There’s a rustling of fabric, and the soft slap of feet against the stone flooring. She isn’t wearing the heels I bought her. Silly, foolish girl.
For several minutes, I listen to her walk around the chapel. I can’t see her, but I can imagine her seeking out sanctuary for herself. Somewhere to hide and never come out.
When the door to the other side of the confessional opens, I suck in a breath and ease my body back into the darkness as Ivy steps inside. She lowers herself onto the kneeler, mere inches away from me, the thin mesh panel the only thing that separates us.
Her scent fills the space as she shifts and sighs, murmuring the Lord’s name in prayer. She smells clean and natural with a faint lingering hint of what I think is lotion or shampoo. It is a refreshing change from the cloying sweetness of expensive perfume I am often surrounded by in The Society.
Through the mesh, I can just make out glimpses of the dress I bought her. Black lace clings to her figure like it was made for her. My fingers itch to feel her flesh beneath that fabric. To grab and squeeze and claim her untouched beauty. The small taste of what my eyes can reach isn’t enough, and I catch myself leaning forward with a craving for more. Abruptly, I stop myself, coming back to my senses.
What a dangerous game she could be.
This menacing thirst coursing through my blood feels unfamiliar, and I try to justify it away. Four years is a long time to go without feeling the warmth of a woman’s body beneath me. It should only be natural that I want to taste what belongs to me. That would make sense, except I don’t just want to taste Ivy. I want to devour her completely. She can never know the power of this desire. I must keep it under control.
She doesn’t seem to be aware of my presence on the other side as she bows her head and makes a whispered plea. A request that her God, no matter how powerful, won’t be able to grant her. I can only imagine what she must think I am.
Has she considered what it will feel like when my fingers fall upon her skin? Is she haunted by visions of me spreading her thighs apart and laying claim to the sweetness of her flesh?
I think not. If she were smart, she would not even entertain the idea of what a monster like me might do to her. Her fate is best left to be experienced without the stain of whatever horrors her own imagination has conjured, as she is well aware worrying cannot save her now.
I believe she has already accepted the future that’s been written for her. She’s staring at the wood panel, blank. So still, so emotionless, it almost feels like I’m looking into a mirror. And then, without warning, she draws in a ragged breath and brings a trembling hand to her lips. Her shoulders shake under the weight of her sudden despair, but she refuses to shed a single tear. She is stronger than I gave her credit for. And I think I could find eternal fascination in her suffering. I make a silent vow to myself that before the night is through, she will cry for me.
Several minutes pass, and she uses them to steel her faith. I wonder if she will pray to her God when I lay hands on her tonight. She does not yet bear my mark, but there is nothing to stop me from sliding open the window between us and forcing my cock down her throat. A taste of things to come. My fingers dig into the edge of the wooden bench beneath me as I close my eyes to imagine it, and the wood groans under the weight of my frustrations.
When my gaze jolts back to the window, I find her wild, startled eyes peering back at me. Only a sliver of light pours in through the narrow gaps in the wood on my side, keeping me hidden within the shadows. I don’t believe she can actually see me, but she can sense me. The predator in the darkness.
She leans closer to the mesh divider, calling out for the priest she thinks I am, and my breath gets caught in my throat. But before she can open it, Abel’s shrill voice interrupts the silence. An angry fist rattles her side of the door, making her jump.
The moment is over too soon, and before Ivy can discover me, he yanks open the door and hauls her out.
11
Ivy
“Five minutes,” Abel says and turns to walk out of the small chapel to the side of the cathedral. It dates back a century before the cathedral was built, and they preserved it during the construction of the cathedral itself.
My classmates and I took first Communion here years ago. As I look down the aisle, I remember walking toward the altar in our pretty white dresses with hands bound by our rosaries. Before the ceremony, we’d made our first confessions. There had been eight of us, and I remember shifting uncomfortably in the pew as I nervously waited my turn.
I remember the creaking door of the confessional, the smell of it as I knelt on the hard wooden kneeler—no cushion for the sinner—and spoke my sins aloud.
The priest’s face was just a profile, barely that in the darkness behind the mesh. I hadn’t had much to confess, so I’d made things up. I thought if I didn’t, he’d think I was lying.
Afterward, I joined the others at the foot of the altar and say my requisite number of Hail Marys and a few more than Father had prescribed because I’d lied to him.
Being in here after all this time takes me back. I shudder and wrap my arms around myself. It’s cold, but it’s not just the cold that has me shivering.
I walk around the room barefoot, the engravings on the tombs so old they’re just scratches in the icy stone beneath my feet. I take in each of the twelve Stations of the Cross. Witness Christ’s crucifixion. But when I get to the altar and look up at him, I think about how he could let this happen. How, if God were real, could he let this happen to me? To my dad?
And Hazel.
She’d run away days before her wedding.
How could he let it happen to her?
Or maybe this is his plan. Maybe The Society is right, and God is behind them, and God wants one of the Moreno sisters.
I walk to the back of the church playing with the edge of the lace veil. The confessional is in the same place, and I go to it, touching the rickety old wooden door. Its grooves are dusty. No one uses this confessional anymore, I guess.
Pushing it aside, I enter the little space I’d entered one time before. It’s smaller than I remember. The mesh is metal now, the design a thousand crosses. I always wondered if the priests hearing the confessions knew who we were. If they remembered our sins.
I kneel on that kneeler now, then sit back on the small bench.
“God.”
I wipe my face, then instinctively pull my bangs down over my eye. I remember the look on Mercedes’s face when she’d seen it. Like she’s never seen anything so terrible. Bitch.
I take a deep breath in. The smell in here is different than I expect. A hint of cologne beneath the incense and wood polish. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they do still use the confessional.
Sighing, I let my breath out, then close my eyes and place my knees back on that kneeler, bringing my hands together in prayer.
“If you’re there…if you’re real…” A sob breaks into my words, and I use the heels of my hands to wipe my eyes, careful of the mascara and black liner Mercedes applied.
I want to ask him not to let this happen. But that’s stupid. It’s happening. So, I ask a different favor.
I bow my head. “Don’t let him be a monster,” I whisper.
Something creaks.
I gasp, my eyes flying open, and I swear I see movement on the other side of the mesh separating confessor from sinner.