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Galatians 5:24 : Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
His dreams had become more disturbing, as of late. Ever since the failed exorcism and his first meeting with Hilda Hurricane, the images that played behind his eyelids at night had turned into nightmares of the young woman and the temptation she represented. Her dark hair, her blue-grey eyes that pierced into his soul. The alluring slope of her shoulders, the elegant, inviting curve of her neck. Malthus tried very hard to keep these images at bay, and during the day, he mostly succeeded. The night told a different story.
Getting into bed for the evening, he felt a now familiar itch at the base of his stomach, a heat that begged to be quelled.
His mind wandered without the day's work to concentrate on. He thought about what it would be like if he were not a friar but instead a normal man, free to pursue his pleasures. Would he be one of those in line at the Hotel Marvelous, waiting for those coveted two minutes alone with Hilda Hurricane?
No—the only time he'd been there, openly, was during the night of the storm and the failed exorcism. He had been woefully unprepared to meet her. He hadn't even been aware of just how unequipped he had been to face her. He had underestimated her and overestimated himself. That night, for the first time, he knew what it was like to be faced with true temptation. She had the face of an angel with the devil inside her and a body that, because of her tight dress and the rain, he had seen and realized that God had carved her to perfection. Even his occasional glimpses of paintings of Eve, covered only by her hair, were nothing compared to Hilda in front of him.
Her black dress and her defiant, deviant nature reminded him not of Eve, but of Lilith, Adam's first wife. She appeared not in the Bible, but in Jewish mythology, which he had read about from a book in the library. Even reading these academic texts, he had once felt some degree of shame at his fascination with Lilith's story, the primordial demoness who had been banished from Paradise for refusing to submit to her husband. She was a witch, a seductress that led men into sin.
These thoughts were sure to become unholy. Malthus forcibly wrung them from his mind and turned over to lie on his side, wrapping the blanket over him. He closed his eyes and after some time, fell into a restless sleep.
His eyes flew open and he saw that he was in the chapel at the convent. It was the dead of night, and he was alone with—
“Do you really believe that I am Satan?” Hilda Hurricane purred in his ear. She was dressed in the same dress she had worn during the night of the ill-fated exorcism, the black strapless one that clung to her body, especially when it started raining. Inexplicably, her skin was just as wet now, as if she had come in from a storm, but she seemed unbothered.
“Tell me, Santo,” she said, the title coming out like a hiss. “Do you think that Satan is in me?”
Malthus was dressed in his cassock, as usual. He stared into her grey eyes and, just like that night, found himself at a loss for words.
“I—”
She was in front of him, standing very close. They were in front of the pews. He had to look down to meet her eyes, cold and blazing at the same time as she stared up at him, challenging. He swallowed, his lips parting involuntarily. This time, he had no cross to brandish, and only when he bumped into it did he realize that Hilda had backed him up against the altar.
“Show me, Santo,” she whispered. “Just how you want to exorcise me.”
Her words were mocking him, but she still pressed closer. The scent of lilies emanated from her hair, her skin chilly from the rain. She was so close, he could count every drop of water clinging to her eyelashes and the freckles sprayed liberally over her shoulders. Just like that night, she glared up at him angrily, defiantly, a fire in her gaze. It matched the sensation currently clawing up his spine as he watched her chest heaving with passion, the gooseflesh raised by the rainwater on her skin. But unlike the night of the exorcism, nobody was here to see them. Instead of the steps of the Hotel Marvelous, they were in the church.
Even then, her hand brushed against the front of his cassock, and suddenly, it felt as though the heavens had opened above him, because he too was now soaked with rain, like her. This was a dream, he realized, but as soon as the thought passed through his mind it slipped away like water.
His wet hair covered his eyes and he pushed it back from his forehead. The altar's hard surface pressed into his back.
“You keep tempting me,” he said, his voice a low rasp, “even here.”
“Aren't you a Saint?” she said. Her voice curled around the words, as if whispering them to a lover. “You say that the Devil is in me.” She pressed against him, her eyes pinning him in place. “So purify me. Perform your miracle.”
It was too much, her closeness, her scent, the low whisper of her voice taunting him. Without the cross, there was nothing with which to occupy his hands, so he took her by the waist, moving them so she would be the one pinned against the side of the altar, not him. She gasped as her hips pressed into the wood.
“You are a sinner,” he said, “deceived by the devil, tempting a man of God!”
“Is this how a saint behaves?” she asked. Despite her anger, her narrowed eyes, she tilted her chin up towards him. With their height difference, she had to look up quite far. “Show me, then! This miracle you claim—”
He never found out what he was supposed to claim, because he grabbed her by the arms and crushed their lips together. The kiss was not gentle; their teeth collided, her words lost in the clash of mouths. His fingers dug into her arms. She could have pushed him away, slapped him, but instead she made a noise against his lips and reached up to pull at his hair, to pull him closer to her. Down, where she was leaning against the altar.
The dream was at once both vivid and hazy. Malthus had no idea what kissing or touching like this felt like, but his subconscious mind supplied with great clarity: Hilda, her stormy eyes bright with passion, the way her brows scrunched together when she got upset. The sight of her black dress, soaking wet and clinging to her body. The scent of Muguet du Bonheur filled his senses.
“You are a temptress,” he gasped, in a moment that they pulled apart. “Satan is in you—”
“So cast him out,” she said, her hand still tangled in his hair, the other on his chest, grasping the wet fabric of his cassock.
“I will!” he insisted. “You will be my miracle.”
And again he kissed her. It incensed him to remember what she was now doing for a living, leading men astray with her Godless occupation. She could not, would not continue in that place. Not when she was his miracle. Not when she was his to save.
She pulled him in, her hands grasping onto him, exploring his body through holy cloth ruined by the rainstorm. The heat was building up between them and he found his own hands on her, holding her waist, her hips. She was so petite compared to him, and he had to bend down to meet her lips. Even so, the whole length of her body was pressed against his. He needed her closer, to let the miracle become as real and apparent to her as it was to him. The miracle that he so desperately needed to happen, to purify her flesh and drive the devil from her body. With a firm grip under her thighs, he lifted her up to place her on the altar.
She tugged him closer as soon as she was seated, her knees parting to accommodate him. The hem of her dress rose up and she didn't have her shoes on, which made her seem more vulnerable, somehow. Like this, it was easier to kiss. He knew it was a dream because the thought of desecrating the altar was only a fleeting one; he would never dare to do or even think of such a thing in the waking world. Even with that awareness, he didn't want to wake up from this.
He descended from her lips to leave kisses on her neck, drawing soft gasps from her. He let his teeth scrape her, and her voice became louder.
“Santo—”
“Leave your life of sin,” he murmured against her skin. “You can still be forgiven.”
“Is this my penance then?” she whispered breathlessly. “To be taken by you? I've had worse—”
He bit down on her neck. She moaned, her knees squeezing his hips, her hand pulling at his cassock. Disliking how the wet cloth weighed him down, he took off his scapular and the long tunic, leaving him in his shirt and pants. Hilda reached for the buttons on his shirt, and he let her open them before taking that off as well. He couldn't remember the last time he had undressed besides bathing and changing his clothes, and never in front of another person, but in the privacy of his dreams he seemed to have lost all his inhibitions. The beads of his rosary clattered as they fell from his waist to land on his clothes.
His hands skimmed her hips, then pulled the skirt of her dress up higher. He could only imagine what she looked like under the fabric—long legs leading up to her hips, her waist, her breasts; miles and miles of soft, smooth skin. Would the rest of her be freckled like her shoulders were? Her blue eyes, normally so clear, were dark as she looked at him. There were small red marks on her neck, soon to bloom into purple bruises, and he felt his blood thrum in his veins at the sight of his marks on her.
“Don't stop,” dream-Hilda said. She would never say this to him in real life, especially not with her legs bracketing his waist, his arms on either side of her as he leaned over her. She stroked his neck, up to his jaw, and traced her fingertips across his lips.
“I want to see how the Saint will make a devoted woman of me.”
She kept goading him like this. Hilda lay on the altar, arching her back as if offering herself to him. The truth was that he had only the most basic knowledge of the act of procreation, and even in a dream, he could not fully imagine it. But Hilda's body, her touch, even her teasing and provocation served well to ignite his passion; a blazing need to take her, to claim her as his long awaited miracle.
With her laying down, she was a little too far from the edge. Holding her hips, he tugged her closer to him, dragging her a few inches down the altar with a gasp. Their lips met again, her legs pulling him close, and he pressed his hips against her, rutting into the warmth between her thighs. Even this imagined touch was driving him mad, the heat and tension building up. He had no idea what he was doing, but he wanted—no, needed to feel her.
As if she'd read his mind, she reached down to pull the belt from his pants, opening them and exposing him. With a squeeze of her waist, he rubbed against her. They kissed again, rocked their hips together, and then they were united.
Everything was still hidden under her dress, but his body seemed to move of its own accord, on pure instinct, inside of her. Her moans and sighs of pleasure were the choral hymn of their union, the altar the site of their sanctification. He could make her his miracle, he could feel it, if he managed to touch her heart, and in that way she would grant him his promised sainthood. But first they needed this, the immaculate pleasure of their joining, as a man and woman were meant to do.
They may have been in the church, with Hilda spread out on the altar beneath him, but holiness and virtue were the farthest things from his mind. There was only the great animal need that passed between them, the most repressed of their instincts surfacing to drown out all notions of religion, of propriety. They gasped and shivered as he buried himself in her, over and over, on top of the altar. She cried out and he clasped her hand, their fingers twining as the tempo of their movements rose into a crescendo and the very last shreds of his composure shattered into climax.
None but God would witness this most sacrosanct of couplings, the sweetest of sins, laid out on His altar and offered to Him.
Malthus woke up with a pounding heart and the strangest buzzing sensation in his head. His skin was damp with sweat, even though the night was cool. He hadn't slept much, and what he had gotten had been restless. Even then, he was bone tired, more than lying in bed would have warranted.
But that dream—
He pulled himself off of his mattress and peeled the blanket off of him. He had—while dreaming of Hilda in the most depraved, blasphemous way—
He burned with shame, but it was nothing compared to how he would burn in hell. He hurriedly stripped the bed and changed his clothes, bundling them up to wash them himself. He could not endure the humiliation of anyone knowing what he had done, finishing against his mattress in his sleep like a teenage boy. He was supposed to be a priest and a Saint; how could his body and his unconscious mind betray him this way?
The tears slipped down his cheeks. There was a sweet kind of numbness in his body, but it was overtaken by the fear and anxiety gripping his heart. It was a despicable feeling to be reminded of just how fallible this mortal, organic body of his truly was. Even imagined pleasure from within a dream could drive it to such profanity, and in such a sacrilegious manner. On the altar in the church—? What was he thinking?
This was not to be borne. He could not allow himself to fail like this again. He took the mattress off and folded it, placing it beneath the bed frame before laying down on the bare wood. Perhaps if he denied himself the comfort of a soft bed, he would no longer be so tempted. He stared up at the plain ceiling in his bedroom in the convent, thinking he had yet another sin he had to hide.