The final bells of vespers had died out long ago but still he sat in the chapel. This was his favorite time of day, the dying sun of the evening made the stained glass on the Western Wall glow with a warmth and comfort that reminded him of why he had joined the priesthood 10 years ago. The color ebbed out slowly as he sat and counted his Rosary, reciting the familiar and comfortable words in his mind, but, and he knew this to his shame, not in his heart.
His day had been a long and exhausting one, but he was happy. The Compton Boy’s Choir had filled the sanctuary with beautiful music and his soul had been buoyed up. Their hope strengthened him and he let the music play in the background of his heart as he stood and did a walk through the rows of the small chapel.
He had picked up a tradition from Father Velasquez as a younger priest. He started at the front and walked through each pew. Originally, his mentor said, it was to pick up trash and lift the kneeling pads to make it easier on his volunteer janitors, but then he made it something more. He started thinking about the families that sat in each spot. On Friday nights, it was the younger families who wanted to be out playing on Sunday and the widow’s with nowhere else to go. Saturday morning was for the ones who thought Sister Amy’s pop-music worship would get them to heaven. “What a heretic.” He thought, immediately censoring himself for the snide comment. Sunday morning was the traditionalists, the ones who still wished for Latin mass and would strip away the reforms of Vatican 2 and get back to the good old days.
As he walked back and forth, working his way through the congregations in his mind, he saw the Albrights and their smiling kids, the Lopez families (three, all related) and worried about their employment troubles. He thought of the Wrights and their sick son, the Johansson’s and their dying mom, and the list went on and on. Most families had something to worry, pray, fear, and cry about. Each time be bent to pick up a forgotten program, or straighten a misplace hymnal he said a prayer for the family, and realized that his small problems were just that, small.
Standing in the back corner of the dark chapel the cold glare of the sodium vapor lights in the parking lot had replaced the sun’s warmth in the stained glass. It felt alien now, transformed by the switch from the natural to the synthetic. He dropped the collected trash into the small wastebasket and looked around him. Shadows hid in the dark crevices of the old architecture. Aging columns gave way to alcoves and sanctuaries and alters filled with the dead. A candle he had missed sputtered at the feet of a martyred apostle giving an eerie dance to the dead man’s feet. He shuddered and felt lost in his own chapel.
He turned to go and cried out in shock when he realized he was not alone.
“You shouldn’t swear like that in the chapel,” she smirked as she laughed at the startled priest, “it’s not proper to use language such nasty language.”
He wanted to form some priestly response, but he was off kilter at the shock of seeing Sister Anderson standing there, so late, so…..out of context….and, he couldn’t process it…so, so, so……
“I see you’ve picked up where Father Velasquez left off,” she said as she nudged her shoulder off the wall and stood before him, “are you saying a prayer for each family as you pick up their lost Cheerios and dreams?” She voice was tinged with the sadness that filled her quieter songs. Sister Amy had a beautiful voice, full of energy and hope as she sang with the kids and fronted the pop combo for the older youth ministry. Sometimes he heard her singing after hours in the Sunday school room and he knew there was more in her heart than thoughts of the rapture and hymns of praise. Her music betrayed a more complex heart than she showed to those who needed her to be simply Sister Amy.
“I used to watch Father Velasquez walk these pews every night as my father helped him clean.” She stood with her feet slightly apart and he had to shake his head to focus on her words. “He knew every family who prayed here,” she continued, absent-mindedly picking at the hem of her bizarre outfit. “He loved us all.” He voice faded with a strange tone that made his heart strangle itself in his chest.
He looked at her intently. Her outfit was a vile caricature of her Order’s sacred attire. She looked like a fever dream from his youth when he had sinful crushes on his camp counselors and spent hours loosing the struggle against his young body’s desires.
She walked towards him and he backed up quickly, banging his head against the stone carving on the wall. He was trapped as her long legs, whorishly bare, slipped back and forth against more bare skin. She bent forward and slipped the Prayer book in to stack at the end of the pew. The tight orange fabric was difficult to see in the dark chapel, but her fair skin and auburn hair caught the faint light of the remaining candles and tormented him.
“Where did you get that ridiculous outfit Sister Amy?” he was getting his voice back, “it’s an abomination to have it on in this sacred place.” He stepped to the side and stood tall, trying not to whack his head again, trying to sound and act like a priest.
“You want I should take it off Father?” She reached behind her back with both hands, lifting the hem even further as her hands move to the zipper, stretching the fabric across her bare chest.
“No!” he cried out again, “where did you get it in the first place?”
She laughed, “The senior girls got it for me as a thank you gift at graduation,” he heard the zipper lower, “they thought it was funny.” He heart was racing, Sister Amy was barely older than the girls she taught and strange thoughts filled his head. “I wear it sometimes when I wonder what my life might have been like without….”
“Don’t say anything Amy.” He said, surprised at his familiar form of address. He knew that everyone in the ministry had doubts but it did no good to express them. They were best dealt with in quiet prayer.
She leaned against the back of the pew and closed her eyes. He couldn’t believe what she was doing, her hands, those beautiful talented hands were stroking the tops of her exposed thighs, He felt his breathing speed up and he head began to fog.
“Amy,” he stopped himself, “Sister Amy,” he said more sternly, “Stop that.”
“Stop what Father?” her hands curled up under her skirt and began to lift, the curve of her upper thighs came in to view and fingers were reaching, reaching upwards. She gasped and arched her back when her fingers found flesh.
“Stop!” he cried out and stepped towards her. “You are in the house of God!”
“I KNOW!” her voice was stretched and strained, “Shall I call out to him?” He could see her wrist move in the most lascivious ways, “shall I take his name in vain again and again?”
Her feet were spread now as she put one hand on the back of the pew allowing the other to grind deeper and deeper inside. Her face was like one caught up by a demon, or angel, a supplicant in deep need of comfort and release. She lifted the skirt higher and he saw her bare skin, devoid of...
(to be continued... sorry, the family just woke up)
