beginning to end and I'm sorry if it hurts you. I'm the devil. I used my femininity to lure you into temptation. I should never have told you how I felt."
That son of a bitch.
Suspicion filtered through me, cold ice meeting scorching flame. Jericho, in what little time he’d had with her, must have convinced her that she was the one to blame.
I knew it would kill me to hear the details, but I wanted to know exactly what he'd done. "Tell me from the beginning, Annabelle. Speak all of it so that God will hear you and offer forgiveness."
Another sob. Another sniffle.
"I can't live with myself. Not knowing what I've done and what I'd do it again if you let me. When I turned and saw you following me on the street, I thought you had something else to say about my confession. But when you touched me instead, when you pulled me behind those bushes so that we wouldn't be seen, I melted inside to feel your mouth on mine. I died inside when you moved my hand to feel how your body reacted to being near me. I knew it was wrong, Father, but that only made me want it more."
She paused, a keening sound crawling up her throat. "Oh, God, I still want it. I touch myself at night thinking about you, remembering what it felt like when you touched me for the first time."
Silence fell, only broken by the sound of her crying. "I'm touching myself now," she finally said.
Opening my eyes, I leaned sideways, my skin hot against the wood partition between us. "You must stop, Annabelle. You can't do that in God's house."
"Why does he make us this way?" she asked, her voice growing in strength. "Why does he design us so that it feels so good? Not initially, not when you first-"
Her voice cut off, only to return much softer. "Not when you first stuck it inside, but when you touched between us, when you showed me what my body could do. I learned from you, and now I touch that secret place just to feel it again and again. To remember. To pretend like it's your hand. Your finger. Your tongue."
A sharp inhalation of air sounded just before she said, "My finger is inside me now, but I wish it was you."
"Annabelle, stop. Right this second," I demanded.
"I'm sorry," she said, pleading with me to understand. "I can't help it. I've been opened, Father Hayle. And now it's all I want. What's wrong with me?"
I couldn't answer what was wrong with her because I was too busy wondering what was wrong with me. I had no interest in this girl. No desire to touch her in the ways she believed I had, but still, my body responded. The predator in me opened its eyes, begging to devour her innocence, hopeful that its will would be stronger than mine.
"What happened," I repeated, "will never happen again. You must resist those thoughts. You must stop defiling God's house by touching yourself now. You must remember what God wants from his children."
"I can't," she cried, "what don't you understand about that? I've tried, Father, but there is something inside me that wants you, will always want you. Please, Father Hayle. Tell me how to resist this."
The taste of bile crawled up my throat, the recognition that in every person there was a particular poison they found hard to resist. For some, it was sex. For others it was stealing. And for the rare few it was the desire to hurt and kill.
I'd often wondered if it wasn't some basic instinct we carried from a time long ago, a part of our nature that couldn't be corralled by religion, morality or the expectations of a controlled society.
"You must stop, Annabelle. You must remember that you have a scholarship, a future beyond this-"
"Why did you do this to me?" she screamed.
My heart was tearing into shreds, my hands clenching so hard over my thighs that I knew there would be bruises left behind.
The sobs came harder before I heard her shuffling around, her elbows and knees knocking against the wood.
"Annabelle, please, talk to me."
"I'm done talking," she whispered. "I'm sorry, Father Hayle. I already know I'm damned."
A metallic click drew my attention, but before I could react, before I could push up from my seat, throw my door open to get to hers, a gun blast burst through the sanctuary, the sound of a body slumping down as the weight of the gun hit the floor of the confessional.