~ Father Romanus ~

I have no intention of lusting after the women of Saint Peter’s Church. It's not my way. Yet, shepherding a flock with such wild, wicked secrets makes holiness a heavy cross to bear.

The last thing that should ever cross my mind is having anything sexual to do with the Catechist's wife.

Yes, she’s breathtaking, perhaps the most beautiful woman ever to grace these pews, but she's supposed to be decent. Virtuous.

She wasn’t supposed to climb onto my office desk like a succubus from hell, quoting scriptures about Jacob wrestling a stranger on a lonely path.

The memory doesn't stay still. It presses in again...