She'd sat through the mass. Heard the Latin. Smelled the incense.

It had been a long time since she'd been in a church. She was conscious of the inappropriateness of her summer dress, with its bare shoulders and too-high hem. It was too warm to wear panties. The church ladies had stared at her.

But it was so hot in the sanctuary; a line of perspiration gathered at the base of her neck, under her short red hair, and ran, tickling, down her spine.

She hadn't taken her eyes off the priest throughout the mass, in case intense concentration would speed the delivery of God from his words into her soul. He preached to her, in English and the heady tones of Latin, pouring the word of God over her like warm, thick oil.

She knelt in prayer, and among the bent heads and closed eyes she watched him, a vessel of the Creator, and let him pray to her. For her.

She knelt still as the congregation filed out, content in their relationships with Christ. The old wood bit into her knees, but she kept still, watching the now-abandoned altar, until silence as heavy and insidious as the heat crept over the sanctuary.

She rose. Rubbed the grooves from her skinny knees. She walked to where the red and white candles flickered on a sideboard, each flame a soul, or a sin. Their tiny fires could not compete with the incense-ravaged air hanging motionless around her.

To the right of the altar was a portrait of the Madonna nursing her child. She stared at the portrait for a long time. She gazed at the suggestion of a breast's curve on the mother of Christ. She pressed her hand against her own bosom, slid her hands under the thin material of her dress. Her own breast pounded in time with her heart. It was slick with perspiration, dampness pooling on the underside of her pink sin.

She sighed, licked her fingers and tasted her own salty sweat. She wiped her fingers on her thigh. For just a moment her saliva cooled a strip of her leg, and her nipples hardened.

Reverently, she took her shoes off before mounting the platform. She stood in that forbidden place, behind the altar where only men - the not-men called priests - could stand. She touched nothing, not even herself - arms held out to the side, legs slightly parted - as she looked out over the rows of pews.

Had the humidity allowed dust to rise, it would have sparkled in the coloured light from the stained-glass windows. But the silence, and the stillness, was complete. She found a quiet place of peace, her eyes half-closed, her breathing shallow. She didn't jump, wasn't startled, when she felt hands on her waist.