Sweetest Sin: A Forbidden Priest Romance (25 page)

Benjamin’s funeral
was a joyous event, celebrated ten days after his death.

Priests from our
area and the adjoining dioceses helped to honor him. We traveled to the
cathedral in the city where the pews packed were with those he’ d helped during
his ministry. Standing room only. Benjamin had blessed so many, and the
faithful came to welcome him into the arms of the Lord.

But I couldn’t
pray with them. I couldn’t speak any words. Forty of my brother priests circled
his casket and the altar, and I’d never felt more
alone
.

I suffered a new
and terrible type of pain. I’d surrounded myself in the church. I’d given my
life to help the thriving community. And when I preached, I spoke the same
prayers which had graced the lips of men for centuries. And yet loneliness
chained me to the same altar at which I worshiped.

Prayer for the
soul was good and just. Prayer for the touch of a woman was forbidden. I was meant
to imagine a life of eternity and glory when I died, but first I had to suffer
through long nights of still silences, alone in an empty house.

We laid Benjamin
to rest, and he was surrounded by hundreds of his faithful friends.

But at the moment
he died, when he took his final breath? I hadn’t been there to hold his hand.

I’d never forgive
myself.

I declined
invitations to join my fellow priests for a dinner to honor our friend. But I
didn’t want to remember Benjamin. Didn’t want to think of the day he welcomed
me into his home.

Or I’d remember
what came before.

And I fought every
day, every night, every beat of my heart, and my every cursed breath to forget
my life before Benjamin saved me.

I went home and
sat in the dark. At midnight, she knocked on the back door.

I knew it was her.
No one else would visit so late.

The door opened,
but Honor stilled as she looked at me. No cassock. No collar. Just a t-shirt
and sweats over an aching body. The parish could survive without me for a time.
I took the funeral and the next day off and planned to sleep away my misery.

Honor clutched a
cake carrier. She stepped inside but handed it to me with an averted glance.

“Pineapple upside-down
cake.” She prevented me from popping the lid. “Maybe…wait until I’m gone.”

Prudent.

I set the cake on
the kitchen counter, but Honor didn’t follow. She twisted her fingers in the
folds of her dress. Concert black. She hadn’t changed from the funeral. St.
Cecilia’s choir sang for the Mass.

I didn’t remember
hearing a word.

“I found something
in the church,” she said. “Took a picture.”

She offered me her
cell, but I knew what she had found. I didn’t bother with the picture on her
phone, not when I had the real one in my living room. I grabbed the frame
resting on the end table and handed it to her.

The photo was of
me at age fourteen—one of the first pictures I had taken of me where I actually
smiled. I stood next to Benjamin, posing with him in his new robes, bishop
purple instead of priest black.

We both had copies
of the photo. The women’s group must have made a collage of his life to put in
the church. They included this moment. Smart. It was one of the greatest days
in both our lives.

“Bishop Polito?”
Honor stroked the photograph. Her finger drew slowly over the image of me. “You
said he was your mentor.”

I wasn’t ready for
this conversation. I took the frame and sat on the couch.

“He meant more
than that.”

I gave her nothing
else, but how long could I deny this confession? Honor approached, gently
sitting on the edge of the coffee table to face me. Relentless woman.

She shrugged. “In
the homily…”

Honor waited to for
me to speak. I didn’t. The bishop presiding over the Mass said many beautiful
things about Benjamin. None of it personal, just words and empty platitudes
about his commitment to god, his ministry, the accomplishments in his life.
Nothing about his
kindness
. Nothing about his patience. His insight. How
he could take a boy, broken and lost, and prove to the unlovable that good
people did exist. That not everyone would hurt him. That life was more than
suffering and pain.

But Honor already
knew that. She heard enough from the homily to slip through my mind, my soul.

What did it matter
now? She was already in my heart.

“Bishop Polito took
on a ward fifteen or so years ago,” she said. “They said he raised the boy on
his own. Put him through minor seminary high school. Helped him to take his
Holy Orders and become a priest.”

I nodded. “It’s
true.”

“It was you.”

“Yes.”

“But you said you
had a family.” She frowned at me. Did she think I lied, or did the truth
frighten her more? “You were the youngest of eight?”

“I was, but that
was a different part of my life. That was where I came from. Benjamin was my
real family. He took me in. Helped me, though God only knows how he did it.
Without him…” My voice faded. “I don’t know where I’d be or what I’d have
become. I doubt I’d even be alive.”

My gentle angel
listened with glistening eyes. She had questions. Many of them. But this wasn’t
a conversation for her. I’d taken enough of her innocence. I couldn’t corrupt
her with my past.

“He died the night
Mom was in the hospital,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And you stayed
with me. Until morning.”

A sleepless night
I’d never forget. We hadn’t kissed. Didn’t have sex. Just rested in each
other’s arms. Those few hours meant more to me than any of the breathless,
passionate moments when I had moved inside her.

It was a warning,
a sign, which wouldn’t go unheeded.

Honor shook her
head. “Why didn’t you tell me your friend—your
father
—had died?”

“Your mother was
sick.”

“And he…”

“I wanted to help
you that night. That’s what Ben taught me to do. Help others. Care for them. Show
them the kindness the world hadn’t shown me. He would have wanted me to comfort
you rather than mourn him.”

“Did he know…what
happened between us?”

“No.” The pain struck
too close. “We ran out of time.”

The lie hurt. More
than the mournful realization of his death. More than any of the times I’d
visited in the hospice and watched him waste away.

Ten days had
passed since he died, and my heart hadn’t healed. I couldn’t even speak his
name without suffering the hollowness in my chest. I knew why.

I deceived myself
and dishonored his memory.

“That’s not true.”
I bowed my head. “I told myself—again and again—that I would confess to him. I
had the opportunities, and he realized something weighed on me. I could have
confessed...I didn’t.”

“Why?”

The words choked.
I forced them out.

“I didn’t want him
to see what I’d become.”

Honor leaned close.
Her sweet voice comforted and quieted the shame that welled within me.

“Father Rafe…you
are not a monster. You haven’t hurt me.” Her words gentled. She drew the pain from
me as if she pulled poison from a bite. “But someone hurt
you
.”

I stayed silent,
content to let the dark quiet suffocate me. It was better than admitting the
truth.

Better than
suffering from those memories.

Better than
becoming what I feared.

Honor sighed,
mourning me instead of the dead. “What happened to you? Something hurt you.
Something changed you. Please let me in.”

“What if you don’t
like what you find?”

“And what if I can
help you?”

She couldn’t. No
one could. Nothing helped. Not prayer or fasting, blessings or ordinations, a
busy life in the church or all the responsibilities and souls that came with
it.

The only way to
survive was to hide it. I knocked her hand away. It offended her, and her pain
hurt me more than I realized.

Honor’s voice was
a whisper. “You fear intimacy.”

Close. So close.

The words sickened
me. “No. I fear more abuse.”

It had been
fifteen years since I’d admitted what happened to me. Only one man knew besides
God, and it took two years after Benjamin adopted me in before I could reveal
it to him. I said it once, and then I never spoke of it again.

Maybe I should
have confronted it, but Benjamin gave me a new life of safety, comfort, and
love. Why would I have reopened my wounds after they finally stopped bleeding?

But I hadn’t
healed. I
scarred
. The cuts were too deep, and every nerve was still
exposed.

Benjamin was gone.

The memories
returned.

And I couldn’t
fight both my desires and my past.

I don’t know why I
spoke, but I wrenched the truth from my soul.

“My father hurt
me,” I said. “It started when I was young and ended the day I ran away.”

Honor held her
breath, like she feared to make a sound in case it’d silence me. But the filth
rose to the surface now. I couldn’t hide it. I couldn’t avoid it.

“Emotional abuse.
Physical. Sexual.” I shuddered. “My father was as cruel as he was perverted. My
brothers and sisters suffered too, but not as badly as I did. One night, I didn’t
know if he wanted to beat me or just…” I couldn’t say the word. “He did both.
It wasn’t the first time, but it was the worst. I thought he was going to kill
me. I hoped he would.”

“Rafe…”

“That was the
night I knew I had to get away. I couldn’t let him do those things to me. I
couldn’t stay and hope to be saved. I didn’t wait for my bones to heal or the
bruises to fade. As soon as I could roll out of my bed, I escaped.” I gritted
my teeth. “And I never looked back.”

Honor dropped from
the coffee table to kneel at my feet. She took my hands, squeezing and warming
them. It was all she could do, and it was all I needed, but I shook her away.

“The church welcomed
me. Ben helped me…recover. I wasn’t a healthy teenager. I suffered. I
self-harmed. I had…very destructive behaviors. He took me in at thirteen,
knowing I was lost, and he saved me. The church saved me. Here, I felt what
real love was. I joined the communities and experienced a real family. It was a
blessing. I studied to become a priest because…it was the only good thing I
ever saw in life. I wanted to help others. I wanted to show them the safety and
kindness I found in the church.”

I could have
stopped then. Honor was satisfied and my soul unburdened. But it wasn’t enough to
admit my sins. If I wanted the pain to stop, I had to examine
why
. The
cause of the sin, not just the action.

Even if it
destroyed me.

My voice hardened.
I’d never voiced the truth, not even to Benjamin.

“I became a priest
because I wanted to live a celibate life. I thought…it’d protect me.”

Honor lowered her
eyes. The guilt dulled her spirit, and I wouldn’t tolerate it. She’d done
nothing wrong.

“I don’t regret
our nights together,” I said. “I just wanted to protect you from…me. I always
thought sex was something vulgar, destructive, and sadistic. What we did,
I
did to you.”

She looked up, her
voice soft and steady. “And was it as vile as you had thought it’d be?”

No.

Not in the least.

Her body, her
soul, her touch had been a glorious, tender
blessing
.

“Did I hurt you?”
I whispered. “Honestly, Honor.  I need to know.”

“You’ve never once
hurt me.”

I ached to believe
her, but it was the first time I feared hope would be a sin.

“Honor, I’ve
wanted you from the moment I met you. I imagined you beneath me. Impaled on me.
Serving me.”

Her smile was too
warm. “And I imagined you above me. Within me. I
wanted
to serve
you…that was my pleasure.”

No. No, no, no.
She didn’t understand.

“You’re twisting
my words,” I said.

“I’m not. You think
you’re corrupted.” She shrugged. “It’s not a sin to want someone. To want that
connection with another person.”

“But I had such
dark and terrible urges. I had to fight them.”

“Were they dark?
Did you honestly want to hurt me?”

“Never.
No
.”
The thought revolted me, but so did my desires. “But the things I’d have done
to your body…”

“I wanted you to
do that to me. I wanted to
experience
it with you.”

It couldn’t be
right. I didn’t look at her, fearing the images I’d see. The memory of her
naked body was almost as frightening as the kindness of her smile.