Forgive Me, Father, For I Have Sinned

Journal of Father Claude Neuville - August 12th, year of our Lord [REDACTED]

I am fifty-nine years old, parish priest of Sainte-Célestine-des-Anges for the last thirty-five years. I have heard every kind of confession this city can produce. The longer I serve, the more I realize that I know nothing about the human soul.

It began as any other summer Saturday - except this one followed the grand annual festival that had filled the city the day before. Warm golden light poured through the stained-glass windows, the faint scent of beeswax and lilies lingered in the air, but only a handful of the faithful were scattered among the pews. Most of the parishioners were still recovering from the previous night's revelry, sleeping off wine and late hours, or had already left for the countryside to spend the rest of the weekend away from the crowds.

I had just finished hearing the confessions of two elderly widows when I heard the deliberate click of high heels on the stone floor.

She entered alone.

A young woman, perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three, stepped through the main doors. Her fair skin stood out sharply against the black habit - except it was no habit I had ever seen on a daughter of the Church. The veil was correct, white and modest, but beneath it her black hair was cut in a sharp bob that framed a refined face - one with an expression far too knowing for any novice. Golden eyes, unnatural, luminous, like those of a cat watching from the dark, met mine for a second before sliding away with faint amusement.

But the rest... She wore a long black dress with golden trim, yet the sleeves were wide and theatrical, her hands sheathed in white gloves; the neckline plunged shamelessly, and the side slits rose so high that the entire length of her thighs, clad in thigh-high white stockings, was exposed. It was painfully obvious she wore nothing underneath. A golden cross rested in the hollow between her breasts, rising and falling with each breath. Tall black heels completed that blasphemous image.

She walked the entire length of the nave as though she owned it, hips swaying just enough to make the fabric shift mesmerizingly with every step. She reached the altar rail, sank to her knees with theatrical grace, clasped her hands, and looked up at the crucifix.

Her voice was clear, amused, and loud enough for the empty pews to carry it perfectly.

"I'm sorry, Daddy, I've been a bad girl..."

A pause. A tiny smile.

"Oh, I mean... Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."

The old women gasped and crossed themselves so hard I heard rosary beads clatter. Heat rose in my face. I have faced drunken tourists, shouting teenagers, even the occasional satanist who thought sacrilege was original, but this - this was something else. I crossed the sanctuary in six strides.

"This is a house of God," I said, hearing my own voice shake with anger I rarely permit myself. "Show respect or leave at once."

She tilted her head, those strange yellow eyes wide with feigned innocence. "But don't you want to hear my confession, Father?"

"Leave. Now."

She rose slowly, shrugged with infuriating elegance, and said, still smiling, "I am cast out from the heavens to the ground, it appears..."

I followed her down the aisle, determined to see her out myself. At the door she stepped into the sunlight - and there waited the second one. Her twin, unmistakably: same porcelain skin, same impossible golden eyes, same black hair.

If the first had been a mockery of a nun, this one was a succubus in the flesh. Long hair spilled down her back, obsidian horns curled from her head, and her costume - if one could call it that - consisted of a few scraps of black leather and lace: a bodice that pushed her breasts high, a skirt that barely covered her, stockings, elbow gloves, high boots. A silver cross glinted between her breasts like captured starlight, and, God help me, a glossy black tail, spaded at the tip, swayed playfully from under her skirt in her wake, so perfectly matched to the rhythm of her body that for one dizzying moment I almost believed it lived. She leaned lazily against the stone arch, holding a leather collar in her hand, staring bored into the void - until she spotted her "nun".

The moment their eyes met, the succubus's face lit with possessive delight. Before I could speak, she reached out, drew the collar around the throat of the one in black and gold as naturally as if she had done it a thousand times. A leash followed - a thin chain that caught the sun - and clicked into the ring. Then she pulled the false nun close and kissed her, deep and shameless, right there on the church steps while passers-by stopped to stare - some laughing, some taking out their telephones.

I stood frozen in the doorway, hand still on the heavy oak, feeling every year of my age and every crack in my faith.

They broke apart only when they chose to. The long-haired one - the deviless - gave the leash a playful tug, and together they sauntered away down the street, heels clicking in perfect unison, leaving behind laughter and the faint scent of perfume.

Lord, You know what is in my heart tonight. Anger, yes - righteous anger, I tell myself. But beneath it something worse: recognition. I have spent so many years mortifying the flesh, and in one bright afternoon two girls in costume peeled back the lie I have lived with every breath. I stood there aching like a boy. Fifty-nine years old, and my body answered them before my soul could protest.

I do not know their names. I do not want to know their names. And yet I cannot stop seeing those yellow eyes - Lucifer's eyes, perhaps, or simply the eyes of what the world has become while I hid inside these stones.

Oh Lord, forgive me. I do not know whether I am more terrified that they will return, or that some shameful part of me hopes they will.

- Claude Neuville, priest and sinner