Confession
"She's 58, widowed, hasn't been touched in years. He's 26, newly ordained, hearing confessions alone. She tells him things no priest should hear. He knows he'll be damned. He goes anyway."
The confessional booth is smaller than I remember.
Three months ordained, and I still feel like an imposter in here. The collar itches. The robes are too warm. The church is quiet—Saturday afternoon, most of the parishioners at home, only a handful coming for confession.
I've heard the usual sins. Petty lies. Impure thoughts. A teenager who stole from his parents. Nothing that tests me.
Then she walks in.
I hear her before I see her.
The creak of the bench. The rustle of fabric. Then her voice—low, husky, thick with something that isn't quite remorse.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."
Through the lattice screen, I can make out shapes. A large woman. Gray hair pinned up. Hands folded in her lap.
"How long since your last confession?"
"Two years." A pause. "Since my husband died."
"I'm sorry for your loss."
"Don't be." Her voice hardens. "He was a bastard. Forty years of marriage, and he never touched me the way I needed. Never looked at me like I was worth looking at."
This is... unusual. "Perhaps we should—"
"I've been having impure thoughts, Father."
I wait.
"About you."
The words hang in the confessional.
"Mrs.—"
"Margaret." She shifts on her bench. "I've been watching you for months. Since you arrived. So young. So earnest. So pretty." She laughs—bitter, wanting. "I'm fifty-eight years old. I shouldn't be thinking the things I think about you."
"These thoughts are natural—"
"There's nothing natural about it." Her voice drops. "I touch myself. At night. Thinking about you. Imagining you on top of me. Inside me. Making me feel things I haven't felt in decades."
I'm sweating. The collar is too tight.
"I imagine your hands on my body." She's almost whispering now. "I'm not a small woman, Father. I'm fat. I know that. Two hundred and sixty pounds of flesh that no one has wanted in years. But in my fantasies, you want me. You worship me. You devour me."
"Mrs.—Margaret—"
"Tell me it's wrong." Her voice cracks. "Tell me I'm going to hell. Tell me to stop."
I open my mouth. No words come out.
"Or," she says, "open that door. And show me what you really think."
I should refuse.
I should give her penance—Hail Marys, Our Fathers, something to absolve her and send her away. I should remind her of my vows. My calling. The sanctity of this place.
But her voice is in my head now. Two hundred and sixty pounds of flesh that no one has wanted in years.
And God forgive me, I want her.
I stand. My hand finds the latch.
The door opens.
She's beautiful.
Not the way the world defines beauty. Not thin, not young, not polished. But real. Solid. Present.
Her face is lined with age and disappointment. Her body fills the confessional booth—wide hips pressed against the walls, massive breasts straining against a modest dress. Her eyes are blue, pale as winter sky, and they're looking at me like I'm salvation itself.
"Father." Her breath catches. "You came out."
"I shouldn't have."
"But you did." She reaches up. Touches my face. Her fingers are trembling. "Why?"
I don't have an answer that wouldn't damn us both.
So I kiss her instead.
Her mouth is soft.
She tastes like the communion wine—sweet and sacred and utterly forbidden. She moans against my lips, and her hands find my robes, pulling me closer, pulling me down.
"The sacristy," she breathes. "No one will see."
I should stop. I should push her away, apologize, return to the booth and pray for forgiveness.
I take her hand and lead her to the back room.
The sacristy is small and dim.
Shelves of candles. Robes hanging on hooks. A narrow table where I prepare for Mass.
Margaret is pulling at her dress before the door closes. She's not shy—not anymore. Whatever shame brought her to confession is gone, burned away by something hungrier.
"I've imagined this a thousand times." She pulls the dress over her head. "I never thought—never believed—"
She's wearing a plain white bra. Plain white underwear. Nothing designed to seduce. But when she unclasps the bra and lets it fall, I stop breathing.
Her breasts are massive. Heavy, pendulous, hanging low on her chest with dark nipples and blue veins visible beneath pale skin. Her belly cascades in rolls, soft and round and endless. Her thighs are thick, pressing together, dimpled with age and weight.
She's fifty-eight years old.
She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
"Don't stare." She crosses her arms. "I know what I look like."
"You look like a miracle."
She laughs—startled, disbelieving. "Father—"
"Daniel." I step forward. Pull her arms away. "In here, I'm just Daniel. And you..." I cup her face. "You're not a sin to be confessed. You're a woman who deserves to be touched."
"I haven't—not in so long—"
"I know." I kiss her again. Softer this time. "Let me."
Her tears are wet on my cheeks.
"Yes," she whispers. "God, yes."
I worship her.
That's the only word for it. I put my mouth on her throat, her collarbone, the swell of her breasts. I take her nipples between my lips, one after the other, sucking until she moans. I kiss down her belly—every roll, every fold, every inch of skin that her husband ignored.
"Daniel—" She's shaking. "Please—"
I pull her underwear down. Drop to my knees before her. And I press my mouth to her cunt.
She screams.
It echoes off the stone walls, bounces through the sacristy and probably into the church itself. I don't care. I hold her hips—so wide my hands can barely span them—and I lick her like communion, like the host, like salvation itself.
"Oh God oh God oh God—"
The blasphemy makes me harder.
She comes on my tongue.
Floods my mouth, shaking so hard I have to hold her up. Her hands are in my hair, pulling me closer, grinding against my face.
"Inside me." She's sobbing now. "Please—I need—I haven't—please—"
I stand. My robes are around my ankles. I don't remember taking them off.
"The table," I say.
She bends over it. Her massive ass faces me—round, heavy, spread wide. She looks back over her shoulder, eyes wet, face flushed.
"Make me feel alive again," she begs.
I push inside.
She's tighter than I expected.
Years of neglect, maybe. Years of not being touched. She gasps when I fill her, her body clenching around me like it's been starving.
"Yes." She pushes back against me. "God forgive me, yes—"
I thrust. Slow at first, letting her adjust. Then faster, as she urges me on—harder, please, more. The table shakes. Candles fall. Her massive body ripples with every impact.
"You feel so good." I'm losing myself. Losing my vows. Losing everything. "You feel—"
"Don't stop." She's crying and moaning at once. "Whatever happens after—don't stop—"
I don't stop.
I fuck her on the sacristy table while saints look down from the stained glass windows. I fuck her until she comes again—screaming my name, my real name, not Father—and then I bury myself deep and come inside her.
We collapse together.
The table groans but holds.
Afterward, she cries.
Not sad tears. Release. Years of loneliness and neglect and wanting, finally breaking loose.
I hold her. Stroke her hair. Whisper things I shouldn't whisper—beautiful, wanted, worth everything.
"You'll be damned for this," she says finally. "We both will."
"Maybe."
"Doesn't that scare you?"
I think about it. About my vows. About everything I promised to God and the church.
Then I think about her face when she came. The way she said my name. The way her body felt against mine.
"No," I say. "It doesn't scare me."
"What does?"
"The thought of you leaving this room and never coming back."
She looks up at me. Her eyes are red, but she's smiling.
"Same time next week?"
I kiss her forehead.
"Same time every week," I say. "For as long as you want."
Six months later
Margaret sits in my confessional every Saturday.
We go through the motions. She confesses; I give penance. Then she slips into the sacristy, and we have an hour before evening Mass.
Today she surprises me.
"I don't want to hide anymore," she says, lying in my arms on the narrow bed I've moved into the back room. "I want people to know."
"Know what?"
"That I'm yours. That you're mine." She traces circles on my chest. "I know what it would mean. You'd be defrocked. We'd both be shamed."
"And?"
"And I don't care." She looks up at me. "I've spent fifty-eight years caring what people think. I'm done. I want to live—really live—before I die."
I think about it. About the collar I've worn for three years. About the calling I thought I had.
Then I think about Margaret. About her laugh, her body, the way she looks at me like I'm worth something.
"I'll leave the church."
"Daniel—"
"I'm not losing you." I pull her closer. "I'll find a job. We'll find a place. We'll be together—openly, honestly, damned by anyone who cares to damn us."
"And if God—"
"If God didn't want me to love you," I say, "He wouldn't have sent you into my confessional."
She laughs. Cries. Kisses me.
"Is that blasphemy?"
"Probably." I kiss her back. "Do you care?"
She answers by pulling me on top of her.
And we sin beautifully, one more time, before the bells ring for Mass.