Sister Hillie looked at Sister Lena, who looked confused and worried, her youthful brow furrowed even as she registered Father Daniel's words.<br/><br/>"Father, I would speak to you in private," said Hillie without preamble or greeting. "This cannot, must not wait."<br/><br/>She was keenly aware of the stares of the three sisters Father Daniel had gathered around him, and even more so of his accusing glare with which he fixed her.<br/><br/>"You! You brought this, this is your corruption. Fucking the father wasn't enough, you want the son too, you wanted to defile the church with your female poison like Eve defiled Paradise before she was cast out?" The venom dripping from his voice was no match for the vicious words. Words which he unforgivably said before witnesses. The seal of confession broken... Never in all her life had she heard of such a thing even happening. Priests having sex, priests fucking nuns, yes, but a breach of the seal of confession... never. It meant excommunication from the church for the priest. Horror stricken the other sisters quickly rose and backed away from the two of them, Sister Lena, pale as a sheet with the implications.  The women hurried out of the common room with it's altar and closed the door behind them.<br/><br/>Sister Hildegard felt cold and hot at the same time and dizzy. Hot and heavy from inside she felt a flow of her blood leave her body and a cramp so severe she thought she would faint, she barely had time to sink down onto a chair. It was several moments before she could speak.<br/><br/>"Father Daniel, aside the fact that you just broke the seal of confession before three witnesses...."<br/><br/>"Everyone in this town knows you are the town whore, Maria, everyone, we all know you spread your legs for everyone." he spat.<br/><br/><i>except you, </i>Daniel, she thought,<i>you tried but couldn't get it up, remember? You accepted a few days later that you were gay after all, and Mike's cock up your tight pucker made you scream in pain and pleasure, as neither of you had a bean worth of sense to do it right, virgins the both of you. </i>Daniel had never forgiven her for that. He had thought if he just fucked her, he'd fuck the gay away...cure himself in her creamed cunt.<br/><br/>How a small town had the ability to resurrect the sordid underbelly of its life, time and again, she thought. What else will they discover?<br/><br/>doggedly she continued...."all I want to talk about is Pelle, the rest we can tend to later, right now, and you know it... there is something going on with him. Not me! You felt it too!"  The shame and anger roiling through her competed with her desperation to get him to help Pelle.<br/><br/>"Father, something odd is going on with Pelle, you know it! I saw it in your eyes yesterday when you touched him." She remembered the man's expression which appeared as a mixture of fear, anger, guilt, and desire, as he looked at Pelle's exposed skin. "I know you don't like parishioners asking for confession and absolution outside of schedule, but could you make an exception? What manipulated me yesterday, that wasn't Pelle. That was not the boy I've seen for almost eighteen years.<br/><br/>"Father, the dreams, what dreams did you have last night? Not ones you could ever reveal, is it not so?!" She looked at his face, searched for a sign, and got it. His pupils widened momentarily and then his eyes screwed firmly shut. "He was there, wasn't he? In your dreams. There is something but I think it is in Pelle, and I know not how it got in there. He needs you, he needs us and most of all he needs God's grace. Help him." She grabbed for his wrist and held on like a drowning woman. Clenching her eyes  shut unbidden came the memories of Joe's final taking of her body. How could a memory almost twenty years old have been so clear? And how could Pelle have know about it?  The leering grin in that boy's face, his oddly colored eyes looking not just at her but into her stripping her down to her very bones? She had held him in her arms hundreds of times, but yesterday felt different. Felt wrong, and deformed, and yet she wanted it again. Wanted to feel his hands unbutton her blouse and reach in to scoop out her breasts. With a gasp she let go of Father Daniel's wrist seeing the white marks of her hands in his flesh, and whispered an apology.<br/><br/>"Oh may the saints intercede for us and give us strength," she whispered fervently when a long and savage cramp doubled her over and she waited for it to pass even as she felt the familiar hot rush of blood slide out of her depths, and she rose as soon as she was able. "Please send me a text if you will see Pelle for confession Father Daniel, excuse me please." and she hurried off to her room and her bathroom.<br/><br/>In her room her cellphone pinged with a text. It was from Sylvia.<br/><br/><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'">Maria, call me right away. - Sylvia.</span>