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With a nod, I set my hand on the door. “The blessing should help with the nightmares, but if it doesn’t, it may require more.”
“Father …” She bites her lip. “People who do these things … God makes them pay, right?” Eyes watering, she wipes the tears from her cheeks and sniffs. “Even if the police don’t find him, God will make him pay for this?”
I cast my gaze from hers, unable to look her in the eyes and give her the peace she’s seeking, because I’m a coward. A lying bastardly coward who fears becoming a man without purpose more than anything else, including setting this fretting mother’s mind at ease. I’m an abomination to everything I represent. So my response to her is nothing short of robotic. “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars,their portion will be inthe lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which isthe second death.”
With what is clearly a feigned smile, she reaches out for my hand and squeezes. “Thank you, Father.”
14
Damon
Ishould be at Saturday vigil, in place of Ruiz, and preparing for Sunday mass. Instead, I’m sitting outside of Ivy’s apartment, watching her move from one room to another, like some kind of stalker. The poison has taken over me. My littlepécheressehas ensured that not a single moment exists where I’m not thinking about her spread out before me.
I want to forget her, pretend what happened between us was some warped distortion of reality, but her name is a vine, wound around me as tight as the cincture I wore during morning mass, when I swore I could still taste her on my tongue.
Watching her silhouette through the sheer curtains, the curves I can clearly make out from the road, I see her feed her arms through sleeves, as though slipping on a coat, and a deeply rooted anger twists inside my chest at the thought of where she might be off to for the night.
I can’t let her go tohim. I refuse to sit by knowing she’s with another man, entertaining him for the sake of her freedom. It’s wrong, the way my mind, mired in these perverse, licentious thoughts, refuses to relent this sense of possession. As if she belongs to me. Was madeonlyfor my torment and no one else’s. It’s wrong, and yet, by my body’s own impulse, I exit from the car and jog across the street, up the stairs to her door, which swings open just as I reach for the knob.
“Oh, my God!” She presses a hand to her chest, eyes wide with surprise and maybe a small bit of fear. “Father, what are you doing here?”
I glance down at where shiny, skintight pants disappear into high boots that’re hiding beneath the knee-length hem of her coat. It’s a sight that leaves my tightly nipped restraint precariously hanging by a fragile thread.
The door behind me clicks, and I turn to face a petite, older woman, with pin-straight black hair and glasses.
“Iby, you okay?” she asks, holding up what looks like a sewing needle. “Dis man isn’t bodering you?”
“Yes .. I mean no, Mrs. Garcia. I’m fine. Thank you.”
The woman’s eyes trail me up and down before her brows wing up. “Ooh. He’s a handsome one.” Shooting me a wink, she backs herself in the apartment, but takes a moment to stare before closing the door.
“She’s watching through the peephole, isn’t she?” I ask, turning to see Ivy tighten the jacket around her.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, not answering my question.
Lifting my gaze to the room beyond tells me she’s probably alone. “Can I come in?”
“I’m leaving, actually.”
“I’ll only be a minute.” Not quite, if my body has any say in the matter, but I tell myself that’s not the reason I’m here. Without permission, I push my way inside, breathing in that feminine scent from before. Like an aphrodisiac, it lulls me deeper into those tangled vines of lust. “Where are you going?”
Closing the door behind her, she doesn’t bother to follow me into the room, and instead stands with her arms crossed, looking pissed off. “I already told you.”
“It’s warm. You won’t need a jacket.”
Huffing with irritation, she whips it off her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor and exposing an outfit beneath that makes my dick lurch. Her perfect, round tits peek through small holes cut out at the chest, the nipples standing tall and erect, sending a zap of agonizing pain to my groin. An open-breasted, full body, black latex suit clings to her curves, and the zipper at the crotch creates what looks like the only point of access. Must’ve taken forever to get that thing on.
I nod toward the painful distraction of a suit, one that has me balling my fists at my sides in a poor attempt to keep from smoothing my hands over it. Wondering how it would feel pressed against my body. “You planned to take the rail wearing that?”
“All part of his torment. I suppose, if I get raped on the way, he’ll probably ask me to describe it all in detail.”
The very thought enrages me, and I want to tell her, if she were mine, I’d kill a man who put his hands on her without asking. But I’m not supposed to think that way, because she isn’t mine. And I’m not supposed to be standing in the middle of her apartment, trying to leash my own self-control, while that outfit taunts me like devils whispering in my ear to ravish this woman.
I glance away, desperate to reel in the appetite brewing deep inside of me like a monster starving for depravity. “I came here to keep you from seeing him.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s wrong.”
