confessions
The night the demon came to his room, Father Paul was reading Saint Augustine's Confessions. It was a book that Paul had always admired. Saint Augustine was one of those guys who saw himself clearly. A man who didn't flinch away from his mistakes. A man of deep contemplation and bold action. Paul could think of a few monks in his monastery who could stand to give it another read. Most of them, actually.
Paul had come to the monastery fresh out of seminary, his heart burning with passion for the wisdom of the great Church Fathers. He had this idea in his head that they would all sit around every night by the fire with a mug of brown ale and talk deep theological concepts. But what he found was a bunch of jaded, lazy old farts who would rather sit in the common room and watch TV every night.
He tried to start discussions. Talking was forbidden during meals, but between services, or in the common areas, he would try to engage some of them in something more than sports stats. They tolerated him politely for a few weeks. Then the abbot pulled him aside and explained to him how things worked around there, and said that if he didn't like it, he was more than welcome to transfer to another monastery.
He should have taken the abbot up on the offer. But Paul wasn't the kind of guy who gave up easily, even when sticking with it was against his best interests. So he stayed on, trying to show by example how a man dedicated to theological pursuit should act. It had been a year since then, and it hadn't been easy. Or effective. Lately, there had been times when he was tempted to loosen up a little. But Paul was good at resisting temptation.
Or so he thought.
It started with a strange dream-dark and warm, like floating in a river of silk. A soft, cool breeze caressed his face, lingering on his lips. Then the air meandered almost teasingly down his chin, onto his naked chest, and farther down his stomach, taut with tension, until finally-
Paul sat up in his small cot, shivering as he clutched the heavy wool blanket that covered him. His breath echoed harshly in the tiny room and his heart pounded so hard, he could almost taste it on the back of his tongue. It took several minutes before his pulse began to slow down. It was the most vivid dream he'd ever had. He shook his head, like it would clear the lingering feeling of sensual longing, and made the Sign of the Cross just out of habit.
He was about to settle back down to sleep when he happened to glance in the direction of his desk and saw a pair of blazing green eyes. They were like a cat's, but larger and brighter. They stared at him unblinkingly out of a dark cloud of shadow, bodiless and luminescent.
Paul knew that he was staring at something supernatural. In his heart of hearts, he felt he had been preparing for this battle his whole life. He held up the small crucifix that hung from his neck and tried to keep his hand from shaking.
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," he said. "Reveal yourself!"
"If you wish," came a clear, light voice.
Slowly the shadows coalesced into the most beautiful woman Paul had ever seen. She had long, wild black hair that seemed to writhe with a life of its own. Her face was finely cut, yet strong, like an Arabian princess from some legend. She sat on the corner of his desk wearing only jeans and a T-shirt in the cold night air. She leaned back on her hands in a way that pulled the T-shirt tight across her breasts. Her legs dangled easily over the edge, spread wide in a casual, suggestive sort of way. She regarded him calmly, one black eyebrow arched and an amused smile on her full, burgundy lips. Her green cat eyes burned into him, making it difficult to think.
Paul had never encountered a demon before, but there was no doubt in his mind that this was what she was. A succubus.
"So you're the one the others talk about. The good priest. They all hate you, you know," she said casually. "And who can blame them? Nobody likes to be reminded what a worthless bag of meat they are."
"In the name of Jesus Christ, be gone, demon!" he said, losing some of the firmness in his voice.
"You know, that stuff only works on the lesser demons," she said. "And anyway, I prefer demoness."
"You have no power over me!" he said, the tremor in his voice unmistakable.
"Clearly not," she said. "My seduction failed. Honestly, it's the first time in almost three decades. I'm a bit shocked." Then she winked at him. "And impressed. It takes an incredibly strong will for a mortal to resist me."
"In the name of the Holy Spirit, I command you to tell me your name!" He remembered reading somewhere that knowing a demon's name granted some power over them.
"As I already said, calling on your deity doesn't do much for me," she said. "But I certainly don't mind telling you my name. If "-she held up a finger-" you ask politely."
He stared at her for a moment, not sure if she was mocking him. At last he said, almost tentatively, "Will you please tell me your name?"
Her smile broadened. "Why, for such a gentleman, of course! My name is Astarte."
"You're named after the Phoenician goddess?" he asked.
"Oh, you've heard the name? It seems so few priests these days have," she said with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "But to answer your question, I am not named after the Phoenician goddess. I am her. And many others besides."
"Many?" said Paul. "But…" He hesitated for a moment, caught between the duty he felt to repel this demon and the scholarly curiosity that had always been his greatest weakness. At last he said, "I don't understand."
"In Greece I was known as Aphrodite, and in Rome I was Venus. In Egypt, they called me Isis. In India, I was sometimes called Durga, at other times Gauri, and occasionally even Kali."
"All of these?" he asked, unable to hide the awe in his voice. "How old are you?"
She frowned. "Now, that's a little rude, don't you think?"
"So is sneaking into my room in the middle of the night and attempting to seduce me," said Paul.
"Many mortals would be grateful for the opportunity," she said.
"I am not many mortals," Paul said.
"So I am beginning to see," she said.
"So these ancient cultures mistook you for a goddess?"
"No, Father Paul. I was a goddess."
"But you're just a demon."
"That's what I am now," she said. "Because that is what people want me to be. That is what they choose to believe."
"That makes no sense. Reality defines belief, not the other way around. How could-"
"Well, Father," she interrupted as she glanced out of the tiny rectangular window in his room, "this has been a delightful chat, but I think I'll take my leave."
"Oh…," said Paul. "Good." But he couldn't quite hide the disappointment in his voice.
"Good-bye, Paul," she whispered. Then she was gone.
It took a long time for him to get back to sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, the afterimage of those glittering green eyes floated ghostlike behind his lids. He got only an hour of sleep before he had to get up and go to chapel for morning services. Even during prayer he couldn't stop thinking about his encounter with the demoness. More than once he missed joining the others in response.
That afternoon, the lack of sleep caught up with him and he dozed off in the library. The thick collection of papal edicts slipped from his hands and landed on the linoleum with a sharp slap. He woke with a jolt and glanced around to see if the few other priests in the library had noticed. But either they were too engrossed in their studies, or they pretended to be. Did they suspect? It sounded like the demoness visited many of the priests in this monastery. Paul was certain that the others spent the time in wicked sexual acts instead of theological discussion. But if the others did suspect anything, they would most likely assume he was breaking his vows of chastity as well. It surprised him how much that possibility bothered him. Why did he care what those hypocrites thought of him? And yet, he did.
Well, it was over. He had successfully repelled the succubus. Fascinating as the brief discussion had been, he needed to put the whole thing behind him.
Of course, it wasn't that easy. Because that night, she came back.
? ? ?
Paul sat at his little desk in his little room, poring over Augustine's Confessions again, trying to keep his mind off the demoness. Augustine had started life as a pagan-rich, selfish, given to indulging in every vice. In the Confessions, he describes his reluctant journey from ignorant heathen to one of the greatest theologians the Church has ever had.
Normally, Paul took comfort in the story because it reminded him of his own humble beginnings. Not that he had ever been rich. He had spent most of his childhood in the purgatory of the foster-care system. But he had been selfish and godless. It wasn't until he ended up in juvie for assault that old Father Green took him under his wing and showed him that life was more than just the struggle to survive. Father Green hadn't always been the nicest guardian, but he turned Paul's life around completely. He had taught Paul the sublime joy of intellectual pursuits, and on his deathbed, he had made arrangements for Paul to go to seminary. It was Father Green who first compared Paul to Saint Augustine. And ever since, when Paul's spirits were at low ebb, he found himself sifting through the Confessions.
But that night, as he sat at his desk, feeling the walls of his cramped room closing in on him, the words of Augustine seemed hollow, stuffed with self-satisfaction, and-
"Arrogant prick," came the clear, warm female voice behind him.
Paul nearly fell out of his chair as he turned around. Astarte lounged on his cot as if it were some queenly bower that needed only a few beefy, shirtless men fanning her with palm leaves to complete the picture.
"Augustine was," she said. "Not you."
"You!" he said, flushed with horror and a strange thrill. Some futile attempt at a prayer for banishment began to form on his lips, but then her statement filtered through his welter of emotions. "You… knew Saint Augustine?"
"Not well," said Astarte. "And certainly not in a friendly sort of way. He was like one of those people who quits smoking and suddenly acts as though he can't stand to be around it at all."
"He was trying to rise above his unfortunate beginning," said Paul, unable to prevent the defensive tone in his voice. "You can't let the past hold you down."
"That's true," she said. "But it's dangerous to reject it completely. For example, take Saint Thomas Aquinas. Now there was a priest! But terribly stubborn. When he first started his brewery, I said to him…"
They talked for hours about various Church theologians, popes, and saints. He found her wealth of knowledge and unique perspective spellbinding. He was having the type of discussion he had longed for since he entered the monastery. He simply couldn't resist.
It wasn't until the pink predawn light began to leak in through the window that she finally slipped away. Through the next day, Paul barely managed to stay awake. But once the sun went down, Astarte returned again to set his mind on fire.
And she came every night after that. Paul was troubled by it at first. He felt it was risky to spend so much time with an agent of Satan. But it seemed almost a sin to pass up so much firsthand knowledge. He even began to tell himself that he was getting to know the enemy so that he could better fight them. To that end, he began to ask her questions about Hell.
"Is it the orderly pit of eternal suffering that Dante described?" he asked.
She smiled, a little sadly. "No, it's not like what Dante and so many others have depicted. Far more interesting in form, but far less useful in function, I'm afraid."
Paul couldn't quite understand what she was saying, so he tried a different tack. "Are there a lot of demons, then? How many, would you say?"
"What an interesting question," she said, her eyes growing sadder still. "It's never occurred to us to have counted ourselves. I wonder if there are fewer of us now than there used to be, or whether we are just… lesser."
"What about Satan?" asked Paul.
"Lucifer Morningstar, you mean? What about him?"
"Does he plan to conquer the world someday?"
"Lucifer? Make plans?" She laughed a little, but it was still tinged with a strange melancholy. "That seems unlikely. Although, I wouldn't know. It has been a very long time since he has spoken to me." She looked away, a muscle twitching in her neck.
"I'm sorry," said Paul. "I didn't realize it would upset you to talk about these things."
She turned to him suddenly, then, her green eyes wide and glistening with tears. A single one escaped and rolled down her smooth brown cheek as she reached out and laid her hand on his.
"Thank you," she said.
"For what?" he asked. "For upsetting you?"
She smiled, and this time the warmth broke through the sadness. "You have a very curious blend of compassion and honesty, yet you are not fragile and weak-willed like so many others."
"Uh," he said. "Thank you, I think."
She laughed and shook her head. "But what about you? We've talked so much about me, but hardly anything about your life."
"I'm afraid my life is nowhere near as interesting as yours," he said.
"If there is one thing that I have learned in my long life," said Astarte, "it's to appreciate nuance." She was quiet for a moment, just looking at him. Then she sat up suddenly. "I wonder if you'll allow me to look."
"At what?" he asked a little nervously.
"Your life."
"You mean my memories? You can do that?"
"Sort of…," she said. "If you let me, I can look at your soul."
"My soul?"
She shrugged. "It's up to you. I certainly wouldn't force something like that."
"And… you would see everything?"
"More or less," she said. "Not necessarily in a literal way. It's more like I would feel your experiences the way you felt them."
He leaned back against the desk. His first impulse was to refuse. Making himself that vulnerable to a demoness seemed dangerous to the point of stupidity. But then, what did he have to hide? In fact, the more he thought about it, the more appealing the idea seemed. There would be someone in the world who knew and understood him completely. No pretense, no misunderstanding. One person he could be-had to be-completely honest with.
He looked over at her on his cot. She sat up straight, perfectly still, no longer lounging or acting coy. She looked at him with her piercing, unnatural eyes and he somehow knew that she would understand him.
"Okay," he said. "God help me… Okay."
She smiled then. And it wasn't the sly smile he always saw before, but one more simple and serious.
"I must warn you," she said. "It can be rather… intense for mortals to experience, perhaps even a little alarming at first. The best thing to do is not panic and simply allow it to happen. Go with the flow, as they say."
He nodded, not really trusting himself to speak.
"Come," she said, and patted the spot next to her on the cot. "Sit."
He hesitated.
"You trust me to look into your soul but not sit next to you on a bed?" she asked, that teasing smile coming back a little. "Perhaps you need to rethink your priorities."
He gave her a wry smile and sat down next to her on the bed.
"Good," she said, her voice soothing. "Now, look into my eyes."
He looked.
And the world melted into a churning maelstrom, devoid of order or meaning. There was no up or down, no solid ground to gauge distance or perception. A terrifying vertigo took hold and he struggled to scream, except there was no air, no throat, no mouth, no him-
"Paul!" Astarte's voice pierced through the storm of chaos. "Paul, it's still just me. It's okay, Paul. Don't fight it."
Her voice was like a warm, firm hand that cupped his leaking sanity and gathered it back together. Far away, he heard his own voice say "Okay… I'm okay…."
"Good," she whispered. "Now, are you ready to stop hiding behind this storm?"
"You mean…"
"Yes, you're the one creating it," she said. "I suspected this was under the surface, but you do hide it well."
"So what do I do?"
"Just let me in, Paul. Just let me in."
"Oh."
"What are you hiding, anyway?"
"Nothing, really."
The storm evaporated in a flash. Behind it, there was pure, joyous light. It filled the hollow chasm of cold loneliness in his heart that he had tried to fill with money, with drugs, with God. But it had never been enough. This was enough. It expanded endlessly within him, encompassing him until he was just a part of it. It sang in a voice unlike anything he had ever heard.
Then it was over.
He was back on Earth, in the monastery, in his tiny room, on his old, creaking cot, sitting next to the most beautiful and wondrous creature in the world.
"I…" He felt exhausted, as if he had just run a marathon. "I didn't know it would be like that," he said. Then he swayed and started to fall backward.
Astarte caught him and laid him gently down on the cot. There were tears in her eyes.
"Neither did I," she whispered.
Then he lost consciousness.
? ? ?
He woke up hours later, a hard beam of sunlight streaming in through his tiny window. He sat up slowly and looked over at the clock. He had missed morning prayers. In fact, it was nearly lunchtime.
At lunch, the abbot said grace, but Paul barely noticed. He ate as if in a trance, recalling every impossible detail of the previous evening perfectly. It had been like what he always imagined the Apostles had felt when they had been filled with the Holy Spirit. Try as he might, he could not convince himself that the experience had been bad. But what, then, did that mean for him if letting a demon see your soul wasn't bad? In fact, the very idea that Astarte was evil seemed absurd to him now. If demons weren't evil, what about all the other beliefs he had been taught? Was any of it true? He didn't know what to believe anymore. He had so many questions for her. He waited eagerly for the setting sun, so he could drop his burden onto the graceful but inconceivably strong shoulders of Astarte.
Except that night, she didn't come.
He waited for her until dawn finally emerged, its wan rays burning away the last of his hope. His body ached and his eyes burned with weariness. He dragged himself to morning prayers and then down to the dining hall for breakfast and, this time when the abbot said grace, each word was like a hammer. He stared at his food, unable to muster up the effort to eat.
In retrospect, it seemed obvious what a fool he had been. She had failed to seduce his body, so she seduced his mind, his heart, and his faith. She had gotten what she wanted. Why come back? She had done such a thorough job that even now, he couldn't bring himself to hate her.
The clink and clank of silverware on dishes was like needles in his ears. He kept glancing at the other priests around him. Had she visited one of them last night? Mark another fallen soul on the tally sheet and move on to the next conquest? Because make no mistake, he had fallen. He was doomed to love a demoness. He would spend his remaining days here in this living graveyard of dead faith with all these other broken souls. Maybe, every once in a while, she would visit him again. To taunt him, perhaps. Or to offer the sin of flesh that he had refused before. And God help him, this time he would accept. But God would not help him, of course. Because now he was well and truly damned. He would slowly drift through his life like a ghost until death finally carried him down to the deepest pits of Hell.
No. That wasn't him. A coward's defeat might be good enough for these other wretched creatures, but not him. He did not simply sit and wait for things to come to him. He would meet his fate head-on.
He stood up suddenly, leaving a full plate of food behind. Some of the priests glanced up at him, but they remained silent as he left the dining hall. Maybe they knew, maybe they didn't. He no longer cared.
Once he was out of the monastery, he crossed the cobblestone courtyard and passed through the front gate, then turned north into the wide, rolling meadow that led to the side of the mountain.
It took him nearly until sunset to cross the meadow and hike up the narrow switchbacks that zigzagged up the mountain. His mouth was so dry that he could hardly swallow, and his feet were so swollen that they felt like they might burst through his shoes. But finally, he reached a spot that was high enough and accessible enough for him to jump.
His one small hope, which he held in his heart like a clam holds a pearl, was that on his way to Hell, he might see Astarte one last time. If he did, he would look into those sparkling green eyes and show her his soul one more time and maybe she would feel, if only a for a brief instant, the torment she had caused him.
He stepped to the edge, too tired and miserable to feel more than a tiny tremor at the empty space that stretched down and ended far below on a bed of jagged rocks and thorny brush.
He jumped.
Then there was a flash.
Something slammed into his chest and he flew backward onto the ledge. He lay there, gasping for air. A creature of roaring fire loomed over him. It shook its fist at him and shrieked, "You stupid mortal!" It jabbed a burning finger at him, singeing his robe.
He stared up at it uncomprehendingly for a moment and then he looked past the fire and saw the green eyes beneath.
"Astarte?"
"Of course!" she raged at him. "Who else would it be?"
"Did you come to gloat?" he yelled. "To taunt me?"
"Taunt you?" she said, her flames calming slightly. "What are you talking about?"
"Is your demon heart too cruel to even see it?" he said. "I love you!"
"Oh," she said, and the fire went out completely. She stood before him as he had always seen her, in jeans and a T-shirt, except her hair was unkempt and her eyes were red and puffy, as if she had been crying.
"Well, that's it, then," she said quietly. She sat down next to him on the hard mountain rock. "We're in deep shit. Because I love you, too."
