The air inside the confessional booth was always stale. It smelled of old dust and beeswax and the nervous sweat of a thousand sinners. I shifted my weight on the hard wooden bench and checked my watch. The radium dial glowed in the darkness. It was nearly eight o’clock. The rain battered the slate roof of St. Jude’s high above me. It was a torrential downpour that drowned out the traffic of the city outside.

I should not have been there. Thursday nights were for Father Michael. I should have been at home in my study with a glass of scotch and a book while my wife knitted and my daughter finished her homework.

It was a life most men of the cloth were denied. I was a rarity, a former Anglican clergyman ordained into the Catholic Church under the pastoral provision. The special dispensation allowed me to keep my wife and family while serving at the altar. I walked the line between two worlds. I held the sacred vows of the priesthood in one hand and the domestic responsibilities of a father in the other. Usually, I managed to keep them separate.

But tonight, the lines were blurring. Father Michael had called at five. His flu had taken a turn for the worse. He begged me to cover his hours.

I agreed because it was my duty. I was the senior priest of the parish. I was the shepherd.

I rubbed my thumb against the bridge of my nose. My eyes were heavy. It had been a slow night. Only two elderly women had come in. One confessed to envy over a neighbor’s garden and the other to losing her patience with her grandchildren. The sins of the suburbs. Mundane. Boring. Purgatory must be filled with people who bored God to tears.

I was ready to leave. I reached for my stole to unhook it from around my neck.

Then I heard the heavy oak door of the church creak open. Steps echoed on the marble floor. They were quick and light. The sound of wet sneakers squeaking on stone.

I paused. My hand hovered over the purple fabric of my stole. I waited.

The footsteps approached the booth. They hesitated. Then the curtain on the other side of the screen swept back. The kneeler groaned under the weight.

Silence settled between us. The wire mesh screen was too thick to see through clearly but I could see the outline of a figure. Small. Huddled.

I breathed in. I smelled rain. I smelled damp denim. And underneath that I smelled vanilla and honey.

My heart stopped in my chest.

I knew that scent. I bought the shampoo that carried it. I smelled it every morning in the hallway outside my bathroom. I smelled it when I hugged my daughter goodnight.

It was Sarah, my fourteen year old daughter.

Panic flared in my gut. What was she doing here? Sarah came to confession on Saturdays like a good girl. She confessed to me face to face sometimes or to Michael if she felt shy. But never this late. Never in a storm.

She shifted on the kneeler. I could hear her breathing. It was fast and shallow like a frightened rabbit.

“Bless me Father for I have sinned,” she whispered.

Her voice was trembling. It was deeper than her usual speaking voice. She was trying to hide it.

I opened my mouth to say her name. I wanted to ask her what was wrong. I wanted to be her father. But the ritual stopped me. I was the priest right now. And if she was here this late she was in trouble.

“How long has it been since your last confession, child?” I asked.

I pitched my voice low. I added a rasp to it to sound older. I sounded like Michael when his chest was tight.

She didn’t seem to notice. She was too wrapped up in her own fear.

“Three days,” she said.

Three days. She had confessed to me on Sunday. She had told me she lied to her mother about finishing her chores.

“And what do you have to confess?” I asked. The rasp hurt my throat but I held it.

She took a ragged breath. “Father Michael?”

“Yes,” I lied. “I am here.”

“I need...” She paused. “I need to ask you something before I say it. You can’t tell anyone. I know the seal of the confessional is sacred but I need you to promise me specifically.”

“The seal is absolute,” I said.

“You can’t tell Father Thomas,” she whispered.

My hand gripped the edge of the bench. Her voice was terrified. “You can’t tell my dad. Please. If he knew ... if he knew what I was he would hate me. He thinks I’m good. He thinks I’m pure.”

The word pure hung in the dark, stale air.

“I promise,” I said. “Your father will not hear this from me.”

It was the truth. He would hear it from her. He was hearing it right now.

“Go on,” I commanded.

“I committed the sin of self-pollution,” she blurted out.

The silence returned. It was heavier now.

I blinked in the darkness. Sarah? My Sarah? The girl who wore modest sweaters and sang in the choir? The girl who blushed when boys looked at her in the grocery store?

“How many times?” I asked. My professional training kicked in on autopilot.

“Four times. Since Sunday.”

Four times in three days.

“I see,” I said. “And what led you to this?”

“I don’t know,” she said. Her voice cracked. She sounded close to tears. “I try to stop. I pray. I hold my rosary until my hands hurt. But then night comes. And I’m in my bed. And I feel ... hot.”

I closed my eyes. I could see her room. She had a twin bed with a white quilt. It was under the window. I had tucked her into it a thousand times.

“It starts in my stomach,” she whispered. She was getting it out now. The words were spilling like vomit. “It feels like a knot. A hunger. And then it moves down. Between my legs.”

I shifted my legs. The wool of my trousers scratched against my skin. The booth felt suddenly very small and very hot. I should stop her. I had heard enough to absolve her. I didn’t need the details.

“And you succumbed to this temptation,” I said.

“I couldn’t help it,” she sobbed softly. “I tried to sleep. But my sheets felt rough. My nightgown felt too tight. I touched myself. Just to make it stop. I thought if I just did it once the feeling would go away.”

“But it didn’t,” I said.

“No,” she said. “It got worse. The first time ... it was fast. I just wanted relief. But then I wanted it again. The second time I...”

She stopped.

“Go on,” I said. I didn’t mean to say it. The words slipped out. I needed to know. I was spying on my own daughter’s most private moment and I couldn’t look away.

“I stripped naked,” she confessed. “I pulled the covers over my head so God wouldn’t see. But I knew He saw. I touched myself for an hour. I put my fingers inside myself.”

My mouth went dry. A shockwave went through my groin. It was involuntary. A physical reaction to the explicit image. My innocent daughter. Naked under her white quilt. Finger deep inside her own wet body.

“Did you dwell on impure thoughts?” I asked. “Did you imagine men?”

“No,” she said. “Not really. Not specific men. I just thought about ... being taken. Being used. I feel so dirty, Father. I feel like a slut. My dad ... he’s so holy. And here I am in his house acting like an animal.”

The irony was a knife in my gut. She worshiped my holiness while I sat in the dark getting hard listening to her describe her orgasm.

“The flesh is weak,” I said. My voice was tight. “We are all born with original sin.”

“It felt so good,” she whispered. The guilt was gone from her voice for a split second. Replaced by the memory of the pleasure. “It felt like I was burning up. I arched my back and I bit my pillow so I wouldn’t scream. I didn’t want him to hear me. His room is just down the hall.”

I remembered Tuesday night. I had been reading in bed. I had heard a thump from her room. I thought she had dropped a book.

She hadn’t dropped a book. She had been writhing in ecstasy just thirty feet away from me.

I felt a bead of sweat roll down my temple. The air in the booth was suffocating. This was wrong. This was a violation of everything I stood for. I was her father. I should be protecting her from these thoughts.

But I wasn’t protecting her. I was devouring them.

“Is that all?” I asked roughly.

“Yes,” she said. Then she hesitated. “No. I ... I liked the smell. afterwards. My fingers. They smelled like sex. I didn’t wash them until morning. That makes it a mortal sin, doesn’t it? Reveling in it?”

I gripped the crucifix around my neck. The metal dug into my palm.

“It is a grave matter,” I said. “You have taken the gift of your body and used it for selfish pleasure. You have ignored the call to purity.”

“I know,” she wept. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please absolve me. I want to be clean again. I want to be worthy of my father’s house.”

She wanted to be worthy of me. If only she knew who was sitting on the other side of the screen. If she saw my face right now she would run screaming into the rain.

I looked at the silhouette through the screen. She was just a shadow. A faceless female admitting to her lust using my daughter’s voice.

I had to end this. I couldn’t listen to another word or I would do something unforgivable. I would ask her what she touched. I would ask her if she spread her legs wide.

“For your penance,” I said, “you will pray five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys. You will ask the Virgin for the strength to control your impulses. When the urge comes you must turn your mind to scripture.”

“Yes, Father,” she said. She sounded relieved.

“And you must guard your eyes and your heart,” I added. “Calls of the flesh are demons knocking at the door. Do not let them in.”

“I won’t,” she promised. “Thank you, Father Michael.”

I raised my hand in the darkness. I made the sign of the cross over the screen.

“I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen,” she whispered.

I heard the kneeler creak as she stood up. The curtain swept back. Her footsteps retreated down the aisle. The heavy door opened and closed again shutting out the sound of the rain.

I was alone in the silence.

I didn’t move for a long time. I sat in the dark listening to the blood rushing in my ears. I was hard. Painfully hard. My cock strained against the fabric of my black trousers.

I thought of her walking home in the rain. She would come through the back door. She would shake out her umbrella. She would walk past me in the living room and kiss my cheek and I would smell the vanilla and rain.

I leaned my head back against the wood of the confessional. I closed my eyes.

“Five Hail Marys,” I muttered to the empty room.

I knew she would say them. She was a good girl.

But I also knew she would fail. I had heard the hunger in her voice. The knot in her stomach wasn’t going away. And a part of me didn’t want it to.

I wanted to know what happened next.

—— The drive home from the church took ten minutes. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. The wipers slapped back and forth across the windshield. I stared at the dark road. My hands gripped the steering wheel tight.

I felt like I was carrying a bomb in my chest. The secret sat there. It was heavy and hot.

I pulled into the driveway. The house looked the same as it always did. The porch light was on. The yellow glow spilled out onto the wet hydrangeas. It was the picture of a good Christian home. A safe harbor.

I cut the engine. For a moment I just sat in the silence. I looked at the dark windows of the second floor. That was Sarah’s room on the left. The blinds were drawn.

I wondered what she was doing up there. Was she praying like I told her? Or was she touching herself again? The thought hit me like a blow. It went straight to my groin. I adjusted my trousers. I felt disgusting.

I got out of the car and walked to the door. I unlocked it and stepped inside.

The house smelled of pot roast and floor polish. My wife, Martha, was in the living room. She was watching the news with the volume low. She looked up when I entered.

“You’re late, Thomas,” she said. She smiled tiredly. “How was Father Michael?”

“He’s resting,” I said. My voice sounded normal. I was surprised by that. I felt like I should have sounded different. I felt like the sin should have stained my voice. “The shift was quiet. Just a few stragglers.”

A lie. Sarah wasn’t a straggler. She was the center of my world.

“Sarah is in the kitchen,” Martha said. “She came in about twenty minutes ago. Said she was at the library.”

The library. Another lie.

I nodded and hung up my wet coat. I took off my collar. I placed the plastic tab on the shelf by the door. I wasn’t a priest right now. I was a father. I needed to act like one.

I walked into the kitchen.

Sarah was standing by the counter. She was making tea. The kettle was whistling low. She wore an oversized gray t-shirt and flannel pajama pants. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun. She looked young. She looked innocent.

She turned around when she heard my footsteps. Her eyes went wide for a second. Fear. Then she masked it with a smile.

“Hi, Dad,” she said.

I looked at her. Really looked at her.

Usually I saw my little girl. I saw the toddler I taught to ride a bike. I saw the teenager who cried over math homework.

Tonight I saw a stranger.

I saw the flush on her cheeks. Was that from the cold rain or from the memories of what she did in her bed? I saw her mouth. Her lips were pink and slightly parted. I watched her throat move as she swallowed nervously.

My eyes moved down. I couldn’t stop them. I looked at her hands. Her fingers were long and slender. They were wrapped around a mug of herbal tea.

I didn’t wash them until morning, she had said. They smelled like sex.

I felt a wave of dizziness. Those fingers. Those innocent looking fingers. They had been inside her. They had explored the wet heat of her body.

“Dad?” she asked.

I blinked. I realized I was staring.

“Hello, Sarah,” I said. I walked to the fridge. I needed to do something with my hands. I grabbed a bottle of water. “Your mother said you were at the library.”

“Yeah,” she said. She turned back to her tea. She wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Just finishing a paper for history. It’s due on Monday.”

“You worked late,” I said. “It’s a nasty night to be out walking.”

“I like the rain,” she mumbled.

She was lying to my face. She did it so easily. It made me angry. It made me want to grab her shoulders and shake her. It made me want to tell her I knew.