Priest (Priest, #1)

by Sierra Simone

We were faking it because facing the truth was so much worse, the truth that this paradise would end one way or another.

My throat tightened and my mouth went dry; my anxiety spiked, as if someone were holding a knife to my throat and demanding that I choose now, but how could I choose when both choices came at such cost?

I couldn’t lose her. And I couldn’t keep her.

“I want you so badly that I can taste blood when I think about it. But I won’t be the reason you lose your life,”

The difference between envy and jealousy is subtle but distinct, once you know the flavors and contours of both.

I rested my head against the cool glass of the window. And there it was…the choice. Black and white, night and day, one or the other. Poppy or God.

“Maybe it wasn’t the celibacy gene,” I said more to myself than to her. “Maybe it’s just that I was always waiting for you.”

I found the bill, folded it lengthwise to make it easier for her to stow away, but this time she didn’t take it with her fingers, she took it with her mouth, her lips grazing my fingers, and it was so degrading, so wonderfully degrading, and the Herod in me was exultant on his throne, delighted with a king’s delight to see her with that money

in between her teeth, knowing that now her pussy was mine to touch as I wanted.

How was this not marriage? How was this not more binding and more intimate, us bare with each other in the presence of God? At the very least, this was a betrothal, a promise, an oath.

Why had I ever felt like the choice was between Poppy and God? It had never been that way, it had never been one or the other, because God dwelled in sex and marriage just as much as He dwelled in celibacy and service, and there could be just as much holiness in a life as a husband and a father as there was in a life as a priest. Was Aaron not married? King David? Saint Peter?

“God is bigger than our sins. God wants you as you are—stumbling, sinning, confused. All He asks of us is love—love for Him, love for others, and love for ourselves. He asks us to lay down our lives—not to live like ascetics, devoid of any pleasure or joy, but to give Him our lives so that He may increase our joy and increase our love.”

I still want her. I still love her. I still need to be with her for the rest of my life.

“Si vis amari, ama,” you tell me. If you wish to be loved, love.