Chapter 10: St. Nicholas of Tolentine

Miranda had only been back for a few days when she revealed her plan for a new sexual escapade. We were sitting in a coffee shop when she brought up the topic.

“Remember how I proposed that we do it in a church? That was on the night of our fun and games in the subway yard.”

By this point, I paid attention to whatever she had invented because I knew that she might indeed make it happen. “Yes, I remember that.”

“What I had considered was that we could have sex in the Confessional of a Catholic Church while a Mass was actually taking place.”

I rubbed my eyes for a moment. Why did I have to have this girlfriend with such an over-abundance of imagination?

She detected some skepticism in me and she said, “Oh come on, everything else I’ve come up with has worked perfectly.”

“Indeed it has. Okay, so what have you got for me?”

“First of all, it should be in the biggest church we can find, which would probably be St. Nicholas of Tolentine on University Avenue.”

“Why not St. Patrick’s Cathedral?” Mandy frowned at me. “I was pulling your leg. Anyway, I’ve never been in St. Nicholas.”

“Then we should go over there and scout it out. You’ve got time this afternoon?”

It was now a Saturday, “Yeah, what the hell, let’s have a look.”

“Great! It should only take us about thirty minutes to get there, if that.”

On the bus ride over there, I thought briefly about my other, secret girlfriend, Vivian, who was also Mandy’s roommate. I hadn’t seen her since Mandy returned, and I wondered where I stood with her. Was our thing together perhaps a mere fling?

She was also Mandy’s other lover, but Mandy didn’t know that I knew. It was all pretty complicated.

Back then churches were usually open during the day, and we were able to just walk in. The place was built in 1907, and it was huge and impressive. The church had to be about three times the size of my old parish, Holy Spirit, which was a couple of miles south on University.

Mandy and I examined the confessionals in the back. They had the usual layout used by the Church. The priest sat in his little booth in the middle, while two parishioners kneeled in the compartments on either side of him. One person would have to wait while the other one had his turn to repent his sins.

St. Nicholas had beautiful wooden confessionals. The priest had a door to his space, while the two side sections also had doors with glass panels. At Holy Spirit, the lay people only had curtains.

There was a grillwork panel on each side so that people could be anonymous. Of course, everyone knew who the priest was because he slid his nameplate into place each time he entered. It was usually quite dark on both sides.

I tried one of the doors and it wasn’t locked. One thing I noticed, which I had remembered from Holy Spirit, was that there was no chair for the parishioner, merely a little stool to kneel on.

I said, “That I always hated, kneeling there waiting for him to get finished with the other side and then go over to me. Although, since they had their nameplates up, most people avoided the really bad-tempered priests.”

I went on, “All right, this looks this better than I had expected. But we still have to be very quiet in there, of course.”

“Oh, sure, I know that. But look how far away the altar is.” It seemed to be an entire block away, which was indeed true. It was a much greater distance than existed at Holy Spirit.

I said, “Okay, let’s sit in that park across the street and talk things over.”

We bought sodas from a vendor and went across Fordham Road to sit on a bench in Devoe Park. It was a lovely sunny day in mid-October. Mandy said, “So it’s been a while since you’ve been to Confession.”

“Yeah, we’ve talked about that before. I wasn’t going to tell them anything about myself.”

She made up a string of dialogue about me in the booth. “ ‘Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I just can’t stop fornicating with my girlfriend.’ ‘Son, you must control your carnal urges.’ ‘But Father, you should see this girl. She’s just the hottest piece of tail you could imagine.’ “ She laughed at that. “ ‘The thing is, she’s also Jewish.’ ‘Oy vey!’ Anyway, the Jews killed Christ, you know.”

“I don’t care. Besides, by the late 1960s, the Church was deemphasizing that anti-Semitic thing. And Jesus himself was a Jew.”

“Not for long, he had to go start his own religion! Anyway, so is fornication a mortal sin?”

“I believe so. Although I always thought that two categories were too narrow. There should be four or five gradations in the middle.”

“Vivian always said that she hated confession, and she thought of ways to avoid going if she could.”

I suddenly felt a pang about my pale, sweet Vivian. I didn’t know what was going on with her. Those Ottoman Sultans had harems with dozens of women. Why couldn’t I have just two for myself?

Mandy was already discussing her plan. “So tomorrow is Sunday. Does that seem like a good day for you?”

I should have shown more enthusiasm, “Yeah, I guess that will work.”

“All right, what we’ll do is hang around in the vestibule until the Mass has just started. Then one of us will go in, and the other a couple of minutes later. We’ll get less attention that way. By the way, I already know what we should do it there.”

That wasn’t too surprising. “Okay, enlighten me.”

“First, I’ll kneel in front of you and give you a blowjob. I suspect with all of that Catholic atmosphere around, you might get excited and come too quickly.”

Hey, I was twenty-two. I certainly could handle a pre-coital blowjob.

She continued, “Then I’ll get down on my hands and knees. You’ll kneel and then take me from behind.” She winked at me. “I’ll wear something to please you, I promise.” I assumed that this would be garters and straps. At that time he seemed to have at least three sets of those in different colors.

I asked, “So how do we get out of there, assuming we’re not going to stay for the entire Mass?”

“The same way we got in, one at a time. Just act like you belong there when you walk out; that’s always a good strategy for tricky situations like this.”

She had it all worked out. Then she leaned into me and kissed me. “I love seducing good little Catholic boys and turning them into sinners.”

“You’re a bit late; I’ve been on that track for over three years now. I guess I’m going to Hell.”

“Dante had the Lustful fairly high up in Hell, almost at the top. I guess he thought there were a lot of worse things than that.”

We were there for the start of the 11:00 AM Mass. I had decided to dress up for it. I had on the gray suit I had purchased the month before, and a tie to go with it.

Mandy had the same train of thought. She arrived in the vestibule wearing a dress with a blazer over it, and dark nylon stockings. Again I wondered about the possibility of a garter and straps. We just smiled at each other, and she gave me a little kiss.