Priest by Sierra Simone Page A

finance and an MBA from Dartmouth.” I didn’t mention that she also had a background in seducing wealthy men by dancing on a platform. Or that her cunt tasted sweeter than heaven.
    “Maybe she and I will have to get together for coffee sometime,” Millie said. “Since you can barely add two communion wafers together. Unless, of course,” she said, watching my face, “you’d rather keep the meetings just between the two of you.”
    “ Rem acu tetigisti, ” I said, sliding my eyes away from hers. You’ve hit the nail on the head.
    “I’m going to assume that means, ‘You’re right, Millie, I am deplorable at math.’”
    It didn’t.
    “I’ve always said that you were too young and too handsome to lock your life away. ‘Trouble will come of it,’ I said. ‘Mark my words.’ And nobody marked my words.”
    I didn’t answer. I was staring at our interlocked hands again, thinking of the silence in the sanctuary after I’d come all over my stomach, the feeling of Poppy’s wet heat pressing down on me. I’d taken two showers, scrubbing myself to the point of pain, but nothing could erase the feeling of her skin on mine. The feeling of warmth splattering on my stomach as she watched with hungry, feral eyes.
    “My dear boy, you do realize this is perfectly natural. What was the homily you preached your first month here? That part of healing would be celebrating normal, consensual, Godly sex?”
    I had preached that. Setting aside the fact that I had enjoyed my share of consensual sex in college (consensual, but not always normal, mind you), I had a firm theological belief in the importance of human sexuality. Almost every variation of Christianity had been in the business of suppressing sex and its enjoyment, but suppressed desires didn’t just disappear. They festered. They created guilt and shame and, in the worst cases, deviancy. We weren’t ashamed to enjoy food and alcohol in moderation—why were we so afraid of sex?
    But obviously, I had meant this message for my congregation, not for me.
    “What was it you quoted?” Millie asked. “ Mere Christianity ? ‘The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins…that is a why a cold, self-righteous prig, who goes regularly to church, may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.’”
    “Yes, but Lewis ends that paragraph with: ‘Of course, it’s better to be neither.’”
    “You are neither. Did you really think that by wearing a collar every day you would stop being a man?”
    “No,” I said, agitated. “But I thought I would be able to control my desires with prayer and self-discipline. It’s my vocation. I chose this life, Millie. And am I going to abandon it at the first temptation?”
    “Nobody said anything about abandoning. I’m simply saying, my dear boy, that you could choose not flagellate yourself over this. I’ve lived a long time, and a man and a woman wanting each other is by far one of the least sinful things I’ve seen.”

    I’d set out the Bible study curriculum for the men’s group at the beginning of the year, so it was nothing more than awful coincidence that tonight was the beginning of our discussion on male sexuality. Despite Millie’s practical advice, I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening cultivating a very robust form of self-loathing, doing push-ups in my basement gym until I couldn’t breathe or move or think, until it was time to come to the little faux-wood-paneled classroom on the far side of the church.
    I knew Millie had been trying to make me feel better, but I didn’t deserve to feel better. She didn’t know how far I’d already gone, how much of my vow I’d already broken. Probably because she would never assume her priest would be so weak as to actually act on his desires.
    I rubbed my face vigorously. Wake the fuck up, Tyler, and figure this out. It had only been a couple weeks, and I’d completely failed at keeping my shit together. What would I do for the