chapter 4

Chapter 4

Half an hour later, I was Back in my uniform: black slacks, Armani belt (a hand-me-down from one of the Business Brothers), long-sleeved black shirt with the cuffs rolled up to the elbows. And my collar, of course. St. Augustine gazed austerely out over the office, reminding me that I was here to help Poppy, not to daydream about sports bras and running shorts. And I wanted to be here to help her. I remembered her soft crying in the confessional and my chest tightened.

I would help her if it killed me.

Poppy was one minute early, and the easy but precise way she walked through the door told me that she was accustomed to being prompt, took pleasure in it, was the kind of person who could never understand why other people weren't on time. Whereas three years of waking up at seven o'clock had still not transformed me into a morning person and, more often than not, Mass started at 8:10 rather than 8:00.

"Hi," she said as I indicated a chair next to me. I'd chosen the two upholstered chairs in the corner of the office, hating to talk to people from behind my desk like I was a middle school principal. And with Poppy, I wanted to be able to soothe her, touch her if I needed, show her a more personal church experience than the Ancient Booth of Death.

She sank into the chair in this elegant, graceful way that was fucking mesmerizing... like watching a ballerina lace up her slippers or a geisha pour tea. She had on that igniting shade of lipstick again, bright red, and was in a pair of high-waisted shorts and a blouse that tied at the neck, looking more ready for a Saturday yachting trip than a meeting in my dingy office. But her hair was still wet and her cheeks still had that post-run flush, and I felt a small swell of possessive pride that I got to see this polished woman slightly unraveled, which was a bad impulse. I pushed it down.

"Thanks for meeting with me," she said, crossing her legs as she set down her purse. Which was not a purse but a sleek laptop bag, filled with strata of brightly colored folders. "I've been thinking a lot about seeking something like this out, but I've never been religious before, and part of me still kind of balks at the idea...

"Don't think of it as being religious," I advised. "I'm not here to convert you. Why don't we just talk? And maybe there will be some activities or groups here that match what you need."

"And if there's not? Will you refer me to the Methodists?"

"I would never," I said with mock gravity. "I always refer to the Lutherans first."

That earned me another smile.

"So how did you end up in Kansas City?"

She hesitated. "I's a long story."

I leaned back in the chair, making a show of settling in.

"I've got the time."

"It's boring," she warned.

"My day is a praxis of liturgical laws that date from the Middle Ages. I can handle being bored. Promise." "Okay, well, I'm not sure where to start, so I guess I should start at the beginning?" Her gaze slid over to the wall of books as she worried her lower lip with her teeth, as if she was trying to decide what the beginning really was. "I'm not your typical runaway," she said after a minute. "I didn't sneak out of a window when I was sixteen or steal my father's car and drive to the nearest ocean. I was dutiful and obedient and my father's favorite child right up until I walked across the stage at Dartmouth and officially received my MBA. I looked at my parents, and I finally really realized what they saw when they looked at me—another asset, another folder in the portfolio.

"There she is, our youngest, I could picture them saying to the family next to them. Graduated magna cum laude, you know, and only the best schools growing up. Spent the last three summers volunteering in Haiti. She was a shoo-in for dance at Juilliard, but of course she chose to pursue business instead, our level-headed girl."

"You volunteered in Haiti?" I interrupted.

She nodded. "At a charity called Maison de Naissance.

It's a place for rural Haitian mothers to get free prenatal care, as well as a place for them to give birth. It's the only place besides the summer house in Marseille that my boarding school French has come in remotely useful."

Dartmouth. Marseille. Boarding school. I had sensed that Poppy was polished, had guessed from her mention of Newport that she had known privilege and wealth at some point in her life, but I could see now exactly how much privi-lege, how much wealth. I studied her face. There was a thriving confidence there, an old-fashioned bent toward etiquette and politeness, but there was also no pretentiousness, no elitism.

"Did you like working there?"

Her face lit up. "I did! I's a beautiful place, filled with beautiful people. I got to help deliver seven babies my last summer there.

Two of them were twins... they were so tiny, and the midwife told me later that if the mom hadn't come to MN, she and the babies almost certainly would have died. The mother even let me help her pick out names for her sons." Her expression turned almost shy, and I realized that this was the first time shed gotten to share this pure form of joy with anyone. "I miss it there." I grinned at her. I couldn't help it; I just rarely saw anyone so excited by the experience of helping people in need.

"My family's idea of charity is hosting a political fundraiser," she said, matching my grin with a wry one of her own. "Or donating enough to a pet cause so that they can take a picture with a giant check. And then they'll step over homeless people in the city. It's embarrassing.'

"It's common."

She shook her head vehemently. "It shouldn't be. I, at least, refuse to live like that."

Good for her. I refused as well, but I also had grown up in a household of religion, of volunteering. It had been easy for me; I didn't think this conviction had come easily to her.

I wanted to stop her right then, hear more about her time in Haiti, and introduce her to all the ways she could help people here at St. Margaret's. We needed people like her, people who cared, people who could volunteer and give their time and talents-not just their treasure. In fact, I almost blurted all this out. I almost fell to my knees and begged her to help us with the food pantry or the pancake breakfast that was so chronically short-staffed, because we needed her help, and (if I was being honest) I wanted her at everything; I wanted to see her everywhere.

But maybe that wasn't the best way to feel. I steered us back to her earlier and safer topic of conversation. "So you were at your graduation..." parents, that I was everything they had wanted. That they had groomed me for. I was the whole package, the manicured, sleekly highlighted, expensively dressed package."

She was all those things. She was indeed the perfect package on the surface...but below it, I sensed she was so much more.

Messy and passionate and raw and creative—a cyclone forced into an eggshell. Small wonder the shell had broken.

"I adorned the life that already had too many cars, too many rooms, too many luncheons and fundraiser galas. A life already filled with two other children who'd also graduated from Dartmouth and then proceeded to marry fellow rich people and have little rich babies. I was destined to work someplace with a glassed-in lobby and drive a Mercedes S-Class, at least until I got married, and then I would gradually scale back my work and scale up my involvement with charity, until, of course, I had the little rich babies to round out the family portraits." She looked down at her hands. "This probably sounds ridiculous. Like a modern Edith Wharton novel or something."

"It doesn't sound ridiculous at all," I assured her. "I know exactly the kind of people you're talking about." And I really did—I wasn't just saying that. I'd grown up in a fairly nice neighborhood and—on a much smaller scale-the same attitudes had been at work. The families with their nice houses and their two point five children who were on the honor roll and also played varsity lacrosse, the families that made sure everyone else knew exactly how successful and delightfully American their healthy Midwestern offspring were.

"I rejected that entire reality," she confessed. "The

Wharton life. I didn't want to do it. I couldn't do it."

Of course, she couldn't. She was so far above that life.

Could she see that about herself? Could she sense it, even if she couldn't see it? Because I barely knew her, and even I knew that she was the kind of woman who couldn't live without meaning, powerful and real meaning, in her life.

And she wouldn't have found it on the other side of that Dartmouth stage.

"I was heartbroken over Sterling, yes," she continued, still examining her hands, "but I was also heartbroken over my life... and it hadn't even happened yet. I took the fake diploma they give you before they send you the real one, walked off that stage and then right off campus, not staying for the requisite hat-throwing or the pictures or the too-expensive dinner that my parents would insist on. And then I went to my apartment, left a definitive voicemail on my father's phone, stuffed my things into my car and left. There would be no more internships for me. No more $10,000-a-plate fundrais-ers. No more dates with men who weren't Sterling. I left that life behind—along with all of Daddy's credit cards. I refused to touch my trust fund. I would stand on my own two feet or not at all."

"That was brave," I murmured. Who was this Sterling she kept mentioning? An ex-boyfriend? A former lover? He had to have been a fool to let Poppy go, at any rate.

"Brave or foolish," she laughed. "I threw away a lifetime of expensive education. I assume my parents were devastated."

"You assume?"

She sighed. "I never spoke to them directly after I left. I still haven't. It's been three years, and I know they'd be furious...?

"You don't know that."

"You wouldn't understand," she said, her words chastising but her tone friendly. "You're a priest, for crying out loud. I bet your parents were ecstatic when you told them."

I looked down at my feet. "Actually, my mom cried when I told her, and my father didn't speak to me for six months.

They didn't even come to my ordination." It was not a memory I liked reliving

When I looked up at her, her red lips were pressed in a line. "That's awful. It sounds like something my parents would do?'

"My sister...

" I stopped and cleared my throat. I'd talked

about Lizzy countless times in homilies, in small groups, in counseling sessions. But somehow, explaining her death to Poppy was more intimate, more personal. "She was abused by our parish priest for years. We never knew, never suspected.." Poppy put a hand over mine. The irony of her comforting me was keenly palpable, but at the same time, it felt nice. It felt good. There had been no one to comfort me when it had happened; wed all been in our separate worlds of pain. There had been no one to just listen like it mattered how I felt about it. Like it mattered that I still felt about it.

"She killed herself when she was nineteen," I went on, as if Poppy's touch had triggered a response to share that couldn't be stopped.

"She left a note, with the names of other children he'd hurt. We were able to stop him, and he was put on trial and sentenced to ten years in prison."

I took a breath, pausing a moment, because it was impossible not to feel those twin dragons of rage and grief warring in my chest, heating my blood. I felt a fury so deep whenever I thought of that man that I honestly believed myself capable of murder, and no matter how many times I prayed for this hatred to be lifted from me, no matter how many times I forced myself to repeat I forgive you I forgive you as I pictured his face, it never truly went away, this anger. This pain.

Finally mastering myself again, I went on. "The other families in the parish—I don't know if they didn't want to believe it or were humiliated that they'd trusted him, but whatever it was, they were furious with us for calling for his arrest, furious with Lizzy for being the victim, for having the gall to leave a note outlining in sick detail what had happened and who else it was happening to. The deacons tried to block her having a Catholic funeral and burial, and even the new priest ignored us. The whole family stopped going to church then-my dad and brothers stopped believing in God altogether. Only my mom still believes, but she will never go back. Aside from visiting me up here, she hasn't been inside a church since Lizzy's funeral."

"But you have," Poppy pointed out. "You still believe."

Her hand remained on mine, warm in the drafty air-con-ditioning of the office. "I didn't for a long time," I admitted.

We sat in silence for a while, jostling shoulders with dead girls and disapproving parents and tragedies that lingered like the smell of old leaves in a forest. "So,"

" she said after a while,

"I suppose you do know what it's like to face your parents' disapproval."

I managed a smile, trying to keep it from faltering when she withdrew her hand. "What did you do after you left Dartmouth?" I asked, needing to talk about something else, anything other than Lizzy and those painful years after her death.

"Well," she said, shifting in her chair. "I did a lot. The thing was that I was able to find tons of work on my own, work using my MBA, but how could I be sure that it wasn't my scores of fancy internships and my expensive degree they wanted and not to have a Danforth working in their office?

After six months in a New York office, feeling like Danforth was tattooed across my forehead, I left, as abruptly as I'd left New Hampshire, and I drove until I didn't want to drive anymore. Which was how I ended up in Kansas City."

She took a breath. I waited. never meant to end up at the club," she finally said, her voice going low.

"I thought maybe I'd find a small nonprofit

to work at or maybe I'd do something prosaic, like waiting tables. But I heard from a bartender that there was a club hidden somewhere in the city—private, exclusive, discreet.

And they were looking for girls. Girls who looked expensive."

"Girls like you?"

Poppy wasn't offended. She laughed that throaty laugh again, the laugh that kindled a low heat in my belly every time I heard it. "Yes, girls like me. WASP-y girls. The kind that rich people like. And you know what? It was perfect. I got to dance—I hadn't danced anywhere other than a gala for so long. It was, all told, a fairly classy place. A mandatory $500 coat check. $750 for a table, $1000 for a private dance. No patron-initiated touching. A two-drink maximum. It catered to a very specific clientele, and so I found myself stripping for the same men who would have employed me, married me, donated to my pet charities in another life. I loved it."

"You loved it?"

Filthy girl.

The thought came out of nowhere, unbidden but refusing to leave, whispering itself over and over again in my mind.

Dirty, filthy girl.

She turned those hazel eyes back to me. "Is that wrong?

Is that a sin? No, don't answer. I don't really want to know."

"Why did you like it?" I was asking merely out of a counselor's curiosity, of course. "If you don't mind me asking."

"Why would I mind? I offered to tell you after all." She adjusted herself, the shorts exposing more of those firm legs.

Dancer's legs, I now knew. "I liked how it felt. Having men watch me with hooded eyes, wanting me and only me—not my education or my pedigree or my family's connections.

But even more than that, on this raw, primal level, I loved the way the men responded to my body. I loved that I made them hard."

I loved that I made them hard.

I nearly choked, my mind fracturing into twin minds, one determined to see this meeting through with grace and compassion and the other determined to let her know how hard she made me.

She was oblivious to my internal struggle. "I loved that they would become almost wild with the need to touch me, so wild that they would offer me astounding sums of money to come home with them, to leave the club and become their mistress. But I never accepted. Even though many of them were handsome, even though I wasn't in a place where I could pretend money was no object. But something about it was antithetical to my very nature, and I couldn't imagine accepting any of those offers. Isn't that a ridiculous notion? A stripper insisting on preserving her virtue?"

She didn't seem to expect an answer and kept going. "The sad thing was that I was actually starved for sex while I was turning down all these offers. I'm sure you know the feeling, Father, like the slightest breeze is enough to send you over the edge, like your skin itself is combustible."

God, did I know that feeling. I was feeling it right now. I offered her a weak smile, which she returned.

"I was so combustible, Father Bell. I would get wet watching the men stroking themselves through their custom-tailored trousers. In the private rooms, I'd pull my thong to the side and let them watch as I brought myself off. They liked that; they liked it when I teased myself and rubbed myself and rode my hand until I shuddered and sighed."

I realized my hands were gripping the arms of the chair very hard now, and I tried to flush out all the images her words were conjuring, but I couldn't and she continued on, oblivious to my sudden discomfort, innocently secure in the mistaken notion that I was simply an input for information, an output for advice, and not a twenty-nine-year-old man.

"But it wasn't the same, getting myself off," she said. "I wanted to be fucked, fucked and used. I wanted to be filled with someone's dick. I wanted to have fingers in my mouth and in my cunt. In my ass." She took a breath.

I, on the other hand, couldn't breathe.

"What's that sin called? I know it has to be one. Is it just lust...or is it something worse? What kind of prayer should I pray for that one? And what it I don't feel bad about what I've done, the things I wanted to do? Even now, even after what happened last month, I still want it. I still feel lonely. I still want to be fucked. Which is confusing as hell because I have no idea about anything else I want out of my life."

Despite everything, I still wanted to respond to her last sentence, the ultimate motivation for her being here in this office. I wanted to take her hand and give her soft intimations of wisdom, but fuck, nothing about me was soft right now.

Her words.

Her fucking words.

It had been bad enough listening to her talk about working at that club, but then when she'd described touching herself, coaxing her pussy into orgasm, and I had imagined myself as one of those hungry businessmen watching it, offering everything in my wallet just to see that glistening cunt pulse with pleasure. I bet I could see it now if I wanted. I could stand her against the wall and yank down those shorts, kick her legs open so that she would be exposed to me...

There was no earthly way I could last another minute in this meeting.

God must have heard my unspoken prayer because her phone chimed then, a businesslike lite tone, and she fished it out ofher bag. I'm so sorry, she mouthed as she answered the call.

I indicated that it was okay, trying to solve the bigger problem of how to stand up without revealing what her words had done to me.

She ended the call quickly. "I'm sorry," she apologized again. "Some work stuff has come up and—"

I held up a hand. "Don't worry about it. I have a parish meeting coming up soon anyway." That was a lie. The only meeting that was about to happen was between my hand and my dick. But probably not good form to tell a hopeful convert that. (I made a mental note to ask forgiveness for that lie as well as what I was about to do.)

"I, ah, I hope to see you soon though."

She gave me a gorgeous smile as she stood and grabbed her bag. "Me too. Bye, Father."

I couldn't even wait until I was sure she was out of the church. As soon as Poppy left, I got up and locked the door, taking the time only to move over to my desk so I could brace one hand on the surface as I fumbled with my belt.

There wasn't time to feel guilty or question my motives or for anything remotely resembling thought. I didn't even pull my slacks down any farther than it took to free my dick, and then I was jacking myself hard and fast, nothing in my mind but release.

I tried to think of someone else —anyone else-other than the woman who had come to me seeking God's forgiveness and reassurance. But my mind kept wandering back to her, imagining her at the club, but moving for me and only for me, pulling her thong aside to show me the thing I most wanted.

Christ help me.

I felt it building, taut electricity in my pelvis, and I was thrusting into my hand now, wishing I was fucking Poppy Danforth —her mouth or her cunt or her ass, I didn't care and then I shot all over my desk, pulsing and spurting and imagining that each and every drop of myself was being spilled onto her white skin.

My hand stilled and my breathing slowed and reality came crashing back down. Here I was, dick in hand, cum all over my liturgical desk calendar, and a picture of St. Augustine looking at me reproachfully from the wall.

Shit.

Shit.

Numb, I zipped up my slacks and tore off the top sheet of the calendar and threw it away, the crinkling of the thick paper loud and almost accusatory, and fuck, what the hell had I done?

I sat in the chair and stared at St. Augustine.

"Don't pretend you don't know what it's like," I mumbled.

I braced my elbows on the desk and ground the heels of my palms into my eyes.

Poppy Danforth was not going to go away. She lived here.

She was going to come back, and I had no doubt that we'd only scratched the surface of her "carnal" confessions. And I would have to listen to it without getting aroused like a teenage boy.

More than listen, I would have to respond with grace and empathy and compassion when all I would be able to think about was that mouth with those slightly imperfect teeth.

Stars were now dancing behind my eyelids, but I didn't move my hands. I didn't want to see this office right now or St. Augustine. I didn't want to see the newly ragged edges of my calendar or my newly filled wastebasket.

I wanted to pray in complete darkness. I wanted nothing in between my thoughts and God, in between this woman and my vocation. I wanted everything but my sin and these starbursts in my eyes stripped away. I'm sorry, I prayed. I'm so sorry.

I was sorry that I'd betrayed the trust of one of God's flock. I was sorry that I'd betrayed the holiness of this place and this vocation by lusting after someone seeking solace and guidance. I was sorry that I hadn't even controlled my desire long enough to step into a cold shower or go for a run or any of the other tricks I'd learned over the past three years to stifle my urges.

Mostly...

Mostly, I'm sorry that I'm not sorry.

Dammit, I wasn't sorry at all.