Priest_by_Sierra_Simone 3

you can do is try to find a new balance, a new starting point. Find whatever
love is left in your life and hold on to it tightly. And one day, things will have
gotten less gray, less dull. One day, you might find that you have a life again.
A life that makes you happy.”
I could hear her breathing, short and deep, like she was trying not to cry.
“I—thank you,” she said. “Thank you.”
There was no doubt that she was crying now. I could hear her pulling the
Kleenexes from the box put inside the booth for just that purpose. I could
catch only the faintest suggestions of movement through the screen, what
looked like glossy dark hair and what could have been the pale white of her
face.
A really base and awful part of me wanted to hear her confession still, not
so I could give her more specific counseling and assurance, but so that I
could know exactly what carnal things this girl had to apologize for. I wanted
to hear her whisper those things in her breathy voice, I wanted to take her
into my arms and kiss away every single tear.
God, I wanted to touch her.
What the fuck was wrong with me? I hadn’t wanted a woman with this
kind of intensity for three years. And I hadn’t even seen her face. I didn’t
even know her name.
“I should go now,” she said, echoing her earlier words. “Thank you for
what you said. It was…it was unnervingly accurate. Thank you.”
“Wait—” I said, but the door to the booth swung open and she was gone.
I thought about my mystery penitent all day. I thought about her as I
prepared my homily for Sunday’s mass. I thought about her as I ran the
men’s Bible study and as I prayed my nightly prayers. I thought about that
glimpse of dark hair, that throaty voice. Something about her…what was it?
It’s not like I’d been a corpse since taking the robe—I was still very much a
man. A man who’d liked fucking a lot before he’d heard the call.
And I still noticed women, certainly, but I had become quite adept at