“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 if 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 businessman 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 little tone, and she fished it out of her 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 jeans 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.