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“You’d risk burning for the rest of eternity for me?” I asked.
“Hell isn’t fire, little lamb. The church didn’t preach such nonsense until Dante’s Inferno. Hell is the absence of God. Every day of your absence was hell. I’m not willing to suffer anymore.” He hugged me tighter, warming me from the inside out.
“And what about the things I want? The vile degradation. The hurt and harm. Wanting the monster. My Monster.” My chest heaved with anxiety. Would he lock that side of him away again? Weren’t Catholics all about missionary and respect?
“Silly lamb, I don’t think God pays any mind to the acts of man when they are consensual adults.” Laughter leaked into his voice. “If you’re getting off to what I’m doing to you, where is the harm?”
“I get off on it.” I exhaled my fear feelings as the bruises set. “But is this a sin? Even if the sex isn’t, what about our love?”
“Loving you could never be a sin. I was mistaken for ever insinuating it was. I may have broken my vows, but touching you isn’t wrong. You are entirely right.” His whisper brought the first reassurance to my soul. “Love is never wrong.”
7
SALVATION
The heat broke, and the hot days faded to cool nights. Autumn crept closer, and the leaves began to change. I loved this part of the country for its vibrant colors. Warmth transformed into cool as the world prepared for winter. Sweat turned to sweaters.
And my faith deepened.
The only man I’d ever had faith in, that is.
Our worlds melded easier than I expected, and I grew to love the drive.
“Can we take a drive?” I didn’t know the rules. We rarely left the rectory together, which suited my solitary self just fine.
“A drive?” Anthony sat in reading glasses in front of his computer, very much looking his thirty-five, poring over a homily for Sunday.
“Yes, I bought a new car.”
He turned towards me, more Connor every day we spent together. The Monster playing but easily sated, returning him to me quicker and quicker. “I saw. Less flashy than the last one. I approve.”
The remark earned him a glare. “I only changed the color. It’s more flashy because it has a better engine.”
“More powerful isn’t flashy. My profession appreciates understated.”
I’d done it for him, and I was glad he’d recognized it. “Fine, less flashy. I want to see the leaves. I do it every year.”
“Like your mother used to with you?” He smiled with warmth.
“Yes.”
“I would love to.” He stood, leaving his glasses on the table next to his laptop. “How long will we be? Should I arrange for another priest to take my mass tonight?”
“No, I wouldn’t dare ask you to miss First Friday. It’s October. The sinners need you.”
“Any priest will do.” He disappeared into his room, I assumed, to put on his cassock. They weren’t required when he wasn’t in the church, but he liked to dress the part, never venturing out in just his collar. He returned, fastening the last of his buttons.
“I wouldn’t rob them of you. I know why they flock to your parish.”
He laughed but didn’t argue.
We slipped into the Aston Martin Vantage Roadster in velvet green. The convertible was perfect for this weather, and the entire reason I’d traded in my last model.
We drove. The same paths I took every year, hands held across the console. Beauty in the silence.
“How do you keep blood off the interior?” he asked an hour into our drive.
I laughed at the absurdity of it. “Your preclusion to only killing to make a point is showing.”
