Fellowship
"The pastor's wife asks for private spiritual counsel. She says she's struggling with sinful thoughts. She doesn't say those thoughts are about him."
She corners me after Sunday service.
"Daniel." Her voice is low, urgent. "I need to speak with you. Privately."
Helen Chambers. The pastor's wife. Forty-six years old, twenty-three years married, the most devout woman in our congregation. She leads the women's Bible study, organizes the bake sales, sits in the front pew every Sunday with her hands folded and her eyes on her husband.
I've been watching her for months.
"Of course, Mrs. Chambers. Is everything all right?"
"No." She glances toward the fellowship hall, where Pastor Chambers is shaking hands and blessing babies. "Can you come by the parsonage tomorrow? During the day. While David is at the hospital doing rounds."
"What time?"
"Two o'clock."
She walks away before I can answer.
I've been a member of Grace Fellowship for two years.
I'm thirty-two, single, the kind of man who goes to church because he's looking for something he can't find anywhere else. Community, maybe. Purpose. Or maybe just the quiet—the hymns and prayers that drown out the noise in my head.
Helen noticed me early.
Small things at first. A longer handshake at the door. A plate of cookies left on my car after the church picnic. A touch on my arm during coffee hour that lasted a beat too long.
I told myself it was nothing. She's the pastor's wife. She's kind to everyone.
But she's not kind to everyone like she's kind to me.
The parsonage is a white colonial behind the church.
Helen opens the door in a modest dress—long sleeves, high neck, hemline past her knees. The uniform of a pastor's wife. But the dress can't hide her body.
She's voluptuous. There's no other word for it. Heavy breasts that strain against the fabric, wide hips that sway when she walks, a belly that rounds softly beneath the cotton. She's the kind of woman they don't show in magazines, the kind that Sunday school teaches you not to notice.
I've noticed.
"Come in," she says. "I made tea."
We sit in the living room.
Family photos on the walls. A Bible on the coffee table. A cross above the mantle. Everything proper. Everything holy.
Helen's hands shake when she lifts her cup.
"I don't know how to say this," she begins.
"Take your time."
"I've been having... thoughts." She sets down the tea. Can't meet my eyes. "Sinful thoughts. The kind I should confess to David. The kind I can't confess to David."
"What kind of thoughts?"
"About you."
The room goes still.
"Mrs. Chambers—"
"Helen." She finally looks at me. Her eyes are wet. "Please. Call me Helen."
"Helen. I don't—"
"I know it's wrong." The words pour out, unstoppable. "I know it's a sin. I've prayed about it. Fasted. Done everything I know to do. But I can't stop. I can't stop thinking about you, Daniel. About your hands. Your mouth. About what it would be like to—"
She stops. Covers her face with her hands.
"I'm so ashamed."
I should leave.
I should tell her to pray harder, to talk to her husband, to find a counselor who can help. I should be the good man she thinks I am.
Instead, I move to the couch beside her.
"Helen."
"Don't." She won't look at me. "Please. I just needed to say it. To confess it to someone. I'm not asking you to—"
"What if I want to?"
Her hands drop.
"What?"
"What if I've been thinking about you too?" I reach out. Touch her cheek. "What if I've been sitting in that pew every Sunday, watching you, wanting you?"
"Daniel—"
"What if I've gone home after service and touched myself thinking about you? About those dresses you wear, the way they don't hide anything? About what you look like underneath?"
She's crying now. Silent tears streaming down her cheeks.
"We can't."
"I know."
"It's a sin."
"I know."
"David would never—he would never understand—"
"He doesn't have to know."
I kiss her.
She tastes like tea and guilt. She moans into my mouth—a sound she's probably never made in her life. A sound her husband has never heard.
"Please," she begs. "I can't—we shouldn't—"
"Tell me to stop."
I kiss her neck. Her collarbone. The place where her dress buttons tight across her chest.
"Tell me," I repeat, "and I will."
She doesn't tell me.
She grabs the back of my head and pulls me closer.
I undress her in the living room.
The pastor's living room, with the Bible on the table and the cross on the wall and the photo of their wedding day watching us from the mantle.
Her dress falls away. Her bra—white, industrial, straining at the seams. Her panties—high-waisted, modest, damp at the center.
I remove them all.
She's magnificent.
Her breasts are enormous—heavy, soft, nipples dark and hard. Her belly is a pillow of flesh, dimpled and real. Her hips are wide, her thighs thick, her pussy covered in a neat triangle of brown hair.
She tries to cover herself.
"Don't." I pull her hands away. "Let me see you."
"I'm not—I know I'm not pretty—"
"You're beautiful." I drop to my knees. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
I bury my face between her thighs.
She's never had this before.
I know it from the way she reacts—the gasp, the shock, the way her legs shake when my tongue finds her clit. David Chambers, man of God, has never knelt before his wife and worshipped her.
His loss.
"Oh—Daniel—oh my God—"
"That's it." I lick her slowly. Taste her. She's sweet and musky and drenched. "Just let go."
"I can't—it's too—"
"You can."
I slide two fingers inside her. She's tight—impossibly tight for a married woman—and she clenches around me immediately. I finger her while I tongue her clit, and she falls apart.
"Daniel—I'm—something's—"
"Come for me, Helen."
She screams.
Her hands clamp on my head. Her thighs crush my ears. Her whole body shakes as she comes—maybe for the first time in her life, maybe the first time in years. I drink her down, worship her through it, don't stop until she's sobbing.
"I didn't know," she gasps. "I didn't know it could—"
"We're just getting started."
I lay her back on the couch.
The pastor's couch. The one where he writes his sermons, where he counsels troubled parishioners, where he prays for the souls of his congregation.
I position myself between his wife's legs.
"Are you sure?" I ask.
"No." She pulls me down. "Do it anyway."
I push inside.
She's heaven.
Tight and wet and burning hot, her walls gripping me as I sink deeper. She moans—long and low, a sound of pure surrender. Her nails dig into my back. Her legs wrap around my waist.
"Fuck," she breathes. "Oh fuck—"
"The pastor's wife swears?"
"The pastor's wife does a lot of things she shouldn't." She pulls me deeper. "Now move."
I move.
I fuck her on the couch while Jesus watches from the wall. I fuck her while the afternoon sun streams through the windows. I fuck her while her husband's voice echoes from the church next door, practicing tomorrow's sermon.
"Harder," she begs. "Please—I need—"
I give her harder.
The couch groans. Her body shakes. Her breasts bounce wildly, and I lean down to suck one into my mouth. She cries out—sharp, desperate.
"I'm going to—again—"
"Do it. Come on my cock."
"It's a sin—"
"I don't care."
She shatters.
Her pussy grips me like a vise. She screams into a pillow, muffling the sound, her whole body convulsing. I thrust through her orgasm, once, twice, and then I'm pulling out—
"Inside," she gasps. "I need to feel you inside—"
"Helen—"
"Please."
I bury myself deep and let go.
We lie tangled on the couch.
Her head on my chest. My hand on her hip. The Bible on the table, unopened. The cross on the wall, silent.
"I'm damned now," she whispers.
"We both are."
"Was it worth it?"
I think about the way she screamed. The way she came. The way her body moved against mine like something she'd been denying her whole life.
"Yes."
She's quiet for a long time.
"David will be home in two hours."
"I should go."
"Yes." She doesn't move. "Will you come back?"
"Do you want me to?"
She looks up at me. Eyes still wet. Cheeks still flushed. The pastor's wife, naked and ruined.
"Every time he's gone. Every time I can. I want you here, in this house, in his bed if you'll have me."
"That's a sin."
"I know." She kisses me. "I'm done caring."
After
I become a regular at the parsonage.
Tuesday afternoons while David visits the sick. Thursday mornings while he counsels the grieving. Saturday nights while he finalizes his sermons.
Helen and I sin in every room of that holy house.
"Repent," she whispers sometimes, riding me in her marriage bed. "We should repent."
"Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow."
We never do.
One Year Later
David has a heart attack.
He dies in the hospital, surrounded by his congregation, praised as a man of God.
Helen wears black to the funeral. Cries at the grave. Plays the grieving widow.
That night, she comes to my apartment.
"No more hiding," she says. "No more sin."
"What do we call it now?"
She takes my hand. Places it on her heart.
"Love."
We marry quietly.
The congregation whispers. Some leave. Some stay.
Helen doesn't care.
She's spent her whole life being the woman others expected. Now she's just mine.
"Was it worth it?" she asks on our wedding night.
I lay her back on our bed. Our bed. Ours.
"Every prayer."
She laughs. Pulls me down.
"Amen."