Page 7 of Of Angels & Absolution

The shame of seeing Father Salvatore again is more than enough. The moment he strides into the room, purposeful in his tailored slacks and black shirt and collar, I can’t catch my breath. His gaze sweeps the room, and our eyes meet. A charge of electricity shoots like lightning down my body, striking in white-hot pulses between my thighs. I bite my lip not to cry out, squirming in my seat, clutching the edge of my desk. A lethal combination of humiliation and arousal flushes my face with a feverish heat. The priest’s eyes fall on my bitten lips, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. Then he breaks eye contact, clears his throat, and pushes up his thin, wire-rimmed glasses.

“It’s such a nasty day outside, I thought I’d bring something to cheer you up,” he says, sounding so completely normal that I burn even hotter with embarrassment.

I’m over here simpering like I have no self-respect, and he doesn’t even know who I am. I’m just another student to him, one of his flock. He doesn’t know I’m the girl from the private confessional, the girl he told to touch herself while he sat just on the other side of the screen, listening to me pant and gasp asI pleasured myself. He doesn’t know that I was thinking about him when I did.

Father Salvatore produces a big Tupperware container and hands it to the first person in the row.

“You made cookies?” the girl asks, looking up at him like a lovestruck puppy.

At least I’m not the only one mooning over him.

Of course not. Look at him. He oozes masculinity, dominance. His gorgeous, sculpted face and dark eyes are commanding, his broad shoulders and narrow hips and muscular thighs invite sinful thoughts, and his voice…

God,that voice.

He chuckles, and the low, sultry sound rolls like thunder down my back, shaking like an earthquake in my core.

“I didn’t make them,” he says. “Though they are homemade. Okay, everyone take a cookie and then we’ll get started. They’re gluten-free and nut-free, but they have all the good stuff—butter and eggs and sugar.” He winks at the class, and every girl in the room must feel her panties melt simultaneously.

I take the tub, select a cookie and a napkin from the stack he passed along with it, and set them on my desk. As the cookies continue around the room to exclamations of happiness and gratitude, I nibble at mine. Father Salvatore said he didn’t make them.

So, who did?

I try to picture him at home. Does he live with his mother, or a relative like I did? Maybe a sister or cousin.

Or maybe he’s married.

The thought is like a shock of cold water to the face. But it’s not out of the question. Priests are allowed to do that now. There was no mention of a family when I researched him online, but I’m not good enough with technology to find anythingbesides the public information available in a basic web search. Still, if she’s not a wife, she could be a fiancé or girlfriend.

Those thoughts are only slightly less comforting.

I set my cookie down, feeling ill. I know it’s dumb, that it’s impossible for him to date a student. Of course we’re not going to be together. Even if he knew who I was, he couldn’t relieve me of my sins in the way I want him to. I’m a student. He’s my teacher.

The disappointment is crushing, nonetheless.

I didn’t realize I’d built up something so big in my head. It’s not like I sit around daydreaming of walking down the aisle with him—though I might now that it’s crossed my mind—but I put him on a pedestal. I’ve done everything he said, booked my confessions only with him, fantasized about him while I did something sinful, the first time I’d ever let myself do that.

And now I find out the man I’ve been dreaming about has a life. He’s not just a fantasy. He’s reality, and the reality sinks like a stone into my stomach. He’s not just my confidant, my advisor, my confessor. He’s not my savior. He’s a real man, with real needs, a life I know nothing about.

I console myself with the thought that one of the nuns made the cookies.

That lasts for a few minutes, while I picture the grouchy nun at the front desk of my dorm having a soft spot for Father Salvatore, a man so far from home, so alone.

But then I remember not all the nuns are pickled old grumps. Some of them are young and pure, more chaste than me, their thoughts as unsullied as their bodies. Some are reformed wild women with sins much deeper and greater than mine, who repented and found another path. Do they confess their most depraved carnal sins to him? Are the cookies a seduction they sent him under the guise of gratitude when he absolved them? Will some Jezebel far more clever and worldlythan me succeed in leading him down a path of temptation where I’m too timid to even take a step?

I spend the class battling a new sin today—envy. When it’s over, I start back toward my dorm, as bleak and miserable as the cold, rainy day outside. I’m so busy churning with inner turmoil that I don’t notice the footsteps behind me for far too long. When I finally do, and I turn to face them, I find myself standing alone against the seven Sinners.

three

The Angel

At first, I think nothing of it when I see the Sinners lurking over by the girls’ dorm. They have one downright evil sister among their group, and she has a room there, though she spends almost all her nights with her brothers in the creepy old gothic tower on the edge of campus that used to house the priests. I heard it was condemned and was going to be torn down before their father pulled some strings to acquire it for them. It only has six bedrooms though, and I don’t even want to think about which bed the she-wolf sleeps in. I wouldn’t be surprised if she made the rounds—one night of the week in each brother’s bed, and one night in her dorm room.

Or maybe they all sleep hanging upside down like bats.

I could charm more information out of one of the unfortunate souls who’s gone home with a Sinner at some point, but I really don’t want to know.

The Sincero family belongs to Diablo’s Disciples, the rival gang to my family’s, and that’s all I need to know. That beef’s been going on for decades, and though I don’t know all the details, I know they’re the reason my mom’s face is bisected by a gnarly scar.

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