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She didn’t wantmelike that. Not really. Not yet. We’d talked aboutone day,but we’d agreed one day was far in the future, not the first night of our marriage. She hadn’t signed up to be groped the night of her wedding. Even if she’d been going along with it, it wasn’t because I’d swept her off her feet. It was because of her thing about doing anything for her friends.
Wasn’t it?
Decca, Pentecost
“Wait... you’re telling meyou’re allowed to perform exorcisms?”
Gus uncrossed his arms, considering the question before nodding slowly.
He played with his glass, twisting it on the white paper, smearing the condensation ring and dragging it through the little pools of water to create blobs.
It was hot in the restaurant. There were too many people looking at us. At theprieston a date with the goth girl. I started to sweat just sitting here. It felt like being under a spotlight.
I stared slack-jawed at Gus, handsome as ever in his priest garb, even if it was intimidating. He’d been a priest for a few weeks now, and he was more at ease in his new armor. Unless it was a nod or a kind smile to a stranger, he paid no attention to the nervous glances. It almost put me at ease.
“An exorcism is the first part of every baptism.”
I smiled. An image was now taking root. Gus holding a Bible and a cross over the forehead of a split pea soup-spitting prepubescentgirl, sprinkling holy water over her bed as she crab-walked up the walls.
“I know that look in your eyes. Don’t get all excited.”
“What look?” I asked innocently. Too late. I was already sexually objectifying him.
Our food arrived and he bit into his blue cheese burger like a starving man. Technically, he was. He’d been fasting from meat and dairy for weeks, which meant Gus had been living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Not that I’d been around much, but I’d seen the evidence in the trash.
“Dismiss what you think you know about Catholics from us. It’s not provocative. It’s not like The Exorcist,” he said, sipping (or pretending to sip) from his beer glass. “Any of the Exorcists,” he clarified.
Setting his messy burger down and wiping his hands, he quoted somewhat absently, “Be rebuked and depart to thy own Tartaros, O Satan. Banish from her every evil and unclean spirit hidden and lurking in her heart.”He shrugged. “There’s more, but that’s the gist. It’s not that exciting.”
My sweat-slicked skin chilled at his words. At the slow, lazy way he drawled them. At the look on his face after, as he lifted the glass to his lips and sipped without breaking eye contact. I hugged my arms around my body to brush away my goosebumps.
It was our first date. My husband had asked me out on a date to eat bougie burgers and listen to an Americana-folk trio. And here we were talking demons and exorcisms as if they were real. And it was turning me on.
“You’re always welcome to attend catechism with Vasili. I could christen you. Give you an exorcism to cast out your demons.” He smirked.
“Mmm… I think I’m good with my demons,” I said, seductively.
He blinked and pressed his lips into a firm line. “I think you mean that as a sexy thing, but that’s like...” he shook his head.
“Too far?”
“Yeah.” His eyebrows drew together in thought. “That’s interesting. I consider myself pretty progressive. Too progressive, really, for Orthodoxy, but... I guess I do have a trigger.” He said it like it had come as a surprise.
“Making light of demonic activity?”
He chewed a fry and smiled sheepishly. “Yeah.”
That was interesting. The man had a Satanic Bible on his shelf. He accepted so many philosophies and religions as existing under the yoke of God, even if his church didn’t. But demons... that was his boundary.
Granny had believed in demons. And her parents and their parents. The belief was as deep as the roots of the mountains themselves.
Some people will think on a thing ’til it comes real,Granny would say.
She respected the stories and lore. Never dismissed them for ignorance.
That was the thing about the mountains. The thing I’d learned even before I’d left. Why I did the work I did. It wasn’t just empathy that I’d brought with me to burials and deathbeds. It was a curiosity and acceptance of the unknown.
The only thing I knew of faith was that I had no answers.
