Sparks by Yolanda Olson

A tear rollsdown 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 replied, my voice trembled with the possibilities of what could happen behind the doors of his home.

I sigh and let the habit fall from my hands as I close my eyes. It’s so hard to remember all of it, but it’s even harder to try and suppress it.

I did get on my knees and he next to me, and we did pray, but that only lasted for so long before I felt his hands on my body.

“I won’t force you,” he had whispered into my ear, “but I can’t not at least touch you.”

My body felt like it caught fire when he moved behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. I felt like I was burning in the heat of his passion when his lips grazed my neck, but when he used his hands to begin lifting the hem of my dress, I felt my desire as a woman becoming much stronger than my vows of chastity.

“Just a little taste,” he said, his breath hot against my neck.

I leaned my head back against him as he lifted the hem even higher, exposing my thighs and trembling legs. A small chuckle escaped from somewhere deep inside of him and as he reached up and removed the veil from my head, I knew that I would be lost to the Church forever.

I didn’t stop him.

I wanted his touch, the feel of his strong body pressed against mine as our bodies writhed in sweat and pleasure. I wanted to know what it felt like for just once in my life to be in the arms of a man who had such a need for me as a woman and not as someone to help them through a spiritual crisis.

And my God, did I ever find out.

He was so gentle with me. The way he pressed his lips so softly over parts of my body that I had never exposed before. The slow pressure I felt when he pushed into me for the first and last time, wearing the blood of my virtue on his glorious cock like he had been marked by eyes unseen.

He taught me that night how to move on top of him, how to please him the way he needed to be, how to understand that what we were doing was a natural act, and not a sin.

And when we were done, he took me back to the convent, promising me that it would always be our secret, and no one would ever find out.

He had been right for the most part. No one did find out—at least, not until I started to show. What he didn’t know was that one night we spent together in each other’s arms, a seed had been planted.

When that seed had grown to a point where it was no longer possible for me to hide it any longer, I confessed to Father Moore and laid my habit at his feet before leaving St. Thomas and never turning back.

Sometimes, I find myself wondering how he’s doing these days. If what we shared that one night was enough to help him feel like the man he so desperately wanted to be again and if he wondered about me to.

If he does, I’ll never know because until recently, I never did make an effort to find him again. I had pushed him to the back of my mind and was content to keep him buried there until I was asked about him.

“Mom?”

I turn and glance over my shoulder, wiping away any left-over tears, and smile at the young man standing in the doorway of my bedroom, watching me curiously.

“Hey,” I say to him, as I get to my feet.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, just some bad memories came flooding back again is all,” I reply brightly, sitting on the edge of my bed. “What’s up?”

He looks so much like him.

Tall, dark hair, five o’ clock shadow on his youthful face, and eyes that can see so far inside of you, that you wonder what kind of void it is that he’s peering into.

“Nothing,” he finally says, narrowing his eyes slightly. “I thought I heard you crying so I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“I’m fine, honey. Thank you for checking up on me.”

He nods, a small grin spreading across his face as he runs a hand back through his hair and glances around the room once, before turning and walking back out.

He’s so much like his father that it will consume me one day.