This story participates in the Rashomon's Legacy contest.
Rashomon’s Legacy: A Violation of Grace
R.R. Ryan
R.R. Ryan
© Copyright 2025 by R.R. Ryan
NOTE: This work contains material not suitable for anyone under eighteen (18) or those of a delicate nature. This is a story and contains descriptive scenes of a graphic, sexual nature. This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Rashomon’s Legacy: A Violation of Grace
From Father Thomas’s point of view
From Father Thomas’s point of view
Pressing down my darkness, I stand by the window of my office, overlooking the bustling campus of Rocky Mountain Catholic College. While the vibrant fall colors paint a picturesque scene, my mind is far from the beauty before me.
From my safe perch, I watch as students move about, their dedication to service and learning evident in their every action. Some are deep in conversation, others are engrossed in their books.
A precious few are lost in prayer, seeking guidance and strength.
The 19-year-old, Grace Henderson, is one such soul. Always the most devout, always the one on her knees, hand clasped, eyes open but unseeing. Praying for whatever she prays for. Her kind can be prey, a sheep for the wolf.
Shaking the darkness of my thoughts, as one would dust from shoes, I return to the contemplations of the other students.
As I observe them, I can’t help but wonder about their true motivations. How many of these young souls are genuinely called to a life of service? How many are merely seeking refuge from the complexities of the world? Are they drawn to the priesthood or the nunhood to escape the struggles of life, to find a sense of purpose and belonging in a structured environment?
Perhaps a few.
My thoughts drift to the darker side of human nature. Among these devoted students, are there those who harbor secrets? Those who might one day cross the line from devotion to depravity? Could there be potential abusers or, God forbid, even murderers walking among them?
The very idea sends a chill down my spine, but I know it’s a reality I must face. The cloak of faith and service can hide the darkest of sins. Haven’t I seen it before, and in others?
Or in myself.
Turning away from the window, I sigh. The weight of my own secrets presses down on me, a constant reminder of the fragile line between faith and fallibility. Having struggled with my own desires, my own temptations, I know the battle is never-ending.
But I also know that I must remain vigilant, not for my own soul, but for the souls of those entrusted to my care.
As I prepare to leave my office, I make a silent vow to be a better guardian, a better shepherd. Swearing an oath, I will watch over these students, guide them with wisdom and compassion, and pray that they find their true calling, whatever it may be. And I will do my best to ensure that the light of faith shines brightly, untainted by the shadows of human weakness.
On my calendar, written in red ink, Friday, 10:00 am, Coffee with Grace. Ah, yes, Grace Henderson, a girl who’s too devout, too open, too trusting, too much of everything. For her own good, I must keep my eye on this girl. For, you see, she’s too much like those who’ve gone before her.
The following morning comes, as it wants to do.
The walk from the rectory to the chapel cuts straight through the oldest part of campus. Cobblestones lie uneven and wet under the wind, mottled orange and black with leaves that crunch if I drag my heels.
The cold has a bite today. It sharpens everything—the slant of sunlight, the bite of incense that lingers on my cassock, even the voices of the students calling to each other across the quad.
Every other step leaves a vaporous trail of breath behind me.
The front steps of St. Ignatius’s chapel shine with frost. In less than a month, the fountain to the right will freeze solid, capping the grotesque cherubs in glassy armor. But for now, they stare with stone eyes at the trembling, fallen world. Where I stand with them, back straight, hands inside my sleeves. Watching the students who drift up the path for morning Mass.
Some bow their heads to me. So, out of duty, I nod in return, sometimes forcing a smile, sometimes letting the blue steel of my gaze say what I wish—move along, child, you do not know what you are asking for.
They all believe they are good. Thinking inside the empty noggins, when they become a nun or priest, life will be sunshine and rainbows. That their needs will be met by a benevolent, loving God.
What do they understand about burning in lust, never allowed to meet that need? Never able to say I love you, or seduce another, to share physical love. All they know, at this point, is the protection in vows.
No heartbreak.
Truthfully, it used to be easier to care. The desire to shepherd came naturally at first. Like falling in love. Until I saw what it did to a man’s sense of self. Was it wrong for me to want to lead, to inspire, to teach? Now the urge has curdled into something I cannot quite name.
A knotted weight behind my ribs makes me want to spit every time I say, Peace be with you.
The old joke was that a priest’s worst temptation was the bottle. No one warned me about the girls. Especially not the devout ones, the ones who came to me with questions about Kierkegaard or Augustine. Or those who sat in the front pew and wept soundlessly through the Eucharist, hands curled like claws.
Let me be clear about this: I am not a weak man.
However, I see myself in them. Those clueless young wannabes, their capacity for suffering, the hunger for love and correction. The desperate hope that a higher power will take over and move the flesh as it ought.
Everyone’s prayers die at the ceiling. Never making the voyage past the rafters. And God’s deaf ears never hear, his all-seeing eyes have been blinded, and his concern died in heavenly apathy.
No one warned me about the Grace Hendersons of the world. She’s coming down the walk now, at a clip short of a jog, loose hair flying in the wind. Every time she looks up, the sun catches the strands and turns her whole head into a shimmering net. She sees me and slows.
And as always, she’s in uniform. A gray skirt at the knees, navy sweater, tights the exact shade of storm clouds—and yet nothing about her body seems subdued or contained.
If I asked, she’d rattle off every book of the Bible in order, quote Aquinas chapter and verse, and ask me a question so piercing it would leave me blinking for half a minute. Her faith is a thing with teeth.
A true believer, not running away but toward, and ready to do her duty to Church and God. So much like the one who seduced and left me, I want, no need, to rip her fucking heart out of her chest.
Despite all that, I raise my hand.
Doing her part, she waves back, Grace’s books hugged to her chest. She waits at the bottom of the steps as if asking permission to approach. When I gesture her up, and when she stands beside me, she looks both reverent and electrified. Stupid girl acts as if she expects me to lay hands on her head and pronounce a miracle.
“Good morning, Grace.”
Almost bowing, she ducks her chin.
“Father Thomas. Sorry, I’m late. I didn’t mean—” She glances up at my face, and the rest of her apology shreds away. Her eyes are the color of wet moss. They glisten, always, as if she is a second away from tears or fury.
“I was early,” I say. “Habit.”
Sharp and involuntarily, she smiles. I see the ink stains on her right hand and the rough skin of her knuckles. Sometimes, she bites them when she thinks no one is looking.
After a long silence, we stand, and the quiet stretches for a moment. From the south quad, a pack of students shouts something rude. But I ignore it. When Grace flicks her gaze sideways and chews the inside of her cheek, I break the quietude.
“Have you been sleeping?” I ask, gently.
This pulls her from wherever she was, and she blinks twice.
“I’m sorry?”
“You look tired,” I say. “Too much studying, maybe. It’s my duty to make sure you’re not burning yourself out.”
Squinting against the momentary intrusion of the sun as it moves from behind a cloud, she colors a little. Brighter cheeks, attentive eyes, mark the change.
“Only when I hit the hard questions. Of late, I’ve been thinking about original sin. About whether it’s fair, I mean, or even—” She trails off, as if her thoughts are too heavy to verbalize.
Being polite, I nod.
“Now, Grace, it’s a good question. But not for this morning. Not before you’ve had coffee.” Staring at her, I step aside and gesture for her toward the path. For a moment, she hesitates and falls into step beside me.
The world smells like dying leaves and distant rain. Strange how I have always liked the autumn for its honesty. In spring, everything lies to you—green shoots, blossoms, a promise that nothing will die. But in autumn, the air tells the truth. Nothing is saved, in the end.
Everything burns, and the ashes are swept away by the first real snow.
When we cross under a stone archway, Grace’s stride matches mine. Almost pridefully, she walks with her head up. But her left hand never leaves the book pressed to her ribs. The weight of the moment presses down, and she looks like a soldier who expects to be ambushed at any moment.
“You’re quiet today,” she says when we reach the café. It’s empty except for the barista, who nods at us with skillful indifference.
As is my custom, I order black coffee. As is her habit, Grace Henderson takes tea, no sugar. The two of us sit by the window, watching clouds bruise the sky and small packs of students tramp the paths below.
Cradling the mug in her palms, Grace sips her tea and sets it down. With an odd flourish, she opens her mouth twice before speaking.
“Ah, Father, can I ask you something? Something not…not…about God. About you.” She gestures vaguely upward, a pantomime of the cross or the dome of the chapel.
Something makes me tense, and I know she sees it. She’s always too perceptive.
“Of course,” I say, voice even revealing nothing of my turmoil.
Out of nervous habit, she licks her lips. This is sensual, too sensual not to be intentional, and I fear for her safety, a sheep among wolves. When a woman is oblivious to her body and how others perceive it, she often gets more than she wants. Even if she deserves what she gets.
“Why did you become a priest? If that’s not, um, too personal.”
Taking a moment, I exhale. Well, yes, it is too personal. But how can I say so to her?
“Not personal at all.” The lie comes smooth and well-practiced. “Honestly, I wanted to save people. Or at least show them a way to save themselves. It seemed—” searching my mind for the right words. “It seemed like the only truthful thing left.” Have you ever noticed how liars say words like ‘honestly’ and ‘truthful’ to hide their lies?
While Grace nods in agreement, I can tell it’s not enough.
“And do you think it worked?” she says.
The question hangs in the air between us, sharp as a meat hook. The whisper carries across the space, and I can’t look at her. Searching for safety, my eyes find the lip of my mug, the swirl of coffee inside a cheap ceramic. Blowing across the surface, I sip some.
“Some days. Some days I think I only make matters worse.”
Studying me as one does a butterfly, she tilts her head.
“Um, see, I don’t think that’s true,” she says, softly. “After all, you helped me.”
Ugly and too loud, I bark a laugh.
“How, exactly?” I ask, rather skeptically.
A blotch of red rose high on each cheekbone, she colors again.
“You taught me how to pray,” she says. “You taught me that faith isn’t about—about obeying, exactly. It’s about trusting. Even if it’s hard. Especially if it’s hard.”
Her voice cracks at the last syllable. In embarrassment, she glances away. Eager to reach my hand across the table and cover her hand with mine, but instead, I force my fingers to curl around the mug.
“I’m not always good at it,” she says. “Sometimes I feel like I’m not even myself. Like I’m pretending to be someone who believes.” She shakes her head. “Sorry. That sounds crazy.”
“It doesn’t,” I say. “It sounds honest.”
The room seems to shrink as she stares at her tea, the tips of her hair curling against her jaw. “Do you ever hate it?” she asks. “Being a priest, I mean. The expectations. The rules.”
The word hate lands heavy, familiar. With a selfish glee, I savor it for a moment, rolling it across the cracked landscape of my mind. Do I hate it? No. Not exactly. The thing I hate is older, deeper, beyond words. The hatred hides in the part of me that cannot let go, that wants to destroy the thing it loves most.
Buying more time, I take a long pull of coffee and set the mug down with a thud.
“Sometimes, oh, my yes. Sometimes I want to burn it all down and start over.”
She looks up, startled. For an instant, I think she understands precisely what I mean. She doesn’t flinch, though. She meets my eyes, and I can feel the tension coiling in my stomach, low and electric.
“Me too,” she says.
As if on cue, her hand shakes when she lifts the tea. When she sets it down again, her fingers are stained a darker blue. A single thought cuts through, and I want to reach out and suck the ink off those lovely fingers. To bite the delicate fingertips until she cries out. Just to see what she looks like when her composure shatters. The thought stuns me, and I lean back, chair scraping on the old wood floor.
The light flickers from above as she waits for me to say something, but I can’t. Can’t think over my heart’s hammering. For an instant, I imagine what would happen if I stood, walked around the table, took her by the hair, and pulled her up into me. The shock on her face, the moment of resistance, the long, slow yield.
However, I do nothing. Letting the silence rot between us.
Eventually, she says, “Father Thomas? Are you okay?”
After a beat or two, I force a smile. “I’m fine, Grace.”
Unconvinced, she nods. Gathering her books, glances at the clock, and stands. “I should go. I’m late for the seminar.”
Again, faking civility, I stand with her. For a moment, we are eye to eye, close enough where I can smell the tea on her breath, the ghost of sweat at the nape of her neck.
“If you ever need to talk about anything. Well, girl, you know where to find me.”
Thin and tremulous, she smiles. “Oh, yes, Father, I know.”
Regret’s a bitter companion, I watch her go.
With her hips swinging slightly as she takes the steps two at a time. When the door closes behind her, I let my fists unclench. Tiny crescent moons mark the flesh of my palms. At that point, I pay for our drinks and leave a dollar tip.
The sky outside has darkened; a storm is coming. So, I turn my jacket collar up and walk back toward the chapel. Allowing the cold to rake my face until I can barely feel it. Inside, I kneel at the altar. With my thoughts circling like dogs fighting over a scrap, I try to pray. But the only words that come are hers and mine.
Sometimes I want to burn it all down and start over.
Me, too.
The woman, not woman, the girls too innocent, too trusting, too pious. What she needs is to get the niceness trampled out of her. If she isn’t very careful, someone on this campus will do that. Is it my responsibility to save her from herself?
***
From Grace Henderson’s point of view
Coffee with Father Thomas, the other day, went antgoogling. Things turned weird and wonderful, and he seemed more human and less priestly. What I know for sure, Father Thomas is a man one can trust; I can trust him, in fact, I do trust him.From Grace Henderson’s point of view
Despite our age difference, if he weren’t a priest and weren’t studying to be a nun, we could be a thing. Because we’re almost soulmates. But we love the Church, well, God, too much. If truth be told, I’m drawn to the man. Dear Lord, forgive me, I get wet when he’s around.
The Rocky Mountains hide in gray mist, and the air has a taste of snow.
The autumn wind sneaks up my skirt and stings my thighs. Marching across the sidewalk, in time with the Rosary beads in my coat pocket. The fact is, I’ve memorized the sound of my boots on damp concrete. All the way to the dry crackle of leaves, the way the cold bends my pinky finger as I write notes for class.
No one else walks on campus this early. It’s an old Catholic college built for future priests and sisters, a sprawl of stone and white stucco crammed onto a ledge above the river. The trees flame in yellow and blood red. St. Ignatius’s chapel looms on the next rise—an actual mountain climb, perchance, if you look up at the steeple and let your breath fog out.
The spire has always looked to me like a finger pointed at God in accusation, not devotion. Or like the church is flipping the world the bird. Are those feelings sacrilege?
My cheeks burn. Shoving my hands deeper into my coat, but it’s no use. The sting on my skin, and I picture my grandmother, three states away, curled on her couch with a quilt pulled to her chin and the oxygen tank hissing. The nurses said she’s failing.
Mom said, “Pray for her, Gracie.”
“I always do,” I said.
Yes, I’m a good Catholic, I always do. At least, I believe I do. Using my thumb and forefinger, I count the beads inside my pocket. Matching the rhythm of my steps to the Hail Marys. Keeping my head down, minding my own business.
When I glance to the right, my reflection startles me in the library window—hair escaping its bun, eyes too bright, mouth twisted in argument with itself. In a failed effort, I try fixing the bun, but the thin wisps of hair stick out anyway.
Walking faster, my skirt flaps. The hem is still damp from last night’s surprise dusting of snow. I never cared for fashion, but this one clings to my legs in a way that feels both holy and suspect. The nuns said modesty is armor, but I think I’m still naked under all this fabric.
About the same way, a single candle makes darkness seem infinite.
Averting my gaze from the statue of Saint Francis by the administration building. The pigeons have shit all over his robe, and the hands they carved for him look like claws. Instead, I stare at the ground, at the oil spots, cigarette butts, and a single perfect maple leaf, red as a drop of blood. It crunches under my boot and disappears.
At the bottom of the hill, the chapel doors gape open like a mouth about to sing. It’s an ancient habit, entering at the same time every morning, before the first bell, when the world still smells of pine and chimney smoke.
Today, though, someone stands outside the doors—a tall man with dark hair combed back from his face, wearing a priest’s cassock and a blue windbreaker. With one foot on the ledge, he leans against the wall, hands in his pockets.
It’s Father Thomas, I recognize the tilt of his jaw and the way his breath comes out in short, white bursts. After a few seconds, he stares to left and right, glances at his watch. The need to get his attention rises, and I want to wave. The memory of last week’s Confessions claws at me. The hour of standing in his office, the way his questions left no place to hide.
The gentleness in his voice as he said, “Grace, you carry the world like penance.”
Today, he seems to want nothing to do with the world or its penance. When he pushes away from the wall, tugs his collar, and heads up the main walk at a clip. Toward town, not the library. Oddly, his back appears broader than usual. And I almost call out, “Good morning,” but my voice snaps off in the wind.
When I get there, I stop in front of the chapel. The doors groan on their hinges. Inside, it will smell like old wood and last week’s incense. For a second, I rest my forehead on the doorframe. Thinking about my grandmother—her rosary beads, her hands twisted with arthritis, the way she always says, “Offer it up.”
With her not knowing the time or the season, I picture her breathing shallowly in her sleep.
Pushing on, I step inside, and the warmth wraps around me like a hand over a flame. When I blink at the colored glass windows, the rainbows splay across the altar. Out of habit, I pick my usual pew—fourth from the front, left side, under the eye of the Christ statue.
Kneeling.
For the time being, I want to think about my grandmother, but I can’t keep the image of Father Thomas out of my mind. The blue windbreaker over the cassock, the way he hurried away.
To his credit, he’s always in motion. Always carrying something heavier than his own body. For a moment, I wonder if he prays for the sick, too, or if he only believes in action—baking bread for the homeless, marching for justice, teaching catechism to kids who don’t care. I imagine him walking into town, hands jammed in his pockets, head bent against the cold.
Making the sign of the cross, I whisper the Apostle’s Creed. With my fingers numb from the wind, I fumble a bit. The words seem smaller than usual. When I mumble an Our Father, three Hail Marys, and a Glory Be, tension lifts. For a moment, my head clears, and the world shrinks to the ache in my knees and the echo of my voice in the empty church.
Listening, expecting an answer, but only hearing the groan of the pipes and the faintest scurry of a mouse in the wall. Out of desperation, I say, “Please,” out loud. The word floats up, weightless, like the first snowflakes that refuse to stick.
Outside, the wind picks up, slapping the window panes. Closing my eyes, I try to picture my grandmother healed and laughing. The image fades, replaced by the blue of Father Thomas’s windbreaker disappearing into the gray.
Attempting to gain favor from God, I kneel longer than I need to. Until the tips of my fingers tingle and my knees start to throb. Once again, I recite the prayers again, faster, like I can rush them straight to God before He forgets my request. I bargain: If you save her, I’ll never complain again. If you save her, I’ll give up everything I want. If you save her, I’ll believe even when I doubt.
When I open my eyes, the light through the windows has changed. The rainbow is now orange and green on the Christ statue’s face. And I can’t tell if He’s smiling or frowning. Maybe both.
I glance behind me, half-expecting Father Thomas to have come back, but the aisle is empty.
The room almost feels like peace, and for a moment, I breathe.
To be frank, I never liked the sound of church doors. They whine and shout for attention even when you slip in like a ghost. The cold inside is worse than the cold outside, but it feels holy. As I move, my boots squeak on the tile. I dip my fingers in the Holy Water and make the sign of the cross. The water always surprises me—how it bites, how it leaves a residue on the back of my hand.
The pews in the front row still wear their winter covers, red velvet over old wood. I settle into my usual, fourth from the front, left aisle, knees on the pad. The kneeler sticks and groans. I glance up at the crucifix above the altar. Jesus hangs there, looking both resigned and annoyed. Sometimes I think He’s judging us, but other days it seems He’s bored.
Without thinking, I pull my Rosary from my pocket. But my fingers are still numb. The beads slip through my grip, cold and a little tacky. My nails are chewed short, bitten more from nerves than devotion. I thumb the crucifix at the end, squeeze it until it leaves a print on my palm.
Again, I start with the sign of the cross, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and I move right into the Apostle’s Creed. The words run together, drilled into me by years of repetition. When I say them quietly, half to myself and half to God, I’m not sure who is listening.
An angle, the Holy Mother, Jesus, God, none of them, or all of them.
The first Our Father, I speak the words slow. Oh, yes, I need to mean it this time. The three Hail Marys after are for faith, hope, and charity, but I forget which is which. Offering them all to my grandmother. In the hope she feels it, wherever she is right now.
Glory Be. The relief that comes from reaching the end of a prayer is something close to crossing off a task.
The ache settles in, and I shift on my knees. The church still smells like last Sunday’s incense, sour and cloying. I look up at the stained glass, catch the sunlight slicing the aisle into strips of blue and red. It’s so quiet I can hear the furnace click and the walls settle.
Closing my eyes, I breathe in. This is where I am supposed to meditate on the first Sorrowful Mystery, The Agony in the Garden. Picturing Jesus kneeling in the dirt, sweat of great blood drops on His face. Praying to a God who will not answer. I relate to that more than I should.
In the spirit, I am about to start the decade of prayer, when I feel something behind me.
It’s nothing at first. A chill, the prickling on the back of my neck that comes with being watched. I shake it off, but the hairs stand at attention anyway. I finish another Hail Mary, the words slipping out on autopilot.
Then the sound: a shuffle on the stone, soft and deliberate. Not the way a friend or a priest would walk, but the way a predator stalks. Turning my head, an inch, enough to see the black cassock in the corner of my eye.
Before I can react, hands grab my shoulders from behind and haul me up and over the pew. When my head hits the wood, the world snaps into bright white. And my rosary clatters to the floor.
As I try to scream, a hand clamps over my mouth. Smothering the noise before it starts. I taste wool and the bitter salt of skin. The other hand wraps my throat and pins me back against the pew. My vision blurs with tears.
I thrash, but he is strong. Not fat, not bulky—lean and ropy, the strength of someone who does hard work for hours. His cassock brushes my face. It smells of old sweat and incense. I try to claw at his arm, but he catches both my wrists and locks them behind my back with one hand.
He drags me down to the floor behind the pew, shoves my face into the padding. I hear his breath, short and shallow. My hair comes loose from its bun, falls over my eyes, and mouth. I choke on my own spit. He grinds my head into the cushion.
I try to pray, but my mind fills with static. All the words tangle together: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name— I can’t even remember the rest. I think of my grandmother, of how she would pray for me. I think of Jesus in the Garden, sweating blood, alone.
The pressure around my neck tightens. I can barely draw air. My chest burns. I try to twist, to slam my elbow into his side, but he laughs. The sound is muffled by the mask—he’s wearing a mask. Not a Halloween mask, but a black cloth, like a bandit in an old movie. Only his eyes show, dark and shining. I stare into them and try to memorize the shape.
He shoves my skirt up with his knee. The cold rushes against my thighs. I remember the nuns telling us that modesty keeps us safe, but there is nothing safe about this. He rips at my tights, pulls them down in one go. The waistband snaps against my legs. My underwear comes down next. I want to kick, but I can’t get my knees up.
He leans in, breathing hot into my ear. “Be still,” he says, and it’s a stranger’s voice—low, hoarse, familiar in the way nightmares are familiar. His hand never leaves my throat.
I am still. I freeze. I become a statue, a sacrifice on the altar of the fourth pew, left side. My mind goes blank and clear, the way it does when I’ve studied so long that words become symbols with no meaning. I float above my own body and watch as he spreads my thighs with his knee and runs his hand up my leg.
I think, Why is this happening? I was praying for my grandmother. Please, God, help me.
His fingers are rough, the nails biting. He forces them inside me, and my body betrays me by clenching around him. The pain is sharp, but not as sharp as the shame. My mind screams no, but my voice will not come. I stare at the Christ statue, and I swear He winks at me.
I try again to pray. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou— He shoves my face harder into the cushion, and the words stop. He uses both hands now, one on my hip, the other on my mouth, squeezing my jaw so I can’t bite. I taste blood where my teeth meet my lip.
I lose track of time. Maybe it’s minutes. Perhaps it’s the whole decade of the Rosary, over and over. I go somewhere far away. I remember being six years old and hiding under my grandmother’s table, listening to her say the Rosary for my mother’s cancer. I remember thinking the prayers worked because Mom got better.
I want to believe they’ll work for me.
His breath grows faster. The grip on my hip bruises. He leans more of his weight on me. I hear the cloth of his cassock rustle, the zipper of his pants. I panic, try again to scream, but he grinds my head deeper into the pad. I taste dust and old perfume and my own fear.
He says, “You’re a good girl,” and his voice is close to my ear, too close. He uses my own name—“Grace”—like it’s a magic spell. I don’t recognize him, not really, but my body knows the shape of his hand.
He finishes quickly. I feel the warmth and wet between my legs. I sob, but the sound is a small, feckless squeak. He pulls up my tights and smooths my skirt like he’s tucking me in for bed. His hands are gentle now, almost kind. He lets go of my throat and strokes my hair.
“Pray for me,” he whispers. He stands up and walks away, the click of his heels echoing in the silence.
I stay curled on the floor. My knees burn. I don’t move. I don’t cry. I stare at the crucifix and wait for a sign. I pray, but the words don’t come.
After a while, I find my Rosary on the ground. A few beads have broken loose and roll in the dust.
Sitting up, I put the necklace around my neck, tight like a choker. I wipe my eyes and stand. I walk to the altar and light a candle for my grandmother, for myself, for the stranger in the mask.
I tell myself I am strong and this is only a test. I tell myself it could have been worse. I tell myself that God is watching, and that maybe He’ll understand if I never come back.
Outside, the sun is higher. The snow has started to fall again.
I kneel in the empty chapel, knees screaming, and try to make sense of what happened. My jaw aches where he pressed it shut. My wrists feel like wire is wound around them. My skirt is twisted and wet, clinging to my hips in the shape of his hands. I don’t want to stand up, don’t want to see if he’s really gone, if he’ll come back.
The prayers echo in my head, half words, all fragments. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name— Hail Mary, full of grace— Glory Be— They stutter and loop. My grandmother’s Rosary is still clutched in my palm. It’s warm from my body heat, the beads sticky with my sweat.
At this point, I force myself to sit up. My legs shake. I pull the skirt down, but it’s already ruined. The front of my blouse is ripped and wrinkled where he grabbed, but the buttons still fasten. I hear a sound. Not footsteps, the creak of the floorboards behind me.
Oh, dear God, he’s back. Or more likely, he never left. He must’ve circled around to the back and waited. He’s at the end of my pew, standing in the aisle. The black cassock, the cloth mask. The eyes locked on mine, I freeze.
While I want to scream, my throat is raw. I try to scramble backwards, but the pews pen me in like cattle chutes. He walks toward me, slow, patient. I feel every step in my bones.
And he kneels, grabs my ankles, and yanks me to the ground again. A dull shock happens when my head hits the wood. He flips me onto my back and sits on my hips. He pulls at the buttons of my shirt, tearing them open one by one until the cloth rips. Cold air stings my chest. I clutch the Rosary tighter, try to shield myself, but he shoves my hands away.
His gloved fingers slide under my bra and twist until it gives. My breasts spill out. He leans down and bites, first the soft part of my left breast, my nipple, hard enough to bruise. I bite my tongue so I don’t make a noise. He pinches and tugs until tears blur my vision.
His hand disappears under my skirt, pushes the fabric up to my waist. His other hand kneads my breast, leaving marks, and goes to my mouth. He pries it open, two fingers jammed past my lips. He tastes like wool and sweat and old incense. I gag, but he doesn’t stop.
With my mind rushing, I wonder which priest he is. The only one he can’t be is Father Thomas. The fact of that sustains me, at least for a moment.
He rubs his face on my chest, breathing heavy, licking where he bit. I feel his teeth again and again. His hand finds the waistband of my underwear, and he yanks them hard, three times. The cotton tears, and my body is too cold and too hot at once. Clamping my thighs shut, but he pries them open.
When he pins my knees with his legs, he spreads me wider. His hand slides up my thigh and between, his fingers hard and blunt. He goes straight inside my bunghole, dry and rough, and I flinch. My mind shouts NO, but my lips stay sealed by his hand. I taste copper where I bit through my own tongue.
He pulls out and pushes in again, harder, two fingers now. The pain burns, sharp as a needle. He stretches me further, twists his hand, and forces another finger. I squirm, but he presses his elbow across my ribcage and pins me to the floor. I can’t breathe.
He starts to talk, quiet, low. “You belong here, Grace,” he says. “You belong to the Church. This is your vocation.” He pushes deeper and deeper. “Give yourself to it. Give yourself to me.”
I want to go somewhere else. I want to leave my body. I try to focus on the statue of Christ behind the altar, but I can’t see it from this angle. All I can see is the mask, and the eyes, and the sweat beading on his brow. I think if I stare long enough, I’ll know who he is, but the image blurs every time I get close.
He bends down and bites my neck. I try to scream, but the sound is gurgling. His tongue is hot, rough. He licks the bite, moves to my breast again, sucking hard. His hand works faster, fingers pistoning in and out of my ass. I feel a sharp spike of pain as he grazes my insides. My body clenches, involuntary, traitorous.
He pulls his hand out and slaps my thigh, hard. I feel the sting through layers of skin. He bends lower, face buried between my legs, and breathes me in. I can’t move. I can’t think. I want to disappear, but I am nailed to the floor by his weight.
He pushes my thighs up, knees toward my chest. His mouth presses against me, tongue forcing its way inside. I convulse. Not from pleasure, from shock, but it’s one and the same. My back arches. My hands scramble for purchase, but all I find is the wood of the pew and the edge of the kneeler.
He alternates between his mouth and his fingers, working me open, wider and wider. The pain melts into numbness. I barely feel it anymore. I stare at the ceiling and recite the Our Father in my head. I get to “deliver us from evil” and lose the thread.
He finds something inside me, a button I didn’t know existed. He presses it over and over, and my body betrays me with a spasm. My vision goes white for a second, fades to gray. I sob, and the sound comes out as a hiccup. I am shaking all over.
He stops, lifts his head, and wipes his mouth on my skirt. He stares at me for a long moment, slides a finger up and into my other hole. I jerk, but he holds me down. He pushes in, slow but relentless. The burn is worse than anything else. I can’t breathe.
He pushes harder, another finger joining. Finally, I scream, but it’s a whimper. He smiles under the mask, eyes squinting. He whispers, “Good girl,” and rams his whole hand inside further. The pain explodes. I feel myself clench and nothing. I go limp.
He brings his mouth back to me, tongue circling, sucking. I shudder through another orgasm, this one more intense, more humiliating. I sob openly now, snot and spit running down my face.
He doesn’t let up. He jams his fingers deeper, pulls out, and shoves them into my mouth. I gag and taste myself, salt and copper. He keeps them there, pinching my nose so I have to swallow.
He takes his time. He works me open until I’m raw and shaking. He spits on his hand, shoves four fingers into my ass at once. I scream, but it’s a hoarse croak. The pain is blinding. I try to crawl away, but he pins my hip.
He fists me, knuckles stretching me until I think I’ll rip apart. My eyes roll back. I bite my own lip to stop from screaming. I pray, out loud, “Our Father, who art in heaven—” but he laughs and shoves his whole fist in.
I hear a tearing sound, a wet pop, and I’m gone. I leave my body. I float to the ceiling and look down at the girl on the floor. She’s naked from the waist down, legs spread, skirt bunched around her hips. The man in black kneels over her, moving his hand in and out, slow and methodical. And the girl I am is red-faced, tears streaming, lips parted in prayer or scream.
He leans down and whispers in my ear. The words are muffled, but I nod. The girl I am doesn’t fight anymore, no, she accepts it. A vision of Christ on the cross fills me as he fucks my ass with his penis, and I’m broken and empty.
Pulling back from my vision, I snap back into myself with a jolt. The pain is still there, but it’s dull now, distant. He pulls out, wipes his nasty cock on my face, and stands. He gazes down at me, chest heaving.
“Confess to your priest, Grace. Confess it all, how you enjoyed the violation.”
He turns and walks away, up the aisle, the black cassock billowing. The door slams behind him.
For a long time, I lie on the floor, breathing shallow, staring at the stained glass. I can’t move. I can’t think. I count the pieces of glass in the window, like beads on a rosary, one by one, until I lose track.
For the world, I want to die. Shamflly, I want to live. But I want to never come back. But I know I will.
The world stops turning, and he comes back for me.
First, the rattle of metal teeth as he again pulls the zipper down. I’m still splayed on the ground, shirt ripped open, tights in shreds, hair wild around my face. No matter how much I need to, I can’t move. My fingers spasm around the beads, sticky with blood from my bitten palm.
He kneels behind me, heavy on my thighs, and tears the skirt higher. The cold makes me shiver. I glance back and see the mask, the dead black eyes, the cassock open at the front. He’s already hard, jutting up like a threat. He spits in his hand and slicks himself. The sound is obscene.
He lines himself up and rams in, all at once. Driving himself through the evidence of my virginity, he shreds it. The pain is sharp, a bright spike through my pelvis, and it fades. The rest of him keeps coming. As he pumps into me, my insides stretch and give. Something breaks. I know I am bleeding, but I don’t care. I grit my teeth and force myself to breathe.
He sets a rhythm, pounding me against the tile. My cheek grinds into the floor. His hand finds my hair and twists, yanking my head back. I stare up at the ceiling, at the ugly chandelier, the tarnished brass. I count the lights, seven total, each bulb a tiny sun.
He slams into me, again and again. I lose track of everything except the slap of skin and the scrape of my knees on the tile. I wish I could go somewhere else, float to the ceiling, and disappear, but my body betrays me. Every thrust sends a spark through my nerves, pain and heat mixing until I can’t tell one from the other.
He says my name, over and over. “Grace. Grace. Grace.” Like a prayer.
I want to scream, but my mouth won’t open. My voice is locked away. Instead, I pray in my head, the only way I know how.
Our Father, who art in heaven— His cock slams deeper. The pain is blunt now, distant.
Hallowed be Thy Name— He bites my neck, hard. I taste iron, salt.
Thy Kingdom come— He pulls out, rams in harder. The world narrows to a single point.
Thy will be done— My hands clutch the floor, nails breaking on the tile.
On earth as it is in heaven— He grabs my hips, fingers digging in, and lifts me higher. I feel him hit something deep inside. My vision blurs.
Give us this day our daily bread— My stomach lurches. I choke on spit. I want to vomit, but nothing comes out.
And forgive us our trespasses— His hands roam my body, greedy, hungry. He palms my breast, squeezes until I think it will split.
As we forgive those who trespass against us— He picks up speed, a brutal piston, unrelenting.
Lead us not into temptation— My body clenches, traitorous, and I come, a raw spasm that leaves me sobbing.
But deliver us from evil— He slams in one last time and holds there, pulsing. I feel him flood me, heat and filth and shame.
He collapses over me, breath harsh in my ear. He nuzzles my hair, licks the sweat from my neck. His body is heavy, suffocating. I try to shove him off, but I am too weak.
He stays there, inside me, until he goes soft. He pulls out, slow, and wipes himself on my ruined skirt. He stands, tucks himself back in, zips up, and steps away. His breathing slows. He straightens his cassock and looks down at me.
“Confess,” he says, voice flat. “Tell them everything.”
I curl into a ball. My knees to my chest, arms around my shins. I sob, but there are no tears left. I say the Hail Mary out loud, over and over, a litany against the cold.
He doesn’t leave right away. He circles me, studies my body. He crouches and runs a finger along my jaw. He strokes my hair, almost tender. “You did well,” he whispers. “You’re strong. God sees you.”
I want to spit in his face. I want to kill him. I do nothing.
He rises, grabs his mask at the chin, and yanks it tighter. He walks up the aisle, slow and measured, like a priest returning from Communion. The doors don’t even creak when he leaves.
I lie there, cooling, muscles locking up. I rock back and forth, whispering the prayers I remember. The words don’t mean anything. I say them anyway.
After a while, I stagger to my feet. My legs shake. Blood runs down my thighs, sticky and bright. I stuff myself back into my tights, pull the shirt closed around my chest, and tuck the Rosary into my pocket.
When I limp to the altar and stare at the candles, not one is burning. And I don’t light one. I kneel, arms wrapped around my belly, and wait for the world to end.
It doesn’t.
He finds me again at the altar. I kneel, arms around my stomach, dry sobs wracking my chest. I don’t hear him come up behind me, not until his hands slide under my arms and hoist me to my feet. My legs buckle. He steadies me, one arm around my waist.
He tugs my skirt down, careful, as if he’s straightening a child’s clothes. He buttons my shirt with slow precision, ignoring the blood and spit that stain the fabric. His hands linger on my wrists, my chin, guiding my face up to meet his.
The mask is still on. The eyes stare right through me. I flinch, but he doesn’t let go.
He walks me to the doors, steady and silent, supporting my weight when I stumble. He opens the door with a flourish, like a gentleman escorting a date, and stands beside me in the threshold.
Outside, the snow falls heavy, the world erased by white noise. I taste iron in my mouth, feel every scrape and bruise along my thighs. I want to run, but my legs are jelly.
He leans in, lips close to my ear. “Tell no one,” he says, “except in confession. Tell your priest everything.” His voice is soft, wet. “Be honest. Tell him how much you enjoyed being fucked.”
I jerk away, but he holds me firm. He kisses the top of my head, the way my mother did when I was small. He lets me go.
I walk out into the snow, blind, shivering. I don’t look back.
My boots crunch on the ice. The pain between my legs is a hot wire, throbbing with every step. I wrap my coat tighter, try to hide the shreds of my blouse, the blood on my knees. I keep my head down and let the flakes sting my face, raw and red.
I make it to the dorm. I don’t remember how. I climb the stairs, one hand on the wall for balance. My roommate isn’t home. I lock the door behind me and strip off my ruined clothes. I ball them up and shove them in the trash.
I stand under the shower for a long time. The water is scalding, but I can’t get clean. I scrub until my skin peels. I claw at my arms, my thighs, my belly. I cry, but only in silent gasps.
When I finally collapse on my bed, I stare at the ceiling and whisper the Hail Mary, but the words mean nothing. I repeat it anyway, like a spell, a charm to keep the darkness away.
I fall asleep praying, but in the dream, the man in the mask kneels beside my bed. He brushes the hair from my eyes, smiles, and tells me to confess.
I wake up, and for a moment I believe I am still in the church, still nailed to the floor.
The next morning, I look at my face in the mirror. My eyes are bloodshot, rimmed with black. My lips are cracked and swollen. I can still taste the mask on my tongue.
I dress in silence, layer after layer of fabric, like armor. I pull my hair back tight, tuck in every stray wisp. I find the Rosary, wrap it twice around my wrist, and clutch it until my knuckles ache.
At the chapel, I sit in the last pew. I stare at the altar and try to remember why I ever loved this place. I try to pray, but my mind is blank.
Father Thomas enters, his gait familiar, his cassock crisp and clean. He stands at the altar and looks out over the empty church. Our eyes meet. He smiles, warm and gentle, and gives me a small wave.
I do not wave back.
I think of the man in the mask, the words he left in my ear, the way he said my name. I imagine his face under the cloth, and I know I will never forget.
I grip the beads so hard they cut into my skin. I sit through Mass, not hearing a word, and when it’s over, I walk out into the snow, head high, mouth set. The pain is dull now, but it never leaves.
I know I will never tell. Not my mother, not the nuns, not even the police. I will confess, like he told me. I will kneel in the little booth and whisper it all to a man behind a grate, who will ask me to say ten Hail Marys and a Glory Be. Being a good Catholic who’s studying to be a nun, I’ll do as I am told. Haven’t I always done as the leaders of the Church tell me?
But I will never, ever, believe again.
***
From Father Thomas’s point of view
From Father Thomas’s point of view
“Honestly, dear Lord, I do want to rip one of their lovely throats open and let them bleed to death until the light goes out of their lying, cheating eyes. More than Grace can possibly imagine,” I say on my knees, hands together in front of me.
“Not that you listen or care. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen,” I say, crossing myself. Rising, I take the mask from its hiding place and stuff it into a pocket. It’s time for action, the pressure is too tremendous to ignore.
When I get to the chapel, I repeat my prayers to God. The unending, unseeing, uncaring God who’s allowed me to do what I do so many times, I understand, if He does see, He enjoys the show.
The cold is worse today. The sky presses down, flat and bruised. I pace the length of the sidewalk in front of St. Ignatius, counting the seconds between each gust of wind. My feet crunch the same rotting leaves as yesterday. But I have the urge to stomp them into dust, to grind the color out of everything. I keep my hands in my pockets, fingering the heavy iron key that locks the chapel doors from inside. I wait.
At seven twenty-eight, I see her. Grace, backpack slung high, hair whipped loose by the wind. Her skirt is shorter today, or maybe her stride is longer. Either way, I watch the dark triangles of her thighs flash with each step. She keeps her head down until the shadow of the chapel’s spire falls across her. Then she looks up, lips parted, eyes wide, like she’s never seen the church before. She hesitates on the path. I wonder if she senses me watching.
I turn away before she can look my direction, crossing toward the old faculty townhouses two blocks north. I walk fast, head down, pretending I have somewhere to be. When I reach the intersection, I stop and look back. Grace stands at the chapel door, one hand on the knob. She glances over her shoulder, a nervous animal, and slips inside.
I count out two full minutes. My heart pounds so hard I taste copper at the back of my throat. When I finally turn back, I move in quickly, my chin tucked, my collar up. The campus is deserted this early. No witnesses.
Inside, the air is thick with candle wax and old wood. The light through the stained glass is weak and colorless. I listen. No voices. Only the tick of the radiators and the distant creak of pews as she moves up the aisle. At that moment, I close the door behind me, softly, and draw the bolt. It slides home with a click that makes my ears ring.
Turning to get a better view, I wait in the vestibule, letting my eyes adjust. Alone, hands clasped on the worn wood, Grace kneels at the front pew, her lips moving in silent prayer. Knees spread wide, she looks like a child, the hem of her skirt pulled tight across her thighs. In this instant, I wonder if she knows I am here.
Oh, yes, deary, I hope she does.
This is when I pull the old black mask from my coat pocket. It’s for funerals, the kind that draw media or require ritual. With the soft fabric tugging at my ears, I slip it on, blurring the lower half of my vision. The anonymity sharpens me. Moving down the aisle, feet silent on the runner. But sweet Grace doesn’t turn, not even when I am close enough to smell her hair.
With one swift move, I grab her by the back of the neck. Even though she stiffens, the little tramp doesn’t make a sound. Twisting the collar of her blouse in my fist, I jerk her upright. Now she scrapes at my hand, but her nails are short and she’s weak.
Quickly, I drag her over the edge of the pew and slam her onto the cold flagstone floor.
With the air punched out of her lungs, she gasps. She tries to scream, but I am on her before she can fill her chest. Pinning her, I kneel on her calves and wrap my hand around her throat. Not unlike a tiny bird flapping its wings, her pulse hammers against my palm. Wild and white, her eyes roll.
“Don’t,” she whispers.
When I squeeze, her lips turn blue at the corners. In no time at all, her body jerks, the desperate, animal urge to survive, so fucking exquisite.
I shift my weight and tear her shirt open, buttons ricocheting off the flagstones. Her bra is plain, beige, and cheap. I rip it down, exposing her ample breasts. Her nipples are pale pink, the left one hardening in the cold air. Savoring the tremor that runs through her whole body, I bite it hard.
Sucking it the same way a starving baby suckles a teat, uncaring if teeth hurt its mother.
With my free hand, I shove her skirt up over her hips. Fingers burrowing into the waistband of her tights. I yank until they split at the seam, hook two fingers under her underwear, and pull until the fabric cuts into her skin and gives way.
Jerking it once, another time, a third yank, and it yields. The cunt is hairy, and I’m certain unused.
The bitch thrashes. Adjusting pressure to keep her conscious but helpless, I keep my grip on her neck. At this time, her face is red, her eyes rimmed with tears. The smell of her sweat and fear is heady. Taking my time, I run my hand down her thigh, spreading her legs wider, and cup the mound between her legs. She clenches, trying to close herself, but I force her open. I want to see what I have done to her. I want her to remember this for the rest of her miserable life.
“Please,” she croaks.
“Shut up,” I say, landing the back of my hand across her face.
Lower this time, I bite her again, leaving a ragged purple welt above her left breast. And she sobs. I ram two fingers inside her, dry, feeling the rough catch of flesh and the heat beneath. And her whole body shakes. At this point, I laugh because I want her to know how little she matters.
Shoving my fist into her ass, I fuck her that way for a minute. At last, pulling my fist out, I spread what covers my hand over her face. Tightening my grip, I decide to fuck her ass for real.
Unbuckling my belt one-handed, never loosening my hold on her throat. When she tries to kick, my knees hold her tight. At this moment, I press the head of my cock against her gaping asshole, and she whimpers so loud I almost lose it.
The godlike power of my own need drives me, and I savor the moment, the terror in her. Slow at first, I push inside, and soon, I go harder. High and animalish, she screams once, but the stone walls swallow the sound.
Each thrust a declaration of my right, I fuck her like I am possessed, my fury unleashed into her. Punishing her for what the other woman did to me. The cunt becomes nothing but a vessel for my hate. When I grip her jaw and force her to look at me, to see the eyes of a confessor as he desecrates her.
Nothing is more pleasant than tearing her ass apart.
Despite everything, she comes, eventually. I feel it in the shudder that runs through her, the way her ass grips me in a last, desperate plea for mercy. I spit in her face and call her a whore. When she sobs, choking on her own spit and tears, I keep going until I finish.
Spurting hot into her, deep enough, she’ll taste it in her nightmares.
When it is over, I let her drop. She curls on the floor, shaking, her body covered in saliva and blood. I watch her for a long moment, waiting for the urge to return, but it doesn’t. I am empty.
Adjusting my mask, I stand and pull up my pants. I leave her there, ruined and silent, and walk back up the aisle to the narthex. I unlock the door, let myself out into the sharp, merciful cold.
I walk the campus for an hour, letting the numbness set in. The wind tears the last leaves from the trees. I count the windows with lights still on, the faces that watch from behind curtains. I am invisible to them. I am already a ghost.
She stares at the stone floor, too stunned to move. Her breath rattles, wet and shallow. I take her by the hair, yank her up so her cheek grinds against the wood of the pew. Her eyes are glassy with tears and terror, but I see something else, a kernel of defiance that makes me want to crush her skull into the marble.
I keep my grip on her neck, thumb against her pulse. It flutters, rabbit-fast. I push her skirt up again and claw the rest of her underwear off, splitting the cotton so it snaps and leaves a pink welt across her thigh. She squeals, more animal than girl. I dig my fingers into the flesh of her ass, spreading her open, and bury my mouth between her legs.
She shudders, tries to jerk away, but I hold her tight and lick until she can’t tell pain from shame. I work my finger into her, rough, two, her body resists and opens, unwilling, the way a wound opens when the knife is twisted. Her hips buck and she goes limp, like she’s given up. I laugh into her, mouthing the words bitch sinner, and dirty girl. I want her to hear it, to carry the words home with her, to infect her prayers with this moment forever.
When she clenches and spasms, I know she’s coming. The fury it triggers in me is incandescent. I stand, flip her onto her back, and force her legs apart. She’s bleeding, a thin red line leaking onto the flagstones. I spit on her, rub my cock against the slick, and slam into her.
One thrust, hard enough to bruise. She screams, but I cover her mouth with my hand. The second thrust, I feel the tightness give, something inside her tearing with a sick, satisfying pop. I ride the third and fourth with all my hate.
Unrelenting, I do not stop when she claws at my wrists or when she sobs into my palm. I fuck her until my balls seize and I empty myself inside her. Even then, I keep going, because I need her to understand what I am.
In a flash of spasms and thunder, I lose my seed inside her dripping cunt.
When I am done, I collapse over her, breathing hard. I bite her ear and whisper, “Good Catholic girl.” She whimpers. I don’t know if it’s a plea or a prayer.
I pull out, sticky with blood and come, and wipe myself on her torn skirt. Kneeling over her, both hands on her chest, pressing down until her heart flutters and slows. Disappointment floods me, for I want to see the light die in her eyes. But she clings to the world. Even as the sobs dry up and her skin turns ashen gray.
After a minute, I let her breathe again, and she coughs and shivers, trying to crawl away. Gentle now, I help her up, cradling her skull in my palm like a child’s. First, I kiss her forehead. Afterward, I guide her to the door, unlock it, and shove her out into the cold.
“Still the good Catholic girl,” I say sharply, still seething. Wanting to rape her again and kill her while I do, but I do nothing.
And there she stands, arms wrapped around herself, skirt hiked up, tights bunched at her knees, blood streaking her thigh.
So only she can hear, I lean close.
“Tell no one, you know what happens if you do. The only person you tell is a priest, in confession. And when you do, you tell him you liked it. Tell the man you wanted it.”
Still holding her tongue, she doesn’t say a word, but her teeth chatter. After a second, she limps down the steps, head bent against the wind, and disappears into the trees.
I stand in the doorway for a long time. I expect to feel guilt, or disgust, or the hand of God pressing down on me. There’s nothing. Only the echo of her screams and the pleasant ache in my fists.
When the sun goes down, I return to the chapel and clean the blood from the stones. I light candles, one for every student on this cursed campus, and kneel before the altar. I try to pray, but all I can see is her face, twisted and red, the eyes blank and endless.
Chaos has its own rhythm, and I look up at the crucifix. Searching for a sign, a voice, a single damnation. There’s nothing. I tear off the mask, let it fall to the floor.
“Tisn’t my fault,” I say, voice raw.
For a few minutes, I wait for thunder, for fire, for the hand of God to strike me down. But nothing comes, nothing ever does. For the next few days, I wait on her, impatently, for her confession. Planning for her confession, deciding this time to make a confession of my own.
***
If a God there be, this is from His Point of View
If a God there be, this is from His Point of View
Three weeks pass. Every day from her mattress, Grace Henderson counts the minutes, watching the sky brighten and dim above the pinhole crucifix in her ceiling. She doesn’t go to class.
In fact, her professors stopped emailing after the first week. Even the persistent students in campus ministry leave a single, final care package on her dorm room doorstep. Instant oatmeal, a miniature jar of honey, a bottle of holy water.
After a day, she cracks the honey, never the holy water. While her journal brims with single words: failure, Judas, wolf, fraud. Circling them until the ink smears under her finger.
There remains one final thing before she can start again. While it is a hard decision, she’ll go to the only man she’ll ever trust again and confess her sins. Reveal her complicity in her ruination.
At 7:33 am, she enters St. Mary’s. The doors, like everything else, protest her return. Tracking in dirty streaks on the hardwood floors, her shoes leave prints from last night’s snow-melt. The nave is empty except for a custodian’s ladder, abandoned halfway to the dome, and a halo of morning light pooling around the altar.
For the first time since she arrived at the university, she feels invisible. It soothes her more than the Lord’s Prayer ever did.
Keeping her eyes down. The memory of the priest’s hand on her scalp is worse than the violation itself; his fingers pinched as if checking a cantaloupe for ripeness, but with a clinical reverence she can’t name.
When she finds a pew near the back, she drops to her knees and waits. With her thighs tense at the contact with the wood. The pain is clean, honest, and it lets her breathe.
At last, Father Thomas enters from the sacristy. Instantly, he spots her and adjusts his collar with two fingers, knuckles whitening.
“Well, well, Grace,” he says, softer than his usual register.
But she only nods, not trusting her voice yet.
As if he’s following a script, he walks the aisle, pausing three benches behind her.
“Goodness, we’ve worried about you. In fact, we’ve expected you weeks ago.” The words drift forward, unsure if they mean to comfort or accuse.
“Well, sir, I need confession,” Grace says. Her voice sounds raw, like a scraped knee.
Again, he nods and gestures to the old, rarely used booth at the side of the rectory.
“Of course, of course, you know the way.” His smile twitches and fades.
Before rising, she hesitates. With her legs arguing, she stands and follows the priest to the confessional. It’s small enough to amplify every breath, every rustle of fabric. The air inside smells of old ash and faint, medicinal lemon.
Out of habit, she kneels. The wood, worn smooth by decades of penitent knees, digs into her cap. When Father Thomas enters the other side and pulls the divider shut with a soft, definitive click.
A moment’s silence, Grace hears his breathing.
Without ceremony or warning, he opens the screen. The mesh is thin enough for Grac to see his outline, and for him to see her hands twisting together.
“How long has it been since your last confession?” His tone is rote, priestly.
“Four weeks and three days, bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
Expecting him to ask her to elaborate, she waits, and he waits.
Picturing the events as they happened, Grace closes her eyes: the cold in the church, the scrape of her skirt up her thighs, the man’s breath as it turned ragged and animal.
And then she tries to start.
“I’ve been missing class. I don’t pray as much. I told a lie about my grandmother to avoid going out.” She recites these quickly, each one a pebble tossed over her shoulder.
Father Thomas shifts in his seat. The sound is amplified by the booth’s acoustics. “Those are venial, Grace, you don’t need me for those.”
She swallows. Her tongue feels fat and useless.
“I touched myself.” She’s not sure why she says it. She hasn’t, not since that night, but the words come anyway. “I—thought of you while I did it.”
This is not true, but she needs him to hear it.
The mesh screen warps his silhouette as he leans forward. “Go on,” he says. His voice is lower now.
Grace takes a breath and lets it burn in her lungs.
“I can’t stop thinking about what a priest did to me.”
Silence. Then, “Be specific, Grace.”
She lifts her eyes, stares at the mesh. “The man put his hand inside me,” she whispers. “First fingers. Then his fist. I understand it wasn’t you, but I need to verbalize the person as if I’m talking to the priest, man, monster who raped me. Please forgive me for this indulgence.”
“What you’re saying is you were raped, here, in this church, by a priest?”
“Well, I’m not sure. But the fellow wore vestments of a priest.” Her voice is a monotone, steady as a rosary.
“Yes, you may address me as if I’m your rapist, if that’ll help you.”
“Oh, Father Thomas, it will. You spit on me. You made me say the names of the apostles while you did it. I don’t know which one made me come. But as you fisted my ass, I climaxed. Climaxing again as you raped my ass.”
Though barely audible, he makes a sound. And she hears lotion—the faint plastic pop, the slow, thick squeeze. The scent of artificial almond, instant and overwhelming, wafts through the wood.
“Forgive me, I liked it,” she says, louder this time. “Yes, I did, I liked it when you hurt me.” She forces herself to continue. “When you pulled your hand out, I was empty. I begged you not to do it again. You told me it was God’s will. You fucked me in the ass, insulting me, calling me dirty names.”
The squishing grows louder. It is unmistakable now, Grace imagines him on the other side: pants at his knees, cock in hand, eyes shut as if in prayer.
“And found what must’ve been your shirt,” Grace says. “Someone left it on the floor of my dorm. I sleep with it under my pillow. Sometimes I press it between my legs.” She has never done this, but the thought arouses her. “It smells like you. Cologne and sweat and whatever you used to clean up after. Was that the undershirt you wore when you ruined me?”
The confession becomes a litany. Each detail is sharper than the last.
“And you laughed when you said I was ruined for other men. That I was your Magdalene.” betraying nothing, her voice is steady. “Tell, do you realize I still want you to ruin me, Father?”
The slapping intensifies, and Grace hears the wetness, the urgency in his rhythm.
Grace leans closer to the screen.
“Are you touching yourself?” she asks, her voice cold and clean.
The pace does not falter, but Father Thomas doesn’t answer.
A tight, mean little thing spreads over her lips, and she continues.
“Yes, Father, I want you to fuck my ass again. The way you did in the sanctuary. Why did you keep my skirt on me, but rip my panties off me? Was there enjoyment when you saw the marks you left?” She holds her hands steady now. “You called me a little whore, Father. I wanted to thank you.”
The plastic mesh trembles as his breathing thickens.
“I told myself it was penance. That I deserved it. But I came, Father, I came so hard I blacked out. You slapped my face until I woke up. Did taking my virginity make you a real man or me a real woman?” She waits for the silence to stretch.
Grace knows the final confession will do it.
“I think you are God. When you hurt me, I know He is real.”
The slapping sound sharpens; it echoes in the tiny box.
She stands, knees numb, and pushes open the confessional door. She keeps her voice level as she speaks. Sneaking to the other door, she yanks it open.
“Confess, you raped me.”
The echo of Grace’s words barely leaves the confessional before Father Thomas stands. With his collar skewed, his hair is wild, and his pants are still open. With his blue eyes unblinking, he stares at her for a full breath. In the empty nave, the silence feels surgical.
As fast as a lightning bolt, he raises his hand and slaps her face with the heel of his palm. The crack resonates like a broken bell. And Grace staggers sideways, trips over her own shoes, and lands hard on the wooden floor. The side of her face burns, her ears ring. The tastes of iron and old dust fill her mouth.
“Get up, raping you is my right.” His voice is a monotone, stripped of pretense.
Sitting up, her knees wobbling. Blood dots her lower lip. And she wipes it with the back of her hand.
Father Thomas doesn’t wait. Clutching a fistful of her hair, he hauls her upright. Wrenching her neck at an ugly angle. Marching her down the side aisle, each step jerking her head back. The church looks different from this vantage; pews become prison bars, and stained glass windows weep pastel light. Letting it anchor her, Grace focuses on the pain.
They pass through a side door and down a narrow corridor. The walls are lined with corkboards and obsolete pamphlets. The angry priest shoves her ahead of him into a room she’s never entered before.
It’s small, windowless, stacked with ancient hymnals and half-moldy altar linens. Cardboard boxes spill their contents over the linoleum—Bibles, yellowed tracts, broken chalices. It smells of a combination of rot and lemon cleaner.
Forcing her to her knees. The floor’s cold and unforgiving. The priest stands over her, unzips the rest of his fly, and pulls his cock out. It glistens with lotion and his own pre-cum.
However, she doesn’t move.
“Open your mouth.” This is no request, it’s an order.
She does. Rough and dry at first, Father Thomas pushes in slowly, then deeper as her mouth wets him. Using both hands to guide her head, shoving forward until her throat protests, drawing back enough for air.
Drool pooling at the corners of her mouth, she gags.
Working himself into a rhythm, his engorged cock stretches her jaw, hits the roof of her mouth, and slides back to her uvula. When she retches, her nose runs. Each thrust bruises her palate and makes her eyes water.
She closes her eyes and lets herself drift. In the blackness, the memory of Father Thomas’s hand inside her body rises up. The pain and the fullness, the way she stretched around him. All of that anger, rage, fucking her, until she thought she’d split. In this moment, the shame takes her, and his cock is a hot, unforgiving presence.
With his pace quickening, he fucks her mouth harder. With one hand, he keeps her hair tight against her skull. The other alternates between squeezing her shoulder and cupping her jaw, thumb digging into her cheek. He grunts, sweat rolling down his temples.
While Grace fights for breath, for focus, she forms words in her mind, silent at first:
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” The words gurgle and squish in her throat.
With her praying, he rams her throat, once, twice. And her teeth scrape him, and he snarls, yanking her hair so hard her scalp seems to tear.
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Again, the words are grable of wet sloshes and fluid grunts.
Again, she tries to pray aloud. The words bubble around the priest cock, blurred and guttural. Each time he drives deeper, she repeats the following line. “Give us this day—our daily bread—and—” She gags, and he forces her nose against his belly, holding her there until spots swim in her vision.
“Forgive us our trespasses,” she manages, as her jaw aches and her throat goes raw.
With that, he cums. It erupts hot and bitter, flooding Grace’s mouth and spilling past her lips onto her chin. Keeping her head locked in place, cock pulsing until he’s empty. Desperate to please, she swallows what she can, while the rest drools down her blouse.
When he lets her go, she sags, retches, wipes her lips with the back of her hand. His semen leaves an aftertaste of salt and bleach.
Father Thomas collapses into a battered chair. For a second, he looks ancient, hunched, and exhausted. Wiping sweat from his forehead, he gestures her over.
Crawling to him. The priest grabs her under the arms and hauls her across his lap, face down, with Grace’s skirt hitches over her hips. With a swift motion, he yanks her panties off and exposes her ass. Without preamble, he starts spanking her. The blows are sharp and methodical.
“Do you know why you’re here?” he asks between slaps.
Grace doesn’t answer. He spanks harder.
“Do you know?”
“Yes, Father, I sinned, I was weak.”
Another slap. “Wrong, you were strong, too strong. Worthless whore, you made me lose control. You wanted this.”
And Grace doesn’t dispute it, her face flushes with shame and something hotter, stranger.
Busting her cheeks, bare-handed, he punctuates each word with his palm.
“There. Is. No. God. There is only. This.”
Focusing on the pain, she bites the inside of her cheek.
“Say it,” he demands.
“There is no God,” she says in a soft whisper.
He spanks her again.
“Louder.”
“There is no God,” she says, louder this time.
When he stops, the skin of her ass glows red. Shoving her off his lap and onto the floor, he stares at her.
Hair wild and stuck to her face with sweat, she kneels before him, head bowed. And she waits. But he says nothing. Just breathes. When Grace raises her eyes, she meets his. Her voice is thin but unwavering.
“My god, who sits before me, I will worship you forever.”
Then she bends forward and presses her lips to the toe of his shoe. The taste is leather, dust, and holy ash. She stays there, prostrate. For the first time, she knows, she is exactly where she belongs.
“Perhaps, I can let you live.”
