now (it was his sex life that had got him into this situation), but the thought offered some faint comfort even as he tried to fix his attention elsewhere.
He went to his office in the rectory, where there was a thermos of coffee waiting for him and a plate of four Oreos, as, thanks to Mrs. Daly, there was every morning after Mass. “Give us this day our Daly bread,” he would quip when he came upon the housekeeper in the act of putting the plate of cookies by his phone, and she would always pretend to be shocked, as though he’d told a racy story or been caught in a small blasphemy, a “goddamn” or “oh hell.”
Just as he’d poured his first cup of coffee and taken the first crisp bite of an Oreo, the phone rang. Not the rectory phone, his private line. He stared at the phone, counting the rings, and when it had rung ten times he answered with his most neutral “Hello.”
It was, as he’d known it would be, his tormentor.
“Hi there, Father, it’s Clay. How you feeling today? A little tender from the needlework?”
His throat had grown dry, and he was unable to swallow the bolus of thick, sugary paste that the Oreo had become. He moistened his tongue with the coffee and managed to say, “Hello, Clay.”
“Is that it? Hello? You didn’t answer my question, Father. Or it’s Damon now, isn’t it? Damon the Demon.”
He tried to form a simple statement that yes, he was sore, but it was not just the dryness of his throat that prevented him but a paralyzing constriction of his chest, as though he were in the grip of some huge clawed hand squeezing the breath from his lungs. He knew exactly what he was feeling: lust, intensified by fear. A feeling that Clay had roused in him almost from the moment they’d met at the after-hours club in Stillwater. Now just the sound of Clay’s vpice could have the same effect on him.
Clay chuckled, as though he’d confessed his thoughts aloud. “So, tell me, I’m dying to know—did you get off on it? Did you and Wolf have a scene?”
“I did just what I’d been told I had to do, Clay. No more, no less.”
“There’s no hurry. You take your time with Wolf. The two of you’ll be clocking a lot of hours together. And I realize he’s older than you generally get off on. By how much? About forty years?”
Father Bryce made no reply to the taunt. There was none he could have made. If the taunt had not been true, if Clay had not possessed the most damning and irrefutable evidence of its truth, Father Bryce would not have had to submit to his blackmail.
“To get serious for a moment, Father—I can’t seem to get over the habit of calling you Father—the organization isn’t doing this to punish you. I hope you understand that. It’s just the same as the kind of penance you deal out in the confessional. More drastic, but the same basic idea. Reformation. Maybe that’s a bad word for Catholics. But the idea is, you’ve got some flaws of character, and we’re going to help you reform so you won’t have those flaws.
You don’t want to be a pedophile, do you, Father?”
After a pause, Clay insisted: “Do you?”
“No,” said Father Bryce.
“Of course not. No one would. It’s a shameful and degrading vice. Also rather ridiculous in its way. It obviously represents some kind of arrested development, doesn’t it?”
When Father Bryce did not reply, Clay said, “These are not rhetorical questions, Father. When I ask you a question, I expect an answer.”
Father Bryce forced himself to take a deep breath. Then he said, “Yes, you’re right. All the psychology texts would agree—arrested development.”
“Psychology texts? That’s just another kind of bullshit, Father. Do you think there’d still be all these sexual perverts around preying on thirteen-year-olds if psychology or psychiatry or Sigmund fucking Freud knew shit about anything? That is how old the Kramer kid was, right?”
Father Bryce closed his eyes as a means of denying his
He went to his office in the rectory, where there was a thermos of coffee waiting for him and a plate of four Oreos, as, thanks to Mrs. Daly, there was every morning after Mass. “Give us this day our Daly bread,” he would quip when he came upon the housekeeper in the act of putting the plate of cookies by his phone, and she would always pretend to be shocked, as though he’d told a racy story or been caught in a small blasphemy, a “goddamn” or “oh hell.”
Just as he’d poured his first cup of coffee and taken the first crisp bite of an Oreo, the phone rang. Not the rectory phone, his private line. He stared at the phone, counting the rings, and when it had rung ten times he answered with his most neutral “Hello.”
It was, as he’d known it would be, his tormentor.
“Hi there, Father, it’s Clay. How you feeling today? A little tender from the needlework?”
His throat had grown dry, and he was unable to swallow the bolus of thick, sugary paste that the Oreo had become. He moistened his tongue with the coffee and managed to say, “Hello, Clay.”
“Is that it? Hello? You didn’t answer my question, Father. Or it’s Damon now, isn’t it? Damon the Demon.”
He tried to form a simple statement that yes, he was sore, but it was not just the dryness of his throat that prevented him but a paralyzing constriction of his chest, as though he were in the grip of some huge clawed hand squeezing the breath from his lungs. He knew exactly what he was feeling: lust, intensified by fear. A feeling that Clay had roused in him almost from the moment they’d met at the after-hours club in Stillwater. Now just the sound of Clay’s vpice could have the same effect on him.
Clay chuckled, as though he’d confessed his thoughts aloud. “So, tell me, I’m dying to know—did you get off on it? Did you and Wolf have a scene?”
“I did just what I’d been told I had to do, Clay. No more, no less.”
“There’s no hurry. You take your time with Wolf. The two of you’ll be clocking a lot of hours together. And I realize he’s older than you generally get off on. By how much? About forty years?”
Father Bryce made no reply to the taunt. There was none he could have made. If the taunt had not been true, if Clay had not possessed the most damning and irrefutable evidence of its truth, Father Bryce would not have had to submit to his blackmail.
“To get serious for a moment, Father—I can’t seem to get over the habit of calling you Father—the organization isn’t doing this to punish you. I hope you understand that. It’s just the same as the kind of penance you deal out in the confessional. More drastic, but the same basic idea. Reformation. Maybe that’s a bad word for Catholics. But the idea is, you’ve got some flaws of character, and we’re going to help you reform so you won’t have those flaws.
You don’t want to be a pedophile, do you, Father?”
After a pause, Clay insisted: “Do you?”
“No,” said Father Bryce.
“Of course not. No one would. It’s a shameful and degrading vice. Also rather ridiculous in its way. It obviously represents some kind of arrested development, doesn’t it?”
When Father Bryce did not reply, Clay said, “These are not rhetorical questions, Father. When I ask you a question, I expect an answer.”
Father Bryce forced himself to take a deep breath. Then he said, “Yes, you’re right. All the psychology texts would agree—arrested development.”
“Psychology texts? That’s just another kind of bullshit, Father. Do you think there’d still be all these sexual perverts around preying on thirteen-year-olds if psychology or psychiatry or Sigmund fucking Freud knew shit about anything? That is how old the Kramer kid was, right?”
Father Bryce closed his eyes as a means of denying his
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