Page 31 of House of Sin
Thoughts of her.
I imagined the silk of her dress between my fingers, the small gasp she might give if I whispered scripture against her neck. I imagined her eyes, those piercing, devastating eyes, darkening just for me.
The things I could do to her.
I felt the heat rise beneath my garments, the cruel trick of the body at odds with the spirit. I pressed my thighs together and shifted behind the pulpit. The robes, bless them, concealed my shame. I clenched the sides of the podium and pushed the fantasy down.
“Forgiveness is not earned, it is given. And we must learn to give it to ourselves, as He gives it to us.” The words came easy, the lie came easier. When Father Cyrus appeared at the end of the service, his presence grounded the room in a way mine could not. He smiled that unassuming smile of his, offered a warm explanation for his brief absence, and welcomed me with a grace I neither deserved nor returned. We descended the pulpit together to greet the congregation. I said all the right things and smiled at all the right times, but my eyes kept slipping toward the back, towardher.
I couldn’t stop watching her.
She lingered with the other girls, laughing and speaking in hushed tones. But there was something ...commandingin her silence, something that made her more dangerous than any woman I’d ever met. “Father,” a voice interrupted my thoughts.
Mrs. Henderson. Sweet, wrinkled, and ever faithful. “That was a lovely sermon,” she beamed, “You have a way with words.”
I smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Henderson. You’re very kind.” But I’d barely heard her. My mind was across the room, locked on the woman who hadruinedme with a single look. The church emptied slowly, and the air grew lighter. I held my breath as I closed the distance with my new obsession, finally allowing myself to take a deep inhale as our bodies were only inches apart. As if I could simply breathe her in.
And then, finally, she stood.
Closer now, close enough to smell her. Sandalwood and lavender, clean but sinful in the way purity sometimes is. I tried to not let the images that danced in my mind show on my face, but the woman before me, the one who I now knew as Bernadette, seemed to sniff out my sinister craving for one of her own rather quickly. Her gaze met mine and didn’t flinch, and there was something edged behind her eyes, something that told me, clear as day, that she saw through me.She knows, I thought.She knows what I want.Sheturned slightly, gesturing behind her. “And this,” she said, “is Violet.”
Violet.
My fixation, my punishment. And, if I could have my way, mysalvation.
19
SHARING IS CARING
“Maeve, darling, you really must stop consuming all the charm in this room. The rest of us are suffocating on what you leave behind,” I drawled, fanning myself with a playing card as I lounged deeper into the velvet armchair,ankles crossed.
Maeve didn’t so much as blink. She sat perched atop the parlor’s mantel like a bored gargoyle with immaculate features, one leg swinging idly and a cigarette balanced between her fingers. “If I’m hoarding charm,” she said, exhaling a thin stream of smoke in my direction, "it’s only because you keep stockpiling all the bad decisions.”
“Touché,” I grinned. “But admit it: My bad decisions make for excellent stories.”
Maeve arched a brow, lips curling. “Your bad decisionsarethe stories. You’re basically the Greek chorus and the tragedy, rolled into one irresistible corset.”
Before I could fire back, the front door creaked, and Violet swept into the room. Rain clung to the hem of her skirt, molded to her thighs, damp and translucent in places. “If only we could escape,” she sighed, her gaze already lost to the window and whatever faraway world lived beyond it. “To the lands of Byron and Keats . . .”
“Byron would’ve adored you,” Maeve said lightly. “You’ve got the sorrow of a widow and the face of a woman who poisons men for sport.”
Violet’s lips curved into a smile.
I folded my arms, watching her with open amusement. “You’d miss us if you escaped. Who else would heckle you at your poetry readings and bring gin to your emotional spirals?”
Violet gave me a sidelong glance. “I don’t spiral. I unravel gracefully.”
Maeve flicked ash into the fireplace. “You unravel like a damn silk stocking caught on a man’s belt buckle.”
Violet turned, her expression hovering between fondness and exasperation. “At least I’m not stuck in a loop like you, Maeve. Same night, different cock. Hoping one of them tells you you're clever.”
“Please,” Maeve scoffed, sliding off the mantel. “I alreadyknowI’m clever. I just want someone rich to say it with diamonds.”
Before I could sharpen that into something more dangerous, Elona arrived, her laughter announcing her long before she crossed the threshold. She wore her red dress, the one that made her look like Satan’s mistress, her heels clicking across the floor.
“I’m with Maeve,” she declared, already halfway through a glass of something amber. “Let’s skip thetragedy and write a farce. Something with mistaken identities and erections in the wrong rooms.”
“Sounds like last Tuesday,” I muttered.
