Page 27 of Dirty
“I—I can’t,” she whispered. “He’s devout, Father. He tries to lead a holy life. If he knew the feelings that overcome me sometimes…” She started to cry. “He deserves a holy wife. I want to be pure for him. Clean. And if he found out that I was driven to such wanton acts…he wouldn’t…hecouldn’tlove me anymore.”
For fuck’s sake. Did these people not talk to one another? Were they so closeted and shut down that they truly didn’t realize that they were all as horny and fucked up as the rest of the human race? “Don’t cry, child. In the grand scheme of things, masturbation isn’t the end of the world. Say three Hail Mary’s and get back to baking those cupcakes.”
“Cupcakes?” Something thudded on the floor. Sounded like she’d just dropped her bible. “You…you know who I am, don’t you?”
I huffed out a breath, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Of course I do, Yvonne. Only twenty-six people come to this church.”
She whimpered. “Oh. Right. Aren’t you supposed to tell me refrain from doing it again, though?”
Fuck. Seriously? “Yeah. You should stop touching yourself, Yvonne. It leads down and a dark and scary path. Now, if we’re finished here…”
“I don’t think you’re taking this seriously, Father Marcosa. Your father would have given me a proper lecture on the dangers of…” She launched into a tirade about the Father Marcosa who had preceded me, and I ceased to listen. It made sense that people compared me to my father. We shared the same name, for fuck’s sake. And I looked like the man, there was no denying that. He’d been dead for well over two years, though, and I was sick to death of people holding me up to the light, comparing the two of us. I was nothing like my old man. I was never going to be anything like that dour, miserable, tyrannical piece of shit.
“All right, all right, Yvonne. You want to feel absolved of your sins. I understand. For your penance, say twenty Hail Mary’s, three Glory Bes, and three Our Fathers. Hopefully that will make you feel better. Now, I’ve really got to prepare the homily for Sunday. If you don’t have anything else you’d like to discuss, then…”
Yvonne had shut up when I’d interrupted her. She remained quiet for a moment, before saying, “Twenty Hail Mary’s, Father? That seems…a little...”
“Twenty Hail Mary’s,” I said firmly. The three I’d prescribed a moment ago were obviously too low to make her feel like her slate was being wiped clean. Now, twenty made her feel like she was being unreasonably punished.Well, fucking guess what, Yvonne? You can’t have it both ways.“I’ll see you at Mass,” I said, getting to my feet. I was meant to wait until Yvonne had vacated the confessional and had a chance to get the hell out of dodge, but my patience was non-existent, and I really did have to write the damn homily. My hand rested on the edge of the thick, black curtain that covered the entry to the confessional; I was about to pull it aside, when a high pitched wail of terror sliced through the air. It was a woman’s voice, and it wasn’t just a cry of pain. It was also a cry of abject terror.
“Lord!” Yvonne hissed. “What was that?”
“Stay here, Yvonne. Don’t come out until I tell you it’s safe.” I carefully, quickly slid the curtain aside, scanning up and down the length of the church, searching for the source of the cry. At the far end of the building, the door to the rectory was cracked open; strange, since it was usually kept locked. Only two people had a key to open that door: myself and the sister on shift, charged to welcome congregation members, maintain the church and keep everything clean and tidy throughout the day. I racked my brain, trying to remember who the sister on duty was today, but I drew a blank. I’d been stranded in my office all morning; I hadn’t seen or spoken to anyone before I stepped into the confessional booth. The sisters never typically needed to enter the rectory, though. And there was certainly no reason the door should be open like that, either.
My cossack billowed around me as I hurried down the aisle, checking the pews as I went, making sure there were no other people sitting there who might have come in to pray. The place was empty. Hurrying through the apse, my footfall rang out, echoing off the high stone walls, reverberating around the church, emphasizing just how abandoned the place truly was. When I navigated my way around the lectern, reaching for the handle of the rectory door, seconds from pushing it open all the way, that’s when I noticed the crumpled five-dollar bill on the floor.
It was covered in blood.
Shit. What the hell was going on here? Once, when I was thirteen, a drunk, homeless guy had walked into the church one night and demanded that my father hand over all of the donation money from that evening’s service. I’d been tidying away the hymnbooks, and I’d watched on in horror as the man had staggered toward my father, a knife thrust out in front of him. I’d expected my father to swing for the man, to knock the weapon from his hands, to beat him black and blue for trying to steal the church’s charitable donations. When my father had handed over the money without so much as a second thought, I’d been wracked with shame. My father had been a coward. He’d turned over the money instead of defending it. The man had left, reeking of alcohol and soiled clothes, and I’d turned on my father, admonishing him for not standing up to the man.
The words he’d said to me then were still with me today. “Felix, what do we use that money for?”
“For helping people. For clothing and feeding the poor,” I’d snapped.
“Okay. Well, then. That money went exactly where it was meant to go.”
As I stared down at the blood-flecked bill lying at my feet, I realized, once again, that my father was a better man that I was. Because I wasn’t just going to let someone walk in off the street and rob my fucking church. It was wrong of me, I knew it was, but I was going to find whoever had broken in here, and I was going to knock their fucking teeth out.
I stepped into the rectory, and…
…the world….
…oh, god…
I threw out a hand, steadying myself against the wall, trying not to fall down.
Blood.
There was so much blood.
It was sprayed up the walls, had drenched the curtains at the window, and had formed a ruby red pool on the floor, that had seeped into the waxed canvas material of the backpack I’d left on the ground earlier when I came back from my morning run. The air smelled sour, contaminated, with a chemical edge to it that made my nostrils burn.
I found her in the hallway, sprawled out on the polished wooden floorboards. Her wimple was gone, her head uncovered entirely, and her bright blonde hair, almost white, spread out around her head like spilled milk. She was face down, one arm thrust out, as if she were trying to reach for something. There was blood all over her hands, along with the simple white shirt she was wearing. Her black skirt wasn’t where it was meant to be. It had been hitched up around her waist, and her bare buttocks were exposed…also covered in blood.
She wasn’t moving.
A consuming rage swept over me, and for a second I could do nothing with it. I couldn’t claim it. I couldn’t push it away. I stood there, hating the scene before me, unable to look away, my blood seething through my veins.
One of the sister’s shoes was missing. A sensible black shoe with a very small heel, barely a heel at all. Gone. Her stockings were ripped and torn, bunched up around her ankles. Where…?
