Page 72 of Drag You Down
I get under the cold water, the temperature feeling like a shock to my system, and I start to scrub myself clean. I’m careful with my back, but the water pounding down on it has me biting back a sound of pain.
My cock has gone flaccid, and I’m grateful for that, at least.
By the time I get out of the shower, my teeth are chattering from the cold water, and I dry off thoroughly. It leaves smearsof blood on the towel, but there’s nothing I can do about it by myself. I leave my shirt off, only dressing from the waist down, then I toss the dirty clothes and towel into the hamper.
I open the door to the bathroom, only to freeze when I realize I can hear two voices.
Two.
And one of them belongs to Father Zachariah.
The betrayal that washes over me is acute, and I consider closing the door again and locking myself away. It’s too late now, though; they’ve gone silent, and I grab my shirt and put it on despite the way it clings to my damp and bloody skin.
I step into the living room, avoiding looking at Eve. “Father Zachariah,” I whisper.
“Levi,” Father Zachariah says, and his voice is thick with disappointment. “Eve tells me you bathed in sin.”
I don’t look at her.
I don’t dare show the hurt and confusion and every other emotion that taunts me in the wake of what she’s done.
“I’m sorry, Father Zachariah,” I manage to get out around the lump in my throat. “I needed time to think.”
“You should have come to me immediately.” Father Zachariah glances at Eve. “Go visit Ruth, Eve. Levi and I need to have a private conversation.”
Eve purses her lips, looking between us, then nods. “Yes, Father Zachariah.” She gets up but pauses at the door. “I did this for your own good, Levi.”
For my own good?
I stare at her as she leaves and quietly closes the door behind herself. Does she really think this was for my own good? How?
Why does she get to make that decision for me?
I turn my attention back to Father Zachariah, unfamiliar anger simmering beneath the surface. This was my confession to make, not hers.
A small voice in the back of my mind whispers that maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t have come back after all.
“You left with that man,” Father Zachariah says, and what gentleness he had in his eyes before is gone now. “Where did you go? What did you do?”
I should tell him the truth.
He’s the man who holds the keys to my faith, but that faith has been shaken.
I don’t want to tell him anything.
I can’t tell him the sins I actually committed. “I let myself be persuaded to doubt,” I say quietly. “But then I walked the streets among the people. They need help, Father Zachariah. I spent the days in prayer, then returned home.”
“Who needs help?” Father Zachariah asks, his brow creasing. “But if you spent your time in prayer, that’s good. You’ll still need to do penance, of course, to wash the filth of the city from your soul, but returning home was the right thing to do.”
It’s too soon to feel relieved. He believes me, and I wonder what other hooks the Devil has set into my soul to where I can lie so easily.
“The homeless, the sick, the sinful,” I tell him hoarsely. “They doubt, and they have nothing.”
Whyhadn’t I tried to talk them into returning here with me, to be a part of Father Zachariah’s flock?
“Forget them,” Father Zachariah says harshly. “If they truly believed, God would have provided for them. That they now suffer is divine punishment.”
I stare at him, and it’s hard to speak as I whisper, “‘Whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” The words are rough, difficult to get out. Who am I to use Jesus’s teachings against his prophet?
