He wasn’t there and I strolled down the end aisle, looking up and down the rows. I found him in the “International” section, putting pasta in his basket.
Luckily, salsa was in the same aisle, and I replaced the mild, grabbing a jar marked “hot.”
“Hi, again,” I said, coming up behind him and tapping him on the shoulder.
He turned, glancing past me, and I knew he was looking for my mother. “She sent me for salsa.” I held up the jar as explanation. “We like the hot stuff.”
“Uh-huh.” He raised his eyebrows and I realized what I’d said, blushing.
“Are you mad at me?” I cocked my head and frowned.
He cleared his throat. “No, Leah. I just…” His eyes fell to the tile and he shifted the basket from one hand to the other. “I don’t think we should… do this.” My heart was pounding in my ears. “Talk in a supermarket aisle?”
“No, Leah.” He shook his head and sighed.
“Hey.” I touched his arm.
His eyes went to my hand and he gently took it off his forearm, and the look on his face was kind, but a little sad. “I’m sorry.” He turned and walked down the aisle and I watched him go, willing him to look back, but he didn’t. I had this awful feeling, that same sensation I got when I knew I’d done something really wrong. I fought it, but it curled up in my belly and stayed there, even after I took the salsa back to my mother and we went through the checkout lane.
I saw him again in the parking lot and waved, but he didn’t wave back, although I know he saw me. I could tell, the way he slammed the trunk closed and got quickly into his car, like something was chasing him.
I couldn’t understand it. It made no sense. The more I thought about it, the more I knew what I had to do-as much as I didn’t want to. That’s how I ended up standing in line at the confessional after mass with all the rest of the girls, waiting my turn. I didn’t even have Erica for moral support-she had skipped mass altogether to go meet Bobby.
“Come on, go already,” the girl behind me whined, a little sophomore with stringy brown hair and braces.
It was my turn. I stared at the door and started forward and then stopped.
“You go ahead.” I waved her past.
The sophomore rolled her eyes, pushing up her glasses as she swept by me. There were six more girls to go, and I slipped quietly down the line against the wall, falling in behind the last. It had been two years since I chewed my nails, but I was seriously tempted by the time the line had dwindled to me and one other girl.
“Do you want to go?” she asked me as the confessional door opened.
“You’ve been waiting the longest.”
“No!” I exclaimed. “No, that’s ok. I don’t mind waiting. Take your time.” She gave me a funny look, going into the confessional. I paced the wall, up and down, chewing on one of my cuticles and sucking at it when it started to bleed. I secretly hoped that girl ahead of me had a lot to confess. I didn’t know her very well-maybe she shoplifted, or maybe she was a compulsive liar, or maybe she did something really awful, like murdering babies in their sleep or…
Or maybe she just slept with her best friend’s dad.
The door opened and she came out. Definitely not a baby killer-she hadn’t spent anywhere near enough time in the box. She practically skipped past me, and I knew, if I could just manage to get the words out in the confessional, that I would feel lighter, too.
“Bless my father, for I have sinned…”
Boy, have I sinned.
The darkness was engulfing and I could hear the priest’s slow, even breathing through the screen. I knew it was probably Father Michael-he was the one who almost always took our confessions.
“My last confession was two weeks ago…” Two weeks. Had it only been two weeks?! I couldn’t believe the things that had happened since then-it felt like a lifetime.
“Go on.” It was Father Michael’s soft voice. I could picture him in his robe, gray-haired and nodding. I could hear the smile in his voice. That’s gonna change in just a minute, I thought with a grimace.
“Father, I’ve done… I’ve really done some terrible things…” I admitted, twisting my hands in my lap. “Mortal sins. Lots of them. Really bad ones.” There was a movement behind the screen, like he was sitting up straight in his chair. “Go on, my child.”
“I’ve… I’ve looked at dirty pictures, Father.” I decided to start at the beginning and work my way up.
“What do you mean?” His voice moved closer to the screen. “What kinds of dirty pictures?”
“Oh, Father.” I sighed. “All kinds. There were ones with men having sex with women in all sorts of ways, and ones with women having sex with other women…”
“How do you feel about looking at them, child?”
“I… guess… I feel guilty.”
“You don’t sound like you feel guilty.”
I sighed. He had me there. “Well… when I was looking at the pictures…
the things I saw made me feel… funny.”
“Funny… how?” He shifted in his seat again.
I blushed, glad for the darkness. “Between my legs, Father. Down there.” He didn’t respond, and I went on. “And it felt soooo good… I couldn’t help it, Father. I had to touch myself.”
“You touched yourself… down there?” His voice got even lower than the normal confessional tone.
“Yes,” I admitted with a sigh. “I looked at those pictures, and then we watched the videos…”
“Videos?” he inquired. “Who is we?”
“Oh…” I swallowed. “My best friend and me. We found the pictures and the movies under her dad’s bed.”
“She watched them with you?”
“Yes, Father,” I said. “That’s another thing… we… we touched each other, too.”
There was a long silence.
“Father?”
“Go on,” he urged, clearing his throat. “Tell me everything.”
“She had a vibrator,” I continued, feeling the heat in my face. “And she showed me… how to rub it against… how to masturbate… with it…”
“Is that all?”
“No.” I lifted my hands to my cheeks to cool them. “Not even close. Oh, Father, we were so bad…”
“How bad?” His voice seemed closer now.
“The first time, I just played with the vibrator, and then I watched her do it… and we both… we both had orgasms. Watching the videos, where all the people were having sex and touching each other and…” I gasped for breath, remembering it and feeling the heat from my cheeks spreading through my whole body. My nipples were hard and my pussy was tingling between my legs.
“Go on,” he insisted. “You should tell me everything.”
“Okay,” I agreed, closing my eyes. “The next day… we watched them again. This time there were two women who were licking each other in the movie.
Down there.”
Something like a soft moan came from behind the screen.
“And my friend… she said… she would lick me… down there,” I went on.
There was that moan again, and he whispered something, but I couldn’t hear it.
“So I let her, Father. I let her put her tongue between my legs and lick me and lick me… oh Father, it’s so bad, I know, but it felt so good!” I squeezed my thighs together, feeling that throbbing ache. The priest didn’t say anything, so I just kept talking.
“Then she asked if I would lick her. Oh Father, I knew it was wrong… but she wanted it so much, and I knew how good it would make her feel… I couldn’t help it. I licked her until she… she had an orgasm, too.” Father Michael took a deep breath. “Is that all?”
“Oh, no, Father!” I leaned back against the wall. “I forgot to tell you… about her dad.”
“Your friend’s dad?” I could hear the frown in his voice.