“I have greater uses for mine than mere lies.”
Was he talking about the church? Celebrating Mass and preaching or…did he tease with something more? Something sinful and delightful that lingered in my mind as an untasted, unachievable promise?
“This is what I mean, Father. Is it wrong…the way we speak and the things we say?”
“The compliments we give?” Father Raphael drew the question with a soft rumble in his voice. “Do you trust yourself?”
“Me?”
“Do you trust your thoughts, your feelings, your faith?”
“No.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’ve already failed my soul’s first challenge.”
“A challenge?” His words shifted, curious. “What sort of challenge?”
“Does it matter? We face so many every day.”
“What made this one different?”
I swallowed. “It was the first one I’ve lost.”
“Are you certain you’ve lost?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.” My hair fell over my face, ebony waves that should have been pinned and proper for church. Instead I let them cascade, wild and free. I thought I could hide in them. It only revealed more of me. “Father, we’re too close.”
“Close to what?”
He was a priest, but he wasn’t naïve. Couldn’t be, not when the only thing he denied himself was so often the primary focus of the church’s teachings.
Did he want me to say it? Was that the game? Did he wait for me to admit just how depraved and terrible and amazing the fantasies had become? Every squirming second in the confessional only made me realize how sinful my thoughts were. How dangerous.
And he knew it too.
It was part of the control he had over me.
Why should he admit these sins if he could tease me, leave me shamed and aching for an embrace that never happened, words we hadn’t whispered, and a release that…
Well, that release had come. At least he had only been in my mind and not in my bed then.
I bit my lip. The sharp sting didn’t punish me. Just the opposite.
“Father, we’ve spent time together this month, and I appreciate the guidance and comfort you have given, but it has to end.”
“Why?”
“Because it no longer feels innocent.”
This intrigued him. I imagined his gaze upon me, scorching through the tiny screen separating him from my innermost thoughts, fears.
Desires.
Now or never.
“When you speak with me…” I said. “It’s like there’s more to your words.”
“Do you believe I’ve misled you?”
“No. I think you say exactly what you mean. What you want.”
“Which is?”
“Something neither of us can have.”
Father Raphael breathed deep, solemn. “You speak of sins we’ve never committed.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Words we’ve never spoken.”
“Yes.”
“And a touch I’ve never offered.”
“Yes.”
He smiled. “So what exactly is it you have imagined. What are you feeling?”
“Why would you make me say it?”
“Why would you confess here, with me, if you did not wish for me to hear it?”
What did he want from me?
I’d come to accept responsibility for the thoughts and feelings that threatened my soul. Now? I’d never forgive myself for getting tangled deeper in his web.
But, even as I squirmed, even as the truth tightened around me…I savored the sound of his voice.
Father Raphael awaited my answer. I had none.
“Honor, you came here tonight because you wanted to speak with me about these feelings. You sensed the danger, and yet you came to me. Was it for protection? Absolution?” He exhaled, his voice lowering, quiet and dark, only for me. “I know that’s not true. Be honest with yourself. Be honest with me. Tell me how this makes you feel.”
“How what makes me feel?”
“Confessing these dark and terrible sins to me.”
I shuddered so hard everything inside of me clenched, tight and waiting. “I don’t understand—”
“How brave of you to sit in my confessional, trapped in this little cage while you reveal these sins that have bound you in desire for…how long has it been, my angel? Days? Weeks? Since the first time you met me?”
I had wanted him from that very first instant when we were introduced. I stayed silent.
“I remember when I first saw you,” he said.
“So do I…” I swallowed. “You were giving Mass.”
“You were one of the few who listened.”
And look at the trouble it caused. “I was taught to respect my priest.”