My God, what have I done?
What’s become of me that in my need for feeling the touch of another, I’ve looked to my own son? Why is he so ready to love me in ways that he shouldn’t and why am I so eager to allow it?
I’m not a sick woman, but it feels like an illness has taken over me, making me crave him in ways that I never did his father. He’s so willing to learn—so keen on making his mother happy, and it’s like a drug. A pill that I shouldn’t swallow, a tonic that should never cross my lips, and an ambrosia that was only meant for the gods.
And yet it’s here.
In my own home, under my roof, waiting for me on nights when I need it the most and can’t control my hunger for it any longer. I indulge in the euphoria of his moans and the way his hands feel when they explore my body.
I’m not worthy of this bliss and I’m not immune to the fact that what we’re doing is forbidden, but we love each other—even if in ways that a mother and son never should, and that has to mean something. The universe can see what we’ve become, and it has yet to strike us dead, and until that happens, I’ll do my best to savor every drop that I was never meant to taste.
As I sit on the edge of my bed, watching the sunset on another day that should never have been, I wonder if Luke understands this as I do. That we should never have been together, and that we’re not meant to live like this.
I wonder if he cares, but I know the boy. I knew him before he came into this world, when he was still growing inside of me. I felt his malcontent for humanity then and I can see it in his eyes when he watches people from the perch of his bedroom window walking down the street.
He cares for no one except for me. Not his father, his siblings, or any strangers that pass by his line of sight. I only hope that one day his love will grow—blossom into something that it should, and that he’ll be able to learn to love a stranger and give her his heart as he’s done to me.
Until that moment comes, he’s mine and even though I know in my heart it’s wrong, I’ll keep him close by when I need to feel the gentle caress of true love.
A tear rolls down my cheek as I hold the veil of my old habit in my hands. It seems like a lifetime ago that I was a nun, and even though I have a good life now, there are days when I find myself longing for the simplicity of poverty and chastity again.
The man that changed my life came to me for guidance one night in the wake of a terrible argument with his then-wife. It wasn’t my place to be his spiritual leader that night, but Father Moore had already gone to the rectory for the evening and he was so distraught that I didn’t have it in my heart to turn him away.
I listened to his confession and I absolved him as much as I could. We became friends after that. He knew that I didn’t have the authority to forgive him, but my willingness to try and ease the anguish in his soul was enough to make him a frequent visitor to the church after hours.
The last time he came to me as someone seeking counsel, he brought his wife with him in a last-ditch effort to repair what little hope there was left in the marriage.
I sat in the dimly lit chapel and listened to them for hours, wondering how it is that I let this charade go on as far as I had. If Father Moore ever found out about what I had been doing—the counseling of the broken, he would have had me excommunicated from the Church.
He never got the chance, though.
The man returned two nights after his wife left him, after I failed them, and I felt the sting of shame when he revealed it to me. He promised me it was for the best and assured me that my friendship was valued.
It wasn’t until a month after that visit that I saw him again. He attended services one Sunday morning, then when the congregation was emptying, he asked me to accompany him for brunch. I tried desperately to decline because there was something about the way he made me feel, but he managed to convince me that it was just a meal shared between two friends.
Father Moore gave me permission and strict instructions on how to handle myself for the day in the company of a man not of the cloth, and I did as he told me to.
I tried so much to remember my teachings, the instructions from my parish priest, and even the vows I made, but when he smiled at me and placed his hand on top of mine to cool my nerves, the woman inside of me came to the surface and I lost sight of who I had become.
All it took was as simple touch to render me useless.
Nothing happened that day between us, yet when I got back to the convent, I dropped to my knees and begged for forgiveness because I had lost myself in the moment of feeling his skin against mine. I cried myself to sleep that night and did not attend services the next day.
I didn’t think I was worthy enough to show my face in such a place of Holiness, and yet when he came calling again seven days after our first brunch, I slipped out of the convent without letting my sisters or Father Moore know where I was going.
It happened that way every seven days for two months until he finally broke down and confessed to me.
He told me he thought of me in ways that he shouldn’t, that he wanted to know what it was like to feel my hands on his body, and how he longed for the gentle heat of my lips against his.
When I told him that it’s something that could never be, he looked at me with shattered eyes, but agreed to take me home.
I just didn’t know that he meant his home and not the convent.
I grip the cloth tighter in my hand, balling up the material as the memories continue to flood back to me. Another tear falls and as I wipe it away angrily, I let my thoughts continue as they were.
He pulled up in front of a two-story, split-level ranch style home and turned his car off. At first, he kept his hands on the steering wheel before finally running a hand back through his hair and giving me a hopeful glance.
“Just once—no one will ever have to know,” he had begged me. “You’ve made me feel so much more like a man than that bitch ever did and I just want to repay the favor.”
“I’ll pray with you, but nothing more,” I had repli