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“Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.”
“Do you not feel the need to do the sign of the cross, my son?”
“No, father. I do not.”
Steven stills. He breathes deeply, rests his joined hands on his knees. “Very well. When was your last confession?”
A throaty laugh. Choked, perhaps. “Five years, I think. I have quite a few stories for you.”
Steven nods. “Though God is the one who listens. I am merely the messenger.”
A rustle of fabric. “Right. Yes.”
“Proceed.”
The stranger sits back. His breathing is soft, his limbs awkwardly placed in the small cubicle. He falls silent for a long minute. “How do you feel about love, father?”
Steven frowns momentarily, swipes a finger over his forehead to smooth it out. He curls his hands tighter against one another, willing peaceful guidance to tumble out of his mouth, wondering which kind of love he should be discussing. “I believe God has granted us with such gift. One he has created and handed to us. His love is what makes us live.”
“You speak beautiful words.”
“Thank you, son. Do you believe in them?”
“I do not, father.”
Steven quiets the flame that has ignited. “Do you believe in God?”
“Not since I stopped.”
Steven nods. “Tell me why you came here, then.”
Louder laughter. Shattered, noticeably. “Oh, father. I may not believe, but I may also be wrong. I know I have sinned. I am asking for your forgiveness.”
“And why have you sinned?”
“I didn’t love properly.”
Steven feels uncomfortable. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I love the wrong person. Wrong. Very wrong, father.”
“Wrong is fixable son. Tell me, are they blood-related?”
“No, God no-“ (Steven smiles.) “Father, I have lied with men.”
Steven schools himself before- “I see.” There are noises outside. The birds chirp sharply. “I am afraid that is, in fact, for us, a sin. Are you looking for redemption?”
“Not sure, father.”
“What then, son?”
Steven can hear the smile. His limbs aren’t so awkward anymore. His breathing grows more labored. “Father, I have sinned. But I am most happy and proud of such, I must say.”
(Steven wants to leave.) “A sin is not written. It is, simply, what you feel. You may come back when you feel.”
There is a moment of simple quiet. The stranger opens the door and, as an afterthought, adds, “That is the problem, father. I feel.”
Steven hears the sound of footsteps growing weaker. His stomach churns. He says his prayers and leaves.
-
“Let us not talk about sins. I only wish to talk about love, today.”
Steven sighs. “This is a confessionary. Unfortunately, casual conversation is not to be had, here.”
“It is by conversing that you, in God’s name, forgive, is it not?”
“It is, but-“
“Then indulge me, father.” There is a smile, he’s sure. “Tell me. Are you allowed to love?”
Steven rests against the solid wooden wall behind him. He joins his hands and closes his eyes. “We are not, no.”
“So, you tell me loving a man is a sin.”
“Yes.”
“But you have never loved.”
“Not in the way you speak of.”and, softer “I love God.”
There is a chuckle. Steven is not irritated by it, but it twists his insides with discomfort. “Father. How can you speak of love for a mortal, for another beating, living heart, when you have never felt it, yourself?”
Steven’s hands tighten against each other. “I speak of what God has taught me.” The stranger hums. Steven thinks about leaving, again. “What is your intent, son?”
“To understand, of course.”
“I am hardly the subject here.”
“I never said you were. But maybe if I understand, I will understand God.” his voice is hushed, and yet strong. “Maybe, if I understand, I will make sense of how he punishes something so good, so pure, so noble, father, as love.”
“He does not punish love,” Steven feels like he’s repeating himself. He sits up straight. “Son, God punishes those who do not obey. You have not obeyed.”
The silence stretches this time. The stranger stays. “I know that. Will he still love me if I never do?”
“I thought you didn’t believe in Him.”
“I don’t,” and, gentler, “It’s just nice to be loved.”
Steven (pretends like he) understands.
-
The stranger doesn’t come for a week. Steven is (secretly) relieved. The church is empty, surrounded by marble walls and grand, graceful paintings. He never says a word, but Steven believes them to be futile. God is, after all, the simplest thing he has ever come across.
There is a creek. A door opens, closes. Steven follows.
“I was in a catholic school, did you know?”
“You never told me,” Steven answers, sitting and adjusting himself into the confined space.
“You’re right. But I was. Up until I was twelve, all I wanted to do was to be a priest.”
Steven runs a hand through his face. “What changed, son?”
“I couldn’t let go of the joys in life for God. And the fact he wanted us to, it-“ Steven doesn’t breathe. “I asked myself: How can the epitome of perfection rob others of happiness? And you may answer, father, that he does not rob, and that he does not take. But to never experience what you never do, father, I believe that is a sin in itself.”
Steven doesn’t remember when he breathes again. He should say something along the lines of, Do you only intend to hurt the Church, or, Do you only wish to offend our beliefs?, but he doesn’t. Instead, he asks: “And how do you propose I get rid of such a sin?”
There is a fleeting moment of surprise. The strangers asks, “Well, was there never a time where you didn’t want this life? Was there never a time where you didn’t praise God?”
“Not that I can remember, no.”
There are sounds of clanking glass and trays, discreet exchanges of commands. The stranger leans in, slowly, and then, in a parody of the forbidden, lowers his voice and sings “Now, now, father. It is a sin to lie.”
(Steven is 13. He recalls this vividly:
“I brought this for you,” shyly, he extends the flower to the blonde in front of him. She smiles widely, even if the flower is small with white petals and not much else.
“Thank you, Steven,” the giddiness thick and beautiful in her voice, an innocence so pure it was hard to shake (but it shook him). She kisses his cheek and he blushes profusely, feels like tucking her in under his arms and never ever stop looking at her.
“Steven! Alexandria!” their teacher is behind them, her voice stern, her long dark hair covered by an even longer piece of fabric. “What is this?”
Steven stumbles over his words (feels like he’s done something wrong) “I, I was just-“
“You were nothing.” Her jaw is clenched, her tone serious. “Alexandria, come with me,” she grabs the little girl’s hand and she follows, her bright eyes looking back as if apologizing (for what, he’s not sure).
Steven picks up the flower, now bended in half, two of the petals ripped off, and lets it go on the nearby grass. He doesn’t see Alex again.)
-
Steven leaves the church early that day. He puts on a wool coat and wraps a scarf around his neck and gets ready to face the snow outside (but, he reasons, it’s worth it). He has a gripping sensation on his stomach, like maybe he’s running or walking away or leaving something behind. He grabs his gloves and goes.
The snow is manageable. He walks in silence, enjoying a street filled with nothing more than white and peace. He wonders about God. Not questioning- no, God, no- but maybe a little unsure of his path. He knows he is content, accomplished. He also knows he could be more (content, accomplished, (loved)?). He has thought of this, before. Yet, he has always believed one has a certain part in life in general, and he has never doubted this to be his. He is a man of God. In return, He accepts him as such. Steven smiles. The cold is the only thing freezing him on the inside.
He is absorbed in his adoration of purity when his shoulder touches something quite harder than melted specs of frozen water (maybe). The contact lasts for about a second and a quarter and Steven turns, watches a man’s eyes gradually turn apologetic, a hazel turning into a deep brown (Steven loves (adores) colors). “Sorry.” Is what he offers. A tilt of the head. A small smile. Then the man continues walking, his hands buried in his coat pockets and his head curved in the direction of the winter sun.
Steven’s feet feel too cold to walk. The man is tall, his stance proper and collected. His footsteps are perfectly measured, as if by a ruler, a tape of some sort. The man doesn’t look back. Steven recognizes the melody of the voice, honey and dense and heavy, embellished by the barest and richest of words.
Steven walks the rest of the way home, and the man walks the rest of the way to the church. They crossed in a rare intersection of time and space and will never unwillingly do so again.
Steven doesn’t think about church until the following day. The stranger leaves a few minutes after he enters, an irregularity to his step and a smile that lingers on his lips.
-
“You are not after forgiveness, nor redemption, nor do you regret. What do you want?”
“Many things.”
“We cannot give you such things.”
“Oh, you could.” Steven’s hands join. A pattern. “Can I tell you a story, father?”
Steven files it under a calculated risk. “As you wish.” (he prays)
“There was once a little boy. Little, barely over three feet. Every night, a stranger would pass by him in the hall and pat his head, a grin and a wink and easiness to his pace. The little boy would simply smile back, and ask about his father. Later, his mother would kiss his hair, a strong fragrance down her neck, whisper go to sleep, dad will be here in the morning. The stranger would walk past and say nothing, and the front door would close.” His fingers tapped regularly against his knee. A beat. “Do you understand, father?”
“I don’t.”
“The little boy didn’t, either. One day, he asked his own father who the stranger with the short hair and amber eyes was. That night, there were shouts. Yells. The little boy didn’t sleep at all, and his mother left the house in the morning. She stopped by his door to kiss his head for the last time.”
Steven nods slowly. He asks, “Were you the little boy?”
His laughter is toxic, scrapped and a little torn at the end. “Hell, no. I was the stranger.”
-
His knees ache (he’s spent far too long in the chapel). He lowers his head and imagines he’s somewhere else, somewhere closer to the paradisiac scenery so blissfully described in the book he carries everywhere, somewhere with no temptation or greed or evil, just. He imagines, and he wishes.
The bench behind him creaks with the weight of a body. Steven doesn’t need to turn, feels the air surrounding him growing thinner, as if a simple presence could start a mutiny.
“Be at peace, father. I did not come in to confess.” Steven’s shoulders tense. He doesn’t know if he’s glad (he doesn’t know what comes after). “In fact, let us consider ourselves somewhere else. Somewhere paradisiac. Somewhere in the Bible, perhaps. Remote and peaceful, a field, a plantation. You are no priest and I am no sinner.”
“You are a sinner.”
“And you are a priest. Now, we are not. Say it, then.”
“Say what?”
The stranger leans forward. Steven decides he doesn’t want to turn back. “Tell me how you think I’m disgusting. Tell me how you think I’m a filthy piece of scum that is occupying an unearned place on this earth full of kind and great men. Tell me how, if you could, you would throw me out of this church, because I am not worthy of any sort of salvation. Tell me how much you despise me. Go on. God isn’t looking.”
“God,” Steven’s voice trembles, “God is always looking.”
“Not always,” the stranger replies, taps his finger against the bench (his pattern). “Not now.”
“Always. Don’t try to corrupt me.”
“I would never.”
“You are.”
“There is no one here.”
Steven turns his head halfway. He doesn’t move. “My actions are not validated by others. They are done so by God alone. I do not wish to judge you. I will not.”
“But you think,” a whisper, mocking, taunting, “And if you think, is it not the same as to say? We sometimes say things we don’t think, and then think things we don’t say. They still exist. They are still there. We apologize for words and thoughts, do we not?” Steven doesn’t want to see the grin plastered across the face of evil. “Father, you already think. You might as well speak.”
There are chills running down his curved spine. Steven wonders if faith can be taken away, and if so, if it can be done as punishment. His belief doesn’t escape, but he feels it spill through his fingers (his hands bruise). “You are an abomination. A disgrace.”
“Yes.”
“God loves everyone, but you the least.”
“Yes.”
“He forgives, but you laugh in the face of power because you think you have it. You don’t have any. God will not forgive you, never you. He does not forgive those who only do wrong, and you, you are wrong.”
Steven feels like he’s gone back in time, feels like he’s 11 tricking his mother into thinking he did his homework, maybe 15 and convincing the church he’s confessed every sin, maybe even 23 and telling himself he doesn’t judge those who trust 4 wooden walls willingly (he does).
“Yes. Good, father.” The stranger sits back, a pleased quality to his voice (a victory). “Regret will inevitably fill you and weight down your bones, maybe even drag you to God’s precious, precious feet. Of course, I believe you were meant to do this. I believe you did the right thing. The man up there, doesn’t.”
The stranger stands. Coldly, with no such thing as feeling or purpose or love, his hand touches Steven’s shoulder (too warm to be cold), and he leaves.
(I’ve got you now. I’ve slithered under your skin- I never said I wasn’t a snake.)
-
Steven confesses every night for the next week. He’s too ashamed to do it aloud so he merely thinks, even though it’s been proven that his thoughts only do him harm. He rambles quietly about cravings and pressure and how he’s always been immune but there’s something about a voice that gets to him. I don’t understand, he thinks, and I always understood you. Why would you send him to me? Do you trust I can save him?
He never gets an answer but he likes to think he does. Steven sits in a bench outside the church after he asks Peter do take over the mass. “Are you feeling alright, Steven?” he’d asked him, blue eyes clear and deadly sincere. Steven wants to match them but can’t (not because of color), and he looks up at the cross, says “Yes. I am.”
He looks at the dusty white ground and waits (doesn’t quite know for what, doesn’t know if he’s even going to move or crack). He knows this is right and it’s something he grasps onto like it’s a rope that’s rescuing and tearing at his skin at the same time. He thumbs the lines gracing his palm and counts the paths he could have chosen that wouldn’t have led him here. He doesn’t regret, but doesn’t stop thinking. It’s not regret, but rather something like nerves and panic blended with an opaquely filled fear that takes over when the space beside him screeches under someone’s weight (it sounds like death to him).
“You confuse me,” he speaks first because he needs to. He’s always a priest but maybe God needs him to be something else, now, and he’s never been selfish (other things, definitely. Never selfish). “You presented yourself as a man in pain but really, you’re just out for causing others pain. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Yes, father.” And it’s so real now, so there. “A sadist, I think you call it. Though emotional pain is far more rewarding than anything I’ve ever tasted.” His tongue slides over his lips and a smile climbs its way up to his eyes but Steven is blind. He forces himself to only see white.
“You-“ Steven chokes, fists his hand. “I believe. I believe I can save you. Tell me you’re not trying to hurt me.”
The stranger frowns, and Steven catches it, but he’s not looking- not looking- “Do you not see, father?” his mouth is barely opening, the words languid and dragging, and Steven’s heart is pumping enough blood for the white to stain. “My goal has never been to hurt you. I’m trying to save you.”
Steven’s palms sweat. He brings them together and thinks of God, pictures something that’s fading from his mind at a quickening pace. “I am safe. I’m not like you.”
“But you want to,” the stranger’s voice grows devilishly wicked and his grin is hearable. “Ah, I know you do. That’s why I came.” and “Look.”
“No.”
“Look,” a cooing command, alluring, enticing, Steven is lost. Steven is.
Steven turns his head and feels something breaking, somewhere (a goodbye seems appropriate). The single motion should snap his neck in two, he decides, realizes he’s not on the right track anymore. There are two seconds of blurriness and then-
Cheekbones are high and sharp. His eyes speak of nothing but good, and then, deeper, anything but. His lips thin and quirked up and Steven knows they have committed sin. He’s clean shaven and there are flesh-colored spots near his nose, up the bridge of it, his hair just as brown as his look. Steven stares and sees delicacy, but the smile widens and he sees an abyss, and in his mind he grabs at the cross in his pocket and prays and prays and prays and prays until he can’t speak anymore. But that doesn’t leave his mind. The stranger is beautiful.
“You can call me Alonso,” he says, his voice controlled and flowing perfectly. Steven thinks he may measure it the same way he measures his steps, and his sins, too. “Nice to put a face to the sinner?”
“I-“
“No,” he interrupts, light and easy, and turns to the sun. “You will listen. This can’t last long because we only remember what doesn’t last. You will think and you will crave, and you will be human like the rest of us.” You’re no human- “You will love, father. So hard and so deep you’ll feel yourself crawling under the weight of it. You’ll realize God is nothing but an illusion.”
Steven is shaking his head, a little desperate and somewhat crawling already, “Please-“
“You look at me and you see everything, don’t you?” he looks down and smiles, doesn’t look at Steven, a sight taken out of a movie that doesn’t answer your questions and makes you fall in love. “You see what you could have done. You see happiness and fulfilment and I don’t blame you, because I worked hard to be a sinner, and I worked hard to deserve it. We are men of God, but you have the wrong one. Listen to me- sins are life, and so is love. Touch it, feel it-“ The stranger grabs his hand and Steven feels like screaming- his grip is a vice and Steven can’t let go- “Let it. Live it.”
“I’m not-“
“You are, though.” And his teeth there, bared and brutal, his lips stretched and raw, his smile the most gorgeous thing he’s seen, and Steven thinks he must know, he must know, he has to know. Steven thinks his mind has betrayed him and his every thought and fantasy and memory and recollection have spilled into this man’s hands just so he could pick him apart and enjoy it, just so Steven could be given a taste and then be pulled back into obligation. Steven shakes. “I can see it in your eyes,” his tone lowers, hoarser. “Beautiful eyes.”
Steven shakes harder, doesn’t say please again. He sees what he’s missed and he knows. Knows that in another life and in another time and in another path he could have been what’s standing in front of him, maybe even worse, even better- Steven’s hands are loose and eager to claw at a possible future, at a possible addiction. Steven looks and loves and knows what it is, somehow, knows.
“Yes,” Alonso whispers, nods slightly, lids falling closed. “Oh, father. Am I forgiven?”
Steven feels the pleasure of pain all the way down his spine and into his bones. He freezes, stills, stops. Breathes. “Yes. Say your prays and leave.”
He says I love God and does.
-
Steven leaves his bible behind on the way out. Peter looks at him once before re-starting to polish the glass and Steven wonders how many times he’s had to see this. The cold hair hits his face like a slap and he feels- feels- alive.
He never has children and he never marries. He prays out of habit now, and not faith, because he reasons that those who pray carelessly can live carelessly, too. He doesn’t, but he could, and that’s the core of it. He can.
He looks up at the sky often, questions the kind of God he has now. He never sees the stranger again so he thinks maybe he has all the protection he needs- or maybe none.
(One chilly night in May, Steven lies next to a warm body. He doesn’t think of Heaven or Hell, but rather Purgatory, and how lives are meant to be lived and not rotten. Steven learns to live off of impulse and a pair of brown eyes. Not much else.)