One sin wasn’t enough.
Once would never be enough.
And that thought frightened me more than the realization of my broken celibacy, my lost soul, or how I threatened her with Hell.
“Did I hurt you?” I asked.
The words tumbled from my lips. I feared the worst, knowing how delicate she was as a virgin.
Knowing how it had been done to me.
“No, Father.”
She sat up and the sheet wrapped over her navel. Her hair cast loose, and she let it cover her chest. Just as the children’s Bibles drew Eve before she obscured her beauty with a fig leaf.
I didn’t believe her. “Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?”
Her words emboldened. “No. Just the opposite.”
I should have wept in relief. Instead, I gritted my teeth. I’d given her pleasure, and she gave her heat, her tightness, her need. She’d surrendered to me.
Christ, I was not worthy.
Honor slipped from the bed. She took her bra and panties from the floor and gathered them to her body. I said nothing as she retraced her steps to the living room to find the rest of her clothes. The light from the powder room flipped on, and I listened for the door to shut behind her before I moved.
My body ached. My brain cried for sleep. Hormones. The only blessing for a man once the sin was done, the seed was planted, and the bodies desecrated in lust.
But I hadn’t desecrated her. Had I? I’d prayed too much, too hard, too deeply to have let sin with me. I swore to carry her burdens, and yet I knew the instant I rose, the moment I donned that cassock once more…it’d have been for nothing.
I dressed in the pants and t-shirt. My hand stilled over my collar, wrinkled and buried under clothes on the floor. I kissed it.
Honor was dressed when I returned to her. We stood in silence, and I lamented that I was not some other man. One that might have held her, kissed her, whispered poetry that declared her the most beautiful woman in the world.
Instead, I didn’t know what to say. God had given me many words to share, but the devil stole them all in a moment of weakness.
Honor’s voice was too loud, even in a whisper. We both flinched.
“I didn’t park out front,” she said. “My car is in the church’s lot.”
“I should walk with you. It’s late and dark.”
“No, Father. I need…to be alone.” She held her hand out, preventing my approach. “And so do you.”
I didn’t wish her goodnight. I couldn’t. No night could be better or worse than ours.
She bowed her head and rushed from my home, quietly. Like a little church mouse fearing she’d be discovered.
But no one would see her.
No one but me.
…No one but God.
I watched her go, and another sliver of my soul shattered at my feet. I should have made her stay. I should have welcomed her into my arms, into my bed.
I never should have touched her.
The night came and went, and morning drew too near.
Sunday morning.
I had sinned before Mass. Somehow it made my wonderful, amazing, mind-altering experience seem even more…wrong. Or did it? I waited for a sign that I was damned. A smiting. A strike against me. Tears. Anything that might have moved me.
I showered and shaved, but I felt nothing beyond the tranquility of my body. Calmed. Protected.
But if God wouldn’t punish me, I’d do it myself.
I walked to the church to prepare for Mass, twisting the rosary beads in my fingers without murmuring a single word or prayer. Normally, I’d bless them before celebrating Mass. Not today. The beads had grazed her skin, were held in her hand. Nothing holier existed than her touch, and I cherished the rosaries even as they burned through my conscience.
My head and heart weren’t connected. I tripped on the loose stair in the rear of St. Cecilia’s—the one I’d always managed to skip in the past. My toe ached, and I limped the halls in silence as the church came alive for worship.
The sacristy buzzed with activity. My altar servers and deacons dressed and joked. Some gulped coffee to stem hangovers. Others struggled to find a working lighter for the candles waiting in the sanctuary. They greeted me with smiles.
They had no idea of the sins I’d committed, and they never would. They needed me—to lead, to guide, to serve the congregation in the joy of Mass. I couldn’t let them see how I had weakened. My faith fed theirs. If I faltered…
It wouldn’t happen.
I turned to dress, but my shaking hands knocked every vestment off the hangers. They crumpled on the bottom of the cupboard. Deacon Smith groaned.
“I just organized that, Father.” He waved a hand. “I pity what your mother went through on laundry day.”
“She had her hands full.” The joke appeased them, but it hurt me.