Father Andrew Johns sighed as his secretary, Mrs. Crenshaw, came through the door. "She's still here?"

"I'm afraid so. She says she won't leave until she sees you."

"And she still won't give her name?"

The receptionist shook her gray head. "No. She says that she won't talk to any one but you."

She certainly is persistent, the priest thought to himself. Waiting four hours in his cramped reception area was enough to try the patience of even the most determined person. "Very well, send her in."

Mrs. Crenshaw frowned slightly, nodded, and left.

The priest was in his late fifties, he had closely cropped dark brown hair that was just starting to gray at the temples, and wire-rimmed glasses. He stood six foot four, and weighed two hundred pound. This gave him a beanstalk, Abe Lincoln-like appearance, when he wasn't wearing a robe. He had piercing gray eyes, that could, when he wanted to, ooze empathy. He shifted himself in his chair, and waited for this mysterious lady to enter.

Thirty seconds after Mrs. Crenshaw left, the door opened and the lady entered. She was in her early to mid twenties, with a stunningly pretty face. Her full lips, small nose, and vivid blue eyes were quite striking. Her face would have been even more attractive if she had worn some makeup, and didn't have dark circles under her eyes.

She had blonde hair, that was pulled back severely into a bun, and wore a loose- fitting gray dress that went below her knees. She was hugging with both hands tightly to her chest a brown vinyl valise. The knuckles were white on both hands, like the valise was a life preserver, and she were drowning. It was as if she were making a conscious effort to look unattractive as possible, mused Father Andrew.

She wasn't a parishioner, or at least an active one, he thought. One talent Father Andrew had that he was proud of was his ability to remember faces and names. He has startled many a parishioner, even ones that came to mass only at Christmas and Easter, by calling them by name. This woman, he had never seen before.

The priest stood, towering over her petite, five foot two frame, and extended his hand. "How do you do, I am Father Johns."

She unlatched her right hand from the valise, and shook his hand, using just the ends of her fingers. "Catherine Matzke."

Matzke, where had he heard that name before? "Please be seated Mrs. Matzke."

"That's Miss Matzke," she said as she sat down on the edge of one of the two simple wooden chairs that faced the desk.

"I see. Now tell me, Miss Matzke, what can I do for you?"

She shifted nervously in her chair. "First, you need to know, I'm not Catholic, I'm Southern Baptist."

"My condolences."

The young woman looked warily at the priest, not sure whether he was joking or not. "Anyway, you may know my father, Rev. Daniel Matzke of the First Southern Baptist."

"Oh yes, I was on discussion panel with him last year. A good man."

"My father says the same about you. That is one reason I am talking to you, right now.

"The other reason is Catholic priests have a vow of silence, when it comes to confessions."

The priest smiled. "Something like that."

"The only other profession that has that kind of confidentiality is psychiatrists. And I'm afraid one of those would want to have me committed if I told them my story."

"I will do my best to believe you. Please, relax. Tell me what is bothering you."

"I-It is these." Catherine reached into the valise and drew out a large manila file, and, with hands shaking, passed them across the desk to the priest. Inside were twenty 8" x 10" glossy photos.

Father Andrew took one look at the pictures, then blushed a deep red. The first picture was one of Catherine on her knees, leaning back on her hands, on top of a large circular bed. She was wearing a white translucent baby doll nightie with nothing underneath. She had seductive smile on her face, and bedroom eyes.

The next ten or so pictures, were ones of a similar nature, all featuring Catherine modelling different times of lingerie. Leather, spandex, lace. All of which were extremely immodest.

Father Andrew used to confiscate Playboy magazines from boys' lockers when he was headmaster at St. Thomas High School, five years ago. They had pictures like these in them.

The second set of ten were even more graphic. In these Catherine was wearing nothing but a smile. She was showing off every bodily orifice for the camera. She didn't have a spectacular body, but was by no means poorly endowed. And the cameraman made the most of the material he had.

The priest had only seen pictures like this once before, and that was when a young man had the gall to try and hide a Hustler in his locker. He had been expelled for a month, for that incident.

He spent all of ten seconds leafing through the pictures. He handed the file back to Catherine.

She was staring at the valise that was now lying flat on her lap, blushing even deeper than he was. She took the file, put it back in the valise, and then once again hugged it against her chest, eyes locked on her knees.

The priest was glad he was seated behind a desk. He cleared his throat. "When were these, ah, pictures taken?"

The young lady started shaking, tears ran down her face. She clutched the valise even tighter, crumpling it and its contents. What came out of her was barely intelligible behind the sobbing. "I don't know! I don't know! The last time I was photoed nude was a bear rug picture when I was one. I'm a good Christian girl. I would never let me anyone take pictures of me like that."

She started shaking and sobbing. Father Andrew stood up and put an arm around her to comfort her. Catherine hugged him, let the valise drop, and sobbed bitterly into his shoulder.

The priest reached over his desk and pressed the button to his intercom. "Mrs. Crenshaw could you come in here, please."

"Certainly, Father."

The door open a few seconds later, and the secretary entered the office, with Catherine still sobbing into Father Andrew's shoulder. He turned his head toward his assistant. "Could you get Miss Matzke a cup of water, please."

"Certainly, Father." Mrs. Crenshaw looked warily at Catherine, and headed out the room.

By the time she came back with Dixie cup of water, Catherine had started to compose herself, and had let go of Father Andrew.

"Thank you," said Catherine, as shakily took the water from the secretary, and started to sip it.

Father Andrew dismissed Mrs. Crenshaw, and she left, leaving the two alone again.

"Are you feeling better?"

"Yes, thank you. Keeping all of this inside, had been a bigger strain than I thought."

"Why don't you start at the beginning, and tell me the whole story."

"All right," said Catherine. She paused for a minute and collected her thoughts. "It all started, three months ago, when I received a large brown envelope at my home. It was addressed to 'C. Matzke'. Inside were the first ten pictures you saw; with them was a letter."

"May I see the letter?"

"Sure." Catherine reached in and pulled out a standard 8 1/2"x11" plain white piece of typing paper, slightly crumpled. On it was typed in standard type:

Cathy--

Here are the pictures you requested. More to come soon. Enjoy!

OEM

"Do you know anyone with the initials OEM?"

"No. None of my family, friends, or coworkers have the those initials. The writer also calls me Cathy. I hate that name. It sounds so ditsy. Anytime somebody calls me that I immediately correct them. Nobody calls me Cathy. Not even my father."

"What did you do when you got these first pictures?"

"I almost tore them up and burned them, but something told me that I should keep them. If this was some blackmail scheme, I would need them as evidence, so I kept them."

"I got a book from the library on digital photography tricks, and checked the photos to see if my head had been pasted on some one else's body. After a week of examination, I concluded that if these photos were fakes, the photographer had done a masterful job. No distortion of proportion, the shadows on my face were from the same angle as the shadows on the rest of the body. In all the ways that the book told me, there were no signs of photographic trickery.

"About this time the second envelope arrived. It was identical in appearance to the first envelope. In it were the second set of ten you saw. There was no letter, no demands. Just the pictures. No negatives.

"Since there was more, um, skin." Catherine blushed. "I concentrated on the body in the picture to prove it is not me. I could not do that. In all ways it was my body."

"How can you be so sure?" interjected the father.

Catherine reached into the valise, and pulled out a large magnifying glass. She then pulled out a picture from her file. This particular one had her flat on her back, knees up in the air.

"You see that scar on the knee. Look closely. It looks like someone tried to cover it up with make-up, but you can see it. That scar was from a bike accident I had when I was ten years old. I was quite a tomboy back then."

She pulled out another picture. "See the scar on my stomach? That was the scar from my appendectomy. I was six or seven when that happened.

I think I remember reading somewhere that no two appendectomy scars are identical.

"There are other things, too. See those three moles on my left thigh, that make a right triangle?"

"Yes."

"I didn't even realize they were there until I started studying the picture. But they are.

"There are other things, too. Such as the birthmark on my right shoulder, and other, um, intimate details, lead me to conclude that the person in these pictures are me."

"But how can that be?" objected Father Andrew.

"I don't know," said Catherine, tears once again trickling down her face. "I wish I did. Sometimes I think I'm losing my mind. When I was in high school, I read a book called 'Sybil'."

"I've heard of it."

"It is about this woman with eighteen multiple personalities. In certain situations one of her personalities would take over, and do things that the core person would have no recollection of. I've just finished re-reading it. I think that is what's wrong with me."

"I doubt that!"

"Do you? Well, you don't know the half of it yet. After the second letter arrived, I woke up one morning and found the lingerie I had worn in the first set, hanging in my closet. and after the fourth set..."

"You mean there are more pictures than the two."

"Lord, yes. So far, there have been eight sets. But I destroyed the other six, they were so disgusting, I could not bear to look at them. Their images, though, are seared into my brain. When I go to sleep, the images haunt my dreams."

Catherine blushed anew a deep red, and started talking very rapidly. "The third set had pictures of me performing sex acts on myself. The fourth and fifth had me having sex with various men. The sixth had me having sex with another woman. The seventh had me with... with... with... animals." Tears that had been a trickle, became a full river. "Dogs, goats, even a..."