Page 37 of Priest (Priest 1)
And now that she wasn’t here, not anywhere near here, I found my obsession spiraling out of control, like a drug addiction that demanded to be fed.
I imagined her voice filling the sanctuary after Rowan and the grandmothers left morning Mass. I pictured her face and her messy braid as I ran off copies of the Bible study worksheet for the next men’s group. I found myself googling pictures of Dartmouth and Newport instead of trawling through The Walking Dead forums. I even (creepily, I know) googled her family, scrolling through pictures of polished people at polished charity events, finally finding an old picture of her at what looked to be some sort of fundraiser for a politician. Her and a cluster of attractive people who were obviously her parents and siblings—her father, silver-haired and broad-shouldered, and her mother, svelte and elegant. A brother and a sister with the same expensive clothes and expensive, high-cheekboned faces.
I clicked the picture to see the image on its own, see a larger version of Poppy’s face. She was clearly younger, though not too young—in her early twenties maybe, and she was clearly unhappy. While everyone else flashed their wealthy, happy smiles at the camera, Poppy had only managed a firm press of her lips, her eyes directed somewhere behind the cameraman, as if absorbed with something only she could see.
A wave of unwanted jealousy and suspicion surged in my chest. Was she looking at Sterling? This seemed like the kind of event he would be at, from the little I knew. Or maybe she was merely gazing at the specter of her own unhappiness, her own dull future, spelled out in seating arrangements and menu cards?
I thought of the picture the rest of the evening, as I set up for the youth group. I also thought of her, of getting to see her on Thursday, and every few minutes I would catch myself smiling, smiling for no reason at all except that I would get to see Poppy again.
Tonight in youth group, we talked about Jesus being tempted in the desert, and in a dramatic turnaround from last week, I felt completely removed from the verses. I wasn’t in a desert…I was in a place with rustling green leaves and clear, rushing water.
What had changed? I wondered. Between last week and this week, between yesterday and today?
It was last night. It was the praying, the magic, the smell of her hair. The kiss that had sealed something, something that transcended the physical and the spiritual. They were no longer separate and divided, but one…and with that, the experience of her had crossed over from being confusing as hell to wonderful. Awesome. Not awesome in the cool sense, but awesome in the sense that it filled me with awe.
She filled me with awe. She made me see the world with a new sense of wonder, every tree greener, every angle sharper, every face more pleasant and delightful to help.
It wasn’t that the guilt had disappeared, however. I zigzagged from fantasy to recrimination, punishing myself with more runs, more pushups, more chores around the church, spending hours in prayer searching for an answer.
Why would God bring Poppy here if I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with her?
Was it truly so terrible for a man of God to have sex? The Protestants had been doing it for half a millennium and they seemed no more hell-bound than the Catholics for it.
And was it so wrong to want both? I wanted to lead this church, I wanted to help people find God. But dammit, I wanted Poppy too, and I didn’t think it was fair that I had to choose.
God didn’t answer. Whatever magic had been lingering in the sanctuary these past couple weeks hid itself from me, and in a way, that was its own answer.
I was meant to figure this out on my own.
I was as restless as a caged animal on Thursday.
I tried watching Netflix, I tried reading. My house was already perfectly clean, my lawn mowed. The only thing I could focus on was Poppy. On seeing her tonight.
And finally, I gave up and went to my room. I sat in the chair by my bed and unzipped my jeans. I had been in a state of semi-hardness all day, and just the thought of jacking off—something I’d mostly denied myself for the past three years—was enough to get me all the way there. I gave myself a couple of pulls until my cock was pointing straight up, remembering how it felt to have Poppy’s wet cunt pressing against me. I leaned back, my jaw tight, finally giving up and reaching for my phone.
She picked up on the second ring. “Hello?” That voice. It was even huskier on the phone. I wrapped my hand around my dick and slowly stroked myself.
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the club.” I could hear her moving around, as if she were walking into a more private place to talk. “But I’m almost done. What’s going on?”
I hesitated. God, this was so fucking crass, but I wanted her voice in my ear as I did this. “I’m hard, Poppy. I’m so fucking hard that I can’t think straight.”
“Oh,” she said. And then, her voice filled with understanding, “Oh, Tyler, are you—”
“Yes.”
“How?” she said, and I could hear her moving again and then I heard a door close shut. “Where?”
“I’m in my room. My jeans are pulled down.”
“Are your legs splayed? Are you leaning back or sitting up?” Her questions were laced with want, with hunger. It made me grip myself harder.
“I’m leaning back. Yes, my legs are wide. It makes me think of when you knelt between them and sucked me off.”
“I want to do it again,” she purred, and somehow I knew that she was touching herself too. “I want to lick you from base to tip. I want to suck you in deep.”
“I want that too.”
