Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Proverbs 22.15

This is set in New York in the spring of 1957. Father Di Mucci is thirty-one and his young parishioner Ellen is nineteen. This is the next sequel after “Resolve Never to Sin Again.” The story before that, when they first meet, is “Lead Us Not Into Temptation.”

The gray house is a building between the church and the rectory that the parish owns. Hunter refers to Hunter College, part of the city university system which Clara attends.

On Tuesday afternoon, I got a phone call at the rectory. Father McCourt, the next youngest priest after me, answered it. All he said was, “It’s for you.”

I had no idea what to expect when I said hello. What I heard was, “Hi Father Chris, it’s me, Ellen. How are you doing?”

Father McCourt was sitting across the room. He wasn’t listening closely to what I was saying, but I knew I had to be careful about my end of the conversation. Instead of saying, don’t ever call me at this number again, I had to reply, “Yes, hello, I understand perfectly.”

“Excuse me? Oh, I get it; someone else is in the room with you, correct?”

This girl is really sharp. “Indeed, that is the situation.”

“So I’ll be careful too. What I’d like to know, would you like to meet Clara?” That was her female lover. “We could have lunch together if you have the time.”

“That is certainly possible.”

“I want you to know that she doesn’t know about us.”

“I expect not.”

“Also, she also doesn’t know that you know about her and me, get it?”

“I do understand that too.”

“I realize that you can’t make arrangements from there. But you do have my number, so call me from a pay phone.” Of course, it was actually her mother’s number. I had gotten it on Sunday. Ellen said, “So when can you do that, I mean call me?”

“That’s a little hard to say.”

“All right, how about in an hour? How does that sound? I just got back from classes.”

“That seems about right.”

“Then I’ll be here. Speak to you soon, okay?”

“Yes, good-bye.” I had to control myself not to add her name to the end of the sentence.

I called Ellen from a pay phone around the corner. She, not her mother, answered. The first thing I said was, “You have a lot of nerve, calling me at the rectory.”

“But I hadn’t heard from you in two days.”

“You had expectations about that? We’ve never said anything to that effect.”

“Okay, I’m sorry – I won’t do that again.” Then, being Ellen, she got right to the point. “So when do you have time for this, I mean the lunch with Clara?”

“First, where are we going?” She told me the name of an Italian restaurant about a half-mile from the church.

I said, “I’ll have some free time on Thursday.”

“That’s great. I think Clara can make it that day.” We arranged a time and meeting place, right at the restaurant in fact. Then, not surprisingly, she got to her next point. “So, have you been thinking about me?”

I knew what she meant, but I still said, “Thinking about you in what way?”

“You know, in the bad, sinful way.”

“Do I have to answer this?”

“No, but I definitely have been thinking about you!”

I should have been ready for that, but I wasn’t. Instead, I decided to ignore her. “Look, I’ll see you on Thursday.”

“I’ll be waiting.” I heard noises that sounded like she was blowing a couple of kisses to me, and then she hung up.

I stood there for a moment, trying to get my mind in order. I had indeed thought about her the day before. On Monday I sneaked into the gray house and I had masturbated in there, twice in fact.

Of course, I imagined Ellen’s warm hands rubbing my cock, as she had done on Sunday. All of her was in my imagination: her little black hat, her pretty white lingerie, her tan nylon stockings. And of course, I also pictured her face, her dark eyes, her brown hair.

It had been eight years since I had made myself come, and I was impressed by how good it felt. Spilling my seed, as it was called in Biblical terms. Except, I didn’t spill it so much as shoot streams of it all over the place.

Self-abuse; that was another term for it. Yet I seemed to be treating myself quite well.

That girl is ruining me. I knew I was lying to myself. It took years, but when the first serious temptation came along, I folded. Anybody could be celibate if there wasn’t a young lady thrusting her body onto yours.

That’s probably why monasteries didn’t allow women to enter. Nobody could trust the monks not to ignore their vows when there was some serious poontang to be had. Technically, I hadn’t even been offered that yet. The first time she had merely rubbed herself on my lap and I had gone off inside my pants.

Now I wanted more and more of that kind of thing, and I knew Ellen was going to give it to me.

On Thursday, I met Ellen and Clara and we went into the restaurant. They sat at a table facing me.

I knew Clara was fully Irish, and she looked it. She was as tall as Ellen, but a bit more slender, and she had very fair skin. Her hair was reddish but lighter than that of her friend.

I could tell quite quickly that Clara was more low-key than Ellen was, which was a relief. I didn’t want to have to deal with two of them of that nature. I also knew not to get into anything that could be construed as of a personal nature like, for example, how they had met.

Clara did say, just after we had been introduced, “Father, Ellen has told me quite a bit about you.”

“She has?” That sounded completely wrong, but fortunately, I didn’t add, like what? Instead I asked her, “I guess you’re Catholic then?” That was also kind of dumb because almost all the Irish in New York were Catholics. They, in fact, even more than the Italians (like yours truly) were the pillars of the entire archdiocese.

She seemed a bit chagrined, “I admit, I’ve sort of lapsed recently.” That’s okay, honey, I seem to be doing that myself. “I mean, it’s been quite a while since I’ve been to Mass, except when I went to my grandfather’s funeral last year.”

I think she thought I might chide her for her impious attitude, but I was the wrong clergyman for that kind of thing. I seemed to top my previous faux pas by saying, “Ellen’s mom takes her to Mass sometimes to make sure she gets there.”

Fortunately, they both laughed at that. Ellen said, “Confession too, at times.” I swear she winked at me. I definitely wasn’t going to say, that’s how we met.

I wondered if Clara did wonder how we met, but she didn’t ask. She seemed like a more discreet person than Ellen. In any case, Ellen was in my parish, so what was the big deal about what we were doing together? I was counseling her, right? Yeah, right.

I tried changing the topic and asked about Clara’s experiences at Hunter. Yet Ellen started up as soon as we had handed our menus back. On that day, she was wearing black knee socks with her usual college-girl clothes. She said, “So, Father, how do you like my Catholic schoolgirl look today?”

I knew she was referring to her socks. I also thought, I can’t believe she’s flirting with me right off the bat. Actually, flirting had never been Ellen’s game. She had started near 100% when she had first walked into my booth. Clara seemed to take it in stride, however; perhaps she was used to her friend’s offbeat behavior.

Before I could respond to this latest provocation, Ellen got a bit giggly and said, “I’m sorry, I was just teasing you a bit.” Clara has to be noticing something a bit off about this, or maybe I’m getting a bit paranoid about the whole thing.

Near the end of the meal, Ellen wanted to discuss her views of Catholicism again, which I thought was inappropriate. Why can’t she just be sociable and stick to more normal topics.?

She said, “Father, I’ve been pondering how Emperor Theodosius made Catholicism the official religion of the Roman Empire.”

Yet I was still impressed that she knew about such things. I answered, “Yes, the Edict of Thessalonica in A.D. 380.”

“Yet not long before that, St. Barbara was tortured for two days and then killed for being a Christian.” I knew what she’d follow that up with. “She’s one of those martyrs that artists loved to paint with her breasts hanging out during her persecution.”

I decided to cut her off immediately. I refused to let Ellen get back to her subject, and I asked her about her own academic studies at City College.

“So which poets do you like besides T.S. Eliot?”

I must have baited her correctly, because she readily answered me, “Oh, Emily Dickenson, for one.” She knew a lot about her, which was good from my point of view. “Do you know that she actually wrote about 1,800 poems but only ten were published in her lifetime? Also, she didn’t give titles to most of them, so they are mostly known only by their first line.”

That seemed like a safe topic, and I relaxed a bit. “So do you have a particular one you like?”

“Sure, have you ever heard of, ‘My life has stood, A loaded gun?” I didn’t know about that one, but Ellen told me everything I needed to know.

Clara left earlier than we did because she had classes downtown. It was time to confront Ellen. Before I could even start, she batted her eyelashes at me in a completely faked way.

I said, “First of all, you seem obsessed with this St. Barbara martyr.”

“I just pointing out that the Romans finally accepted Christianity just about eighty years after her death. There seems to be some inconsistency in all of that.”

“You’re oversimplifying it a lot, and you know it.”

“Okay, but it still seems rather strange to me. And also, they still kept persecuting other Christian sects, so they had their religious cake and got to eat it too.”

I knew what she was talking about. “Yes, the Arianists, for one.” They were a creed started in Egypt and their differences from whatever the Romans believed always seemed trivial to me. “Hard to believe that Theodosius was only twenty-three when he did that.”

“Yes, only four years older than I am now.”

As fond of her as I was at times, I was glad she didn’t have that kind of power. I called her out on something else.

“Anyway, Ellen, about your Catholic schoolgirl knee socks. Clara was sitting right there. I thought you had better judgment than that.”

For a moment she looked contrite, but then she pushed back against me in a very unsubtle way. “Well, Father Chris, you do like them, don’t you? I could get more socks of different colors if you wish. I think I’m going to do it anyway, for my own sake.” Then she asked, “Do you like red ones? There is some school around here that mandates that color during cooler weather. I’ve seen girls walking around with them.”

I could help it, she was getting to me, inciting my lust, and she knew it. I could vividly picture her in those red socks. She added to the image, “They wear gray skirts with those. I wonder if their panties are red too?”

I swallowed hard as I pictured her with those panties on under her skirt. She really knew how to get inflame my desires.

Before I could protest further, she was back to her theological opinions. “What’s with this Immaculate Conception idea? There is a church in New York with that name.”

“Actually, there are two of them.”

“Even better, I suppose. The whole of what the Church thinks of sex is in that thing. They have to have Jesus be part of God, the Holy Trinity and all that, yet he also has to be a human being. A very clever idea, makes it all so much more appealing. And who knocks up his mom? The Holy Spirt, whatever that is.”

“Ellen, you’re not endearing yourself to me today.”

That time I did hurt her feelings, and she leaned back in her chair and looked away from me. Then she lightened up a bit. “I know I can have a big mouth at times.”

“I noticed that Clara is somewhat calmer than you are.”

“Yes, she’s so sweet, isn’t she? I bet you never met two women who loved each other before.”

“I was barely aware that it existed.” I wondered if Ellen loved me too, or if it was mere fondness.

“Well, in any case, you already knew it was a sin, didn’t you?” Before I could respond that time, she said, “Let’s sit in that park down the street. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

I could already guess the outlines if not the details about what she was going to say.

When we were sitting on the bench, it didn’t take Ellen long to get into one of her usual provocative modes.

“Anyway, Father Chris, what do the ladies say to you when they’re in the Confessional booth?”

“They’re surprisingly concise, even when they’re confessing serious sins. It’s the men who can’t seem to shut up about their sexual misconduct.”

“So you’ve never made a play for one of these women, or they never made a play for you?”

“Of course not Ellen; you already knew that.”

“How about threatening to spank them, either the teenaged schoolgirls or the matronly ladies with their spreading backsides? Have you ever even thought about it?”

I told the truth, “No, I’ve never thought about it, until I met you.”

“Would you like to try it out with me, I mean inside the booth?” She must have seen my look of surprise. “I meant at night, probably.” In those days churches were usually open around the clock.

“I think you’re obsessed with this topic too. Anyway, St. Ellen, it’s too risky; there would be too much noise. If just one person came in at the wrong time, we’d be in a lot of trouble.”

“You mean you’d be in a lot of trouble. I know, even if I could keep my voice down, there would be the sound of those resounding smacks on my misbehaving rear end.”

She enjoyed talking about spankings. Then, I shouldn’t have been surprised at this either, but she had another way to approach it.

“Do you ever have Confession face to face with somebody, I mean outside the booth?”

“Yes, occasionally, like if someone is in the hospital.”

“So, this is what I propose. We can do this in our little gray house playroom. You’ll be sitting there and I’ll come in seeking penance; I’ll kneel in front of you. Except, I won’t be there as myself; I’ll be playing the role of someone else.”

“And who would that be?”

“Well, that’s going to be a surprise. Whoever it is, after you’ve heard her sins, you will decide to take her over your knees for a good whacking on her bare rear end.”

“What if I decide not to?”

She looked at me askance. “In that case, Father Chris, I’m going to be quite disappointed in you.”

Then I was struck by a wave of emotion again, and I thought of superlatives about Ellen. She’s so smart, she’s so funny, she’s so damn sexy! I expressed my feelings by saying, “I’m just worried that this is all going to wind up as a disaster.”

Ellen was quite serious as she said, “Chris, I am your friend. I would never do anything to jeopardize you.”

It barely struck me that she had finally used my first name, alone. “But you are already jeopardizing me. And since when have you been my friend?”

She smiled, “Well, actually a bit more than a friend, although I don’t know how to actually define it. Anyway, think about what I’ve proposed.”

She faced forward and stopped talking. As she had done before, she was waiting for me to concur or dissent from her proposal. And my track record with resisting her had been abysmal from the very first afternoon.

I tried to evade her best I could. “I suppose it is good that I keep track of you as best I can.”

That was so pathetic that she laughed at me.

“Okay, good; I’ll take that as a yes. I can guarantee that you won’t be disappointed. I know I won’t be disappointed.” She seemed to be bragging more about her own prowess rather than mine. But what difference did it make at that point?

I looked over at her. The woman I had fantasized about on Monday was right there in all her sweet solidity. I could see her arms protruding from the sleeves of her blouse. I was reminded again of T.S. Eliot’s poem, and I asked her, “What were those further lines in Prufrock, about ladies’ arms?”

“I know what you mean, I think. I can recite them for you. ‘Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)’”

I said, “Those were the lines,” and she smiled again. Yes, J. Alfred, as I’ve thought before, I know what you were going through.

She asked me, “So what day would be good for you?”

I promptly answered, “Sunday, in the afternoon.” Only eight days after all of this had started.

On Sunday, I was sitting in the gray house’s parlor when I heard a knock on the door. I simply said, “Come on in, it’s not locked.” Ellen walked in, but she was obviously not there as herself.

She was a woman who liked being looked over, so I did just that. My first impression was that she was playing someone younger than her real self. One thing that struck me was that she had tied her hair back into a ponytail.

Then I examined her clothes. She had a jacket, a white blouse, and a necktie of all things. Her plaid skirt was far too short; miniskirts were still ten years off. I looked at her long pale thighs sticking out from below the hem.

For footgear, she had white knee socks and black and white low-top sneakers. The final touch was the book bag that I had seen on Saturday. I assumed her glasses were in there because they weren’t on her face.

Her expression was as if she was somewhat worried. She put her hands behind her back and didn’t look directly at me. Her sneakers shuffled a bit on the floor.

After taking my time looking her over, I said, “Yes, how may I help you?”

“Hi, Father Di Mucci, I’m Ellie. I came here for my confession.”

Of course, that was the whole point of this exercise. She had changed the pitch of her voice ever so slightly so that she sounded a bit younger. I said, “If I may ask, how old are you?”

“I’m sixteen Father, but I’ll be seventeen in July. I go to Mount St. Ursula.” That was an all-girls high school. For a moment it seemed that this might be some younger version of Ellen herself, but I knew she had never gone to any Catholic school.

What struck me was the effort Ellen had put into her creation. She had worked to make her voice, her mannerisms, and her clothes fit her supposed age.

I almost said, do the nuns know you’re going around in a skirt that short? Instead I said, “All right, kneel down in front of me.”

Ellie got on her knees, and she immediately started the ritual, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned, it’s been four weeks since my last confession.”

Her hands were folded in front of herself, and she was looking down as if contrite. As she hesitated, I improvised something, “It’s okay my child, you can tell me about it.”

Ellen seemed to break out of character and briefly smiled at the word child. Then she continued, “Father, I have to confess that I have been having some very bad thoughts.”

“What kind of bad thoughts?”

“It’s hard to talk about, but it’s sort of about boys. I can’t get them out of my head.”

“And what do you think about them?”

“It’s hard to say exactly but when I do, I get this warm feeling, like between my legs. Also, I start getting wet down there.”

I shouldn’t be surprised that this girl is supposedly so innocent that can’t even imagine what sexual activity is. Anyway, I guessed this was my cue to say, “Is that all that happens?”

“No, Father, I’m ashamed to admit this, but I sometimes put my hands into my panties and play with myself. Sometimes I even take my panties off. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

I figured I’d use what I knew. “You shouldn’t feel too worried; I’ve heard an older girl tell me that she does the exact same thing.”

“Really? So I’m not the only girl who does this.”

“Not at all; it’s quite common.”

“I’ve heard that boys do something like that, but I didn’t know that girls did it too.” Ellen, you’re really pouring it on here. “But there’s more. If I continue touching myself, I’ll feel this thing building inside me, especially in my private parts, and then I’ll start moaning and I just sort of go off, I’d say. It does feel very good, and I have to catch my breath afterwards.”

So she also supposedly doesn’t know that what she’s having is called an orgasm. “Well, that is common too.”

“But Father, is that a sin?”

“Yes, Ellie, I’m afraid it is. I’m going to have to give you something to do for penance.”