I touched myself.
I defiled my body in her name.
Exchanged the love we shared for a lust-fueled fantasy as I stroked the flesh of my body, chasing a release from this incessant pain of missing her.
Losing her.
Walking away from her.
Leaving her.
Letting her go.
“Tressssssa.”
Tremors shook my muscles as I hurtled closer to a release I hadn’t given myself the pleasure of feeling outside of her. Wracked with spasms, I came in violent bursts of semen, thick seed coating the slabs of my abdomen, my sheets, even the pile of holy garb I’d thrown on the floor in favor of my truest form.
Pent-up shame and guilt rained down on me, propelled by the orgasm I’d allowed myself in her name. I wiped at the errant moisture escaping my eyes as I composed myself, sucking in shaky breaths of the humid Caribbean air.
I’d never predicted I’d land back on this tiny island after I’d escaped it in my teens.
I supposed this place still had more to teach me; I’d just rushed away before my education could run its course.
Sweat pricked my skin, silent shame still pulling at the corners of my mind as I hauled myself off the twin bed, divesting myself of my now-damp boxers as I walked to the en suite bath.
Running the hot water over my body for the next fifteen minutes felt like the best thing I could do for myself.
Coming to terms that I’d just sinned in the eyes of my God wasn’t something that sat easy in my heart. And now I’d shamelessly defiled the body God had given me to do work here on this earth. By the time I climbed out of the shower, I was feeling less forgiving and more desperate for penance.
Darkness cloaked the small room of the rectory, the single window overlooking the mountains in the distance, hundreds of acres of tobacco fields between me and it.
Me and civilization.
Me and her.
The diocese had known exactly what they were doing in sending me here to this lush and rural God’s country. The four walls of Santa Maria’s, for the first time in almost half a decade, were beginning to feel more like a prison that required planning to escape than a refuge and sanctuary for God’s children.
I lit a candle at the base of the small stone window, mesmerized as it began to flicker and dance, channeling another evening in a different rectory, her in my arms, my very heart nestled against hers.
I’d never forget the sweet gift she’d given me in those brief moments so long ago.
But I’d never defile myself in her name again.
I prayed that my love for her would abate, that I would cease to feel the touch of her hand, the scent of winter in her hair, the sound of her sweet giggle on the wind, but my prayers remained unanswered.
I recalled a practice revived among the Jesuit community centuries ago—corporal mortification, a way of getting closer to godliness through suffering. Self-inflicted suffering.
I pulled the worn leather belt from the loops of my trousers, running the tough material through my fingers, the promise of its punishment calling.
Pope John Paul II had believed in daily penance with self-flagellation.
Prickles of anxiety lifted my hackles.
The call to inflict lasting marks on my skin as a reminder of my sin, undeniable.
Just as Jesus carried his wounds for all to see, so I would mine.
TWENTY-TWO
