Page 2 of Remorseless Sinner

Gracie

“ N o!” I protested, feeling tears start to my eyes. “No, I never did that!”

My hands clutched my skirt as everyone stared at me, their bodies inching closer, still closer. My skirt was down to my ankles but I still felt exposed, even with my turtleneck up to my throat.

It felt like everyone was looking at my heavy breasts, knowing my dirty shameful secret that they prickled with milk, staring at my curvy hips, my ass, that I thought I had hidden under the skirt.

“In what way has she tempted men?” Pastor Mickelson asked sternly.

“With her immodesty and wanton behavior,” Dr. Meier said, his finger pointing. “She tempted me to covet her.”

I glanced down again at my attire. Long-sleeved turtleneck shirt that covered the whole top of my body. Long skirt down to my ankles, cute little boots.

My breasts did swell against the soft fabric, but it wasn’t because it was tight. I just had very heavy, full breasts.

And the milky strange wetness had increased in the last few weeks, my breasts swollen in size, massive and engorged. As if the wickedness that I thought was hidden deep inside me was somehow coming out.

But I had never tempted Dr. Meier! I had never wanted him to desire me.

“I am—dressed to worship the Eye!” I cried out, even though I hadn’t been addressed.

The rustles in the Congregation began to increase, the whispers get louder. Angry, incredulous glances.

The faces turned to me, eyes flicking up and down my body, and I began to hear noises start deep in their throats.

“My husband confessed all,” Mrs. Meier said, her voice rising shrilly, her thin blonde hair rising from her body with the static electricity the Congregation was generating as they all shuffled slowly toward me. “How you’ve been wearing slutty clothes, making eyes at him.”

“Making eyes at him? I have not! Tell them,” I begged my parents. “Tell them I did nothing wrong!”

“Shh,” my mother said, pinching my thigh painfully. “He is an Elder. You must have done something improper.”

“I did not do anything,” I insisted.

“Gracie,” my stepfather said sharply. “Confess your sins and you may be saved from Abandonment by the holy community.”

“I won’t! I won’t!” I cried, feeling on the edge of hysteria, desperate for them to believe me, to believe that I had not done this on purpose. “I did nothing! It was all him! He came up to me! I never wanted this!”

I was almost weeping with mingled fury and frustration, and I felt a push on my back, my blurred eyes making it impossible to tell who had pushed me: my father or mother.

I went to rise to my feet, and the Eyes were on me, the huge orbs blinking metallic lids as they pressed down on my back, keeping me from rising.

Pastor Mickelson threw his head back to the ceiling, flecks of spittle coating his lips.

“One last chance before Grace O’Brien is thrown out into the woods and Abandoned to the punishment of Nimhe. Is there anyone, anyone who desires to take on the burden of this sinful woman?”

His voice boomed, the sound reverberating off the ancient wooden pews.

Who would want a whore? No man did.

And when no one spoke up, I would be cast out into the forest, to the dangerous creatures that lived there.

The memory intruded on me again.

That memory

The one I tried my best to repress.

His eyes on me as they dragged him out into the forest, that shock of dark hair over his forehead, his pitch-black eyes burning into mine until I couldn’t see him anymore.

“Is there any man generous and righteous enough?” Pastor Mickelson boomed out one last time as the probe on my shoulder began to dig in deeper, penetrate my skin until I cried out in pain. “To take on the task of guiding this woman’s whorish footsteps into the Light of the Eye?”

Oh Eye forgive me for doubting, but what had I done to deserve this?

Was this my long-awaited punishment?

The quiet hisss s of the Congregation made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

Many times I had heard the Condemnation of the Congregation, but never did I dream that I would be the one at the center, that I would be the one condemned.

I had devoted my life to serving the Eye and the Holy Serpent.

This was it for me, I’d be thrown out, pierced by thousands of horrible metallic fingers. . .

“I will,” I heard a deep voice say from the entrance to the church.

Oh

Oh no

It couldn’t possibly be. . .

He wouldn’t dare

The Congregation seemed to still, punishment hovering on their tongues.

A man walked into the Light of the Eye, into the ring of the hissing sibilant sounds.

He was absolutely massive, so tall he stood head and shoulders above all the other men.

Short dark brown hair. Neatly trimmed dark beard that covered a strong, stern face with unsmiling lips and an uncompromising jaw that could crack walnuts.

He was wearing a black suit, crisp white collared shirt, and jet-black tie, with his hands clasped in front of him.

Tattoos curled up the sides of his thick, bull-like neck, dark marks I couldn’t identify curved wickedly around his wrists, each finger smudged with letters.

When I’d last seen him seven years ago he’d been just as tall but a lot lankier, less muscular. But I’d know those cold, reptilian flat black eyes anywhere.

It was a man I hoped I’d never see again.

A man I assumed the Eye had saved me from.

A man I’d last seen the Congregation dragging out and throwing into the forest.

A man I thought I’d outmaneuvered and beaten. . .

My stepbrother Saul

“No!” I screamed. “No!”

His dark eyes didn’t change as they flicked down on me, and I scrambled to my hands and knees, trying to crawl away from him.

But before I could get anywhere, I felt his massive black boot land on my skirt, trapping me in place as my hands scrabbled ineffectively at the carpet.

“I will take her. I will marry her.”

The Congregation seemed tense, expectant.

Memories flashed unbidden in my mind. The first day I had met him, on the first day of senior year.

“And this is going to be your new stepbrother,” Mom had said, ushering Saul into the room. “You both just turned 18, so I bet you have a lot of things in common.”

At the time, we lived in a small clapboard house in the smoggy downtown.

He had been very tall then, lanky, with shaggy brown hair and dark eyes.

“Hello,” I said after she had left. “May the purity in me see the purity in you. I have the school schedule here if you want it.”

Saul said nothing for a moment, then he cocked his head at me and raised his hand, palm-up, toward mine.

“There’s no purity in me.”

The greeting unnerved me, but I extended my hand with the schedule, a bit nervously, because something about the expression in his eyes was unsettling, our fingers brushing as I handed him the paper.

I felt caught in his gaze, an uneasy skittering fear going up and down my spine.

Something was wrong with this man

And I hadn’t been able to draw a free breath since.

I should have known he’d come back.

“She has been denounced as a whore,” Pastor Mickelson said loudly.

His crooked finger pointed accusingly at me.

“Has she?” Saul said.

His voice could never be soft, but it was low and malicious. “I’m sorry to hear that. You’d better sign her over to me to take care of it.”

“No!” I cried.

I looked around desperately, attempting to crawl toward my parents.

“Don’t let them do this! Don’t let them give me to him! You know what he’s done!”

“Saul has been forgiven,” Pastor Mickelson said, and I was astonished to see a rictus of a grin stretch across his face as he looked at my stepbrother. “He has made himself right in the Eye of the Serpent.”

“Redeemed,” the Congregation began to chant. “Redeemed in the sight of the Eye.”

“Gracie, where is your forgiveness?” my mother chided. “You know the Eye wants us to forgive all sinners who beg for mercy.”

I hadn’t seen Saul beg for mercy

I didn’t think he was the kind of man who begged

How had he managed to fool the Congregation into thinking he had changed?

His boot on the back of my dress did not move.

As long as I had known him, he had been wicked, blasphemous.

He had been sent here by the Eye to tempt me.

So how was he getting them to do what he wanted?

“Mom, can you not remember what he did to me?” I hissed, looking around nervously. “Dr. Meier caught him on video tampering with my birth control pills! We saw it ourselves!”

“Oh, honey, now Dr. Meier thinks even taking those pills in the first place was wrong. Even if they were to regulate your period, they probably made you open to this whorishness and fornication.”

“Then why did Saul steal my pills?” I insisted, but she was already shoving me back toward him.

“He explained that,” Mom said. "To the satisfaction of the whole Congregation. He was afraid they’d tempt you into immorality.”

I felt a flash of hot, angry fury.

Godsdamn Saul

I was saving myself for marriage. Everyone knew I was saving myself for marriage.

The Congregation began to hum in appreciation, the hiss of degradation now transformed into the hum of approval.

So that was going to be it, was it?

I was to be assigned to my stepbrother and married off to him.

The pressure on my dress suddenly decreased and Saul stepped around my prone body to stand in front of me, placing his foot firmly on the front of my skirt.

I gazed fearfully up into his eyes, my heart hammering in my chest.

“Come, Gracie,” Saul said, his eyes boring into mine. “It is now my job to curb your wanton behavior. You will soon be too busy bearing my children for this nonsense.”

And acting on pure prey instinct, I grabbed my skirt in my hands and ripped it, shredding the material to free myself, and then I ran, out the door and into the fragrant spring grass.

There was a stream somewhere. I knew there must be, because I had heard it babbling.

If I only went a little ways into the forest, I’d be fine.

I had to be.

It had to work.

My only chance was to hide. Hide like a little rabbit, bury myself underneath this little overhang on the riverbank until all the pursuers ran by.

But the whole church didn’t pursue me. Only Saul.