Page 2 of Forgive Me Father For I Have Sinned…7 Times

I was too stunned at being discovered to realise the magnitude of the situation.

For other girls my age, being discovered reading a book in the early hours of the morning wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it was for me. You see, my parents were devout Christians and believed this genre of literature came directly from the Devil himself.

My whole family already thought I was digging a grave for myself in Hell with my skirts that ended above the knee, shirts that stretched too tight over my chest, and the blonde colour that I had dyed my hair a few months ago. I was a natural brunette like my mother and sisters–my father’s hair was darker than the night sky–but I had never been a fan of the colour. I always thought it made me look mousey so for my nineteenth birthday, I decided to bite the bullet and treat myself to a hair transformation. I had gone full strawberry blonde and hadn’t looked back since. Not even when my mother begged me to dye it back.

My entire family–my parents and two elder sisters–were devout Christians–Catholic, to be specific. Their religion taught them that divorce was wrong, so my parents had been unhappily married for years. Instead of attempting to resolve their issues or leaving each other for the sake of their own happiness, they spent more time at Church than they did with each other.

We attended Church every Sunday like a lot of Christian families did, but we didn’t stop there. My father worked a corporate job to put food on our table and keep a roof over our heads, but he spent the weekends volunteering at the Church. My mother stayed at home to look after us but now that we were older–I was the youngest at nineteen–she also volunteered at the Church. She helped organise charity events, fundraisers, and other Church functions. Both my sister studied at the local college to stay close to home and the Church as they had been part of the choir since middle school. My parents always wanted me to join them, but I refused. They were disappointed, of course, but that was nothing new.

Not only was I the black sheep of the family, but I was also the family embarrassment.

Like my parents, all their friends were super religious as well. Whenever there was a function or party, my parents forced all three of us sisters to attend with them to keep up pretences. My sisters didn’t mind, but I always begged to be left at home. It never worked. The last thing I wanted was to spend my time among old farts who constantly walked around like they had a permanent stick wedged up their ass and made their religion their whole personality.

Sure, I believed in God and a higher power up, but I liked to live life on my terms and not on the terms mapped out in an old book I could hardly make sense of.

This evening, at their friend’s birthday party, I voiced my opinion about God and religion when asked, and my parents were so embarrassed and angry they shunned me to the car for the rest of the evening.

I snuck back into the backyard where the more rebellious teenagers were passing around some beer and cigarettes. I wasn’t much of a smoker, but I could never say no to alcohol, and that was how my father found me when he stepped outside to take a phone call.

My parents were mad. Beyond mad. More furious than I had ever seen them before.

They tried to ground me for a month, but I was nineteen. I planned to move out as soon as I had saved enough money for a few month’s rent on an apartment and wouldn’t risk sleeping on the street. I’d much rather put up with listening to the Bible for another year or two than go hungry and become homeless.

“Do you know what time it is?” My mother screeched.

I glanced at my phone. “It’s six past one in the morning, but you didn’t have to come into my room to ask the time.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me,” she snorted, her face growing redder.

I tried to hide the illustrated paperback under the pillow, but my mother was quick. She grabbed the book and my phone out of my hands before I could do anything, and her eyes grew wide as she began reading the words on the page that I left the book open on.

Fuck!

“Miriam!” She screeched even louder than last time. “How could you read such filth?”

“It’s not filth, mother. It’s just a book.” I tried to grab my belongings from her hand, but she stepped back and hid them behind her back.

“More like the Devil’s book,” she snorted, and before I could stop her, she turned on her heel and marched out of my room. “We’ll discuss this in the morning,” I heard her faintly say.

Well, that would be a fun conversation to have over breakfast tomorrow.

Without my phone and book to finish the hot scene I was reading, I was left to the whims of my colourful imagination to take the edge off. It wasn’t the same, and my eyebrows furrowed together in concentration, but once I imagined myself pinned between Mr Larsen, my high school Math teacher who always gave me detention for not doing my homework on time and looked devilishly handsome in a suit and tie, and Mr Hemmingway, the old librarian who appeared to have a kind, gentle soul, but I had spied him fucking one of the student librarians after hours once, I was racing toward my climax in no time.

My body relaxed with a sated smile after I came over my fingers, and I burrowed under the sheets, finally ready to fall asleep.

If my parents found out what I had just done, they would send me to Church to get doused in holy water to cleanse me of my sins. Little did they know there wouldn’t be enough holy water in the world for that.

2

MIRIAM

“Miriam, can you come in here, please?” My mother called for me from downstairs.

“Now?” I groaned, scrolling through TikTok after having snuck my phone back from my parent's room early this morning. Even though I was nineteen, my parents thought they were entitled to confiscate my belongings like I was a child. I figured out a long time ago that they kept everything hidden under the loose floorboard under their bed.

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