and intelligent, then I will not have committed a sin. I could take that to my confessor, and he’d laugh and tell me not to come back and see him until I had something worth confessing. Now, if I acted on my attraction to this young woman, then we might have a problem.”
“Or a really good evening.” She grinned at him. Søren cocked an eyebrow at her. “I mean, a really sinful evening.”
“Better.”
“So it’s okay to desire someone as long as you don’t act on it?”
“There are many situations when acting on one’s desires is not a sin.”
“Married couples, right? They can have sex all they want.”
“Married couples can certainly engage in sexual acts with each other.”
“And …” Eleanor waved her hand, hoping for more to the answer. “Nobody else? The rest of us are screwed? I mean, not screwed?”
“I believe that is a question for your own conscience. I’m not dogmatic when it comes to sexual behavior in the modern world. The church can proscribe anything and everything it wants to, but the church is still made up entirely of human beings. Heaping rule upon rule on our congregations isn’t going to make anyone holier. It’ll serve only to add to the guilt that is endemic in our churches.”
Eleanor pointed at the sanctuary doors.
“You said five minutes ago you were imposing new rules on the church.”
“The rules are not for the church. They are for me. If I were to allow you and I to be alone together in my office, I would be breaking the rule, not you.”
“So what are all these rules?”
“Nothing burdensome, I promise. Actually, you might be able to help me with one of them. I have a feeling it’s not going to go over well.”
“Oh, no. What are you doing?” Eleanor knew her church well enough to know any sort of big change would be met with fear, anger and confusion. She couldn’t wait to see everyone freak out.
“The rectory. I’m closing it off to parishioners.”
“Whoa. Wait. You’re closing the rectory?”
“No church members will be allowed inside it.”
Eleanor’s eyes nearly fell out of her skull.
“I take it from you look of wild-eyed horror that such a declaration will ruffle a few feathers?” Søren asked, a slight smile on his lips. He didn’t seem the least bothered by the prospect.
“If you turned the church into a McDonald’s, that would ruffle some feathers. This is going to ruffle the whole fucking turkey. Pardon my French.”
“Pardoned.”
“Why close the rectory? The church uses it all the time.”
“This church has a sanctuary, a chapel and a large annex. There’s no need to use the rectory for church services. I, however, will need a home. I’ll no more hear confessions in my bedroom than I’ll take a bath in my office.”
He said the words without a hint of flirtatiousness, but that didn’t stop Eleanor from mentally conjuring the image of Søren lying wet and naked in a bathtub. Or was it laying wet and naked?
“Eleanor?”
“Sorry. I was trying to remember when you’re supposed to use lay versus lie,” she lied.
“Lay requires a direct object and lie does not.”
“Oh, that makes perfect sense. Thank you. Also, no. You can’t close the rectory. You’re going to piss off the entire church.”
“I had a feeling. Your prayer service you’re supposed to be at is meeting at the rectory right now. A sanctuary, a chapel, and for some reason neither of those will work.”
“The rectory is cozier. Father Greg always had snacks.”
Søren tapped his knee. “That’s unfortunate, but I’ve made up my mind. It’s important for a pastor to have strong boundaries with his church. I’ll do my best to explain my logic to them.”
“Logic? You’re going to use logic on Catholics?”
“Do you have a better idea?” From anyone else, the question would have sounded sarcastic or like a challenge. But instead from Søren it sounded like a genuine question. If she had a better idea, he wanted to know it.
“Look, I know these people. I grew up with them. They don’t really like outsiders. Everyone’s already freaking out that you’re a Jesuit instead of a regular priest.”
“They’re afraid of Jesuits?”
“They say Jesuits are really …” Eleanor waved her hand to beckon Søren forward. He leaned in and she put her mouth at his ear. “Liberal.”
Søren pulled back and looked her in the eyes.
“I have to tell you a secret.” She leaned in again toward Søren and inhaled. In that inhale she smelled winter, clean and cold, and briefly she wondered if someone had left a window open. “We are liberal.”
He sat back in the pew again and brought a finger to his lips.
“But you didn’t hear that from me,” he said and gave her a wink. Eleanor’s body temperature, already running a low-grade fever from being in the same room as him, shot up even higher. “But that’s beside the point. You were going to give me a better idea than logic.”
“Yeah … no. Logic won’t work. What might work is if you trick the church into thinking closing off the rectory was their idea.”
“How so?”
She shrugged and raised her hands. “I don’t know. Tell them you heard from concerned members of the church who want more rules and safety procedures or whatever?” They were always talking about safety procedures at school. “And you can say you heard the cry of the people and have decided to take their advice and add some new rules so you can keep everyone safe and avoid all appearance of evil. Nobody wants to be in a church with a scandal, right? You’re doing what they asked.”
Søren raised his fingers to his mouth and slowly stroked his bottom lip. It seemed an unconscious gesture, as unconscious as her lip-biting. But whereas her lip-biting apparently made her look like an idiot, his lip-caressing made her want to straddle his lap, wrap her arms around him and put her tongue down his throat.
“So you’re telling me I should manipulate the church into thinking that closing the rectory was a suggestion they made me?”
“Or just flat-out lie. Or lay. Whatever.”
“I could lie. That would be a sin, but I appreciate that suggestion.”
“You don’t sin?”
“I try not to.”
“I don’t.”
“You don’t sin?” Søren sounded so skeptical she would have been insulted if he weren’t entirely right to be that skeptical.
“No, I don’t try to not sin.”
Søren closed his eyes and shook his head.
“What?” she asked.
He held up his hand, indicating his need for silence.
“What?” she whispered.
“Do you hear that?”
She tilted her head and listened.
“No. I don’t hear anything. Do you hear something?” she asked Søren.
“I do.”
“What?”
“God laughing