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He kept talking in that same low, soft voice as he explained that I was a thing of evil; that my beauty was a mask for an ugly soul that had no place in God’s house. I would continue to go to confession and take communion in the hope that God might one day have mercy on my sins – he had a responsibility for my spiritual welfare, after all – but this would have to be done in the privacy of his office, just the two of us.
Hurting, alone, and guilty as all hell, I could only nod my agreement.
Lilith
“You want to know what’s funny?” Finn asked.
I shook my head. It was a struggle for me just to keep breathing, never mind find anything amusing in the scenario he had just described.
“The cloth the bastard gagged me with – it’s called a purificator. Can you imagine a more inappropriate name for something you stuff in a kid’s mouth before you fuck him?”
I forced myself to keep my expression as neutral as I could possibly manage as Finn rocked with laughter. If just a fraction of the rage and disgust I felt manifested itself on my face, there was every chance that Finn would assume it was directed at him, rather than a faceless priest I wanted to murder.
“He knelt there for… God, I don’t know how long for. It felt like forever. Just sobbing and saying sorry, over and over again.”
“Well that was big of him,” I managed. “It didn’t stop him though, did it?”
“Hah.” Finn gave a hard, humourless laugh. “Did it fuck. It was most days, after that. He just compromised by beating the shit out of me with his belt when he was done, like that was some kind of penance. Most of the time, all it did was give him a hard-on for round two.”
After all this time, I now knew where the faded silver cobweb of scars on Finn’s shoulders and back had come from. I held his hands in mine, stroking his wrists with my thumbs. “And you haven’t been back inside a church since? Because of what that bastard said – did – to you?”
“But he was right. How could I? I’d become this… this filthy thing, Lili. And I let him, yeah? I just stopped fighting him, stopped saying no. For fuck’s sake, I used to go to his office without him even havin’ to even ask, or let him climb into bed with me so I’d suck him off.”
Finn’s breath hitched, and I watched helplessly as that familiar agitation took him. He pulled his hands away from mine and began compulsively biting at the skin around his thumbs until beads of blood sprung up. “Once he’d… God, how do I even put it? Defiled me, I suppose? It was like I didn’t count. I’d become his personal scapegoat. Already ruined apparently, so fucking me was a lesser sin; stopped him being tempted by the other lads.”
He risked a glance at me. “That was a good thing though, right? I mean, it didn’t matter for me any more because I was already damned, and there were kids there who he never touched – maybe they got through their stay in one piece ‘cos he was too busy buggering me. Did I help them, d’you think?” he pleaded. To my relief, he leaned towards me and let me hold him again as he began to tremble with the delayed shock of telling his tale.
“Yes,” I said, as he shuddered against me. Yes, by sacrificing his already-broken young body and beautiful, vulnerable spirit and by thinking, a decade later, that any of it counted as his choice. I swallowed hard, determined not to add my own self-indulgent sorrow to his burden.
I’d known he was Catholic but in all the time I’d been with Finn, he’d kept this whole foul episode to himself. I couldn’t imagine what must have been going through his head that night on the steps of the church: an instinctive need for sanctuary battling with the dreadful truth that he was damned to Hell; that the one place that might feel safe on the whole terrifying planet had been barred to him even as he huddled in its doorway.
“Would you be willing to talk to a priest about any of this?” I asked, once he’d calmed again and I trusted myself to speak. “Not the details, but… Well fuck, Finn, you do know what a monster he was, don’t you? Whatever you think now, you didn’t bloody consent and if you don’t believe me then surely someone needs to tell you what utter shit this McKenna was talking.”
Finn frowned, clearly puzzled. “It was a priest who told me in the first place.”
“I mean a proper priest, Finn, not a sex offender in a dog collar.”
“Oh. Then no. This is gonna sound stupid, but I never thought about it much after that. If you’re brought up to believe that whatever comes out of a priest’s mouth is gospel,” he gave a tired smile at the pun, “then I guess that’s it. Game over, no arguing, yeah? So I must’ve just believed the bastard and tried to get on with what was left of my life. And to be honest, once I left the place I didn’t have much time left for theological debate. I was either fighting, fucking or off my face. All three at the same time if I was really lucky.
So God himself knows what must have been going through my head the other night. My mad self must have thought a splash of holy water and a quick sniff of the incense was going’ to fix everything, eh?”
I wanted to tell him that I only wished it had, and that I would give everything I owned to take away the pain he’d carried across the years. Instead, terrified of causing more damage, I could only let him lean against me whilst he kept believing that his soul bore a stain that could never be removed.
“If you think it might help, I could arrange something,” I said. “I mean, I’d check with Cavendish that it didn’t interfere with any other treatment first, but I’m sure they allow pastoral visits here.”
“I suppose anything’s worth a shot. You don’t believe in any of it, though.”
I silently wondered if obtuseness often accompanied muscle pain as a side effect of risperidone as I tenderly brushed his long fringe out of his eyes. “This isn’t about me though is it, you idiot? And it’s not me who believes in some ridiculously punitive sky-fairy -” I stopped myself and gave a wry smile. “Hm. You’ll have to imagine that was a little more sympathetic than it actually sounded. What I’m trying to say is, this is about you. What you need, what you want. I realise that’s still an alien concept to you, but work with me here, please?”
Despite everything, Finn returned the smile; entwined his long fingers through mine and brought my hand up to his cheek. “You don’t give up, do you? Never decide that something – someone – is a lost cause. You just keep bloody fighting away.”
“Not when someone’s worth fighting for, no.”
“But what do you do if they won’t fix?”
I spread my fingertips across his beautiful, delicate face, feeling the softness of his pale skin and the flickering pulse at his temple. “I’ll tell you if that ever happens, shall I?”
*****
