For the lips of an immoral woman are as sweet as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But in the end she is as bitter as poison, as dangerous as a double-edged sword. - Proverbs 5:3-4

Just two days later, on Tuesday morning, I had an urge to talk to Ellen, just chat with her and hear her voice. I called her number from the rectory and she answered it. I was in the room by myself, but I still had to be discreet. “I’d like to talk to you soon, I mean in person.”

“Sure, what is the topic?”

“Nothing special, really, I just wanted to, you know...”

“Chat with me? I can do that, like this afternoon after my classes. Where do you want me to meet you?”

Now I was really feeling paranoid, and I looked around. “How about that playground just up the street from here? There are some benches there.”

We agreed to four o-clock. I got there a bit early, and I sat down. I was glad to see that hardly anyone else was there that day.

Ellen arrived right on time, and I examined her as she approached. She smiled at me. I thought, she used to be a bit suspicious of me a week ago, but now she seems more good-natured.

On that day, she had a jacket on, not her coat. I saw that below her skirt, she was wearing gray knee socks. They weren’t woolen but they seemed to be cotton, sheer and tight on her salves. Her shoes were black.

I guessed that she’d mention the socks first, and she did. Ellen stood in front of me and swished her skirt around. “See, Father, I’m indeed your bad little schoolgirl.” I had trouble responding, but she continued, “I really like these socks, I’ve got to get more of them. And that orange garter-girdle I mentioned too; you’ll see.”

I knew she wasn’t merely teasing me. My Ellen, she’s very unconventional, but she always comes through for me.

She sat to my left on the bench, facing me. Her right arm was over the back of the bench, and her right knee was on the seat. Then she tugged her skirt down. “Got to be modest, of course.”

Then she looked around and she must have changed her mind because she pulled her skirt up again. “Here, have a peek.” I could look right up her long thighs.

She said, “See, good Catholic white panties of course. Unless the school mandates red ones!” She laughed at that. “Do you know that in English boarding schools the girls have to wear what’s called ‘regulation knickers?’ In other words, they all have to be of the same color.”

“Why does that matter, if no one can see them?”

“That’s not the point. The point is that they learn how to follow rules.”

“So what colors do they use?”

“It could be anything. Black, green, blue. Not pink, however, I suspect.”

“Ellen, you can be quite flirty at times.” I knew that sounded rather lame.

However, she took it well. “Flirty? I think I’ve gone way, way beyond flirting, as you must know.”

She was right, of course, but I decided to change the topic. “I’ve heard that Emily Dickinson was rather reserved.”

“I’d call her reclusive, actually. Apparently, she had some trouble even leaving her house in Amherst.”

“So, she was shy, then.”

“And yet her poems have this incredible intensity. I don’t know how she kept it bottled up, but she only let it out through her writings.”

I dared say, “So I suppose she never had a lover.”

“Not even a female one, I suspect.”

“How would she even get away with that?”

“I was just thinking about Clara. Like, if I go out with a guy – which I have done a couple of times – my mother will be like...” She wagged a finger at me and deepened her voice. “ ‘Now young lady, I want you home by nine o’clock, you hear me?’ With Clara, my mom doesn’t worry about it, although in reality my girlfriend and I are licking each other into orgasmic frenzies.”

“Really, where do you go with her for that?”

“Oh, just like with you, I have my secret ways to handle things.” For some reason, she didn’t want to reveal those details to me. Whatever they were, I respected her privacy.

Then I said, “And what does that have to do with Dickenson?”

“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? I think it may have been the same in the 19th Century as it is now, if not more so. No one would suspect two women of fooling around with each other. It was so taboo that I bet a lot of people barely knew it existed.”

She continued, “Now if I had a house up there and some money – she came from a fairly prominent family – I’d be having some parties, inviting the ladies in if you know what I mean. Next thing you know, our bloomers would be on the floor, and – you can guess the rest.”

Then she said, “Those old-fashioned bloomers, you can still buy new ones downtown.”

“Why would you want those?”

“Because, silly, among other things, they open up in the back. Need I say more?” But she did tell me anyway. “They’re just the thing for naughty girls like me.”

“What would you do up there, besides that? Write poetry?”

“Well, I can read poetry a lot better than I can write it.”

“You’d make a good teacher, I think.”

“I’m trying to imagine that. ‘Miss Morrisett, Johnny’s been throwing his boogers at me again.’ ‘There, there Sally, that’s just his way of showing that he likes you.’”

“I was going to ask you, what does ‘vagina dentata’ mean?”

“Oh you do remember; that was kind of a throwaway line. It’s this idea, from folklore around the world, that a woman’s vagina might have teeth.”

“That’s pretty strange.”

“It’s symbolic of a fear of women and their sexuality. The phrase was actually coined by Sigmund Freud. I guess he was a genius in some ways but he also could be annoying as hell at times.” She pondered him for a moment. “Do you know he was married and had six kids? Rather prolific, I’d say.”

“Why would that matter?”

“I’m just trying to picture what he was like in bed. Maybe he’d be in there and he’d say, ‘Martha, you be the tunnel and I’ll be the train. Make way for the Orient Express! Choo-choo!’”

It shouldn’t have surprised me that if she was skeptical of Christianity she’d be irreverent about psychoanalysis too. In any case, I was chuckling about the way she had speculated about Freud.

I asked her, “How about that way you described yourself in confession, that you had done the filthiest acts?”

“You don’t miss much, do you? I was using a bit of hyperbole to get your attention. I mean, it’s okay to describe sex as ‘dirty’ but ‘filthy’ is a bit much, I think.”

I wanted to ask her, what do you see in me, why are you even here? As naïve as I was about relations between the sexes, I knew I shouldn’t ask her that. She was here now, that was what mattered.

She said, “So how is your planning going for this Mrs. Briggs event?”

“I was thinking of Friday afternoon.”

“That will work, I think. I mean, I need a bit of preparation for this.”

“What do you need to prepare for?”

“As you saw with Ellie, I’m not just going to walk in there cold. For one thing, I need to wear the right clothes.”

“Wasn’t Ellie actually a younger version of yourself?”

“Sort of, but I was never as naïve as she was. Nor did I ever wear skirts that short!”

I wanted to understand what she knew at that age and how she knew it, but I didn’t ask her. Then I was having trouble looking directly at her. She must have understood that, because she moved to face forward, sitting normally on the bench.

After a few moments of silence, she said, “This game is going to be great, I can guarantee it.”

I blurted out something, “You can be a handful at times.”

She took it well. “Yes, I can be, but I don’t see you running for the hills each time I show up. In fact, you called me today.”

Indeed I had. I knew I had to take agency for my own actions, not blame her. I wondered again if there was truly a God who would take mercy on my soul. Yet I couldn’t shake the idea that I had been wrong for years, and there was no such entity, or at least not as the Church envisioned Him.

Early on Friday afternoon, I was sitting in the parlor on the second floor of the gray house, awaiting the arrival of Ellen or rather, Ellen in her Mrs. Briggs mode.

I heard the front door on the first-floor opening and the sound of footsteps on the stairs. There were a few knocks on the door of the room, and I went to open it.

Before I could say anything, a woman brushed past me, pushing me out of the way.

“Mrs. Briggs?”

“Of course, who else would it be? Now, close the door, if you please.”

Then she stood there for a moment so I could look her over. I knew that this was Ellen’s habit of allowing me to assess her when she had a new look for me. But her particular style on that day was quite striking.

I suspected that Ellen may have been inspired by her own mom when creating this Mrs. Briggs character. I wasn’t sure how she had accomplished it, but her whole bearing was of a much older, and quite formidable woman. I had already seen that Ellen had a natural talent for method acting although she had never mentioned that term to me.

The thing that struck me first was that she had her hair tied up in the back in a way that I had never seen before. On top of her hair, there was a light-gray brimmed hat with a dark band.

Her clothes were modest in a very matronly way: a dark-blue coat that was open, a gray suit with a skirt down to her knees, and tan nylon stockings. The shoes were dark with low heels and appeared somewhat clunky looking, as would befit a lady on the verge of middle age.

She wagged a finger at me. “So, Father Di Mucci, we finally meet. Now, I have a bone to pick with you.” I had always hated that phrase; my mother had used it on me when I was growing up. I wondered if I had ever told Ellen that fact and then forgotten that I had mentioned it.

“Really, what is it about?” Of course, I already knew.

“I’ll tell you all about it, soon enough. Now I’m going to sit in that chair and I want you to stand in front of me.” First, she removed her coat and left it over the back of her chair. Then he positioned herself in her seat. The way she was moving her body reminded me of an older and heavier woman, so unlike Ellen’s usually lithe movements.

“I didn’t expect that you’d offer me a drink, so I brought my own.”

She took a pint of bourbon – the Old Granddad brand - out of her bag and, to my surprise, a glass tumbler too. “I suppose you don’t have any ice or soda water here, do you?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Briggs, but there is no refrigerator in here.”

“I should have expected that you would be incompetent about such matters.” What, did she expect me to buy a refrigerator before her arrival? I then noticed some further accessories for her outfit, like wrist-high white gloves and a silky scarf around her neck.

Meanwhile, she poured some bourbon into her glass and sipped from it. She crossed her legs and looked at me. I knew I was in for a tongue-lashing, but that was only going to be the beginning.

Mrs. Briggs took her time, “Now, my good Father, you have behaved absolutely scandalously, not just as a priest, but as a gentleman.”

I decided to play it dumb. “In what way do you mean?” I was standing there, looking contrite perhaps, with my hands folded in front of me.

“You know exactly what I mean. I’m referring to your outrageous behavior with my daughter Ellie. And she’s not even seventeen yet.”

“What exactly did she tell you?”

“What didn’t she tell me? I saw her thrashed bottom the other night, and she confessed everything to me.” She leaned forward to make her point. Ellen was playing this so well that I had an uncharitable thought, you really are a nasty old battleax. If Ellie was approaching seventeen, then I assumed her mother had to be approaching or past forty.

“What gave you the idea you could inflict a spanking on her bare buttocks? It is completely inappropriate for a male to remove a young girl’s panties and take her over his lap.”

I tried to defend myself. “It was during her confession, and she revealed some serious sins.” I was afraid to say that one of those acts was masturbation. “It was her idea; she said that her parents would spank her for such infractions.”

“So, you could have reported this back to me. But no, had to take the matter into your own hands, so to speak. She is too young to make decisions like that on her own initiative. I’m surprised at your complete lack of judgment.”

I was feeling both intimated and resentful of this bitchy matron. I saw none of Ellen’s good nature in her. She went on, “Then, you indulged in the utterly degenerate act of placing your mouth and tongue onto her genitals. She told me she achieved an orgasm that way. Of course, she probably doesn’t even know what the word ‘orgasm’ means.”

I almost said, I’m sure she doesn’t know the word, but I stifled that. Instead, I simply said, “That was also her idea.”

“Her idea! So what? Don’t you have any control over yourself? As I said, Ellie doesn’t have the maturity to decide on such matters of a personal nature.”

I was impressed with Ellen’s mastery of the vocabulary that Mrs. Briggs was using. “You sullied her virtue, although thank God I caught it in time. I suspect that if she had any more visits with you, you might have penetrated her and deflowered her virginity.”

I lamely said, “She seems to have some problems with impulse control.”

“It’s you, Father, who is having problems controlling your impulses. You sullied your own virtue too, but that is not my business. I will say that instead of indulging your evil ways with whores or floozies – they are easy enough to find – you went for a young girl who came to you for help.”

“Mrs. Briggs, you should know that Ellie is a very naughty girl.”

“She is a very confused young girl. And you sir, you are a horrid priest.”

Mrs. Briggs Punishes

She paused for a moment and then continued. “Now, instead of getting you into trouble with the proper archdiocese authorities, as I have every right to do, I’ve decided to keep things simple and take this matter into my own hands. You should be grateful that I’m saving you the embarrassment – and probably being defrocked as well – that a full inquiry would bring down onto your head.”

With that, she put her drink on a side table and reached into her bag to take out a wooden paddle. It was about a foot long and had several holes drilled into it. I wondered where she had gotten it. It didn’t seem like something one could just buy in a hardware store.

“Do you know what this is for?”

I decided to play it dumb. “Why don’t you enlighten me, Mrs. Briggs?”

“Actually, I’m saving this up for the end, but first I’m going to use my bare hand on your bare buttocks. You deserve a sound corporal punishment for your offenses. Believe me, I can deliver quite a wallop manually. As I said, it’s simple but very effective. Or would you rather have the monsignor here, and the bishop above him, to hear all about this?”

For the first time, I noticed that Ellen/Mrs. Briggs had large hands that were not at all delicate. They matched the sense of strength in the rest of her body.

“So, good Father Di Mucci, I’m saving you from public disgrace, but I’m going to wear out your backside instead. But I expect that will be the end of it, and you’ll stay away from my Ellie. I hope you grasp the favor I’m doing for you.”

“Believe me, Mrs. Briggs, I do appreciate it

“So are you ready for your discipline?”

“I suppose I am.” In fact, I felt some kind of strange excitement going through my whole body. There was a twitching in my buttocks and a tingling in my crotch as I contemplated this lady giving me a firm beating. Ellen must have sensed the predilections within me.

I already understood that this was going to be both painful and pleasurable. How had Ellen recognized this twistedness, the perversity within me? I should never underestimate how perceptive she can be.

“You had better be ready because you are getting your spanking right now.” She gestured to me. “Come over here, come closer I mean.”

Without hesitation, she unzipped and unbuckled my trousers, pulling them down below my knees. “Now, my good Father, to spare you the embarrassment of having a lady witness your bare crotch, I’m first going to have you go over my lap. Come on, get right over, but keep your feet on the floor.”

When I was in position over her, she put her hand into the waistband of my underpants and yanked them all the way down. I was aware that my bare behind was now exposed to her gaze, but I liked the idea.

She hinted that she liked it too. “I’m sorry, Father, that your bare backside has to be revealed to me like this, but it is a necessary aspect of your punishment.”

My cock, perhaps not surprisingly, was already erect and pushing against the cloth of her skirt, but she didn’t seem to notice or care. I saw, however, that her very haughtiness was sexually arousing for both of us. This old broad needs to be taken down a few pegs, and I’m just the guy to do it – assuming I get the chance

It was striking how I thought of her as a different person from Ellen. This girl deserves a Tony award for her talents

“Now, get your butt up nice and high so I have a good target.” She was going to spank me with her right hand, so she removed her white glove from that one. Her left hand held me around the waist.

Then, instead of starting immediately, she paused. I knew she was looking at my body. Then she started squeezing my butt cheeks and rubbing the backs of my thighs. Her warm hand on my flesh felt great, and my erection got even bigger and more insistent.

“You have a young man’s nice taut backside. It’s a pity I have to punish it so severely, but it’s also so necessary.” For a second, I wondered how long it had been since this Mrs. Briggs person had gotten properly laid. Until a couple of weeks ago, I had never considered the sex lives of my female parishioners beyond what they told me in Confession, and that wasn’t much.

“Tell me, have you ever been spanked before, say by your parents or one of your teachers?”

“No, ma’am, I never have been.”

“Then you’re in for a new experience, aren’t you?” She surprised me by saying, “I know it must be hard to preserve your chastity, but you must be strong, both for yourself and for the Church. You have to channel that physical energy that all men have into a different, more pure kind of love for God.”

That statement was a very odd sort of musing, and it seemed for a moment that she was considering my sexuality and how to exploit it to seduce me. In any case, I didn’t have to think about it for long, because she raised her arm and brought her hand down on my ass with a loud smack.

I grunted an, “Ouch,” and I wriggled on her lap. She commented, “I see I left a nice pink handprint on you. This is so satisfying, to punish a bad boy like you, and I’m going to do a lot more of it.”

She commenced a slow but hard and rhythmic spanking of me, chiding me as she did it. Among the things she said was, “Now, Father, you’re learning your lesson, I hope, and you’re going to keep your hands and mouth off of wayward but basically innocent girls like Ellie from now on, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m surely learning my lesson.”

“Good, but I suspect I may have to do this to you again in the future just to give you a reminder.” As she had admitted, she was enjoying it too.

And, I was also learning another lesson, namely that I was also enjoying it. How could my ass hurt so much and yet my cock feel so good?

Mrs. Briggs helped my pleasure by alternating her firm smacking of me with a delightful rubbing of my throbbing flesh. It suddenly seemed possible that I would ejaculate right onto her lap. I tried to not moan, but a few soft sounds did emerge from my throat.

She confirmed her own satisfaction, “I see I have left some truly impressive handprints on your naughty bottom.” Maybe she could feel my erection because she suddenly stopped spanking but she continued talking.

“Ellie told me another secret – as I said, she confessed everything to me. After you orally pleasured her – twice, no less! – she had you stand in front of her as she sat on that sofa and then she masturbated you into an orgasm. Now, please don’t try to deny it, because I’m sure it’s true.”

“All right, Mrs. Briggs, I admit it happened that way. But she was the one to suggest that too.”

She surprised me by saying, “You do have a point, Father, in that she’s not quite the sweet innocent waif she claims to be.” Well, that contradicted what she had said about Ellie before.